Almost a year ago, the Sickness had begun it's deadly work.
The Sickness was ruthless and unexpected, to say the least. It swept the land, causing people of good health to drop dead. Such painless and sudden endings quickly made marriage close to obsolete. Young brides lamented outside their homes; their husbands, who had complained of aches or coughs moments before, had simply laid down and died. The Sickness had mugged the nation of Chi and went through its pockets for spare healthy people which it then proceeded to stamp under its foot.
With the constant threat of death looming over one's head, everyday life was carried out in a wary manner. If someone on the street were to drop dead, you stayed away. If you were to drop dead... it would be safe to say that you wouldn't care anymore. The contagion was spreading fast, and there was no accurate way to find its source. Over the course of a week, it had reached its deathly hand into even the shadiest corners of the five realms
Healers, once scoffed at, became renown for their home-made remedies. Each remedy had its own requirements in order to work. Take this potion on the night of a new moon, put this flower in the heel of your shoe and yodel for a day, et cetera, et cetera. Even though these so-called cures rarely worked, they stayed mass hysteria for a little while, if only for a few days.
If you weren't partial to earthly methods, one looked to the gods for help.
It was rumoured that Aphorel, the god of death, had something to do this plague. Because of his prestige, he was a god to be feared. And since he was a god to be feared, the people gave him weekly sacrifices. When the Sickness had first began, such a rite was the equivalent of asking to spare one's children for a few days, until the next one could be completed. But months later, when people were still dying by the bushel, sacrifices increased tenfold. Livestock was stolen to be used in burnt offerings. Food sources were nearly wiped out. Chickens almost went extinct in the nationwide panic that ensued. The mad roamed free, untouched by the ideals of society before the Sickness. Things were no longer on a course for the worse. Things had crashed into the worst, rolled over a couple of times, and then proceeded to fall into a nearby volcano and catch on fire.
To be short- it was really bad.
The relatively-good-news-but-still-bad-news was that a few months after the deadly flu had appeared, its power had began to abate. Instead of the few moments it took to die, it took an hour. In another month, it took a day. In just three more months, it took about two weeks for the infected to perish. At least there was time to say goodbye and isolate yourself. Finally, people began to get back on their feet from their severe beating.
Until the King died.
The fragile strands of hope which were being rebuilt after a year of pain and grief were once again shattered.
But there is still the gentle Glow of a nation. Lost, roaming souls all looking for a lantern to light their way. A beacon of any kind. And there is one, though he will not find his Glow for weeks to come. Despite all of this, he is crucial to this story. A natural element. He has the brightest Glow.
End of chapter
Continue to next chapter Glow- Chapter TwoPoints:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
139,691 Literary Works • 672,653 Reviews
Hi, bluewaterlily to review. Firstly I would like to say awesome username.
Now onto the actual review. Also, you have a very good first sentence to establish the story. I like the intrigue built around Sickness, especially since you capitalized it. However, I feel like the next sentence falls flat when you say "causing people of good health to drop dead." This statement seems redundant, as you already described the Sickness as ruthless.
Is it just me or does this Sickness remind me of the black plague that swept Europe in 1348 or Edgar Allen Poe's Red Masque story of the the red death which was based off of the bubonic plague. My point is that plagues have been a common theme in historical literature and even fantasy, so what sets this sickness apart from the others and makes it memorable?
Things is a very weak and vague term. What "things"? Specifically what events and why? Also I feel like those sentences are so closely linked together that they should be connected with a semicolon. If the "Things" fall into a volcano, catching on fire is implied.
I noticed there is a lot of "telling" or narrating instead of showing. While telling cannot be appropriate and even essential, it is overused here. I can understand telling or just summarizing the events in circumstances like a character is explaining these events to another character through dialogue or a letter or other form of writing. However, when telling is overused as it is in this chapter, it becomes redundant and detaches the reader's interest from the plot and characters. For example, you summarize all of the ill effects of the Sickness. People dying, starving, a nation losing its king in a time of need. I should care about these disastrous events, but I have no connection it because I am not feeling what the characters feel and cannot experience any empathy. Don't be afraid to introduce characters.
I think this chapter would be so much more powerful and interesting if you showed the effects of the sickness. Like show us a scene where the healers or trying to save people? Or how a family deals with losing a loved one to the Sickness while also dealing with the fear of catching it. Or how about how important the king was and the grief and despair of the nation when he died? Or show us the sacrifices to the god. That would really interest me.
I noticed a common issue many writers have, including me, You use similar sentence structure which can be monotonous and slows down the pace of the story until it feels like it is only dragging. Try to vary your sentence structure. You have several long sentences. Try establishing a nice contrast with short and medium length sentences. Vary your claudes. Here is a helpful article on varying sentence structure:
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/Docume ... ucture.pdf
You also use passive voice. Although it is acceptable and sometimes unavoidable, try changing these instances to active voice to make your writing livelier.
Here is a resource on passive and active voice:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/02/
Now onto my last nitpicks. What is the Glow? Is it the "lost and roaming souls all looking for a lantern to light their way"? if so, then the two sentences need to be joined, so the reader knows what exactly the Glow is. I feel like you need a transition from focusing so much on the Sickness to now focusing on the Glow. Also, I noticed you switched from past to present tense. Those are all my nitpicks.
