Unique or Cliche?

I am planning to write a story ( don't know if it will be a long one but at least having 5 chapters and a prologue ), that is about pyromancy. Now that isn't relevant but i am still having a bit of trouble with the prologue. It's about the origin of the antagonist. Here's the idea:

I will start with 4 men fighting each other surrounded by ruins. They kill each other, then the 2 victors get stabbed in the back and they die. ( is this too sadistic?) Then one of the persons who killed them hear a sudden crying. Push away a pile of debris and find a crying baby, they take them with them ( not Pedophilia ).

Is this a bit too sadistic? Cliche? Or just straight up idiotic? Please address this.

Do note this is a prologue

 

It just sounds like a big mess.

I'm not a prologue fan, but if you're going to use one I feel like you'll need a good reason to have one. It's going to have to tie in well with the actual stort and help give us a reason to read it... not a reason to stop reading because you try to cram to much into the story before it even begins.

As for sadism you can do as much or as little as you want depending on the story and what kind of readers you want.

 

It's a bit more clean than that text i just crammed into each other there. But i can change ( or even cancel ) the prologue. Or maybe in a duel between the protagonist and the antagonist the antagonist can tell the story on the spot.

 

Not a fan of prologues, but that is a personal preference.
So I am in the same camp as @Lemie on that account.

Overall it is not too bad an idea to go with the backstory to
the antag/protag. No it is not too sadistic, not sure it really
counts considering there would not be any real suffering
at the expense of the killer's enjoyment.
Though you could always just have both protag and antag
POVs in the story and cover things that way, if you want.

 

If by the end you have tied up all of the loose ends and everything makes sense, then I think it works and need not be cliche

 

Without context, it's hard to say anything one way or another. How does it tie into the story? Who are the men? Why are they fighting? Who comes along and kills the winners afterwards? Why do they kill them? Why is there a baby there? Why do they take it with them? What happens afterwards?

But I will note that "cliché" isn't a problem in itself, though I can't think of many other stories that used that. Execution is what matters.

 

Prologue neutral person here. This just sounds like a fight scene with no context, or emotional investment. I'd probably just zone out if the prose wasn't good enough.

 

It's about a raid in some kingdom. And the fight scene depicts the soldiers skirmishing. And for the baby, it's a raid in a place where people live.

 

If the setting has already been established and the discovering of the baby wouldn't be seen as contrived but natural, then it might be all right. But as an opening, you wouldn't have had the time to do that, in which case, yes, it comes off as very cliche and contrived. Like, how is the fight and the baby related? They aren't, and that's the problem.

Also, your post didn't make any sense. There are 4 men fighting and they kill each other. Your words. That means, all 4 men die. Then the two victors (what victors? They're all dead) get stabbed in the back - you were just talking about a life-or-death fight and they get stabbed in the back. Is this supposed to be a literal stabbing of the back or is this a betrayal that leads to their deaths? Then one of the people who killed them - I'm getting awfully confused. Who's "one of the people", who are these "people" - are we talking about the 4 men who were fighting who were supposed to have died already? One of the people who killed whom? How many people were there who killed the victors, who killed two men, who now what???

 

But do any of the people (the men? the baby?) appear later in the book?

 

Only the baby ( antagonist )

 

And is there anything in the prologue that provides special information about the baby? I'm not, so far, seeing any function for the prologue.

 

I have actually written it cleaner. Only the post was a bit messy

 

This section feels overall irrelevant. You've got four characters who the reader doesn't care about and isn't supposed to care about taking over the early pages of the book, to serve a part of the villain's backstory which could just be said in one line later.

 

I think frontloading a character's backstory in a prologue kinda is a cliche, really.

More than that -- because I don't really care whether something's a cliche or not, frankly -- it just doesn't seem necessary. You probably want to start with this because it's ostensibly exciting. My wip opens on a fight scene too. I feel ya. The thing is that almost everyone involved in your opening fight dies, and by your own admission only the baby (who doesn't add to the scene or develop as a character 'cause ... baby) is relevant later on. So what does a reader get out of this scene? A fight between people they have no emotional investment in or knowledge of, who all kill each other for unclear/unimportant reasons, and then there's a baby, I guess.

So what's the point of it? What does this scene contribute?

 

I thought it would be an interesting addon to the story, do note that this is going to be explained later in the story.

