Prologue
I was running. Again. Without knowing where I was going. I just wanted to be somewhere. Anywhere. Somewhere I belonged. But I knew that there was no such place. Darkness covered the sky. I stopped running, panting, grasping for air and looked around. It was my old neighborhood. The one where I spent my childhood. But what was I doing here? I never came back after moving out. I never wanted to come back. Ever. I felt a presence beside me. I looked up and saw it was a man. I couldn’t see his face.
“What’s wrong sweetie? Why are you running?” he asked.
I didn’t say anything. The words didn’t seem to come out. But still I tried to explain my situation to him.
“I....I…he-‘’ I stammered.
He suddenly picked me up by my neck and started yelling “it was YOU. It was YOUR fault.”
I couldn’t breathe.
I woke up. My forehead is wet with sweat. My cheeks are wet with tears. It was that same dream again. The dream that has haunted me and still haunts me. I checked the time. It was 2:43am. I lay again on the bed. My nightmares are more frequent since that phone call. I started thinking about that man who tried to kill me in my dreams. It was only one person and it was always him.
That man was my father.
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Canary word: Present
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,794 Reviews
I really liked the way your story feels snappy "I was running. Again. Without knowing where I was going. I just wanted to be somewhere. Anywhere. Somewhere I belonged." like your characters thoughts are sharpened from the panic. Prologue is doing awesome work at getting me interested in the rest of the story, which i am looking forward to reading. If you are looking for some kind of critique i can only offer a suggestion that you can freely trow away if you feel like what or how you want to write wouldn't work together. That is, since its written in first person, in writing you can show characters anxiety through the way it is written. for example :
"His hands enveloped my neck, precluding its movement.He yelled ..."
"That dreams torture became more regular but less comfortable"
"His questions redirected my thought process towards them completely capturing it"
Feel free to completely ignore this suggestion i am sleep deprived as i am writing it. Still really enjoyed your story and am looking forward to it.
I adore this, and I do think you should continue. Suspense is one of my favorites, and I'm definitely sensing it here.
I adore this, and I do think you should continue. Suspense is one of my favorites, and I'm definitely sensing it here.
Hello Lolita18,
D.B. here! First off, I think this draft is to a fantastic start. The reader is immediately drawn into the character's dream.
What drew me in the most was your pacing during the dialogue, and the paragraph following it. The stark difference from the father asking "what's wrong sweetie" to picking up the characters neck not only speaks to the way dreams shift so unnaturally, but also leaves the reader to question the father's character. Overall, it leads me to want to know more about the father, and the character's reoccurring dreams.
One thing that I think would help keep the reader more engaged throughout is changing the sentence pacing. Adding a few short sentences can give the reader the sense of rush and anxiety. When it becomes the whole paragraph, it tends to be a little redundant. Also, changing the sentence starts so they all don't start with I or it will also add more color to this story and make it really stand out.
For example, the part, "I stopped running, panting, grasping for air and looked around." you could change to something like, "Running, panting, grasping, clinging to the air escaping my lungs---my legs gave out, and I stopped to look around."
This sentence still gives the pace that makes the reader feel anxious and side-by-side with the character, but has more flavor and intention. But of course this is one writer's suggestion and can be written a million ways.
Wonderful draft, and I can't wait to see what you do with this story. You can capture the environment of one character's mind very well and leave the reader on their seats! That's a gift so keep writing!!
Hi, Lolita18,
Your story opens with the narrator likely in some form of distress. We, the readers, are immediately made aware that this is a repeated experience. I also felt that the man who was trying to kill the narrator in all of their dreams is their father. Which could either be foreshadowing, or mean the the narrator is afraid of their dad. I do however, feel that not being able to see the mans face, and knowing it is their father is mildly conflicting unless there is another factor to allow the narrator to recognize their dad. This could have been done to create more suspense in honesty. All in all your story was good and very compelling.
Keep your spark,
Willowbranch.
Hey, it's Serrurie, here to leave a review! Let's dive in:
The Good Stuff
- We're immediately greeted with a sense of urgency and fast pace which keeps readers hooked
-Adding to the sense of urgency is a small sense of trust that's immediately shattered (I enjoyed that).
- There was a great twist at the end.
Room For Improvement
Despite the first paragraph being an amazing whirlwind of action, there's some grammar issues that mainly involve commas:
Whenever a period in this section is used it implies a pause (which is awkward at this moment in the story). Most of these areas are places where there would be a transition with a comma. This is how you would rewrite this area specifically:
I go more in-depth about commas here: Hyperlink
- This story has a lot of mystery and exciting twists! I'm curious to see where this goes.
Keep Writing!
Serrurie