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@allison-grace

So, here are my main points about your prologue:

• Length/Pacing:

It’s quite long, but the story doesn’t drag down in any places or become repetitive. In fact, I would say for what you’ve written, the length is nearly perfect, and along with your excellent pacing, it holds up nicely.

• Prose:

I like your prose. While it doesn’t have a super strong voice(Think Dianne Wynne Jones vs. C.S. Lewis, you can always, always tell who is who.), it’s not to lacking in uniqueness nor detail. I like how you added a bit of a humorous twist to the first part, having Joshua laugh and wonder what his sister and friend are doing in his room like a couple of ghosts. It adds to his character.

Also, I like the fact that your prose is simplistic and clean, without much excess dialogue/action. That alone really helps move pacing along in books.

• Characters:

I don’t know about you, but I was immediately drawn to the elf mentioned in the story, partially because A.) the style of writing suggested at first this was a more realistic fantasy, until–boom! An elf! And yay! Also, B.) the elf is introduced in such a way that not only make me curious about why they would call him a “trustworthy” elf(are there non-trustworthy elves? Why so? What’s the human-elven relationship? If that statement was intentional, play on it. Use it.).

Not to mention Joshua’s character was presented well, in my opinion. I get the impression of a kind, brave, hard-working person with a sense humor but who knows when to be serious. I’m also picking up hints of some juicy family history there with Damon trying to take over the throne, and his sister Beka choosing to support Joshua instead of Damon. (Also, I’m not sure it you realize this, but Damon is also the name of a MC is the series Twilight. So it’s totally awesome and hilarious that you used that name for who I’m guessing is going to be your main antagonist.)

• Clarity:

It is pretty clear from the beginning on that this is fantasy, just by the way you introduce us to the world–not  only do you give us the land’s name, but you describe Beka and Giark as wraiths and specters. I don’t know about you, but that immediately labeled it “fantasy” for me.

Also, the writing is clear and neat, thank you for that. I’ve read way to many books that I can’t barely follow along because the writing is so rambled and incoherent.

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And now to go on to the things that I think could use a bit of changing–

Joshua calling his horse “buddy.” Now, normally, it’s fine to call a horse buddy. But Joshua’s not just royalty, he’s a king. People like that grow up with ingrained speech patterns and uses that are different than a normal person’s, because of how and what they need to learn. We learn math and physics, royalty learns how to address a crowd and swindle a duke out his money. So unless Joshua is a bit of rebellious little dude and snuck out to play with common folk when he was a kid, I’d doubt he’s call his horse something like “buddy.” Perhaps a nickname would be better, like Charger(a warhorse or eager horse), Fox-Face(sly one, theif), etc…. I’m just throwing out random nicknames here.

The elf’s name. Yes, I know, you’re trying to make him sound elvish. But the thing is, I saw his name, and immediately thought–Lord of the Rings. You know? His name just sounds really Lotr-y. Now, if you’ve got a good reason for his name to be Glendale, keep it. But if not, and you just picked it because you liked it, consider what your version of elvish sounds like. If you haven’t got that far, look up different languages, decide which fits your elven culture the best, and then base it’s phonetics off of that language. Then, choose elven names that sound home to that language. For example, if you were to base your elven language off of… oh, say Russian, you could name you elves something like: Ruska, Mashti, Rjournec, etc… (and don’t just base off of me. I am by no means a professor.) And if you chose Japanese, names like Kazuka, Himitora, and Nimishiya would work.

Character description. While I understood your settings quite well, I didn’t get as much on the characters, other than Giark is an old man. Maybe work character description in a bit more, unless you have a reason to keep it a secret?

And now. That being said, great job on you prologue! I hope some of this helps. 😉