Young Writers Society

I really liked your prologue, or the prologue of the prologue. Under most circumstances, "random" and literature don't mix. In this case, though, the linear nature of the thing, in addition to its mysteriousness, made it work.

Now, onto my problems with it:

Power was the one thing my parents…or rather…our parents never thought about when they conceived us. Modern religions, mostly Christianity, Catholicism, or others, would have known Mother and Father to be Adam and Eve. The first. However, Mother and Father did not spawn the world as thought, they only…waited until other changes such as man, or humans, came along before giving birth. Mother always wanted to know why, while Father was constantly asking how? Both were searching for an answer they never found. And the only thing that I am left with are a secret and two questions. Why us, why are we the way we are? And how, how did this come to be?

As I look over the world now, laying before me like an unexplained problem, I can’t help but think that I just may be able to ace the two point test my parents gave to me. The constant jabbering of my siblings (minus three) keeps my focus on the present situation, not allowing me to lock myself away in my mind. There would be eight of us altogether if Mother and Father were here, but no matter how hard I try, I just CANNOT accept those two things as my brethren. And some days…

Hi! And Welcome to YWS!

I hope you enjoy the site as much as I have!

But back to your Prologue...

I felt as though it was kind of an info dump...sort of. You just basically told us the background...in a different sort of way. I'm not sure how to explain it but I felt as though some of the information you gave us wasn't needed...

Plus, if this is a Prologue, you need to incorporate a way to yank your reader into the story. Prologues are meant to capture the readers attention. Yours was really slow moving. I didn't really get into it until the last few sentences when your two characters were having a conversation.

Also, the info about Mother and Father...that was kind of confusing. I definitely suggest you expand that, let us in to your idea of what you want to go here.

And the thought of your title...hmmm...I'm not really sure. I haven't really gotten a big enough look at your story to give you suggestions about that. My only advise would be that when the name of your title comes....it will come!

Keep Writing!

You are my post numero uno!

First off, I would like to pledge my undying love to you! With that out of the way I can get on to the review. Since you said that this wasn't as edited and such as the version you sent me I won't comment on any of the little things. (Maybe you could try sending it to a different one of my e-mail accounts? I'm wondering if it was Yahoo!'s fault.)

I like the underlying concept of the work. Then again how could I not when I'm already in love with Rae? The prolouge may seem a bit confusing and it might put some readers off but it definitely is intriguing and poses some questions that I'm sure you'll answer in time. I personally think that it's refreshing to see someone challenging their readers to look closely at the dynamics of what's going on within their piece.

I do agree that some of the ellipses make the flow awkward. I read through it and found that though they did give it a sort of disjointed rythm I felt that there might be a way to tweak it so it would be more reader friendly. I guess I was just wondering if there would be a different technique to use that would give the same effect but without the awkward feeling that some of your readers say they encountered.

I'm really not saying much that's helpful, huh?

I guess it's probably because I'm biased due to the fact that I lurves you and have always thought your writing was divine <3

I can't wait to read more~
-Nub

i like it, but its a little confusing. I hope your enjoying YWS by the way. This prolouge didnt really catch my attention however. It was slightly boring, and thus took me a very long time to read. Sorry, but it was rather dull...

hi and welcome to YWS but before you post you should make two reviews first and try to keep it for every one post you do have two reviews anyway onto the story i did like the idea behind it and it is interesting but i felt as though i had to fight myself to read the whole thing, but i got through it, maybe you could add more character traits in the beginning and you also could use more of a hook to make me want to read more, yes like you said you had fragments which you probably know where they are already so i won't mention them but you have to fix them no matter what because fragments just stop the flow of things and really stop the readers interest. so to review what i mentioned

you need to get a hook
you need to describe the characters more
and you need to fix all of the fragments
i think that it CAN be a good start if you would fix these things and once again welcome to YWS
---Jon---

Hmmm... I will say that this confused me a bit.

The main thing was the infodumps in the dialogue that actually didn't reveal anything. The dialogue felt a bit stunted and unnatural. Perhaps it may be because these obviously aren't mortals, but it still makes it frustrating to read. And at the same time, the dialogue has a great deal of information that's being hinted at without being given. It makes the reader feel as though there is some inside joke that they aren't getting as everyone around them laughs.

I'll second the comments above me about the underlining and all caps: change them to italics. Italics just look much more elegant and still convey the same meaning of emphasis. And if, as in the first sentence, you want to put emphasis on a word that is already italics among italics, just leave it unitalicized.

For example, I wantthisword to be emphasized.

See?

Anyway, it is a bad idea to confuse your readers in the prologue. It puts them off, since this is the first impression they will be getting of your work. But the writing is good and I think this could be an interesting story.

*thumbs up* Keep on writing and welcome to YWS!

~GryphonFledgling

Hmm, there isn't much to say beyond what clograbby already mentioned in terms of minor grammatical errors.

Since this is a prologue, and you obviously have things planned out, it's logical that you've given us the questions to have in mind when continuing. That's fine, as long as the questions are well-defined and answered, eventually. Here's what I came up with - you can check to see if there are things that you thought were clear, or things that you wanted to bring up but weren't noticed.

1. The protagonist thinks in terms of Mother through his asking of "Why?" questions. His is the motive force, not the operative "how." He is searching for a reason, while his Brother is searching for a way. Fair enough.

2. He speaks of Mother and Father in terms that are admiring but troubled. However, when he refers to the two "things" that he cannot accept, it seems, literally speaking, that you're indicating the Mother/Father. I get the feeling that you're talking about two of the six siblings, but it's not exactly clear.

3. Oneza (makes me think of Portagee Oreza from Tom Clancy ) is definitely showing leanings towards Mother. When he speaks of "the head of the family", he cannot finish the sentence.

4. Actually, now I'm confused. Mother and Father are referred to as the "firsts," with their hundreds of followers in opposition to the siblings. This means point 2 is moot, in retrospect, and that things make a bit more sense. So this is an intergenerational struggle between the differences of the "firsts" and the "seconds"?

5. Triple negative... "that does not mean that they wouldn’t have hundreds of their followers with the damned ability not there." Simplified by cross-canceling, it means that it does mean that there wouldn't be followers with Hitaleuketsor. An odd argument (We shouldn't go because they won't be there), unless I've misread it, or you mis-wrote it.

6. Amnae is dead. How does that figure into the "eight of us altogether" statement? Does it count the deceased, and, if not, what is the significance of that?

7. Once again, Oneza shows his leaning towards the Mother. The line "tell him" suggests that they are in communication? Or is that merely his wish? If he accepts Mother, that means he's answered the "why," but he's still searching for acceptance from Father, the "how." This is demonstrated by his refusal to move with Ornaph, isn't it? Interesting.

-----

Cheers, and I hope that that gave you some things to think about.

Welcome to YWS!

I'm guessing you're unaware of this but there's this:

ONE RULE TO RULE THEM ALL: BEFORE you post a piece of your own, you need to review two other works. It's only fair. The reviews to posting ratio should be 2:1.

Okay, but I will review this and hope you get onto the reviewing yourself!

I don't think the underlining of certain words is necessary. Then again, it's in italics so you probably feel that there's nothing else to do with the words for emphasis...I would suggest dealing with it the way it is without the underlining, OR de-italicize everything else and then italicize those words you want emphasized.

Power was the one thing my parents…or rather…our parents never thought about when they conceived us.

And the only thing that I am left with are a secret and two questions.

the supposedly “mature” eldest mutter back