No Name Yet (Prologue)

This is a prologue, but I don't know where it will go, I know its short, but I will add more.
The trees rustled as I walked through them, I brushed my hand across a fern. Pain suddenly flashed across my palm. Immediately I look at the plant: Silver fern, of course. Hurrying forward, I find an oak tree. Rubbing it on my hand soothes the pain, but I need to find a stream. Listening for the familiar soft trickle, I hear something else instead, footsteps. Quick but steady. I don't know who it is, and I don't want too. Seeing a low branched pine up ahead, I run to it, climbing quickly. When I reach a safe distance from the ground, the men come into the clearing. their faces aren't familiar, nor are their voices. They wear normal clothing, but I can sense something is wrong with them, then I see there eyes, black, lifeless. My heat freezes up, my breathing halts. I had to get out of there.

Hi Allessandre! I'll be your reviewer for today!

This is a prologue, but I don't know where it will go, I know its short, but I will add more.

First off, this is NOT part of your story. So, put it in italics or something. Seperate it from the rest. Oh, and think about where it will go before you start writing, it helps a bunch.

The trees rustled as I walked through them, I brushed my hand across a fern. Pain suddenly flashed across my palm. Immediately I look at the plant: Silver fern, of course. Hurrying forward, I find an oak tree. Rubbing it on my hand soothes the pain, but I need to find a stream. Listening for the familiar soft trickle, I hear something else instead, footsteps. Quick but steady. I don't know who it is, and I don't want too. Seeing a low branched pine up ahead, I run to it, climbing quickly. When I reach a safe distance from the ground, the men come into the clearing. their faces aren't familiar, nor are their voices. They wear normal clothing, but I can sense something is wrong with them, then I see there eyes, black, lifeless. My heat freezes up, my breathing halts. I had to get out of there.

Okay, this will be simple, since its short, I'll just fix the mistakes real fast and you can see what you did wrong.

The tress rustle as I walked through them, my hand brushing across a fern. Pain suddenly flashed through my open palm. Immediately my gaze sweeps to the plant: Silver fern, of course.

Hurrying forward, I find an oak tree. Rubbing my hand agaisnt the tree soothes the pain, but I need to find a stream, and quickly. Listening for the soft trickle, I hear something else instead, footsteps. They are quick, but steady. I don’t know who it is, nor do I want to.

Seeing a low branched pine up ahead, I run to it, climbing up into its firm bracnhes. When I reach near the middle half of the tree, men walking into the clearing where I had been just moments before. Their faces aren’t familiar, nor are their voices. They wear normal clothing, but I can sense something is wrong with them. When I see their black, lifeless eyes, my heart freezes up, my breathing halts. I had to get out of there.

Your number one problem, you changed tense alot. That was my main nitpick. Sorry if this review is harsh, but I hope to read more!

~Forest

Comments in red.

Allessandre wrote:This is a prologue, but I don't know where it will go, I know its short, but I will add more. If it's a prologue it should go in the beginning. If you mean you don't know where the story is headed, you've got a much bigger problem on your hands. :/
The trees rustled as I walked through them. No transition between this sentence and the next. I brushed my hand across a fern. Pain suddenly flashed across my palm. Immediately I look at the plant: Silver fern, of course. What? I don't get what's going on. You might want to explain that silver ferns hurt people if they do. It's not really clear here. Hurrying forward, I find an oak tree. Rubbing it on my hand soothes the pain, but I need to find a stream. Yeap. I'm seriously not understanding anything. Sentences don't flow together either and if this was a real book, I'd put the book back on the shelf.

Listening for the familiar soft trickle, I hear something else instead: footsteps. Quick but steady. I don't know who it is, and I don't want to. Seeing a low branched pine up ahead, I run to it, climbing quickly. This sentence structure means that she climbed it as she ran to it. Which really doesn't make sense. Revise. When I reach a safe distance from the ground, the men come into the clearing. Their faces aren't familiar, nor are their voices. They wear normal clothing but I can sense something is wrong with them. Then I see their eyes: black, lifeless. My heart freezes up, my breathing halts. I had to get out of there.

Final thoughts:

Honestly the tenses of the piece shift. They throw me off. The voice isn't strong - it's just confusing. You convey that the MC is panicked and that's about all this does because it fails to set up a world. She's not human, I think - she's more attuned to nature. But the world still isn't clear here because you didn't explain anything.

I'm not telling you to turn this into an infodump, but I am asking you to remember that the reader doesn't know this world as well as you do. You will inevitably have to explain some things to the reader and allow them to figure out littler details.

This is entirely my opinion so it's not definitive. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about this review.


Sincerely,

Kara