When A Dreamer Dies

Thank you all for your helpful comments. But, I'm going to put away this story for a while and come back to it later. I'm like: ACK! This is driving me insane! My characters aren't how I like them to me and stuff, so yeah. Thank you all again, and I'll use your advice when I'm writing my other stories.

IMHO, don't end with questions. End with something like, "The Faries are gearing up for war..." Or something like that.

This has been pretty well worked over, so I'm not going to further pick apart your prologue -- but I will say this. Don't abandon your prologue yet, simply consider starting anew.

A prologue is a teaser, like a film trailer, but they *never* give away the story. This prologue was more like a list (a very well-written list at that) that told us how, why, when. Make it more mysterious -- tell us what and leave it at that. Talk about the supposedly non-existant land of faeries and its doom, but don't mention the Cursed, or the dreams. Tell us they suddenly ceased waking up and so faerieland faded -- or whatever -- but don't give us details.

A prologue is like a brief clearing in the mist -- you can see the knife falling toward the figure, but you can't see the figure, or who's holding the knife, or know *why* it's happening.

I hope this helps with your prologue woes.

This is an excellent prologue from my opinion, but some parts were quite vague. Was that intentional?

...The Cursed are like shadows. {you said that "Only few can gain access to such dreams" and then you say that they are intangible. I was under the impression that these were humans and/or faeries, so how are they now spirit-like?}
Never tangible, but they are still visible. They are the essence of fear, worry, jealousy, and all other horrible things. Cast from the blessed realm of Violetmoor by the Fairy folk, the Cursed make nightmares. Successfully leading their victims into a state of panic, the Cursed thrive on fear. Their main prey is not on humans though {so do they also trap humans?}, but on Fairies.

They trap the Fairy people in their own dreams, and there they stay until the end of time. Sadly, this is a fate worse than death. The Fairies can never escape their dreams, be it a happy one, or a nightmare. Although they appear to be asleep, once the Cursed have locked them in an everlasting dream, the affected will never return to their own world, and might as well be dead. {how are their bodies still alive if they get no nutrition? and do they last forever that way? My idea; their souls/unconciousness is detached from their bodies. the bodies die and they are left hanging in dreams for eternity}

Can the Fairy folk resist such evil? Or are they doomed to live in fear for the rest of their lives? There are some that may answer such questions, while the rest are left to wonder. The Fairy Realm no longer exists, ours does, along with the memory of another life. {Are all of the fairies trapped in this dream-land? and if not, then where are they other than the fairy realm? the human world?}
good story!

It seems more like you're telling the story instead of showing the story. You can call me a hypocrit for this (since I tend not to do this with my own writing) but it's something my writing teacher taught me that really helped improve my writing.

Try taking out all the linking verbs and reworking each sentence. It really helps to get you think about what you're actually saying, and to show the reader what's happening. Here's an example: (mind you, this is very difficult to do in present tense)

"The Cursed are like shadows. Never tangible, but they are still visible. They are the essence of fear, worry, jealousy, and all other horrible things. Cast from the blessed realm of Violetmoor by the Fairy folk"

to

"The Cursed, like shadows, never tangible but still visible, being the essence of fear, worry, jealousy, and all other horrible things, were cast from the blessed realm of Violetmoor by the Fairy folk"

There is only one linking verb in that sentence. Try this using what you have so far and doing this. It may seem like its 'shortening' what you have, but in reality it's just reorganizing it so it's showing and not telling. Another thing to try is using vivid nouns and strong verbs. Being as there isn't really a setting, or anything happening in this prologue, it's extremely difficult to do. But later on, keep that in mind. Try this:

"The rose was growing out of the ground."

to

"The bulbous scarlet rose sprouted out of the soft ground."
- Here we have vivid nouns (scarlet rose, soft ground) and concrete verbs (sprouted) ... using these stronger verbs also took away the linking verb.


</end rantin> ... back to your prologue. It felt more like you telling me about the story. This kind of information needs to be in the actual story and should be detailed though small descriptions, events, and character's dialog. It makes it a lot more interesting for the reader to discover this on their own (almost like a little mystery) and it helps to add depth and realism to your fantasy world.

