First two paragraphs of my First Draft of my Prologue. What do you think?

Question

Captain Zachary Marshal scanned the terrain surrounding the old industrial complex. The stars were hidden by the dense smog belching forth from the structure’s cooling towers. Keenly aware of the time, Zach needn’t look at his watch to know it was 10:32p. m. It had only been less than ten minutes since the last moment he thought about the time, but now that had better change. The foe he faced in the darkness would make short work of him if he didn’t get his act together soon. This was Zach’s tenth year working in Special Operations Division, and already he had tracked and captured hundreds of renegades in his career, but none quite like this. The Artificial Intelligence calling itself Omicron had come online about a year earlier, and in that short time it had crippled humanity: Turning almost all technology against humans and creating a race of self-aware Regenerative Bio-Steel robots to wage war on humans. The slaughter had been total, and there were so few survivors. Well, no one could be certain Omicron had only been active for a year, but it first announced itself publicly at that time.
When Zack had first joined Special Operations, ten years earlier, renegades were just robots programmed to do harm by their owners or by pranksters and hackers. Now the renegades were programed and designed from scratch by Omicron as nigh-invincible weapons of war. They came complete with Oxygen Destroying fusion grenades, laser weapons, and reality warping force fields. Omicron was the first artificial intelligence to be classified as a “Super-Intelligence”. Initially slightly smarter than a human, Omicron soon grew to be ten times more intelligent than any human. He created a new generation of self-evolving bodies for itself to inhabit. Each body evolved in a new direction with different morphologies and different force field generators.

Updates:

2 mo

Continued:
One by one, Zack had led Special Operations Division to assault and destroy each of the bodies, but there had been so many casualties. Now he was the only surviving member of the elite squad who had any experience fighting renegades. If he didn’t destroy Omicron now, he never would.

2 mo

I'll add more detail to each paragraph, and expand each chapter by roughly doubling or even tripling the amount of detail of each chapter. The target for the Prologue is 20 pages at font size 11 and single space. Target for regular chapters is 20 to 30 pages per chapter, single spaced font 11. Target for the entire first book will be ~600 pages.

Answer 1

scholastic_vibez

Xper 6

You might want to use a semicolon to link ideas in some instances. A semicolon is also good if you don’t want to repeat reason action verbs such as “because,” “so” etc. The writing website Owl At Purdue or the book Diana Hacker’s Rules For Writers can answer a lot of grammar questions. I had a professor who’d go over grammar with me, and she’d ask so much, “What are you trying to say here?” that I could see her face asking me that question when I was writing. So, when I used to tutor university students I’d recommend that they think of an imaginary version of someone they knew to ask them a question like that while they were writing. Sometimes you can also use aspects of rough ideas for your conclusion to be restated in your introduction to make it stronger. Lastly, sometimes you can find more grammar, and syntax to fix if you read your drafts in reverse from end to beginning than if you scrutinize it from beginning to end.

Wade8888

2 mo
Thanks. It's been a while since I actually took a formal writing course. In some cases the rules of the English language have been changed. For example, when I was a Senior in High School in Advanced Literature class, we were always told to use a comma before a conjunction but this is no longer considered correct. I've been putting a comma before conjunctions for over 23 years now, only to find out yesterday that grammar check considers that a mistake.
scholastic_vibez

2 mo
Comma are tricky. I was always a fan of the Oxford comma, the idea the you place it after words with pauses such as “And,” but it’s not as stringent in American English. I’m not sure who decided what’s out of date. I still say “amongst,” but if you write instead of among, it comes up incorrect in spell check.

Answer 2

Wade8888

Thanks. It's been a while since I actually took a formal writing course. In some cases the rules of the English language have been changed. For example, when I was a Senior in High School in Advanced Literature class, we were always told to use a comma before a conjunction but this is no longer considered correct. I've been putting a comma before conjunctions for over 23 years now, only to find out yesterday that grammar check considers that a mistake.

Answer 3

scholastic_vibez

Comma are tricky. I was always a fan of the Oxford comma, the idea the you place it after words with pauses such as “And,” but it’s not as stringent in American English. I’m not sure who decided what’s out of date. I still say “amongst,” but if you write instead of among, it comes up incorrect in spell check.

Answer 4

pizzapizzapizza

Xper 5

Renegades = Terminators
Zach = John Connor
Omicron = SKYNET

Wow. Amazing.

Wade8888

2 mo
lol. no, and no.

The Prologue villain actually has more in common with Mega Man X "Reploids" rather than the Terminator.

Anyway, Skynet needed nukes to bring down humanity. Omicron does it in one year without using nukes or other WMD.

You haven't seen the first battle of the book, otherwise you'd know Omicron's Alternate bodies would Razock the Terminator. As I described they have reality warp weapons and force fields, AND some of the latest generation of Regenerative Renegades are evolving telepathy and other Mutant talents. The only reason Zack can fight them is because he's very special, a Class Ten Mutant, but I don't want to give too much away just yet. In any case, Zack is going to be taken out of action at the end of the prologue. He isn't even the main character of the story... at least, his story won't be resolved for most of the series.

the entire book is not set in the future, nor on Earth, but the war between Omicron and the World Powers is going to be described in great detail eventually. Most of the story takes place on a Super-Earth called "Terra". I haven't even finalized what year the Prologue takes place in just yet, but it will be at least 2150, because I know it will take about that long to maximize quantum computing technology.

