(A/N: This is the prologue to my ongoing novel, Shoplifting Vampires. Before each chapter, there is a short passage of an informal police interview between the protagonist Rev Craily and a detective, and she is telling him the truth of what happened in 2017, which is when the main story takes place)
September 2022 - Hale’s Rest Police Station
“The first news we heard of the supermarket was when they began to build it. I mean, the construction site practically sprung up overnight, with no warning. Half the town was woken up in the early hours of the morning due to the construction, which seemed to echo loudly in every direction. Even I heard it - that never-ending clanging and banging and drilling - at six o’clock in the morning. And I was pissed. I didn’t want to be up that early, especially not in the summer holidays. But of-”
“And this was August, right?” DC Burke questioned.
I ignored him. If you interrupt me, you don’t get the answers you want.
“But of course,” I continued “my phone had already been plagued with texts from everyone, with like, almost thirty from Spikey alone. I didn’t answer them; I never did. They knew that if they wanted to reach me, they needed to come to my window, preferably at night. I was never one for texting. No, so, then I got up, and I got dressed and I had some breakfast and I put on my dad’s old leather jacket and sunglasses - that was my trademark look at the time - and grabbed my bike. I mean, no way was a supermarket being built in this town! Not without our permission and not right on top of our base. Did I mention the base yet? I’ll get to it.”
I paused and took a breath. Detective Burke was a good man and a hell of a good listener. I knew I had time to give him every detail of the story, because he was patient and always took the time to understand me. God knows he’d run into me enough at the police station when I was a kid. He leaned forward, his eyes fixed on me, waiting for me to continue.
“Anyway, I had this grandiose superiority God complex back then, with this belief that whatever I said was gospel, and whatever I said happened, happened. I genuinely thought that these builders would stop their construction if I just rocked up there and told them to. So I cycled over there right, a cigarette in my mouth, thinking I was all cool and hard, and I joined the crowd of residents that had formed around the construction site. They were all upset and confused but me? I was just angry. That’s what I was, that whole summer. Angry. I was the first to throw rocks at the builders. Ha! Like it was their fault. Anyway, then Spikey and Rusty and Nails joined in and then everyone else and then the police got involved. So I guess if you were to ask when it all started, which you did, I’d say that’s where it all began. That moment, that anger - it sparked something within me. And not just me. I think that’s the moment the whole town went mad.”
“Well,” DC Burk took a deep breath in, and as he exhaled he looked me so intensely in the eyes, like he was looking for a sign. “that’s certainly a dramatic start to this whole situation.”
“Haven’t you met me yet?” I wished ever so badly that I had a cigarette as I leant over the desk towards him, so I could tap the ash out onto the table like every bad guy in every police interview scene ever. If I’d had one, I’d have inhaled it before I spoke again. “I’m Rev Craily, everything I do is dramatic.”
Then I would have blown the smoke into that smug detective’s face and chuckled.
“It’s in my blood.”
End of chapter
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Respond to or like this message to be added to the tag list so you know when another chapter comes out <3
Pls tag me. Haven't read a supernatural in a while so I wanna pick this up when I have time.
Tag me please! I like this story so far!
This is interesting. Shoplifting vampires? I can’t wait to read more. I think that Rev might be a vampire, but I could be wrong. (I think that Rev might be a vampire though). Why would a shop be built without a permit? In a town? Something larger is definitely at play. I’ll be sure to check out the other chapters and follow Rev’s adventures.
I wish you a wonderful day and night.
Hi Green, here with a review. I actually read this piece when it first went into the green room, wrote half a review, aaaand forgot to finish it (smh). So now that I have some time on my hand, here goes...
First impressions
I really like this quick exchange as a prologue. It gives us a taste of our MC and who he is, a bit of his personality, and some mystery to top it off. It's a short and sweet hook.
I really like this idea. I've seen it done before with diary entries of the sort but not with police reports. I think it can be a cool side plot to follow throughout the novel that might at some point become the main plot point of the story.
Characterization
I love how Rev literally oozes dramatism throughout every line of dialogue or narration. This is particularly prevalent because it's in first person. The fact that you held out till the end for this statement
Really makes all the other over-the-top dialogue and narration work. It's a bit like a 'ooooh that explains a lot' moment just to clarify it's not just dramatic dialogue for the sake of being dramatic.
Stuff like:
and
really highlight the voice of Rev.
One kind of inconsistency I picked up:
Here Durke is super attentive and he seems like a nice guy. Here however:
Smug isn't exactly fitting what we knew of Durke a few paragraphs ago. He seems alot more disinterested when you use that word. I don't know if I missed something but it's just a weird inconsistency I picked up in Durke's mood.
That's it from me. Take what you find useful and discard the rest!
Keep well and keep writing.
