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The universe was infinite, yet empty; a vast void of nothingness and creative thought. The only thing that filled such space was the stars, and the gods themselves.
The gods consisted of emotions and substances: Life, Fertility, Power, Death... the list stretched for miles.
The beings were bored, their minds overflowing with ideas; however all of them were afraid to speak up of it, fearing they would be made fun of for the ludicrousness.
It was many years, it seemed, considering those didn't exist yet when Grahm, the god of creation stepped forward. "Enough,” he spoke out.
"Hmm?" One turned to face him.
“We have toiled our minds to their limits, and it is now time we make do with our thoughts."
Another turned to him, and then another. Soon the whole council of gods_ adorned in cloaks of black and white_ was staring at him.
He stood with a proud posture. "We all have had that one dream in mind. We've talked about it, and still, we are afraid to put it into action. But what do we have to be afraid of? We are gods. We've made a few mistakes with this plan before, but now, if we make mistakes, can't we just destroy them?"
They all nodded in agreement, arising from their dormant state.
"Don't you want to make a perfect world?" he rose his hands up in emphasis.
"Yes!" they almost mimicked his pose.
"Don't you want to create?!" he pulled his fists to his chest once again to emphasize.
"YES!" Once again they mimicked.
"Then let’s do it!" The god remained standing after his impromptu speech.
Then all together, hand in hand the positive gods connected. They chanted and danced as a perfect world was built for those to live in it. Lush plants grew, already ripe with fruits or flowers or vegetables. Trees grew and branched, providing the right amount of shade for anyone to stand or lay under. Animals of all sorts walked and the freshest of water filled the planet equally to the amount of land.
“Let it be a place for our children!” one said happily.
“A place for any inhabitant we can create of our will!” a few proclaimed.
“But what will they be made of?” one cocked their head.
“Well,” another rested a hand on their chin “What do we have plenty of?”
“Dust.” The god of abundance remarked.
"Dust?" Grahm thought. "Ah, yes. Dust from the stars."
They passed a star onto one another, until it was in Grahm's hands.
"No!" The god of quality stopped him from breaking it open.
"What is it?" he turned towards him, the gleaming orb warm in his hands.
"We don't want abundance," he pointed out. "We want perfection!"
"And how shall we find such with what we have thus far?"
"Perfection is in the quasars. Diamonds!" he explained, cracking one open and pulling out carbon.
"Well then, what will I do with this?" he lifted up the star.
"Well," the god explained. "The inhabitants need warmth, and a light to see from. But not too close! Remember what happened to our other planets?" He pointed at mercury, which the surface was boiling.
Ghram nodded, star in a precise position.
The gods pulled out more carbon and began to shape the substance into a humanoid shape. They placed the shaped piles onto the planet breathed life into them.
In seconds, the people were animated. They talked to one another, walking around and discovering their surroundings.
They applauded themselves for the masterpiece they had made... But then they were silent. Their eyes were glued onto the inhabitants. Conflict arose between them, and they fought over things. They showed favoritism, unbiased thoughts, greed...
Worried, they wondered if the place they made truly was perfect. It was in their minds, but how to others? Do they see the world as perfect? Or will they crash and burn everything in sight until they see it so? They were all sickened and afraid of the imagining of such. They didn't want their work of art to go to utter waste. The group slowly disconnected and looked down, sighing.
“... We must show them the wrong things to do,” said one god darkly. “Teach them wrong so they know what’s right.”
They all nodded.
“Sickness to know health.”
“Poverty to know wealth.”
“Hate to know love.”
“War to know peace.”
“And imperfections to know the perfections of this world.”
They all nodded once more. The idea seemed just right.
“However, we cannot allow them to taint this land!” The god of creativity shook his head.
“Then how will we teach them?” Another countered. "Maybe we could use one of the planets we had failed to complete?" He pointed to a certain one with rings.
"No nono!" The god of common sense scolded. "They could die in seconds!"
"Well do you have any ideas?" The other snapped at him.
“We could just make another one like the perfect one... Just with some complications involved.” One persistent god by the name of Xáos announced. He was one of the negative gods, Chaos.
Even though their faces could not be seen, Xaos could feel each gods' piercing eyes look straight at him. It grew silent as they sat in thought. It seemed like such a silly idea. Like that planet would last for long! The thought was preposterous. They burst into laughter.
“And who do you think would watch over that planet?” One snarled, trying to ease his laughing.
