Featured, Once upon a time entries
Tiffany Monique has found her prince, Once Upon a Time
Good evening from the Towers that were once a scant 30 miles from this very cove, before relocating to the land of the double-entundra, Moscow, Idaho!
We have a few more entries to post; after this, I believe one from Parisianne Modert, Barbara Keeling still remain. If you have not seen your story posted, please send me an email,(thorn@awordwithyoupress.com) and I will rectify that .
Tomorrow before midnight I will also announce the five semi-finalists. I do hope you are confident enough in your abilities that you have been preparing to send me the first chapter to your book. That, after all, has been the plan all along–to get you off Facebook and actually working on your novel or manuscript!
Here is an entry from Tiffany soon-to-be-married- Monique, our own associate editor and the one who makes sure you get our newsletter every two weeks! She has a novel started called Mylu, and this would be its prologue. Without further ado, let’s skip to Mylu, my darlings!
Prologue to Mylu
The Accident
by Tiffany Monique
Mom screamed, “Watch out!”
Unfortunately the crash happened before I was even able to register shock.
The last thing I remembered prior to that was the backseat of the car as we headed home. I turned around to watch the rear-window view of the dancing Pacific Ocean surrounded by the million-dollar-home encrusted cliffs of La Jolla. It has always been known as one of San Diego’s premier places for picture perfect sunsets, thus its name, the Spanish translation of “The Jewel”.
She and I had just enough time to lock eyes as I was sucked out the back of the car, through the glass, but not through the glass.
I was safe in the backseat with my younger sister – both buckled in. Lizzo was putting her lion’s mane of adorably manageable Afro-centric curls into a ponytail, like always. I think we were laughing about some random dude we saw riding his bike with the orange shorts from nineteen-seventy-oh-please-don’t-show-that-much-of-your-pasty-leg. Mom was on our case about being kind to strangers. The Dad-bot would’ve laughed if he had heard us, but he was too busy being pissed off for no reason. Dad being pissed off was what most likely what caused the accident, like he’d ever admit something like that, but hey, that’s my Dad. For all his testosterone, he landed my mother and I’ll never know how. Anyway, someone screamed out and he jerked the wheel hard to the left at 45mph, right into a tree.
Within the same instant, there appeared an explosion of light behind me. I thought I was going to die and whipped my head towards my sister just as I opened my mouth to scream. The light sucked me through the window and time stopped. I don’t remember pain. I just remember being yanked – right out of my life. I was pretty sure that K from Men in Black flashy-thing’ed the back of my head. I would wake up in a hospital days or weeks from now and the craziness I saw would be a great story to tell Oprah or the Syfy Channel.
I was inhaled through a door made of silicone skin and gossamer. Something that felt like denim and fleece anointed me with laughter and tears, and my skin shivered all over. I simultaneously loved and hated it. My eyes felt full of sand as I squeezed them shut and tried to adjust the pressure in my ears. I began to fall. I almost laughed as images of Alice and random white rabbits came to mind.
Liz watched me slip into the light and disappear. Her shocked, terrified eyes bore into mine, crystallized into a horrifying white-white after image. I hated myself for closing my eyes, but it was a reflex, as was my hand reaching out to hold on to her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tNXpnufLVkc
Rich with imagery and motion with highlighted voices of the past, the mystical accident happened before my mind’s eyes and between my ears, compelled me to read on. There is a paralyzing shock in such an accident of everything slowing down to counter-balance the horror unfolding. By giving us both speeds, thoughts woven around the thin line between family and being alone, between life and death, between darkness and light, Tiffany offers us plausibility of the accident entwined with the string theory of the next world, a portal so close to her sister and yet foreign.
The ending of this prologue leaves the authoress with several possibilities which is one of the keys to get the reader to turn the pages in-between and begin reading chapter one. Excellent story and writing Tiffany is my pronouncement.
Note to the Editor-In-Chief: You have me worried with now announcing twice that I still have another story when all three prologues I sent in have been published already. Am I getting Thorned or has my memory finally snapped?
Oops! It’s me…either Alzheimer’s or something I have forgotten
O, an Al-zen heimer, eh! Yuck, yuck, yuck. Great contest Thorn with or without so much on your printer’s plates all at once. The success of raising the funds for “Raw Man”, launching “Almost Avalon”, the radio spot from Vegas, your musical guest and all those interns to handle from the tower (my bad). A Word With You Press once again impresses! You added a lot to this as well Tiffany and thank you again for your written prologues and critiques.
Here is my favorite line:
I was inhaled through a door made of silicone skin and gossamer.
This succeeds as a prologue in that it piques interest for the book, makes us curious. I have a keen interest in near-death experiences, afterlife, etc. so want to read more.
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Another interesting thing is that the prologue reads like a memoir, but this could be a fictional sci-fi novel if she enters a portal…who knows. That also makes the reader want to go beyond the prologue. Good job staying very brief here to tantalize the reader…
Great beginning. Carried the promise of a really engaging story to come. I wonder, however, if the final two paragrahs, where Tiffany is REALLY cookin’ , could be the entire prolog.. You can let us know it is a car accident later.. I don;t mind being mystified for awhile..