Prologue

(Moon)

The English assignment had been easy in it’s own way. Write a fictional story and place yourself in the middle of it. Since my life was a fictional story all I had to do was write the truth.

Mrs. Diamond clears her throat. “Are there any volunteers to go first?” She asks in her squeaky voice. No one answers. Her eyes scan the room, until they land on me.

“Moon. Will you do the honors?”

I sigh and stand up, not bothering with my papers, this was a story I knew by heart. I stop by Derek’s desk he gives me one last shake of his head, telling me not to do it.

Without responding I go to the front of the room and face my peers.

“This isn’t a story of laughter or friendship, though there were parts of it,” I begin. The echoes of laughter from people I had once knew seeming to echo around the room. But I knew it was just in my head. “This isn’t a story of love.”

A lopsided grin and messy black hair, he gives me another smirk. His ocean blue eyes drawing me in and not letting me out.

“This isn’t a story of happiness,” I swallow, fighting back the grins, the jokes, the memories. “This isn’t a story of good versus bad.” Two armies, standing opposite of each other. Both ready to fight. “This isn’t a story of how the world was saved. This isn’t a story of how the heroes were victorious.”

I stand up taller, “This is a story of pain and tears.” Cries of anguish and sobs of loss. I fight back the memories, just like I had been doing for the past six months. “This is a story of heartbreak and horror. This is a story of death.”

The battlefield turned into a graveyard, for both sides. “This is a story of hate.” “I HATE YOU! I WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN! YOU RUIN EVERYTHING!” a girl yells. Her brother recoils in shock, eyes wide with disbelief. “This is a story of how the world was saved and no one even knew it was in danger to begin with.” I look at Derek and Nikki. “This is a heroes story on how the heroes were ruined forever. My name is Moon Dragon and this is my story, the story of the Forgotten Battle.” And with that I began, the memories washing over me, providing little to no comfort.

One and a half years previously

Author's Note

Has NOT been reviewed for grammar.
(The rest of the book might be downhill from here!! Sorry...)

Reviews

[emipoemi]

......ok, for starters, this is on the whole freaking amazing!! It sets the scene beautifully, and I love how it reads like a movie. Exceptionally executed!! Now for some tweaks:


"prologue" (not "prequel") is the word you're looking for. Instead of saying "Moon's POV", put "Moon" front and centre, and it automatically tells readers that we're in her POV.

You could add a bit more description to really amp up the cinematic feeling (ex. "She asks in her squeaky voice. No one answers. [She scans the room]", and then put the next line of dialogue on a new line. The Derek moment is great, but because we don't have an original point of origin for Moon, saying "stop in the centre of the room" doesn't mean anything. If you just say "stop by Derek's desk" it cements and legitimizes their relationship, whereas the extra info undermines that bond. The standing in the front of the class is a better use of the extra info, for that's important. The highlighted line is fine (no need for the highlighting, just add an essentially for emphasis).

The parallel descriptions à la cinema is, as mentioned, fantastic - love it!! The repetition of "a world that was saved" is a little clunky. It's very powerful to just say "this isn't a story about how the world was saved" (and take out the "even if it was" - same with the "even if they were" of the following line). Try to find a way to iterate the "repetition" without suing the same words, meaning, or conveyance. For there's more power in that. Put that last line of narration on it's own line. More power.

And put the italicized time line at the beginning of the next chapter.

Other than that, this is an amazing start! Well freaking done!

[AirieLeva]

Thank you so much! Your suggestions were very helpful and I will get the story changed as soon as I can. Sorry about the highlighting, I totally forgot about that, it's something my friends do when they read the book on Google Docs, I thought that I had gotten them all.

[emipoemi]

my pleasure.

[Onlyme]

Wow, what a great prologue, that really does get your taste buds wet, intriguing, interesting drawing you in and making you wonder so many things inside your mind's eye. Realistic with the open scene with school and kids, and their nature of mocking and teasing someone in front of the class. No love story or soppy stuff got me interested even more. Looking forward to getting into this.

