Prologue

Prologue

He lay dying as she sat and watched. The wind hollered over the mountains. She reached over and placed a hand on his chest. The paint from her fingernails had washed off. He thought she was trying to comfort him. She found the cigarettes in his shirt pocket and removed one. She felt around her own pockets for a light and found none. He strained himself and winced in misery as he struggled to raise his arm, torn and bloody and shaking. He retrieved his matches from his coat pocket. She could tell he was in agony as he extended his arm to her. She regarded him with a cold, squinting stare. They both knew it was the last thing he’d do and neither had words to explain what this meant. She plucked the matches from his trembling fingers and his arm fell across his chest, exhausted. She struck up the cigarette and tucked the matches into her breast pocket. She reclined on both hands and shut her eyes as she sucked the the hot smoke into her lungs, the end of the stick burning fiery as the sun coming down behind them. She opened her eyes when he stopped breathing. The cigarette had long burned out and she took another from his shirt pocket. She sat there in the cold and dark, shivering and smoking and tears coming down her face. She hated him. She’d loved him once, but she hated him now. She knew he’d loved her, even after she’d done as much as she could to make him hate her. She cried more and the cigarette fell to the wet ground. She lifted one of his arms and placed it around herself and nestled into his soaking, bloodstained jacket. She rested her face on his chest which no longer rose and fell. She hugged him close. She figured it wouldn’t make a difference. He was dead now so he’d never know. The night came and went as she lay there beside him and thought about the way things had ended up.

Reviews

[Zoë]

A lot of this may come off as mean, but I'm just stating my opinions and how I think it could be improved. Just keep in mind that overall I thing this is a great start and there are a lot of things you could do with story and many different paths you could take with what you've started. And seriously, who doesn't love a good romance :)

But...
I agree with a lot of JayG's points. You aren't giving us anything substantial to grab onto. We don't know who these people are, where they are, why they're there, or how they got to that point. A prologue is all about grabbing your readers attention and dragging them into the story. But, so far, all you've done touch the surface and lay out details that I don't yet care about.

Think of it this way, why do the readers care that the guy is dying? Sure it's sad and everything, but why should someone care enough about it to keep reading. To see how he died? Maybe. But why should someone read a story if they already know how it's going to end? Knowing that a main character is going to die takes a lot out of the future of the story. The readers wont be as interested in reading because they already know how it ends. So why? In the prologue you really need to give your readers a reason why they should keep reading, and I'm not getting that from this.

I understand the pull of wanted to put something relevant to the end of the story into the beginning of your story. Seriously, the prologue of my book is full of spoilers, but there's a different between how I did it and how you're doing it. I hide my spoilers in little comments that you wont understand unless you've read the whole story, while you're too direct. You straight up say "he lay dying", so there's no other way someone could interpret that except for that they guy is dying. By the end of this prologue we can pretty much guess the entire story that lay before us:
Boy meets Girl. Girl detests Boy, but Boy doesn't leave her alone. Eventually Girl falls for Boy. Girl and Boy become involved. But, because they're not supposed to be together because of some reason (either they're from different social classes, the girl was betrothed, etc.) the antagonist tries to drive them apart. Girl tells Boy to leave to stay safe, Boy refuses because he loves her. Boy ends up dying and girl hates him because he didn't listen to her.
Even if that's not exactly how the plot goes, that's how I think it goes from reading this, which turns me off from the remainder of the story.

Moving on, what's the point of the cigarette? It's the focal point of a majority of the prologue, but why? Is it important, it seems pretty benign to me... If it's symbolism for something in the story, then it's worthless in the prologue. We don't know what it means, what it's supposed to represent. It's lost on us, so it shouldn't take up as much of the start of the story. Focus on something more interesting, in such a short story you'll want something that really interests the readers. And that's not a cigarette.

