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Jan21 - AubreyWrites - Moonstruck -prologue


AubreyWrites

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I like this one. I think it's interesting, and I want to see where you take it. I'm guessing because this is a prologue, there will be a time-jump and the kids will be older in Chapter 1. If not, I would suggest making this Chapter 1.

My biggest issue right now with is the writing in the point of views. When you're in Alex's point of view, and Elizabeth's for that matter, everything seems more simplistic, which is exactly what it should be. Because they are young children, and understand the world simply. That changes with Rowana. The biggest thing I noticed was when they're walking down the hall or something the term "monochromatic" comes up. And "unadorned." I don't think Rowana would know those terms. Maybe "dull" and "bare" would be better for someone that young. I understand that those words don't say as much. But they work better in the point of view that you're in, because Row is so darn young. I was actually initially surprised you even went to her point of view because of her age, but it worked.

One other thing: did their mother die too? It seems like she did, because the flames engulfed where she was, but I looked back over the writing before that and couldn't find anything about her being outside of the ship. And if she is outside of the ship, how can Elizabeth hear what her mother and Cain are saying to each other?

Both those issues I mentioned are more minor things that I noticed. Little things that caught me up. I didn't notice anything huge. Most of the other questions I have are the normal kinds of questions at this point, and a curiosity of where the story is going to go from here.

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Thanks for your input. I think you are absolutely right on my word usage. It's been a while since I actually reviewed the prologue.

And yeah the mom did die. I guess I need to clarify that. Even though it looks huge to Elizabeth it's a fairly small ship - think millennium falcon size (but not shape) and with the cabin depressurized and the door open it would be fairly easy to hear what's going on....but of course IIII know all that. I need to make that more apparent.

Thanks!

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Welcome to Writing Excuses!

I agree with little wilson for the most part. I also had trouble with the POVs. They are a strange mix of childlike emotions, and adult descriptions. At the end, I think it even left Elizabeth's POV and went to omnipotent. She couldn't know what the liquid nitrogen was doing, nor would she be able to comprehend what it was. This might have happened in other cases, but this was the one I first recognized. I was a little confused by the people's placement at the end (in or out of the rocket), and who survived, and who left. The POV from a child makes it hard to give a good establishing setting.

I'm also hoping you switch to a more adult POV for the next chapters. This was ok for a prologue, but I wouldn't do a whole book from a toddler's perspective. I might even question that, as agents will pick up the same things we did and might stop reading just from that.

Overall, the prose was good, and it was well-written. I'm interested to see where the story goes, and what's going on.

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I agree with the others, the big problem here are the POV errors in Elizabeth's part.

I question whether it's really necessary to have three view points in this chapter. Presumably, you want those three to also be your POV characters later in the story, but even if that's the case I think it's better to just concentrate on one of the children at the start and then get the other POVs in the later chapters. Establishing a compelling character is one of the most important tasks you need to accomplish at the start of a story; splitting the prologue into three makes that much harder.

I did understand that the mother was outside the ship and was killed in the end, but there are two issues I do have with that scene. First of all, why does the mother even leave the ship in the first place. Couldn't she just talk to the man who killed her husband from inside the ship? It seems like she hates and fears him from the start, so why leave the ship to have a nice little chat?

The second thing is that from what I understood, the mother was facing away from the children to speak with the man. How does Elizabeth see her facial expressions?

Nevertheless, this is an interesting beginning and I'm curious to see where you go from there.

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Hi Aubrey!

I really liked your prologue, and I look forward to see where you are taking the story. I think you did well on explaining events from the POV of the kids from the most part, but I think that has been covered by others.

Have you considered making the prologue simply from one point of view? I am not sure if your novel will be from a single point of view or from several, but I had a hard time with the mid-chapter transitions. Perhaps if the prologue was from the POV of a single character, but you do flashbacks later on to show how the other children were affected by that night you could still get your point across?

I agree with Syme about the mother leaving the ship. I didn't see why it was necessary. If she had to press the override to get the ship out of the airlock, wouldn't she have known that from the beginning? If she did it because the grandma was too distraught to leave, maybe you can add a little dialogue to make the reason clearer.

All in all, I think you've made a great start, and I look forward to seeing more.

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I agree with the others that this could become a good story, with most likely the children, grown-up, as the protagonists. If that is so than I can understand why you’ve got all their perspectives in the prologue so we can get to know them, but I wonder if that was the right thing to do.

The way I see it, this prologue has some problems with using the children as protagonists.

First, if the next chapters have them as adults, or young adults, it means a great number of years have passed. People change a lot from such young ages, so whatever traits and characteristics we see here don’t necessarily translate to their later lives. If that’s the case, we don’t need to get to know them now.

Second, the children don’t act, they are acted upon. There is tension in this prologue and danger, to them and their parents, but they don’t understand it. They simply follow along and observe and so the tension actually seems farther removed from the reader than it should be. The one character who does act is Juliane and she also understands the danger. I believe this piece would be stronger if things happened from Juliane’s perspective, rather than the children, which then ends at her death.

Third, you need an adult perspective. That’s why the children’s perspectives are an incongruous mix of adult words and concepts which they don’t understand but that you as the writer need in order to give the reader the information you want them to have. This is especially true for Rowana’s perspective. In that case you’re better off choosing an adult perspective.

I also don’t understand why Juliane had to die. The way I pictured the ship she was outside its airlock in the hangar. Cain has enough time to get away once she initiated the override sequence. Why didn’t she have enough time to jump into the ship’s airlock and escape?

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Thanks for all your thoughts! I will definitely take into consideration the comments on PoV.

The reason I focused on the children's PoV is that even though they weren't really a part of the "action" per say is that this scene affects them all in different ways as they become adults that maybe they don't even understand at first. I plan to reveal the depth of the impact on them over a 3 part story arc. Please be patient with me! I will definitely go back and try and polish the PoV's up to make it more age appropriate.

The reason I didn't go with an adult PoV is because the adults DO know too much. They think too logically and would make things too clear. I'm hoping to maintain a sort of almost dream-like confusion quality to this particular segment.

You are all right that I need to make some things clearer logistically.

Thank you so much! This is exactly the type of feedback I've needed. I hope to get the same lovely criticism for upcoming chapters!

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