Shades of Light Prologue/Chapter 1 Pt. 1

Prologue

Our story begins 15 years ago; as nations all across the world seemed to be prospering, a select group of individuals were plotting to form a World Government. This group of individuals called themselves The Order, The Order consisted of 13 of the most powerful people on the planet. Numerous nations and resistance groups went up against The Order’s army, but not one prevailed. Many lives were lost during these dark moments in history, but not just soldiers lives, the army was ordered to attack villages and towns which The Order deemed unnecessary. Soon it would become clear that there was no chance of victory against The Order, the remaining leaders of the world held a meeting and surrendered the world. With no more obstacles in their way, The Order had succeeded in taking control of the world; hence the World Government was formed. The World Government is divided by four factions; the Eclipse Faction, the Aurora Faction, the Celestial Faction, and the Yami Faction. Each faction is lead by two original members of The Order, they are given the number one and two rank in the faction they rule. The number two rank is Warlord; the Warlord is the first to go into battle if need be, the Warlord is sworn to protect the number one even at the cost of his or her life. The number one rank is the Over Lord; the Over Lord is the most powerful in each faction, the Over Lord only goes into battle if the Warlord succumbs to death or if the faction is in grave danger. The five remaining members of The Order are called Heavens Hand; the members of Heavens Hand have total control over the World Government and cannot be rivaled in strength by anyone.
Years ago there was a boy, this boy held tremendous power that was thought to only come to be every millennia or so. He had a caring father and a loving mother, but that was one day taken away. Lost and confused the man responsible for his pain deceived the boy; he manipulated and used him for his own selfish desires. The boy became a weapon feared by the world, no man was said to see his flames and live to tell the tale. A couple of years later the boy overheard the man in a conference with his superiors admitting to killing his parents; the boy wanted vengeance. He then thought of a way to exact his vengeance; he staged his own death swearing to watch the World Government fall.

Chapter One
Fate

We will start our journey in Yamick; a city in the Yami Faction. Yamick is a very dangerous city, where many fugitives of the World Government reside. A majority of the soldiers that patrol Yamick are corrupt; hence fugitives pay the soldiers off to keep their presence secret from the World Government. In Yamick we meet a young man who is 17 years of age, he stands five foot ten inches from the ground, with a pair of dark black eyes and black hair. The young man is covered in all black; he wears a black back pack, black gloves with a symbol of the sun, and a black hood covering his head from the rainfall, the hood falls over his eyes so nobody can identify who he is. The young man is walking down a dark back alley in a crime infested section of Yamick; he’s hungry and tired and is on his way home. The young man saw a spot that he thought would be a safe place to take a quick rest, but little did he know there is no such thing as a safe place in Yamick. As he walked he heard footsteps’ coming from behind him, the young man is very agile so he easily dodged the man’s punch. As he stepped around the man he sent a punch directly to his kidneys, as the man fell a dozen more men had stepped out from the shadows.
The man leading the group asked.
“What is your name boy?”
Without turning to face the group of men the young man replied.
“I have no desire to share that information.”
The leader of the group became frustrated as well as the men behind him.
“Do you know who you’re messing with? Do you know who are boss is?”
The young man finally decided to turn around and face the group of men.
“Let me guess, a club for middle aged homos? It’s kind of weird you know? All these men around and there’s not a single woman in sight.”
Some of the men behind the leader started to rush the young man; the leader then motioned them to stop and laughed.
“You better watch yourself kid, we are members of the Yamick Mafia, and are leader is the notorious Elliot Rush!”
The young man looked the mobsters up and down and smiled.
“Hmm really? I’ve never heard of him.”
The mobsters were stunned and couldn’t believe the boys ignorance, the mobsters were whispering between themselves and some were readying their fist.
“Then let us embed our name into your skull.”
The mobsters rushed the young man; they were about five feet away from him, when he suddenly disappeared.
The mobsters were in a state of confusion, the leader said to himself aloud.
“Where’d he go?”
As the mafia looked to each other for reassurance that the boy really disappeared, a voice came from behind them.
“You mafia people are all the same, complete idiots.”
The mafia turned around and to their amazement the young man was behind them, but there was something different about him. The mafia was scared out of their minds when they felt his will power and tried to escape, but the young man thought that this would be a good opportunity to get some information. The young man took off his gloves and released blue flames from his palms and engulfed the entire alley in fire; there was no escape for the mobsters, so they started to beg for their lives.
As the young man slowly approached the mobsters the leader of the group fell to his knees in fear.
“Boy, please spare our lives?”
The young man looked into the eyes of each man lying before him and laughed.
“Members of the notorious Yamick Mafia begging for their lives, what a joke.”
The leader also looked around at his fellow mobsters and saw that there was no hope, so he said out of desperation.
“We are but lowly members; bottom of the chain, there would be no profit in killing us.”
The young man squinted his eyes and scratched his head.
“I have no intentions of killing any of you; but in exchange I need a little information, if you will?”
The leader of the group replied relieved of the thought of his own death.
“Ask anything, I will answer it to the best of my knowledge.”
The young man smiled and squatted to be on eye level with the mobster.
“Does your boss have any connections within the World Government?”
The mobster became very nervous and told the young man.
“I really can’t give you that information.”
When the young man heard those words he intensified the flames surrounding the mobsters.
“I will ask you again, I don’t need any names I just need to know if he has any connections.”
The leader of the group reluctantly said.
“Yes, he has a direct connection to someone with medium authority in the Yami Faction.”
Upon hearing those words he recalled his flames; the mobsters then fled.

