Walking Survival - Prologue • Young Writers Society

Walking Survival - Prologue

April 14, 2015
Novel / Chapter: Science Fiction, Narrative
5 comments (4 reviews)

Prologue

Planet Earth, Year 3094 – Status: Controlled

Planet Earth, once rich in nature and its people, has become a post-war disaster. It began in the year of 3080, known as the The Awakening. The Awakening started with a single strange organism, which had black, round eyes with three short tentacles as its mouth. Its skin: pale, dry, with a tint of tan. Scientists tried to communicate with the strange being, but proven to be a failure. During the day of The Awakening, it called out to its kind, causing destruction throughout the planet.

Even though we don’t know the name of their species, we call them the LUNs.

The LUNs took the sources of the planet. Its nature, food, power, anything that nourishes Earth.

Now, we live in poverty, scraping for food and water while avoiding the LUNs gaze. Caught by the LUNs is a living nightmare. I haven’t experienced it myself, but the way they took my comrades, unforgiveable. When the Awakening began, I was only a child, ten years old to be precise. I remember hiding under my bed with my little sister. My parents, ran outside with my father’s hi-tech pistols that shoot later blue radiation lasers. Then, I recall going outside, because my parents were gone for a long while. As soon as I reached the doorstep, there were my parents, lying on the ground covered in blood.

My little sister, came running after, seeing the horrid mess that the LUNs left behind.

One of the LUNs, stood with its head held high. Luckily, we weren’t noticed so I and my sister started running away from the place I call home. We kept running and running, there was no turning back on this. I knew that now. We stopped, looking up at an abandoned building.

“You go hide. Your big brother will check inside.”

“But…”

“Trust me…” I kissed my sister’s forehead as she began to run behind some bushes. I noticed a medium-sized metal pipe leaning against the building walls. I picked it up, heading inside the building as quietly as I can. I remember how scared I was, but I had to protect my sister, no matter what. My breathing became heavy, my body shaking in fear. I didn’t understand why this was happening to us, to me, to my sister, to the world. I didn’t understand at all. I looked around the whole building, searching for the creatures. There was no sign of them. I sighed in relief.

“Jerr...?” I heard my sister call me from the front door of the building.

“It’s okay. Come inside.”

My sister walked inside, shaking in terror. I walked up to her, hugging her as tightly as I could. “It’s okay, Melanie. I will protect you no matter what.”

That was the day where I decided to become stronger.

Comments

Points: 37216
Reviews: 346

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Wed May 13, 2015 4:40 pm

Pretzelstick wrote a review...

Heya Kanome,Pretzelsing here for a review,as was promised on your wall some time ago.Sorry that I haven't gotten to it before now.

Anyways,let's begin,shall we? I don't really read a lot of sci-fiction stories,so here you have a newbies perspective to this unfamiliar type of genre. Your prologue is something fresh and new to me.Well, I kind of skimmed through Chapter 1 and I am wondering, is this a true prologue? Because usually a prologue is written because it's either from another character's POV or that there is a big time gap between one chapter and the other. I am not that good at explaining this so if you want me to elaborate,just let me know.

I personally like that this is written in the first person POV because that makes your whole novel so much more personal and kind of like mine/yours if you see what I mean. And now, you can incorporate so much more emotion and feeling into this prologue.

Jerr's parents just died so he must be feeling something on the inside. Sadness, madness, sorrow, emptiness,etc. I don't know what he is feeling, so you as the Author should decide. There is so minimal emotion here, that I don't feel by any way connected to them. I'm honestly can't tolerate 0 emotion so I am unsympathetic for Jerr.
Not only did his parents die,but in the span of one day he has to leave his (childhood?) home forever, never come back and not live in safety.

Planet Earth, once rich in nature and its people, has become a post-war disaster.

I just wanted to point out that you whole first paragraph is telling. Even though this has been repeated hundreds of time by reviewers here on YWS, I can't stress this one point enough. It's show,not tell

Spoiler! :

I really can't imagine how the LUNs look like,even though you gave this sentence:

Its skin: pale, dry, with a tint of tan.

That is too vague and unspecific for me.You need to work on recreating the image of the LUNs, something apparently very important in this novel.

