Hello! My name is Kathleen, and I found your prologue in one of the newbies section. I want to welcome you to WDC! Thank you for sharing your work with everyone
Please keep in mind that I am not a professional, but I will offer you my honest opinion, and provide any corrections or suggestions that I am able to give. I apologize in advance for the detailed review I am about to give, but I would be cheating you if I didn't. I personally like them and want them for my own work since they are the most helpful.
Please remember that these are MY opinions and this is YOUR work, so you don't have to use anything that I say here. As somewhat a newbie myself, I know how important it is to get help and ideas for your work. So, take or leave my comments as you see fit, and feel free to ask me any questions regarding this review.
First, I want to say, you did a really nice job on the dialogue. You made it flow quite well. A lot of people struggle with that.
I enjoyed reading your prologue. You introduced the villain here, which is important to many prologues.
I love stories with magic! They can have endless possibilities
I am going to paste a copy of your story here and put my comments, suggestions, corrections, or compliments in red. I have found this easier to follow when a reviewer does this with my work so I would not have to go back and forth. The down side, it looks way longer!
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Two dark shadows slipped out of the bushes and deeper into the forest. It was midnight, the moon was full, it was bright, and it was high. Nice description here!
One of them seemed to be a small girl, the other was a tall man. They were running at the same pace when they met the dark stranger.
Might I suggest this?
Two dark shadows slipped out of the bushes and deeper into the forest. One of them seemed to be a small girl, and the other was a tall man. (You may want to remove “was” here. You have for the first one, the shadow seemed to be a small girl, but the second one is definitely a man)
It was midnight and the moon was full, it was bright, and it was high. The two shadow were running at the same pace when they met the dark stranger. (Really nice letting us know the time of day and using that to describe the moon! It is pretty important to let your reader know this to set the scene or mood.)
(In the second sentence, I think that you may want to change your wording for “They were running at the same pace…”. Maybe try something like: Together they ran, side by side, when they came upon the dark stranger.
What I did here was a little switch-a-rue with your sentences. You want to keep these ideas together here so that it flows nicely . If you change ideas, scene, or characters (action or dialogue), you need a new paragraph.
"Ah, so you two finally show (maybe change to showed) up... I thought you never would, after all, Rubella...that (since this is just a pause and not a new sentence, you don’t capitalize “that” or have spaces after the ellipsis) servant of yours is quite slow when it comes to carrying out your orders," he snickered, he was a wrinkly old man and looked quite poor- however, powerful.
Okay, a few suggestions here on “he snickered, he was a wrinkly old man and looked quite poor-however powerful”:
he snickered. He was a wrinkly old man and looked quite poor—however, powerful.
Show us how old he looks.
he snickered making the wrinkles of his face bunch up like a prune dressed in a ragged cloth cowl.
Not the best of example, but I wanted to at least offer something to you!
Again, you don’t want to tell us he is powerful.
Electricity crackled along the tips of the old man’s fingers, and raucous thunder rumbled from his throat as he threw his head back to laugh.
Yes, the dreaded show don’t tell thing. I will go into a little better detail at the bottom with a few other pointers I have learned.
The tall man hissed back at the old man as if he was pretending to be a cat.
You should remove “back” since the old man did not hiss at him first. You want your metaphor to be stronger here, too. Simple fix: The tall man hissed at the old man like a cat.
"Now, now, Dojio... We'll have none of that," he said pointing at him. Within a second the man was a little kitten. "Now, Rubella... let's make a deal..."
Okay, here you have “he said pointing at him”. I can tell who is doing what, but you don’t want your readers to have to guess these things. Since it is good to mix things up, let’s try this:
"Now, now, Dojio... We'll have none of that," the wizard said while pointing at the other man. You want to find new ways to “name” your characters so that you don’t lose your reader.
In the second sentence, you should use something stronger that is less wordy here since there is “action” happening. Let me bounce this off of you:
"Now, now, Dojio... We'll have none of that," the wizard said as he pointed at the other man, instantly turning him into a cat.
The little girl scooped up the little kitten that was batting at the old man angrily. "O- of course!" she said wide-eyed. I really like this. It is kind of funny to picture this happening!
"We'll do it like this; you want the shard right? To swallow it and become invincible, am I correct?"
"Yes."
"Then here's the deal," deal.”
Rubella leaned forward to listen.
"As a Changer, you rarely get children to accept going to a new world with a modified life, am I correct?"
"Oh, yes, defiantly," nodded Rubella
"You must succeed in changing a child's life."
"Oh please! This could actually be easy, isn't that right Doji?"
