Young Writers Society

My first attempt at a story. What do you think? If you want me to post more, just holler.

~Prologue~

Dr. Maliceve leaned over his skinny, new computer, furiously typing. There were the muffled sounds of a scuffle outside his small office, so he quickly rose and moved to the doorway. He saw the burly guards dragging a young girl with dirty blond hair thrashing about, her hands tied behind her back. She thrashed around, and her gag fell off.
“Let go of me! Put me down!” She screamed as she tried to get away from her captors. He watched as she was dragged into another room, kicking and yelling at the top of her lungs. His assistant appeared beside him.
“A lively one, isn’t she? She will make a fine test subject.”
“Indeed.” Dr. Maliceve responded, calm and reserved. “A good start to our research of human and animal behavior. See that the tantalum fence is set up quickly; we shall need it. And, have it electrified; we must keep the experiments in and all hindrances out.” He turned on his heel and strolled back to his computer, summoning up a blueprint of a human. A human with cat ears on top of its head and a long tail.
“Sir, don’t you also believe that, if we are going to include birds in our experiments that we should have a net over the forest, also?”
He straightened up. “Good thinking, Dr. Creapate. See it is done.”
“Yes, sir.” Dr. Creapate left his superior in his office. Dr.Maliceve smiled slightly as blood-curdling screams filled the air.

Chapter One

I think you have an interesting idea here. I'd definitely like to read more and see where this goes. However, there are some things I believe need to be changed.

First of all, the way you start it isn't very interesting. Personally, I don't like novels that start with "he" because we don't know who he is (unless the identity is meant to be secret). I would suggest changing "he" to "Dr. Roberts," and maybe add something more exciting before the first sentence. The "he" thing is a personal preference, though.

They tromped through the forest, taser/tranquilizer guns at the ready.

Are they taser or tranquilizer guns? Or a combination? Decide here. We don't want to be guessing on this. If it's both, get rid of the slash and put "and." If it's a combination, try "They tromped through the forest, a deadly combinations of tasers and tranquilizer guns in their hands and at the ready."

Without warning, five kids dropped out of the trees around them, knocking them to the ground and knocking them out.

I would suggest more detail here. It sounds a bit childish as is. What exactly happened? How did Dr. Roberts feel seeing this? I wouldn't suggest going into overly gory or repetitive detail, but something like, "Without warning, five kids dropped out of the trees around them. The first of the troop turned, startled, only to be struck with a forceful blow. He fell heavily to the ground. Dr. Roberts, seeing this, sat up straighter in his seat." Etc., etc. Maybe describe the kids as well?

Otherwise, I'm interested. Definitely keep writing this, I'm intrigued and would like to read more!

This is a story I had actually thought about writing a while back. Well, something similar. So its cool to see you writing an idea I once had.
Anyways...
To me, a prologue is best used for something that takes place long before the primary plot begins. Like for a novella I used to work on, the prologue took place generations before the main character was born. So, I would bump your current prologue to the first chapter (of course, expand on it a lot. Add some necessary details and fix a couple of things already mentioned by the user above me) and for your prologue go into detail about these experiments and why these "Doctors" started working on them. What made the doctors WANT to do this experiment, and WHY choose the people they did?

I hope to have helped, and would love to see a continuation of this story.

-Dylan

Thanks for the input. I really think the rest of the story is a lot better than the prologue. This is actually my second shot at the prologue, and think I'm getting there. I will work on it, thanks.


EDIT: I'm changing the prologue now. Hopefully, this one shall be better.

Hey,
I'm here to review as requested. I'll get to the next part as soon as I can. I'm sharing a computer with a computer geek family at the moment, so it might be tomorrow or later on today. It depends. I'll give my general opinion and what I really liked about your prologue at the end of the review.

Her head thrashed around, and her gag fell off.
Thrashed sounds awkward to me. To make it more dramatic, I would suggest starting the sentence with she instead of her head since it's less narrative and... I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say, but hopefully, you've got what I'm trying to say.