The reaper sends his regards...
thank you so much for the review <3
Hey @Thediffident here to review your interesting piece!
Firstly, I really liked the concept of how you explained the plotline of the piece via a brief interview. Your writing style was incredible and the use of simple and to the point words made it extremely easy for the readers to understand the whole scenario and get a better understanding of both the speakers. Amazing work!
I loved how you started the piece by explaining the story about a mere supermarket. It sounded pretty simple and ordinary at first but the more I read, the more mysterious and supernatural it sounded.
I see that you've also added a timeline here about when the supermarket part of the story took place. Correct if I'm wrong, it also tells me that the supermarket and the rocks incident wasn't the only one that led to the interview between the speakers and that there is definitely more to it. That was very clever of you to let the readers know this in just a short line.
This line made me extremely curious about a lot of things such as:
Why did the crowd join Rev when they weren't angry in the first place? They were just confused so what caused the sudden change of attitude? Was it Rev's anger? Is she supernatural? etc etc
In short, even though this piece was short, but for a prologue it was perfect! It aroused a lot of questions, made me extremely curious as well as excited to learn more. Bravo!
This line was definitely my favourite! I know from the title that this plot does include vampires (love the title by the way) and the last line was definitely (correct me if I'm wrong) a subtle hint that Rev is a vampire. Furthermore, we know that DC Burke had known Rev ever since she was a kid which means that he may also know that Rev is supernatural. Great work explaining this!
Overall, your piece was phenomenal and extremely captivating. It was an honour to review this. Looking forward to reading more of it!
Love, Andy.
Also omg I just noticed your username and the name of the main protagonist (I'm slow) so is this like a fictional (unless you're supernatural in real life :0) story from the pov of the author itself? I'd love to know more about how you wrote Rev as a character. She seems badass.
thank you so much for the review! Hopefully I can answer some of your questions!
Yep you're correct! The supermarket and rock incident happened in august 2017, and this interview is happening in 2022 so there's 5 years between them.
This is a good couple of observations! The town is shown later on to be very close-knit and hate change, so they were already gathered to protest the new building of the supermarket but Rev got super angry and started throwing rocks, inspiring the others to join in, but it could be hinted she has supernatural influences over humans.
and yeah i named the character rev after myself, my online usernames have involved the name 'rev' for many years so i thought i'd finally use the name in the story! I based her looks when she is a teen off of me when i was that age, and her personality I just tried to make her mysterious and interesting aha
Thankyou you much for answering my questions<3
I love the idea of making a character based on yourself! So unique and creative!!
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: This was a really lovely prologue here. I think its sets the scene nicely for the style of story to follow, given it looks like this interview is meant to play out all throughout the story if I understood that author's note correctly. And its also just really interesting in just how much anticipation it builds for the story to come.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Oooh well this seems like a pretty interesting setting already. We're seeing someone given what appears to be a pretty solid and nicely detail account here of some accident. The scene there is being set really nicely. It looks like our person here must have some sort of experience with this sort of thing before or is just exceptionally observant. The somewhat rude dismissal of the Detective's question suggests the former. It doesn't look like just anyone would be that confident completely ignoring a question and just continuing with the story.
OOooh okay this is really nice. For starters even better detail that I am really loving so far. The scene is already so vivid here and we've hardly gotten to whatever the meat of this matter is. I do like the little nod to showcase their relationship even more though. I think its a wonderful way to establish a connection between the two and suddenly cast those earlier actions in a different light so we can understand exactly why this interview is proceeding in the way that it is. That reveal came far quicker than I was expecting to be honest.
Ohhh.... well that's quite interesting. Now we've gone from just this person having observed some sort of things to suddenly making our character here be somehow the cause of whatever went down, or at least we're seeing that there's some connection between this person's actions and what went down and that makes things that much more exciting.
AHHHHH...I am so torn at this scene. Its a very cheeky place to end because its very much classic and very cliche point to go ahead and end on but also this one seems to be a little bit more aware of that and Craily here is doing this all on purpose knowing fully well what is going on. I think the best way to put this would be that I hate how much I love this ending, which is to say I really love this ending.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, I think a strong start here. Definitely does more than enough here to make sure that I have no choice now but to go read the next part because this just sets up so very well.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Kate
thank you for the review!
Very interesting story so far. Good plot potential. It is kinda boring, so ya should probably add more action to the story. But good on ya for doing the setting well. I look forward to seeing more of this on here. Wouldn't this all be the epilogue though, because the protagonist is explaining what happened in an event, so it's safe to assume that all this took place already, so what???
yeah, i mentioned that at the top. Each chapter is intersliced with a police interview. This is the prologue lol.
i chose to write the story this was as the first chapter begins with the aftermath of the riot described in this part lol. The first chapter is posted if you wanted to read it!. Thank you for the review