Dear Elizabeth,
By the time you read this, I’ll already be gone. Please don’t try and contact me. I am doing this for your own good. You are in the prime of your life; becoming a successful magazine editor. I’m in a stand still. My only worry is that me leaving will cause you pain but, in time we will both heal. I want you to not look back, keep running forward as fast as you can. I will always keep you in my heart.
Goodbye,
Ben
I stood in the middle of my living room, feeling nothing but the letter in my hand. No tears came, as I thought they should, no shattering heart; nothing. I read the letter again, picturing Ben sitting on the couch writing this letter while I was blissfully unaware sleeping in my bed. I continued to stand there, in a deep daze. I couldn’t unlock my mind from the numbness. I began to panic from-how can I put this into words-mind suffocation. My body was frozen, I couldn‘t feel anything but my mind knew the pain that was coming. Suddenly, after what felt like hours, like emerging from underwater, my mind broke loose from the numbness and my knees crumbled, letting me fall onto the cold floor. Tears began to stream down my face and the small piece of white paper I still clinged to seemed to burn my fingers. I screamed at the psychological pain, and then threw the letter to the ground. I buried my face in the plush carpet on the floor, letting the sounds of my heart explode out through my mouth and tears. Never did I think that this would happen. Not to me.
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126,246 Literary Works • 672,938 Reviews
Hey hey! Alex here with a review!
I just wanna say, that I kinda love how much this stuff is worded, mkay? The past books/poems/whatever you have written was wonderful, and I never want you to forget that. Since I'm still a newbie, I don't necessarily understand how to quote things from the text/article. But it's the prologue so tbh, I love it! Keep up the good work!!!
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,
Well this is certainly quite the story to start things off on for a prologue. I don't believe I've seen too many prologues that were letters and too many ones that were letters that actually caught your attention, but this one certainly manages to pull that particular feat off here. Its a rather emotionally heavy piece right there and I think it does a very good job of immediately getting us readers to sit up and take notice here.
Hmm...I wasn't expecting to have an actual reaction the letter itself appear in the prologue, but it certainly adds an interesting extra dimension to things here. Considering the title we have on this piece, it certainly proves to make things even more interesting in terms of where this could possibly be leading us to. This seems very much like a bit of an inciting incident to this whole story and the very raw emotion on display in both cases is certainly more than powerful enough that as reader's we can't help but try and figure out what could possibly be going on here. Overall, I think you've done a very good job here with this particular piece and I'd certainly want to be reading more 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
Hi EmmiAnne,
This was a very neat short piece I think.The story seems nice, a little bit similar to New Moon(sorry for that) but worth continuing.I would really like to know whether it will be clean to read like for a fourteen year old.I liked the title."Ben and Beth.Good beginning.Keep up!!!!!!!!
This is a very nice little piece; a good start to something bigger and grander and longer. I like your imagery when you talk about how Ben had been writing this whilst she slept, entirely unaware, happily in her bed.
I also like your character names... Ben & Beth have always seemed like a perfect couple to me... I guess not, now, at least for your story.
Hello, Writer! I don't know why some people don't like prologues, because I find them really interesting.
Well, this is good. It shows a girl in the middle of her living room, who's reading a letter, and we know the latter. It is a good start, though, try to make it a little more creative. I don't know, it's your story after all. But I recommend it.
PM for the next piece! I want to keep on reading, while you keep on writing for us...
Alright?
Hello, Kate!
Since this is so short, I'll go to the nit-picks straight away.
In my opinion, this would sound better reworded: "...while I was sleeping, blissfully unaware [of this]".
Continued to stand there? Sounds awkward. How about you try something like "I didn't move a muscle"?
I remember reading a review someone had written on someone else's poem, I had just joined YWS back then. The author of the poem had used the word "numb" in the work, and was told off for doing so, because according to the reviewer it was a boring cliché. I don't think I ever used the word numb after that
It's better to hit some space around the dashes so it doesn't look so messy.
Add a comma after "anything".
Mental pain, maybe?
The whole prologue consists of a stimulus, which is the letter, and the reaction to it, which is everything else. This doesn't leave much room for the background or the characterization, or it would, but you don't do this. Of course, not everyone would act the way the narrator does, but it's not very surprising. What I only mean is that there should be something more than just the description of her behaviour after reading the letter. You have to keep it interesting so the readers will keep reading. The problem here isn't the lack of interesting story-telling – I would probably still keep reading – but the fact that there isn't anything else, background, anything. There doesn't necessarily have to be a lot – a few words about who the people are, anyway, how long they've known each other, what's their relationship, and so forth. Right now it seems that you're supposing your readers already know the story, which isn't likely since this is the prologue.
However, your grammar and spelling are good, which is always pleasing to the eye. Just stay away from clichés, remember uniqueness, and you should be fine.
I hope this helped!
Demeter
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