Temptress: Prologue

A story I have been meaning to play with for ages, I am excited to finally get it under way.


Temptress, he hissed, the word rolling on his tongue like liquid sugar.

It was, by all means, an accurate description of her. She was a fair haired goddess of music, cotton candy, and all that is light. And even with a powerful awareness that she did not belong in his world -did not belong to the night- he wanted her. He was on every level desperate to claim her as his own.

Come into my lair, pretty Goddess, he crooned, like the spider hums to his pray just before he strikes.

She was dancer, his Goddess, queen of the club known as Avalon in the heart of New York city. No mortal gaze could resist her, each man in the room drawn to her and the tantalizing sway of her hips.

Unworthy, his mind spat bitterly as one of her many suitors attempted to draw her into a dance. She pushed him away with a coy smile-- no one could touch the Goddess without her permission, and permission had not been granted.

Caleb felt his mouth grow dry as he watched her, tracing his tongue over his sharpened teeth he watched as her skin grew damp, making her scent all the more pungent to his already desperate senses.

He was lost in her world, his eyes surveying her every move. In his disoriented stated he did not notice the shirt in air, the drop in temperature. Had he not known his intruder better, it could have been all too late before he noticed, but the stench that filled the air was all too familiar.

Gabriel, his mind bit out, angry that such a trespasser could enter into his domain for so long unnoticed by himself.

Caleb, my dear brother, it has been far too long, the assailant spit back. To an outsider to the conversation, they could have sounded civil, even kind.

Get out of this place, it is not of your bloodline, and you know it. Caleb felt the white hot sting of pain as Gabriel's aura lashed out at his own. He hissed inwardly against the pain, but lashed out with his own strength, glaring into the dark club, attempting to find his hidden aggressor. Why do you hide, Gabriel? Afraid of me? Caleb was gloating and he knew it, relishing in the joy that his brother's need to stay in the shadows brought.

You wish, little brother, I am simply admiring your pretty little friend.

Caleb growled under his breath, his need to possess his Goddess bubbling out, overpowering even his dislike for his sibling.

Get out, before I call Order on you.

Caleb felt his stomach clench as he heard his brother's soft chuckle, but within moments the oppressing feel of him was gone, and he knew that Gabriel was long gone, only a trace of himself left in his wake. When Caleb regained control of himself he looked back to the dance floor, where he realized with dismay that his Goddess was gone. It was no matter, really.

He knew where she lived.

Hi OverEasy,

Quick review for a short piece.

This prologue reads cleanly, but I feel like I'm struggling to care about this story due to a lack of sympathetic characters. Caleb comes off as a misogynist and a stalker to me. I'm also not too impressed with Gabriel's condescending comment about the nameless woman being a "pretty little thing". And the woman is too one-dimensional for me to engage with her as a character - all I learn about her is how attractive she is and how badly everyone wants to sleep with her. The fact that only the male characters get viewpoints, dialogue and personalities while the female character is reduced to a sexual object also slightly weirds me out.

I'm unsure whether (a) the Caleb character is meant to be unsympathetic and (b) the misogyny in the story is deliberate. If so, then I admire the way you pack a ton of sexual objectification and male gratification into a short space. If not, then I wonder if a little rethink might be helpful.

Also, what's with the sugar obsession? Does liquid sugar really roll on the tongue? I'm pretty sure that sugar only melts at high temperatures, so when I picture rolling liquid sugar on my tongue I picture pain and screaming. What does it mean to be a goddess of cotton candy? Were you hungry when writing this?

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Karsten

Right, okay....

in the heart of New York city

Should be New York City, right? That is the full official name, so each word should be in capitals.

his sharpened teeth he watched

Shouldn't this be , 'tracing his tongue over his sharpened teeth. He watched as her'

He knew where she lived.

Little cliche, don't you think?

Are they vampires? I think that's what you are implying at least. And this guy must really really think highly of her by the way he is describing her....will read Chapter 1 now. Bye! x

Forgotten xxx

Temptress, he hissed, the word rolling on his tongue like liquid sugar.

