Young Writers Society

"Do you have him?" A voice hissed from the receiver in my hands.

"Yes." I echoed back, lowering it from my face.

The cool night air surrounded me as the target stumbled out of his car. He cursed as he dropped his keys in a puddle of water. He bent over, reaching for it. His knees popping as his body went down. I waited behind a large oak tree. The dark black air concealed me just as well as the tree did. The wind bit at my exposed legs making me shiver. I smelled the heavy sent of cologne I could only guess it was from our victim. My gym shorts were too thin! What was Miles thinking? It was freezing out here. My cover wasn't very convincing, a girl jogging after the sun had gone down, without a jacket or even a light. Miles had voiced to me that it didn't matter what my cover was, because acting was the most important. "Lie to the devil if you have to." is what he said.

I spit on the ground. Our plans were sick and our intentions were selfish but the prize was well worth the sacrifice of values and morals. I liked to think I had integrity but deceit only coated that.

"What are you waiting for? Is there a problem?" I smiled. He knew me too well, knew that I was stalling. I held the vial in my hand, twisting the small capsule with my fingers.

Pulling the receiver up to my lips I whispered,"No."

The small injection in my sweaty palms, I shook it. Creating a milky blue color as it swirled and faded back to white. Miles was a genius, I thought as I jogged over to the target.

"Excuse me." He jumped a little, startled by my random approach.

"Excuse me." I repeated.

The target coughed, "Yes?"

"Hey, do you have the time?" He looked at his wrist with a golden watch. A very nice looking one, with a clean face. I wonder if Miles would be mind if I...

"It's 10:07"

"Dang it!" I snapped my fingers artfully. He looked away uninterested and started locking his car again.

"Hey, I was jogging and got lost do you know where we are?"

"Stapleton Street." He responded gruffly. I sighed, irritated.

"I don't know where Stapleton Street is." I said more slowly. "Could you give me a ride?"

"Look girl I'm busy. I have places I need to be."

"May I at least borrow your phone?" He turned to me, his puffy face towering over mine. I just needed to get closer... Only a little.

"I don't have a phone." He spat. His face inches from mine. I lifted my hand up and shoved the injection into his shoulder. He screamed and backed away holding his arm. His eyes started to haze over as the medicine swam through his body. His fingers instinctively went up to his head as he stumbled.
"What are you doing?" He choked out. "Are you crazy? I don't have any money, I swear."
I didn't reply, I waited. Staring at the man and knowing the thick poison would only take about a minute. It was a poison to the mind, and I could see it as I looked into the targets eyes. He shoved his hand into his pocket as I opened his car door. I turned my head and looked at him.

"I thought you said you didn't have a phone."

"I thought you said you were lost" He weezed before collapsing. His face scraped agaist the gravel. I grabbed his phone and put it in my pocket.

"Sweet dreams." I whispered, the thought of him robbing the jewerly store for us consuming my mind.

I like it a lot. It is very suspensful and mysterious, which is great. I think add a few more details and it would be perfect. I would like to read some more.

Hi there.

So, as a prologue, this is pretty good. A lot of prologues that I've read haven't been so great simply because the writer doesn't fully understand what the purpose of a prologue is for and still lots of successful authors internationally don't because they may be limiting themselves and think that a prologue is simply 'filler', 'stuffing' and 'needless'. In certain cases, that is true and it does apply but some other times those accusations are untrue. Anyway, I'm rambling as I often do so, without further ado, the review!

The entirety of the prologue is well-done: you have captured suspense and usual unanswered questions which naturally leaves the audience begging for more. Give yourself a pat on the back for that. Nothing's extraordinarily rushed and I am pleased because of that since I've read many a text where the writer seems to be in a race with no one to finish. Anyway, I stray from the substance of the review yet again...

