There is a puddle of blood where the man had stood. His body, brought down by a single bullet, lies lifelessly. He hadn't even seen it coming. A girl in white tucks her weapon somewhere in the folds of her dress, not bothering to put it on safety. She wipes her hands on the pristine fabric and stares at the body with a strange expression. It's too... remorseless... for someone her age. Stranger still, she is just as beautiful as she had been only a few minutes prior to the deed.
“Did you really have to ruin your dress?” I wrinkle my nose at the stuffy scent of blood filling the room.
The girl in white turns her head curiously and raises her eyebrows.
“I just killed a man and you’re worried about my dress?”
I shrug. “If I’m caught because you’re covered with the dead man’s blood, I'll be pissed.”
She tilts her small head, a smirk on her lovely face. “Don't trust me? I'm assuming you did read my price.”
“I did. I’m assuming it guarantees my safety?”
She takes a few steps towards the doorway on which I'm leaning. Her dark eyes are wide, but not in fear. She pouts her lower lip ever so slightly. "Obviously. How long ago did you claim you left for vacation?"
"Two weeks."
She shrugs. "You'll be fine."
I stand up straighter against the wooden frame. “And what will you do with the body?”
“Does it really matter?”
I frown. "Alright then. The other half of the money is where I told you it'll be." I gesture to the door. "After you then?"
Her lovely eyes, locked in a hard stare, refuse to blink. The lines in her forehead are becoming deeper. "You first."
Is she losing her patience so soon? Why, if she were a man my age, that would have been deducted from her end. I had been promised a professional. Then again, she was pretty...
"You know," I say, leaning in a bit, "You'd get a lot farther with a smile."
There's a swish of her dress and I feel the cool edge of her gun against my forehead. I don't hear the release as everything goes black.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hey there! I've seen chapters of this story, so I figured if I wanted to review, I should start at the beginning. I really like how you've kept the characters' identity ambiguous throughout this whole prologue. We see who they are, in a way, but no names, which heightens the sense of mystery and helps pull the reader into the story.
I also like how you've jumped right into action, the content of which is so intense the reader is interested immediately. Good job with the catchy introduction and the suspense woven in.
As far as grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc., I don't have any notes on any of that. However, I would like to point out a couple other things. First of all, you have written, "the stuffy scent of blood filling the room." Somehow this doesn't seem quite right. I don't think of the scent of blood as stuffy, unless the room itself is already stuffy. I would suggest changing that adjective to something like "metallic." Also, you have shown the girl having the victim's literal blood on her hands. Obviously I haven't ever shot someone to know all the details, but I wouldn't think the shooter would have blood on themselves, or at least not on their hands. If there was a spray of blood from the bullet wound, that might have left a few drops on her, but like I said, I don't think it's likely that her hands would be covered in it.
Once again, this is a great intro, and I like the sense of mystery already going on. Good work, and thanks for sharing.
Hi Rosewood,
Mailice here with a short review!
That was a very interesting prologue. It is for the beginning of a story with an exciting plot in a dynamic tone, as if it were a short preview from a movie, or just - a prologue.
I think your introduction is well crafted, it's kept short, but with it offers a quick step forward right away, not giving the reader time to stop, and think. I liked that you started the story with a quick tone rather than presenting everything at a snail's pace and then starting. I really like the dynamic that this creates.
I especially liked that you wrote the narrative form in present tense. It gave the whole story an interesting flow. You arouse curiosity in me here, as I have no idea what you have created here and how it relates to what I have already read. I also noticed positively that your characters here already have a different tone of voice. Jose comes across as nervous and more restless and the girl as confident and snarky. I like that you can read that out well here.
I'm just puzzling over where we are, and I think you could add a section somewhere where you describe more what everything looks like and where exactly they are. Because that has an effect on the characters - are they somewhere dodgy, like under a bridge or in some house?
A general point I wonder about here is why the prologue is written from Jose's perspective. Since I strongly suspect he won't be around, I found it very refreshing to read his thoughts and fear, but I also thought that for the prologue you could perhaps use a neutral narrator. I see that you change the narrative perspective regularly in the chapters, and I think you had a good idea to have one in the prologue. But since Jose is dead by the end, I think it would be better to do it differently. Now the reader has a new view of the girl and maybe an opinion the reader shouldn't have. Other than that, I still thought it was a great chapter.
Have fun writing!
