The Other Side: Prologue

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Okay...this was a pretty intense prologue here, definitely covered quite some intense stuff in this one and it most definitely did catch my attention very much, with what happened there, especially towards the end.

Anyway let's get right to it,

The crossing of Donahue Street was quite busy as crowds of people went about their way. Some awaiting a bus. Some rushing by in a half walk half run in a hurry to reach their offices on time, sometimes a burger clutched in their hands as they pushed their way through. Children excitedly chattering by on their way to school. The younger kids having their fingers intertwined in their mother’s hands. Buses stopped at regular intervals as hordes of people climbed in. a few taxis stopped here and there to pick up passengers. It was a pretty regular morning as it should have been. Yet it wasn’t really.

A young woman of around 21 was carefully navigating her way through the crowds. From her appearance one could be sure that she was quite rich. She wore an expensive Russian minx coat and exclusively tailored high quality leather boots. An expensive pair Louis Vitton handbag swung casually in her hand as she strode forward with an air of indifference to all the activity she surpassed. A pronounced arrogance evident in her every step. She tossed back her cascading chestnut curls ever so often. A tight lipped smile framed her face. Her steely blue eyes focused ahead on the crossing. A slight smirk crept up at the corners of her lips.

She stopped exactly at the crossing and waved her hand irritantly. Within seconds a Rolls Royce pulled up beside her and a middle aged chauffeur promptly held the door open. It was almost as if she hesitated, the spring in her step suddenly faltered yet she maintained her features as expressionless as it was meant to be the moment she had hailed her car. She ran her tongue slightly over her chapped lips in an attempt to steady herself. With an annoyed glance at her chauffeur she stepped in.

Seconds later a huge blast scorched the entire Donahue street crossing, huge fires emerging at every nook and corner. Ambulances screeched to a halt and trained paramedics jumped out, steering through the pile of rubble, hauling in seared bodies.

Heyo budding, Subtle here! Now you told me I can be as blunt as I want, so I'm going full on you. You might want to sit down first.

So, this is a prologue. If it is, then you have officially kicked your novel's bucket. I can say this with enough confidence, even wiiut reading your plot or your entire novel that this is in no way a prologue, or a chapter, is more like a snippet of an introduction. It irritates me greatly when people write a piece of work, and just paste the word prologue on there as if is a mere decorations. The good news is, you're not the only one. I've noticed quite a lot of YWS writers do this. So I've written an article in the forums on it. -> To prologue or not to prologue

Please give it a read, just so that you have a better understanding on how they are used and what there functions are. So, you've already had quite a lot of reviews on both plot and spelling so there isn't much to say. But I will say what I can. Like JoshuaPaul said, this prologue (or introduction) really isn't that good at all. I don't see what's gripping about it, what's interesting about it at all.

As a prologue, it doesn't even function at all because I don't even see a story in it, is just about this expensively dressed Russian woman getting into a car. And then magically, fires appear. O_O Erm.

Right.

Well, if you're going for mystery. You failed, due to the illogicality of the entire story. Fire can't just pop out of nowhere with no foreshadow, is just too abrupt. In real life, yes it can be. But this is fiction, welcome to the fiction world! Where if something random or significant is going to happen (aka fires suddenly leeching out from corners) you need to foreshadow it.

If you're going in terms of language. You also fail, again. The entire chapter was a show of telling us what happened and using repetitive terms and let's face it, your word choices could be better.

The crossing of Donahue Street was quite busy as crowds of people went about their way. Some awaiting a bus. Some rushing by in a half walk half run in a hurry to reach their offices on time, sometimes a burger clutched in their hands as they pushed their way through. Children excitedly chattering by on their way to school. The younger kids having their fingers intertwined in their mother’s hands. Buses stopped at regular intervals as hordes of people climbed in. a few taxis stopped here and there to pick up passengers. It was a pretty regular morning as it should have been. Yet it wasn’t really.

You succeed in what I consider the important thing in a prologue : ending in a way that makes you want to continue the reading. To me, prologue is like the sequence before the opening credits in a movie/tv series. And here it works.
All in all, I think it's a good prologue, some description, the introduction of a character and a surprise at the end. But here are a few remarks.

The crossing of Donahue Street

Louis Vitton

A young woman of around 21

Ambulances screeched to a halt

I'm not sure if I was in a bad mood before I read this, but there was something very irritating about it. Do you expect readers to take you seriously when in four short paragraphs, you have managed to squeeze in a dozen or so manageable and glaring errors. Sometimes it's spelling, sometimes it's syntax, sometimes it's beginning a sentence with an uncapitalised letter.

Perhaps most irritating of all is the fact that this could be a great prologue with a compelling hook, if you had taken the time and care to proof-read it properly.

