Young Writers Society

Here is my final edit of the Janitors Prologue. I think I did pretty well. One, two, three and here we go...

Prologue:

Designed to destroy the country, asked to save it. Made for one purpose: To change the world as we know it.

Jack Gareth, the superhero, started out as Jack Gareth, the average fourteen year old boy. Responsible, slightly athletic, friendly and kind. Then only five days after receiving his powers, Jack was greeted by a stranger. That was directly after he saved a life:

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It had been early morning. A speeding, out-of control car shot past nearly knocking over an elderly woman. It swerved, scraping the side of a truck. The truck overturned...
It skid along the road and nearly smashed into a building. But Jack caught it, and held it. His muscles strained and he braced on his knee. But he stopped it. Then amid gasps of marveled people, he ran.

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Three day later, Jack was sitting on the edge of a building that overlooked a quiet street and the afternoon sun setting in the west, and behind him was the lapsing oceans and a large, beautiful cruise liner. It honked its horn.

Jack contemplated everything that had happened to him in the past week. Because being a superhuman was something new to him, something new to the world. And as news reports had already shown, they didn't like the idea of one hundred and forty nine super-powered teenagers running all over the place.

Only one-hundred and forty nine. Not even an even number. And how did they, I... how did we become superhumans anyway? He sighed.

There had been a number of comic books about superheroes. Novels, films all detailing lives of these heroes. But Jack didn't see truth in any of them. Because at the end of the day, the superhuman lived.
The thought came as a startle at first, then a deepening fear. Am I gonna die? He wondered. Saving the world or destroying it? Or am I just going to be another case of genocide on CNN, killed by my very own people? Deep, troubled thoughts for an otherwise normal, easy-going teenager.
Jack thought, if there was a God, He should do something, spectacular, pretty soon, to resolve the matter. What he didn't know was that the spectacular thing, was to happen through him.

He heard footsteps approach him from behind. He turned and saw a boy of about fifteen. Slung over his shoulder was a backpack.
“May I join you?” The boy was dressed casually, as Jack was. He wore a white shirt and jeans. But despite his normality, he carried the look of a runaway and an adventurer.
“Sure. Just tell me something.” The boy sat down. “If you had all this power, like all the superhumans you see on TV, what would you do with it?”
“Um...” he took a sip of water from his bottle. “I'm thinking I would use it to save people. Like you did, Jack. Well done with that.”
“I never... wait, how do you know my name?”
“Don't worry about it. And come on, I saw your face dude. It really was awesome.”

The daring heroics played back in Jack's mind. He had saved a life, probably way more than one life. And it felt good. He had done something, that mankind could be proud of. The entire history of man could be proud of him doing that simple deed. Which had been easy enough for him. He smiled.

“So, what next?” the boy asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are you thinking about?”
“I don't know...”
“Well, let's start with this. You have these awesome powers right? Well what do you think of them?”
“I'm...” he felt he shouldn't talk further, but he did. “I'm kind of scared, of death, you know?”
“I understand. Is that why you're up here? Thinking about death and worrying, about what'll happen to you?”
“Um- I guess. Look I-”
“Well stop. Listen, bullets don't bounce off you, I know that and if you're stabbed in the right place, you die. But Jack, you can't live like this man.” Jack turned to face the boy, not wondering how he knew so much about him as wondering how much truth he was speaking. “You have a choice.”
“Do I? Really? I mean here you are talking to me like you know what it's like.”
“I don't, but I have my own burdens. Now listen, carefully. You can either choose to use your powers to help people, to hurt them or to just ignore everything around you and go into denial, waste your chance and waste the chances of all the kids who dream of becoming presidents and lawyers and doctors.” He took another sip of his water, then put it away. “Choice?”
“I... I-”
“Look, I don't know if you even believe in God. But let me tell you this. There are a people that say to God, “thy will be done.” Others, like the guy who stopped the sun, or Hezekiah, to whom God says, “Fine, have it your way.” Now, I don't want to tell you exactly where your powers came from until-”
“You know?”
“Yes, I do. I know because the burden I talked about...” the boy paused, making a decision, then continued, “I'm the son of the guy who gave you these powers. My name is Arthur Ford. And I'm not going to tell you how exactly, until you make a decision about what you're going to do, where your life is going. And you swear on it, by the one thing you will never lose to swear upon. Whether by God, or your humanity, your sanity or whatever. Then I'll tell you the truth, the whole truth. What's your decision, Jack?”

At that moment, there were the sounds of screams. Jack and Arthur watched, mouths agape, as a plume of smoke and a burst of orange flames shot from the rear of a cruise liner near the beach. He watched, as it began to sink...
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Thanks for all the reviews

Hi TheNewHero,
I really really like this prologue and I think it is brilliant.
I only saw a few mistakes and they can be sorted out easily if you read it through again.
midnightread

Hey TheNewHero. First off, let me point out that I'm not such a huge fan of prolgoues in general. So don't be put off by anything I might not say...nicely.

This was pretty good. A lot of it, I think you could do with a bit more showing instead of telling. Show the reader what is happening rather than just telling what is happening. Use descriptive words, show what is happening, what people/places/things look like, etc.