Mailice
Thanks again! I write this from Jose%u2019s perspective for two reason- one being that I needed to show what Alice was capable of rather than merely insinuating it and, two being that this sets one of the main conflicts in motion as you read in chapter one. And yea, I probably should%u2019ve written about the background- I was imagining it so much I forgot to show the readers!
Hey! Here for a review! I saw the 9th part in the green room so I came to read it.
I have only found one grammatical mistake:
In both of these, 'deserve' will be 'deserves'
So, let's jump straight to the review. I will be giving my interpretations of each paragraph.
Quite intriguing, enough to attract the reader from the very beginning. So I guess that the girl is the murderer of that man and she is doesn't regret shooting him. Then, we see that she wipes her hand on her 'torn' dress. The word 'torn' has a sugnificance Ig, let's find out.
I see. It's written in first person. I love reading writings in first person. Right. We are given the name of the narrator–Josh. Um... What price are they talking about? Is it that the police are finding them and have assigned a reward money? Let's see.
Just specify who is speaking here. It seems a bit confusing. The description is awesome here.
Seems like the murder was kinda unplanned. If it were planned, then there must have been a solution of where to put the body. Right the age seems a vital thing here. Specifying her age, maybe directly or indirectly would help better.
Oh my god! Such a good ending of a chapter which makes the reader to read the next.
Overall, it was a great chapter. I will soon read the other ones. Great writing. Keep it up!
~Forever
Such a helpful review- thank you! I did want to mention that Alice, (the girl in white), was paid by the man Jose to efficiently dispose of the unnamed man. His unknowing of all the details was in place to protect him, (which as you saw, wasn%u2019t Alice%u2019s intention in the end). I%u2019m glad you liked this and I can%u2019t wait for you to read everything revealed in the other chapters!
Hi there Rosewood! I'm here for a quick #RevMo review
I've only got two nitpicky comments, which I'll get out of the way right now so we can move on to some more interesting stuff!
ThePatchworkPilgrims pointed out tense in their review, and I see that you've changed everything else to be present tense, but I actually think "lay" might be past tense? I could be wrong, I always get tripped up by lay/lie/lied/lies/lays/laid, but I think it should be: "His body ... lies lifelessly".
I'd suggest putting these two lines into the same paragraph, since the first sentence contains who's speaking and the second contains what she said.
So, with that out of the way! I really like your choice to write this in present-tense - I find it immerses the reader into the story and works well with adding to the drama. It almost gives the effect of this feeling like the opening scene to a horror movie?
You also do a great job of keeping things vague enough for the reader to be curious and wonder what's happening?? while not making things too confusing. I'm definitely curious to see what happens next, especially since the narrator appears to have been killed!
Having said that, I do think working in a few more descriptions would benefit the mood you're trying to set. You have a lovely description in the opening paragraph, but it almost feels like you're trying to get all the descriptions out of the way, and then don't have a ton of descriptions in the consequent paragraphs. It does a great job of setting the scene, but it doesn't quite sustain the mood as you keep reading.
You don't even need to describe how things look, per se; no need to give the reader a layout of the room. (I personally think that might detract from the focus on the dead body, anyway -> sort of like choosing where to direct the camera in a movie, you get to choose where to direct your reader's attention when you're writing.) But, I'd love some more descriptions of the girl's voice (is she sarcastic? confident? innocent? sweet? impatient?), the lighting (is it dim? dark? bright?), stuff like that, which will help set the mood.
Other than that, I don't have much to critique! The pace of the scene is perfect, and the dialogue gives just the right amount of information. You do a wonderful job piqueing the reader's interest and I'm super curious to know what happens next!
I hope this is useful and if you've got any questions feel free to ask
Keep writing!
whatchamacallit
Featuring ShadowVyper's awesome banner!
Thank you for your feedback! I thought I'd fixed my mistakes... guess I missed those. Anyway, this was meant to be vague for reasons I spoiled in a response to ThePatchworkPilgrims and for reasons you'll find out as the story progresses.
I never like to report grammar mistakes, but I sometimes ask doubts relating to the story..... but I have no doubt in this and I just want to say that this is a really nice story
I never like to report grammar mistakes, but I sometimes ask doubts relating to the story..... but I have no doubt in this and I just want to say that this is a really nice story
Hey Rosewood!
