Prologue
September 3rd, 1893
Out of this ugliness may come,
Some day, so beautiful a flower,
That men will wonder at that hour,
Remembering smoke and flowerless slum,
And ask--glimpsing the agony
Of slaves who wrestle to be free--
'But why were all the poets so dumb?'
- W. Montgomerie
The side-streets of Edinburgh were cold, dark, and dank as they were since the first stone was laid. Laughter could be heard from the late comers and goers, customers and girls, of the Open Barrel. They could have been mistaken for original members, if not for the age gap they were the same continuously drunk and loud, but harmless. They staggered down the alley, swaying this way and that, shouting pleasantries and non pleasantries at each other in sport. The night was as calm a September night as most come to be at the end of the summer in the far reaches of Scotland.
"Molly, girl, ye sure ye dont want a walk home?" One tipsy gent called to the girl who had stopped as she hiked her skirts up and proceeded to head down another of the cities uninhabited streets.
"No but thank ye Max, ye a good man." Molly called as she turned and curtsied almost falling over her skirts in her drunken like manner.
Max bowed and turned to the rest as they waved and laughed wildly. Wine, beer, and other obscenities brought an ugly stench to the sweet air and Molly coughed as tried to wrap her shawl a little more tightly around her. The walkways and streets became darker near Molly's apartment, thus making it impossible for Molly to see much as she blindly flipped and flopped around like a fish on dry land. Finally, after much searching, Molly found the patio which opened up on her back door. But there was a figure, or what she thought was one, standing in her way. She called out, "Mista?" As to see if it was. The figure didn't answer back, but before Molly could ask what was going on, she had already said too much.
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Canary word: Present
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125,028 Literary Works • 672,774 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm Knight Hardy here on a mission to ensure that all works on YWS has at least two reviews. You will probably never see this but....Imma do this anyway.
First Impression: For a prologue this does its job really well. It establishes the time period and the setting of the novel very well in the first few paragraphs and then in that last one it introduces us to who I am assuming will be the killer that this novel is focused on. And in that introduction you've done a great job keeping it mysterious without giving away any details. And that last line especially was a very chilling ending.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Okay definitely a pretty decent place to start things off by setting the scene for what's about to happen. It's a nice little description.
Well that definitely establishes even more of the setting there. I'm not an expert on history but that seems like pretty good
I think this one could be broken into two smaller paragraphs probably at a place like the "finally" just to give the whole thing a little bit more of a punch but other than that its another pretty nice description followed by a very mysterious ending. It's definitely very mysterious and leaves you wanting to know more especially considering the title of this. I see that you've posted another chapter so I'll probably attempt to track that down at some point.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: So overall it was a really neat little prologue. It does its job really well and now I do in fact want to go read more of this and I think I will go do exactly that. And besides that one suggestion to break paragraphs I don't really have any others. Great Job!!
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
thanks guys for the reviews. the next chapter is posted...uh I think under Chapter Two of Edinburgh Murders...i hope it is.
cheers CL
Cool but put the rest in more more must have more
Ohh... she got ghosted.
Not a bad prologue, because it doesn't focus on the protagonist. It could be a little longer, or you should follow up with Chapter 1 soon after.
Cool...
I don't have much to critique, as it's pretty short, but I like it.