Discussion (15)

1. 

   alex theriot

   Hiya, some thoughts:

   In terms of prose, I think the biggest area of opportunity is exploring the right diction and phrasing to support what you’re going for, in this case being a pretty ambitiously dysphoric scene. The imagination is there, but the execution of your wording is what you need to look at the most imo. Some examples:
   >A piece of the school equals a tear racing down their faces.- I get what you’re going for, but the usage of “equals” here really makes the description sound lifeless and lose impact. It’s just not a term that should be used in a descriptive passage, whereas something like “Every piece of the broken school falls in unison with the tears of the onlookers” might offer more color and impact.

   > injured student weeps in pain, buried in damages. Her entire body is covered in rocks, no openings – The usage of “damages” here is questionable, and the following sentence comes off as redundant. You’ve already said she’s buried, no need to further state that its covered in rocks, but the ‘no openings’ bit is the most superfluous. You could easily streamline the thought by saying something like “injured student weeps in pain, her entire body covered in the fallen rocks.

   >Sweat of regret drips down from the man’s forehead. Right when the sweat hits the walkway, the school’s structure takes another toll. – I’m not sure ‘sweat of regret’ makes much sense in any context. How does the sweat connect to regret? I do like the descriptive connecting of the idea of the man’s anguish alongside the falling building, but you’ve already done that play in the opening line using tears, so it loses impact I feel.

   > Along with her in the dark, depressing, apocalyptic ruins of the school lie other unconscious students, teachers, and staff. All of them, bruised. In each of the classrooms, that are too demolished to be called classrooms, there are only people lying with debris under a shaking ceiling that could collapse on them in any minute. Like a shooting massacre without blood. – I think it’s important to showcase the mood you’re going for without telling us exactly what the mood is. Instead of referring to the dark, depressing, apocalyptic ruins, tell us HOW the scene is these things. Simply dropping the words in indicates passivity in the write, whereas further description of how broken and devastating the scene is paints the picture. i.e don’t tell us what the picture is, paint it so that we can see for ourselves. Also I feel like I’m missing something here, why is everyone only bruised? If they’ve been buried in debris, I’d assume it’s safe to say some limbs are lost and there should be blood, a lot of it, unless there is some sort of power that broke the fall for them, in which case the debris feels a little conveniently placed all over them.

   I will say that the second half improved leaps and bounds once you switched to the first person. You can really tell that’s what you’re more comfortable with it, and the narrative flows much better with it. I know how hard it is to open a story with a disconnected third-person omniscient, as I’ve done the same in my story and it’s without a doubt the piece I’ve gotten the most critical feedback on. I’ve revised the living hell out of it and still feel it inadequate as an introduction, but as short as yours is I think you can make some big waves when you do revise it.

   One of the few things that bugged me the rest of the way, were the usage of silly words such as “Bonk” and “face-plant”, which really work against what is supposed to be a scene conveying a resounding defeat and feeling of hopelessness. And once again, I feel like the injuries are a little too PG for as gritty as I think this should come across.

   Also, I’m not sure if the narrator is covered in debris, or simply drained of energy from injuries sustained in the collapse. I might be missing something again, but it didn’t feel clear to me why he would be so incapable of movement unless he was covered in a shower of fallen debris, so when he rises to his feet it was more than a little jarring to me.

   The other main thing, was the repetitive use of ‘blue alien’ without any other description of the alien. It doesn’t instill any sense of threat to the reader, until the line describing its eyes which was quite good.

   Again, here it’s still simple word choice that makes all the difference. Phrases such as >Multiple amounts of debris flew along with the wind, indicate passive description where you want to illustrate a titanic scene to hype the reader. “Multiple amounts” is just an erroneous phrase that serves no purpose. All in all, like I said, heavy revision on word choice alone will improve the flow and feeling of the piece greatly, and you can then work on letting your narrative prowess shine through evolving the sentence structure.

   1. 

