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The Thing About Time - Prologue

by 221B


The Thing About Time

Prologue

As the world rotates, and the planets navigate their way around the sun, each piece of the universe finds its rhythm and follows it. They travel through all of time and space to find their pattern, but when they find it they never leave. There is never a question raised that this could be the wrong pattern, or that there might be a better pattern. There is just this pattern that the world must follow.

Yet there is one section, only one plane, that remains still. Here, time does not pass, and rain does not fall. Not even the seasons change on this planet. It is as if it has been removed from existence. It is as if this planet, this world, has decided to rebel against the patterns holding the other worlds. To the other worlds, it does not exist.

Then again, what does it mean to truly exist? Is existing acting like the humans on Earth do? Does it mean to stumble around day after day doing the same thing without change? Is it like the Animas on Zekrin who never do the same thing twice? Or is it trapped like the Scarecrow that watches time, but never experiences it himself?

Time is a very confusing thing. There are beings who say that it travels in one continuous line. It travels from start to finish, and when it reaches the end, it begins again. Then there are those beings who believe that time does as it pleases. They believe that time can be manipulated and changed for the intentions of the controller – if only they could know how to do so.

Both theories are, as of now, correct. Both theories are, as of now, incorrect. Until proof that time can or cannot be manipulated is found, the first theory remains solid, but so does the second. For if one cannot be proven false then it cannot be proven correct either. That is where the story begins – with a question that has no answer yet, but a being that will go to the ends of time, space, and existence to find it.


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Thu Jul 22, 2021 7:44 am
KateHardy wrote a review...



Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

Anyway let's get right to it,

As the world rotates, and the planets navigate their way around the sun, each piece of the universe finds its rhythm and follows it. They travel through all of time and space to find their pattern, but when they find it they never leave. There is never a question raised that this could be the wrong pattern, or that there might be a better pattern. There is just this pattern that the world must follow.


Hmm, well, that's an interesting thought there, the fact that the world could all just be following a set pattern as everything in the universe goes about its routine moving around. Its a very interesting idea cause pretty much ever celestial body in the universe does move in some way or the other and to see that its some kind of pattern it must fellow is a interesting concept here.

Yet there is one section, only one plane, that remains still. Here, time does not pass, and rain does not fall. Not even the seasons change on this planet. It is as if it has been removed from existence. It is as if this planet, this world, has decided to rebel against the patterns holding the other worlds. To the other worlds, it does not exist.


Well, that's a grave sounding issue there, a planet that's rebelled somehow and decided its not going to follow the same pattern as the others...well, there's always one of those in a fully organized system so its not the most mysterious twist but the question of why this planet is doing what its doing is definitely there here.

Then again, what does it mean to truly exist? Is existing acting like the humans on Earth do? Does it mean to stumble around day after day doing the same thing without change? Is it like the Animas on Zekrin who never do the same thing twice? Or is it trapped like the Scarecrow that watches time, but never experiences it himself?


Okay...well, that's an interesting question about existence there, because it kind of switches out from the impartial narrator talking about the universe and the way that it functions to someone else wondering about existence, which is a bit of a sharp transition there, you
may want to look into making that a little clearer there.

Time is a very confusing thing. There are beings who say that it travels in one continuous line. It travels from start to finish, and when it reaches the end, it begins again. Then there are those beings who believe that time does as it pleases. They believe that time can be manipulated and changed for the intentions of the controller – if only they could know how to do so.


Well, aaand it switches to talking of time, there just appears to be a lot of things going on here, which is definitely a lot to take in here...cause there are so many things being discussed and it doesn't quite appear to connect to one another. All of these are pretty interesting though, this talk of how time appears to various beings definitely makes you think quite a bit.

Both theories are, as of now, correct. Both theories are, as of now, incorrect. Until proof that time can or cannot be manipulated is found, the first theory remains solid, but so does the second. For if one cannot be proven false then it cannot be proven correct either. That is where the story begins – with a question that has no answer yet, but a being that will go to the ends of time, space, and existence to find it.


Okay, aaand so this is the second part where some continuity happened, overall it felt like we had three seperate prologues here where they are loosely connected to each other but not quite...you may want to work on making this look a bit more cohesive here. For the most part though, this was all pretty interesting, so with a little bit of rearranging this could be a pretty awesome prologue here.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry




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Sun Aug 25, 2013 11:35 am
OliveDreams wrote a review...



Morning/Afternoon - I'm not really sure anymore! Here to review your work for review day! I will review as I read so that it will make a little more sense to both me and you. Otherwise, I tend to ramble away and no one wants that! Unless, you want to know what I'm having for dinner.....

I really like your idea! Its original and quirky. I'm already excited to read more!

I found your sentences quite long. Fling a few shorties in there to spice it up in your opening paragraphs. It will help with the rhythm and keep the reader interested for longer. There's nothing more daunting than looking at long sentence after long sentence.

You're clearly a very talented writer. I couldn't find any grammar errors or spelling mistakes. All I would say is that remember that some readers will find it a little harder to keep up with your concepts. Try to break it down a bit more. I don't even know what an Anima is.