“I shall.” He answered blankly. “But not entirely me, however.” His wife, the goddess of fertility_ Mariko_ looked at him, gently tilting her head.
"Whatever do you mean?" She asked. He grabbed ahold of her and drained her of half her willpower. She jolted in confusion, but then let him as he took his own hand and cut a deep gash into it, the crimson liquid floating in the non-atmospheric environment.
“I shall take my blood and her flesh,” He began.
The blood made patterns with the aura of the Goddess’s will, eventually forming into the shapes of a boy and girl.
“... and create ink and pages," He continued as they shifted and bended. "These two bound siblings, Xelos and Solex, Will lay judgment and write history for this world.” A sword formed in the young boy’s hand, with an augmented gem which gleamed like a star; and a book in the other.
“He shall fight for himself and the people, and when the time comes he may have to strike war upon the inhabitants of this land with said sword.” Mariko affirmed. "He will also be the recorder."
“Solex will defend for herself and the people,” A shield formed in her hand, and a dagger in the other. “and fix any mistakes that come into Xelos’s writing.”
“May the two serve judgment for the planet of war,” they all announced.
They began to mend the faux world, on the opposite side of the sun, created by the gods of negativity, and one of positivity. The lush lands had brown spots. The animals were fighting one another. The waters were muddy, and some of the trees were bare. They took a handful of the beings and brought them to this planet instead. They bid the two the best of luck, sending them down to what we know is Earth.
And so, the story begins…
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140,138 Literary Works • 673,032 Reviews
Hey!
Your prologue was well done because it explained the background of what the two main characters; their purpose, how they were made and who made them. Also a good balance between the positive and the negative, because their cannot be light without darkness as you yourself also explained really well with the other things happening on the earth. I liked how you found more than one contrast and how you wrote them. They were all standing by themselves giving a clear picture of how things are and of course you are right in my oppinion.
Sorry if I repeat something that has been said before.
This was a good prologue, but your explaination of the gods was a little too long. The dialogue was good, but sometimes I skipped a section, because the dialogue drew my eyes in. I actually do not read prologues because sometimes they are not important for the story. Yours was a little of both. The explanation of the different gods and the creation of the world was not in my world important, but the last section was. In there you write about the two main characters; how they were made, who made them and what their purpose is. I am not saying you have to 'delete' the part of the gods, but if you add more about the characters and then come with the beginning of everything along the presentation, then I think it will flow a little more. When writing the beginning of the worlds creation, you do not describe a lot and it is hard to create your own picture.
Anyway as I said; I would have loved to hear a little more of the characters, but hope to find it in the next chapter. Also when you write about the world they are creating there are not many describing words, so it is hard to create a picture.
Well enough about all the negative things
Your piece is really well written. Not any gramma mistakes of which I picked up and the way you express yourself is impressive.
Keep up the good work!
Thank you for your review, but it was rather confusing
You say that the creation of the worlds didn't seem important, then later in the review you explain that the creation needs more information.
The gods do need to be stressed for even though they are not too directly placed later in the story, they are mentioned frequently.
As for the worlds, it was a sense of creationism, an origin myth for better terms.
Hope this clears things up.
Hello!
Okay, I feel that this prologue has a lot of potential but right it's a little bit too long and had way too much information.
Positives-
The end section where they begin to talk about the two characters is really good, I could feel myself starting to want to read more, to continue through the series. I also like the description of the characters, it set the scene for what the book is going to be about and how life might be in this new world.
Improvements-
If I were you I would get rid of the first 1/3 of the prologue, probably up to the point that they start describing the two characters and then just add a condensed vision of the making of the worlds. You really don't need all that stuff and all of the speech, it's just a bit too much. I think this will really help because it makes it short and snappy and then you can get on to the actual story. Otherwise, your reader may feel that the whole book may be like this and decide not to carry on reading. The start of a book is massively important, it is all a reader has to go on and it isn't until the end that the reader would be able to see that you're a great writer. Sorry about the rant there, just wanted to help you out
Overall I think this could be a really great piece with a medium amount of work. I hope this didn't discourage you, I would like to continue reading. Keep writing
Thank you for your review!
If you were to look into previous reviews a lot of them mentioned there was too little info.
Because of this, editing the prologue may be rather tricky...
Hi Zoe,
I haven't read any of the other reviews on this so I'm sorry if I repeat anything someone has said before me.