You should focus more on the dying guy. We get his thoughts once, in that he thought she was trying to comfort him, but it doesn't mean anything to us. Going back to what I was saying at the beginning, we don't know anything about this guy or the girl. So why is it important that he thinks she's trying to comfort him? Is that not what she's doing? I thought she loved him?
You should try to focus more on him, on his emotions, his thoughts, his memories. I just really don't think you need to have him dying at the end. There are much better ways you could lead into this love story that you're trying to tell.
Instead of having him die at the end have him slowly drifting off into a deep comforting sleep, thinking about all he and that girl had been through. Instead of him dying and then going into her emotions go into his head, focus on what he's going through at that moment. Have him focus on the girl, theorize what she's thinking, have him thinking to himself "Man, she must really hate me right now". Instead of death you could go into the "he saw his life flash before his eyes" and that's how you could tell the story.

What I'm mostly saying is don't have him die in front of us. You can hint to that, sure, but actually killing him is something I'm greatly advising against. You already say that he's dying in the beginning, so we know that's where the story is headed. If you want to have us interest in the story don't touch as much on the girl, stay with the dying man, especially if he's going to be our main character. Honestly, I'm not exactly sure how to phrase what I'm trying to say, but what I'm mostly trying to get across is that there are many different ways that you could advance this story that would get me (personally) more interested from the start.

So, what I'm mostly trying to say is that you're focusing on things that aren't important to the reader. If you stayed with the man or the girl and gave us their specific view of things, allowed the readers to get into their minds, it would add more meaning to the story you're trying to build. If you got rid of the cigarette and simply had them in the company of each other, enjoying his last moments, it wouldn't feel as detached. If you lead into the story by one of them recounting the glorious tale instead of giving us the climax of death and the falling action of the girls emotions, it would lead into a story that I would love to read more of. But right now I feel like I'm being kept at arms length, like the story itself doesn't want me to read it, it just wants me to know how it ends.
And here's the thing. I don't want to know how it ends, I want to know where it starts, where all this began. I want you to pull me in with a glimpse of the end, not the actual end, but where the story is headed. Sure, tell me the man is dying, tell me how the girl feels, but don't tell me how the story truly ends. Show me where the story is going, then take me to where it starts and continue till you get back to where you started, then giving me the ending.

As I said at the start, this was great and I can tell it leads into a great story that I'm excited to hear. But there are many things that you could do to improve the quality of the prologue and get more people hooked onto your story. I hope none of this came off as to mean, I just wanted you to hear my honest opinions. Also, I'll try to get to the other chapters as quickly as I can, but it may take me a while. I hope this review was helpful.

[Evan James Devereaux]

This was very eye opening, thank you for taking the time to write this review! My intent for this story might have distracted me from they way I presented the story. I wanted to write a ver unconventional romance. The girl is actually supposed to be the antagonist and the story was going to describe the events that eventually lead her to having the boy killed. As you said your prologue is riddled with instances that relate to information revealed later in the story, most every detail in Fated's prologue references an event from the rest of the story. I think you and Jay are good evidence to my emphasis on vagueness in the beginning of my story hindering its ability to secure the readers interest. Perhaps I'll have to reexamine my approach in terms of presentation. Again, thank you for the analysis, I always love your reviews!

[Zoë]

It's not so much a problem off the vagueness in your prologue, it's how you're presenting it. Overall I think you have an amazing story brewing that I can't wait to read, it's just that your prologue doesn't really do anything for me.

When writing something like this there are a certain type of question you want the reader to be asking, and that's "What?" or "Why?" When it comes to introducing a story the where, when, and how don't really matter, and honestly you can get away without talking about who if you really want. So I think you should look into starting a more exciting question in this opener. That's what I was getting at when I said don't tell me that the guy died, just tell me that he's dying. If you say the guy is dying I'm like "What, how did this happen to him? What did this to him? I gotta read to find out" but once you say he's dead I lose interest because I already know that he's going to die and it doesn't matter how he got there or how it happened.

If you want, you can look at the prologue I have in New Dawn and see how I set up the "what just happened?" at the end to keep people reading. I don't really touch on the where, why, when, or how, but I do focus on the what. And that "what" extends through the entire story instead of being resolved early on because I want people to keep reading. Even if it's just to find out what exactly happened in the prologue.

