Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language, violence, and mature content.
Prologue
The courier glided across the rooftops like a kite, running gracefully with the wind atop the tall buildings. His bag contained maps, charts, and documents that were essential to his cause. His feet silently carried him, jumping and sliding and rolling, over and around and under any obstacle. His eyes were sharp, watching for the foes who would surely take his life for the information he carried.
However, his eyes were not sharp enough as they were fixed on the path ahead of him. Only after he felt the sting of a dagger in his side, he saw the enemy that had sprung from the shadows like a snake.
The courier managed to spin out of the attack, and kept his running momentum. Unfortunately for him, his momentum led him to the void between two buildings. A void that he didn't have enough vector to leap across, but too much vector to avoid.
A trail of blood followed his body as it crashed and bounced on several pipes and fire escapes before finally landing harshly on the concrete with the sharp crack of a dozen broken bones.
Chapter 1
Felix Infente, along with over 9/10th of the population of this world, was completely oblivious to the real nature of earth. The nature of the universe. He knew plenty about modern society, politics, and plenty of other subjects that would soon be completely irrelevant to him.
To the common passerby, Felix was just a guy. A guy in his early twenties who liked to play video games and drink with his friends. Just a guy who pulled his hood over his face to avert the moody New York weather.
To the man with the right information, however, Felix was that man's source of his next fix. For a price, but anyone who approached Felix was always willing to pay the hefty fee for the quality product he pedaled.
He'd become a member of high importance in his “organization”. He was one of the highest sources of income for the "South Side Syndicate" and had helped his gang achieve infame on the streets of lower Manhattan. So, Felix had gotten used to dealing with the rival groups who wanted what south side had.
Felix’s panicked mind considered every possibility involving rival gangs and death threats as he followed a trail of blood he spotted in his apartment. Felix didn't have any idea where it came from or who's it was… until he found a dead body in his bathtub. It took a moment before it fully sunk in.
For a long while, he was too stunned and confused to think. A bloody pair of closed eyelids pulled him into a trance of silent panic. When he thought he saw a slight movement of the dead man’s eyes moving against the inside of his closed eyes, it frightened Felix back to the present.
The body of the man had a visible blade wound in his side, between his ribs and his hip. His face was covered with blood that had oozed out from a gash across his forehead and more blood across his lips from a broken nose. His left arm was bent at an impossible angle and his forearm seemed to have two elbows.
The man didn't wear any tattoos of rival gangs that Felix recognized. Or gang colors. All he wore was a hoodie with cheap running shoes and sweat pants. What stood out was the lap top bag slung over his shoulder with a unique symbol pressed into the leather.
Inside, Felix found a few Manila folders containing charts and calculations he couldn't make any sense of. The math was far past the 12th grade education he barely managed. Some of the equations even had strange symbols and languages he didn’t recognize. Seeing all this only sparked more confusion which spread into a wild-fire of questions in his mind. He stuffed everything back where he had taken it from, and pulled out the last item; a large envelope with an old fashioned wax seal of the same strange symbol on the front of the bag.
After Felix decided to open it, he found an odd assortment of maps. Some were old style nautical maps, some were satellite images of the entire world, and some were much more local. He saw South America on more than one map. And three maps were of Brazil.
The map that stood out from the rest was on a large page of graphing paper that was labelled “A.V. ESTIMATE”. Landforms, Islands, Oceans, Peninsulas, were sketched in pencil. It was nowhere in the world Felix had ever seen. It was as if someone was making a unique, new world. The “Other World”, independent from earth.
Calling the police was out of the question. Felix made sure to make the least contact with the law as possible. Cops sniffing around was bad for business, and the body could lead them to something Felix had committed. Not to mention what it seemed like; finding a brutally murdered body in the apartment of a single, unemployed Hispanic with quite a criminal record. The only option he saw was to call Adrian, his boss.
Adrian was what most people would call a drug lord. But Felix called him a close friend. Adrian was the closest thing to an older brother he ever got. The two of them shared a wide range of experiences over the last few years. If Felix was in doubt, he called Adrian, his main man.
"A, there's some dead guy here in my house, man." he quickly explained as soon as Adrian picked up. "And this dude got some kinda maps and math and shit in a bag. Thought you'd wanna see this."
