A prologue that I read recently has provided endless inspiration for me.
I’ve studied it many times, deconstructing the composition and trying to pinpoint what impacted me so strongly. The scene that is depicted seems innocuous; a sunny day in a park, families milling around, but the narrator is focused on several individuals apart from the seemingly ordinary setting. Ever so subtly, the narrator describes an almost imperceptible pall that comes over the scene, creating an uneasy dread in me. In less than four hundred words, the author had set the mood and rendered this reader unable to resist turning the page. Read more