beverly hills murder prologue

by lil-mizzkitty1

Published February 14, 2009

In beverly hills murder

Hey this is the prologue it includes my sneak peak and tells you what happened in the years after the murder.

……………………………………………..

Erin ran through the hallway. She hid in the laundry basket, quickly throwing a bunch of clothes over her body. She heard screaming. Her parents were crying. They were begging so hard. She listened to their cries until she couldn’t hear them anymore. Then she heard her baby brother, Joseph, cry. She heard a body thud to the floor; then the house was silent. She peeked out from under the clothes. Just a small peek was all she needed. She saw the man who killed her family.

Eleven years had passed since that day and she was blank. She couldn't remember anything. No matter how much the detectives had bugged her over and over again she couldn't remember anything. After she had gone to live with her aunt and uncle and their two children Crystal and John(who were at their boarding school most of the time). she was very happy living with them. She was now fifteen years old and went to Raymond Jones High school in Beverly Hills.

Comments & reviews · 4
User avatar
kaitlyn
Review
kaitlyn wrote a review Review · Apr 17, 2022

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

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

Anyway let's get right to it,

Erin ran through the hallway. She hid in the laundry basket, quickly throwing a bunch of clothes over her body. She heard screaming. Her parents were crying. They were begging so hard. She listened to their cries until she couldn’t hear them anymore. Then she heard her baby brother, Joseph, cry. She heard a body thud to the floor; then the house was silent. She peeked out from under the clothes. Just a small peek was all she needed. She saw the man who killed her family.


Well I suppose that title is pretty clear there...but wow, that is quite the start there. Its almost a little too sudden I have to say. While we do take a second to sort of set the scene, I feel it rushes itself through a touch faster than it probably should there and as a result we're in a situation where while this is quite a shocking that would work at speed, it feels a bit more rushed than it should be. I think perhaps having a bit more setup and just general buildup to that reveal there would really help out here.

Eleven years had passed since that day and she was blank. She couldn't remember anything. No matter how much the detectives had bugged her over and over again she couldn't remember anything. After she had gone to live with her aunt and uncle and their two children Crystal and John(who were at their boarding school most of the time). she was very happy living with them. She was now fifteen years old and went to Raymond Jones High school in Beverly Hills.


Hmm well this turned into a bit of a summary there in the end. That part somehow I think I don't mind quite as much since it is very clearly a summary and in that case listing things off a bit fast works out okay. I still think it could do with a bit of expanding, but that's a decent way to sort of brief us on the story. I think it doesn't dip into info dump territory either which is also a good thing.

Overall, I'd say its a bit shorter than it needs to be for what you're trying to do, but on the whole its a pretty decent prologue here.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry

User avatar
Master_Yoda
Review
Master_Yoda wrote a review Review · Feb 14, 2009

Hello there

Welcome to YWS. Now let's start the review.

This piece is short, so I don't suggest that I will do it justice. But let's take what we have here, and do what work we can with it :) . Usually when we write, we want our first sentence to be a gripper, and the first paragraph to be a prototype for the rest of the book. Your first sentence tells us nothing other than the fact that she ran into a corner. It doesn't tell us why, nor does it make us try to make us second guess the plot. I would suggest trying to spice it up a little, as it does as XxxDo suggests, seem to imply that she ran into the wall. Perhaps you want to try something like: "Screams of terror drove Erin into the corner of the corner of the room." Try make us want to read more, don't let us relax at all, Make us cringe, and show us her terror. For us to sympathize with a character, we must be able to visualize the situation. Make it as vivid for us as you possibly can.

Now, you've put together material for a great story, all that remains is for you to craft this into a masterpiece. I assume the story is intended to be about Erin's revenge. If this is the case, than you will want to let us know her personality as much as you can. Perhaps you should narrate some of the conversations that she had with the Detectives. You might want to let us know her feelings about going to live with her cousins. Does she like them? Does she feel comfortable with her cousins? Do they feel comfortable with her?

Hope this helped 8)

Good luck with the rest ;)

User avatar
deleted2
Review
deleted2 wrote a review Review · Feb 14, 2009

Hey there, I'll be the first reviewer for ya ^^

First things first:

It's very short. This cannot be the entire first chapter, can it? Do you mean it's a prologue?

Line-by-line review:

‘Erin ran into the corner. To me this sounds as though she hit the wall in the corner. And erase the thingy (I don't know what to call it, no xD) before "Erin".

She hid in the laundry basket, quickly thrusting a bunch of clothes over her body. Thrusting doesn't seem to be the right word here, to be frank. Consider using another word.

they were begging so hard. Hard doesn't seem like the right word, either. Something along the lines of "they were begging for their lives" might work better.

She heard a body thud to the floor then the house was silent. Between "floor" and "then" you should either write "and" or a semi-colon.

General note: Don't start every sentence with "she". Have some variety in your sentence structure.

She saw the man who later she would realize had killed her family.’ Your previous descriptions made it fairly obvious that her family was dead - so why does she realize later? Hearing those things, and then seeing a stranger, would make it quite clear that he was the 'bad guy'. Also, erase the thingy after the last word, and put the entire backflash in italics to indicate it's a memory.

11 years had passed since that day and she was blank. *Dies* Noooo! Write the number out, dear, don't put numbers. Eleven looks a lot nicer than 11.

She couldn’t remember anything from that day. This confuses me. Wasn't that previous part her memory of that day? *confusion*

She was now 15 yrs old and went to Raymond Jones High school in Beverly Hills. MORTAL SIN. Take out "yrs" and replace it with English. Please avoid chatspeak in stories. Also... fifteen > 15.

Do continue this; you've got something good going here. Just make sure you pay attention to the things I've mentioned up there ^

PM me for anything!

XxxDo



To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.
— Allen Ginsberg