Hey there! Before I start, I’m trying to make critiquing a consistent thing for me, so I have to work at it to become proficient. Which means that my critique here may not help, although I hope it does, in some way. I took a glance at this a few hours ago and came back to read again. My first thoughts on glancing through your prologue (I gave it a try, more than a glance—like I would with a book I’d pick up in a bookstore) were that I was confused on the 2nd paragraph when the POV seemed to solidify as Talitha’s POV instead of Slan’s. Also, my eyes glossed over the 4 paragraphs of description leading up to where, to me, this *really* starts:

>“Is there something you wish to ask, child?”

Now I’m here. Now characters are interacting and I’m interested. And the first hook, for me, was when Talitha asked the following:

>“Have you ever gone to the other side? Crossed the Veil?”

On a second look, it all seems to work, but first impression me did not enjoy the beginning of this. It’s not 

I’m glad my comments have given you something to think about and have helped you identify potential issues in the story’s subtext. I think your preferences are fine. I imagine if you made it so she felt inferior to an absolutely inhuman, gorgeous brown skinned character that could easily turn the trope on its head. Just don’t describe his skin like food :P

Heya! I wanted to thank you for your very in depth critique! You’ve also given me a lot to think about in how I will try to write POC (especially WOC) in the future since it wasn’t my intention to make the “white is beautiful and dark is not” comparison. But I can see how my descriptions could lead into that. I guess I do have a penchant for having my female characters feel “lesser” in comparison to the beauty of their male counterparts since that’s just a trope I like for some reason. But I can definitely see how that sort of view, especially with a female character of color, would be damaging. I’ll definitely keep your words in mind as I compose any of my future pieces :D

**THE THINGS THAT IRK ME: E.G., THE RANTS**

As I read through this text, two parts stuck me as a bit disturbing if not problematic. As I’ve said before on problematic elements, I don’t care to debate morality and I’m not here to tell you what to do with your story, but it’s useful to know how your story can come off to others. So consider this if you will, if only as pointing out a potential blind spot.

First: I really do not like the vibe that this story is going to result in a romance and relationship between Slan and Talitha. First, he’s obviously much older than her and he’s known her since she was a child, which gives me the biggest grooming vibes. Second, the degree to which she is obsessed with him (cataloging his appearance in this enamored manner) feels like a setup to putting them together later in the story, perhaps when she’s older. And like I mentioned, the grooming angle really makes that squicky for me. If you don’t intend on those two being together at all, then that’

Hello,

Thanks for sharing your prologue. I can be rather harsh with my evaluations, so fair warning — unfortunately I don’t think I have a lot of good to say about this, but for your sake I’ll lead with what I do enjoy. As always my opinion is only one reader’s experience. Others may feel differently, but hopefully my objections can assist you in writing future pieces in some way.

**THE GOOD**

I admire your prose. It’s easy for me to read and doesn’t demand a lot of work from my imagination to produce strong images in my head. I always have a good amount of appreciation when reading through a text where the prose doesn’t make me tear my hair out. The sentence’s sound feels solid too — it’s not particularly beautiful or musical, but it doesn’t sound like cymbals in my head either, which is surprisingly difficult to find. Your prose strikes me as polished and carefully doted over. You pace through the words and sentences and paragraphs with the mark of an experienced creator that spea

This is my first ever comment on this sub, so I've tried to do something probably unusual and critique sentence by sentence. I hope I do y'all proud!

**FIRST PARAGRAPH**

&#x200B;

>The fire that warmed Slán the Younger’s sitting room was quite an impossible one.

I'd give this opening line an 8/10. It immediately sets expectations for the reader with the word 'impossible', and it's about the length I'd want an opening line to be. However, solid opening lines captivate readers' attention for differing amounts of time depending on their exact content. This particular opening line loses effect once the fire is explained, which gives it an 'expiry date' of two sentences. Many authors strive for far more than this. Also if I were writing this, I'd remove the word 'quite' to add emphasis.

>Instead of autumn reds and oranges, flames of brilliant blues and greens and purples bloomed in his fireplace.

Good imagery, but - and I'll elaborate on this more later on - it must be used in moderati

**General Remarks**

I think the story is okay for a fantasy romance. I like the word choice in the story, althought sometime it can be redundanct. I don't have a pesonal romance experience, but I assume Slán and Talitha love each other. How or why they love each other is unclear. One problem that I found with the story is it was written in a fancy way, which from what I have learnt so far it's very dangerous to do so.

**Mechanic**

The title is okay for me, personally. But there is one thing very dangerous about a fantasy and romance genre: **there are too many of them**. While ther are many people love a story about love or adventure in a magical medieval world, there are also a lot of competition as well. So a title like "A Kind of Kindred" maybe okay, but it is also not really stand out from a thousands of the book with the same theme.

I guess the writer tried to impress the reader with a **fancy description** of the scene. From my presonal experience and study, this **will not w

Fantasy doesn't have to make sense. As long as you get what you want to say to your readers, that's all that there is to it. For example, poetry, a romantic poetry that is dedicated to speaking about yourself doesn't have to make sense but the "essence" of what truly is the poetry is for is something that must remain. It's the beauty of it. People can tell what is true love without even speaking about it, so does it go for poetry and so does it for writing.

Fantasy itself doesn't have to make sense, unlike sci-fi and the sorts. The creatures there don't even have to make sense. Not even the prose.

&#x200B;

You can begin. "Fires that warmed Slan the Younger's sitting room was quite an impossible one." And that's how you hook me in. You don't have to tell me about the fire, I just have to know that the Fires impossible.

So this is the prologue for a sort of fae inspired fantasy story I've been working on. Just wanted to see if it flowed well and was a good hook since I know that's important. 

[Here's my work](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bdB6xXYSJEcYM66ZgI5SwSFrHgf2rQPa5evixtyH0as/edit?usp=sharing)

And here are my Crits

[\[881\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/rwh7kd/comment/hruf8qb/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3) and [\[969\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/ro41hj/comment/hrua93n/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

Thank you all :DD

[708] A Kind of Kindred: Prologue