Young Writers Society

Finally, a good prologue, I suppose, and nothing to follow? The universe teases me. It has a sort of stigma: you are constantly tugged forward to this seeming huge secret that the reader can't wait to read. It does let you get away (for better and for worse) with a lot of exposition for a beginning, which is great for character development but a bit boring. It's like listening to an old lady tell a story (literally, in fact)- you know it will be good, and you can't fault her for all the background she gives, but you really just want to get to the good part. Of course, whether this is a problem sort of depends on the later chapters. Which will never exist. But hopefully you get the picture. I don't care whether your Dickens or Shakespeare, something has to happen. But that's my view, and my views are usually wrong to everyone else but me by default.

The whole structure of a framing story is also a little dubious and pointless to me, unless you are providing something that benefits the story as it unfolds that couldn't be given any other way. Of course, this also requires you to go beyond the prologue to judge.

And finally, something about this narrator just irks me. She seems to love a good rant and tangent, is a little indirect, and seems to want to exert some superiority over the reader. A great example of a reminiscing older woman, but is a reminiscing older woman an enjoyable narrator in the first place?

Overall, wonderful writing, if not totally my style. You don't need help in that department. Just think about these points a little. Agree or disagree, it will certainly help guide your views for the future, which is definitely a good thing.

Keep Writing,
~Critiq

[quote="Lauren
And how, he wants to know, had it come to this. Should that be 'has' rather than 'had?

He is not one to meddle with words. Unusual for his trade, which is of a devious kind. Rather, he is a quiet man – though not timid: no, he is not afraid to speak, to let his voice fill out this cold, cold room. Like the best of people, he speaks when necessary, and it always blunt. As I say, he is not one to meddle with words. Some other's might not like the repetition, but it doesn't bother me here.

I’m not an attractive woman. Perhaps I was once, for a time, but never in that pretty way that comes to mind. Nobody ever said I was attractive, or even pleasant to the eye, and I only ever had the word of mirrors. But now, I know, I can guess, there is nothing of beauty, or pleasantness, to my face. There cannot be. I do not mind, have never minded for all these blasted years gone, but I’m aware of it. I feel like that's awkwardly worded. The thought that I am unappealing—old—stamps unappealingly old, unappealing and old, or if you love the hyphen so much unappealing-old. As is it's confusing me in the face whenever he comes.

It is want of company, perhaps. I do not fling wild, crazy fancies around—the strong walls would dull them anyway—and I am not in love with him. It is his eyes that do it; looking fully at me, always reading, reading, reading for some kind of answer. Not answers to his questions, mind, but to those that stand open, screaming soundlessly, between us. And his eyes, which are old and wearied ones, so strange on an otherwise youthful face, they betray no sign of disgust, revulsion – all that. They’re as blank and frank as if they read a book.

I wonder what I am to him; how I am to him. I wonder what it would be, for if just for a short moment, were I him and he me I had to read this over twice. I would make it: 'I wonder HOW it would be if, for just a short moment, I were him and he were me.'. Or if I had his eyes, and looked down upon myself. Ugly, but as a specie of plant is: interesting in its ugliness. Wrapped up in ribbons and displayed for him on a pedestal, I am looked at from every angle but that of a basic human being.

‘Hester.’

My mother called me Hester after her godmother. After later enquiries, I discovered that my namesake had died of a collapsed lung on her wedding night. For years after I believed that the love of a man—or rather its physical accompaniment—was a possibly fatal thing.
He is patient, the doctor, and I think that had I ever had the love of a man he should have been the type. He waits and I wait, but heaven knows what we are waiting for,I think you should separate this into two sentences here and then he says, in that kind yet brittle way of his, ‘Hester, please tell me, how did it come to this?’

How did it? I move my sluggish tongue in the warm, wet cavern of my mouth and run it along the inside of my lips. They are sticky when I open them, my lips, and when I try to talk I instead cough. I cough instead would read more smoothly The words are impacted inside me, how they all fit is not for me to question, and I could tell him everything. Everything and all, all that knowledge, could exist in his safe little head. It’s a fantastical thought. I wonder, would it get altered in translation, or else, afterwards, when I am spent, would he know me as well as I know myself. Will my past be his, shared between us? This sentences confuses me. But I might just be easily confused.

This is an experiment of my own.

‘Tell me, Hester. I wish to understand.’

My lips, I smooth them over with a single finger. Then I say, ‘Do you, Doctor? Do you honestly want to know?’ It is a foolish question, because his grey scholarly eyes tell it all. Excitement is leaping in them as the fish did in my father’s boat, and his own mouth is ready to smile at this turn out for the books. This confuses me, too.

Instead it is I who smiles, as I start at the middle of an endless thread that is human life – the place where all beginnings begin. [/quote]


I suppose it works great as a prologue, it differently leaves something a mystery. Though it is so short I feel like Hester is a well developed character.

It pops out of the blue that the man she's thinking about, or talking to, is a doctor, and I would like to know his name. I also would like to know where they are. Is she at the Dr's office? Did they meet for dinner? Do they bump into each other at the supermarket?

It drives me batty not know what he's talking about. "How did it come to this?" How did what come to what!? But perhaps that's what a prologue should do.

I like your writing style! And I'm a little sad that you won't be inflicting anymore chapters of this on us!

RedSmiles