I'm writing a story [more like attempting]. It's entitled Obscure. I would more than appreciate some feedback (:
Obscure
Prologue
I see the shadows that others don’t care to know of. If only they realized the importance, maybe they’d think differently.
There are shadows in books, in the spine. In the place you can stare at if you’ve literally got your face in a book. You can see the darkness in the crease, but you’ve never paid much attention. There are hidden words there that no one can seem to read, save me. Those words could have changed so many lives had they not been ignored.
Once, the words could have warned Mrs. Lauren Russel about her son’s accident. She was reading Catch-22 as David Russel was hit by a car and killed instantly. Words from the spine screamed, Don’t let him go to baseball practice! Of course, they were not heard, and Mrs. Russel mourns her twelve year old boy’s loss.
If Mariah Hewitt had been attentive enough, she might have heard those hidden words, the obscure, tell her to lock her front door. Instead, an intruder easily broke in while she was reading a book for her English Literature class. She was raped in her dorm, stabbed twice in the chest, and thrown into a lake, her body unrecovered. She, like the obscure, had struggled to be heard.
And, when I was younger, I failed to heed the warnings from my small children’s book. On the cover there was a drawing of a monkey and giraffe. Inside it told a story of jungle friends. Much deeper within it held the key to saving my sister. I ignored that key, and managed to lock the door of Amelia’s life.
Chapter 1
I stand in the shower, allowing myself that blissful, if short, moment. In that moment I’m deaf, but for the sound of the rushing water. I’m numb, but for the hot sting of droplets flying from the showerhead. I wish my burdens would evaporate with the steam.
Dripping with water and fatigue, I exit the shower. I wrap a towel around myself, although it’d be fine if I went out nude. There’s no one else in this house to see me. There hasn’t been in years.
Yes, it does get lonely. But that fact does not bother me, I’ve been alone all my life.
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I think the formal, serious tone you take in the prologue serves it well—gives it a real sense of foreboding, which contrasts nicely with the apparent normalcy of the shower scene. Although I will say that a "shower scene" opening is a little overused, I think it's also true that it can be done in a unique way. Just something to watch as you go along.
ReplyDeleteThe concept really intrigues me, and that's another thing the prologue does well—introduce the mystery and danger quickly without over-sharing. It whet my appetite, which gives you more flexibility with how you use chapter one, I think. You've already got the reader hooked, so you have more room for backstory/establishing context/etc. Not that you should go overboard and make chapter one into a giant info-dump; just that you have that added freedom because you handle the prologue well.
Nothing jumps out at me as being deeply flawed. I think this is definitely a solid start, and something worth following.