Prologue Feedback Needed

[Lunamor]

A while back I posted a topic in Creator's Corner that was a short excerpt from a book/story thing I was writing. I've finally gotten around to finishing my first rough draft of the prologue and was wondering what people thought of it. Any feedback at all would be appreciated! The worldbuilding for this universe is still in progress at the moment, so everything is still really flexible. Specifically I'd like to make sure that nothing is too similar to other books/movies, that it makes sense/flows well, and that it is at least somewhat entertaining to read. I'd also appreciate any and all suggestions for a better title for the piece. I know that the one I currently have (World's Death) is pretty generic, but I'm awful at naming things and all the good titles are already taken. 

Prologue.pdf

Edited September 13, 2019 by Lunamor

[Chiberty]

Light of a Dying World

[FatherTiempo]

      I liked it.

    The story seemed original, I couldn't think of anything it reminded me of. I'm not sure about the name 'elumin'. It made me think of 'e' in the context of 'eBook', eBay, and 'eReader'. That could just be me though. You could capitalize it. I see fantasy authors doing that some of the time. I think Brandon Sanderson did that with his stuff like 'Soothing' and 'Breath'. I think it would add more importance to it. 

      I liked the setting, I was thinking of The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies' on that icy, snowy, stone thing, where Thorin and Azog fight. Only, yours was sunny and smoky, which was cool. 

      I definitely was hooked, and I wanted to find out how this was going to go down. Why was everyone dying? What is eluminessence? Why did the guy in the tree have the ability to get it back after it starting flowing out? Did he start this? Who was the woman? What's a Watcher?

      In the first paragraph, you said that '...He needs no name...' but the passage was in past tense. (you probably would have fixed that anyway, but I always have little things like that lying around in my stuff too. So, I thought I'd mention it) Some of your descriptions were a little wordy, but I end up going to opposite end and my descriptions are usually too vague, so I'm really not one to talk.

      I hope that this isn't too much, I just like giving out my opinions on random stuff .

     Again, it was really good. I definitely want to know how it turns out.

     @ChickenLiberty I like the idea of combining 'eluminessence' with 'Death of the World stuff'. 'The Light of the Dying' maybe?

[Rask]

That was good, especially the last sentence. The fact that the POV doesn't have a name was a little distracting near the beginning but the fact that he is the only 'he' in the piece means it isn't confusing. One thing I would advise is giving it a little more action, there's nothing wrong with the guy sitting in a tree but I found myself more curious about the stuff going on below then the stuff going on in his head. There was a whole lot of naval gazing.  

I assume that the rest of the story is either a flashback leading up to the catastrophe or the story on the survivors. Both those sound fun, if you need any more readers I'll always be glad to help. 

Good luck with the story! 

[Lunamor]

18 hours ago, ChickenLiberty said:

Light of a Dying World

I like it, thanks!

10 hours ago, FatherTiempo said:

      The story seemed original, I couldn't think of anything it reminded me of. I'm not sure about the name 'elumin'. It made me think of 'e' in the context of 'eBook', eBay, and 'eReader'. That could just be me though. You could capitalize it. I see fantasy authors doing that some of the time. I think Brandon Sanderson did that with his stuff like 'Soothing' and 'Breath'. I think it would add more importance to it. 

I had a lot of trouble with naming it cause it’s pronounced eh-luminescence but looks like eReader. The capitalization thing works really well to fix that problem, thanks!

10 hours ago, FatherTiempo said:

            I liked the setting, I was thinking of The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies' on that icy, snowy, stone thing, where Thorin and Azog fight. Only, yours was sunny and smoky, which was cool.      

Thank you, I’m happy you like it!

10 hours ago, FatherTiempo said:

            I definitely was hooked, and I wanted to find out how this was going to go down. Why was everyone dying? What is eluminessence? Why did the guy in the tree have the ability to get it back after it starting flowing out? Did he start this? Who was the woman? What's a Watcher?

Yay! I’m so glad you are interested in the story!

10 hours ago, FatherTiempo said:

      In the first paragraph, you said that '...He needs no name...' but the passage was in past tense. (you probably would have fixed that anyway, but I always have little things like that lying around in my stuff too. So, I thought I'd mention it) Some of your descriptions were a little wordy, but I end up going to opposite end and my descriptions are usually too vague, so I'm really not one to talk.

I hadn’t caught the tense thing, thanks!

10 hours ago, FatherTiempo said:

           I hope that this isn't too much, I just like giving out my opinions on random stuff .

     Again, it was really good. I definitely want to know how it turns out.

It’s not too much at all, that was all really helpful! Thank you so much for reading it!

10 hours ago, FatherTiempo said:

@ChickenLiberty I like the idea of combining 'eluminessence' with 'Death of the World stuff'. 'The Light of the Dying' maybe?

I really like that title too!

6 hours ago, Rask said:

That was good, especially the last sentence. The fact that the POV doesn't have a name was a little distracting near the beginning but the fact that he is the only 'he' in the piece means it isn't confusing. One thing I would advise is giving it a little more action, there's nothing wrong with the guy sitting in a tree but I found myself more curious about the stuff going on below then the stuff going on in his head. There was a whole lot of naval gazing.  

I’m happy you liked the last sentence, it was my first concept for the book and I built everything off it  

I’m glad the he things works out later on, I’ll try and make things a bit more clear in the beginning with that.

Alrighty, I’ll try to add some more action stuff in there.

6 hours ago, Rask said:

I assume that the rest of the story is either a flashback leading up to the catastrophe or the story on the survivors. Both those sound fun, if you need any more readers I'll always be glad to help. 

I’m going to write from the perspective of the survivors but might also do a flashback story as well. 

Thanks for the offer! I might post some chapters on here later depending on how long they get.

8 hours ago, Rask said:

Good luck with the story! 

Thank you, and thanks so much for reading!