Hunted: Prologue

Smallbreeze padded through the ferns, the grass cool on her paws. A small clearing was approaching quickly. She brushed aside the last of the ferns and slowly sat down at the edge of the underbrush.
"Why did you call me here?" Smallbreeze called out.
After a few moments of silence, she twitched her whiskers and turned to leave.
"Because you have a debt to pay."
Smallbreeze froze, her hackles standing on end with the chill of his voice.
"I have nothing to present to you."
The voice chuckled.
"What about service?"
Smallbreeze took the chance to pelt away from the clearing.
The last thing she remembered hearing from the voice was:
"Hah, you can't run forever, Smallbreeze... Soon... You will be mine..."

Just a tidbit of a piece I'm working on...
Enjoy!

~Allie Rose~

Hi, Allie!

This was so short, I don't know how much I can say, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

First, for future reference, you might want to space out your paragraphs. The site eliminates all indenting when you post, and in longer pieces, a huge chunk of text without any spaces can get hard to read, and turn readers away. No worries for now, though.

Now onto story stuff.

I really liked Smallbreeze's name! I couldn't tell you why, exactly. I guess names for wolves(?) can get really cheesy sometimes, or just ridiculous. But her name reached a good balance between the two extremes of being boring/meaningless and over-the-top.

I also like your dialogue. You didn't overdo it, and yet you conveyed a lot. Best of all, you didn't give in to the urge to spend paragraphs and paragraphs explaining various things. In fact, you didn't explain very much at all--and that's awesome. Even if short, this was an effective prologue because you didn't ramble on about, "There's a world called ___ and in it are wolves, and they can be bound to service to this ____ and on and on and on and she was called Smallbreeze because of ____."

This prologue succeeded in doing what a prologue's supposed to do. My interest is peaked, and I have a sense of the characters. You've presented a big conflict. We know something about the world. That you did that in a post that takes up less than half my computer screen is fabulous.

I'm curious as to who or what this voice is, and why Smallbreeze is running. And what this debt is. Is Smallbreeze cowardly? Hiding from her past? What would she pay the voice with? What is this service? Questions, questions.

I only have two quick notes for you on the criticism end. First:

A small clearing was approaching quickly.

Technically, that sentence says that the clearing is approaching her, not that she's approaching the clearing rapidly (she's the one moving.) Could you reword this to be more precise?

And, on a punctuation matter...

The last thing she remembered hearing from the voice was:
"Hah, you can't run forever, Smallbreeze... Soon... You will be mine..."

In that last sentence, the Y doesn't need to be capitalized. (I know, nitpicky.) Also, if you're open to suggestions, you could make the voice sound more powerful if you got rid of some of the ellipses (dot dot dots). What about, "Hah, you can't run forever, Smallbreeze. Soon...you will be mine..."? Just a thought--really all personal opinion in the end, so do what seems right to you!

'Tis a great little prologue. Let me know if you have any questions, or if there's anything I can help you with. And especially let me know when you post the next chapter.

Rach

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