[JayG]

First, a disclaimer: What I’m about to say has nothing to do with your talent or future as a writer. Nor is it about the story. It does, however, have a lot to do with that future, and the steps needed to have one. And because it is critical, and you’re working hard on this story, I thought you would want to know.

Look at a few lines of the opening as a reader would:

• The English assignment had been easy in it’s own way. Write a fictional story and place yourself in the middle of it.

What does “easy in its own way” mean to a reader? Since, at this point, we don’t know what the assignment was, or in what way it was easy, the line has meaning ONLY to you. Remember, your intent doesn’t make it to the page. And you know the backstory, the characters, and the situation BEFORE you read a word. So for you it makes perfect sense. For the reader? Not so much. But the story was written for them, so…

You could fix it by condensing the line to: “The English assignment had been to write a fictional story and place yourself in the middle of it.” That way, it makes sense to anyone who reads it. But…

All stories are fiction, so drop “fictional.” And why use “in the middle of it,” when “into it,” says the same thing? Every unnecessary word you can eliminate makes the story read a bit faster. That matters, because the faster it reads the more impact it has on the reader.

And in line with that, doesn’t an English assignment imply that the student must write something? If so, do we really need “write a story?”

Trim the fat and you have:

“The English assignment had been to place yourself into a story.”

That’s twelve words instead of twenty-two.

• Since my life was a fictional story all I had to do was write the truth.

Your reader, who knows nothing of the setting, the situation, or the character, has no context to make sense of this. The speaker could be in college, grad school, or sixth grade. The meaning a reader takes from the words is dependent on knowing that, and more. So while you, who knows all that, understand, why not let the reader decide on what her life is like through what happens? And in reality, what does knowing that the speaker feels their life is storylike contribute if the reader doesn’t know HOW it seems so?

In other words, since it doesn’t set the scene, move the plot, or develop character, chop the line.

• Mrs. Diamond clears her throat. “Are there any volunteers to go first?” She asks in her squeaky voice. No one answers. Her eyes scan the room, until they land on me.

Here’s where we get into the meat of where you can make this story more immediate. You’re using present tense to try to do that, now, but is there really a difference between, “Mrs. Diamond clears her throat,” and “Mrs. Diamond cleared her throat?” Of course not. There are far more effective ways of generating immediacy (which I’ll be getting to). Of more importance, who is this person? You haven’t placed the reader into a classroom, remember. So this could be a neighbor clearing her throat. And while it BECOMES clear, no reader wants to be confused, then read a clarification. They want context for what they read, as-they-read-it. And given that the reader can’t hear her voice as she speaks, does it matter if it’s squeaky or mellow? It doesn’t, unless that matters to how people react to her in the story.

So what does matter? Only what matters to our protagonist in the moment she calls “now.” If it’s not something she’s focused on (or will be focused on because of it), it’s unneeded.

And again, you need to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and let implication work for you. Why say, “Are there any volunteers to go first?” when “Are there any volunteers?” says the same thing?

In fact, why do we need a narrator on stage with the actors? Can the reader hear the emotion in the narrator’s voice? No. Only you can hear that. What reader has is what punctuation, and their own background, suggests.

Nor can they see your expression changes or gestures. And while your narrator is supposed to be the protagonist at a later date, that person can only talk ABOUT the events. They can’t be on stage with the one living them because they live at different times. So why not tell the story as the one living the story instead of someone talking ABOUT her? Is there really a difference between a narrator and the author pretending to be the character while narrating?

To show what I mean, look at what happens if we do a bit of smoothing and amplifying:
- - - - - -
Okay,” Mrs. Diamond said, as we settled into our seats. “If you remember, last Thursday’s AP Lit assignment was to place yourself into a short story, one to be read in class.”