      Javon Sankoh Post author

      Okay. To dumb it down for myself, my word choice is poor and the scenes that were supposed to be dramatic and emotional was ruined because of them. Man, my lack of vocabulary really shows. At least I know there this prologue can potentially be good. I was being too descriptive to the point that it’s not creative. Instead, it’s boring and unimaginative for the reader. You’re absolutely right, I shouldn’t be telling you the events. I should be showing you the events because it is all about imagination. My main issue is wording and how to describe scenes without ruining the emotion behind them. I really struggle with description and choice of words. I couldn’t think of a way to describe how terrifying the blue alien appeared and I thought I had to say its name every time that I mentioned it.

      Yeah, I was trying to keep to novel PG-13 by not including blood, but I guess it had the opposite effect. I thought that would potentially increase the number of readers, but I guess I was being too soft. Part of the reason I did that is because (spoiler alert) I plan to do darker events as the novel goes on so I didn’t want to start the novel off too dark. But thinking about it now, you’re right. It doesn’t make sense not to include blood. I’ll be sure to include that with the many other changes.

      And to address your other confusion, I was trying to say that the narrator was inside a small pit, surrounded by debris. Yet another event I had trouble describing. You are correct about his fatigue. He was already hit by the blue alien and the collapse of the school hurt him even more.

      Thank you for reviewing my prologue. I figured that the result would be negative, but it is better to hear them than to avoid them. The next time you read this, it will be better. That much I promise.

2. 

   The A.C.

   I agree with alex theriot about how there are a lot of times wording could be changed for the better, and he covers most of the ones I found. As an author, though, I know from re-read my writings all the time that there will always be a better way to word something no matter how many times parts get corrected. There is a Leonardo da Vinci quote I really appreciate, “art is never finished, only abandoned,” and it fits perfectly with how I personally feel about writing.

   The other thing I am wondering is why this is a prologue. It has been about two years since I read your first chapter (it is kind of crazy it has already been that long), so I am sure some material has changed, however, unless there were drastic changes, I do not see how this would fit as a prologue. Also, in the past two years I can really see how your writing has matured and improved, and I plan on re-reading the other chapters again. I am rooting for you, and what to help as much as you will allow me.

   1. 

      Javon Sankoh Post author

      That’s a great quote, and it is very true. I revised my work more than my writing which isn’t really a good thing. The reason that I have a prologue is because a friend recommended it to further prove that my light novel is a fantasy (more like superpower/supernatural). Without this prologue, my novel starts off as more of a typical school anime, and it doesn’t persuade readers to invest in it. So, I figured that a good prologue would convince readers to go further into my novel.

      That being said, I’m sorry you read my atrocious chapters. Those were when my knowledge of storytelling and writing was very poor. My prologue was created after those chapters so I don’t recommend that you read those. Actually, I don’t want you to read them. I would prefer it if you wait until I rewrite them, which is what I plan to do. Then, you’ll see my writing hopefully at its best. And in the past two years, I have changed a lot of the plot so those chapters wouldn’t make sense anyway.

      It’s nice to think that I have been working on this same novel for two years, and I haven’t given up on it. Thanks, man, I’ll gladly take all of your help. I really do appreciate it.

3. 

   Kyrin Knightsbridge

   Woah, this is the first time anyone’s asked me to review their work on this site, haha. But before I start, I should probably throw in a couple of disclaimers! First of all, I’m not a native English speaker, so my criticism may or may not be relevant to those who actually speak English as their fist language; and second, I’ve been told that I can be a harsh critic, so please, do take everything I say in the knowledge that it’s intended to be constructive!

   This is going to be a relatively long (-ish?) review, so bear with me!

   First things first – it’s pretty obvious, from a cursory skim of your prologue, what sort of story you’re going for. This is in itself a decent indicator that you have a well defined idea of how you want your story to pan out over the course of your light novel. All good works of fiction need a strong underlying framework of ideas to lean on, and this prologue suggests to me that you’re on the way to putting that framework in place.