Adrian spoke with a thick Spanish accent, "He got any ink?"
"Nah. No colors neither."
"Aight, X. But I wanna see those maps. might be some kinda message someone’s trying to send. Bring them to the the library at 1:30.” And with that, Felix heard the click and the tone of a dead line. He took that as a que to hurriedly stuff the maps back in the envelope, put that envelope back in the bag, and sling that bag over his shoulder.
He was out of the apartment in less than a minute... Had he taken just ten seconds longer to leave, he may have seen a set of blood covered eyes flick open.
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140,645 Literary Works • 673,577 Reviews
Just a quick warning; I get really, really, really in depth in this review, so it's probably going to seem rather harsh. That's because I don't have time to comment on every little thing you do right, but I am commenting on every single little thing that seems, not even wrong but a bit off to me. Note that there are a LOT of good things about this story; a select few of which I'll mention. This is like final-polish stuff, so the fact that I get to be so nitpicky and line-by-line-y in my review means that you're already pretty far along on a good path for this piece.
Also, it's important to note that a lot of the stuff I'm commenting on is pretty subjective, so if you don't agree, think about it, and figure out WHY you have it the way you have it. Part of editing is making sure you're confident in your choices.
Prologue: Line-By-Line
I like how the first line drops us right into the action, but I'm a bit confused by the prepositional phrase "with the wind". Do you mean s/he's running in the same direction as the wind? I'm not quite sure why that detail's important enough to break the flow of the first line.
"His bag contained maps, charts, and documents that were essential to his cause." Doesn't referring to him as a courier make it clear already that whatever he's carrying is essential to his cause, since the cause of a courier is delivering stuff?
What do you mean by under any obstacle? What obstacles are there on roofs that need to be ducked under?
Instead of "who would surely take his life", maybe "who would surely attempt to take his life" since I don't think it's absolutely certain that they'd kill him.
I'm pretty sure "and kept his running momentum" should be "and keep..." because the managed to goes to both verbs if I'm remembering my last grammar class correctly.
"Unfortunately for him," The 'for him' is unnecessary. At this point, he is the star of the show and the only person the reader cares about, so anything that's unfortunate (which is an understatement in this case) for him is unfortunate for the reader.
"A void that he didn't have enough vector to leap across, but too much vector to avoid." 90% of people will become sad if you remind them of math. Also, talking of vectors seems out of place in this story; since the rest of your writing has such a dramatic flourish, which 'vector's don't really fit into. If that makes sense. And we get that he's falling into the void without the line anyways, so just scratch it.
Not sure "trail" of blood is the correct word for what's being left behind as he's falling; it gives me a mental image of a line of blood floating in the air behind him. Also the harshly on landing is unnecessary. He fell off a building, we don't expect it to be light.
Prologue: Overall
As I said, I like how you begin with such drama right off the bat, and I like that you have the reader asking questions within the first paragraph (What's the maps and stuff about? Who're these other dudes that want them? Why do they want them? Why is this guy risking his life for them? etc.) One thing you could think of adding is some real quick description of the courier; maybe if he's hidden in a cloak, the color of his hair, something like that, especially if he's going to be mentioned in the story again. (If it's a Game of Thrones-esque prologue and the guy's never going to be heard of again, that's cool too, but I still think some description will be nice.)
A lot of prologues fall into the mistake of an 'info dump', but I find that good prologue, like yours, leave the reader with more questions than answers.
In the end, the MOST important job of a prologue is to make the reader turn the page, and continue reading on. Congratulations. Your prologue has accomplished its most important job.
Ch. One: Line-By-Line
Surprise! This story is taking place in modern times. That makes the prologue a bit confusing to me, since modern buildings aren't often close enough for a person to jump from roof to roof; and if they are, they can be completely different heights so there's a lot more climbing involved, but I'll keep reading and see if it gets cleared up later.
Not sure "avert", is the right word since it seems to imply the weather's changing directions rather than being stopped by the hood.
"To the man with the right information, however, Felix was that man's source of his next fix." This sentence reads awkward and clunky to me.
The comma after "for a price" should be a period, and the but should be deleted because those two statements don't contradict.
I googled "infame" because I wasn't sure about it and it's a verb not a noun like you use it, from what I could find. I think "infamy" is what you're looking for.
