"Don't touch her!"
I can hear Jay walking around me like a lion, protecting me from whoever is trying to reach me. I try to open my eyes, but I can't. I have completely lost control of them, and they stay closed like they were glued together. My head hurts. I can barely think with the pain pulsing around my head like it is going to explode. My lungs are on fire, my legs are stiff after running, and the pain in my stomach increases, and I can feel the heat from the blood spread over my chest.
I can hear a soft voice of a man trying to calm Jay down, telling him that they are here to help. Jay doesn't believe him. He is driven by adrenaline, and even thought he is used to think in stressful situations, I can hear in his voice, that he can't figure out to believe this man or not. But we have to believe him. We have no other choice. I have no idea of how many they are, but even if I wasn't paralyzed by pain and injuries, our chances of escaping them is extremely small. Our best chance is to willingly follow this man and hope that he is telling the truth.
'Jay' I try to say, but I cant. I have no strength left in me to form a single word. Not even a word as simple as his name. Instead a silent wail escape my lips and I can read from the panic in Jay's voice, that he heard it. "I know." I must has passed out, because the conversations begins to lose meaning. "She is dying, don't you think I know that? Don't touch her!"
"We have to get her to the hospital," the man says.
"I'll see the ambulance before I believe you." I can feel Jay close to me, as he steps backwards towards me to block the way. Am I dying? I didn't though my injuries were that seriously. A twinge of pain rice in my stomach and suddenly my body crumbs without my will. I cant control it, but I can feel I start shaking.
"Jay!" To my own surprise I hear the words escape my lips, almost like a scream. "' 'ave to trust 'em."
I can hear him standing right above me. I can barely hear his voice through the pain. "You'll be alright, I promise."
Is someone lifting me op? What is happening, did I passed out again? Who is the one touching me? I can see light and feel the warm returning to my body. Jay? Another twinge reach my body, this time worse that it had ever been. "I promise," is the last thing I hear, before darkness reaches me.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hi there!
You've definitely gotten me interested in this story. And that's my big thing with prologues. They should have action (or some kind of something happening), at least one character, and mystery. I'm not talking about mystery like the genre mystery, but mystery for the reader. Prologue's should leave the reader wondering what exactly is going on. And you've got all this in your prologue. So good job!
So in this review I'll just be listing comments, corrections and anything else that comes across my mind. Alrighty, here we go!
1)
I think this is a little awkward. Not really sure if awkward is the right word now that I think about it, but I don't know how else to describe it so, awkward it is! (I'm awkward...) Anyway, I think this could be worded differently. Unless this girl has, like, superhuman hearing, I don't think she can hear Jay walking like a lion. It's a great piece of imagery and I think you should keep it in here, but it would probably work better if you have her imagining what he'd be walking like. Something like this:
"I can hear Jay's heavy footsteps on the tiled floor. I imagine him pacing back and forth in front of my like a lion, protecting me from whoever is trying to reach me."
You see how that works a little better? Now the image is still there, but it's more believable. She can hear him walking and thinks what he may be doing. Because she can't see him so she can't be sure he's walking like a lion.
2)
I absolutely love these sentences. Like, really, this is some kind of genius. What a great way to describe the strength she doesn't have left in her.
3)
Should be 'races' not 'rice'. Just a little nitpick.
Overall I think you've got a great start here. Like I said earlier, this prologue has everything I look for in a prologue. You've got good characters and a wonderful cliffhanger. There are a few grammatical/spelling mistakes I found (left out apostrophes and wrong/misspelled words), but there's so little of them that I know you can find them when you read this over again. So I'm not going to bother you by pointing them out right now.
Please let me know when the first chapter is up! I wanna know what happens!!
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
The Messenger Knight here to review for KotGR.
So, this was a really good prologue that grabbed me. I thought you did a superb job of showing the readers how the Main Character (MC) thought. I could totally picture what was going on, except that I have no idea how old Jay is. Maybe a little detail about that would help. Maybe you can tell us his tone of voice and that would help, but that is just a suggestion.
Reise pointed out all the problems I saw, except for one she missed. In the last paragraph you have "op" instead of up.
I don't know if there are others, but I saw none. Overall a pretty superb job. you allowed the reader to get right into the action, and right into the Mc's brain and pain.
Tip: Remember to start a new line whenever someone starts speaking.
Keep it up!
Hello, Cecily.
The first thing I noticed was that this prologue was comprised mostly of telling statements, which is not something that you want in a novel - especially in the part that you're using to draw your readers in. Telling statements won't attract an audience, but showing statements will. I'm willing to bet you've heard of the phrase "Show, don't tell" before, but just in case you haven't, or you have and don't know how to do that yet, I'm going to help you out a little.
Take this line from your work as an example:
This excerpt is really interesting because the sentence highlighted in red is a telling statement whereas the one in green is a showing statement. Side by side like that, I think it's easy to see the difference between the two - that both examples were written by you is also a plus. Telling statements are bland and flat, they don't allow room for exploration and creativity. Readers can't get involved into a story that doesn't give them the opportunity to, and telling statements shut down all chances of your world and story being interactive and captivating. You can do so much more with showing statements, and they reflect better on your work as a whole. Personally, I suggest cutting out the red sentence entirely and leaving only the green in its wake.
Just a bit more about the green sentence now, this time more technical in the grammar sense. You say, "I can barely think with the pain pulsing around my head like it is going to explode." The second end of your sentence, the part italicized, may have been attached to the wrong noun. I assume you mean your character feels as if her head is going to explode, but the way the sentence is formatted now makes it seem as if the pain itself is about to explode. I highly doubt you meant to convey the latter - but if you did, my apologies - so in order to put across your intended meaning there needs to be a little sentence adjustment. Something along the lines of "I can barely think with the pain pulsing around in my head, which I feel is about to explode." The word "which" moves the subject of the last part of the sentence around from the pain to the head, and now the whole sentence makes more sense.
I've found it's the tricky things like that which we miss when editing our own work. It helps to go through and read your drafts out loud. We catch our mistakes more when we heard them spoken back to us. My suggestion is that you go back through and read this out to yourself, that way you could change and revise as you see fit. It's not my place to go through and nitpick every aspect of your work, though I will say...
Sorry, I couldn't resist. I'm trying to leave small picky things like that alone, but I wasn't sure if it was a mistake or not so I just wanted to be certain you knew.
Overall, the concept you're introducing here is intriguing, but the way you presented it is too vague, even as a prologue. At the end of this I was left with too many questions, and not the good page-turner kind. I know some things are meant to be left secret and mysterious. I didn't expect to know what her injuries were exactly, but I did expect to know at least her name. We need more information here. Prologues are tricky because if they aren't done right the reader is completely turned off - which is why I opt out of using them. You just need some good mystery here. If they're of the mutant type, hint that they're different. Hint at the reason why Jay is being so protective. Is the main character his sister or lover? I'm not sure if your characters are mutant or human or otherwise. There's not enough clear justification and all you need is just a little bit of bait on the line to keep your readers swimming. (So it has come to fishing metaphors... that means I need to stop.)
Anyway, Cecily, I see potential in this. If you decide to revise or put out a second part I'd be delighted to read it again. See you around! If you need more information on the "Show, don't tell" concept, just click on this link.
-ReiseP xx