This prologue is giving some important background to the story you're going to give us in the next few chapters, and I completely understand that. However, at the moment there is very little to recommend this except that it gives us information in the end that I assume will be important. The squabbling of the gods is almost interesting but mostly just goes on for too long? You don't describe the land they create very much so I'm left with a lot of dialogue and nothing to imagine.
The information is important and I understand that, but I wonder if you couldn't insert this information along the way. If not, then you need to flesh this prologue out and give us more to imagine and work with. What do the world around them feel like, sound like? Why are the gods afraid to speak up as well? That seems really silly. Particularly if they've tried to make worlds before? That bit really didn't gel with me. Also is Earth the negative or the positive world? I don't think that was very clear in the end for me.
It's good to get the info but it just needs some fleshing out if you want to keep it.
- PenguinAttack.
This information doesn't exactly 100% matter.
The main characters and the fact that there are two worlds is the only jist needed. The prologue, as I've heard from others, should not be an info dump either, so that's why there is not too many descriptions.
Also, the contradiction is... Consider: all the other planets are unfit for us to live on. That's why even considerable ideas to try it again were not said.
Hope that helps!
Oh and earth is the perfect
Hi there! Saw a later chapter in the green room so thought I'd start at the beginning. I have to say that while I hate and skip prologues, I did actually quite like this one. It feels appropriate for a prologue in that I assume none of these gods are characters in the story, and this is far removed in time from when the story takes place. I'm expecting this creation story & these gods to feature in the religions of the world, and maybe making appearances toward the climax.
It's good to break things up, but you need a good rhythm. Every line of dialogue coming with a short action makes me tend to skip those actions. I also would recommend cutting the opening paragraphs, as they're telly, a bit off-putting, and not in keeping with the rest of the tone.
I really liked the premise. I loved the whole set-up you had here, and the various gods, and particularly their wish to create a perfect world, and then an imperfect world to teach the inhabitants right and wrong. I kind of wish the gods were more ethereal, not described to be of human form and wearing human clothes. That feels too... simple, easy. Not godly and mysterious enough.
I think you could trim down on the actual writing. I skimmed a fair few of the action beats, because I felt like I wanted to read the dialogue, and there were a lot of short sentences in between what's otherwise fast dialogue... so I kinda skipped them and read the dialogue like I wanted to
I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the story develops!
Well, I’m highly prejudiced against prologues to begin with. One idea is to scrap this whole thing and let us find out about this stuff throughout the course of the story, but I’ll do a real review assuming you don’t want to do that.
So let us continue.
Right now, the very beginning reads too much like a summary.
See? No dialogue, no specific thoughts or actions—we don’t even get a single character to latch onto. Not until way later, when we’re introduced to Xaos. Even after we get to the point where the gods are interacting with each other, the guy who brings them together to create the planets is just “one god” who finally stands up to speak. There isn’t much detail in the creation, either.
Which is fine, but rather than summarizing all this for us, you could start the prologue a little later, i.e. after the first world has already been created. The specific point I have in mind is somewhere in this middle of this conversation.
My reasoning is that—well, first of all, I really like this conversation. It’s something I sometimes think about, when people bring up Original Sin and how if Adam and Eve had never sinned the world would be perfect and people would always be happy. And I always think: But would being happy actually mean anything if we were always happy? Don’t we appreciate it more because we’re miserable sometimes?
So the gods essentially saying the same thing resonated with me. But my other reason for starting somewhere around this conversation is that it’s this thought and the subsequent comment about how they don’t want their creations to taint the world that lead to the creation of Earth, Solex, and Xelos. And from what I’ve read so far, that’s the important backstory. All the rest is just frills.
Then, since the gods are already having a conversation, we can get to know them a little better, I hope. Give us names, maybe descriptions of the more important gods (i.e. the gods who will show up again later in the story, like Xaos and his wife), and show us what they’re doing while they’re talking. Surely a dozen gods are not just standing around doing nothing while they’re having this conversation, right?
I am actually severely editing this prologue in word and have not updated it yet. I think I'm going to close reviews for the prologue until then.
It's not that I was upset, but numerous people have already pointed said things before.
Most of these problems have already been worked out, just not on this version of writing just yet.
Also, descriptions are farther implied in chapter one. The gods are meant to come off as serious. (In my edit, they are all wearing cloaks of black and white.)
Mysterious*
Hi Zoe (is it alright if I call you that?)! Mage here to review your work! So let's get to it, shall we?
