Renegade Children

Hey there questcrewforever! WD, as requested. I apologize for the delay. So, this is interesting. You are a good writer; you know how to craft easy, flowing sentences. Your grammar is sound; the sentences sound great when read aloud. Your prose is coming across clean. I like it.

You have a great writing style, but I'm really not fond of the type of opening we have here. Now, I don't mind narration breaks opening a story. I think introducing the narrator straight up can be very well done, and I'm glad that you have a strong enough idea of the setting to start developing it so early on, but this preface doesn't hook me. It doesn't really draw me in or forge an emotional bond between me and the characters. Why? Because there's so little character in it; this is an introduction, but right now it's just a list of names the narrator giving me a summary of the situation, which doesn't suck me in the way a powerful preface should. If you're going to have a preface/prologue, I think it should do more than give background information and introduce characters--the first chapter can easily do that.

So, why exactly is this not sucking me in? First, the introductions of the characters. I know them in name, age and a little bit of personality snips alone--I have no emotional bond to them. I really don't care about their names and ages because I don't know them! I really don't think it's necessary to give me all of their names in the preface without significant narrator characterization--I will care about them when I see them acting and heading on the road towards being developed well. If you introduce them well, it won't be hard to keep their names straight either. But right now they're just a pile of names to me. Second, the situation, and I'm going to group this with, third, the narrative voice.

The situation is clear and we get some backstory, but I really don't care about that either! Because I'm not bonding with your characters--but the main reason I'm not bonding with your characters is because of your narrative voice. Your narrator here is just telling me things, and it's not hooking me. She seems to just be delivering information without any substantial attitude/position towards it. When you're writing for a narrator, what makes the narrative voice strong is taking into account personality, style, attitude and position. Who the narrator is, how the narrator talks, how the narrator feels towards the subject matter and from what point in time/space the narrator is telling the story. I feel like you have the beginning of this, because your narrator does have hints of personality! But if you want to suck me in, these need to be highlighted.

So, to fix this, I would suggest two options. One, cut it. If you don't need this narrative opening, it would be easier to just plunge in. If that you can't do that, however, go back and highlight that strong narrative voice. Practice with it. Make her suck me in. A fabulous narrator can make any backstory interesting, but backstory can't make any narrator interesting.

This is a pretty good start! You have a smooth writing style that I really like, and I can definitely see the makings of a good narrator already emerging. Nice job here! Keep writing! Please PM me if you have any questions!

This is an interesting idea. Like the poster before me said, I'm not very fond of prefaces/prologues, as more often than not they just seem like something that should simply be part of the first chapter. However, I also believe in writing in your own style, and anyway it's hard to make a real assessment without seeing what follows after.

As far the actual writing goes, some things could be reworked. The opening dialogue seems a little stiff, especially since you have a "he said", "I grinned", "he smirked", etc. after every line. Good dialogue should flow, with the reader being able to tell who's talking just by the voice and by the natural back-and-fourth of a conversation. This is hard to do in the opening of a book because the reader has just started and doesn't know anything about the characters yet, so you may do better to start out with some action and description rather than immediately jumping into dialogue.

I'm interested in the idea you have here and I'd like to see where you take it. I'll keep an eye out for more of your stuff.

Hey questcrewforever! I'm Lauren and I'll be reviewing for you today.

Prefaces... *cringes* Just another word for a prologue, of which I am not fond. Mostly, because they are very difficult to write well. I'll spare you the rant, and just give my input on making this one flow better.

The dialogue at the beginning is a little pointless here. I'd suggest cutting it and using it to start off chapter one. It just feels like more action should be happening after the dialogue rather than plunging into an explination about the Renegade Children. Focus on the Renegades for the preface, and then get into real life in chapter one.

The only grammatical thing I saw...

I took in everyone here, they all came from poor families, where they never had much of anything, food, water, toys anything a young child should deserve.