Anyway, I'm glad my review could help. And I love your idea of an unconventional romance, it sounds like an interesting story you're starting to build. And again, I'm all for spoilers in your prologue, but I think you're relying on them too much in this opener instead of actually building a hook. If I were you, I'd write the hook first, then add in the spoilers until you find a good balance with the info you want and the entertainment you need :)

[JayG]

What you’re doing isn’t presenting the story, you’re defining it, and doing that as a series of stand alone statements. Look at the first few lines from a reader’s viewpoint:

Fact #1: He lay dying as she sat and watched.
An unknown he is somewhere unknown. Dying of unknown causes. An unknown she watches for unknown reason. Context? We have none.

Fact #2: The wind hollered over the mountains.
Somewhere unknown, wind blew over unknown mountains. What this has to do with the previous line is unknown. Context? We have none.

Fact #3: She reached over and placed a hand on his chest.
The unknown she, for unknown reasons, places a hand on the unknown he’s chest. From a reader’s viewpoint, why do we care that people we don’t know, in an unknown place do something prosaic for unknown reasons? And again, context? We have none. Are you sensing a trend? ;)

Fact #4: The paint from her fingernails had washed off.
Nail polish is paint and doesn’t wash off. You either remove it or it wears off. But that aside… Given that we don’t know who she is, where she is, or what’s going on, why does it matter of she does or does not wear nail polish? What’s entertaining about what we’ve read? What, about these lines do you think stokes curiosity in the reader?

Fact #5 He thought she was trying to comfort him.
It matters that the unknown male thinks something? Here’s what’s wrong: movement isn’t action. Facts do NOT entertain—and your reader is with you ONLY to be entertained, not read a list of facts about people they don’t know, and for which they have no context.

In this opening section, until the cigarette is burning 193 words have passed It’s taken us longer to read about someone lighting a smoke than it would take us to light one of our own. So not only are you having the characters doing what your reader could be doing were they not reading, you’re doing it slower. And at the end of the prolog, what have we learned? That an unknown she, of unknown age and social standing, in an unknown place and time, watched someone we know even less about die. But now you’re going to tell the story you should have started with (using the same writing technique).

BUT, think about this: you told the reader how-it-comes-out. He does and she lays next to him. So you took away any reason for reading on.
- - - - - - - - -

So…was I harsh? Yes. But there is no nice way to tell someone that they’re way off on a tangent. And you have to understand why what you have isn’t working or you’ll not accept the idea of change.

At the moment, you’re thinking of story visually, and describing what you see happening, and then explaining it. And because you are, and know the story, when you read it, it works. For you, each line points to images, memories, and story that live in your mind. So it works because you’re watching the film version as you read, and filling in all the blanks. The reader has only what the words suggest to THEM, because when they read, each line points to images, memories, and story that live in YOUR mind. So they can’t fill in the blanks.

Plot is the linear progression of events. And that’s what you’re focused on. But story lives in the heart and mind of your protagonist. And your reader isn’t seeking to know about that. They want you to make THEM live the story. They don’t want to know how he or she feels, they want you to make THEM feel it—moment-by-moment, just as we live our own lives. And no way in hell can you do that with the nonfiction writing skills we’re given in school. In fact, the cause of everything I mentioned above is that you’re writing as you’ve been taught. So since we learn how to write reports and essays, it reads too much like a report—which is the case in abut 50% of stories written by people who haven’t dug into the craft of the profession. The other half transcribe themselves telling the story aloud, which doesn’t work either.

To clarify what we’re attempting to do, take a look at this article on mirroring:
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/a-mirror-for-the-mind-the-grump-writing-coach/

So here’s the bottom line: It’s not a matter of talent or potential, or even the story. It’s that, at the moment, you’re writing with a toolset that’s incompatible with the needs of writing fiction for the page. Fix that and you’ve given your talent tools to work with. Then, who knows…

Your school’s library system’s fiction writing section my have just the book to supply the information you need. In order of preference:

Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer.
Jack Bickham’s, Scene and Structure.
Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict.

I know this isn’t what you were hoping to hear, and it’s tough to take. And I know that because I’ve been there. And changing over to a system of writing that’s so different from what you use every day is one of the most frustrating tasks you’ll ever set yourself, because your present writing reflexes will fight to the death to remain in charge. But the effort is well worth it.

