11/11/25 IHadAThought - Guide to being bad -prologue

[Myst He/Him]

This isn’t anything special, just a conversation between a dad and his daughter, but hopefully it reveals more than that.

[Appol PhD they/he]

Congrats on your first submission! It's a big achievement and I remember being super nervous my first time (genuinely lost some sleep), and while I don't know for sure how new you are to getting your work critiqued as a whole if you are new I can assure you it gets more fun over time!

I'll preface this by saying that the formatting looks a bit weird on my end, with 6 pages but the only text being on page 4. That's what I'll be looking at for now. 

The part that catches my interest the most here is the general topic of what villainy looks like and the potential toll it takes on the father. Given the title of the story it seems like that's going to be a central focus so I that's a great thing to have locked down right off the bat! I can see lots of ways that both practical dangers and moral elements could complicate the relationship between father and daughter in a good way. 

On the constructive side, my first comment is that a prologue that's just a conversation is going to be a hard sell. It means we don't get a great sense of the world, and more importantly it doesn't show us why this is important. It's pretty easy for a father to talk to a daughter so it feels like what we're seeing isn't all that special. I also need a bit more from the characters; it's hard to glean much from them other than the basics. My rule of thumb for a conversation is to ask what we get from it that we wouldn't from a short summary of it, and right now I don't have a clear answer with this one. My other comments here are that this could use a pass-over for punctuation, and that there's a lot of emphasis on adverbs and exclamation points that are usually considered weaker in terms of writing. 

Best of luck moving forward!  

[Paul SB]

I like the idea of a prologue that is less than a page. Lots of people skip prologues altogether, but one this short won’t scare anyone away. Normally I would say something about the almost complete absence of description, but for this the solid dialogue works. There honestly isn’t much I would change. It’s an intriguing little setup.

 

In the first line your protagonist says “want to” but then says “wanna” consistently after that. At that age you wouldn’t expect consistency, though. Do fix the spelling of indignantly.

 

If she just said she doesn’t want to go to bed, suggesting a nap isn’t the best choice. Maybe he should offer to read a story first, or go outside and look at the moon and stars?

 

“You make others’ mothers die” — Capitalization, but also “others’ mothers” sounds cool but not like a 5-year old. Other people’s mothers sounds better.

 

Dark red hair, as in auburn?

 

It’s been a long time since my kids were 5, but I don’t remember them talking about what they want to be when they grow up at that age, and I suspect Piaget would agree. Make it 7 and it will seem more real.

 

Proofread! — You have a ton of misplaced punctuation.