A/N: Title suggestions welcome. Also, I usually don't like prologues but I honestly think this is the best option for me here. Read the following chapters once I post them to see if you agree with me ;)
The garden had always been Julie's favourite part of the house, even though it wasn't really part of the house. It was where her black and white cat, Miles, seemed most at home. As soon as she opened the door, he would shoot out like a toy rocket and thunder through the low hedges. They zig-zagged across the garden like a corn snake and Miles was always getting lost in them. Julie's gecko, Shadow, was far more tentative and recently Julie had just been leaving him in his tank when she took Miles out.
Today, although Miles was obscured behind one of the hedges as normal, Julie could see that he was moving a little less. His tail wasn't flicking around as much and his springing leaps were ragged and slow. Julie half-jogged, half-skipped over to help him, her shiny blonde hair bouncing around behind her. She knelt in front of Miles, who dropped to his haunches when he saw her. She looked into his eyes. He looked like he was in pain. Julie softly stroked behind his left ear and waited for him to lick her fingers. He whimpered but didn't move.
“Uh-oh,” she whispered.
She shot to her feet and turned to face the house. She had to get Dad. He'd know what to do. He always did.
“Dad!” she screamed.
She spotted a shadow of a figure move in the kitchen window and a moment later he was out the back door. His eyes widened and he shouted at Julie to move. She gasped and darted towards him. Before she'd even closed half the distance, a piercing shriek stopped her short and she fell to the springy grass.
The sky flashed yellow-green once, the shade taking away the perfect blue of the day in a single moment and vanishing just as suddenly. Julie curled into a ball in the grass, as she'd seen Miles do a couple of times when he was scared.
Miles!
She twisted back round but he was hidden by one of the hedges.
“Dad!” she shouted, “What happened?”
His reply came from behind the hedge that was hiding Miles.
“Julie, go inside and get some water,” he said. He didn't shout, just said it loud enough for her to hear. But she knew it was important. The only time his voice wasn't raised was when something was important. She nodded and raised herself to her shaking legs.
She strode as quickly as she could through the house, poured some water from the kitchen sink into a plastic tumbler, then walked back out to the garden. As she carried the cup of water over to them, she noticed that the sky was slowly turning blue again. She tried to think about that, tried to wonder what on Earth had happened. But she just couldn't bring herself to care. She was far too worried about Miles.
She knelt by Dad and Miles and offered Dad the cup. He took it and raised it to Miles' lips. No response. Julie felt her legs shaking again and she stroked Miles behind the ear again. She wanted to beg him to wake up. The words were in her throat, but she was scared to say them, just in case he didn't respond.
“What do we do, Dad?” she asked. The words in her throat seemed to be making her voice wobble.
“We take him to the vet,” Dad whispered, “But I'm not sure what they can do. That shriek, honey, that was him. And the yellow sky, it … Come on, we have to get him to the vet.”
Julie wanted to ask him what the end of the sentence was, but she couldn't get those words out either. She held Dad's hand as he picked up Miles, who was totally still other than the occasional twitch of his nose. They walked, all together, back towards the house.
****
Blue sky. Green hedges. Greener grass. Running. Pain. Stomach twist. Niggle. Something niggle. Stop. Breath. Girl-kit. Ear. Tired. Ow. Ow, ow, ow. Ah! Yellow. Green. Black.
My name is Miles, and these are the last things I remember of my old life.
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Canary word: Present
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,804 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
And here I am scouring your portfolio like I said I would. I'm guessing this was abandoned. Still going to look through it though.
First Impression: Quite the opening there. Sounds like something that will be really interesting. It does it's job really well as a hook for readers. I definitely want to read more after this.
Anyway let's get to it,
Nice description there.
Somehow I don't see how uh-oh would be a response in such a situation. Something like Oh no sounds more likely.
That is very interesting also a little scary.
She's displaying some really nice emotion so far. Very realistic. Does a good job of showing that she really cares about Miles.
Very cryptic.
Now that is how you end a prologue. Very interesting indeed.
Aaand that's it.
Overall: This was a pretty good prologue. Establishes a couple of characters really well and also introduces a nice little cliffhanger. Overall a really good start.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
I'm going to be honest. I hope you don't mind that. When it comes down to it, I just wasn't entertained by this story.
What a poor reason to dislike a story on such a cynical website. What a reason to make the author sad, but the fact is I just wasn't interested in what was going on. I can't explain why, I can't give a thought out explanation for my dislike of the story, I simply didn't feel a single emotion throughout this story. I didn't care.
On the other hand I'll give credit where credit's due, this story was very solidly written. Not a single word was used without reason and that's a good talent in a writer.
I'm sorry if this review offended you. I also apologize profusely that I wasn't able to help more.
No, it's ok, you're entitled to your opinion. What I took from that it is well written for the people who are likely to like it.
Hey there! I want to start off by saying that there is a lot of mystery in this chapter. My favorite part was probably the beginning. I liked how you described Julie and her everyday life. I felt like you portrayed the little kid that she was very well in your writing. Which in my opinion is pretty hard (because you're not a little kid.)
So with that said I wanted to bring your attention to something I found a little confusing. It was when the sky was turning colors. It seemed a little awkward and a tiny bit out of place. I would suggest making the transition between paragraphs a little smoother during that part. Maybe using the word "suddenly" or something.
But all in all, I liked what you have. Especially the last part. I'm going to read the next chapter. Keep up the good work!
That sounds good. You are actually, I think, the first person who has read it since I made some changes so I was wondering if I could ask you about some specific things.
(A) Did Julie's concern about Miles seem enough and realistic?