The kitten looked up at her, he still looked angry, after all, it was not easy for him to be such a weak, frail animal.
The old man raised an eyebrow.
"All we have to do is search for a child who gives in easily!" Rubella continued. (you should change the period here into a comma) "I think that shard will come to me quite easily!"
Since someone new is speaking here, you need a new paragraph.
? you should remove the ? here
"No, no it won't," said the old man. "I'm assigning you a specific girl."
? you should remove the ? here
"Who?" Rubella almost dropped Dojio in shock.
This sentence could be worded a bit better.
In shock, Rubella almost lost her grip on Dojio. “Who?”
"Hmm... Let's see... A sixteen year-old girl, her name is Tess Avery."
? you should remove the ? here
"Why?" new speaker, new paragraph
"No reason."
? you should remove the ? here
"Well, whatever, can't be too hard." I am thinking that after “whatever” you should change the period to a comma
? you should remove the ? here
"We shall see about that."
? you should remove the ? here
"Yeah? Like this Tess person could actually be a challenge for me."
The old man turned his back to them and slowly began walking back to his log cabin.
It is not necessary to use “began” here, it is already implied. You could reword it like this:
The old man turned his back to them, and leisurely walked back to his log cabin.
"Wait!" shouted Rubella angrily. You don’t want to tell us she is angry. Show us or use her dialogue to covey it. Have Rubella punctuate her shout with a foot stomp or fists clenched. Make sense?
The old man slowly turned back to them. "Yes...?" he croaked.
"Turn my Doji human again right now!"
"Yes, yes..." He said pointing at Dojio.
After that, To make this sentence flow better, you may want to remove “After that”in the blink of an eye, Dojio was sitting like a cat on top of Rubella.Great imagry here! I like that he was sitting on her like a cat He looked quickly around. "Rubella...?" Nice. I like that he doesn’t realize that he is on top of her!
Rubella threw him into the bushes.
He lay there.
The sentences above are for different characters so they need their own paragraph. You may want to pump up these sentences. You don’t want to have too many single line paragraphs. Describe how or why she threw him. What kind of strength did the little girl have/need/use to throw the now normal sized tall man. How did he lay there? Did he yell out anything upon landing or when she threw him? Get the idea?
Rubella ran over to him it is not necessary to have “to him” here. You can replace it with bushes if you wanted.to help him up. "Are you alright, my Doji?" she said pulling on his arm.
"Yeah, yeah, Im fine." He said quickly getting back to his feet. Then he turned to the old man. "You," he started angrily, "are challenging powers you could never imagine," he took a step toward the old man. The old man laughed. "You think so, Doji?"
A few things here:
"Yeah, yeah, I’m fine," he said, (you want this comma here so that the reader understands that he got up quickly and didn’t speak quickly quickly getting back to his feet. If you use then here, it would be better to tack it onto the previous sentence with either “to his feet, and then” or “to his feet. He turned to the old man” Then he turned to the old man. "You," he started angrily you don’t really need angrily here. Your dialogue is strong here, and his words show that he is angry already. You could say something about his body language to show that he is angry. , "are challenging powers you could never imagine," he took a step toward the old man.
You can also move things around too.
“You!” Doji said as he stepped closer to the old man. “You are challenging powers you could never imagine.”
new paragraphThe old man laughed. "You think so, Doji?"
"Only Rubella calls me that, old man..."
"I'd be careful if I were you," the old man said walking away.
?remove the ? here
new paragraph
"Yeah right..." Dojio said to himselfMaybe instead of “said to himself” you can say “he muttered” here. Then to the old man he said; "An since when, when have I ever carried out Rubella's orders slowly?" I wasn’t sure if you meant “And since when” or if it was meant to show in speech how we sometimes remove letters. If it is the latter, you will need to put an apostrophe after “An” to replace the missing letter.
"You really feel like questioning me, Dojio?" said the old man.
?remove the ? here
new character, new paragraph
Dojio slowly nodded his head, he had a challenging smirk on his face.
I like the challenging smirk here! I do suggest rewording this to flow better or replace the comma with a semicolon or just make it 2 separate sentences.
new character, new paragraph
At that moment the old man shot him a cold glance.
new character, new paragraph
Dojio froze in horror.
"Doji?" Rubella said slowly, "Is everything alright?"
You should change said to asked, or instead of saying slowly, put an ellipsis after his name and keep said.
“Doji…” Rubella’s voice trembled. “Is everything alright?”
