Hello, DMT - THANK YOU WRITE.COM

What I liked

The opening paragraph had a cool hook about fighting.

I like that Jake is a proactive character who clearly has been in lots of fights. I also like the mention of a General, which shows me that there's some kind of organised war going on between different kinds of vampire. There's lots of great conflict in this from the get go.

What might need work

Jake wasn't a particularly sympathetic character. I mean, he appears to attack the other vampire for no reason, and we're not given any evidence to suggest that Jake is fighting for the 'good' side. As far as the reader knows, it might be better for us if the old vampire wins this fight.

It's a little confusing that within Jake's PoV he keeps on thinking of the antagonist as a vampire when he himself is a vampire. It's like me attacking a man and constantly reminding myself he's a human.

Jake’s pale skin quivered in the cold air and he bent his long, lean body -> it's a basic principle of punctuation that two independent clauses joined by a conjunction should be separated by a comma, unless both clauses are very small.

http://www.smart-words.org/linking-words/conjunctions.html

and spotted a silhouette of a man in the distance. -> sometimes it's difficult to decide between definite article and indefinite, but if the silhouette specifically belongs to the man, then a definite article must be used, ie. spotted the silhouette of a man.

As the shadow moved, Jake wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and trembled as the figure came closerCOMMA and the young vampire -> Don't repeat the same construction twice within a sentence if you can avoid it. Also, you appear overly fond of 'as' in this prologue, anyway.

worse than were-wolves and that’s saying something -> comma before conjuntion.

His victim was almost under the tree as he reached down to grab him. One more step; NOW. -> There are chronological issues here because you first tell us he grabs the vampire, then you SHOW it straight after, but the showing has come after the telling, which is not only repetitive, but also is jerks the reader back in time because they already know he's been grabbed, but then he gets grabbed again.

The vampire bucked like a stallion and Jake fell on the ground. -> like a stallion and threw/tossed Jake to the ground. -> maybe better?

Jake touched a scar under his eye and winched -> I think you mean 'winced'


Thank you for sharing!

Best wishes,

Bob :D




My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .