Prologue - a novel in-progress

[Valandil]

Hello everyone. Over the past couple of years I have been working on a story that I hope will someday turn into a published novel. Up until recently it has only been a collection of ideas and characters in my head, but over the past couple of days I have actually begun to write some of the story. I submit to you here the prologue of the story and welcome any feedback that you may have regarding it. I am looking for as many diverse points of view as possible, especially since I assume most of us that play FFXI to be moderate fans of fantasy literature. It's a 4.5 MS Word Document. The two main concerns I have with the text are:

"Does the material make you want to read further?" and
"Can you the reader connect emotionally with the main character?"

I hope you enjoy and I look forward to reading your comments. Thank you.

http://students.ou.edu/M/Samuel.L.Mc-Gaha-1/prologue.doc

 

[Rinoah]

Well obvious place is to start with the puntuation and some of the grammar, but you probably realise this so i'll skip that...

I think for a prologue, it shoudl really be longer, and i think the way you could make it longeris by adding more detail about his surrounding. Not only would adding detail about the surroundings bulk it out more, it will also let people get into the story more as they get a clearer picture in their head and it will also cause less confusion.

I think you should work on skipping time...when you skipped from him running to him having caught up with the men, i was unsure if you caught up to them later that night or if it was 4 nights later.

My final point would be to change the sword fights slightly, because not only is it kinda unrealistic, how he manages to thrust his sword to the hilt through a man then pull it back out again (even ignoring the fact it would probably get stuck in the mans chest), and attack his friend who was right next to him before he has a chance to attack (and from the whole "what they did to the village, and them having sentries and such i got the impression they are professional swordsmen). Also i would suggest using "he ran the man through" so much...sure it was kinda dramatic the first time but after 3-4 times you kinda wonder if its possible to kill a man in any other way.

So those are my suggestions, but it was good and i enjoyed reading it. I wish you luck in writing it and getting it published, as i would enjoy having another fantasy series to read.

P.s. remember to include magic!