   However, to be perfectly frank with you, there’s not much else to praise. Reading through this prologue a second time, it quickly becomes apparent that it’s a piece that requires quite a bit of polishing before it can be considered on par with contemporaneous published light novels.

   I found several word choices and turns of phrase throughout the piece somewhat jarring and out of place, with the effect being to detract from the overall mood/atmosphere you’re trying to engender with your writing. ‘Blue alien’ is the most striking example; that particular phrase does nothing to convey the twin emotions of fear and despair that your protagonist is no doubt feeling as he narrates the scene. Instead, the effect is to draw your readers’ attention to the incongruous juxtaposition of the two words, set as it is against such a serious, tragic scene. An honourable mention also goes to ‘face-plant’, a term which I have not really seen or heard in common circulation outside of the internet, and which is equally, if not more, out of place in your piece than the aforementioned ‘blue alien’.

   In both cases, you would likely do better by rephrasing where you can; in the scene where you have Jovan falling, ‘face-plant’ alone isn’t enough to leave a lasting impression on your reader. Instead, for such a defining scene (so much so that I would venture to call it the scene around which your entire prologue revolves), you should look to really hammer home the finality, the totality of Jovan’s defeat in the context of this prologue, which leads directly to your protagonist’s burning determination to fight the ‘blue alien’ in his stead.

   The flow of the entire piece was also lacking in places. Flow is a little difficult to define, or for that matter critique, simple because it’s an intrinsic quality of a piece of writing that’s defined by a whole host of other factors – the genre of the piece, the mood of the scene that’s being described, and, in pieces where first-person narration is employed, the character and emotions of the narrator; to name but a few. For me, the single most effective test in determining whether a piece has good flow is to read through it; if every sentence naturally leads into the next, then the flow of the piece is good. T99’s prologue didn’t pass this test when I administered it.

   One other thing that I noticed was a tendency to drift, at times, into straightforward narrative prose; or, in other words, telling rather than showing. This is particularly obvious in the opening lines of this piece. Take, for example, the opening sentence of paragraph 4; ‘as a result, a man steps out of his car and hurries straight to the school’s location’. This is not good writing; it is dry and boring, and it does not tell us anything of interest. Not a good combination if you want to catch and keep the attention of your readers.

   Paragraph 13 in its entirety is also a good example; ‘weeps in pain’, ‘buried in damages’, and ‘slowly shuts her eyes’. If these phrases were supported by good descriptive prose, this wouldn’t be a problem; however, they are expected to stand alone as the backbone of the sentences they are contained within. Again, you need to be careful that your writing shows the reader what is happening, rather than spoon-feeding the reader that information via merely telling them. I’m including a rewrite of this particular paragraph, together with the original text, below to help you understand what I mean –

   ‘An injured student weeps in pain, buried in damages. Her entire body is covered in rocks, no openings. Dark blue, deadshot eyes stare out. A small ray of light shines in her eyes, instantly changing her color from dark blue to pearl like. Like the sun, her eyes shine a path. She slowly shuts her eyes, closing herself off to the light.’

   ‘A single student lay, motionless, in the looming shadow of the destroyed building, her bloodshot, dark blue eyes brimming with hot tears. The loosely hanging pieces of cloth covering her battered body, once the smart school uniform she wore so proudly to school, were now mere shreds of fabric, stained a deep, dark crimson. Slowly, slowly, she felt the life draining away from her, until the light in her eyes faded into nothingness; sightless orbs staring into a leaden sky.’

   I took some liberties with your original text in my rewrite, but my point is that a piece of writing can be dramatically improved with the use of appropriate prose that brings the scene to life before the reader. You can see that not much of the original meaning you intended to convey has been lost, but the prose is itself much improved.

   A few other notes that aren’t so much criticism as they are suggestions –

   (1) You should be consistent with your usage of tenses. Pick one and stick with it for the rest of your light novel. It is a stylistic aberration to flip between tenses midway through a piece.

