Young Writers Society

Hey there Jessegrey, welcome to YWS!
Myjaspercat here to leave you a review


Nit-Picks

The four of them were a collective of panic [I would add a comma here] while they stared down at the fallen body in front of them

One of them, a tall man with hair as dark as the hour around them, paced in front of the body as his three friends stood shell shocked at the situation.

Another young man of the group...

They couldn’t lose it. Not now. There was a murder involved, [You can remove this comma]and Sumner was nowhere to be found. They couldn’t lose it now when they were so close to losing it all.

Hello, jessegrey! PastelSlushie here to leave a review! Let's get right into it! Also, welcome to YWS!

First comment: I must say, you have talent when you can lure ME in only with a title! I can definitely tell you must have SOME kind of experience to write like this! You made me want to continue from the first sentence to the last sentence. Talking about the beginning, it was great! It truly makes the reader want to know, "What's bad?" Making them want to continue reading. Great job!

Second comment: HOWEVER-- sorry, however, when you're describing the people in the group, I didn't necessarily like how you just went right out and told the reader what they looked like. I was guilty of that when I was younger, and I really wish I knew making the mistake you did isn't very good. Try to tell their looks in tiny little details as the story goes on. Let me take one of your lines for example. "Lissa eliminated the small distance between the tall blond and herself in response to his stiff words, grabbing his hand gingerly." Try to describe your characters like that!

Well, that's the end of this review. I'm sorry if I seemed harsh in any way you didn't like. Keep writing!

Pastel

Well done! You did a great job of getting the reader invested in the characters even without much characterization. This prologue flows well and serves as a great hook for the story to come.

Some general comments:

The opening was really strong until, ". . . at the fallen body in front of them. A dead body." That last sentence took me out of the story a lot. I think the opening would be so much better if you simply said ". . . at the dead body in front of them" with no "dead body" clarification, especially because "fallen" doesn't add much. We can sort of infer that the body is on the ground.

The dialogue was pretty well-crafted, which is tough when you have to compose a scene like this where the characters are just standing there and arguing with at each other. One line did stick out as a little unnatural, though: “Lissa, who cares? There’s a body!” I would consider taking out that entire paragraph, since it doesn't add much. It would make it flow better from "Where's Sumner" to "He lured us here."

I noticed that when you introduce the first three characters, you give a description of their hair. This will work once, maybe even twice, but you should change it up beyond that. I like the description of "hair as dark as the hour" for the first man, but it would be good to switch it up a bit beyond that.

One other thing that became obvious after a while was when you had the characters address each other by name so the audience could learn the names of the characters. This works in places, but it becomes repetitive and confusing. And also, people won't often use the other person's name in normal conversation unless they are trying to get their attention. So you have a choice to make. Either leave out some of the names for now and fill in the reader later OR say the name of the characters when they are doing something. For example, you could say, "Abram, a tall, scruffy buzzed blond and the last of the group, locked eyes with each of his friends," thereby eliminating the need for Lissa to call him by name later on.

I enjoyed reading this very much, as I said, and I think that these small improvements would go a long way. Keep writing!

write more soon!

That had to be one of the most interesting prologues i've ever read. You should definelty write more.