And now I should lay off the compliments and dive right in. There are quite a few times where you've written something intending one thing but instead whatever you've written doesn't read just right. One could interpret something so entirely differently that it can twist meanings and descriptions. Obviously, as the writer, you would like to try and avoid that. The below quote is a good example of jumbled meanings:

The wind bit at my exposed legs sending me a heavy sent of cologne from the target.

When I read this line - I apologize in short advance - I became almost hysterical with laughter. Be clear that I laugh not at you, but at the sentence. My reasoning is that this line has confused words that don't fit well. Your line is meaning to state that the the wind that, as well as biting at her nude legs, also brought over the scent (spelling error in your line - check it out) of the cologne that the victim wore. On the contrary, the way you have formed the sentence is telling the readers that - ach, I can hardly explain the thing, it's terribly convoluted with various meanings - due to the wind biting at her legs, she smelled the target's cologne. Do you understand? I hope you do as I'm trying my best to be text-coherent.

The other thing about this line (and the remainder of the prologue), which is a much smaller thing - rather nitpicky, in fact - is your use of the word 'target'. As a replacement, I think 'victim' is much better suited. Perhaps it is merely because it is late here and I just boarded off a plane but I still hardly think so, but, either way, when you use 'target' I picture a real and true bull's-eye strolling down the street and not actually a person being preyed upon. Ja.

Check over some spelling. I won't point out every little spelling error you committed since it's unkind and also takes up my time and I'm a really lazy person. They are only simple errors (like the missing letter 'c' in 'scent') so don't fret about them much, but do correct them. MS Word includes a basic, understandable spelling check that one can turn on and off. If you happen to lack that program, I'm sure there are many free spell checkers online that you can search on Google

...the only spelling error that really bothered was:

His fingers insticaly went up to his cheek

It's like you were typing to fast or whatever and your fingers flew off into a tapping, typing madness. Watch out and only type as fast as you know you can! Don't rush or baaaad typos like these happen. I'm known for terrible, awkward typos but this totally beats 'em. Congrats. I think you were trying to type the word 'instinctively'? I'm not so sure since this... combination of letters... is hardly similar but you'll know

There's more I can pick here but I won't for your vanity's sake ;D

Anyway questions or anything about the review, don't hesitate to drop me a line via PM.

Yours,
Lavvie

Hola!

What an interesting prologue you have here. A very wonderfully constructed prologue. Good amount of information and enigma. So yay!

At first I though this was chapter 2 with that number over there. Silly me!

I have to say, I share Lavvie's thoughts on that particular line. It's... a bit too awkwardly phrased.

I lifted my hand up and shoved the injection into his cheek. He screamed and backed away holding his face.

This paints a very weird picture for me. Because the cheek veins are quite difficult to inject to, since they're very wiggly that moves due to the slightest facial movements even. She'd have to be ninja-skilled to get it done right.

One thing you could work on is perhaps some reaction around the dialogue between the victim and the MC. That would help in making a stronger scene such that the reader would want to come back for more.

Good work!
~L

Hello, hello! I'm Gheala and this is my first review after ages of literary silence.
*****************************************
I have to admit I'm going to say something that I had NEVER said before, ever since I started reading novels or novel excerpts. Well, here it goes:
That's a good prologue!
Seriously, I liked it a lot. Even though I'm not a big fan of crime novels, I got interested- very interested- in this piece a little too fast than I expected. I also always think that there is no need to writer prologues, for why write an introduction for someone's life story?
But here, I actually do think you should keep this prologue because it drags me into the novel pretty well.
Your pacing through the piece was outstanding. I didn't get bored and I didn't miss any sentences like I usually do in prologues. The descriptions were brief, but they were quite enough for me to know what the story is about. I found all that very amusing.

Now, with the things I didn't marvel in the piece- if "marvel" is the right word here...
It's actually one thing that I noticed. I think your sentences are sometimes a little too short than needed, especially in the first descriptive paragraph. Try to merge sentences together, because short phrases would distract your reader. Try to reduce that.

Well, that's all!
Good luck and well done! And I'm sorry for my lack of help.