   (2) Onomatopoeia are effective when deployed in the appropriate context, but lack impact when they are used indiscriminately. This is the case when you’re writing about the impending collapse of the school building. It can seem lazy to resort to onomatopoeia when it’s not necessary for effect; you should replace your usage of them with appropriate descriptive prose wherever you can.

   (3) In writing, more is not necessarily better, especially when it comes to conveying emotions. I note this in the context of your protagonist weeping. Since your piece seems to be geared towards a teenage audience, I assume that your protagonist shares a basic personality template with other protagonists of similarly themed works. Refer to the scene where his twin brother is defeated. Would it be more evocative, emotionally speaking, to have your protagonist bawl his eyes out, or would it be more emotionally poignant to have tears streaming down his cheeks as he stares, distraught and at a loss for words, upon his twin brother’s badly battered body?

   (4) Brevity. I’ve heard it said that light novels ought to be, as the name suggests, light and easy to read. This usually means light novels contain less of the heavy descriptive prose you tend to see in traditional novels. In many ways light novels are even more difficult to write than traditional novels, because the author has to craft a scene, describe the setting and their characters, as well as relaying the emotions of said characters; in other words, they have to do everything a traditional novel does, and all in a way that has to be concise and easy to read! This does not mean, however, that light novel authors should resort to talking heads! Be careful to ensure that your words deliver the intended impact while not straying into purple prose territory, and you’ll be well on the way to writing a good light novel.

   Well, that concludes my review of T99’s prologue (pre-revised)! As one aspiring author to another, don’t feel discouraged by constructive criticism – we’re all looking to improve our mastery of the craft after all. Keep writing, and I’m sure you’ll improve by leaps and bounds. Feel free to get in touch if you have any comments relating to this review.

   1. 

      Javon Sankoh Post author

      Okay, so judging from your review and alex theriot’s review, readers can see what I’m trying to do, but the way I’m doing it is just plain wrong. What makes it wrong is my choice of words and execution of scenes. My prologue can too descriptive or not descriptive at all. Being too descriptive is boring and leaves nothing to the reader’s imagination while not being descriptive is lazy and it doesn’t give the reader a picture of the scene. My word choice is crucial to painting the picture for readers. Man, my lack of vocabulary is apparent in this prologue. There were many times where I didn’t know how to word or describe an event. I agree, words like ‘bonk’ shouldn’t be in this prologue, but I was trying to think of words that create sound. I didn’t want to search for words online. I wanted to test how long it would take me to write it. I clearly got a bad result, still I guess it’s obvious what I need to improve upon.

      I actually wasn’t intending to use onomatopoeia, that was just a coincidence. I’ll be sure to proofread occurrences like that. Brevity, huh. So, I have to make my words easy to understand while using my words to paint a picture of the novel. Well when you say it like that, I guess light novels are more difficult to create than traditional novels. Even though I am complete novice when it comes to writing and I don’t read much, that doesn’t scare me. I’m ready to learn and improve. And since I’m a novice, could you explain a little more about talking heads and the purple prose territory? But seriously, thanks for this review. It was really long, but it was also very helpful. It’s nice to know there are a lot of experts on this site.

      1. 

         Kyrin Knightsbridge

         It’s good that you’re undaunted by the prospect of writing a light novel! I’m sure you’ll be able to make your dreams a reality if you keep at it.

         Talking heads is basically long stretches of uninterrupted dialogue between characters, with little, if not none, other interspersing prose. It’s frowned upon because it (1) typically doesn’t help construct the mood for a particular scene, instead bluntly foisting the plot onto readers, and (2) it’s lazy writing that shows the author’s willingness to cut corners on their work.

         Purple prose is overly elaborate prose for its own sake, and it generally detracts from the reader’s immersion into a scene and overall experience by peppering them with bombastic words and turns of phrases that don’t necessarily fit the context. You don’t want your readers to be scratching their head in bemusement or reaching for the dictionary every couple of seconds when they’re reading your work.

