As a mid-morning sun casts rays across a flowered meadow a young teenage girl hops and skips through the flowers.
Every flower is a rose, growing in groups of the same colour. There are large groups of red, of white, of orange, lavender, coral, and blue… every colour imaginable.
At each new batch the girl stops to inhale the wonderful scent. “Lovely.”
She’s only young, perhaps in her teens, with long silken hair that flows freely. This is Princess Suri and her fair skinned and wide eyed beauty is matched only by her loving personality.
Her hair seems to dangle in her way, so she twirls the fingers of one hand and, through skills she learnt at her Kingdom’s School of Magic, her hair ties itself back in a delicate braid.
At each grouping of flowers she delicately and carefully picks a single rose. The roses are bundled together in a wrap of cloth to avoid the thorns.
At the farthest side of the meadow she comes across a new colour. Grey.
To begin with she seems delighted. Princess Suri loves to find and meet anything new. Already she’s said a fond, “Hello,” to every creature she’s come across in the meadow, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.
When she scents the grey flowers however, she detects no smell. “How strange,” she says, aloud.
“Not strange at all,” comes a voice from behind her.
Princess Suri whips around to see who spoke to her and finds herself staring at a tall and very thin man with grey skin who stands some distance away in a grouping of yellow roses. He’s so skinny he looks more like a skeleton than a man, and his crooked teeth give him a smile that ill fits his face. Still, Suri remains as friendly as she has always been.
“Hello there,” she says with a beaming smile. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Suri of the Searock Kingdom.”
“The princess… a pleasure Your Highness,” responds the grey man. He bows his head momentarily. “May I approach?”
“Of course.”
The grey man steps forward, and as he does, the yellow flowers he passes through all lose their colour, becoming the same dull grey as his skin. He weaves a long, grey path to Princess Suri. When he reaches her, he kisses her hand as she marvels at the way his touch altered the flowers’ colour.
“How did you do that?” she asks.
“Would you like me to show you,” he enquires with his crooked grin.
“I would, yes…” comes Princess Suri’s eager reply.
Please excuse any typos I may make here. I have an eye infection and the ointment means that I am barely able to see what I am writing.
This is a nice prologue and does work well to create interest in what will follow. Lorraine did a great job of picking up most of my observations, but I do have a couple of suggestions.
I see that you are using UK English spelling ('grey', 'colour', etc.) Unless you are planning on publishing locally, I would suggest switching to standard American English. For the purpose of maximizing markets, almost all publishers are going to request American English, even those based in the UK elsewhere in the EU. I am an American citizen who is a permanent resident of Sweden, and over the years have shifted my spelling to EU in general and frequently run into this problem myself.
You have a lovely setting here and I think that you could give it added depth by adding one or two other senses to your description. Since you are dealing with roses, smell is an important one. As Lorraine pointed out, you are using contrasts very well. You mention thorns. Might the texture of the petals be a counterpoint that adds a tactile layer of senses? You use 'mid-morning sun'. What effect does the light at that time of day have on the colors? What season? is there still dew at this time? Are there birds around? I am not asking for specific answers to these questions, but showing the kind of questions that you can be asking yourself as you create your setting.
"she marvels at the way his touch altered" -- You have two tenses in this sentence. I believe that "altered" should be "alters" in this case.
"This is Princess Suri and her fair skinned and wide eyed beauty is matched only by her loving personality." -- Remember the rule of "Show, don't tell." The gray man recognizes her through her introduction, and we find out from him that she is a princess. I would suggest letting her actions show her personality.
The first several paragraphs are closely enough linked that they could be combined into a larger paragraph that adds to the flow of your prose.
In my first comment to your question, I mentioned that prologues don't work many times. I think that you pull this one off very well and make it work for you. Good job. I think that you are off to a fine start here and am curious to see where this leads.
Finally, one of the tricks I use is to work a section (such as a prologue or a chapter) into shape and then put it away and not look at it again for at least a week. Wait for your memory to settle and then read it again. It is amazing how often I am positive that I included something that just isn't there when I read it with fresh eyes, or I discover missed opportunities for description or action.
Happy crafting,
BanWynn
Many thanks, Lorraine, I've read this many times but didn't pick these up. Great, I'll correct them immediately.
As a prologue, this sets up the story well. You have light and dark, colour and greyness, perhaps good and evil (though we don't know that for sure). You leave it at a point where the reader is shouting, 'Don't do it!' which leads them on into the text that will follow.
groups, groups, grouping... find another word.
'a young teenage girl'... 'She’s only young, perhaps in her teens' - repetition
'fair skinned and wide eyed' - these are compound words and should have hyphens:
'fair-skinned and wide-eyed'
'This is Princess Suri' - who is saying this? It's someone standing outside pointing at the picture, and is incorrect.
'her Kingdom’s' - unless she is naming the land, 'Kingdom's' is not capitalised. Here she is referring to the geographical realm in which she lives, not to Searock Kingdom (which I assume is its title). if Searock is the name of the kingdom, then again the capital isn't necessary; it's merely stating that Searock is a land ruled by a king.
'Princess Suri whips around to see who spoke to her and finds herself staring at a tall and very thin man with grey skin who stands some distance away in a grouping of yellow roses.' - you must break this up with punctuation; a comma after 'her' would do.
'The princess… a pleasure Your Highness' - you need a comma after 'pleasure', and a capital 'A', because the ellipsis finishes the first phrase like a fullstop. It implies a trailing off, which is a form of ending.
'Would you like me to show you,” he enquires' - question mark missing
“I would, yes…” - I'd lose the ellipsis here, because she's sounding eager, so wouldn't trail off.
Hope this helps.
Lorraine