(B) Did Miles' thoughts make you wonder what had happened but not confuse you so much that you felt obliged to read it again?
Thanks for the review!
In response to A, yea I think that her concern is pretty realistic. When something is wrong, she ran to her dad. I also think that her utmost confidence in her dad is also realistic. How you mentioned he always knows what to do.
As for B, yea it did create some mystery. I had a couple theory but initially it made me realize that the next chapters will probably be from his next life. As a human maybe?
Fantastic, exactly the reaction I was hoping for from the ending!
Hey. It's Maddie here for a review!
They? I'm not sure whether you're mentioning Julie and Miles, or just Miles. I'm spending a bit of time thinking this one over, so yeah.First off, I have to say that I really liked this. The Point of View change is a bit jarring when reading it the first time, but it's easy enough to get over.
It's cool how you bring in thoughts that would be familiar to Julie, but unfamiliar to us. Corn Snakes was the perfect example because we all know what a corn snake is, but we also don't see them "zigzagging down gardens" every day. It was a nice way to add characterization to her.
Injured kitties. Oh no. Nonononono.
Yellow-green flash? Something's going on. Julie had better want to know exactly what's going on. Strange figure? Julie seems rather... unfazed.
So, on the ending and its rather abrupt point of view change. Maybe you could point the change out, highlight it... I don't know. It took for a second to realize it was Miles speaking.
Next, when you said "Girl-Kit." I'm getting Warriors-ey vibes from this. I don't know if you've read it or not, but I'm pretty sure foxes and squirrels have kits, with cats having kittens. Maybe they're normally called kits, but yeah. Just wanted to point that out.
Overall, I'd like to say that your view in a good prologue is different from mine. This isn't to say that I hate the writing, but this is what I'd consider a first chapter instead of a prologue. I think prologues should be slightly separate from the main story, but not far enough that it would be indiscernible. They should set many things up, be it through foreshadowing, light symbolism, or a past experience that is a motivation for the main character. Yours doesn't seem to do much of setting up at all, besides Miles being injured by... something.
Well, anyways. Keep Writing!
Maddie out.
When you say unfazed, do you mean that she seems calm? She is almost crying towards the end, but I do see what you mean about not really questioning. I'll work on that a bit.
Yes, I am in the middle of reading Warrior Cats and I guess that sort of slipped in.
I think we may have to agree to disagree on what a prologue is. Although, I was hoping that the set-up would be the reader wanting to know what the hell had happened to Miles.
As for the personality switch, would some asterisks help? I don't want to reveal it's Miles until he says his name, but I do want to show that there's a switch before he starts talking.
Thanks for the review!
No problem.
I think asterisks would work well.
When I said unfazed, she looked like she was reacting more to Miles than the other strange events. But then again, she does love Miles a lot, so that could definitely be the first thing on her mind.
Ok, thanks. I maybe should put something in from Julie though. Since the rest of it is from Miles' perspective, this would be the last chance to see inside the mind of Julie. On the other hand, I did want her to be pretty much consumed with fear for Miles. I dunno, I'll stick in a couple of sentences about it and see if anyone else still brings it up.
Hello there, friend~~~ The Overlord of Tildes has come to dominate the first review on this intriguing and promising prologue~~~~ (^ w ^)/
Okay, first up! I really can't do anything for you on the subject of your title, because I don't know where this story is going (/O3O)/ But I do agree with you, the current title is somewhat bland and not very appealing to readers. (But I am still here, because the Overlord of Tildes loves all stories~~~ d(^__^)b) However, your first sentence is pretty interesting, and serves well as a beginning.
I usually don't like pointing out most spelling and grammatical mistakes, because frankly, I can haz neether gramer skeelz or speelin skeelz. However, the "thought" in the second clause of the first sentence should probably be a "though". This is a really easy-to-make typo, so don't worry about it. \(^w^)
Also, in your sentences:
Usually, repeating something in adjacent sentence is frowned upon, and may even make the two sentences seem detached. However, this can be fixed with a little bit o' good ol' parallelism. Try turning the second sentence of the above quote into something like: "Miles would always get lost in them-- those hedges that ran round their terrace block and zig-zagged their way towards the fence." (I also switched the order of the hedge's descriptions in order to make it more fluid and logical. However, the order is completely up for you to decide, as you may be trying to get a certain point across with that arrangement.)
And then, pretty much all is well until here:
Before this quote, I was seeing Miles out in the open in my mind's eye. If Miles was in among the hedges as usual today, you might want to specifically point that out earlier. Otherwise, the readers might associate abnormal state with abnormal behavior, and think that he's not in his usual spot on this special day.
I don't have any other major criticisms at this point, so I'll point out a few more things I liked. The sentence:
is very well done. It's emotional, descriptive, and fitting of the situation. It caught my eye easily, and stayed on my mind for a while. So, good job on that. \(>w<)
Your last sentence is also a pretty formidable cliffy. Now I would really like to read on and find out what has happened to Miles~~~ \(O3O)/
Anyways, I am done. Usually I would close with a formal conclusion, but I'm literally only running on sugar and insanity at this point, so please forgive me. I will be lazy this time. (>//w//<)/ And if anything in my review seemed decoherent, feel free to either ask me about it, or just dismiss it as the mad ramblings of a Jen (er, please go with the former, actually...).
Jaa ne~~~ Happy writing~~~!
Thanks for the review! I was worried the cliffhanger was a bit heavy handed so good to know it came off ok. Those sound like reasonable changes. I'll look at them tonight
Changes made!
No problem! Watashi wa always happy to run into promising new stories~~~ pssst, you've not yet changed the "thought" to "though".
Happy writing~~~!
oooops I forgot XD