For a kind of lite version, an overview of the areas and issues, you might want to dig around in the writing section of my blog.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Evan James Devereaux]

Hey thanks for taking the time to read this! I appreciate the analysis! The lack of context was a conscious decision. I wanted to write something that started with the end of the story and then the rest of the story would be describing a chain of events that led up to that point. I also wanted to keep the characters nameless throughout the entire story.

[JayG]

Some quotes by the pros that might clarify. First, by the great Sol Stein, who got it right in fiction, screenwriting, playwright, director, editor, and publisher:

“A novel is like a car—it won’t go anywhere until you turn on the engine. The “engine” of both fiction and nonfiction is the point at which the reader makes the decision not to put the book down. The engine should start in the first three pages, the closer to the top of page one the better.”

And:

“Each Friday afternoon at three, while other students decamped for their homes, the lights were on in the Magpie tower high above the rectangle of the school. There Wilmer Stone met with Richard Avedon, then a poet, who became one of the most famous photographers in the world, the editor Emile Capouya, Jimmy Baldwin, myself, and a few others whose names hide behind the scrim of time. What went on in that tower was excruciatingly painful. Wilmer Stone read our stories to us in a monotone as if he were reading from the pages of a phone directory. What we learned with each stab of pain was that the words themselves and not the inflections supplied by the reader had to carry the emotion of the story.

Today I still hear the metronome of Wilmer Stone’s voice, and counsel my students to have their drafts read to them by the friend who has the least talent for acting and is capable of reading words as if they had no meaning.”

And one by E. L. Doctorow: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

My personal view:
• Without emotion we're writing a detailed history of thinks that didn't actually happen. And who buys history books for entertainment?
• If we spend no time, or money on acquiring a knowledge of our profession, can we say we're serious about it?
• Without context, they're just words on the page.

As someone who owned a manuscript critique service, I would urge you to focus on perfecting your craft.

[Evan James Devereaux]

I encourage you to explore beyond the prologue! And I don't mind the harshness, it means you're passionate about your opinion and that you're putting a lot of thought into what you have to say. Those are two things I can appreciate

[JayG]

I did. The writing style is identical. You're explaining the story to the reader—informing instead of entertaining. There's a reason I labeled the lines fact #1, etc. Each line stands alone, listing a fact ABOUT the scene, but never placing the reader into the character's viewpoint.

What I gave wasn't my opinion, it's what you'd get were the agent or publisher who sends a rejection to explain why—something they never do. When my manuscript critique service was open people paid me to learn why their manuscripts were being rejected. But the things I said are nothing special. They're pretty much what you'd hear in the opening days of a course on commercial fiction writing, at a seminar at a writers conference, or early in any of the books I mentioned.

Obviously, you can write any way you care to. And I certainly don't insist you change. But the writing skills you learned in your schooldays, and use every day are nonfiction techniques

And while it would be nice if we absorbed the tricks of writing as we read, we don't learn anything about how to write by reading because we see only the product, polished, and with the tool marks removed. To write you need to process. So if you take no steps to learn the craft that's been developed over the centuries you're in the position of guessing, and trying to reinvent the wheel. So to not take advantage of all that work is not the best way to make it to the top

In example, try this: Ask ten friends what is it that's different about the first paragraph of a chapter in more than half the books on the shelves. Not more than one in ten can tall you without looking, and for some, after they look you'll still have to explain. And if we miss something that obvious, what's the probability that we'll catch even major points, like why a scene almost always ends in disaster for the protagonist—or why a scene on the page and one the stage are two different things?

My point isn't to write like I suggest. It's to prove your dedication to writing by spending some time, and a few bucks on acquiring your professional writers education. And a creative writing course as an undergrad doesn't count.

[Evan James Devereaux]

It was just some experimental prose. I don't use the same structure in my other writings. Experiments aren't always a success though so I'm not too brokenhearted if this didn't have the effect I was intending.

[EssenceofDaringx]

This...was...awesome! I have so many questions, but I promise that is a good thing. I am very interested in what led up to this point. Definitely enough mystery here to intrigue a reader into checking out the next chapter!