Young Writers Society

Please read the prologue of my book and see what you think

The guards rushed down the wide corridor and formed a shield wall.The monsters stumbled round the corridor to face the guards.The Chieftan bellowed a command and the first wave of monsters ran at them.The guards stood firm and the monsters were repulsed.They retreated leving several of their number
sprawled on the ground.They quickly regrouped and came at the guards again.This time the monsters turned lucky and hacked down many of the guards before being driven off again.Kelda looked around desperately,where in the name of the gods were the wizard lords?What were they doing?He grabbed Arak by his mail shirt and pulled him close to him,"Go tell the wizard lords to hurry up and get out of here then flee yourself!"Arak scurried off,"Charge!"Kelda bellowed.The guards surged forward and threw themselves onto their unsespecting enemies.By the time the monsters relised what was happening half of them were sprawled on the floor.To the guards dismay a fresh group of monsters had rounded the corner,and were running towards the guards.Kelda sprinted forward the men following him.The two forces met and the battle broke into smaller skirmishes.Although the guards were skilled fighters sheer weight of numbers prevailed and the guards were picked off one by one.Kelda slew one of his enemies and looked behind him the last thing he saw was one of the monsters axes swingwing towards him it caught his ribs and he fell to the ground before his vision went black....

Why is this in Research?

I am sorry but i seriously did not enjoy this. I thought that there wasnt much variation in the sentance structure.
They do this. They do that then this.
is how you write and it kindof bores the reader.

Sorry. But from what i read the plot could be a good one.

Also refer to the monsters as something other than The monsters, you say it so many times. call them, demons of beasts, USE A THESAURUS

Sorry it was my first time and it's only a rough draft,so I need some advice

I agree with Ofour and Jules the jester.

It was okay. It could turn out to be really great, but I can't really tell yet.

Swingwing=swinging
(right? )

Hello! Welcome to YWS! You have some good ideas here, so I'm going to give you a few things to work on.

You're major problem here is that you have no sentence structure variation. Almost every sentence is organized with subject first, then verb and other words. Read other author's work and examine how they use various sentence structures to empower their voice. No matter how many times you use a thesaurus, if you do not creatively vary your sentences. it will be boring.

Also, there is nothing wrong with diving right into the action of a story, but in this prologue, you give us next to no creative intuition into your characters. You just go right into action that the reader at this point of the story views as their first impression. Take into mind that the reader has no idea what is going on and if you do not involve them, they see it all as meaningless.

Lastly, before you start writing more, I want to remind you that a new speaker means a new paragraph.

Despite my comments, I would like to urge you to keep writing, because if you continue to develop your ideas and write, you will improve.

If you have any questions, please PM me

Well...you DID say that this was your first time. Mkay. Where to begin? Where to begin? Um... ok.

I'll start with saying that you should probably work on your structure. The way you have all of the dialogue, description, and narration all in ONE huge paragraph is a first no-no. When you have different speakers, you start a new paragraph/line. Example:

You wrote-

What were they doing?He grabbed Arak by his mail shirt and pulled him close to him,"Go tell the wizard lords to hurry up and get out of here then flee yourself!"Arak scurried off,"Charge!"Kelda bellowed.

It SHOULD be written as-

What were they doing? He grabbed Arak by his mail shirt and pulled him close to him, "Go tell the wizard lords to hurry up and get out of here then flee yourself!" Arak scurried off.

"Charge!" Kelda bellowed.

See? Must be separated. Now, onto your punctuation. I don't think you did this a lot, but after your punctuation marks, I don't think you space in between the punctuation and the upcoming word. Just like as though you're writing a regular plain old sentence. You space in between. Mkay? Mkay. Next!

The way you connect your sentences doesn't exactly flow too nicely. When writing, try not to tell the reader WHAT the character is doing or what's ACTUALLY happening. You should try and describe the events going on that lead the reader to know that such-and-such is doing such-and-such at such-and-such time without flat out saying: "The monsters came in." or something.

This is an example sentence, you didn't write this:

Your style- "Kate came into the room."

Reader appeal - "It seemed to take decades before Kate finally entered the room. Perhaps it was because the fact that her mother was going to kill her when she came to find out what had happened at school toaday..." and so on and so forth. Got it? Hope so, because I need to move on now.

I also see what you mean by needing a name for your monsters. "The monsters" simply will NOT do. If I think of something, I'll let you know. I'm a bit busy at the moment though. lol

Well, that's basically all I have to say. Your idea, plot wise, sounds like it has hidden potential. You need a description helper, though. Honestly, this prologue didn't really tweak my interest. There isn't a hook to draw the reader in to want more. But, like you said, this is your first. I'm pretty sure that, with enough help and advice, this story could really develop into something amazing.

My best wishes.

Love now till no more,
*~Aquarius Angel~*

how can the monsters be drivin off by the sheilds alone? if the monsters retreated how were they unsuspecting of an attack in the midst of battle? you need more descripition in you sentances and you need to introduce your characters better, i would reccomend through a shout of his name then a response. also make the prolague a lot longer it should be about two and a half pages at the very least. hope these tips were helpful, you have a lot of potential as a writer, now just use it along with others as your guide. Have fun!

Firstly, I just want to say to Sean, the length of a prologue is irrelevant. It is the quality of the content which is important.

Now, to the critique. This could be good. Most of what needs to be said has already been said, so I will not repeat myself. My only suggestion is that you think of some other way to present the "wizard lords". At the moment, it sounds a bit typical of a beginner, which, considering that this is your first attempt is understandable, and I am not blacklisting you for it. "Wizard lords" could be really good, if introduced differently. Try giving them an air of mystery, perhaps, by calling them simply the "lords", or something like that. I don't know, I'm sure you could come up with something better.

Anyway, this has potential, but it still needs some work, mostly involving sentence structure and grammatical things. Your ideas aren't half bad.

Keep it up

-Kaz