Tara-Prolouge

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,

What have I done? The thought nagged Liam as he fell headlong through thicket.

The forest seemed endless. He clambered to his feet, wiping dirt from his face with shaking fingers. How would he explain to Mr. Garnello that he had murdered his daughter?

What would he do? All he had to do was capture and return her home. Images of the girl against the tree, blood trickling down her face, made his stomach twist into knots. He’d never killed anybody before.

What if she’s not dead?

This hopeful thought stopped him and he breathed for once in what felt like hours. But, as he turned back the way he’d come, he realized he was lost. And the hope drained away. What would he do? He couldn’t just dash through the forest shouting her name like a madman. If she heard him, if she really was alive, she’d run or hide. And what if he combed the area and found that she really was dead?

He leaned against a nearby tree and swallowed a lump that rose in his throat.

What do I do? What do I do?

Hello There......

I love this so much!! It makes me want to read more. I too am a fan off writing something that like hangs the readers on to the story. It adds more suspense and drama than that is actually there. I love how you are separating each paragraph with a question that is going on in his mind. way to get them attached......

Hey, Lady Purple! Iggy of Team Hot Sauce here to deliver a review.

First off, I love the way this prologue starts off. We are instantly thrown into Liam's situation, enthralled into the story as we try to figure out what the hell happened. Why is he running? Is he okay? Then we find out that he has killed someone. Why? I hope this is explained soon.

I think this has some potential in it already. Already we have a conflict. I think that you could do more to give the reader a better visual. For instance, the woods he is in. You could pull a Snow White, say that the branches, like long spindle fingers, reached out and caught at his clothes, tearing and scraping, as f they wanted to keep him there. Or the utter darkness, the sounds the forest makes and the creatures it may or may not inhabit. Help give us a chill, make us picture a scary forest that looms over Liam and oozes ominous.

I think that's all from me. Great job and I'm headed over to read chapter one.

Good luck!

~ Iggy.

Hi there!
barefootrunner here to review Happy review day and may the Tsunami Tyrants triumph!

Firstly, your spelling and grammar is fair, but I managed to find some nitpicks to satisfy the hunger:

A thought nags at a person, not simply nags.
In your third paragraph, your character explains what he was tasked with doing. This means he goes back another tense, so it should be past perfect in that instance: "All he had had to do was to capture her and return her home."
I also just reworked the last part to help concord and structure.

So that was all in the line of spelling and grammar.


Plot and character development:

You have not given us a real glimpse into who this person is, when it is happening or what. Perhaps make his MP3 player fall out of his pocket and shatter to show what sort of time space this is. Maybe have him start sobbing uncontrollably or retch into the bushes. Or maybe make him run his hands through his hair, a nervous tick which never dies down after this. Give him personality, not just mundane repetitions of doubts in his head.

As for plot, there is enough suspense to keep it going, but nothing really spectacular. I guess you could call it rather average, which perhaps you should avoid, to be fair. Remember that first impressions are the most powerful!

Keep writing
barefootrunner

Hi LadyPurple,

This was alright, but I didn't feel like it was a prologue. I feel like it was more the beginning of chapter one. Maybe it's best you do that. Usually when I read a prologue I'm left with a hanging feeling, like I need to read more. This felt more like a snippet of a bigger piece. I didn't get to know much about any of the characters, and I learnt was that this guy might've killed a girl. And I received his emotions, which is good. But overall I felt this had more of a ' let's start the story feeling to it'.

Now if I get out of what you labeled it as and I get into the story, it was good. I liked the emotions and the panic that Liam feels. I like how we don't yet get the full story of what happened. This could frustrate some people, but I like the holding back. It creates good suspense. And I wonder what Liam will do next!

Deanie x

Hello.

This prologue fails on two key points: making us care about the characters and leaving a mystery for what happens next.

Making us care involves getting us into the character. Be willing to tell a full on story with them. Don't drop us right into what they've done, because that tends to be overdramatic and has us go "so what?" Give us more of his feelings, make us feel sick along with him. Don't be afraid to dig deep into the bloody imagery, the feeling of being utterly disgusted with himself. Then we'll feel empathy for him, which will make us care.

As for the mystery, I notice your previous review said you had good mystery. The mystery would be good if you had more than two options. Two options is predictable. Something will either happen, or not happen. This is filed under romance so I automatically think she will, in fact, not be dead. There's also a few dozen tropes about how a character is very rarely dead; not going back to double check is the surest sign the person will, indeed, come back to life.

These two articles go into detail about keeping things unpredictable.

As for the fact this is a prologue, what makes it a prologue? Prologues are very often only given to provide a cheap hook that won't come back into play until much later in the story. The only book that can't stand without its prologue I've read is A Game of Thrones. Other stories I have read either are the same or even better without their prologues. The reason GoT is different is primarily because every character in the prologue dies by the beginning of chapter 1. The information simply wouldn't come up if the prologue wasn't written. Other prologues I have read repeat the information eventually, and far later in the story.

Another good prologue example is Beauty and the Beast. We don't really find out anything about the Beast, or the Rose, or anything else about that castle without the prologue. You wouldn't be able to understand much of the significance at all if there wasn't an explanation for how the Beast got to be and the Rose's petals.

See, readers get bored. Readers want to have the hook followed up on. Prologues give us a cheap hook (the most heartwrenching, action-oriented part) that usually isn't that well developed, and then proceed to not bring it back till ages later. They rely on mystery, on "what if" to keep readers going, then simply don't follow up. It's frustrating.

One thing in common with the two good prologues I mentioned is they stand as stories on their own. They don't actually promise us anything if we keep reading more. They are simply extra, critical pieces of information that can't fit easily into the story.

The stories themselves also have a conflict presented immediately, one that is just as interesting as the prologue's conflict. It's different, but we don't care if it's different because the prologue was complete. No cheap tricks.

Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey

Hi! I'll review you today. Thats really good. lots of mystery and seriously makes me want to read more. But who is Mr. Garnello? But that is an excelent prologue i cant wait to read the rest.