Hai! Sorry its taken me so long to get to this, but here I am so let's see what you've got! Oh, by the way, I'm going to go ahead and move this to the novels section for you since it's not a short story!

Line-By-Line

1. The opening! Okay so it's always tempting to start with dialogue and cut straight into the characters, but it's only effective when that dialogue is absolutely amazing, so amazing that it can stand up without any scenery behind it. In this case, yours is too mundane for that so I suggest instead that you give us a little description of the action and draw us in with that. Nine times out of ten, the action makes for a better hook than dialogue. In a few short sentences of action, you can paint an entire scene for people to imagine but six or seven lines of dialogue later and you still have voices coming out of the dark.

2. Hissed and echoed. So you're telling us this is going to a sort of thriller or crime thing but it's a bit over the top to use echoed. It really stands out and feels unnatural, like you've forced it in there when a simple said or replied would fit much more smoothly. Try not to use a more complex word just for the sake of it. Only use it if it's going to add extra depths to your scene.

3. Vary those sentences! Short, snappy lines are great but there's only so much thy can do before they become ordnary and boring. If you lead into them with a long sentence or a couple of mdiums, then they're much more effective as they'll under-cut what came before, instead of just tagging along from one to another.

4. I like the random thought about the gym shorts, that showed some good insight into the character.

5.

The small injection in my sweaty palms, I shook it.

This is a little awkward here. For a moment, I thought she'd injected herself so try using syringe instead as the syringe is what you put the vial in (though really you might want to make it clearer what she's doing first as a moment ago she had a vial and there's been no mention of her filling a syringe. So yeah. Clear it up!

6. Dialogue tags! If you're using s he or she or I tag, then your dialogue should end with a comma instead. So 'Excuse me." I repeated is wrong. It should be, 'Excuse me," I repeated.

7. Description. I'd really like for you to describe the park car park or the road or wherever she's running (see I'm not even sure!) and then tell us what this target looks like. By the gold watch, I'm guessing he's a business man which adds further confusion as to where a jogger would happen to collide with a business man, but I can't be sure so describe!

8. Your enemy is our enemy. Must you make the man all mean and confrontational? If you do that, we don't care that he's about to be killed and this scene would be so much more effective if he was nice and we did and we were torn between liking the MC and condemning her actions.

9. Bad last words. Improve them please? They're a bit too obvious and a bit too haha but not haha if you know what I mean.

10. Uh... didn't she want the watch? It's worth more than a phone I'm sure. Also, there was a nice moment for dramatic irony where she could have complimented his watch instead of having her think about how she likes it. Then you'd write the end scene and just drop in there a quick description of her wearing the watch as she walks away.

Overall

It's not bad. You've got an interesting character here but the other key components need some work. Your plot is a little loose right now and your scenery and story world are none existent. Remember, one of the most important things about a story is that you're telling the reader where they are and what world they're going to be living in until the story is over.

I'll have more comments for you on atmosphere and the like after I've read your next section,

Heather xxx

Hey Berlynn! Here as requested, sorry it took so long!

Let's get right to it, then, shall we?

"Do you have him?" A voice hissed from the receiver in my hands.

As Heather said, this probably isn't the best way to start this novel. I read once that dialogue for a first line is a red flag for editors and something they don't look upon as best (unless it's a fan-freaking-tastic line of dialogue).

Personally, I think you could move (or cut even) those first two lines of dialogue and just go ahead and start with that initial description (or some variation of it). It's an intriguing section of prose in the way that it shows the reader a character from the perspective of someone else (by referring to him along the lines of "the target") which interests them to find out more about the situation.

His knees popping as his body went down.

Our Main Character heard that? How close are they to the target? How loud are his knees popping? Since this is a first person narration, all observations have to come directly through the main character's senses. So, unless she heard his knees pop, we don't get to know that information.

