Published December 19, 2008
Prologue:
My name is Ryan. Over the last decade, I have gotten myself in the middle of a bloody war between blood-thirsty creatures of the night. Both sides were out to get me. I knew there had to be a way to save my own kind from the death and pain the monsters had it in for them, but first I had to survive long enough to find out how...
I readied my crossbow, unable to fully concentrate or grasp the fight before me. Guilt nagged at my conscience for letting it come this far. I could not help fearing for the hooded figure at my side, so young and foolish. His eyes glowed a dim purple light, his lips were curled up in a snarl, I could feel the tenseness in his body, ready to strike. The near future seemed destined to destroy one of us, carved in stone, set no matter how much we tried to steer it off-course.
My distraction could, in part, be blamed on our surroundings. Though it was night, the large field was elegantly lit by the colorfull luminescent plants covering the ground beneath us. They streched for as far as I could see, disturbed in the distance by large shadows. A brilliantly lit sky above us only added to the fields' mysticity.
My insides lurched as shadows charged at us with extraordinary speed, faintly visible from the glow of the full moon above us. Familiar roars and growls seemed to shake the ground beneath me with their loudness and power as the blood-thirsty demons approached us, and I felt hopeless. We couldn’t win.
Yet one of us had to live. I cursed as I pressed the trigger and saw a shining black arrow slice through the air into the closest shadow, scattering the others as an unbelievably loud screech echoed through the night air.
My companion and I readied ourselves for the oncoming inferno, awaiting the pain and death charging to meet us.
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140,280 Literary Works • 673,071 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Okay well this is quite the start there. It seems like we've got a bit of a dangerous balance going on in this particular world with this species being in some rather clear grave danger and this one person stepping up to protect them in the midst of all of it. Its certainly quite the premise there and it does a wonderful job dragging us readers in. Let's see where it takes us.
Well this is a solid touch of description there to further let us dive into the situation surrounding the scene here. I think it does a good job of sorting putting the area into perspective and then establishing the general sort of stakes that we are working with. It works very well with that opening so far to really make this stand out.
Aaand well that has quite a last stand like feel to it there as we end. I think it handled the sort of ever escalating stakes there quite well and the sort of open ending there with just one final line about the stakes works really well there to end this piece open.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hey everyone and I am really thankfull for all your comments.
I'd never would have noticed the whole adverb thing, so thanks for pointing that out.
I had this picture in my head, and I think I didn't do a good job of describing it...
I'll be more descriptive in the first chapter, and it won't short like the prologue, I
ll actually get own and write.
hey im new at this whole shtick too so maybe i can provide a helping hand.
kay here's the nit picky specific problems
eliminate fully. it is an adverb and adverbs are serious bad juju. if you just he couldn't comprehend/ grasp
that is enough for the reader to get the idea.
guilt nudged? i don't think that that is the right word. perhaps you mean nagged?
make this its own sentence. and is tenseness the right word. doesn't sound quite right to me
it seems hard to remove faintly but try something like "visible only by the light of the moon above."
again, loudness had that same sound to it that tenseness did.it doesn't quite feel right if you know what i mean
is the loudly part necessary? remove if it isn't. seriously avoid adverbs.
ADVERBS IS NO-NOS. if you really want to emphasize that point call it a screech or something.
Okay now the general stuff.
first off you need to define your character a little more. who is he/she? why is he/she there? what is he/she?
second it should be a little longer. well maybe not but it needs a little more depth.
7/10
This was pretty good even though it was only a few paragraphs.
Though I would have to say that to be a prologue it needs to be longer.
Make sure a prologue is really the way to go for your story. Sometimes prologues aren't really needed and can either be made into chapter 1 or the information revealed in the prologue could be spread throughout the rest of the story. Make sense a little?
Otherwise, I think that those few paragraphs are just fine. More description would make it better but thats up to you.
Welcome again!
You're missing out on a lot of details, it seems. For instance, the narrator: boy or girl? Young or old? Which of the two must live?
The writing style was pretty good, and I liked the description of the narrator's guilt. A couple of places stuck, like "The near future seemed destined to destroy one of us". Instead of that, I would recommend using the word "set" instead of "destined". It would aid the flow of the sentance, and clear up a bit of uncertainty.
Aside from those things I mentioned (detailing and sentance flow), you did pretty well. Just don't stereotype demons as shadows. Some of them actually look pretty human.
Hey Gabe, welcome to YWS I'm Peanut.
I thought this was very good for one of your first jobs. It was very short though. I thought they were in a battle but couldn't really tell. If they were than what did it look like, that's the only thing that bothered me because all I knew was that he was fighting demons. I think if you made it just a little longer it would help, but for now it's fine. Hope I helped, I'm not really sure if any of that made sense, but good luck. PM me if you have any questions.
~peanut~