The first is that sometimes you go from present to past tense and vice versa. Start with one and use it throughout the piece. The second is that this is a mainly dialogue-entric prologue. It would be beneficial to include more descriptions with some of the dialogue to balance it out and keep the reader engaged.
I'll start with the overall problems first. There's only a couple, and I'm sorry in advance if this review makes it seem like I didn't enjoy reading this. I did; I just want to help you out with improving your writing!
Now here's the more specific stuff.
This is a wonderful hook. It draws the reader in and makes me think of countless myths and legends.
Though this technically isn't a run-on sentence because of your usage of commas, it does seem to be a little longer than preferred for most readers (or, at least, me). My suggestion would be to separate it into at least two separate sentences.
I would suggest including this god's name, and there should be a comma after "years". By the way, I like this god already for his intelligence.
There should be a comma after "said".
Quick dialogue lesson here! After the quotation marks, the first letter of the following word should be lowercase and, if the punctuation before it would normally be a period, it should be a comma. An example of something that wouldn't follow that type of rule would be: "Then let's do it!" The god remained standing after his impromptu speech.
The "w" of "Will" should be lowercased. Also, the last part contains a fragment. I would suggest changing it to something along the lines of: "A sword formed in the young boy's hand, a gem gleaming bright; a book in the other."
Their names are palidromes. Neat!
This is such a beautiful and great way to word that.
And so, the story has gained a fan (me).
You use great vocabulary throughout the piece, and this story is definitely has an interesting concept as its starting point. I'm sure you'll continue to make it interesting as you expand the lore and the story itself.
My suggestions? Read your work out loud before posting. Though you won't be able to catch all of your errors that way, you'll catch some of them. My second and final suggestion is create a glossary. I've done that with my own book. It establishes information about your universe; mine, for example, helped explain how magic worked and what species were included. Yours would most likely include the gods/goddesses and their powers.
Please tell me if you want me to review the first two chapters as well. ^_^
Keep up the great work - which I doubt you'll have trouble with - and good luck on your writing endeavors! Have a great day/night!
At the very end of the book, I am planning to make an appendix where any future aterisks will be seen and an open Q & A. Also, thank you for being the first person to finally point out the grammar mistakes specifically pinpointed! That was the main problem for me.
I'm very glad you enjoyed it!
You're welcome! I see that you're already ahead of the game, then.
And by the way, yes. I prefer Zoe
And also yesss review the other two
Hi TheOneNamedZoe,
Please allow me to express, but merely, my opinions and recommendations in this review as a lot has already been said that I dare not discount in unnecessary repetitions.
First, I really loved this piece. For a prologue, it was as engaging and tantalising as I hoped it would be. It's evident that there was a lot of thought that went into accommodating the concepts of Heaven and Earth into exciting parts of fiction. That's really commendable. I hope the next chapters don't lose the gist.
For your writing, I'd like to recommend Grammarly for your proofreading. It will help you notice some of those tricky omissions that may evade your eye. For a short chapter such as this one, simple mistakes tend to stand out. So you have to be really meticulous.
Keep up the good work!
I already used Grammarly for this ;^^
This is Kaos here for a review!
I like the concept of the story, but the execution is weaker. The pace of it seems too quick and that you should slow it down and develop more of the characters, but since that it's called a prologue, people might find it annoying or not read it, so make it interesting too. It feels like the whole prologue was rushed to put the story together.
The descriptions are good, but if you went over it and fixed the grammar errors and took another proofread at it with adjusting the dialogue to the tone that you're trying to set up with the story, so it works better altogether, because with some of the parts they feel offbeat with each other, so I suggest getting them up to speed with each other.
The dialogue seems a little cliched with the speaking and I didn't feel like you captured it quite right. This is a followup to another thing--the punctuation. You don't have to do "?!" or "!" to express /every/ exclamatory emotion, in fact, it gets a little annoying. This is the same thing with ellipses, use both in moderation to keep it well spread out. Instead of that, express the emotions in words with strong words to follow up with them.
I thought the concept worked well and would make for a great story, I might keep reading to see where this goes. Once again, the main problems I have with this are dialogue and punctuation, your description is well, the worldbuilding feels like it could have improvement as in developing the world that the gods live in, in this chapter, and the characters feel mysterious or feel as if they still need to be unraveled.
Hope this helped and have a great day!
Thank you for reviewing. I definitely will be editing this work.