I smelled the heavy sent of cologne I could only guess it was from our victim. [b]My gym shorts were too thin! What was Miles thinking? It was freezing out here. My cover wasn't very convincing, a girl jogging after the sun had gone down, without a jacket or even a light.[b]

This bolded portion comes right out of nowhere. First we're thinking cologne, then, gym shorts! It might help if there was a paragraph split before the thought about the gym shorts so that there is a clearer distinction between thoughts (rule of thumb, new line of thought/action/observation = new paragraph). It might also help to distinguish them as her thoughts by putting them in italics, since they're directly from her mind. However, that's entirely up to you.

I liked to think I had integrity but deceit only coated that.

Okay, I don't tend to do grammar but this line was so awkward I couldn't get past it. We have two seperate-ish thoughts here slammed together without an appropriate tie. Plus, "deceit only coated that" is an awkward phrase to begin with. Something like:
I liked to think I had integrity, once you got past the coating of deceit surrounding it.
sounds a lot better. There just needs to be a better tie between integrity and it's colorful deceit coating.

"Sweet dreams." I whispered, the thought of him robbing the jewerly store for us consuming my mind.

This is a really abrupt ending. I know we're going for suspense/hook here, but it's almost too abrupt for that. Particularly, the mention of him robbing the jewelry store for them. How is that going to work? Does the poison allow them to control his body? Are they framing him for the robbery? Why did she take his car?

These are too many questions to leave the reader with at the end of a prologue. The intent on taking this man as their target needs to be better explained somewhere in the prologue for this to work how it ought to.

Let me start off by saying that I am not a fan of prologues. For the most part, I think they're a crutch that writers lean on that they don't need at all. A lot of times they're cheap attempts at hooks (prime example: Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga. Every prologue in that series is a cheap attempt at a hook). I only ever really find a prologue fitting if it gives information the reader needs immediately at the start of chapter one that can't be given at the start of the story (history, qualities of a world/race - think Tolkeins 'Concerning Hobbits' in the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring - etc) or a look into an event that has happened far before the beginning of the story.

This prologue here (after a quick glance at the first chapter, which I will review next promise) looks to be an event that will happen further in the story, placed here in order to interest the reader in reading on until that point. This, in all honesty, suggests that the beginning of the story isn't interesting enough to make the reader stick around until it gets good (ie the content of this prologue). The reader wants to know what else happens after this scene, and if the actual beginning of the story isn't interesting enough to carry that then they're not going to be very interested in reading on.

Particularly since this scene looks like it was cut right out of a later portion of the story and dropped here, I'd suggest cutting it entirely and just starting right in on the first chapter. If what comes in the beginning isn't interesting enough (which I'll see for myself in a moment), then consider moving the story up closer to the start of the action.

However, this is entirely (well, mostly) null if this is in fact an event from the past. If it's an event from the past, though, we're going to need more information about it. What happened with the bank robbery? Why isn't our MC still robbing banks (as it appears she's in high school being relatively normal at the start of the first chapter)?

Anyways, I'm off to check out the next chapter and see how things pan out. Other than the issues I've mentioned, this is a compelling section. I'm interested to know more about this strange poison and whatever our MC is doing with this Miles guy. The prose is also quite amusing and fun to read, so you've got that on your side too!

If you have any questions, or want to discuss something further, feel free to shoot a PM my way and I'd be glad to talk.

Keep writing!

-Lauren-

Hi there! Sorry it took me a long time to respond to your request, but I've been pretty busy. Anyway, I'm here to review!

First off I'd like to say that this definitely drew me into the story. And that's what a prologue is all about. It provides some background information and then adds some mystery. I like how you never mention names or ages or occupations, you simply keep going with it. After reading this I'm sitting here wondering who the girl is, who the guy on the other end of the receiver is and what they're up to.

I didn't find any spelling or grammar errors so you're fine there. The only thing that I could criticize, I can't (if that makes any sense). I'd usually say something about us not knowing the characters, but we don't need to know them yet.

Great job on this! Can't wait to read the rest. Keep writing!