'liquid sugar' ohh i like that. i only have to comment that i've never heard "rolled on the tongue" before but "rolled off the tongue"

It was, by all means, an accurate description of her. She was a fair haired goddess of music, cotton candy, and all that is light.

if i assume correctly that by 'accurate description' you're talking about 'temptress' you're wrong: temptress is a noun not an adjective. is there something important about cotton candy or were you just referring to its sweetness? that sort of stopped and confused me haha.

Come into my lair, pretty Goddess, he crooned, like the spider hums to his pray just before he strikes.

'pray' should be 'prey'

She was dancer, his Goddess, queen of the club known as Avalon in the heart of New York city.

"She was a dancer" and "New York City"

Caleb felt his mouth grow dry as he watched her, tracing his tongue over his sharpened teeth...

"He traced his tongue over his sharpened teeth..." looks and sounds/reads better

Gabriel, his mind bit out, angry that such a trespasser could enter into his domain for so long unnoticed by himself.

"
"his mind bit out" is a bit complicated. you're better off with just saying "he thought". also, by saying 'enter' you're implying he had just arrived, but 'for so long' contradicts this, so i'd reword that sentence.

You wish, little brother, I am simply admiring your pretty little friend.

replace the comma after ''little brother'' with a period.

Get out, before I call Order on you.

[/quote][/quote]
is Order a person's name or a group? if it's the latter i'd say "the Order" instead.

--

overall you did a good job on this. this reads with a nice flow - when the reader's not impeded by mispellings, etc. - and you have nice imagery; however, i feel like the characters were a bit lacking. i know this is just the prologue and hardly any prologues supply great insight on characters, but through dialogue and description - which you've written - you can reveal so much about your characters. so far, my only impression of caleb is that he's a sex hungry stalker and gabriel ... well actually i didn't connect at all with gabriel :/

hope this helps!
happy writing,
xo julia

Karsten> Indeed, my characters are not meant to be liked, at first. Both brothers are intended to be somewhat unlikeable characters at first, as they are both very old Vampires that tend to think very highly of themselves. As for my female character, she was intended to be looked upon as prey, and Caleb certainly doesn't "just want to sleep with her." He wants to dominate her in every way. He is very obsessed with her, and for good reason, I promise

As for my comments on liquid sugar, cotton candy, etc. There is a purpose to them, but if I told you, I assure you it would ruin much. I am very glad that several people caught them though.

Superasian>

I appreciate most of you comments, but was caught up on one. "His mind bit out." is not a complicated phrase, and to simply say "he thought" would not have the intent which I am looking for. The two brothers are in a battle, it's not physical, of course, but when their minds attack each other in such a way it does cause pain. To "bite" with the mind gave the image that I wanted quite nicely, I think.

Thanks for the comments everyone! I appreciate them

Didn't I say something?

Yes, but I agreed with pretty much everything you said Therefore I didn't feel the need to comment.

Yay fantasy! Yay!
A couple of probably-typos:

She was dancer

Is she humaaaan? Or is she dancer?
*is shot*


No, really, just missed out the article.

In his disoriented stated

I think this is just meant to be state.

not notice the shirt in air

Shift, maybe? Although a shirt in air would also be kind of awesome.

Get out of this place, it is not of your bloodline, and you know it.

I feel like this would be more effective if you changed the first comma to a period and started a new sentence. But that's just me.

You wish, little brother, I am simply admiring your pretty little friend.

And here. I'd ditch the second comma and go for a period. I feel like it would add a natural break to his speech... even if it is brain-speech. But, again, this is preference.

Hmmm.

I think I maybe anticipate where you are going with this. A little. And if you are taking vampire where I think you are taking vampire, it might be pretty sweet. Wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean, eh?

