Sta.sh
We live in a world untouched by others. Magic veils protect our fragile world, it is unseen by those who seek it. If our world were to be discovered, many others would suffer.We call ourselves the gateway world. We are the anchor; release it, and the sea is yours.
Our people work hard to ensure our safety and that of others. Strict rules have been applied and we follow them religiously. The Council oversees all matters. Political involvement is extremely important to us. We take great pride in it. It is this pride which may have blinded us. We thought our world to be unbreachable. We were wrong…
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I like what you are getting across, and have a few ideas that may hopefully help. Overall
As a reader, I feel like I'm getting the information fine, but in some areas there may be more actual text than there needs to be to tell give an effective introduction.
"Magic veils protect our world, masking it; by
doing so we prevent invasions, which would lead to our destruction, and that of other worlds."
This actually has a grammatical inconsistency, but to the message first: this might be more effectively expressed with fewer words and a lighter sentence structure.
Example:
"Magic veils protect our world and others from the threat of invasion."
So, what I did was looked at "protect our world" and "masking it", and decided that it says the same basic thing twice. There is nothing wrong with the wording, but I look at the first few sentences as the most important real estate, and "masking it"(which might be fine in another chapter), should instead let your following anagrams like "we are the anchor" grab the reader.
In the second part of the sentence you can see a disagreement in the perspective. For instance, for the second part "by doing so" to be correct, the first part of your sentence would need to have already introduced the magic as something "we" are "doing", rather than just the noun of the Magic and what "it" is doing. See what I mean? If not I'll try another explanation.
OK next.
"We call ourselves the gateway world. We are the anchor; release it, and the sea is yours."
This is pretty, and I like the wording fine. The only question I have here is: Are both of these elements of flavor actually needed in a prologue or would one or the other be better as something that comes out within the story? If this were mine, I would be looking at these two things, leaving one in the prologue, and "growing" another idea or having it mentioned in dialogue within the story. You may gain more interest out of each if they were not right next to each other.
Of the second paragraph, I again think each of the facts of the civilization as important but also wonder how many should be in the prologue. Looking at each fact you are introducing, any one of them could be expressed in events within the storyline and be safely left out of the prologue. Not all of them, just some! That way you are making more use of timing in the story.
I gave 3/5 on technique and impact, because I sort of look for more in each idea you are presenting.
Hope the thoughts are helpful!
I look forward to reading more of it!
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