Would you please read the prologue of my teen fiction book and tell me your opinion?

Dear Reader,





This book is fictional, yet brutally realistic-at least in my world. Most of the characters are based off of people I know and most of the events are ones that I have been involved with myself. Delaney is me, Lily and Reese represent my two best friends, Anna and Kate. Some parts of us are exaggerated, some understated. And yes, they do attend public school while I attend private. The following are small bio’s for each of us and our pasts…





Delaney Burak:


Delaney Burak was born in Chicago, where all her family was. She was the first born to her parents who had been married for seven years. Her father was born in Ukraine and came to the US when he was 10 years old with his parents and brother. He spoke perfect English though and wore normal clothes, you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at him. His name was Alex and he was pale with dark wavy hair, a business man. Her mother was a sweet, pretty woman with straight, golden hair. She had grown up in Chicago with her parents as an only child. She was a model and movie extra in high school, then went on to be a fashion designer for children’s apparel, and soon after a professional makeup artist: a true girly-girl. Delaney had mahogany colored hair and was pale. She had sandy green eyes and stood about 5’ 4”. Her past had been filled with moves from Chicago, to Florida, to New York, and back around. But finally, after seven rigorous moves she and her family landed in Pine Estates, IL a wealthy Chicago suburb. Although her past wasn’t picture-perfect, she was cultured, intelligent, and mature for her age thanks to it. She would grew into a daring, yet wise young woman. When Delaney went to school she was never popular, or even close to it until she was about 10. She hung out with the plain, simple kids and enjoyed the naïve outlook on life they possessed and embraced it.





Lily Nash:


Lily was from a small farm-town in southwest IL where her parents were high-school sweethearts. She was the youngest of the 4 children. Her mother, Kelly, was a classy, confident woman with short blonde hair and wispy bangs. She knew the value of a dollar and a hard days’ work, but lived a life of luxury after she was married. Her father, Tim, was a big man who knew all about agriculture and farming. The two left their farm-town home and moved to Pine Estates when their oldest was 12 and have been in the same beautiful house ever since, about 10 years later. Lily had round, blue-green eyes and a perfect smile. She stood about 5’ 6” and had honey-colored wavy hair. Lily’s oldest brother caused some heartbreak to the family. As a teenager he began to rebel and got involved with drug use. Eventually his drug-use became drug-dealing behind the family’s back. Lily was never told any of this until she was 13 because at the time she was very young and couldn’t understand the complexity of the issue. Because of this, though, she never could have a close relationship with her oldest brother. She loved her other brother, though and they had a close relationship. This shaped Lily into a concerned, caring young woman who did her best to put her morals before her own desires as she grew up. When Lily went to school she was always popular and hung out with the pretty girls with lots of money who weren’t always the sweetest.





Reese Beckett:


Reese was from a small town in Oklahoma where life was lived a lot simpler and easy-going was the attitude. This, however, did not match up to Reese’s personality at all. Reese’s mother, Maureen (Mosie) was a sophisticated woman with chocolate-colored hair and a whimsical flair about her. She came from an Irish-Catholic family, classic American. After moving to Pine Estates, she opened up her own flower shop and it turned into a booming business. Her father was Mr. Beckett, a nice man with round glasses, and salt n’ pepper hair. Reese had one brother, but was the ultimate princess of the family. Reese had her mother’s chocolate brown hair and icy blue eyes. She had big, naturally red lips and was about 5’ 5”. At school Reese started out small. When she first moved to Pine Estates from Oklahoma the kids hated her and called her mean names but by the time she graduated elementary school she was the top of her game, hanging out with the most popular girls in school. Reese became a young woman full of enthusiasm, energy, and humor. As she grew, she became a person with solid morals and tried to keep them in the forefront of her mind.








This is our story.|||I like the idea - I'm guessing these three teens are going to meet somehow - and assuming you write as deeply as you describe them, I'm sure it will be very good. However, it reads far more like a character profile than a prologue and is unlikely to hold anyone's interest. Your characters have obviously been well thought out but try to slip in little details into your work, instead of writing thick paragraphs of description about them.





Good luck.|||To be honest this is not a prologue, but a character description. If you want to hold the attention and interest of your reader you would be better off starting with a prologue and then introducing your character. Just a thought, hope I have helped you. Your descriptions are quite detailed and this is a good thing, so long as you don't carry on too long with them. Good luck!!!|||First of all, this is NOT a prologue. These are character descriptions. This would not be good to use as the opening to a book for several reasons. First off, you are telling an not showing. You shouldn't just TELL the reader that a character is nice, sweet, funny, etc. you should allow the reader to discover it for themselves by reading about their nice, sweet, funny actions throughout the story. Also, the way you simply reveal each characters entire life story means that the reader will have less interest in the story as there simply isn't anything to discover. A prologue should introduce the story and the characters, and you have not introduced anything about the story.





That being said, the premise for your story is also a fairly bad idea. The way you are writing will most likely result in Mary Sues. A Mary Sue is basically a "perfect" character that the author likes a lot but the reader finds boring and annoying because of their perfection. One type of Mary Sue is called the "Author insert Sue", which is when an author bases their character on themselves or a friend, also known as what you are doing.





Think about this. do your friends know that these characters are based on them? Will you ever tell them? Might they find out? The answer to at least one of these is probably yes. And because of this, you will not want to give them any flaws. For example, if you make your character Reese insecure about her looks, then your friend Kate (or Anne) will assume that you think that SHE is insecure about her looks or that she should be (ir, you think she's ugly). So you won't want to do that to your character to protect your friend. Because of that, you won't give the character any flaws. People do not enjoy reading about perfect, unflawed characters because they are BORING.





I advise taking a step back from this story and spend some time working on short stories and such to build up your style and writing ability before diving into a big projec tlike an entire book. If you want to write about your life, that's a good way to get practice, by ACTUALLY keeping a journal and writing about things that happened to you in creative ways, like writing a conversation you had from the other person's point of view, or writing a "what if?" short story about your life (ie "What if I found out my best friend was a spy?" or "What if I found a million dollars, what would I do with it?") Practice more, and then try a whole book. Also, reading published books to understand how things like prologues should flow with the rest of the story will help.