Now I want to see that in this first sentence. "Once it was rich in nature and it's people" doesn't give me any mental picture at all. I really see a blank screen while reading this whole first paragraph. Here is how I would write it(just as an example for you to use)

Pretzelsing wrote:Planet Earth, was once displayed roaring waterfalls that carved a granite rock's path on the way down, mountains taller than the clouds-as far as one's eye could reach in sight, rainforests that have lush-green leaf upon leaf in the top of the canopy,under the wide expanse of the shining sun. The people were all different colors and cultures, but molded in all together like one clay pot,shaped by the hands of the Holy Creator. They interacted using their international sign language; gestures of hands were visually more understandable than spoken words.

Now, when you read this and reread this, I think that you could get a much better mental picture of the surroundings here. Can't you almost hear the waterfalls, see the mountains, and fly over the canopy of the rainforests? That is exactly what you have to evoke in your readers.

Caught by the LUNs is a living nightmare.

This is very cliché, and I know that you can do better than this, because every writer can just write a cliché. Twist it up, or change the parallel overall, and make it more uniquely and creative your phrase in your book. I really have a strong dislike to clichés, and this is no exception.

“You go hide. Your big brother will check inside.”

This popped out to me in the text terribly, as so I had to point this out. Why is Jerr telling Melanie "your big brother" when he could have simply written "I will check . . ."

“But…”

I am frustrated at the number of writers who get ellipsis wrong. Here is how you are supposed to grammatically correct format them:

word space dot space dot space dot

"But . . ."

I didn’t understand why this was happening to us, to me, to my sister, to the world. ~~I didn’t understand at all~~.

These two sentences are basically saying the same thing. I would eliminate the second one.

That was the day where I decided to become stronger.

You can't decide to become stronger. Strength bubbles from the inside, and you have to act like it,if you do ever decide that you want to be this. We shall see if Jerr is strong and stronger in the future chapters. Remember, if you wrote this sentence, this is what you are going to have to measure him by.

I didn't want to sugarcoat my critique of this prologue, and the things that I missed, I am pretty sure that JK covered. I hope that I didn't repeat anything that the previous reviewers wrote, I just don't really read them to confuse my mind.

Overall, this is a start that needs some polishing and work to make it look like a masterpiece(and it could be- after it's editing). I hope that this review helps you improve your writing.

Peace out

/pretzelsing/

Points: 480
Reviews: 34

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Thu Apr 16, 2015 2:03 am

jayflames1 says...

I'm gonna review this! Later! Not now though.... I'll be back!

Pretzelsing says...

PING! Just a reminder that this was promised a review on this ^_^

Pretzelsing says...

PING! Just a reminder that this was promised a review on this ^_^

Pretzelsing says...

And I don't know why that repeating twice <,< Hope that you got the notif though . . .

jayflames1 says...

thanks, completely forgot about this piece

Points: 517
Reviews: 6

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Thu Apr 16, 2015 12:37 am

97DecibelFeak wrote a review...

I've been needing my post-apocalyptic sci-fi fix!

Although the premise is slightly overused, it's a likable concept and I hope to see where you take this. The opening paragraphs had a very "Pacific Rim" feel (I don't doubt that you've seen the film, but if not I recommend it) with the whole dramatic, "our earth has been ruined, and here's how" shtick accompanied by the flashback. Very cinematic.

Throughout reading this, I noticed you're a bit 'comma-happy'. Although the comma is a gift from the writing gods, try not to use it so excessively. Your syntax is oftentimes good, although there are a few awkward sentences (in particular, the ones with commas scattered about them). To fix this problem, simply read you piece aloud to yourself. Word-for-word and taking account for the pauses due to commas. If it sounds choppy, you may need to take another look at your punctuation. Also, considering you are writing in first-person, it's a good idea to do this anyway. You are trying to portray a person narrating what they see, their "voice". You want to give the effect that they are telling the reader what they are seeing.

Nevertheless, well done.

-Sav

Points: 34531
Reviews: 141

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Wed Apr 15, 2015 2:35 am

Hattable wrote a review...