Hi Rebel,

I’m glad you’re writing in my favourite genre! I hope I can give you some useful tips.

As we discussed in chat, I thought the prologue was a tiny bit on the infodumpy side. The world-building information may be necessary for you to write the story, but I don’t think it’s necessary for the reader to understand it. For example, a reader can easily follow the chapter one scene without knowing anything else about the setting.

You might look at the opening part of the first chapter as well. World-building and other information is usually more interesting when presented through the point of view of a character. For example, instead of telling us that the city is patrolled by corrupt soldiers who take bribes, you could show us a character being forced to bribe the soldiers.

I’m also a little worried about the world-building as you’re presenting it. I remember you mentioned in chat that this was an alternate universe version of the real world, and so I’m asking myself if it’s really realistic for there to be a single world government. I mean, some factions have been fighting on and off for thousands of years. Cultural, religious and social divisions are very deeply ingrained. I’m really struggling to imagine how this world government could come about.

And a tiny question: why is the one single united world government split into four factions? The four factions seem to contradict the one world government. The distinctions seem to be quite arbitrary at the moment: I’m not sure why they’re split up. Perhaps when you find the right place to work this information into the narrative, you could mention the purpose of each faction. I also noticed that out of Eclipse, Aurora, Celestial and Yami, one of these names does not belong in this group.

I did like the number one and two system, which I see as a chess metaphor. The king is the most important and yet the most vulnerable, so he stays out of battle unless absolutely necessary. The queen is the most effective, and so fights for victory.

When I read the chapter one scene, I’m slightly worried about the viewpoint. You’re telling this story in omniscient, in which the narrator/reader is a distinct personality: “we will start our journey in Yamick”, “we meet a young man”, etc. But you’re kind of holding us at arm’s length from the action here. The main character never gets a name, and we never get to see inside his head. We don’t get his thoughts, his feelings, his perceptions. We don’t see how unique and compelling a character he is. From the outside, he’s just kind of a generic wannabe badass. I wonder if this scene might be more effective if you went for a deeper viewpoint -- going inside the main character’s head to show us his inner thoughts and feelings. That might also be less confusing: I’m starting to get confused by all the men who don’t have names.

Perhaps if the prologue stuff about the boy’s parents being killed wasn’t in narrative summary (telling us what happened) but in actual scenes (showing us the events as they happen), we might have a better feel for the main character by now. Scenes are much more interesting and compelling than narrative summary -- I’d really like to see at first hand how the main character reacts to all this dramatic stuff about his parents’ death, instead of just being told after the fact that he found out.

(I’m wondering why a powerful man would be so stupid as to let a valuable asset overhear him saying something incriminating. Maybe it would be more realistic if the main character investigated himself, instead of just overhearing? That way instead of being a passive character who just happened to be standing around at the right time, the main character could be an active character who went around getting information and making decisions for himself.)

One other problem I noticed with the mafia scene was a believability issue. First, a character decides to rest in the open in a dark alley in a crime-infested area. This seems quite unlikely, unless the character is drunk or mentally impaired. It seems like the author did that to move the plot along rather than it being a realistic choice the character would realistically make. Then the dozen-odd hardened mafia guys seem to crumble like sand. All the main character does is punch one and then teleport, and all of a sudden they’re terrified and falling over themselves to co-operate. I wonder if you could really work on the sense of menace here. It’s not enough to simply tell us that he’s intimidating: you can show us how tall he seems, how the alley seems to darken around him, how the flare of light behind him makes him just a black outline, how his voice reverberates through the alley and thrums in their bones, etc. And you could play up the fire as well: the heat, the choking, the roaring sound, etc.

Tiny minor points:
1. The main character lost my sympathy instantly when he made a derogatory comment about “homos”. I don’t sympathise with homophobes any more than I do with racists.
2. Group together actions and dialogue by the same character. You seem to be adding line breaks before every line of dialogue, and I don’t think that’s necessary.
3. You’re using mafia both as a singular and a plural. You might want to pick one.
4. Spell out small numbers.
5. Try reading your dialogue out loud. Do people really say phrases like “he has a direct connection to someone with medium authority in the Yami faction”? Or would they say something more informal, like “he knows some guy from the Yami crew”?

Overall, I’m thinking you could make this awesome by focusing on (1) showing dramatic scenes instead of telling us via narrative summary, (2) giving us a deeper viewpoint in which we experience the thoughts and feelings of the main character, and his name would be nice as well, and (3) working out some realism issues.

Hope this helps. Keep writing!

Cheers,
Karsten

Thank you

At first I was heartbroken by your review that's why it took me so long to reply haha I've been really excited about my story and I thought that I've wasted my time with it, but then I realized all I have to do is change things lol...

My story might never be great but it's something I really want do, and I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to help me.

I'm glad you recovered from the shock, Rebel. Critique always stings, and I think the first time is the worst. I hope my comments helped once the hurt wore off.

Karsten I've seen some of your reviews and would you to review my story