I hope this review does not sound too harsh. Your story does have great potential. And your sentence was a great hook. Without waiting, you tried and succeeded into getting down to the heart of the matter: the Sickness. However, the effect is somewhat diminished when you summarize the events. Try to show us what is happening instead. Maybe it would help to imagine this scene as a movie and how would you translate it to written form. Dialogue is always a great way to show.
I understand this is a prologue and for its genre, will involve some telling most likely. But this is a lot of information for the reader to digest. Maybe consider making it easier for the reader's brain by showing us through characters, their emotions and interactions, action, and of course, dialogue.
But excellent job with establish a mood and atmosphere to your story, which is hard to do in the first chapter, so I applaud you. Keep writing, and if you have questions or comments, please drop me a p.m. or message on my wall.
~bluewaterlily
Hello Kindling, Subtle here for a review!
All right, let's comment on your starting sentence. Fine, I will admit that its cliché, but is effective. It reeled me in, sure, it might put off some readers. But it fished up my interest, the sickness? What is it? Started what? So, in my opinion. Good opening sentence.I don't know, the word 'very' there seems to be much overused. And I think good health would have sufficed.
Also, like @diannecce has stated below, the people would have found at least some non-religious way to deal with it. I mean even the Black Death, the people believe that posies could heal them. However, I love the descriptions of the Sickness and the people falling and dying. It was realistic but without too much detail.
Also, your paragraph on Aphorel seemed to me like a massive info dump. Something you should avoid at all cost. I think you could have just shortened it to a short sentence on who he is, and then the sacrificial rites. But do keep the chicken and the volcano, because that was brilliant!
I also noticed that your language switched between semi-formal and collateral, the first two paragraphs were semi-formal. And then in the last four paragraphs, you have bits of it mixed. I think you should stick to one of them and continue with it.
Stunning personification of the Sickness there, truly wonderful! I praise you on that.
Overall, this first chapter save for the few nitpicks truly has potential. I think you could do great work with this idea, as it is different to any works I have read in this genre. Best of luck in your future writings! And I hope I wasn't too harsh.
-S.s
Hi!
First off, I have to say you have kind of a generic opening, especially with the word "started." Normally, I would advise against writing like that, but it sort of works with what you're talking about. I like the slow, unrolling explanation of the Sickness and what is going on in this fictional land, although I'm not sure I would completely believe people were living their lives in the same way with this plague wiping out the majority of their population
I think they would have tried to find a way to deal with all these deaths occurring and try to live life the same way, but have that persistent feel and fear of the Sickness at the back of their minds. I think they would be paranoid and taking precautions to make sure they didn't catch the Sickness.
The entire paragraph about Aphorel, the god of death, seems like babbling. However, the writing there, as in the ideas and reasoning, is very good. I like how you go back on forth on why the god of death is behind the Sickness and why it's something he wouldn't even be bothering with. Also, I wanted to point out that in this paragraph you sort of contradict yourself. Earlier you wrote that the people lived life the same way, then here you write that things had changed for these people and robberies were being committed and "food sources were nearly wiped out" and "chickens almost went extinct." I would advise you to stick to this explanation and try to get rid of those couple of sentences about life not changing.
Also, your chronology is pretty good, although I feel like since you began the prologue by saying "it all started" I think you should include more time marks instead of just delving into what happened in one big paragraph. I'm talking about the paragraph that begins with "The relatively-good-news" and ends with "stamp under its foot." You can delve into the effects of the Sickness and the chronology of it into more than one paragraph, to give your piece more structure. I also think there would be more of an impact when you write "And finally, when the people began to get back on their feet," if you made that a single sentence then put the rest of that explanation in with the next paragraph.
The wording on "All the hope was lost." seems off and it's because of "the."
The last paragraph feels hesitant, like even the speaker doesn't really know what's going on or doesn't trust what they are saying. I think you could write that part a bit stronger, add more impact, make it intense. And I think you should only use the word "glow" once so that it leaves readers stunned, confused, and wanting more. There could be a stronger cliff hanger.
Overall, I liked it. It's got an energy that I haven't seen in a while and it seems like a promising story. I hope you do continue writing this because I think it could turn out to be pretty amazing.
Keep writing and good luck,
Dianne E.C.E.
Hello, I quite enjoyed this piece. The writing was good, the plot was interesting there was a nice amount of humour woven throughout that gave this piece, which could have easily been morbid and depressing, a degree of charm. It was very readable, and it worked as a prologue in that it set the scene and caught my attention, making me interested in where the story would go.
On the whole, the spelling and grammar was good. I liked the writing style, however there were a few parts wnere you lapsed into a somewhat clumsier style, so just keep aware of that. There was nothing about this that leapt out at me for being bad, but there was a lot that caught my eye for being good - there are some witty, cleverly written passages in here.
Unfortunately I've got a couple of nitpicks,
As it is talking about 'the power belonging to it', "its" shouldn't have an apostrophe.
This is worded kind of strangely, I'd change it to something like 'Instead of taking a few moments to die, it took an hour'.
As I said, you've done a great job, so keep up the good work!