         I’m glad you found my comments helpful! I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I’m always available and willing to help if you need me to!

         1. 

            Javon Sankoh Post author

            Hmm, so make sure that readers can envision the environment and the situation of the characters as they talk to each other. That makes sense, readers will able to understand a character’s personality more and the situation of the characters. I also have to make sure not to be too descriptive and always use complex words. Okay, I’ll be sure to avoid talking heads and purple prose. Thanks again! Man, this place feels more like a community. It feels nice to be able to count on others. Alright, I’ll let you know if I need anything.

            This is late, but it is nice to meet you, Kyrin Knightsbridge 🙂

            1. 

               Kyrin Knightsbridge

               You’re welcome, and it’s a pleasure to meet you as well ^~^

4. 

   Ice Fairy

   Wow! I’m amazed by the amount of everyone s comment. I’ll make it short-
   1) the prologue is good and promising, but it’s impact is light.
   2) the grammar is good.
   3) it lacks some amount of unique idea that grabs the attention. Like going to another world as a chef, ??.
   4) your choice of words and phrases are good. ?
   5) it will be interesting if I get to read first chapter. And 2nd..and 3rd I guess ??

5. 

   Ice Fairy

   Sometimes it’s hard for me to understand the real meaning behind the sentences. So please make grammar easier to understand.

   1. 

      Javon Sankoh Post author

      Yeah, I’ve noticed that is everything comments on. I guess my flaws are obvious, but I know exactly what to improve upon. My choice of words and grammar are good? I thought those were some of my flaws. Well, thank you very much for reviewing my prologue. I guarantee that it will better next time. So much better that you’ll want to read the first, second, and third chapter 😉 or not. But hey, that’s apart of the process, and I am still a newbie after all.

6. 

   Strovist

   Hi Jovan, here r my thoughts. I’ll keep it short and brief.

   Huge improvement as compared to last beta, but your grammar needs a lot of improvement. In it’s current state, your story is 50% incomprehensible. Plot wise, it’s on the right track. Be clear if you want to use past or present tense. It pays to be consistent in either throughout the chapter. Good attempt in building up suspension and tension in the chapter. All in all, a huge improvement. Keep up the good work.

   1. 

      Javon Sankoh Post author

      Thanks, man, I’m glad it is an improvement, but I’ll continue to strive for a much greater result. By the way, my name is Javon. I’m sure you got it confused because a character in my novel has that name. Yeah, I might have to change the names of my main two characters. Anyway, do you have any tips on how to transition from scenes without the narrator to scenes with the narrator? People have said that switching perspectives ruin the flow of the read, but I want to write in a way that it doesn’t. I actually thought I had only present tense. I should proofread it more. I’ll improve little by little.

7. 

   Luis Aleman

   Seems like everyone has said all that needs to be said. The prose does read like a screenplay at sometimes but that’s probably because you’re choosing to do it in the present tense instead of past tense. There are a lot of sentences starting with “I” which does get monotonous. One thing you do about descriptions is that you rely more on telling us what the characters are thinking and feeling instead of showing how they do it, which does take the reader out of the experience. I had this problem too when I started writing and everyone does. Sometimes less description is more too.
   One thing that’s helped me a lot is watch youtube videos about improving your writing. Here’s a channel I follow that’s really helped out https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgvu0q49l3BfsMyp9WSTQLw.
   Try also googling “filter words” and you’ll see how they can negatively effect your descriptions. You’ll see a big improvement in your writing when you can start picking them out.
   I’ll assume you like reading and all that good stuff but also take time to examine how other authors write their prose, especially the ones that write in your story’s POV. Analyze the sentence structures and other variations they use in their stories.
   I don’t think you have a problem with grammar all that much. There were only like 2 instances I found where something was misspelled.
   Lastly, there’s times when novels don’t actually need a prologue and you can also google that to see if a prologue would or wouldn’t fit your story.