Published August 6, 2013
Prologue:
Since the day of the accident, all she did was practice. For hours, she never gave up on becoming the strongest alpha. The strongest to protect the people she loved. Nylla has lived with the burden of running a pack since the age of 15. A few years younger than most alphas who gain the privilege. The pressure is too much, fear shadowing her mind. Once a new male comes into town, life changes.
Chapter 1
Pack Life
I slowly sit up in my bed, looking to the right as my eyes adjusting to the lighting. I shake my head to and fro, still sleepy. I slowly emerge from the bed, standing up awkwardly. I move towards the closet, picking something that I wanted to wear today. I quickly find a band t-shirt and jeans. I put them on, walking to the bathroom and brushing my hair. I look at myself in the mirror.
I shake my head once again, finishing up what I needed to do and leave my room. I walk down stairs to the living room. Turning towards the door and walking to the kitchen house for the pack. Hearing the television as I walk in, I glance towards a few of my pack members that sit around the table in the huge kitchen house. A few of the children where sitting in front of them on the floor, watching cartoons. Scooby-Doo came on and I smile.
A wonderful smell from the kitchen broke my attention away from the others. I stumbled in to the kitchen like I normally did in the morning. I sit next to my beta,
"What is Lisa cooking today?"
"I don't know but it smells so good!" He exclaims as he basically drools all over his plate with a thought of food. I only laugh at him, knowing how hopeless he was at times. I glance up towards Lisa, who was cooking, and nod towards her. She smiles, nodding back.
"I am cooking some pancakes Nylla, would you and Jake like some?"
"Yes!" Jake hollers, almost howling so loud that he could almost wake up everybody around the kitchen house, if they were not up already. I gave him a light growl to keep it down.
"Yes Lisa, that would be lovely," I smile towards her. The little kids all come running in to the kitchen. Their parents following them as they arrive in the kitchen as well from their own homes. Joining in the main houses kitchen for a pack breakfast, though our pack was only so big. This is a way we were able to be as one.
"Good morning everyone," They all respond with the same greeting as they sat at the tables as well. We all finish breakfast, I help Lisa with the plates and clearing the table. I glance over towards Jake,
"I assume you ready to go on scouting Nylla?" I nod to his question, the need to let my wolf out hurt. We both head out the front door, once hitting the forest we shift. I land next to a fallen log, my wolf happy to be let out. My pelt the color of fresh fallen snow, a few battle scars on my right hind leg as reminders from my past. I glance towards Jake, his ebony wolf looked happy as well. Jake had one scar that slid from his forehead, down his right eye and stopping at his cheek.
We both trot through the woods, sniffing the air to see if anything changed over night. We reach the river, turning right up the mountain. We reach the pack houses after an hour of scouting the terrain. As we arrive at the houses, two of the male warriors were waiting for us. I motion for Jake to leave my side as I approach the warriors. Shifting to normal before they spoke.
"Alpha, we were checking the other side of the mountain as scheduled and we found traces of rogues. We can go after them and chase them out ourselves," David says as he glances towards his comrade. I shake my head no,
"It is fine Davin, I will go after them. You and Maz head back to the houses. I'll make sure that everyone will be safe, oh and I did not see you both at breakfast. Go eat boys, you did well," They both nod, shaking their heads with a smirk. Turning away, they head over the the rest of the pack. I sigh as I watch them, turning away from the pack and heading out towards the mountain.
As I arrive at the mountain, I begin to hunt for the rogues. I was small so I kept low and to the shadows. I slowly walk through the foliage, keeping the sent in front of me and my eyes darting back and forth for danger. Suddenly there was rustling in the bushes in front of me, my body freezes. Two rogues come out of the bushes, one female and one male. They seemed to be arguing among themselves. I study them, keeping out of sight. As they argue, they walk past me. I was relieved they didn't see me. I quickly link to Jake,
"Jake, I need you up at the mountain range. There are two rogues wondering around in the territory. "
I only follow the two rogues, keeping low and to the shadows. As they walk down the mountain, they come near the river. I slowly go to make a step when I feel hot air on my back. I quickly swerve my head to see my beta at my flank. He nods towards me, knowing we had each others backs. We quickly move in on the rogues.
