Prologue
It’s a misty cold night. Footsteps crackle on dry leaves. The footsteps raced through the thick fog in the forest. The cold air filled her lungs. A woman, brown skinned with long black wavy hair was running through the thick forest as fast as she could with her baby coiled in her arms. The baby stayed asleep unaware of the dangers around them. The woman was breathing fast as she ran. She was running for her life and the life of the child. She could have just flown away if she wanted, as a vampire she could do lots of things right now, however, her enemies beat and striped her of her powers. Now she’s useless and has no sure way of protecting herself. She was weak but determined to save herself and the child.
Her scars and wounds weren’t as painful as the thought of losing those she loved most. I have to hide, she thought to herself. She kept running until she found cave. She quickly ran towards the cave. Once inside she found a huge bolder and decided to hide the baby behind it. The cave was pitched black but she as able to see with her vampire vision.
She made a bed out of leaves and twigs and placed the baby on top. The baby remained sleeping. She looked at how beautiful her precious child was and tears began to flow down her cheek. She took off a silver wolf fang necklace and placed it around the baby. “This will protect you, little one.” She whispered to the baby. She said a quick prayer and with that she ran back out the cave and into the line of fire. Screams, barks, and violence filled the air until silence was all the baby heard followed by a loud distance howl.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
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,
Alright, a bit too much information being dumped on us there for the first paragraph. I get that you're trying to establish some stakes there, but I think the first two lines really sell the whole person in deep trouble situation quite well and the whole vampire description kind of ends up ruining things somewhat...you should look into perhaps revealing that a bit later there, maybe hint at it a tiny bit, but not make things quite this blunt.
Okayy...I love the emotions being captured there, to see this woman cares more about the wellbeing of the child she has much more than the injuries that she's taking really shows that she does care for the child and would probably do just about anything on behalf of said child...which is definitely adding towards the tension here.
Well I suppose this doesn't quite leave things up to the imagination, you just know the mother there did not make it out, a sacrifice for the continued happiness of her child..well its a powerful scene to start with, definitely makes for a great prologue here. I'd certainly want to continue reading at this point.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Thank you all for all your reviews and feedback =) I really appreciate it and I'm eternally grateful. I'm new to this whole writing stories so I need all the help i can get lol. I will work on all your advice and re- do it as well as use the tips on the up coming chapters. Again thank you all =)
This was a great way to start the story! I love the Prologue! The way you add so much suspense to what will happen next, it makes the reader what to flip the page and start the next chapter, that is the type of book you want, the one the reader never wants to put down.
I noticed you did a lot of telling. She did this, she did that ect. You need to show the reader. So for example, instead of saying.
She climbed a tree.
Say something like.
She knelt beside a large oak tree, it was like a beast compared to her. Her small fragile body clambered its way to the top. Hand after hand reaching for another rough branch. When she was at the top she stopped, and stared out at the horizon. Mountians gaily rolled over one another and the sun set projecting reds, pinks and oranges into the sky.
This way you are giving the reader more to picture and in the end, you fill up more pages which is obviously one of the harder things to do when writing a novel
I am not trying to be rude, I just want to help, and I hope this did help
The first thing that hits me when I read through this is that you're changing tenses, not only within the story but within a single paragraph. You've start in the present, switch to the past, briefly flip to present again for "Now she's useless...", and then carry on in the past for the rest. This kind of thing really throws the reader - try to pick one tense and stick with it for the whole of a piece.
The other thing I'd like to mention is something that you will undoubtedly be very tired of hearing if you spend any length of time in online writing forums, and that is the "show don't tell" mantra. What I mean by that is, you have a really interesting scene going on, which raises lots of questions )Who is the woman? Who are the enemies? How did they strip her of her powers?), but you tell us a list of things that are happening, rather than showing us the scene.
For example...
Here, you are telling us that she's a vampire, telling us what has happened, telling us that it makes her useless, and telling us that she's determined. To show this instead, try imagining the scene is a film. Most films don't have a voice telling the audience what the characters are thinking; they show it through what can be seen. Try describing the film scene. Perhaps something like...
"She gave a little jump in mid-stride, but landed heavily back on the earth - no use. Still no flight. They really meant it when they said they'd stripped her powers. And what use was a vampire without those? Stumbling, legs shaky, she tried another burst of speed, clutching the child to her chest."
(Of course, I'm not you - I can't tell what you were going for in this scene, so please consider this to be just and example of how to show the reader what's going on in a slightly more implicit manner.)
Overall, I think that the idea here is really interesting; I'm intrigued by the situation and interested to know what happens next. I think that in terms of execution it could use some revision and rewriting, but the story itself is starting well.
This needs to be put into paragraphs in the worst way. Something like this on paper might work, but the internet maked things harder to read,and huge chunks of text like this are difficult to digest. Also this line "She was weak but determined to save her and the child." might sound better "herself and her child" but that's just my opinion.
Overall, I think the prolougue of the mother being chased and hiding her baby is a little formulaic, but this is fantasy. Things tend to be reused often. You make this unique with her being a vampire stripped of her powers. THAT is the aspect of the story that catches my interest. I want to see whare you go with this.