Hi, Ashley123! I'm Pan and I'll be reviewing your work today.
First Impressions
This was certainly dramatic. It held my attention all the way through, and you certainly create a lot of interesting questions. What illness does the mother have? What does the journal contain? You've got some nice description and imagery, too, though you're a bit weaker on dialogue - you often overdo it, and the actual formatting of it often makes it look amateurish. There's also quite a few hitches in grammar, but I'll get to those in a moment.
I don't think this reads like a prologue. It feels like a first chapter to me, and it would probably be better if you classed it as that. Some people skip prologues, so they shouldn't really contain any information that you couldn't understand the story without. This seemed pretty key to the plot.
Realism is probably my biggest concern for this piece, which I'll talk about both as I go on and at the end of the review. There are some things you're going to need to change about this chapter just to keep it realistic. Nevertheless, they are things you can work around, so don't worry too much.
Nitpicks
They had put Lyra in isolation the minute she had come in, they assumed it was a third world disease like Ebola, or Dengue Fever.
1) This is a comma splice. Because 'They had put Lyra in isolation the minute she had come in' and 'They assumed it was a third world disease like Ebola or Dengue Fever' are both independent clauses which can make sense on their own, it's incorrect to separate them with a comma. Swap the first comma with a full stop or a semi-colon.
(This error pops up a few times in the piece, so I'd recommend checking out this YWS topic for a quick explanation about comma splices. It will help with figuring out how to both identify and fix them).
2) You don't need the comma after 'Ebola'.
“Don’t worry ma’am, we’ll figure out what is happening to you.” The doctor said
Two issues here.
1) When somebody addresses someone in dialogue, be it by their name or by some other vocative, you usually need a comma before it. Like this:
"Don't do that, Jack!"
"Pass me the gravy, dear."
"That's the most exquisite hat, madam."
So, in these circumstances, there should be a comma before 'ma'am'. Watch out for those kind of mistakes in editing.
2) Dialogue punctuation. This is something a lot of people trip up on, but it's better to sort it sooner rather than later. When you have speech that has a dialogue tag on the end (a dialogue tag is something like 'he said', 'the man said', 'Kathy said') then you must never close said dialogue with a full stop. You must also make sure that, with the exception of when you're using a proper noun, the dialogue tag doesn't begin with a capital letter. I'll use some examples to illustrate.
"Stop doing that." He said.
This is incorrect because, as you can see, the dialogue closes with a full stop. 'He' is also capitalised. The correct way to write it would be:
"Stop doing that," he said.
It's also worth noting that, even when dialogue closes with an exclamation mark or question mark, you still don't capitalise the first letter of the dialogue tag. So these would be wrong:
"Give me the stupid ball!" He snapped.
"Have you seen Emily?" The girl asked.
The correct way to write them is as follows:
"Give me the stupid ball!" he snapped.
"Have you seen Emily?" the girl asked.
There are NO circumstances where the first letter of a dialogue tag should be capitalised (unless, obviously, you're using a person's name). So if you see 'He said' or 'She said' or 'They said', you know you've gone wrong.
The only circumstances where it's appropriate to close speech with a full stop is when there's no dialogue tag. So this would be acceptable:
"I can see the prancing cats from here."
Dialogue punctuation can be tiring to get to grips with because a lot of it is so arbitrary, but it will become automatic if you practise it enough. By all means, check out this short article for a fuller guide to punctuation in dialogue, as I haven't covered everything here.
She grabbed his arm, digging her nails into his skin.
This is where the realism really suffers. If the doctors suspect that Lyra has Ebola, there aboslutely no way that they would let someone go near her with exposed skin. Ebola can be transmitted via sweat and other bodily fluids and doctors take ridiculous, ridiculous precautions when treating people who have it. I remember seeing something about it during the epidemic a few years ago - doctors would literally have to be completely covered, and when they left the patient's room they had to have each item of protective equipment carefully removed and then sterilised. There's no way this doctor would be so reckless as to let her touch him. I'll talk a little more about this at the end of the review.
“F-f-find me my daughter. I need to see her n-now!!”
Be careful that you don't overuse stammering. It's one of those things that can look incredibly parodied and fake if it's not used very sparingly, and you use it a lot in this piece.
Also, never use more than one exclamation mark or question mark at a time. Doubling up on them makes your writing look quite amateurish.
“I WANT TO SEE MY DAGHTER NOW!!!!”