"where it came from or who's it was…" Whose, not who's. Never sure how I feel about ellipses; make sure it's not cheesy because I always have trouble telling.
"It took a moment before it fully sunk in." This line is mildly punny, and while puns are punderful, I'm not sure it's what you're going for.
"moving against the inside of his closed eyes," should be "closed eyelids". Also, in one sentence he's pulled into a trance and in the next, he's pulled out of it. This feels really quick to the reader; if you want to make it seem like he was actually pulled into a trance, make it take longer to read because often readers measure time by how long it takes to read. Even moving the first sentence of this paragraph to become the second sentence would help a ton, but I think all of the description of the man's injuries and his tattoos should be while Felix is still in a daze.
But wait, why is he in a daze in the first place? I'm sure he's seen dead bodies before, and bloody ones at that; he's in a gang. Is it because of the unexpectedness; because it's in his bathtub? But wouldn't he be expecting something wacky from the trail of blood? Is there a reason he isn't hardened and numb to the sight of dead bodies yet; does the look of the dead still get under his skin, no matter how hard he tries to get over it? I'm going off on a tangent here, but the point is the daze doesn't make sense and is a good place for some characterization.
"The body of the man" Of the man is unnecessary.
"in his side" Since the guy's dead, "his" should be 'its'.
"The math was far past the 12th grade education he barely managed" he'd
"Seeing all this only sparked more confusion which spread into a wild-fire of questions in his mind." A DEAD GUY in his BATHTUB didn't cause a wildfire of questions in his mind on its own? He needed some pages that might just be some Brazilian's calculus?
"After Felix decided to open it," Cut the "decided to".
"Adrian was what most people would call a drug lord." would be better as "Most people would call Adrian a drug lord." It increases the parallelism of the next sentence.
"A, there's some dead guy here in my house, man." I'd pick a different code name than 'A'. Too Pretty-Little-Liars-esque.
"He took that as a que to" Skip this; just go right to him stuffing the stuff in the bag.
The last line's brilliant, but might be better without the reference to how long it took him to get out of the apartment because that's irrelevant information that the reader could figure out on their own. What might be better is something like "If Felix had glanced back as he slung the bag over his shoulder, he may have seen a set of blood covered eyes flick open."
I don't understand how the body got in his bathtub; I thought it hit the ground. Maybe that's explained later; the guy obviously didn't die on impact, so maybe he dragged himself into the stranger's bathtub? However, I feel a drug dealer would keep his doors locked lest someone come looking for certain... valuables that can't be reported stolen to the police.
Ch. 1: Overall
You really needed the prologue, because if you'd started with the info-dump description like you do here, you wouldn't have started on your best foot. And you don't start on your best foot for the first chapter. What might be better if you show a drug deal between Felix and someone else, then he goes home and finds the dead body. Then it gives the dead body time to get in his bathtub because he wasn't at home at the beginning, and helps build suspense as he realizes not everything's kosher at his place. That's just a suggestion though.
That last line is spine-tingling good, and, while I could be more invested in Felix (you've got plenty of time to get the reader invested though), I'm definitely invested in the story line already. You've got an intriguing premise and I can't wait to see what you do with it.
Word to the Wise:
Whatever you do, do not just go and change everything I suggested, just because I suggested for you to change it. This is your novel, so you've got to decide what's best for it. You've got a lot of work ahead of you, and that's how it's supposed to be. Every classic was once a rough draft, and a semi-edited draft, and a I-thought-this-draft-was-good-but-it's-actually-nowhere-near-done draft, and a hundred other different types of drafts. So just keep swimming, and sooner or later, you'll have a pretty sweet book here.
Hope this helped,
tgirly
Hey, there! Lefty here to review.
Stories of a hidden magic world in amongst our own always seem really cool to me. The prologue really pulls you in and it's really interesting when you find out that that's in modern-day New York and not 1800's Italy. I like the way you described things in the intro. I felt like I was watching a movie.
Now onto some nitpicks...
For the prologue, although I like how it started and how you described everything, I wasn't sure about how it ended. It feels like it needs something at the end like a cliff hanger or something to give us a hint of a purpose as to why there's the prologue to begin with. Maybe something like: "The man lays still, and the maps lay still beside him. And little did his enemy know, the mans life and his own relied on the delivery of that package." Or something like that... I don't know the plot of your story past the first chapter so I don't know what would fit, but just to give you an example.