Also, even for a prologue this tends to jump around a bit. You cover several different scenarios and backstories here. For a prologue, I suggest picking one and sticking with it. Perhaps just Jack's transformation into superhuman-ness would be a good one.

It was a cool spring night in Freedom City. Jack Gareth, a fourteen year old boy, was sitting on the roof of a building. Sitting, and thinking. He was recapping his identity. He didn't know why, it just seemed the sort of thing for the moment.

He was Jack Gareth. He had one parent, his mother and his father had died long ago. And as Jack Gareth, he was great at football, the captain of the team. Jack Gareth was also the product of a massive incident which had done absolutely no physical damage. But more on that later.

Jack was a very studious and his marks moderate. And as the captain of the rugby team, he was responsible. He knew exactly how to handle situations. He was a real guy, cultured and good. But he was still part of M101, which occurred on the first day of May, 2001. It had been a normal Friday evening...

Here we have a major info-dump. You played it off rather well with the first paragraph, but it is still not very fun to read. Only give the most important traits of Jack, and show them rather than tell them.

Also, who is his one parent if both of his biological parents died?

That was when the robbers in the yellow taxi roared past below his feet...

Okay. This is my biggest problem with prologues. They flow right into the first chapter. If the action is carrying over to chapter one, you might as well slap chapter one over the word prologue and go right on with things.

Everything would be so much better if you only focus on what happened to Jack to make him this way and then be done. The action can start in chapter one and doesn't need to be related to what happened in the prologue at all. In fact, I encourage chapter one to begin completely unrelated from the action in the prologue.

It does have great potential as a prologue, though. Just keep working at it, narrow it down, make it less jumbled. You seem to have a very interesting story on your hands. Good luck, and keep writing! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

-Lauren

This was very interesting. Now onto the review.

“Doctor Williams,” said a dry, deep, hoarse voice.

Who is saying this?

He was Jack Gareth. He was 14

You already said this in the paragraph above…

But maybe that was because of genetics. His blue eyes and blond hair had been because of genetics, most likely he was the “most attractive boy of the year, 2000” because of genetics as well.

Genetics genetics genetics. Sorry, but you are boring me with this.


Okay, some key things:

Characters

You introduce so many, I was a little bored. Who is this Connor guy? What does he have to do with the story? Isn't Jack the scientists son? Since you mentioned him, shouldn't you be talking about him? Yes, you should. As a prologue, you introduced so many things. Also, since this is before the actual story, you describe the characters as when they were younger. Well, since the story will be later on, whether from five days to six hundred years, things and people will be different. I suggest leaving the in-depth descriptions for the actual plot.

Speaking of plot

I don't see where this is going. You give me so much information, it's hard to process. The worst part is, you don't elaborate on any of it. You just keep going, introducing more plot without informing us of things you already started. You need to focus on one story. Here, it seems as though you are starting five stories in one.

Keep writing!

Classy

Hey there. I think this is a good prologue. It is a very interesting plot. However, you need to work on several things.

First of all, you can be very redundant at times. Sometimes this works in prose, but most of the times it does not. This is one case where it does not work.

In a remote part of Arizona, was a remote building. As tall as a skyscraper, glass windows like a grid patterned the walls. It looked exactly like an office building. It was one.

Anything in this paragraph that is underlined is repetitive. Try to use more descriptive language other than "remote".

Secondly, whenever you begin a story, especially an action/adventure one, you want to automatically draw your reader in. Often times the most effective way to do this is with lots of action. However, you start your story with lots of information. And while all of this information is important to your story, it doesn't make me very excited to read more. I suggest you check out the writing resources tab, there is lots of helpful information available to you there.

Finally, you have some information in this prolouge that doesn't seem entirely necessary. Here is the best example:

Inside there was a lobby, which had an elevator. The elevator went from -10 (10 Underground) to 15. Up fourteen floors and to your right, down the clean white, tiled halls, was a door. If you opened this door, you would find three men, sitting around a table.

Why does it matter how many floors the elevator goes to? Why does it matter that the men are located on the 14th floor? I suggest you read this article about getting rid of Unneeded Information. It should be helpful. I also agree with Lauren, you do way too much telling and not enough showing.

That is all I have to say. Hopefully this has been helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me. Keep writing!

This sounds like it's going to be a good story! My issues with it are how short some of the sentences are right in a row. It feels sort of choppy because of that. Also the jumps from character to character are sort of distracting and difficult to follow. Other than that good job, keep going!

Hey Hero,
I think your story is doing really good with your story, I think everyone else got all the mistakes. so I just wanted to let you know your doing a really good job, And also I do agree make your sentenses a little longer that would really help! other wise great job!!! your fellow writer for Jesus...




Horse

Love the title.

"The Janitors"

Thanks tons guys! Yay, the title works! Actually I'm going with the idea of just Jack's beginning but every character mentioned plays a huge role. I'm going to edit this with my latest. Then Chapter 1 in maybe two days. I'm in a good mood today...

Hey I'm Vatten
I love the way you have the son of a scientist who gave the main character powers.
I think you describe the setting and how the story already began

when you correct all the stuff that the other.When you finish the story I'll make sure I'm the first person to read it.