Well, lets get crackin'. Long story short, I need your peeps input on an upcoming story I'm thinking about writing! So, I wrote two v.'s of the prologue to give you guys a better idea about the story. I'm not going to write it if you peeps aren't interested. So please give feedback!
-------------------------Prologue V.1-------------------
Cast out of their world and into a total wasteland
The Hero, fighting for what's right.
The Slave, finding a place for himself.
And the Tyrant, confused and dangerous.
All with the same ambition, to gain control of the land of Mulgarath.
Here is their story, here is there mission.
-------------------------Prologue V.2-------------------
"Yessss, the item of power. We shall use this to tip the scales and seize the land of Mulgarath for myself!" Hissed the Choas lord, frightening his demon-minions with his madness.
"But... m-my lord. Your Chaos is already at an all-time high from the power of the gods. If we shall get this item of power... it will amplify your Chaos to an unstable level and-..."
"You fool!" the lord screamed, cutting off his demon minion and sending him flying across the dark room with Chaos. "Don't you see? We must have this to defeat the Chaos monster! There is no other way!"
After cooling down, he addressed his general, and said, "Send a scout to search for the item of power."
"Yes, M' Lord." the general pointed a finger towards a stout demon with a rather large hunchback, and he scuttled off out the makeshift wood doors.
"Yesss. Nothing shall stand in my way, nothing!"
----
I know it's a bit cheesy and confusing. But please give feedback!
At 4/28/11 01:29 PM, trudog wrote:
I know it's a bit cheesy and confusing. But please give feedback!
That's what I'd say. Prologue V1 seems incredibly banal and unoriginal and not compelling in the least.
V2 is a bit better but suffers from similar problems. The characters seem unoriginal and copied from some other work and are cliched and one-dimensional.
I'm not crazy about fantasy, but I'd suggest trying to set this apart from other fantasy stories and making it more exciting and compelling. Instead of writing a prologue for prologue's sake, just start on Ch. 1 and develop the plot and characters more, as well as the setting etc.
Giving out writing reviews to anyone who wants them (exception: poems. I'll find you).
Gee thanks 0.o
Yeah, I do agree with you. It's kind of a bastard form of Lord of The Rings and Star Wars.
Although, I also think it's in it's own league. And, also, you only read a very small portion of the the story. So of course the characters are going to seem shallow!
Thanks for the criticism, though. And I already started working on the first chapter, so it would be great to see if you tune in for it!
Before I comment on the writing, I want to say that your writing of this story should not be contingent upon the NG community wanting you to write it. You should write it because you enjoy writing and are interested in the story.
Moving on, version two is exponentially better in my opinion. V1 was just you telling the reader the plot and then saying "well, okay, here it goes!" When writing, always remember to show, not tell. For example...
"Yessss, the item of power. We shall use this to tip the scales and seize the land of Mulgarath for myself!" Hissed the Choas lord, frightening his demon-minions with his madness.
Using the word "hissed" is a good example of showing that he speaks in a threatening way. However, you proceed to tell the reader that it frightens his minions. It would be better written as:
"Yessss, the item of power. We shall use this to tip the scales and seize the land of Mulgarath for myself!" Hissed the Chaos lord at his cowering minions.
This effectively shows that the minions are afraid and doesn't break the flow of the story like telling the reader that the minions are frightened.
Another important aspect of writing is concision. Try to avoid unnecessary wordiness and details. I'll continue working with the same quote.
:"Yessss, the item of power. We shall use this to tip the scales and seize the land of Mulgarath for myself!" Hissed the Chaos lord at his cowering minions.
There is really no need to say "tip the scales" because he is obviously going to do that if he seizes power. Also, it is implied by his character that he is seizing it for himself. So, you don't need "for myself" because that is just rather redundant. This could probably be rewritten as:
"Yessss, the item of power. With this, we shall seize the land of Mulgarath!" Hissed the Chaos lord at his cowering minions.
The last thing to watch out for is spelling and grammar. I noticed a couple mistakes throughout, and people won't take a story with those kinds of mistakes very seriously. That said, try to revise your prologue following those guidelines, and I'll be happy to take another look at it.
Thank you so much for the constructive criticism.
Yes, I am indeed writing it for my own enjoyment, and not souley for the community of NG. Actually this is a project I have been planning on doing for a long time, and I'm glad for it to be underway!
And, you're right about the 'showing, not telling.' I happen to be a very descriptive person. So I will watch out for that in the future!
Thanks alot for critique.
Installment 1 is almost finished! I can't wait to post it.
Sure thing! Let me know when you post the next part.