I go right and Jake goes left. We quickly come out of the foliage in a fighting stance. I growl deeply, giving them a warning. They notice the situation and go into a fighting stance as well. I just stare at the female, never looking away from her. I attack the female, going for her neck. She attacks as well, going for my shoulder.
I manage to get a grip on the females throat, crushing my fangs into her jugular, though only barely making a deep cut. Her fangs dig deep into my shoulder, ripping the flesh from the bone the more she chews. I hold in the paint and crunch my fangs harder on the females jugular. Only one more bite till I had officially reached her jugular. Feeling her strength weaken, I let out another crunch of my fangs, officially finishing her off. I lash my head towards the right. Sending the female to the right of me, crashing into the ground. I lick my fangs as I turn towards my beta.
He was pressing the male down my his throat. His fore started to shut his windpipe with the pressure that he added. I nod towards him before letting the male up. We both meet in the middle, growling at the rogue male to leave. He back up into the woods, whimpering as the female lays on the ground, motionless. Disappearing in the foliage of the terrain. Leading Jake away, we make our way back towards the pack housing. We shift back before hitting the treeline, walking with our heads high into the main house to give the report. Awaiting for what could possibly come next.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
139,641 Literary Works • 672,638 Reviews
Hello!!
I like your plot, this a very very interesting theme. When it comes to the description of the fight, i applaud you!!That is something i try in every story of mine but it doesn't turn out right.
Just 2 things:
1. Your prologue, isn't a prologue. It actually lets down hopes, so my advice would be to not add that right in the beginning. It belongs to the back cover of your completed book.
2. Take care of your tenses okay. It keeps switching from past to present. In the beginning it is present and by the end, it becomes past. In the first line, it should be adjust. " As my eyes adjust to the lighting" as 'looking' is in present continuous. As that is the first line, it doesn't give a good impression.
So look into the grammar part of it, the story is going quite well!!!
Oh! Instead of only conversation and description, try highlighting emotions too. It's very important, unless the emotions are clear, a reader won't understand or connect with the character
Thank you so much! I tend to wander off on my tenses a lot. Thank you for pointing those out for me. I don't catch it most of the time as I am reading it because it looks right to me. Ha- I'm weird. Though as of right now, I am re-doing this chapter and the prologue. Thank you so much for the review! Means a lot! ^.^
ED here to review
A note on your prologue: This isn’t a prologue, this is a summary. Something you might find on the back jacket of your book. While it is perfectly fine to include this, just don’t call it a prologue.
“Sit” is present, “tried” is past. You’re writing in present tense, try not to mix your tenses.
Now, a note regarding sentence openers: Every sentence you use opens with a subject. That is: I, me, my, the, a, it, they, their, he, she, etc. Mostly just “I” and “My,” however. There is no reason to limit yourself to one sentence opener type! Variety is beauty, try to use different words to open sentences. There a verb openers, prepositions, adverbs, a whole treasure trove at your very fingertips. So that is your challenge: try not to use the same opener two sentences in a row. Read this out loud. See how it falls into a sort of repetitive, dull pattern? Openers, interesting ones, help to keep things exciting.
Believe it or not, it’s not actually that important to describe what a character looks like in the first chapter of your book. It may, in fact, not be necessary at all. However, with a character with such an atypical face, there are other, much better ways to clue the reader in to what she looks like without actually having her describe herself. Why shouldn’t you have her describe herself? Wll, it’s not very believable. Do you know anyone in real life who stares at their expression in a mirror, describing how they look… to themselves? (Well, besides delusional narcissists, that is.) It’s almost creepy. Even though your character isn’t a typical human, try to keep her actions as believable to US humans as possible.
