Prologue
Picking up his gallon Zip-Lock bag with freezer dried food, he stuffed it in his duffel bag. It was already packed to the maximum capacity, so it was hard to put the bag in. Zipping up the bag he stared at his wall for a moment trying to gather up the courage to go. His room, which was a large one, had its own bathroom and everything, and had a dark glittering tile walls, with a dark maroon ceiling and a hard wood floor.
The sweet and fresh air swept in through a pair of french doors that opened up to a small reading deck that sat looking at the tall mountains that had a small dusting of snow. The air smelled like the sweet rejuvenation of spring when the trees budded and the flowers burst into bloom. There was a hummingbird feeder to the right of the doors and a nest of swallows to the left. Just outside the deck was a pair of butterflies dancing in the breeze.
Normally this would make Cale happy and content to just go outside and sit on the deck to read. But these were not normal times at all. They were not even close to normal.
Since it was almost dark, it made the room glitter with an evil and ominous air. Just thinking about it made Cale shiver with nervousness. Cale was 5'10 at age sixteen, he had medium long jet black hair that was swept to the right. He was slim and had his dad's prominent jaw that made him look like he would be able to take on anything.
Hefting up his bag, Cale strode out of his room and over to his mom, dad and sister. His dad was a tall man of 5'11 with dark brown hair with a little grey, slim build, but was really strong. He had a prominent jaw that made his face look fierce.
“I love you guys, I will try to be back soon.” Cale said.
“We know, we love you too.” Said Cale’s mom a woman of short stature with red-blond hair and a beautiful face. “Just please be safe and don’t be hurt.”
“I’ll try too mom.”
"Hey Cale!" Said his sister who had muddy blond hair, stocky build and a pretty complexion.
"What?"
"Need to go to the bathroom again?" She said with a sliver of teasing, trying to ease the tension.
"Ugh, at times like these, I wonder why I have an enemy thats not my sister?"
Waving the wand at the wall, there was a flash of light and a glimmer, a dark red, glittering and also swirling circle appeared in the wall, making the room darken and turn almost ominous. Taking a deep breath he steadied his blood pressure a little.
Waving goodbye to his family, he walked into the portal where he would save not only his world, but the whole universe from the evil clutches of the galaxy’s worst enemy, Grozog.
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141,312 Literary Works • 674,342 Reviews
Hey there, PoeticCowboy! This is a pretty short piece, you could probably just include it with chapter one if you wanted to, and label it 'prologue'. But either way, I shall attempt to write a helpful review.
Hefting up his bag, Cale walked out of his room and walked over to his mom and dad and sister.
Repetition. You've got to be careful that you don't repeat the same words too often. 'Walked' appears twice in close proximity, so you could get rid of the second one. Also, the two 'and's between his family members aren't necessary. You could just have one, so it becomes: ...and over to his mom, dad and sister.
“I love you guys, I will try to be back soon.” Cale said.
“We know, we love you too.” Said Cale’s mom. “Just please be safe and don’t be hurt.”
Uh oh! This is excellent foreshadowing. Obviously, something bad is going to happen to Cale. He's not going to be safe, and he is going to get hurt. This is what prologues are for, and you've done a good job with this one. I've got a real sense of foreboding now, and it leaves me wanting to read further to find out how this links with the story.
Waving the wand at the wall, there was a flash of light and a glimmer and a dark red and glittering and also swirling circle appeared in the wall, making the room darken and turn almost ominous.
Remember what I said about repetition. There's too many 'and's throughout this chunk of writing. Another important part of the story has been revealed; that the world has magic and sci-fi aspects. Good job! It's informative but not an information overload.
Waving goodbye to his family, he walked into the portal where he would save not only his world, but the whole universe from the evil clutches of the galaxy’s worst enemy, Grozog.
You wrap up the prologue really well, and now I've got a good idea of what's happening. You've touched on the characters, the world and the plot; that's practically everything.
I've broken this apart as best as I can, and I have to say you've done a pretty good job with it. Keep writing!
I have changed it, so I hope you like it.
Hey, PoeticCowboy! Since you requested, I thought I'd put my reviewing skills to use once more, and review the prologue of your story. Let's begin!
...In all honesty, this prologue comes across as incredibly sloppy. While beginning my review with this statement probably isn't a very good way to start off on a positive note, it's unavoidable. But the basics first. Quite normally, as I remember, a prologue often tells a story separate from the major one. It often provides the first hints of exposition, and does start to develop the world you're trying to create; however, inevitably, it remains largely separate from the rest of the novel. After all, it is not one of the novel's chapters, where the story takes place. And I don't see any of that here. All of the characters seem like they're going to be playing significant roles in the story, as is implied by the very small amount of description and exposition this provides (which I will go into depth later), and the sole purpose of this appears to be a "how we got here" composition. As this is, naturally, connected to the rest of the novel, I'd highly suggest calling this at least Chapter 1, rather than a Prologue. Prologues are not entirely necessary in a story, so it's not as though you're missing out on anything by not including one. However, if you do feel like including one, I would suggest making it a story on its own, with ties included to the novel, but without directly connecting them.
In short - this, as it stands, is not a prologue.