Aside from the obvious typo, you need to cut back on the exclamation marks here as well; it makes it seem like you're trying way too hard to make the dialogue dramatic. Also, don't represent emphasis with capital letters - that's another thing that makes writing look amateurish. Using italics instead. They're the standard in literature.
She is age, seven.”
Don't need that comma.
He made his way over to the chairs where one little girl sat.
Why on earth isn't somebody with her? The girl is seven. Her mum's dying. There's no way one of the doctors or nurses wouldn't be supervising her.
She saw Lyra in the ambulance over there
Where is 'there'? Be specific, not vague.
Her mother would teach her the lesson of pain, over, and over again.
Frank impressions of this line? It makes it sound like her mother hit her to teach her to cope with pain. That's the image that 'lesson of pain' conjures up in my mind, so I'd definitely consider changing it.
Mom stop acting like your dying, - “
Ah, a grammar sticker's favourite. It should be 'you're' here, not 'your'. Also, you don't need the comma at the end. Closing it solely with a dash is quite enough.
But there’s some things that you just don’t understand. AGGHHHH!!!”
Advice: do not try and write screams in dialogue. It always looks corny. Just describe the character's scream in your prose. I guarantee it will be more effective.
But when she looked up, she heard a flatline. And she saw her mother’s cold dead eyes stare at her from beyond the grave.
How would she be able to hear and see what was happening in the room when they've carried her out of it? They wouldn't just plonk her outside the doors on her own. They'd take her somewhere else and try to calm her down.
Overall Thoughts
1) In overview, this is a really solid start to your story, but you let your desire for drama get in the way of realism and subtlety. Your dialogue is over-the-top, and the last section where Lyra dies feels like it's trying too hard to tug on my heartstrings. You focus on the emotional turmoil in so much detail that it actually loses all of its impact. Less is more. Don't try and make the audience feel things; just tell the story as it appears and let them decide how to react to it. Forcing a response makes the writing feel like a pantomime.
2) On the subject of realism, there's a lot of things that need tending to in this chapter. Number one: there is absolutely no way that the doctors would let Casiel come into the room if they suspected Lyra of having Ebola. It is far, far too dangerous, not to mention impractical, as they'd have to deck her out in protective gear (which they wouldn't have in her size anyway) and then sterilise it all when she left. There's no way they'd let her take a journal from her mother, given the chances of it being contaminated. Why would they even let her have the journal in the room anyway? It's not like she's in a fit state to sit up and write.
There's also the trauma aspect. Exposing a seven-year-old to their violently haemorrhaging mother just would not fly, not on the mother's orders. That's the kind of thing that could screw a kid up permanently.
So, how do you deal with this problem? The easiest solution, I think, would be to remove the Ebola suspicions. Make Lyra's deterioration less violent and remove the fear of contagion, because only with those changes would the doctors a) let her keep her journal in her possession and b) let Casiel in to see her. That's one possibility. You could also change it so that Casiel is not allowed in to see her mother before she dies. Perhaps Lyra uses her last breath convincing one of the doctors to pass a message onto her daughter, telling her the whereabouts of the journal. I'm just spitballing here. It's your story, so it's completely up to you how you resolve the problem.
3) I like your eye for detail. Your description is specific and engaged with the scene, which is something I love to see. A lot of writers fall prey to bland, sweeping descriptions of settings which never get into the specifics that bring writing to life. You are not one of those writers. That said, I think you could definitely exploit the sense of smell more than you do. The smell of hospitals is so distinctive and evocative that it seems a waste for you to not pay any attention to it.
4) When you edit this, I want you to do it from the perspective of trying to get rid of words. You have a habit of expressing things in overly-wordy, sometimes convoluted ways. Take this bit:
Black blood spattered across her face, appearing in a tar like manner.
This bit struck me as strange, needlessly lengthy expression. It could be cut down to be so much more concise. If you had something like:
Black, tarry blood was spattered across her face.
It's just an example, but you can see how rephrasing it has made it so much briefer, and by extension so much clearer. That's what I want you to do with all of your writing. Every line, every phrase - ask yourself if there's a way you can tighten it up and express it more briefly. That will sharpen up your prose and make it so much more effective. Editing is what you take out, not what you add in.
I'll call the review there. Overall, this isn't a bad start to your story. It certainly didn't bore me, which is the first hurdle to overcome, and I think it has the potential to go somewhere very interesting. Just tone it down. Work on the realism. Cut out the melodrama. With a bit more subtlety, this could be an excellent piece.
I hope this was helpful! PM me if you've any questions.
Keep writing!
~Pan
Points: 46598
Reviews: 641
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