Young Writers Society

This is a late addition to the storyline, but here you go! The Prologue.

Life as we knew it, was about to change.
It was 1954, and the war had just begun. Our father, Daniel Ryley had been transferred from the Reserves to Active Duty.
The minute he got the telegram, my brother Jack and I knew he had to go. When we hugged our father for the last time, we held on as long as we could.

Two years passed without hearing anything about Dad, but on June 19th 1956, two military officers, wearing dark blue uniforms, lined with red, marched up to our door. I knew what was coming.
They knocked light, but strict. My mother answered the door with a tissue box in her left hand, just in case.
"Are you Mrs. Ryley?" said one of the officers, with a Texan accent.
"Yes, I am. What do you need?" she replied, sniffing.
"We are sorry to inform you of this most unpleasant news." said the other officer, who sounded British, "Ma'am, your husband passed away in Central Vietnam on Saturday morning."
My mother burst out into tears. Her face was pale and she looked like she was holding her breath.
"How?" I asked, as I did not know any better.
"Um, is it OK if I say it Mrs. Ryley?" said the Texan.
"I guess... Just don't describe how he died. Don't describe the wounds." she said, still crying.
"Well, he and his squadron was ambushed in Vinh, Vietnam," he replied, "and he was one of my closest squadmates."
"You were his squadmate?!" I asked him.
"Why yes, little feller." he said with a slight smile on his face.
After that, the officers left. My mother was in shock. She just stood in the same spot for an hour, crying with her tissue box.
I wanted those jerks who killed my father to die!
I wanted to join the war and get my revenge. As soon as Mother told Jack, he felt the same.
We are going to get back at them! We are going to either live heroes or die legends!

Our Assignment
About 8 years later, when we were 18, my brother and I applied for the US Army Active Duty.
They accepted my application and I took the truck to Basic Training. There were many other guys who looked tough and had clean cut hair, while I was kind of wimpy and my hair was shaggy and down below my ears.
As soon as I got there, they shoved me into a barber and gave me a haircut. Wow, these guys are serious.

After three weeks of Drill Sergeants, training, and punks who goofed off too much, I was sent to Southern Vietnam/Laos.
My brother was sent to the North. I have not seen him since.
I fought my way through Vietnam, earning my rank as Sergeant and getting bumped up to the Rangers.

Now go ahead and read the novel!

Hi, Aero. Pink here, as requested.
I see that you've just joined the site not too long ago.
Welcome to YWS, I hope you have fun here. ^^

I might not go and review every single chapter but I'll review the ones which I feel need to be looked at a little more deeply. So let's start with the prologue first.

Life as we knew it, was about to change.

I'm sorry, but this is a terrible opening line. D:)
Ouch, it hurts to read. First of all, when you're reading a novel it's probably a given that someone's life is about to be changed somehow in some case for whatever reason. That being said, saying something like this is meaningless and extremely cliche, not to mention done over a million times. You want to start your novel fresh and make it as different as you possibly can. My advice would be to cut this line entirely and replace it with something a bit more subtle.

but on June 19th 1956,

How do we punctuate dates? Like this: June 19th, 1956.

They knocked light, but strict.

I'm not sure how this is possible. I know you're trying to make the 'knock' itself probably sound intimidating or even scary in some manner but you might want to try rewording that a bit so it comes off the way you're trying to make it come across. I'm sure how little I just made sense there but do you get what I'm saying? A knock cannot be light and 'strict' but it can be soft, silent and terrifying depending on who you think is beyond the door. This will tie in to what I'm going to say about description later on.

"We are sorry to inform you of this most unpleasant news." said the other officer, who sounded British, "Ma'am, your husband passed away in Central Vietnam on Saturday morning."

Should be: "We are sorry to inform you of this most unpleasant news," said the other officer in a British accent. "Ma'am, your husband passed away in central Vietnam on Saturday morning."

Seems like your understanding of proper dialogue punctuation is slightly messy but that's nothing to be too upset about. I have complied two links that will guide you in dialogue writing and how to punctuate them properly. Be sure to take a quick peek at them so you understand the basics. I mean, it's not very hard so don't feel scared. It's actually quite easy once you get the hang of it. ^.^)b
Punctuation with Dialogue
Punctuation Marks
Dialogue Grammar

We are going to either live heroes or die legends!

This is another cliched line. It's cool and all but it's frankly a bit weird in the situation especially with how fast the story is going.

About 8 years later, when we were 18, my brother and I applied for the US Army Active Duty.

When writing, you want to be able to write out the numbers instead of just putting in their symbols. This would go for all numbers under a hundred. So *eight years later, when we turned eighteen.



Alright, so what you have so far is alright but it needs some work. Being as young as you are now, I think you still have the potential into making this go even further with more knowledge and understanding. So I'm going to help you point out a few things that I noticed with this prologue and hopefully it'll help you either revise or rewrite a few things in whatever area to make this more promising.

The first thing I noticed was the length vs the amount of information you decided to inject into it. What you have is info-dumping in the end, which isn't a good thing. You're speed is way too fast and there is lack of information regarding the characters and emotions. Since it's a prologue, it usually is a set-up for what the story plans to hold and although you've managed to do that, it wasn't executed in the best manner. Back to the length, I thought it was rather short for all that emotion and information. Maybe you could make it slightly longer by adding some more description. However, don't go overboard and make it too long, prologues are normally not very lengthy but get the overall message.

Also, the events were very fast paced. It was one thing after an other and no real pause to help us take a deeper look into your story by providing us with more details of each situation and how it mentally affected your characters into becoming what you want them to become. Right now, it's a blur.

Now for the description. You had very little of it and your actions were limited to very statue-like movements in your characters. I was happy, I was sad, he got up and I sat down. There was a bit much of telling and not showing and by telling I mean what I just said about he happy and sad parts. Don't tell us what they're feeling, show us. For example, 'his fists clenched as he narrowed his eyes, thinking about his father's murder.' See how much more powerful that sounds? Try experimenting with your writing and see what comes of it.

Also, I have a few questions regarding what I just read. First of all, why would the mother even want the officers to tell her sons about 'how' their father died and why would the officer even ask to tell them? They're only ten years old, right? Also, as far as the revenge part went, would that seriously be the kind of thoughts that go through a child's head at that time? Maybe you should make the brothers older so they're more mature and not exactly understanding but have a stronger relationship with their father. Show some hatred along with it so it becomes more realistic as to why they'd have those kinds of thoughts and why they'd seek revenge.

That's all I have to say for this prologue, I'll be on to you next chapter and we'll see how it goes from there.
If you have any questions, let me know. I'm a quick PM away. ^^
I hope this review was of help to you and also, I apologize for making it epically long. xD

^.^)b
-Pink

PinkShearwater wrote:What you said... xD

Thanks for the review. I really appreciate it.