Overall – It definitely grabbed my attention which is what any writer wants, right? Your length of paragraphs are good and your style is excellent.

Good luck! I hope to read more soon.

Olive <3




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Sun Aug 11, 2013 11:12 pm
SushiSashimi333 wrote a review...



Okay! Sushi here to help with flow and such. So I shall just do this paragraph by paragraph.
P1: Your first sentence is pretty long. I think you could shorten it easily but substituting the first comma with a period then adjusting the sentences accordingly. You also use the word pattern quite a lot. I would avoid using repetition this way and instead let the reader assume that it's the pattern that you are talking about.
P2: This one is pretty good. There's only one line that needs fixing because you could rephrase it to make it shorter and give it an easier flow.

It is as if this planet, this world, has decided to rebel against the patterns holding the other worlds.
The red part is what could easily be shortened. I won't do it for you, but if you could find some way to get rid of the word pattern that should help.
P3: Okay, you go from this one planet being a rebel to existing. This transition is a little confusing, but extremely deep. Also this line confused me because I don't know what these things are.
Is it like the Animas on Zekrin who never do the same thing twice?
What is an Animas? Is this a reference to something else or something within your book that comes in later? I would clear this up a bit.
P4: The flow here is good, but there's just one little place that you could fix somethings.
Then there are those beings who believe that time does as it pleases.
You don't need beings in here. I already figured from what was already said that this is a more sci-fi fantasy thing. Also "who" is a nice vague word that does just fine alone.
P5: This was a pretty good way to wrap up your prologue. There is just one nitpick with flow that I think you could change.
the first theory remains solid, but so does the second.
To make it seem more, mysterious I guess, replace the comma with a period. This way it seems like that part is an afterthought.
overall: I think that this plot will be really interesting and I look forward to seeing where you go with this. I feel like you could have given a bit more about the plot besides planets and changing things from what we are used to, but otherwise this was really good. I only focused on flow since that's what you asked for ^_^. Awesome job!
Sushi :D




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Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:48 am
StellaThomas wrote a review...



Hi there! Stella here! First things first, I'm writing this review on an iPad so any funky autocorrect nonsense you know where it came from.

So, as a rule, I hate prologues. I really do not like tbem. Why not? Because I don't feel like they add much to a story, in fact sometimes I feel like they subtract from it. Like here, you say that you want to keep an air of mystery. Then why are you telling us the deepest secrets of your story's universe? Physics mysteries are the most mysterious of all and for the most part in life we just generally accept them. But if, straightaway, you just threw us into a world where there was no time and things felt strange then whoa! I'm sure we'd be asking all the questions.

As it is, you've already told us that it works that way because it's on a different plane to everywhere else. So now we know. Yawn, what's next?

As a piece of writing it was good, it really was, but I just think that it's going to be detrimental to the rest of your story. I know it's tempting to do this, to get all the necessary information out in one big surge, but I think you can do better. Imagine this prologue wasn't here- how would you get this information across?

Okay, now I'm going to stop going on my anti-prologue rant. It is, of course, your story. You can have a prologue if you want a prologue.

The stylistic thing that stood out to me most here that I think needs some thought is voice. So is speaking right now? The narrator? They're pretty omniscient, are they going to stay like that for the whole novel? Or are you going to go for a closer third? What register are you going to take? I have to say that if it was the physics teacher voice for the whole novel I think I might get a bit bored, like one does in Physics class, wouldn't you?

Overall though I'm being overly harsh, this was a nice little piece of writing!

Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!

-Stella x




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Wed Aug 07, 2013 8:57 pm
officiallyariotxoxo wrote a review...



This is a really interesting story! It's amazing! I really love it. You have your capitals in the right place, your commas and periods are where they're supposed to be. It's just really good. I love your title as well. It's simple and it gets to the point, making the reader want to read more.

The other thing I want to point out, is that your paragraphs aren't so long, which doesn't make the story boring. I've seen a lot of stories where their paragraphs are REALLY long and it starts to get boring after a while, but your story has short paragraphs, so I like that! Keep em coming!




221B says...


Thank you! I've never been one for long paragraphs, they are a drag to write for me. >.< I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far!



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Wed Aug 07, 2013 8:53 pm
Laminated wrote a review...



Hello! Welcome to YWS! :D

This sounds like an immensely promising piece, and I'd love to hear more about it! Now, I can only partially critique the prologue, because I don't necessarily know who the narrator is, but I'll give it a shot.

First, this feels a bit too philosophical for a prologue. The first two paragraphs caught my attention nicely, but after that you lost the initial BAM, I think. A lot of what you say in the prologue *could* maybe be shown instead later. Possibly. Because I don't really know yet.

To me, personally, this sounds right now as an extremely well written book teaser-thing rather than the initial drumrolls of a novel. Do you pick up what I'm laying down?

Anyways, as the authour you obviously know where you're taking it far better than I do, and as it is you did an excellent job writing it. Keep it up, I definitely want to read this story.

Laminated




221B says...