I think closed lids would sound better. Just my opinion, though. "Inside of his closed eyes" just sounded a little strange to me.
I think it should be "Aye" not "A".
I think you meant "cue" not "que".
Ok! That's it for the nitpicks. You've got a pretty good start here and I really liked how the courier opened his eyes at the end. Very intriguing! It makes me want to know a lot more about this shady hooded man with the maps. Is he from our world? An alternate universe? The past? Does magic exist? Does he possess magic? Who knows! Very cool character. You're good at explaining and describing things which allowed me to see it in my head like a movie. Hopefully this was helpful to you and hopefully I will be able to get to chapter 2 at some point. Keep up the good work and keep writing!
-Lefty
Okay, so I'm glad I at least have a stronger sense of who Felix is now (and we can blame that on my bad eyes and poor searching skills), and I've got to say that I'm liking him more and more now. He's a complex character--I can tell--and I'm hoping I'll get to see more of this as the story goes on. You're also handling the sequence of actions pretty well I'd say, save for a few bits that could be developed further (for example, the buildup to when Felix realizes there's a dead body in his tub). The best way to do this is to slip into the skin of your main character for a while. If you were him, how would you react? Take it step by step and write it down (this is the way I check if the events in my story are realistic or not, and I'm sure it can help you out as well).
The maps are now more interesting to me now than what I've read before. I'm seriously curious to know what they're all about, and the concept behind it is a fantastic premise for a story. A new world? What's this all about? o:
One nitpick though: you had some repetition with your wording that kind of pulled me out of the flow of the story. I have two examples of this. First one would be:
I know this seems small, but taking out that second 'plenty' there can work wonders. There's also this:
You see how you used 'eyes' and 'moving' a lot? Kind of seems a little much, right? If you tweak it a bit, the sentence will become much stronger and more concise. Here's an example:
See, now that we've gotten rid of all that extra wording, your point becomes much clearer. If you read through this piece carefully (preferably out loud. Whatever feels awkward in your mouth probably sounds awkward to the reader as well), and pick out this extra wording, I'm sure this chapter will be much stronger.
Other than that, I have such high hopes for this story. I wish you luck with chapter three
P.S. totally fangirling over your dialogue. it's just so realistic and ugh i love it
Thanks so much for your reviews! i submitted these pieces almost two weeks ago i think and i was beginning to lose faith. It's gonna be a long ride, and I'm glad i got a rider. Your reviews are quite helpful, I'll be changing those in the final draft.
Hello there! I couldn't sleep so I thought; "might as well return the review!"
One thing I absolutely loved about this chapter, was the ending! I had to read it a few times to be sure that's what actually happened, and it certainly makes me VERY curious as to what's going on. My first thought was "Yay, a horror novel!" but now I'm thinking it was just a set-up or something. I'm interested, in any case.
One of the things I think you could improve is how your characters interact; it was pretty cliche for a mobster phone call- I'm not trying to be mean or anything. It's just for once I'd love to for someone to indicate the call is ending before they hang up. I'd also love to see some kind of, I don't know, panic in Felix's character when he finds a dead guy in his apartment. Because, let's be real, even if you are a tough mob-boss, you're going to freak out just a bit when you realize you're the number one suspect in a future murder investigation. I'd in general like to see more defining characteristics in Felix that place him as being an average Joe... with a bit of a dark side-life, but still, an average Joe. I'm not sure if I'm making much sense at this point, but basically I'm saying: give us some indicator that we can relate to him, let him be breakable. I know this is the first chapter and we can't possibly know that much about this guy off the bat, but still; stories are about characters, make 'em memorable so that we cheer them on as they police car gains.
I was pleasantly surprised by your vocabulary! And I mean, I have a terrible vocab, but I thought yours was great!
Keep it up!
-Socks
Thanks, Pally! Those are some great points i didn't even think of. Much obliged! Chapter 2 should be up real soon, i just need to akwardly merge it with chapter three then i'll post it. And if you're wondering, no, it's not horror. I'd say, Adventure with some very subtle sci fi. Meaning it's not all lasers and space ships and aliens. Have a good one