Prologue 1

This was my first attempt at writing, and it's just the prologue. I have it up on wattpad.com under fullmetal54 too. It will be more of a kinda humor story with some romance later on Oh, and it switches between the two main characters POV so one chapter will be Evans' chapter and the next Alex, and so on and so forth. In the chapters where they are together, it'll probably be one's POV and then the same story in the other's POV. Oh, and btw, there will be two prologues before the Chapters begin so just be patient!

_________________

Mrs. Amaryst, headmaster of Armstrong Acadamy, sat in an elegant office at a beautifully adorned desk, with a grimace on her face as she glared at the computer screen in front of her. A new student was coming in today, and the e-mails that she had been getting in about this boy had been none too pleasing. Save the fact that this boy had phenomenal grades, never once dropping below 98%, all of the things his previous teachers had to say about him made her wish for a giant pink elephant to land on the plane he was arriving on. There was no possible way she could handle a student who was apparently this TROUBLESOME. With another sigh, she scrolled down the list of all the information on this boy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Evans Mariano

Age: 15

Grade: 12th

(AN: I know that the schooling system is different in the Philippines, and some kids graduate high school there at 14, which is why he is in 12th grade when he's only 15.)

Gender: Male

Race: Filipino

Average grade: 98%

Teacher Comments: Annoying, Disrespectful, Troublamaker, talks back a lot, I hate this kid, Bright, Smart but doesn't know how to use his knowledge to his advantage, rascal, punk, smartmouth, athletic, fighter, violent, creative, stubborn, doesn't pay attention.... (The list was pretty long, so she decided to stop reading it)

Athletics: Basketball, soccer, dancing

Social Status: Lower class (fancy term for poor)

Previous schools: Edge primary, Edge High

Family: Adopted.

-Father : Will Mariano

-Younger brother : Liam Mariano

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She vaguely wondered what this child was going to look like, let alone going to be like, but was distracted from her thoughts with a very loud, very distracting commotion in the hallway. She stormed over to the door and yanked it open.

Looking out, she noticed a boy with black hair skid to a stop in front of her.

"Uh...... Hi?"

Great concept but I think you may just want to be a little more descriptive but I think it will end up at being a great story

Hi, fullmetal! (This makes me think of Fullmetal Alchemist. woot!)

There's not much to this prologue. D: Maybe if I read part 2, it'll make a little more sense. (Consider using the novel feature! There's a blue box above this thread for you, asking if you want to make this a novel. It's so much fun! Try it out!) I like how you ended this part with crazy, distracting raucous that I must now go read the next part to find out. D: For your first story, you're on the right track! I'll give a couple pointers and then read the next part to see if I have anything new to add.

Introduction

The hardest parts of writing a story, in my honest opinion, is the beginning and the end. You have to make the start ridiculously interesting or you'll lose half your readers. And the ending has to end appropriately or half the readers will hate you. xD In this case, intros are hard!

Your first sentence, for instance, is very long. It goes on forever and doesn't hook the reader in. Just like in school essays, the piece should be interesting right from the start. The first sentence should make the reader say, "Wait, what now?" and keep reading. The current first sentence isn't only long but is an info-dump about the headmistress. What I would suggest is starting with a quote! You could have the headmistress say something discouraging or use a quote from the emails she is getting.

A great thing to consider when writing beginnings is to jump into the action. Sitting at a desk and complaining isn't very interesting! The reader wants to hear more about what this kid is doing and why is he so frustrating to all his teachers? In fact, I wouldn't mind it if you started the action right where you ended this. You could maybe mention she was reviewing a troublesome kid, but then jump right into what's going on outside her door. The reader will be much more interested in this.

Show, Don't Tell

This is really hard to understand at first. I know I was a huge loser when it came to this. xD "Show, don't tell" refers to description and engaging the reader. Right now, the only thing that's shown in this piece is her sitting at a desk in the beginning and the ending. Everything else is info-dumping (dumping information).

Usually to get rid of info-dumping, you take the information and tie it into a scene where it's appropriate to share the information. For instance, Evans Mariano is apparently a troublesome boy who gets remarkably good grades. You can show us this! You could have the teacher hand back a test, and Evans Mariano wouldn't even look at his perfect mark. He'd be reclining in his chair, shooting spitballs at people. Or something to that effect. Just with what I said here, you know that Evans gets good grades but doesn't care about anything! It takes some practice. Just analyze the people around you. See how they act or what they say, and make your own conclusions about that person. You've just analyzed a Show-Don't-Tell scenario! Bravo!

So in this piece specifically, the file doesn't quite belong here. You can mention the headmistress reading it, and maybe she can vocally say the most surprising facts/quotes about him from the file, but that's about it. The reader doesn't know this kid (or anything about the story) enough to care about this file. The introduction paragraph is also an info-dump which tells the reader what kind of kid Evans Mariano is. The ending here does a much better job showing the reader who that kid is (assuming he's Evans Mariano)!

Mrs. Amaryst and Evans Mariano

Mrs. Amaryst isn't talked about much, but that's all right. It's in her perspective, so she'd be paying attention to other things more. I'm more concerned with what she's doing. She might be getting a new kid in the school, and I'm not exactly sure what goes on in the office, but I don't think she'd be receiving emails from teachers she doesn't know about this kid. That seems very gossipy and rude. The complaints on the file would also not be a list of quotes but probably detention slips or separate notes from them.

The character herself seems very grumpy. xD Is she having a hard time with the school? Is it out of her hands and she's just stressed and not doing anything anymore? There's a commotion outside, and the way she instantly got up all angry-like makes me wonder if this isn't the first time. In fact, it sounds like this kind of trouble happens too often. You could build on this later, I suppose. I found her to be a very inept headmistress and it makes me upset. xD

Evans Mariano we haven't met except for at the end (I'm assuming), but he sounds unrealistic to me. If he's such a nasty kid, he's not going to care about his grades. He can be really, really smart! I'll totally give him that. But he's not going to care if he gets the highest mark or a passing grade. The two don't go together. He doesn't care about school, so he's not going to care about grades. But he can definitely be a genius!

----

All three points really tie in together. At this point, it's going to need some work. I don't know what your chapter one is like, but if the prologue ties in beautifully with chapter one, then make this chapter one and the next chapter your chapter two. Prologues give a brief insight into the story that, by the end, the reader wants to know what will happen or what's going to happen. Sometimes, this will be a years before the story itself, sometimes years after, and sometimes it's even a scene in the middle of the story! Prologues are kind of confusing, and a lot of times, you don't really need them.

That said, I shall be off to read the next part!

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!