On a side note, if the prologue is ( in this case ) bad. Will the reader find it totally shite and stop reading?

 

For me, it really depends on the wording of the prologue itself (and how it ties into the story later).

As a reader, if the prologue is a battle scene, I might think that the rest of the book will be filled with battle scenes (which are not my thing) and it might put me off unnecessarily if the rest of your book does not have battle scenes. On the other hand if your book is full of battle scenes then the prologue will be a warning to me that your book is probably not for me. Not because the prologue is shite, but because the subject matter of the book is not up my alley.

Prologues can be good if they are done well. For example, I love how Sue Grafton uses prologues in (some of) her Kinsey Malone (alphabet mystery) books. She dives right in with the POV of the protagonist in the prologues and they set the tone for the entire book.

I think that a common objection to a prologue is that they are frequently not done well and can often jar with the remainder of the book. Well, that is what I think anyway.

To answer your other questions, nothing you described sounds sadistic to me (although it depends on how you write it), and some people enjoy reading sadistic works anyway, so it depends on what you / your readers want.

Whether finding a baby after a battle is a cliche ... well I don't really think so, it could be an interesting back-story. Again, for me, it depends how you write it.

Good luck with it whichever way you choose to go.

 

You are worrying about it too much.

Why don't you enjoy yourself and write something rather than beating yourself up that it'll all read cliche or we'll think everybody's a paedophile because a baby cries? Or, for that matter, dragging WF into a prologue stew - when you haven't written a word.

This does tend to happen on writer forums - 'I'm going to write a ghost story but I need to wipe the monitor screen, should I use detergent or simply a damp cloth for my ghost story?''

 

I am worrying because i don't know what people will think about it, i don't know if my style is alright. If i'm being too aggressive with the deaths, if the setting is alright.

I actually do want to do something with this story, not let it stay there on my desktop until my dropbox account runs out and it will be un retrievable. I want to Do something with it.

 

So you have some words on screen, that's great. And it's about 7000, or much larger? And it has rested a while so can read over it with more objectivity?

You could stick the first 800 on here for crit..

Or I'll read a 1000 words if you're feeling self-conscious, PM me - or maybe a sympathetic fantasy writer...

Then two weeks/ a month from now - post away a submission - one copy to a fantasy competition, one to a sci-fi mag, one to an anthology. That's a way to go?

 

I did not quite understand this... Can you please make it a bit more clear please?

 

So you have some words already written on your computer? That's great.

And you have written about 7000 words? Or is your story much longer than that?

And has your story rested a while so can read it over and check your spelling?

...

You could place a section here on the writer forum for people to enjoy and assess?

Or, if you're feeling rather shy about things I will read a section of about 1000 words, just send me a personal message. Or maybe do the same thing with some other sympathetic fantasy writer, someone on the site that you get on with.

Then possibly - to set yourself a target - one of many things you can do, possibly in a month from now - post away your story as a submission -

- sending one copy to a fantasy competition,
- one to a sci-fi magazine,
- and one to an anthology. That's a series of ideas and a way for you to progress your project that is presently 'doing nothing' as you see it.

Or you might research self publishing through Amazon and self-publish your story.

 

Just a little piece of advice, starting the story off with a pacing speed-bump like a fight scene is almost never a good idea. Especially if it's backstory. Especially especially if it's backstory for a villain. Especially especially especially if it doesn't really contribute to the villain's role in the story.

Openings are hard. I'd always recommends starting us out in the story itself.

 

The "found baby" trope is very old-fashioned but I think it's also so old that lots of the new generations of readers will find it new and interesting It can work fine as a prologue but do you really need it? It's only a fight scene. Nothing interesting there, really. You can still have the same information at some other place in the book, that the baby is found, the guy who raised it is not the real parent. You can even have a scene where this is revealed as a surprise. It's more important to decide if you want the reader to know in advance that the baby is a foundling. That may change the reader's experience. What's the point of this whole baby thing? How would the story change if the baby is a foundling, or if it was this guy's real child? As long as it means something for the plot, you're fine. For example, in Star Wars, the wise mentor could have told Luke that the Antagonist is his father, but he didn't. In that episode it didn't matter for the plot who the father was. In another episode, we did learn who Luke's father was but then that also had important influence on the plot (Luke stopped fighting, etc).