Eh? Perhaps you meant something like “My hearing adjusted to the sharpness of the television” or something like that? This doesn’t make much sense.
Since she’s reminiscing, you are allowed to use past tense here: “The cartoon reminded my of when I sat among others in my childhood.” (-children my age- and –childhood- in the same sentence is repetitive.)
Use –ly openers, yes. But try to avoid “suddenly,” it’s overused and doesn’t really apply to a smell.
Just pointing out here that, even though they’re all part of the same pack, you can only have so many people living in the same house before the health department shuts them down. Is there a more creative way where the pack could live together? Like, perhaps one street of the neighborhood is all theirs or they have a tiny mountain town all to themselves or something. Split the population up.
Just “alpha” is fine. “Alphess” is actually incorrect. Alpha applies to both males and females. Alpha male, alpha female. Alpha stands for the first letter in the Greek alphabet, and thus by association the “first” or “leader” of the pack. It’s not like lioness or something. A female wolf is called a she-wolf (politely). And as the leader, it’s alpha.
As an aside, why don’t you start the story here? Right about when she goes off to hunt for the rogues? Having her wake up, eat breakfast, etc. may introduce her to her daily world, but it’s not very interesting. Try to start your story at an exciting place, get things started right away. This is just a good practice to keep readers, well, reading. You can go back later and add in details of her normal life later on in the story, but start with an inciting incident.
Now, this is a more original way of doing things, but are you sure you want your wolves’ mind links to all sound like text messages? It doesn’t seem very logical to me, that they would bother to put “thanks” and sign out and such. I thought telepathy was instant.
Try not to use “ivories” over and over again. Teeth, fangs, it’s fine to just call them what they are, especially in a fight scene.
So overall, nice job on the description and keeping things moving. You have a lot of detail, which is good.
The only other advice I have is to make sure that the reader knows that this story is going somewhere. What I mean by that is, story is about conflict. Make sure you’ve got a problem, an interruption to the character’s normal life, somewhere within the first few pages of your story.
That being said, good job and keep writing!
~ED
Thank you for the detailed help! It will help me a lot because sometimes I don't notice I am changing the tenses. Thank's so much.
This seems like an incredible story so far. I love the plot and the wording is a little different, but in a good way; Nylla isn't like 'OMG' or stressing out over Alpha like most teenage girls would.. Can't wait to read more of this tale and find out how the events unfold. Maybe there will be an unexpected plot twist..
Thanks so much! <3
Hello
. I just wanted to start off by saying I enjoyed reading this first chapter. My little sister adores were-wolves so I think she would love to read this 
.
Also really liked that you included a prologue 
I couldn't even think of a good one for my own story lol. So way to go you!!!!
I didn't really notice any major issues in your story, just a few mishaps here and there. I'll put them here just so you are aware.
"My eyes the color of gold."
---- I feel like this sentence could possibly be combined with the second one, but that might just be me lol. Also maybe add the word 'are' into that sentence? Once again that's just me so ignore me if you disagree lol.
"Jake hollers, almost howling so loud to wake the all of the houses up."
--- The phrasing of this sentence did throw me off a bit.
All in all I really liked it
Thank you so much! Now that I read the second sentence, you are right. It is a bit weird. xD Thank you <3
This seems like an interesting story. I like it so far, but there are things you can improve on. First off, there are some grammatical errors, but those are easy to fix. And I thought alphas were males? Or is that just part of the story? And one of the wolves you give the name David, and then Davin, so make sure they match. I think the prologue is a bit short, so I think you should either lengthen it or cut it out entirely.
I like you story so far, and I think it'll turn out good. I'll be back to read more
Sorry about that! It was supposed to say David. I thought I had fixed all of the errors and Alpha's plural mean both male and female. Alpha is male and Alphess is female. Alpha's are always male and female or they can be one of either gender.