Thank you for the lovely review! I can safely say, after editing this a few times, it is where it should be as the prologue. The character speaking is watching all of this happen, and that will be brought to light later on in the work. I'm glad you enjoyed it so far!

~ 221B



Laminated says...


That makes much more sense :) As the setting for a character's tale, rather than the background info of a novel, it's good.



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Wed Aug 07, 2013 7:47 pm
Caesar says...



keep me posted pls




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Wed Aug 07, 2013 7:31 am
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ToBeMe wrote a review...



Hey there, 221B. I'm here to review you (or try to) but first, let me just say Welcome to the site. :)

Now back to the whole reviewing thing. Firstly, I’d have to agree with the last two reviewers.

Like when EloquentDragon said: “I was personally confused as to what you were talking about in some parts. Perhaps try rewording, or choosing more appropriate words to make things clearer.”

Yes, there were times throughout the writing where it was a bit hard to follow but I think that if you were to change a few words here and there it probably would be easier to understand.

I thought that this prologue was very interesting though it did seem a little more like you were discussing an idea and not really starting a story. It seems very different from the stuff you normally see around and also very interesting.

It all sounds very mysterious and also something that I’d definitely want to read further on in the future. Though at the moment it is a little difficult to understand just where you are going with this as it is kind of vague.

I really want to know more about what’s going on here and this prologue doesn’t really tell you this so please keep writing.

ToBeMe
:)




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Wed Aug 07, 2013 3:08 am
EloquentDragon wrote a review...



Well, hey there 22. ED here to review.

First off: Your concept here sounds interesting. Something a bit different than the norm. It looks promising... expand on this!

That being said, I would suggest that you read this piece out loud. Make note of the way you've phrased things, how certain words fit together, and so on. This flows well for the most part, but it's a little rough in places.

That being said, you slip out of your "authorial" voice at times to use a more modern sounding voice. This is jarring to the reader, strive for consistency in your voice.

Now, personally, I would have liked to see this as more ambigious. Right now you've sort of info-dumped the reader. Try to give hints without "telling" us everything---show, don't tell.

I was personally confused as to what you were talking about in some parts. Perhaps try rewording, or chosing more appropriate words to make things clearer.

Anyways, I hope this helps. It will be interesting to see what you turn this into.
-ED




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Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:55 am
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ArcticMonkey wrote a review...



Hiya 221B! Firstly, welcome to YWS :D

Now onto your story. I thought this was very cool and a really good read. Although it didn't really seem much like a story and more like a discussion point, it really still really interesting to read. This might partially to do with the fact that I just love talking about the universe and why we're here and such, but I still think that you've written about it really well. It's left me feeling very intrigued and leaves me wanting more!

As the world rotates, as the planets navigate their way around the sun, as each piece of the universe finds its rhythm and follows it, there is one section, one plane so small it is like trying to find one particular atom in a football field without any magnification, that remains still.

Okay, so opening sentence to your story is rather long and wordy. Try reading it aloud, or even in your head, and you might find it's a bit hard. I suggest getting rid of the repeated 'as's' because they take up space as it where, and maybe breaking this down into more than one sentence. Your first sentence needs to draw people in, state something controversial, something different! That will draw in the readers a bit more.

In all honesty, I'm not really sure of what other suggestions I can give you here because this is a prologue and you haven't really started the plot yet. As far as prologues go, they don't need to include any plot info at all really. But maybe this would benefit from including just a little bit more. Right now at the end, it's all very vague and mysterious, you could continue to be vague and mysterious, but just talk about it a bit more. Maybe make it more specific to a character so that they know they're going to read an amazing story and not just a philosophical book.

Now, I think the strong point of this whole piece is what you're talking about. I'm kind of crazy for this kind of stuff, but I genuinely find it really interesting, so perhaps you could go into more detail about it. Talk about this controller and their intentions with the universe. Talk more about if everything does happen for a reason here. You may even choose to be quite descriptive and talk a lot about space a bit more. You could even try and use some metaphors and add a bit of a poetic vibe to this.

A quick note to add is that I noticed a lot of these sentences were long, complex sentences. Although it's great that you can use these so well (I've often found them a bit tricky), it's also important to vary your sentence lengths otherwise it can get a tad boring. I'd like to see a few more shorter, snappier sentences, to change the pace a bit and stop it from all being long sentences.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and I'd love to read more so please let me know if you post anymore up! I think you were talking about a really cool topic here. My critiques include the fact that it was quite vague and everything was a bit airy, so maybe you could go into more detail. I hope this review helped! Feel free to PM me with any questions you have or if you'd like another review on anything.

Keep writing!
~Arc x




221B says...


I realized a lot of things after reading through this a few times, but most of the mystery is meant to be there. This short introduction is the basis of the entire story and will be gone back to time and time again. I haven't done any revising on this story yet, and it's getting pretty long, but hopefully it will make more sense once more of the story is up. Thank you very much for the review, I will keep all of this in mind when editing this work in the future. (:



ArcticMonkey says...


Oh okay :) Can't wait to read more!



221B says...


I started to edit it a bit. Hopefully its starting to flow a bit better now. ^^




Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
— Charles Mingus