“Let me go! Let go of me! Put me down!”
Dialouge... Really hate it but have to have it. This sounds a little wooden. Try cutting the second sentence to make it less bulky and think of what a terrified girl would do and say.

His good assistant appeared beside him.
I'm not sure what you mean by good. Good has a few meanings and isn't the best descriptive word. Do you mean most promising, most talented? I'm sure you don't mean morally sound.

“Yes, sir.” Dr. Creapate left his superior in his office, smiling slightly as blood-curdling screams filled the air.
I'd like to know what he's thinking. Really, your whole prologue is full of action, which a lot of people like, but you don't know what all of the characters are feeling.

It is a good prologue because you caught my interest. I want to know more now. The whole experiment idea is a great idea, and I can't wait to read the next chapter.
This is short, so that's all I've got.
Keep writing, Megsug

Wow! That's the one word that sums this up for me. I'm going to give you one large review on your latest chapter that will sum up what I think. This is a very interesting idea, I must say...eh, I'm starting, I'd better keep going. Alright, off I go. One thing that I will point on firstly is that there is a few mistakes grammar wise here. I don't deal with grammar/spelling because I feel that a writer doesn't learn much if I just spoon feed them the answers. But what I suggest is just reading over your work, usually the mistakes are in clear sight.

If not, ask someone from the WRFF thread who deals with that specifically...

Anyway, on I go!

Hey Silver! Shrubs here to review.

To first start with, you've got a good story telling style and if you work a bit more on the plot and descriptions, you could turn into a fabulous writer. Since this is a prologue and it was short, so I'm going to keep my review simple and sweet.

Normally, I've seen reviewers here telling that they're not that much interested in the prologues and prologues bore them. I don't always agree but I'd like to say that you should not include anything which is too much important in the prologue because many a time readers skip through the prologue and don't get to read something vital that you must have had in your prologue. I am not scathing, but just warning you of the normal opinion people have about the prologues. So be careful.

What I'd like to say might seem rude to you, but this isn't the most original story idea I have seen. Of course you'd modify it, give it your own element but I really think that your idea is a bit common for sci-fi nowadays. I've read maybe two novels of the same type here on YWS itself, so I don't want you to delve into something that might seem repetitive. So just watch out for that, and a scientist with dreams that might ruin the civilization is also not something different.

So, now you'd have to work extra hard on your characters and plot so it stands out.

Thanks for the read,
Shrubs

Hello there!

I'm sorry this took me some days to get this reviewed. But anyways, I hope this better be worth all the wait.

Hmm. You have an interesting prologue and this kept me craving for more. ^^ LIke you have left this in a mysterious way that I was all like, "What? That is all?"

So I'll try to discuss both sides of this piece. I like the nonchalant voice of your characters, they're shown in a good way. Yes, they are your typical mad scientist who uses innocent people for their experimentation. Well, we see lots of this in movies and books, but I won't say this is cliche', rather you just need to spice it up. Like, what are the usual qualifications for any persons as their next dissection or something? What is really their goal?

Another thing I have noticed is your lack of description. And I don't mean that you dump all adjectives here and there. But just a line of two or three is fine to help build the atmosphere. Let us visualize the laboratory or the scene. Is it smelly? Rusty? Cold? You name it. ^^

This also leads to me second point. As much as possible, avoid using too much of adjectives. For example, your very first sentence. It could have been written stronger if not for the consecutive adjectives in a row. You want us to show the look of the computer, but using adjectives for that is definitely not a good thing. Show not Tell but just don't overdo it, since this is just a prologue.

Overall, I like this but could have been really better. Potential, yes. So let me know if you have any questions.


Peace out,
Yuri

This is a very good prologue, I really liked your description of the burly guards dragging in the girl with dirty blonde hair, it Captivates me. It really makes me want to keep reading it. (even though I read it on the way to the horse races) you did change it and I really like it. It inspires me to keep my story, The Elementals. (I hope your okay with me using Elementals). I hope to see more!