Answer 5

Wade8888

lol. no, and no.

The Prologue villain actually has more in common with Mega Man X "Reploids" rather than the Terminator.

Anyway, Skynet needed nukes to bring down humanity. Omicron does it in one year without using nukes or other WMD.

You haven't seen the first battle of the book, otherwise you'd know Omicron's Alternate bodies would Razock the Terminator. As I described they have reality warp weapons and force fields, AND some of the latest generation of Regenerative Renegades are evolving telepathy and other Mutant talents. The only reason Zack can fight them is because he's very special, a Class Ten Mutant, but I don't want to give too much away just yet. In any case, Zack is going to be taken out of action at the end of the prologue. He isn't even the main character of the story... at least, his story won't be resolved for most of the series.

the entire book is not set in the future, nor on Earth, but the war between Omicron and the World Powers is going to be described in great detail eventually. Most of the story takes place on a Super-Earth called "Terra". I haven't even finalized what year the Prologue takes place in just yet, but it will be at least 2150, because I know it will take about that long to maximize quantum computing technology.

Answer 6

OfDeath | 1.8K opinions shared on Entertainment & Arts topic.

Master

Special Operations Division - SOD 🤣
Ok, ok. Ignore me. It wasn't bad. It could do with refining but apart from that...

Wade8888

2 mo
Well, I couldn't think of any catchy acronyms, so I just went with Special Operations Division.

Zack is not really the main character of the story. I mean the book is ultimately about him, but most of the text after the prologue he simply isn't known by name and seldom mentioned at all, until the end of the entire series.

A class 5 mutant telepath is capable of life draining attacks, which is mentioned later in the Prologue.. Each class is up to 10 times as powerful as the class below. A Class 10 Mutant is capable of single-handedly conquering an entire planet of sentient beings. Zack is eventually revealed as the only living Class 10 Mutant known to exist, but again, he is taken out of action semi-permanently at the end of the prologue.
Wade8888

2 mo
Omicron won't be mentioned, by the same name, until the end of the series, when Zack will be seen again, but he is the main villain of the first and last books of the series.
OfDeath

2 mo
Cool. Sounds like you have it all worked out already.
Show All Show Less
Wade8888

2 mo
One of Zack's mutant abilities is the ability to absorb Oxygen and convert it to other elements to produce biomass. This is used to greatly amplify his strength and speed, as well as produce a Regenerative Healing Factor. He is not able to heal anywhere near as fast a Wolverine from X-Men though. Like a mortal wound Wolverine could "Meta-Regenerate" and heal in one or two seconds flat, but Zack needs about 10 minutes to heal from certain types of mortal wounds.

Intelligence: 145I. Q.
Strength: Peak Human base// 100 tons mutant form
Durability: Above peak human, Regenerative, but not Bulletproof.
Speed: Peak Human base, Super-Sonic at max potential.
Stamina: Virtually Unlimited at max potential.
Energy Projection: Considerable Abilities with multiple forms of energy.
OfDeath

2 mo
You could release a separate guide or make a website with the stats of all the characters.

Answer 7

Wade8888

Well, I couldn't think of any catchy acronyms, so I just went with Special Operations Division.

Zack is not really the main character of the story. I mean the book is ultimately about him, but most of the text after the prologue he simply isn't known by name and seldom mentioned at all, until the end of the entire series.

A class 5 mutant telepath is capable of life draining attacks, which is mentioned later in the Prologue.. Each class is up to 10 times as powerful as the class below. A Class 10 Mutant is capable of single-handedly conquering an entire planet of sentient beings. Zack is eventually revealed as the only living Class 10 Mutant known to exist, but again, he is taken out of action semi-permanently at the end of the prologue.

Answer 8

Wade8888

Omicron won't be mentioned, by the same name, until the end of the series, when Zack will be seen again, but he is the main villain of the first and last books of the series.

Answer 9

OfDeath

Cool. Sounds like you have it all worked out already.

Answer 10

Wade8888

One of Zack's mutant abilities is the ability to absorb Oxygen and convert it to other elements to produce biomass. This is used to greatly amplify his strength and speed, as well as produce a Regenerative Healing Factor. He is not able to heal anywhere near as fast a Wolverine from X-Men though. Like a mortal wound Wolverine could "Meta-Regenerate" and heal in one or two seconds flat, but Zack needs about 10 minutes to heal from certain types of mortal wounds.

Intelligence: 145I. Q.
Strength: Peak Human base// 100 tons mutant form
Durability: Above peak human, Regenerative, but not Bulletproof.
Speed: Peak Human base, Super-Sonic at max potential.
Stamina: Virtually Unlimited at max potential.
Energy Projection: Considerable Abilities with multiple forms of energy.

Answer 11

OfDeath

You could release a separate guide or make a website with the stats of all the characters.

First two paragraphs of my First Draft of my Prologue. What do you think?

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