Young Writers Society

Hello there Fael. This was an interesting prologue, and I did like your dialogue. I would like to see where this is going.

But first, there is something we need to address - paragraphing. No one is going to read your work unless you paragraph your works. How do you paragraph? Whenever you change speakers, new paragraph. When the idea of a block of writing changes, usually a new a paragraph. So, if I were to paragraph the first few sentences of your story, it would be:

Scrael walked into the top room of the tower of Zaod. "The plan is complete and all is ready, Master," he said.

"Very good Scrael," the master said. "You are better at this than I first thought."

At this, Scrael peered around the room. "I suppose you are looking for the scroll," the master said, noticing Scrael's eagerness. "Well, it isn't here," he continued. "I couldn't retrieve it. It seems to have some sort of forcefield around it and I can't sense where it is," he finished, looking downhearted

Understand? (and the extra line between each paragraph is the format in which you post things here on YWS. ). When you don't paragraph, it confuses the reader - we lost track of who is speaking and lose our place in the piece. So, paragraph!

The other thing I want to address is description. You have good dialogue and your characters seem interesting so far, though I don't know them very well. The one thing you are lacking in is description. Now, for a prologue, you don't need loads of it, but you need some. You must give the reader a feel for where they are, even if it is only in a few words. If you want this to be mysterious, describe it in vague terms. If you want it to be vivid, describe the setting, the expressions of the characters etc. If you do this, it will greatly improve this beginning.

But please don't overdo it. By saying you need description, I don't mean that you should load the piece with long, blocky adjectives and make every sentence extremely long. If you can describe effectively in a few words, it is better than three entire paragraphs of repetitive attempts to give the reader an impression.

Besides that, this was quite a good beginning despite how hard it was to read unparagraphed. Please keep writing and work on this; if you paragraph it, I can almost guarantee you will get more comments. Nicely done and PM me if you need anything. Toodles!

To begin with, next time you post a chapter/story/piece, please double space your paragraphs. If you've transferred it from a word processing program which has tabs and stuff in it, it probably won't work. Just add an extra enter to every enter you put in and it'll be far easier to read. Thanks .

Just a few things:

"You are better at this than I first thought." At this, Scrael peered around the room.

What you want to say is that he looked around whilst he was being complimented, but it sounds like he looked around because he was complimented. That doesn't work to well so sort it out.

"I couldn't retrieve it. It seems to have some sort of forcefield around it and I can't sense where it is,"

Oh, they have science fiction type stuff here too? Strange. I'm divided on whether I like the word 'forcefield' or not. It's your choice, I'd just say maybe 'field'. 'Forcefield' sounds very 'StarWarsy'.

"I placed the phone call 5 minutes ago,"

Two things:
1. Find a better word than 'placed'. It sounds like you actually 'put' the phone call somewhere! Obviously you didn't. There are thousands of words out there, so use one that best fits your sentence, don't twist one to fit it.
2. The general rule is: If the number is less that ten, always write the word and not the numerical digit. So you want 'five'.

"Now, quickly, you must get there before the human does, or the plan will never work."

I'd change that to: "Now, quickly! You must get ..." This give it a short sentence for impact to add more tension to the scene.

The two moved to the edge of the room.

Reading this out of context makes it sound like a huge furry 'two' moved to the edge of the room. (Like on the old BBC adverts!) Keep it simple, just say: 'They moved to the edge of the room.'. Simple.

Scrael stood on a circular black platform, while the master sat on a black chair, then put his hand over a glowing orb on top of an elbow high, black, towerlike structure.

A few things here:
1. Get rid of the comma in ', while'.
2. The bit in red is ambiguous. I don't know who is doing what! One of them puts his hands on the glowing orb but I don't know which! Clear it up.
3. 'elbow high'. What? That's a very awkward way of describing it. I'm not sure what you mean.
4. Ambiguous again: 'towerlike'. It is either a tower or it isn't. Pick one.

The master then uttered a few words in a strange language and, all of a sudden, Scrael disappeared.

'All of a sudden' is for people who cannot build up enough suspense for it to feel 'all of a sudden'. Finish the chapter with a short, sharp sentence that says something like: 'Scrael disappeared.'. This will give the effect of 'all of a sudden' without actually saying it.


And now the summary! Very interesting, I like the way the two people call humans, humans. This makes me wonder what they are, and that is the type of hook you need to drag your readers into a story! I see that you're trying to stress the point that one guy is 'the master'. Unfortunately, you do this way too much. Replace it with 'he' or a descriptive bit like 'the crimson clothed man'. Give it a bit more than the monotony it has at the moment. The same goes for 'said'. I notice in parts that you spice it up with 'suggested', 'finished' and 'replied'. Why not add a few more? You don't have to completely erradicate 'said' (and I would really recommend not doing that otherwise you weaken your better words) just do enough to get rid of the repetition.
You haven't written much here, but it's a good start. Keep working on it and I'm looking forwards to the next part!

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