I fear that writers are using these forums as an access way to others who are a lot more prepared to edit the work than the author them selves are. It is mostly done under the pretence that the author needs nitpicks because the author is not capable and does not have the necessary skills-set/confidence/knowledge-set to effectively proofread their own work. In some cases, perhaps this is the case. Here however, I suspect it is not.

So here's some general advice. Never show anyone any of your work unless you are confident you have gotten it to the point where you can no longer better it without outside input. I'm not saying edit every single word of a 100K word manuscript before opening it up to someone you know and trust, but at the very least run through it with a critical eye. Hell, at the very least, run it through a spell check. No one can focus on the content of your work, which is the important stuff, because the trivial errors are so loud. I can not enter the dream state that you should wish to evoke in all your readers because I was confronted too frequently by blips, bumps in the road that knocked me out of the action.

Think about it this way. You are a builder and you spend months building a house, the foundations are solid and you take time to lay paint, one coat after another, until it's perfect. Then when it comes time to sell it, you take someone through the home and the prospect fails to imagine living in the home because the wallpaper is half hung, there are nails half knocked in and bent jagging from the walls. The light fittings are missing bulbs. The drop sheets are still down with a spray of white paint on them. Where the toilet should be there is simply a gaping drain whole. The stairs are hard wood but it's not polished, it's stamped with muddy boots. You should be as serious about selling your writing to readers as a carpenter or a painter or a potter. Just because this is a friendly environment to share your work does not mean it should be lacklustre.

So, with that said I would suggest that my irritation is brought on by how good this can be. I would also add that if this had been proofed and edited properly I would have been fully submerged and may have found this exciting, bringing on a sense of anticipation for the next part. What a shame.

As far as the genre, this thriller hook is well worn. It's the old bait and switch. Set up a character to appear to be the protagonist. Give her/him a bit of weight in the text and have us anticipating getting to know this character. Then strike him/her from the face of the planet leaving us just one thing, a whiff of a story to go on. Why?

You handle this quite well and as a prologue it establishes a mood and tone that is consistent with thrillers. On the objective-subjective scale I would say you have found a reasonably good position, if it were any more subjective you would waste time and slow the action down investigating the character and setting in too much detail. If it were any more objective we would probably yawn and skip forward a few pages. There seems to be just enough detail but not too much that the prose becomes weighted and dense.

The last paragraph could definitely be edited better. As a rule of thumb, you should speed up action and tension, whilst of course adequately varying sentence length. This is how I would edit it.

Seconds later a huge blast scorched the entire Donahue street crossing(Full stop) Huge fires emerginged at every nook and corner. Ambulances screeched to a halt and trained paramedics jumped out, steering through the pile of rubble(Full stop) They haulinged in seared bodies [b]into the ambulance and departed, leaving only the echo of their blaring siren.

O.O I seriously never thought you had this... this package in you. o.o

Hello there!

Dreamy here to review your awesome prologue xD I completely loved your description on that woman. I mean, I was able to picturise the woman's chapped lips. I was like "awesome o.o" on the whole narration of the woman. But, if you take your eyes off from that two paragraphs, the other, it made me think that you didn't really give a lot of thought on the settings and stuffs.

And I thought, maybe if you give a little more build up on the bomb explosion, with sounds and such. That would also be an awesome scene to imagine. Also, I wasn't really a big fan of the start of the prologue. It was "meh"

Some awaiting a bus.

Children excitedly chattering by, on their way to school.

sometimes a burger clutched in their hands as they

The younger kids having their fingers intertwined in their mother’s hands. Buses stopped at regular intervals as hordes of people climbed in. a A few taxis stopped here and there to pick up passengers.

Hi there! I'm here to review your faaabulous work!

I thought this was very well written. I really liked the way you described the main character. Perhaps, I felt the description of the streets and all were a bit too unimportant. Not the entire thing, though. But a whole paragraph was just... according to me anyway. Either ways, I thought it was beautifully written.

Time for nitpicking!

Some awaiting a bus. Some rushing by in a half walk half run in a hurry to reach their offices on time, sometimes a burger clutched in their hands as they pushed their way through.

Children excitedly chattering by on their way to school. The younger kids having their fingers intertwined in their mother’s hands.

An expensive pair Louis Vitton handbag swung...

...as she strode forward with an air of indifference to all the activity she surpassed.

Reading this just aroused my curiosity. You have a good idea of how to stir up your reader and keep them glued to the story without exposing too much about the plot. I like it. Great job.

I really enjoyed the fact that you described the main character in depth. Not a lot of people can keep the reader interested while describing someone or someone's surroundings. It really made me want to continue reading. When I was done it left me wanting more which was also something I liked about your story. Mystery is the best part of life and you conveyed it perfectly in this story.