My Writing Journal

I have pasted the prologue from my WIP below. It is a time-split novel set in wartime Brisbane, Australia and also Leura, New South Wales in 1968, and Northern California in 1951.   It is the story of two women, Vivien and Katherine, and the American serviceman they both love.  The story may have a  happy ending but then again it may not. I know how it ends but my readers will have to wait to find out.

The reason I am posting this short prologue is because writers who read my blog  have expressed an interest in reading a sample piece. I hope you enjoy the prologue below.

On prologues: Keep them short, a page or less, if you are going to write them. A modern reader does not want to read pages and pages before Chapter One. I am not sure I will have this prologue (or any prologue) in my completed manuscript.

Prologue

Brisbane, October 1944

 By the time the young woman walked halfway up the drive the drizzling rain started to beat down and the sky was darkening.  She straightened her headscarf and hurried on, the pea gravel hard under her wedge sandals. The high hedges hid the house from its neighbours and the smell of night jasmine from unseen gardens saturated the warm air.

Ahead, at the end of the long drive, was the dark outline of a weatherboard house with a spacious verandah and a garden, faintly discernible, filled with budding azaleas: red and pink, and rain-drenched.

The woman, despite her confident bearing, hesitated at the front door. Opening her handbag she took out a small torch and checked the brass name plate of the house. Reassured she was at Ashburton, she unknotted her headscarf, shook out her damp hair, and as if thinking of something else she rang the doorbell.