Beyond that, I'm honestly not sure what to make of the setting, theme, and characters of this chapter. Mainly because they're hardly developed. A few passing details allow me to get basic pictures of who each person is, but their dialogue is sparse, and it's hard for me to feel motivated to support them in any fashion. While you might be trying to communicate a sense of mystery by providing these circumstances without explaining the background, it comes across as far more barebones than mysterious. The setting isn't explained at all until the third and final component of the story, much less the motivations of any of the characters. Thus, I have no idea what any of them are doing, or why they are reacting in the fashion that they are. While the dialogue does provide some explanation as to some of the actions of the story, the lack of a defined setting or backstory makes it impossible for me to develop any emotional attachment to the characters. And that, of course, is a bad mentality you want to foster among your audience, as it implies that your entire cast could die, and they would barely be affected.
That leads me to the dialogue itself, which composes well more than half of the story. This story suffers from an extreme case of persistent talking heads. In other words, all you describe in every conversation are the lines of dialogue themselves. I have no idea what they are thinking, what their expressions are, or even what their setting is, the latter particularly due to the lack of interactions with it. In effect, they may as well as be talking heads in a perfectly blank setting. So, once again, I have no idea what they're trying to do, and I can't build any stable emotional attachment to the characters. That's something you definitely need to work on. Even though it does add more words to each of your chapters, and it can make them come across as far longer, this, by literary standards, is a really, really short chapter. Though it is considered a prologue, I'd highly suggest adding more to it. By more, I mean more of everything - setting, emotions, actions, and maybe some of the rationale behind what seems to be a clear case of complex space travel.
Beyond that, there is a seriously unexplained plot hole towards the end of the story. Just when you finally start to provide a setting and explanation, we have a few unexplained sounds, a talking heads conversation, and a black hole in a wall with a humanoid figure approaching. That figure is then never discussed over the rest of the prologue, despite appearing to be very important. In fact, it seems almost as though it never existed in the first place. In the meantime, a kid by the name of Cale is mentioned at the beginning, and it seems that he and his mother are talking, but then the conversation suddenly shifts mid-scene to another kid, named Azrentek, without any form of switch. That's jarring, interrupts the flow of the reader, and is just plain confusing. Not to mention the fact I'm having a hard time determining how old either is, since Cale mentions wanting a family (which is an odd wish for anyone who might be a teenager), and Azrentek seems to be determined to find another planet that can support human life (which is completely unexplained. And did I mention how nonchalant his mother is about the thought of him being teleported away, possibly to never meet her again?)
Returning to my first point, Cale and Azrentek seem to have completely different wishes. Azrentek seems to be of the mind that "we need to flee to another place that can support us," which, as I've said before, is not explained. Cale's goal is only explained in the last sentence, where the antagonist of the entire story is only finally mentioned. And his goal is to save the world and the universe, which seems completely different from Azrentek's mission. Azrentek could be trying to implement a contingency plan, but why would you separate your sons when they could be effective together? Why can't the mother herself travel to find another world? And did I mention the dark humanoid figure that seems to have vanished altogether? Why is their mother not freaking out? Are they used to this? Is this is a frequent occurrence? It seems like even the characters really didn't think this through, and their mother wasn't even aware that they would both try to teleport away like this, yet she's awfully nonchalant about it. I dunno, it just feels...cheesy. Fake, almost. It lacks a dramatic edge, and is almost anticlimactic, as well as totally unexplained.
All in all, that's about it. I believe that you do have the makings of a story here, but it feels marginally incomplete. You have a small cast of interesting characters, but their backstory and life are explained in little, if any, detail at all. So I'd definitely advise working on your expression of the concepts you have, as well as developing this story so that it provides a more complete, and meaningful picture. I'm notoriously bad at being a consistent reviewer, so I apologize beforehand if I don't review upcoming chapters. Regardless, this concludes my review. It needs work, but I do believe you have something here; now, all you've got to do is make it a little more solid!
-Silver
P.S.: Don't capitalize speaker tags at the end of a quotation. Only names in a speaker tag should be capitalized. Just pointing that out.
Thanks for the review TheSilverFox, and I am hoping that the changes that I have made to this is better. I was hoping that this would have a little more sucess, but turns out not. So, thanks for the review and Tell me what to change again please.
Umm...I suggested that you add more details to the scenes you already have, rather than deleting almost all of it and not changing what was remaining. Pretty much all of my comments still apply. I advise that you work on trying to add more details. Where are they? What are the sensory images (tastes, sights, touches, emotions) in the scene? How does everyone appear? How is everyone behaving? Once again, without a clear understanding of the setting and circumstances - especially given the MC's entire motivation to leave his family and jump through a portal is only provided in the very last sentence, which just seems odd - I cannot develop any emotional attachment to the characters of the story. I'm not asking that you change the plot that already exists. I'm suggesting that you add more descriptive details to what you already have, so the story feels more whole and a little less barebones.
Sorry if I come across as rude or mean-spirited in my review. I have a tendency to pour details over my stories, often more than necessary, and it gets hard to wrap my head around the opposite approach (although, regardless, while many details in a story can be considered perfunctory, there are far too few here to give me much of a picture or reason to develop an attachment to the story and its characters). XD
I hope this is better TheSilverFox, and you are not coming across as rude, because you are not that kind of person. You are coming across as truthful. And I will continue to tweak and change and do whatever it takes for it to be good and fit to read.