You did us the kindness of reviewing the first part of our prologue, so we thought we'd return the favour
So, we usually follow a Vocabulary->Grammar/Syntax->Interpretation format for our review, thus that is how this will be tackled (if some comments seem out of order with the text)
Regarding vocabulary, there's not too many comments we can make here, but here are the few we could pick up on:
The "of voice" is unnecessary, since it's implied in the context of the previous paragraph (the girl's dialogue). Unless it's her (skin)tone that's making Jose want to run. Then you'd need to specify
The butt of a gun is the the back end of it (so not the side that has the bullets flying out). She'd be pointing the muzzle at him if she intends to shoot him (which she is)
To scoff at someone/thing is to speak in a mocking/derisive way. Unless he wants to get shot, Jose shouldn't be scoffing at anyone pointing a firearm at him.
Now, on to Grammar and Syntax
First thing that we picked up her was that your first paragraph is a mess of tenses that doesn't coincide with the rest of the prologue (which is written in what seems to be First Person Historical Present)
The rest of the prologue is written in the "underlined" tense, aka the present tense, while, as pointed out, most of this first paragraph is written in the past tense. Seeing as this isn't being recollected as a memory, and happens at the same "present" of the rest of the paragraph, a coherent, connected tense would work better. We thus suggest either just editing this first paragraph to be present tense (where applicable. For example "where the man had stood" stays in that tense, and so on), or editing the rest of the prologue to the first-person past tense.
You already have "his body" mentioned in this paragraph two sentences ago. Simply saying "the body" would sound less redundant.
The scratched out part can be, well, scratched out
Wherever possible, try and not use "just x/y". It's a great opportunity to use different synonyms that won't only spice up your text for your audience, but also making reading it more like a book that a bit of gossip you're getting from your friends. Also, preferably steer away from contractions like I'm (especially in non-dialogue parts).
So, for these two examples, we'd suggest something like:
Second last grammar point:
In this case, we'd suggest "I turn to face her". Jose's intention when turning is to look at the girl, it's not a different unconnected action (like he was turning around to pick up a quarter, and then happened to face her)
Though this sentence is grammatically sound, it just reads difficult to us (the whole "having been" part). This phrase could maybe be put as:
Adding a time phrase furthers this idea of how sudden she got her gun out to shoot him. But this is more a preference that mistake, as we mentioned.
And now, on to interpretation. The goals of a prologue are diverse, but they usually either 1)lay a lore foundation for the reader, 2)create a question for the reader that they'll want answered in the book, or 3)introduces a plot/character aspect (there are others, but these are the "big three" of a good prologue's purpose). This prologue succeeds at point number 3, by introducing us to this (presumed) young girl, who seems to be an assassin/mercenary of some sort. Plot-wise, we're not really picking up on a central plot/question here, other than "who is this girl/how did she get like this?". This is fine, as we said, but (once again merely a personal preference), we'd have liked maybe one other question or hint to a possible plot point to be dropped.
All in all, this is a reasonably sound and easy to read prologue, once you catch the tense. Though there are grammatical and vocabular errors, they aren't too pervasive, and this prologue can still be read and enjoyed by your reader. We look forward to seeing where the story goes from here, since you already killed your "I" narrator in the prologue.
Keep writing, keep being awesome, and have a magical weekend
The Patchwork Pilgrims
(now, to return to our magical broomcloset)
Wow, thank you! I definitely see my errors, and I'll fix them ASAP. As for the interpretation, I'm going to put that in a 'spoiler box' because it might give something away, but nothing too big.
So, this girl is an assassin, yes. But I don't want you to always see her that way. As you will, (or I hope will), read in chapter one, she tends to appear as this self-sufficient, sassy, and bold person but also, in times, her true fragile and desperate nature shows through. I hoped that by giving you a glimpse at what she can do, it will take away the 'all talk and no action' sense authors usually give their villains. That way, when you see her soft side, you won't immediately jump to the conclusion that she isn't really as good as she says she is.
Spoiler
Anyway, this was very helpful! I guess it's not too much to say you won't be seeing Jose anytime soon...
ooh, i like this one and I'm excited to know what happens next. but in the sentence, His wife will wonder why he’s gone, '" and you don’t want to be anywhere her when she reports him missing.”' did you mean 'anywhere near her?" I think you missed that. but other than that it's really good
I meant 'her' as in near the town, but I can see where that could be hard to get clearly. But thank you for your feedback!