Crime, Thrillers & Mystery / Shoot to Kill Prologue

never start with so.  Show don’t tell.  Give us some description.  Don’t Just make the blanket assumption we know where and when we are, give us some background.  Who is the narrator?  How old?  Are we in NY?  (City or state?)  Most of all don’t tell… show.  have the class interact.  Show us that they were not interested, don’t tell us.  THe clown was the only clear image… give us more.  make the school look and feel drab and uninteresting and stop doing all the asides (the parentheticals) to the reader.  If you are going to say it, just say it… better yet, stay in character.  Something the character would not know (like what the school board thought)  

I suggest cutting the whole first paragraph. It’s a whole lot of needless narrative summary that only distracts the reader from the actual plot. Throw your readers right into the thick of it, start out with something to hook them in. I recommend starting out with the phrase written on the chalk board:

“NEW YORK: A HISTORY YOU DON’T LEARN ABOUT IN THE DISNEY MOVIES.”

Then just take it from there.

I also suggest losing a lot of the parenthesis. It makes the story feel cluttered. While it’s not exactly wrong to use parenthesis, you should avoid them unless you have no other choice.

Alright, there is a lot of narration going on in this story and not enough actual events. Instead of letting your narrator muse on Disney, it should get straight to the point. Briefly hint at the confusion then go on with the scene. As it is, the narration stalls the story, and that’s dangerous.

It’s also full of a lot of telling and not enough showing. What does the teacher look like? What does the protagonist look like? What does the classroom look like? Smell like? Sound like?

Without these descriptions it’s hard to actually put oneself into the story. Remember, if you don’t describe a decent setting you’ll lose the readers: No one likes imagining a bunch of faceless talking heads in a black abyss.

That said, it certainly has a good sense of mystery about it, and the narrator has a lot of voice. That is to say, this can easily be improved and I can definitely see it going somewhere with enough work.

Keep at it.

This is kind of a prologue of a story about somebody telling a story. I think you want us to be one of the students in the class and it works. What would be cool is while telling the story…have the students go to lunch and use that short break from the teachers story to let us learn a little more about the main character. I would read the first chapter…just to see what the teacher’s story will actually be about.

I think you have a good, unique writing voice.  However, I’m not sure this scene really establishes the sense of mystery and suspense that you will want to open your novel with,  especially the first sentence.  The first sentence talks about your protagonist expecting a regular, boring day.  You want to hook your reader right from the first sentence…right from the first word.  

I think I might start with Ms. Gallagher’s dialogue instead:

“New York has this whole history you never knew about,” she said…”It’s a whole history that no one will ever tell you about, apart from me and maybe a couple old geezers,” Ms. Gallagher said. “It’s filled with corruption and horror and crimes and all sorts of nasty things.”

This gets my attention right from the beginning.  What is it that’s so corrupt and horrible about New York’s history that no one has told me?  I want to know.  

From there, I’d continue on with the scene and leave the reader with an even bigger hook at the end of the prologue.  Set the stakes high. How is the protagonist going to be drawn into this mystery?  Make it clear what his or her involvement in the story is and that this mystery is going to affect him or her.

I think I might also trim down the part about the standardized tests…maybe to one sentence.  I think it’s important for the reader to know that this is an honors history class because that helps set the scene, but I don’t think we need to know quite so much the testing process.

This quote from Alfred Hitchcock helps me in trying to write only what the reader absolutely NEEDS to know.  

“A good story is life with all the dull points taken out.”

Hope that helps some.

Good job and I look forward to reading more as you continue to develop this story!