Pen, Paper, and a Gun - Prologue

Heya, Dreamy! Casanova here with another review!

The first thing I had to say about this one was the ending. "Consider this a declaration of war." Now, I'm not usually a fan of dialogue endings, but this struck me as a perfect way to end your chapter. So props for that.
The other thing is how you described the President. I actually love it, even though we don't know who exactly is talking until the third to last paragraph(unless I missed something?) And that's completely wonderful that you managed to do that much character building without as much as a name!
The next thing is the plot. It's rather cliche, in my opinion, but I guess it works. You get what you want out of it, and that's the leading up to the declaration of war. To me, at least,m it seemed just a tad bit dull and limitless. Like, what about what caused the declaration of war? I think that you could have went into more detail than this with it.

The next thing is these lines right here-

The President pursed his thin lips and closed his eyes in thought, nodding at the American. “Our closest ally…,” he said. A few seconds passed with absolutely no speaking, not even from the leader. “No matter…” Opening his eyes, he stood and drew a pistol from his back pocket and aimed it at the English delegate, who widen his eyes in surprise. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. The President pulled the trigger and watched as the body crumpled to the floor, blood pouring out of the wound on his head.

From what you told me about this story, and from reading this, I'm really excited to see where you take this novel! This was a great scene to pick as a prologue, and I really liked your introduction.

I liked the dialogue in this chapter, and I think it sounds realistic as for the age of the characters, their positions, the situation, etc. You also create a lot of the mood with dialogue, which I like. Similarly, I think your characters are realistic (from what I've read so far). Usually people who write government leaders in times of war either write them acting way too casual or way too scared, but you manged to get the perfect balance of both. They were tense without being terrified or too relaxed about what was going on.

All of the actions, dialogue, characters, and grammar were good. The only thing I didn't like was some of the phrasing. You used too many adverbs, and you were occasionally too wordy. There were some places you could have said the same thing in less words, and it would have sounded better/it would have flowed more. You should also vary your sentence length a little more, since most of your sentences were pretty long.

I think this paragraph highlights most of the things I do and don't like:

"He casted his gaze over each of them individually, moving down the line. Coming to the last delegate, he returned his focus onto his hands. He took a morbid tone. 'Which one of you would like to claim responsibility for these illegal acts?'"

I loved the dialogue, but your first two sentences were too wordy.

Also, I loved the way you ended it! I love chapters that end with a single line of dialogue, and it was a very strong line

Messenger here for you as requested!

“Which one of you would like to claim responsibility for these illegal acts?”

"You may recognize" even though you're all sitting in almost total darkness and can't see each other very well at all. Lol.

"These troops cannot identify to any country..." So what you're saying is they're Russian and this is a story about Crimea?

"He casted his gaze" should be "cast his gaze." "Cast" is the accepted past tense of "cast." "Casted" is older and less often used today, except when talking about either a) the casting of an actor in a production or b) the casting of a fishing reel. A lot of people might not be distracted by that, but then again you might get a lot of readers like me...who will certainly be distracted.

So my only two comments so far are these:

I understand you want to keep us in the dark (literally) about who was speaking, but it got a little awkward, the description of how the President managed to remain in the dark. Plus, these delegates showed up at a secret conference even though they had no idea who called it and then had to sit in the dark for twenty minutes? Plus the president shoots a guy in front of all these delegates, but presumably he's not going to get in trouble for that. So...in that case...I mean, what was the point of hiding himself for so long? You know?

But it's intriguing so far, and you've got a nice way of using description to set the mood. Also, I think this works as a prologue (despite my general prohibition on prologues) because I assume the rest of the story will be from the perspective of the journalist you mentioned to me the other night? In which case this scene without the journalist is a nice set-up.

Blue

Hi!
This is a great start! I love mysteries, and I really want to know what's happening.

So there were only a few things I would suggest to change:

"The men couldn’t see the contents of the room aside from the table, but they weren’t there on a social visit."

This confused me because I thought, at first, why they couldn't see the contents of the room was because they were on a social visit. Maybe make these two different sentences.

"At least ten minutes passed without a word, until one man stood up."

Don't you think ten minutes is a little long for no one to speak? I think it would be so uncomfortable in that room someone would have to say something before then... maybe it's just me.

Finally,
"“Mr. President,” chimed another delegate. This one also spoke English, but he had a flat voice. He was American and was surprised to see his leader at a conference of this kind."

