Prologue
The sun was getting low and the shadows settled upon the grey cement top of the skyscrapers. A boy stood on the edge of a building looking down as the swirling silhouettes of the willow trees dancing across the window of a bookstore. He lifted his fingers from a storybook he held at his left and watched as the book fell with a whooshing sound between a set of air conditioning fans. It dropped lower every second with a quick twist of its position. The storybook plummeted down the empty street finally landed on a sidewalk with a soft thud. The boy carefully lowered his head and stared at the book lying across the road and sighed quietly, only his lips were showing a glimpse of his trumpeted heart.
Mce dropped a cloak on his son’s shoulders slightly slumped to disguise his tattoos carved around his eyelids and around his ear.
“Say hello to your mom”
“Hmm?”
“If you’re gone you’d meet her, wouldn’t you?”
“Careful yourself.”
“Boy, you should say hi to your brother as well if you faint away.”
Mce’s son, Sim cursed and slipped outside muttering about his dad’s insanity.
“Well, how does he know mom and brother Cetris died?”
He paused and said in a voice a little quieter.
“His little crazy and devilish but as long as I’ve seen him I know why that young girl married such a man.” Mce’s son said as he quietly tiptoed through the dark alleys lined with black oily puddles mixed with moss and muddy rainwater. He slowed his pace as he came across a single wooden latch silently snickering and laughing with a ghostly voice
“How do you come across the street...”
“What do you know about the ghouls of Gelai?”
“And what do you dare to sing!”
“Hahahaha!”
“Lovely crazy boy walking into the back alley…!”
“Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy and half out mind…”
“Excellent.” The boy whisper as his mouth quivered and a deadly smile appeared on his pale face.
“Lu, lu, lu, and loe.”
“A bit of luck and the thousand hearts of the broken girls would save the world and disappearrr…”
But as the boy came closer his lips went dry.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hi there.
I think your prologue has a lot of potential but from a readers perspective it's quite confusing.
You have quite a few mistakes but if you ignore those there is the makings of the great story. my final suggestion is to do with perspective. you seen to be changing perspective on a loop from past tense to present and then back to past. Apart from this i think you have a great base structure for an amazing story. i cant wait to read more of your work.
Thank you so much for the review! I was worried because one of my reviewers was very confused, I'm glad you think it has a great base structure.
**My Thoughts**
Hey Chris! LZ here with a review. I really think this prologue has potential, but it is extremely confusing. Their are a multitude of mistakes, but if you look past those, you can see the makings of a very good story!
**Capitalization, Grammar, the Works**
So, as I said there was a lot of mistakes. To not make this review seem too long, I will be putting them in a spoiler:
Spoiler
"Hold" should be "held," "set" should be "a set," and I think "conditional" (should be "conditioning") is just completely unneccasary.
Should be "carefully lowered" and "sighed."
OK, this whole bit of dialogue is confusing. I don't know if you meant to say "drooped" or "dropped." I think dropped would sound a bit better.
Who's disguising who's tattoos? And does he have tattoos on his face? Making work on clearing this up a bit. You were able to convey the message that their were some sort of marking on his face, which is good!
Why did he say "careful yourself?" The dad's making no sense.
Who is Mce's son talking to about mom and Cetris?
This whole part is confusing aswell. Is he hearing voices? Are people taunting him? If so, who?
I have a feeling this wasn't supposed to be the ending. It is a good ending, but the random "the" at the end makes no sense. Also, "want" should be "went."
Besides those critiques, I think this has the potential to be a great story! It seems like a mystery and I love mysteries.
I think my last critique is to decide from what perspective you're telling the story from. You use past tense, then present tense, then past tense again.
**The End**
I did enjoy reading this! It needs a decent amount of work, but it could become a fantastic book! Have a lovely day, Chris!
Thank you for the review! I'll definitely bring this aboard.
'The sun was getting low and the shadows settled upon the grey cement top of the skyscrapers. A boy stood on the edge of a building looking down as the swirling silhouettes of the willow trees danced (dancing) across the window of a bookstore. He lifted his fingers from a storybook he hold at his left (could just change it to 'he dropped the storybook) and watched as the book fell with a whooshing sound between set of air conditional fans. It dropped lower every second with a quick twist of its position (this sounds odd. Could use something like 'it twisted and fluttered and spiralled as it fell). The storybook plumed ('plummeted', but also this sentence could be removed if you change the previous one) down the empty street finally landing ('landed'. You switch tenses a lot. Do you want this to be present or past? You need to stick to one) on a sidewalk with a soft thud. The boy careful(ly) lowers (lowered) his head and stared at the book lying across the road and sigh quietly, only his lips were showing a glimpse of his trumpeted heart.
All the prologue continues, I honestly can't say I understand what is happening at all. There is a disconnect in the dialogue. It doesn't sound like a conversation between two people. It just feels like a jumble of exposition. I get that with a prologue things can be vague, but I can't grasp at anything here.
I hope I don't come across too harsh in my reviewing. Good luck with the story.
Thank you for the review! I'll try to clear things up. Sorry, when I get excited writing something I forget that if I write a story it means I have to write so the readers can understand what I'm talking about. I apologize , I'm not the very good at explain to people, and definitely not- as you said- writing so people know what's going on.
Again thank you for the review and honest opinion about this story.
Hello! I shall be reviewing this for you today!
To start out with, this does seem like a very creepy story. I like the way you created a twisted vibe with Mce and his son and the creepy voices at the end.
As for grammatical things and such. There's just a few things I noticed.
#1: You occasionally stray from past tense writing into present tense, so if you just go back and watch for that you can easily fix it.
#2:
Here, did you mean to have written 'plummeted' instead of 'plumed'?
#3:
This sentence reads awkwardly, maybe switch around the 'slightly slumped' and 'shoulders' so that it flows a little better.
#4:
This is a very strange ending, it seems to not be an ending at all. Is that 'the' misplaced, or did you never finish the sentence?
But overall this was well-written, and leaving many things unanswered for later!
And that's all the reviewing I have for you! I hope this helps you!
Thanks for the review! I'll make sure the tense isn't changing back and forth. And yes, I meant to say "plummeted". I agree with you I think I should switch around the words a bit for the last part. "the" is misplaced, I think. I don't know how it ended up there.
Please tell me if you find something that looks like it needs some fixing, I don't get offended by a honest thought.
Thank you so much for reviewing this story!