I did however really enjoy your first paragraph. It was really suspenceful and pulled me into the story. My only suggestion would be to pick your tense wisely. Stories in present tense (for me at least) tend to be harder to write, and its easy to revert back to past tense by mistake. Keep working on this, it already sounds like an interesting story that I'd like to read.

that was good! but i still don't understand how the fairys get trapped in "The Cursed" dreams? thats all btu i'm looking forward to chapter 1!!!

OK,
Yeah, I agree, I don't think there should be a prologue. I dunno what I was thinking there. Thanks a billion for your comments there. So, I'm just going to start off with Chapter 1 right away. Of course, I'm probably going to be going back and forth with the whole editing thing, but that's fine.

Interesting...very interesting!

Well, congrats on hooking me into it. It's short, even for a prologue, but I guess that's okay. It doesn't need to be long to say what you want to say.

Since it's so short, I'll just put it up here...my critiques are in italics, okay?

Prologue

There is a place not known to man physically, but by man's dream. It is said not to exist, a fool's dream if you will. If so let it be a fool's dream. Take that sentence out...it's unnecessary, like a repetition of the previous statement. It is the unknown of man's heart, mind, and fate; these things seem almost impossible to comprehend. But, they are there, shimmering in vague memories. Only few can gain access to such dreams, some thought - suddenly in past tense! that such beings never existed. Right here you need to add: "However, like all things evil, etc." That would make it better. Like all things evil, such things did exist, and they received a name, the Cursed.

You have several problems in the first paragraph, which is never a good thing. First of all, you were switching tenses. Here, I'll go back and put your tense switches in bold. There. Now, I would say for a prologue it's good to stay in the present tense...it builds up tension and makes it cool.

Next problem is, you began by saying 'thing' as singular, the dream world. Then you said 'such things' do exist, plural. It's confusing. We've gone from talking about an intangible place only reached by the subconscious mind, to talking about creatures called the 'Cursed.' I think you need to make it clear when you're talking about the 'Cursed' and when you're talking about this nightmare dream realm. It's confusing.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, didn't somebody use the 'Cursed' already, that name? In the Wheel of Time series, or something?



The Cursed are like shadows. Here you're back to present tense. I'd say stay in it. It's cool. Never tangible, but they are still visible.

I think you should combine the first two sentences to this: "Never tangible, yet still visible, the Cursed are like shadows." That would be cooler and cut out extra words at the same time.

They are the essence of fear, worry, jealousy, and all other horrible things. Nitpick: don't like 'horrible things'. Sounds like author couldn't think of any more horrible things, so they decided to generalize. Cast from the blessed realm of Violetmoor by the Fairy folk, the Cursed make nightmares. Successfully leading their victims into a state of panic, the Cursed thrive on fear. Their main prey is not on humans though, but on Fairies.


They trap the Fairy people in their own dreams, and there they stay until the end of time. Don't the Cursed make dreams? I'm confused...do they make dreams or have the ability to trap people in them? Or both? Sadly, Take out 'Sadly.' You're an objective narrator, so you can't inject your opinion into the story. We get to decide whether or not we think it's sad. this is a fate worse than death. The Fairies can never escape their dreams, be it a happy one, or a nightmare. Although they appear to be asleep, once the Cursed have locked them in an everlasting dream, the affected will never return to their own world, and might as well be dead.


Can the Fairy folk resist such evil? Or are they doomed to live in fear for the rest of their lives? There are some that may answer such questions, while the rest are left to wonder. The Fairy Realm no longer exists, ours does, along with the memory of another life. This last sentence is ultra-confusing, and I have no suggestions for improvement because I have no clue what it means.

FlyingDream wrote:

Prologue

There is a place not known to man physically, but by man's dream. It is said not to exist, a fool's dream if you will. If so, let it be a fool's dream. It is the unknown of man's heart, mind[s],[/s] and fate; these things seem almost impossible to comprehend[s].[/s], [s]B[/s]but[s],[/s] they are there[s],[/s]; shimmering in vague memories. Only a few can gain access to such dreams, some thought that such beings never existed. Like all things evil, such things did exist, and they received a name, the Cursed.

Not bad, a bit confusing though. The order of words is throwing me off. I'm sort of aware of what is happening, but at the same time not.