Darkness Awakening- 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: Well..this is off to a nice start here...as a prologue this one manges to do it s pretty well here, it definitely manages to tick off most of the boxes that you expect from one of these at any rate.

Anyway let's get right to it,

“Come on Myzair. We’re going to be late.” A woman ushered a little boy.

“But mother, what is it?” He replied, running to catch up.

“The Dedication. One of the newborns has been chosen.” Excitement could barely be contained in her voice.

“We are here to rejoice the dedication of one of your children. The Almighty has chosen this child to join the Light, to spread the Word.” A man spoke on the platform, his voice echoing in the valley. He wore white robes, a sign of the light. On the man’s right was a girl in purple robes with light brown hair. On her right stood a woman in white robes holding the child to be dedicated. The man turned to usher the woman and child forward when a cry arose from behind them.

“Fire! Orcs! We are under attack!” The screaming person burst through the foliage and looked down to find a stray spear in his chest.

“Run Isiss! Take the child to safety.” The white-clad woman nodded, and in a flash of light she was gone. The man found himself surrounded by the Elven Council each facing a different direction, looking for the attackers. Myzair turned to his mother, who had disappeared. He ran up to the stage, and was helped up by the speaker.

“What is your name, son?”

“My-Myzair. Have you seen my mother?” A sob choked him as he looked around.

“My name is Lortai and no I have-“he was cut short by the cry of a woman.

“Myzair! Myzair! Where are you?” His mother panicked, running around the crowded ground. Myzair started towards her when she clutched her stomach. His mother fell, and behind her stood a laughing orc.

“No!” The wind picked up, knocking down the people who couldn’t hold on. The sky darkened, and lightning flashed across it, appearing to be playing. Myzair fell to his knees, and just as his energy left his body he watched the orc get struck by lightning.

First let me tell you , AWSOME !

Now , i am not a pro reviewer , but yeah i do know my stuff

ok, the review,

first of all i think the transition between , "On the man’s right was a girl in purple robes with light brown hair. On her right stood a woman in white robes holding the child to be dedicated. The man turned to usher the woman and child forward when a cry arose from behind them....

AND
"Fire! Orcs! We are under attack!” The screaming person burst through the foliage and looked down to find a stray spear in his chest....

is too sudden, maybe few nice buffers? make it a bit longer just so it doesnt seem so.."jagged"

Secondly,
"Fire! Orcs! We are under attack!” I am unclear about the meaning, Does it imply, FIRE at the ORCS or does it imply a TYPE of orcs called FIRE ORCS? or maybe there is FIRE in the area AND orcs invading??

Thirdly,
i dont know about your style but personally i would have described his mother dying a bit more.. maybe the expression on her face.. the blood ( maybe not if u dont want blood or violence )

Fourthly ( and at the end of my criticism )
Describe the Fall of myzair a bit in detail? eg " Myzair felt his body weaken, darkness ate away at the corner of his eyes but he saw.... he saw the murder being struck by lightning which illuminated the whole ____ ( village? town? ). Then, he at last succumbed to the dizziness"

But still GOOD STORY

i am expecting more

Fear not! After much consideration and some addition/subtraction, the above monstrosity has been rewritten. If you like the idea, thank you, and if not, thank you too I guess. Hopefully, the revision will be up soon, and I hope you enjoy!

So far, I find it interesting. I am wondering who the main character is, as you could go several ways with it. Is it Myzair? Or the child? although as it is the prologue, it's probably the child huh? Anyway, i would suggest that a little more description and plot development could take place. But all in all, I like it.

Hey there! So the first thing I want to ask is probably going to sound accusatory; it isn’t meant that way, I promise.

Why does this prologue exist?

It’s very brief. For me, it asked more questions than it could solve in such a short amount of time, which left me feeling confused rather than intrigued—not a great state for your readers to be in on the first page of your story. On the other hand, it does let me glean some things: I suspect that this is, on a structural level, some kind of Chosen One story, that orcs and elves are at war (?), that elves apparently subscribe to a monotheistic religion that sounds p similar to Christianity, and Myzair is presumably going to be Our Protagonist. So it’s not completely alienating.

But: Is there any information in this prologue that you couldn’t slide into chapter one? If there is, that information should be the focus of the prologue. If there isn’t, scrap the prologue and just start off with chapter one.

Moving on.

I think I’m probably most curious about this dedication stuff. Like I said, words and phrases like “Almighty” and “spread the Word” smack very strongly of Christianity to me, and if those are associations you don’t want, consider coming up with new terminology. But I’m also wondering about the purpose of this dedication ceremony; what exactly does it mean? My first instinct would be to assume that any newborn gets a ceremony like this, but a single baby being “chosen” obviously means that dedication is something special. So… what is it for? what does it mean? Is the kid going to be raised into priesthood or something? Become a hermit? Act as this generation’s prophet? Enter training to become a warrior-monk?

Like, these are questions you don’t have to answer outright, but some hint at what “joining the light” and “spreading the Word” MEAN on a functional level would not go amiss here.

Second thing: The attack by the orcs feels really disconnected from the first half of the prologue to me. There’s no hint that it’s coming, and it’s just this sort of… “wait, what?” moment in the middle of this religious ceremony. Granted, attacks are never exactly *expected*, but to drop it on readers in the middle of something else on the first page is kind of jarring.

I think, if you choose to keep the prologue, it’d be more effective to choose ONE: either the dedication ceremony OR the orc attack. Pick the one that’s more important to what’s going to happen in chapter one and focus exclusively on that, to avoid the feeling that you’ve suddenly reversed directions with no warning.

You’ve got a solid foundation here! Neither the dedication ceremony nor the orc attack are bad on their own, it’s just that on the first page, the reader hasn’t had enough time to get used to your world, so the two don’t fit together very seamlessly.