Prologue
A figure sits in an expensive glass chair gazing at the
hologram of an island before him. He sits with one hand supporting his head as
it leans over in exhaustion while the other hand occasionally grabs at an
object on the hologram and moves it to another location. He sighs and taps the
screen; it shifts to an alien like animal, similar to a raptor; it is in
min-strike and its eyes gaze at some invisible prey. He taps its long claws and
extends them another few inches. He then proceeds to bringing the island back
up again and placing the creatures in multiple locations.
A swooping noise comes from behind; the glass doors open
quickly and a tall man walks in, a figure of authority.
“Not still hiding away in here Alister? You know you can’t
just live on coffee and cigarettes?” The man says whilst walking down the
gradually descending ringed tiers of deserted consoles. He laughs, “It would be
a shame if my gamekeeper went mad before his grand show wouldn’t it?”
Alister turns his chair around to face the man who is now
standing in front of him, hands in his pockets. Alister lights a cigarette and
bluntly replies “It is ready. Just some finishing touches.” The dimily glowing
hologram of the island slowly rotates behind him, lighting up both their faces
with a ghostly blue.
“When should we begin?”
“Probably four days from now, maybe more?”
The man smiles, “The fans are waiting, they will all know
the name of Alistar Holmes, youngest gamekeeper in history!”
Alistar smiles back with a wide grin, showing his pearl like
teeth, “That sounds really good sir. Don’t worry, this will be the best games
yet.”
“I will tell my people that you are ready, they will
organize the competitors and arrange your reward.” He then turns to walk up the
stairs, his boots creating a slight clank against the glass stairs. He stops
halfway up then motions with his hand for Alistar to follow. Alistar gets up
with a groan and he trots up the stairs leaving the doors to close with a thud
behind him. The room darkens as they leave.
The ghostly hologram still spinning, spinning, spinning…
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,006 Literary Works • 672,809 Reviews
Pretty interesting so far.
I like the way you started the chapter. Beginning with the creator and all that. This section makes the reader want to know what happens next. Keep writing and updating because you are an awesome writer and people are waiting to read what happens next.
- That situation with a review
Hey, Alex! The name's Storm, and I'll be reviewing for ya tonight!
Also, should "min-strike" be "mid-strike"? And "alien like" needs to have a dash in the middle.
When you wrote "dimily", do you mean "dimly"?
I thought it was a good start, Alex! Do not get discouraged, so as always: Write on!
Before I begin, allow me to say that I agree with Deifyance on the statement that this piece is a strong foundation for a larger storyline. It got me interested. Now, onto corrections! Your original context is italicized.
"He sighs and taps the
screen; it shifts to an alien like animal, similar to a raptor; it is in
min-strike and its eyes gaze at some invisible prey."
Maybe you should remove the semi-colon after "screen" and "raptor" because they don't make much sense there. Try combining the sentences in another way.
"'You know you can’t
just live on coffee and cigarettes?” The man says...
"The" needs to be lower-cased here since someone is speaking, and it's sort of like a continuation of the phrase.
"Alister lights a cigarette and
bluntly replies 'It is ready. Just some finishing touches.' The dimily glowing...
You left out a comma after "replies". It's an easy mistake to glance right over.
“It would be a shame if my gamekeeper went mad before his grand show wouldn’t it?”
Don't forget to put a comma after "show"!
“'The fans are waiting, they will all know
the name of Alistar Holmes, youngest gamekeeper in history!'”
Instead of placing a comma after "are waiting", don't you think a period would seem more grammatically fitting?
“'That sounds really good sir.'"
Because Alistar is addressing someone else, a comma is necessary prior to "sir."
Overall, I thought it was well pieced together. However, the paragraph formatting and the poor, short sentence structure did slightly reduce the prologue's flow. It seemed elementary. Try switching up your sentence structure to more complex one sometimes, and I think that this will cause the story to become more reader friendly.
---Stormsie
I totally agree with you all! Thanks for the help with the prologue! I'll post the revised version; maybe today?
This is a great foundation! I think that the writing is very mature for your listed age! Don't let anyone ever tell you to stop writing!
I'll start with the thing I have a problem with.
I would like to see it better formatted, putting dialog on separate lines. It makes the reading flow better and gives our eyes a break from a wall of text.
And that's the end of that!
Now to the many thing's I thoroughly enjoyed.
The opening on a character was very well written. We immediately begin to learn about the character based on his small quirks and his surroundings. We immediately gain an understanding of his place and role in the world.
The dialog is very well written. It flows and seems extremely natural. Good work with that. Continue to add quirks to the characters through their dialog to add depth.
You leave us with just good enough of a cliffhanger to leave us wanting more. We understand that there is more depth to the story then just some kids on an island. The story is a bit more complicated than just a survival story. I can't help but feel traces of LOST and THE HUNGER GAMES. Both of which I love.
I'm looking forward to reading more!
Blessings.
This is very cool and your writing is very mature for your age;very well written even tough there are a few mistakes. I'm definitely getting a hunger games vibe which isn't necessarily a bad thing considering the premise of that story is interesting, but I really hope you don't try to copycat it. I like how your descriptions give just enough for the reader to immerse himself in the situation. On the other hand, I wish that you try to alienate the reader by making these extraterrestrials seem more foreign to our culture. Having them smoking cigarettes with a description resembling humans isn't the best start in my opinion. Get creative, make sure the reader knows that these E.T's are nothing like humans. Overall, good start, just make sure that this doesn't become something generic.
I will try and make it more ET. It's not my intention to copy other authors stuff, and it wont be.
Keep writing it tough, i'm a definitely read your next chapter!
First of all, I love the name 'Alistar'. I just think it is a really good name.
I like how you kept this short, that way I think it's more appealing.
Since you don't give us too much information, it really keeps people waiting for a chapter one, which I am already excited to see.
I love how you had very thorough descriptions, which gave your prologue length.
Now, what I didn't like was how on some lines you split a sentence in half. that really sets the flow off.
Liked the beginning, can't wait for more.
herby
I notice that you had a formatting issue. Also, I wanted to point something out. The holographic thing, the mention of the games... This looks like it's going to be a copy of "The Hunger Games" movie. I think that instead of games, you should make it an experiment of some sort. That's just my opinion. You also have some minor grammar errors that are distracting, and a few sentences that run awkwardly.
This sentence is just kinda awkward. I think the word "it" should be replaced with "he". I think that it would really make the flow a lot better. You have some missing commas, and your formatting is very distracting. I hope this helped. Keep writing, I'm intrigued to see where this is going to go.
I didn't spot those errors, thank you!
Only this chapter will be similar to the hunger games, the rest is my ideas.
I forgot to edit before posting. Thanks for pointing out the errors. Very constructive.
What i mean is that the hunger game thing is just the layout of the console room.