In response to the groans her announcement generated, she shrugged, adding, “And since today is Thursday….” Her eyes scanned the room, until they landed on me. “Moon, you have the honor of being the first to astound us with your brilliant prose.”
- - - - -
Is it your story and characters? No. Nor is it brilliant writing. It’s a quick example of another way to present the same sort of thing more effectively, in the protagonist’s viewpoint as-it-happens as against the narrator recalling past events.

The original was seventy-five words long. The revision is seventy-four. So in approximately the same number of words, lets look at what the reader gets.

1. The narrator does not talk TO the reader, or appear on stage. Instead the viewpoint is Moon’s, in the moment she calls now.
2. We establish that we’re in a classroom, just as the class is getting seated.
3. Mentioning that it’s an AP Lit assignment places us into a high school. So we have context for where we are in time and space.
4. We learn what the assignment was in a natural way, from the teacher, not an external narrator. We also learn the day of the week, incidentally. And the class reaction—the groan—tells us that this is a typical American class. In fact, the teacher’s way of saying it tells us that she’s tweaking the tails of the kids who haven’t completed the assignment. That’s character development for her to make her feel real. And the groan in response is a bit of scene-setting to add audio realism to the setting—as enrichment of a necessary line, instead of the narrator striding on stage and killing realism. It also gives the teacher a reason to remind them what day it is as incidental enrichment.
5. The final line tells us whose skin we wear in this story. The reader now knows who we are, where we are, and what’s going on, which are the three things that need to be addressed, quickly, when opening any scene, which will orient the reader. And, the smart-a*s remark by the teacher is more character development for her.

Same number of words, but as it happens from Moon's viewpoint, not as it’s reported by an external observer. So, the reader is ready to move on, and will want to know how Moon is going to react to being selected, and what she will say/do. In other words, they’ve been hooked. We’ve given them reason to WANT to read more. And if we don’t do that on every page they won’t.

As for the rest of the prologue, it doesn’t work. What you place into italics aren’t thoughts, it’s editorial comment by the narrator, for which the reader lacks any trace of context. Have your computer read this aloud and you’ll hear that what a reader gets from the prose is very unlike what you intended them to get. You know where to place emphasis and emotion. You know what’s being discussed. Readers don’t.

For example, when you say, “I stop by Derek’s desk he gives me one last shake of his head,” who’s Derek? You know but the reader doesn’t. Why one LAST shake of the head when we don’t know there were others, or what he’s commenting on. You know. She knows. Derek knows. But what about the one you wrote this for? Shouldn’t they know? Don’t they HAVE to know, to make sense of this?

Here’s the deal: Everyone assumes that because we learned a skill called writing, and the profession is called Writing, there is a connection, and that the skills we learned are of use. They’re not. We learn no professions in our school days, other then the one we may elect to go to the university to study. So we all leave high school exactly as well prepared to write fiction as to pilot an airliner or perform an appendectomy.

In our schooldays we write lots of reports and essays, and few stories. Why? Because our future employers need us proficient in writing reports and essays, not stories. Did your teachers discuss what a scene is on the page, and how it differs from one on stage and screen? One is related to scenery or a unified time-stream, the other a unit of tension. Did they talk about what tension is in fiction, and how to manage it? Of course not. So how do we write a scene if we don’t know what one is?

Will we provide a short-term scene-goal if we don’t know what it as and what it does? Again, no.

In short: You have the desire, the perseverance, and the story. And that’s great. But you’re missing the tools needed to build the series of scenes that lead to the black moment and the climax. It’s not your fault, and you have pretty much everyone else as company in that misconception, but it is something that you need to fix if you are going to add wings to your words.

In the words of Mark Twain: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” So what you need to do is get rid of those “just ain’t so,” issues. And a great place to do that is the public library’s fiction writing section. There, you’ll find the views of noted writers, publishing pros, and teachers.

My personal recommendation is to pick up a personal copy of Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It’s a great first book, and is a warm easy read. In it, you’ll learn such things as why a line like, Bella smiled when Jack came through the door,” is best avoided.

