7 Years Ago
I opened the door and found a group of village men at the door. I smiled at them, being the little kid I was. The man in front, a man I didn't recognize from the normal village men who stopped by, squatted down in front of me. "Hello, little girl. We are here to see your father." He smiled at me and I saw that he had an angry mark across his eye.
"What happened to you eye?" The minute the question was out, I was scolded.
"Olivia! Apologize immediately!" said my mother.
"Why? It's a reasonable question." I looked back at the man. "Isn't it?"
He chuckled and nodded in agreement. "It is." He ruffled my hair. He stood up and addressed my mother, "Hello, ma'am. We're here to see Robert Bedloe."
She nodded and said, "He's in the library." She pulled me out of the way and let the men pass. Once the men were in the library, my mother gave me a little push and said, "Run off, now. Dinner will be soon, so don't go to far."
"Okay, Mama." I ran out the front door.
As soon as I went out the gate, I heard screams. And gunshots. I looked in the front window and saw the men in the front parlor facing my mom. I saw the man with the scar raise his gun. I heard the gunshot as arms came around me and turned me away from the sight.
I cried uncontrollably. I screamed for my mother and father. They had died because of the men I let in. I knew then I would never forgive myself, but I would do everything in my power to make things right.
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128,452 Literary Works • 671,489 Reviews
Hello there!
I see you have a prologue. A cute little prologue, indeed! But you can make it better.
Let's start with your narrator. Based on what the characters have said, she's a young girl. How young exactly? I got the impression she was maybe 7-9 years of age from this. Now there's nothing wrong with writing from the perspective of a child, but it's important to make sure your narration and dialogue matches her personality. And not only does it have to match, but ideally it should flow as well.
What do I mean when I say flow? I'm talking about how ideas and sentences transition smoothly from one to the other. Right now your prose feels disjointed, sort of like a house that wasn't properly nailed together: it's trying to paint a big picture, but you can't help but be distracted by all the wayward joints and protruding nails. So how do you go about making a more unified piece?
Normally I'd say transitions, but I think the more pressing issue at hand is your choice of vocabulary. Now because this character is young I wouldn't expect anything fancy, but I would expect something better than
Do you see the redundancy in bold? We already know that Olivia is at the door. Olivia already knows she's at the door. Why is it necessary to emphasize the door twice? Does Olivia just have some obsession with the door, and so she insisted that you, the author, emphasize it?
For some reason I doubt it. I think this could be much better if it looked like this:
No more redundancy. Instead we have a word that, while relative to the door, does not actually describe or mention the door a second time. Also, it's using one word instead of three, and that is much easier to read. So when you revise this piece think about the words you're using. Ask yourself, "can I replace this awkward-sounding phrase here with something else?" Read your work out loud if you have to. I find that it's an excellent way to see how your narration flows, because the mouth tends to not like pronouncing awkward-sounding sentences.
Another big issue in this piece is the fact that you tell us about the events. The character tells us that she was sad. She tells us about the events unfolding before her eyes. And, to be frank, it's not very engaging. This is where poetic devices and a change in vocabulary will come in handy. Allow me to modify a bit of your eighth paragraph to illustrate my point.
Do you see the difference? The key differences I want to emphasize are the verbs. Instead of "I heard screams" it's "screams pierced the silence." Not only does the verb "pierced" tell that the narrator heard her mother's distress, but also how it sounded. Just from that word alone a reader can infer that the scream was sharp, sudden, and shocking for the narrator. This is the power of words, and you can choose different ones depending on the mood you want to show.
Also, analogies are incredibly useful for describing emotions in a creative way. Can you spot the analogy in my example?
Now that I've hit the major technical highlights, let's talk about the actual story. I have to agree with what Veeren said previously: it comes off as a little cliche. But there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's done well.
Is it done well here? I don't think so. To me, a prologue is meant to grab a reader's attention, to entice them into reading more. It's supposed to be grand and inspiring, and I just don't see that here. Not to say that your prologue can't be all that. A lot of making a piece of writing inspiring is in the presentation, which is to say technical writing, but I already covered that. From a story perspective, what can you do to make this tired cliche more interesting?
My suggestion would be to really get in your character's head. You're using first person narration, so your piece has the advantage of really getting into Olivia's brain and telling your audience directly how she feels and what kind of person she is. Use it to your advantage. How does she describe things? What kind of words does she use? What things about her surroundings does she notice? For example, she noticed the big man's scar in the beginning. Does that mean that Olivia pays great attention to detail? If so, reflect that in her narrative. Make her unique, make her likable and/or interesting, make your audience really feel for this character when she loses her family. If you can do that then your audience will be motivated to turn the page and see what happens next.
So, to sum everything up, I think this piece is salvageable and has potential, but it needs a lot of tending loving care to reach out to audiences. Here's what I think you can do to improve:
- Vocabulary is the key issue here. Make sure you read your work out loud and edit anything that sounds awkward. Ideally, replacements should concisely convey your idea without using too many words.
- Remember that words can express so much more than an action, feeling, or attribute of an object. Find words that can not only tell what happens, but show what happens as well.
- Make sure your narrating character expresses her personality through how she chooses to tell her story.
Hopefully that made sense and will help you on your journey as a writer. You're welcome to PM me with any questions or comments. Happy writing!
--Dover
Hey there Charlotte! Nice piece you got here.
"What happened to you eye?"
But just a few critiques.
First off is in the second paragraph,
Spoiler
I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be your, right?
The rest is fine, or at least I didn't notice anything else. The only other thing I found wrong was that it was a bit cliche'. From the moment I finished the first paragraph I immediately knew what was going to happen.
That being said, I was still interested in reading it the whole way through. This has great potential and I really hope you continue writing it.
Your a good writer, so keep up the good work.