The way this is put, it makes it seem like the delegate is going to say something more. I would add a question mark instead of a comma.

I hope this helped! I love the character of the President and I can't wait to read more!

~Alice

Per your request, here I am to review!

First off, I love this. There is so much mystery to it and I want to read more!

There weren't a lot of grammatical errors, but I think there are some sentences that you can work on to make the whole thing flow a bit better.

"The darkness bathed their anxious faces, since the only source of light was a lamp in the middle of the table." - I would edit the last half of the sentence, maybe to something like "the only light source being a lamp..."

"Making his way to the empty seat at the head of the table, this man made sure to stay concealed in the shadows." - Maybe "the man" instead of "this man" might sound a bit better.

I think the president is a great character. He is mysterious and fierce. "He said it gently, but also firmly. He was deathly serious about this, it was clear." He seems like the kind of person who you would fear more when he speaks softly rather than loudly, which I love.

It was interesting however that the delegate from England would actually confess. I guess that is just part of the story though, but that seemed kind of odd to me.

Overall, I thought this was really good, and I expect to see more of this soon

Hello, ddman18! I'm offering a review of your prologue, but this is my first review, so please bear with me. I will do my best to be helpful! ^^

First off, I wanted to say that this was very interesting. I liked the mystery element that surrounded the introduction. Because I didn't know what the delegates knew, it drew me in and made me want to continue reading!

As for the grammatical aspect, it was pretty much all good. There were a couple instances of what I believe are misused comma rules (nothing too serious) that you could probably change (?), and there are other bits that I suggest you change to enhance the flow of the sentence.

"Many were fidgeting with something, or tapping their feet against the marble floor."

I would take out the comma after 'something', as the words that come after 'or' do not technically form a complete clause.

"He pushed the door closed behind him and it shut with a slight thud."

This is the opposite problem as the one mentioned above. These are two complete sentences, so there probably should be a comma after 'behind him'.

"He was even careful enough to sit on the very edge of the light so only his lips against his pale skin were visible."

Nothing wrong about this sentence, but in my opinion, the end of it is a tad awkward. To me, it might flow better if you rearrange it and add a little more description, like: "He was even careful enough to sit on the very edge of the light so that only his lips were visible, a bold pink against his pale skin." (Sorry if it's a different meaning than what you were going for.)

"His face was smooth, without a single blemish and his lips were full."

There should probably be a comma after 'blemish'; 'without a single blemish' is what I'd consider a parenthetical element aka extra information. It requires another comma afterwards to completely offset this information.

"Opening his eyes, he stood and drew a pistol from his back pocket and aimed it at the English delegate, who widen his eyes in surprise."

This almost seems like a run-on sentence. Maybe you could cut it into two, like so: "Opening his eyes, he stood and drew a pistol from his back pocket. He aimed it at the English delegate, who widened his eyes in surprise." Also, as included, it's widened, not widen. That's just a little verb tense error.

"'Our closest ally…,' he said. A few seconds passed with absolutely no speaking, not even from the leader. 'No matter…'"

Personally, I think it would sound and look better if you didn't use the ellipses, but that's your choice.

So yeah, those were just tiny things I thought I'd point out.

Moving on, I really, really liked how you ended this. This President character of yours (pardon my French) acts like a badass, and it's awesome. The “Consider this a declaration of war” made me smile and was the perfect ending for a prologue: I totally want to know what happens next!
Anyways, I just wanted to say that it was well written! I hope this review can be of use to you. Keep up the good work, and I wish you all the best

Hey dude, This is definitely a great prologue to an even greater story. Just a few nitpicks to point out. In the beginning of the prologue, you say " faces, since the only source of light was a lamp". I wouldn't use since in here, and instead say "faces, the only source of light being a dim lamp."

In the second paragraph, you go, " this man made sure". I wouldn't use This in this (heh) occasion, but "the" or just "He" would work better.

Also, if you intend to publish this book when you finish, I HIGHLY recommend you don't use any countries in specific for being in the "wrong". If you do, and your book becomes popular, they could complain that you were hosting a political campaign against them and it would just be a big pile of junk. Maybe you could have those men stand up and say that they were part of a "New order" or some baloney like that?

All in all, this was a great prologue. I look foward to watching this story progress and one day, watching it get published.

Hey ddman18!! Silver here to review your story!!

Let's get straight to it.

Main Points

one country has sent troops and drones to other nations.

nodding at the American.