I'm a little confused by the way you're presenting the female character, though. I feel really conflicted about how to perceive her in this scene, and I think there are two reasons for this:

One, I'm given a physical description. She's blonde-ish and good looking -- but that's about all I get. Normally, I think these details would be enough, but I feel a little cheated, somehow. I think it's because this scene is so directly limited to Caleb's point of view. This is third person limited, and that's cool, but I feel like this passage feels a little bit tighter and obscured because we're getting it through the grapevine -- there are a lot of sentences that are "he watched as" and "he thought x as" where we're getting the action second-hand, even though Caleb isn't really doing anything actively. I don't know if that makes much sense, but what I'm getting at is that I think I would enjoy this portion of the narrative more if you "freed up the camera" a little bit.

I also think that the passage messes me up a little bit because this girl is described as both a woman with sexual allure and something of purity. Now, I know there's a sensuality in innocence, and sure, the two can coexist, but that's not the vibe I'm getting here. "Temptress" says something really specific to me -- it's a woman who is purposefully drawing people in by means of her womanly merits. But she's also "all that is light" and "doesn't belong to the night" -- but I'm getting a kind of divine go-go dancer vibe from this girl, like she's out there shaking her moneymaker on the floor, and that doesn't quite clear with this "goddess of white light" thing for me. I feel like I don't have a sense of what she's like at all.

I really like this, Tiff, but that particular description leaves me sort of not knowing what to take away from it. Maybe I'm just overthinking it (especially since no one else seems as befuddled as me).

As far as the brothers go, I think your dialogue explains their relationship and their characters fairly clearly... as others have said, I'm not particularly fond of them at the moment, but if that's what you intended, awesome. I can't wait to see where this goes. :]



edited 1/10 for clarity

OOh, this is good. It seems like the kind of thing I'd see in a bookstore and would make me want to buy the book.

The way you described it, kind of like you commented, leaves a lot up in the air, easily put to add lots of good events for the rest of the story. I'm intrigued, definitely.
Really enjoyed it, can't wait to read more.

Prologues are the most misunderstood part of a story. Most writers use them to introduce their characters. This is an improper use of a prologue. In fact, you should introduce your main characters in the first chapter and onward, not in the prologue.

Prologues are meant to introduce worlds or some long standing conflict. I'm not talking about personal conflicts, you introduce those, after you introduce the characters. Tolkien did not write a prologue about Frodo and Sam, he wrote it about the ring. It makes sense, because the ring was the source of all the conflict, suffering, and pain that the characters would go through.

A prologue should be a self contained story or even a chain of stories that come before the main story (i.e. Chapter One). I would use this as notes, but I wouldn't include it in the story.

I think you should just start with the first chapter.

I think, in general, most writers think they need a prologue to introduce things that their readers "might miss" later on, and they want to make the reading as easy as possible, so they stick in a prologue. I also think most writers delude themselves into thinking that their writing is more complex than it actually is (I'm waaaay guilty with this) and so they're constantly trying to explain their work over and over again when they really don't need to do this. In fact, I cut 13K words by getting rid of the repetitive explanations. No, I didn't make a prologue... but I did other things which ended up to be totally unnecessary.

And why were those things ultimately unnecessary? Well, for starters, we're so scared that we can't get our points across that we start a style more suitable for debating. This style is:
1. Tell the reader what you're going to write about.
2. Show the reader what you're writing.
3. Tell the reader what you've written.

Great for debating and essays... not so good with stories. The common adage is, "Show, don't tell." And basically, that means that it's better to start off with the actual story rather than telling the reader what you're going to write about. Yes! You get to write your story!

Anyway, start it off with the first chapter. We'll understand that she's lovely, that he wants her, that she dances, etc., etc. The only difference is that instead of telling us all of this, you get to show it instead. And that will make this story that much more powerful.

Good luck with this story!

Overeasy, my favourite mod. This was AMAZING! Don't be tempted to scrap this because people say you should start with chpt 1. I like the fact you are trying to keep the main idea and the reference to cotton candy to yourself. all in all i liked it a lot!