Novel Treatments / Portal: The Prolugue

A cliché … your eyes

I would rewrite this as:

They say that just before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Some things are clichés for a reason.

so they may die without bemoan – without bemoaning the fact.

My second observation / question is: from what POV are you writing? How does your narrator know that everyone asks the same question before they die?

Also, here – Those same questions were asked by many before death and all lead to a simple answer; yes or no. – you say that many people ask these questions, but just above you say that everybody asks the same question. You need to be consistent.

Meaning that … difficulties everywhere they went – These people die regretting the things they have done, the hurts they have caused throughout their life.

Then there was the other answer – Then there is the other answer. Watch your tenses.

This answer is … was meant. – This is usually a trick played by the mind to allow the dying person to find peace in his last moments. Very occasionally, it is true.

This same question with the same answers floated about in a young boy’s mind that was on the verge of death, a boy by the name of Dimitri. He was just becoming conscious to the world and debating with himself of which life he led, one of honor or the other. How he hoped not the other. . .
- A young boy, Dimitri, lay on the verge of death, and the same final question nagged at him. What kind of life had he led? One of honor? Or the other …

This is an interesting beginning, but there are a few issues with your style and grammar (as you said). Your prose is a little clumsy at times – you seem to struggle to get your meaning across in a clear and simple way. You do have a lot of potential, though, so keep writing. That’s the best way to figure out your strengths and weaknesses.
        

Make this more concrete and active. Instead of the narrator going on about what many people do and think, tell us what the character is thinking. It sounds almost like the begining of a nineteenth century Russian novel. Make it more modern. Going on about “many people” doesn’t tell us much and it is, frankly, boring to read. This does not mean that your story is boring; at the very end we are finally given a character, a young boy about to die, or at least we think he is about to die, and that suddenly creates interest and suspense. Open it up with the boy’s thoughts. You don’t have to tell us that they are thoughts of a young boy. Just rewrite the beginning as though we are in someone’s head as he contemplates the worth of his life. It would give us insight into Dimitri’s thinking and introduce us to him, and you would establish the character from the very beginning.

There needs to be a lot of rewording for this prologue because if you’ve read other, older, more experienced novelists, then you should know that they do no simply come out and say something: they come out and make you feel something, see something, experience something.  So if you’re seeking to get published, it’ll be those very same novelists that you’ll be up against.  I truly believe that you have some good questions here and a good topic, but dress it up, express it. Good luck.

To be honest, you have to add alittle more detail to this first chapter.  Draw the reader in, leaving off at a boy named Dimitri, who the reader has no connection to doesn’t make your reader want to continue.  

You also might want to besure that you are using the correct POV, for at certain instances, you switch between 1st and 3rd.  

Ex.
“Yes, my life was worthless. Meaning that person died regretting everything they had ever done,”

This is sort of disorienting to readers, breaking their flow.  surrounding the first part of the quote in ”” would signify POV’s without throwing of readers.  This has potential, but you must revamp how you want to convey your ideas

  I understand the concept you’re going for, so I give you credit for that.

  While I don’t believe that any life is completely worthless, I can understand a person feeling that way about themself.  I think the premise if fairly depressing.

  Perhaps a way to make it suit your needs is to show Dimitri’s sadness and feelings of worthlessness instead of trying to get too universal.

This is a good start.  It definately draws the reader in with a nice hook, of why the young man in on the verge of death and why he is contemplating these things.

In the way of grammar.  I think you are okay with this.  There are few places that I would have put commas, but to be honest with you I think that they are more in the way of style rather than rule, so I will not point them out.  Except, for the one that should go before the word so in this sentence….   issued from the brain so it can trick

This is a great beginning. It peaks interest by speaking truth.

It is a great start to a novel.

I would have gone a different way, not a boy near death, whom we can already assume survives. I would have it be the dying second of an old person’s life, where they are given a chance to go into those memories, to trick their mind, or not. You could linearly develop your character with snap shots from their life. You could create a real character who we love and hate, but understand.

The problems I see are…
Yes, my life was worthless…This phrase seems out of place, considering it jumps to first person and then jumps back to the narrator. Also, that middle part need to be reworked and separated into 2 paragraphs.

Okay, this got me interested, and that’s a good sign. You missed a few commas, one in the second sentence, after ‘death’, just for an example. One part in this bothered me, and it was the second to last sentence. “He was just becoming conscious to the world and debating with himself of which life he led, one of honor or the other.” I guess you could say, instead of ‘which life he led’, ‘which life he’d led.’ It’s a small change, but it makes it sound smoother to me. This was very promising, and whether or not you take my advice, i enjoyed reading.

I think that the last sentence of the first paragraph should either be deleted or explained a little further. As it is, there is no substantiating evidence for it being there.

I am not scoring on your goal as there isn’t really enough here for me to judge that.

You change tenses in places, you need to watch that.

I don’t know how old Dmitri is, but, most people under the age of, say, thirty don’t even think about what kind of life they have led. Under the age of ten they haven’t even really led a life. Having said that, depending on his age, why would a young boy be thinking if his life had been worthless or meaningful in the lives of others, even as he lay dying?

As a prologue it is starting out good. Don’t give up on it.

Okay to me this is a little short for a prologue it should be a page of introduction about the main character and where he came from, perhaps a little information of what he would want from life.  To me this also seemed like it was the middle of the prologue.  

Usually a Prologue is a bit of background information on the character and the start of the story leading into chapter one.

I’m not great at grammar either but I couldn’t find any.  

I hope I was of help.  Try fleshing it out a little I’d like some background information on the main character maybe some family information ect.