And as for the mystery, that is the point. It is a prologue and you are meant to know just enough but not everything. Character descriptions are in further chapters and development is definitely applied later.
Hello there, TheOneNamedZoe! I'm sorry for my lateness, but I'm finally here, and ready to provide a review for the prologue of your novel. Keep in mind that these are all suggestions, and I don't mean that you should exactly follow every statement of mine; it's up to you to read through what I've said and decide whether or not it's appropriate for you.
...
My, this turned out to be a rather find story. Well done! You incorporated a lot of the key elements of a creation narrative in a simple, excellent manner. It was thoughtful, elaborate, and contemplative on the state of the Earth, its fellow planets, and even provided its own story on humanity (I'm not entirely sure if they are the first humans, given what I've read so far, so I don't want to make a potentially erroneous claim within the body of my review. But, if they are, you've added another key element of a creation narrative, and did it well. And, if not, I'm curious to see what those humans will do and the changes they will bring about when they arrive, and how they will use their great power). I like the way you constructed the inspiration and first creation of the gods, as well as their previous sense of isolation brought about by fear of public humiliation (which is honestly rather understandable, and something that I think a lot of people can relate to), as well as the arguments that they have over this world and its rules. And, of course, the god of common sense proves to have a lot of it. So, in general, I like the narrative and construction of your story!
Personally, I don't have many, if any, complaints about this prologue. It starts a little slow, but the story gradually picks up and becomes a lot more complex and fun to read as it progresses, which is nice. I honestly assumed that the first world they created would be Earth, but I was genuinely surprised and amused to see Choas step up and do what the other gods would not be willing to do - craft something himself, and then make it a world of imperfections, one that can't be tainted, as it already is. His creations are fascinating, as well as his wife's willingness to involve herself in the plan, and the humans he creates are equally interesting. What roles will they play in this new world? How will they use their strengths to craft a better world? It's questions like these that keep the audience wanting to read more, so I'm impressed with your penchant for driving the story forward.
Yep, all in all, this looks fairly good. I enjoyed reading this from start to finish; it was well-written, descriptive, and interesting. My major complaint might simply be that the pacing may have been a little fast, and I would've liked to learn more about the construction of Earth (particularly when it comes to the humans on it), but that's minor, and I imagine it'll be discussed in future chapters. Nevertheless, great job!
Hello, and thank you for your review!
Okay. The dullness leading to excitement is rather the plan here. If you put it a way, that's how big bang is thought of. Black, blankness then BLAM.
Thank you for mentioning the humans. Yes they are mentioned further on in the chapters, but other than that they basically were built out of thin air from what I have written it seems.
The pacedness is still being worked on. The first draft was much worse, believe me. At least now it's considered spontaneous.
Once again, thank you for the review and I hope you enjoy further chapters if you read further!
Hey there!
So, this is a very gripping prologue, at least in the first few paragraphs. I feel like it slowly became a little dull halfway though. Perhaps adding a little more description would help, especially at the part where the gods were creating the worlds. I wanna know if they were creating galaxies and Universes or simply just the plant, I wanna know if there were spectacular things going on around them as they were creating it. It would also be cool if you could describe the planet other than how it is supposed to be (like environment, animals, plants, seas, etc.)
Other than that there were grammatical errors that I'm sure the other reviewers took care of.
Keep it up and good luck with future posts!
Thank you for mentioning it.
As for the describing, the flawed world will be showing more throughout the series. I will, however, put more description into the perfect world.
Thank you for noting this, I didn't realize until now.
Hi!
)
I really enjoyed reading this. I am definitely interested in reading more, and seeing how the story plays out.
There are only a couple of grammatical errors and I think that they are all easily fixable. I liked how the gods were named after emotions! Xaos is a really nice choice of name. Make sure not to use to many of the same words (one of my problems
Great story!
Shea
First of all your first few sentences.... I love them a lot. Hooked me basically instantly.
You mentioned that the Gods were too afraid to speak up on their ideas because they didn't want to seem ludicrous, yet a few lines later you say that the Gods have all talked about their one dream. Maybe a bit of a contradiction there.
This is a really really creative story by the looks of it, which I think is awesome. I love how the Gods are emotions rather than just having names. Also I think the idea of an evil planet is really interesting.
Other than maybe a few grammatical things, I think this is a really strong start and I'm looking forward to reading more!
Thank you for the review!
As for the second thing you mentioned. They spoke about it between one another but never really decided all together to do it, if that makes much sense.