Dojio fell to the ground, limp and cold, lifeless...You only use ellipsis for dialogue. And an extra tip about ellipsis in dialogue, when you use them and the character is cut off or just trails off, you would use 4 periods.
"DOJIO!" screamed Rubella.You should not completely capitalize words. The exclamation point and screamed does that for you.
Dojio's eyes where wide open, for certain he was dead. There was no movement, he was not breathing and his heart was not beating.I like this! He is not dead, but he shows all symptoms of being dead. Nice job here.
Rubella quickly turned to the old man, her eyes full of tears. "What have you done?"
The old man only looked at Dojio, with a smile. You may want to reword this. May I suggest: The old man’s cold, uncaring eyes seemed to revel in her pain.
"Answer me fool!" comma before fool
The old man turned to meet Rubella's eyes. "You are easily tricked, young lady."
"W-what did you say...?" Rubella was no longer crying, she was now hot with anger.
"Dojio is not dead, he is indeed alive. Though I must tell you, he is experiencing a bit of pain right now." You should probably mention something about his pain in the paragraph when he falls
"What are you talking about? He's right here, Dojio is right here and he is dead, do you not see it? Explain your filthy self!"
"Dojio is not dead, he is frozen, along with his heart, and his breathing of course has stopped. True, he may seem dead, very dead, however, he is not."
"Help him." whispered Rubella. You should only italicize words that are personal thoughts. Such as: Rubella closed her eyes to hold back the tears that now threatened to spill. You jerk. “Help him,” she pleaded. Since she thought the “you jerk”, it gets italicized. Now if you made it: You jerk, she thought. You would not italicize it.
"He must learn to keep his thoughts to himself." (himself,”) the old man said putting his arm under Dojio's head. (which ‘he’ is doing the looking here? The old man, or Dojio? )(Also, I felt that this sentence was a bit akward) He looked him straight in the eye, sure enough, as you might have guessed; as soon as Dojio was well again, he punched the old man in the nose. Dojio ran over to Rubella before the old man could make another move. "Rubella! Lets (Let’s)get out of here!"
Okay, so in this paragraph above, a few things are confusing. Personally, this would sound better:
”He must learn to keep his thoughts to himself,” the old man said as he put his arm under Dojio’s head and stared into his dead eyes.
Dojio blinked life back into his eyes, and a cool rush of air filled his lungs. Before the old man could react, Dojio’s rock like fist crashed into his nose.
Rubella nodded,and they both ran off.
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I too struggled (and still do at times) with a lot of the same things that I commented on above. It is just easier for me to see many of these things because I am reading it for the first time. It is difficult to edit your own work because you know what you want it to say/mean. I have also been given reviews that went on for pages pointing out my errors along with helpful suggestions.
Yes, I am picky, but what if no one else takes the time to point these things out. If you want to be published (which I don’t know if you do), you don’t want to have your work tore apart by an editor when you think your baby is complete.
Okay, this is something that does not bother me, but may bother others. The indentation of you paragraphs. I had the same issue till someone told me how to fix it.
There are 2 things you can do. Hit the space bar 5x’s for every paragraph, or use the WrightingML code. You can find this on the left hand side when you click on Writing.com tools link. Click on the link that says WritingML Docs & Help. It will pop open into a separate screen. Here it shows you what to type to make things {b }bold, italic, hot pink and many others. It is very helpful to make your work look nice on WDC. For the indent, just place the word indent between brackets {}. I would type it out exactly, but it would only show you the blank indent space.
The show don’t tell thing. I am definitely not an expert, but I have learned a ton from this site and from reviews.
You want to start by removing as many “ly” words, “ing” words, and words such as “was/has/had” unless you are referring to past tense, as possible. Just find creative ways to reword sentences so that you don’t use “ly” or “ing”. Think of it as you are watching a movie and you are telling your friend what happened.
Don’t get me wrong, you don’t want to eliminate all words ending in “ly” or “ing”, just reduce them. In dialogue you can ignore this rule, but you have to be careful with the adverbs you use.
Let me give you an example:
Michael was drawing flowers on the wall. (Yeah, this sounds okay, but we can make this better)
Michael drew lovely flowers on the wall. (Okay, that is better, but not what we are looking for)
Michael drew a bouquet of purple roses on the wall. (This is good. Here I got “creative” with my description so that I could avoid using “ing” and “ly”.)
Not the best example, but it works for our purposes.
Okay, so all in all, your prologue is good. I think it ended in a good place.The corrections were mostly repeated things, so it looks worse than it is! Just keep writing, and let me know if you want me to review it for you again (or anything else) when you make any changes to it. I will be happy to help where and when I can
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