Prologue
The night was dark and the clouds covered the moon. Street lamps illuminated the sidewalk and the young man that walked beneath them. Cars tumbled past, the only sounds in the night.
Tess Jamie Freya, the young man, walked with his head down, dragging his feet as he went, his collar pulled up agaisnt the gentle breeze; the blond kicked a can, letting it rattle down the street. High above him, perched atop a high church, gargoyles looked down upon him and the street. As Tess Jamie Freya walked, the head of one of the statues followed. The statue watched intently and silently as it watched Tess Jamie Freya walk down the street.
"Him..." it whispered. Upon hearing the voice, Tess Jamie Freya stopped and looked around. Seeing no one, he shrugged and continued on his way. The creature spread its wings and flew down to a building roof top below, watching the human walk away.
"Later..." it whispered before flying off into the night. Not far away, a large pair of doulbe doors flanked by two menacing statues, holding spears, and decorated with the bones of deceased mortals closed with a loud bang, but the noise was lost in the night. A tiny "Uh oh" whispered into the darkness. The small figure paniced, spread its wings, and flew into the darkness. It clumsily flew in the air, easily being blown off by the breeze or wind.
Soon the city turned into suburbs. Seeing one with lights on and an open widow, it flew toward the yellow light. It clambered through the window and scrambled into the closet. Shivering, in both fear and cold, it closed its eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,855 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,
Ooooh there's a fun little vibe of mystery spreading through this particular piece here. Its a fun moment that you've created here with a random human wondering about a somewhat mysterious place while other much more mysterious forces watch from above and observe. Those few lines of dialogue there between said mysterious forces certainly make things even more powerful for this start here and I am loving it. I think you can really pull of quite something here with what we've got going on and it just makes for a pretty neat prologue.
Well that took a fun turn there to end on. It makes for a pretty intriguing twist and not it seems we've got about three things that immediately make us ask quite a few questions and that is certainly quite something for a prologue that happens to be this short here. Overall, I think you do a really good job here of bringing across some very intriguing moments and it comes together to make a pretty strong scene here for this prologue...I know there's enough going on here that I'd totally want to read and find out more.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hi ^^
´Firstly I want to say that this is a good piece of writing, it just has some "thecnical" mistakes to it. I won't start fussing with the story itself as this is just the prologue so there shouldn't be any problems with the plot.
Grammar is not really my forté but I'll do my best
Okay so I'll do the reviewing like this: first I'll just mark the places with bold letters where I think theres a "problem" and I'll then explain what I think the "problem" is.
Then I'll re-write the parts myself (these are just suggestions of how you could do it).
Then I'll write a summary abt what I thought abt the whole work.
Tumbled is normally used for falling, and when I say normally I mean almost 100% of the time. Cars don't really tumble by, replace the word, but try not to use anything too ordinari like "drove" which sounds a bit boring.
One rule about writing: Avoid repetition with all cost! Try not to repeat yourself too much. Like here with his name "Tess Jamie Freya" replace it with something, like just "Tess" or "He" etc. Besides saying his whole name all the time is kinda boring and just a torture to write.
I like what you did there with the word "Blond" replacing the name.
Then the statue part should be totally re-written, you have two "watched" there and too closely, plus the sentence sounds kinda awkward. Rather write it like so: "The statue, silently and intently, followed Tess walk down the street" or " As Tess walked down the street the statue followed his progress both silently and intently from where it was sitting" etc.
The "..." seems a bit unnecessary. and the "building" just sounds wrong where you've written it. Just say "a roof top" instead of "a building roof top".
It's "double". It's "panicked"
Summary: Good strong start, doesn't tell too much about the story, leaves us wanting to read more (sort of like a cliffhanger)
A bit too much repetition tough.
And I'm not too sure abt the ending, with the little "uh oh" ans so on. it starts sounding a bit comical, I don't know if that was intentional, if yes then good job.
But the work was good, keep it up.
Hey Lady! Since the reviewer above me did most of the work, this review will be short!
STUFF I LIKED:
-I like the descriptions. They let the reader know what the world looks like without going into large amounts of detail. Good job.
-Gargoyles huh? Interesting. I don't believe that I have read a gargoyle story on YWS before so points for originality.
-You want to know what is going to happen next with this story, but maybe because it's so short?
STUFF YOU MAY NEED TO NOTE:
-This is not a prologue. I think we have to have a forum dedicated to what a prologue is because it seems that some people don't understand them. A prologue is NOT a first chapter. A prologue is a short prelude that describes the story before the story. That is, it lets the reader know what the world around them is before jumping into the real plot. This just feels like an exerpt from a novel, so just call it Chapter One.
-This doesn't tell the reader what is going on enough-it's too short. Make it longer and give the reader an idea of what is happening before ending it abruptly.
-Finally, you should change the name of the MC, and make sure not to always use the full name. I mean, who want to read Tess Something Something all the time. I only remembered the Tess part! Change the name to something more masculine so the readers won't get confused.
OVERALL:
Excellent. I liked this piece a lot. Keep it up. Just work on the length, the name, and call this a chapter. Good job.
Hey there, Lady! I noticed that you didn't have any reviews for this piece, so here I am. I'm Danie by the way. All of my comments and corrections will be in pink.
All in all,
I'm not sure what to make of this. It seems quite bland, and it doesn't make me want to read more as it should. You say that the MC is male although all of his names are distinctly female. You really need to do something that makes him seem more masculine. In addition, you really don't do musch to build his character at all in my point of view. I know that he's blonde and that he kicked a can. I also kno that he walks down the street at night by himself. But then again this is a prologue, so not much should be divulged. It seems like you have quite a nice idea going on here, but it needs a lot more development to become something great. Another thing that disturbed me was that the gargoyle monster thing hid in a closet. It just makes him seem like a very lame monster. All of my other comments are up there.^
PM me if you have any questions. Keep writing!
Always,
~Danie