For an overview of the issues involved, you might want to check a few of the articles in my writing blog. They’re written for people in your situation.

So hit the books. But while you do, hang in there, and keep-on-writing.

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

[AirieLeva]

Thank you for all of your advice, it really does help a lot. And I completely understand everything that you have pointed out for revision. And don't worry about any critism, because I can take that, and I know that it's just here and now and not the future. Although, I've never even fathomed of becoming a professional writer, and just don't think that I ever will.
When I wrote this I wasn't intending for anyone out of my friend group to read it because I'm a really bad writer and I have an anxiety about sharing it with anyone because of how terrible I am. My point being is, forgive me, because when I wrote it my intended reader did know the backstory behind Moon and knew the characters and plot. Because they helped make it.
In fact, every character was based off of a person in real life. Including Mrs. Diamond. My best friend, co-author, and the real version of Moon helped me write the book. Along with a few of my other friends, which is why I didn't write it for an oblivious audience, instead it was phrased for an audience that knew the character, context, situation, and setting.
The people that were originally reading know me so well that they could see gestures and expression that I would make while reading it. Which I am sorry for, because posting it on this website without taking that into consideration was wrong on my part, because with the exception for a handful of people most of the people on this website do not know who I am at all, and certainly not well enough to invision me as they read.
My other mistake in writing this book was that I didn't take into view that this was the fifth time I've tried writing this series, which means that my friends had read this five times and definitely knew the characters inside an out, something that no one else has at the time of the Prologue.
Which is pretty much the mistake I made throughout not only this chapter, but I think the entire book.
Once again, I thank you for all of your help and advice, and I really will check out the books and your blog that you have recommended, but I honestly do not think I have any future as a writer, because compared to everyone else out there I am not good at it.
The fact of the matter is that while writing is something I enjoy to do, it's also something I'm very self-consciounce about and I had never intended to share it with anyone other than those that I talked to everyday.
On top of that, I've actually always wanted to be a pilot. And being an author, as of today, is actually #5 on my career list, but that's just because there's only 5 things on that list.
So thank you, I will check out the books and the blog, and hopefully if I don't get any better, I at least get more comfortable with sharing it.

____
This is Airie Leva and I approve this message

[JayG]

• I'm a really bad writer and I have an anxiety about sharing it with anyone because of how terrible I am.

You're not a bad writer, just lacking the necessary tools because no one tells us they exist, during our school years. In fact, your teachers, who learned their skills in the same classroom are probably not aware that what they're teaching is a nonfiction skill-set. My sister was a teacher and I had a really hard time convincing her that she was teaching only nonfiction writing skills.

• My point being is, forgive me,

Don't apologize for what's not your fault. Writing fiction, like writing nonfiction, is a learned skill. So of course when you try to write fiction with the wrong tool set there will be the same problems I see in almost everyone's work on the various writing sites. And if you were able to get passing grades in the style of writing you were give so far, you can learn another method of writing equally well (or with as much difficulty, I suppose).

It's not about good/bad writing, or talent, only the tools and tricks of the trade.

And given how hard you're working on this novel, why not spend a bit of time making that work more effective? If nothing else, it may get you better grades on your writing assignments.

• In fact, every character was based off of a person in real life.

How can they seem real if they're not? ;) As Ellen Goodman put it: “You can fire your secretary, divorce your spouse, abandon your children. But they remain your co-author forever.”

• Which is pretty much the mistake I made throughout not only this chapter, but I think the entire book.

Good. That you can see that says you're perceptive, and in one day, learned a great deal about writing fiction. Take a look at those articles in my writing blog. They're meant to give someone like you an overview of the issues that most people get wrong, and why. They're not meant to make a pro of you, but they can show you places where you can improve the communication between you and the reader.

• because compared to everyone else out there I am not good at it.