Hi Kanome!
I'm here to review your work (obviously)
I really liked this and, with a few corrections, I'm sure it can be even better.
Let's get on to the "few" corrections, shall we?

Its skin: pale, dry, with a tint of tan.

This would be better as “Its skin was pale, dry, and displayed a tint of tan,” or any variation as such. Just try to include an “and” in there because otherwise it's a bit awkward to read.

Scientists tried to communicate with the strange being, but proven to be a failure.

This should be “Scientists tried to communicate with the strange being, but this proved to be impossible,” or some other variation of words; “but proven to be a failure” doesn't make sense. You could even try “but this was proven a failure”.

The LUNs took the sources of the planet.

Try “The LUNs took the planet's resources.” If you choose to keep “of the planet” then change “sources” to “resources” as that's the correct word for what you described.

Now, we live in poverty, scraping for food and water while avoiding the LUNs gaze.

Remove the first comma.

Caught by the LUNs is a living nightmare. I haven’t experienced it myself, but the way they took my comrades, unforgiveable.

“Being captured by the LUNs is a living nightmare. I haven't experienced it myself, thank God, but the way they took my comrades was unforgivable.” I think this would be a much better substitute for the current sentence as it flows more smoothly. You could also replace “comrades was unforgivable” with “comrades... Unforgivable”. Just keep in mind that there's only one E in “unforgivable”.

When the Awakening began, I was only a child, ten years old to be precise.

You capitalized the “the” in every other mention of the Awakening so far, so you might want to do the same here or fix the others to reflect this one. This sentence could also use some tweaking. Perhaps “When the Awakening began I was only a child. Ten years old to be precise”?

My parents, ran outside with my father’s hi-tech pistols that shoot later blue radiation lasers. Then, I recall going outside, because my parents were gone for a long while.

“My parents ran outside with my father's hi-tech pistols, weapons that fire blue radioactive lasers. Then I recall going outside because my parents had been gone for too long.” This could be a better alternative but I'm not sure about the second sentence in it; the commas might just belong there.

My little sister, came running after, seeing the horrid mess that the LUNs left behind.

“My little sister came running after me and saw the horrid mess left behind by the LUNs.”

One of the LUNs, stood with its head held high. Luckily, we weren’t noticed so I and my sister started running away from the place I call home.

“One of the LUNs stood with its head held high, surveying the area for more victims. Luckily we weren't noticed but we had to get out of there. My sister and I started running away from the place we'd called home.” I added some more parts that might make the sentences more detailed but you can remove them and narrow it down to the corrections of the current sentence.

“You go hide. Your big brother will check inside.”
“But…”

The short sentences are perfectly fine here, I write like that quite often. All that I suggest you do is say who's talking after the words of each character. For example:
“You go hide. Your big brother will check inside,” I told her.
“But...” she protested, her eyes full of fear.
Actually... now that I type it out myself, replacing the period in the first part with a comma would make it better. That's entirely up to you, though.

I picked it up, heading inside the building as quietly as I can.

Here you contradicted your word tense. You started the sentence in past tense (“I picked it up”) and ended it in present tense (“as quietly as I can”). You need to change on of those parts to the other tense and keep an eye out for any similar mistakes. I make the same mistake very often but I'm far too lazy to dig them all out of my own work, let alone other people's

That was the day where I decided to become stronger.

This should be “That was the day I decided to become stronger” or “That was the day that I decided to become stronger”.

Great job for your first sci-fi story (apparently), I really enjoyed it and look forward to more. Just keep building on this world, get your “sci-fi writing style” flowing, and soon you'll have a great story.

Keep writing!
-Jules

Points: 243
Reviews: 15

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Wed Apr 15, 2015 1:42 am

BlackAshes wrote a review...

Hello! Ash here for a review~

First off - Great story line, can't wait to read more!

As for grammar and spelling, I caught no mistakes, unless I missed them.
There were a few sentences I thought could have been put together, such as:

“You go hide. Your big brother will check inside.”

And

“It’s okay. Come inside.”

you could have put a comma instead, but that's up to you~ Can't wait to read more, PM me when you post some more!

Kanome says...

Thank you <3

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Walking Survival - Prologue

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