Going by my sales, neither am I. So what? You write because you enjoy it. But here's the trick. The more you know the more real it is TO YOU when you write. Instead of being someone you talk about, and order around, your protagonist becomes your co-writer, and will tall you, "Hell no. I won't do that, if you order them to do something a real person in that situation wouldn't so.

To write your protagonist well, you need to look at her situation, not in summation, like a history book, but as SHE knows it. If you write from the moment she calls now, instead of creating a synopsis of it, you'll be forced to focus on what matters to her, not you. Emotion before fact. You'll have to take into account what her options are, and why, just as you do with what catches your attention in life. And that makes the story feel a lot more real, as it's read and as you write.

• it's also something I'm very self-conscious about and I had never intended to share it with anyone other than those that I talked to everyday.

Give yourself the right to be lousy. It's the best way to become better. In any case, no matter how good you become, someone will say, "It stinks."

Writing well isn't a skill you have or don't have. It's not a destination, it's a journey, one that lasts a lifetime. So if you write just a bit better every day, and live long enough...

• I at least get more comfortable with sharing it.

Airie, 99.9+% of what's submitted as a query is rejected—most of that on page one. So you have a LOT of company. This site is for people who like to write, not great writers. And I don't critique writing unless I see potential. So don't sell yourself short.

When you check out those articles, look at a few of the short stories there. They're meant to show the techniques I talked about in action.

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

[AirieLeva]

Actually I do have a teacher that did teaches me about writing fiction, and she's making sure that I know what I'm doing. I wrote this three years ago and it's simply an outline of what I plan to do with the actual book.
I don't think I need the help of this book to get better grades on writing assignments, but I do plan on trying to evolve in the script of writing.
The characters within this book are indeed as fake as can be, but to me, they're real. And I actually believe that giving fictional characters the traits of actual people help a reader understand them more. Because if you know the character like you know your best friend then you can portray emotions and a certain understanding for the reader that some authors lack at times.
I already know where and what I'm doing wrong, and while it is a mistake that I do intend to correct with time it's not something I'm going to rush. If I'm going to get better than it's going to take some time, and I'm willing to be patient.
Considering my protagonist in this book was based off of my best friend, who just so happens to be my co-author on this book that statement is more correct than you realize.
And basing her off on my best friend allows me to be able to writer her beliefs and values, not my own. Which is why I feel it important to base some things off of a real person.
I have no doubt about that, and I know very well that at times I am lousy, whether it be all the time or sometimes, it happens to everyone. I don't write for people that say that it stinks and that it could be better. I write for the people that like it how it is and it helps them through something or gives them an understanding of something. I don't care if I'm the best writer in the world or the worst, I just want it to mean something to somebody, and I achieved that because it means something to me.
There will always be people out there saying that I can be better or that there's something wrong, and I do take their words and advice to help me get better. At this point and time though I'm just writing to make someone laugh if they need a laugh or cry if they need to cry. Nothing else matters.
I writer for fun, it's not my dream yet. Those I still have to achieve, when I do that, then and only then will I have the heart and the mindset to be the best writer I can be.

[Ren Nightshade]

WOW...great job I look forward to reading more!

Wonderful foreshadowing!

P.S. I use https://www.grammarcheck.net/editor/?msclkid=af098a2f063711953118d65ab523bbd0
to check my grammer and spelling

[AirieLeva]

Thank you so much!! That really helps!!

[Ren Nightshade]

No problem!

[Autumn Rain]

It's a nice prologue that builds suspense and intrigue, and I like how you have the flashbacks intertwined with the dialogue.

I would change the line, "Since my life was a fictional story all I had to do was write the truth." to use the word 'fantastic' instead of 'fictional', since that word specifically means 'not real.' If you like, you can throw in something about how no one would believe it anyway.

I could point out nit picky grammar details, (ie using 'it's' when you needed 'its'), but I think that you have a solid idea to build on. Give it a little more love, and you'll have an eye-catching prologue.

[AirieLeva]

Thank you!!