I’d stick to the small boy’s POV, but other people have said that already. One could get away with flipping between the boy and the man, even (I give a lot of leeway, and frankly if I were properly editing this I’d read it more times than I have today), but the Hannah POV is stretching things.

(I also have to point out that at first I completely misunderstood the purpose of this thread and thought we were playing “guess the [published] novel from its first page!” Yikes.)

“The bitch,” José muttered, slashing the dog whip across the rounded buttocks.

and specifically the detail of “rounded buttocks” it made me feel too complicit in the sexualized abuse and I had to stop reading. Now if that atmosphere is one you want to create, then you’re doing a good job. But if you’re writing a story about someone who is recovering from abuse and moving on with his life you might want to tone down the ick factor.

Changing POV: maybe some readers and editors tolerate POV shifts but that doesn’t mean you should aspire to anything less than excellent writing. If you’re not going to limit yourself to the inside of one character’s head you should work on omniscent POV and doing that well. Here’s a discussion on Deep Genre but I couldn’t find a good explanation on the web.

Starting with a prologue: I don’t generally read prologues. My reasoning? Why get all involved with this character that’s going to be taken away from me within a matter of pages? And then I have to get to know a new character (or incarnation of him or her, ie the 20 years later trick) anyway. And this is not a comment about you, but I generally find that prologues are a way for the author to be lazy and/or insert some favorite part of their worldbuilding into the final product. For the first, most backstory can be and should be worked in throughout the book and is more effective for it. And the second, it’s just padding.

And I am puzzled as to the rule to start with the action - why?

I don’t really think it’s a ‘rule’, but more of a guideline.

The one I go by is similar-start where the trouble starts, and it’s possible that what other meant when they say start where the action starts. Some reasoning behind that-if you start where the trouble starts, you’re less likely to bog the story down with heavy backstory.

I don’t think that’s an issue here, from what we’ve seen, but there’s a possible answer to your question. :)

I actually think this is one of the best first pages I’ve read on this site to date. Well done. I most definitely wanted to keep reading.

I’m of the mind that flashbacks work better in media res, so if I look at this as an excerpt and not a first page it works slightly better for me. Everyone and a half has been over the POV head-hopping, the awkwardness of the first sentence, etc. Those bothered me, but there were a couple of other suggestions that I’m not sure others have made yet, so:

1. We, the readers, always are one step removed from the action. Like began to breathe heavily, began to cry, began to hum, his arm was grabbed and he was pulled, etc.

Half of the problem is passive voice. It drones on and sounds boring when I know that the underlying action is, in fact, not at all boring. I would recommend that you cut out as much of it as you can. His father grabbed his arm and pulled him across the room.

The other half of it is your overuse of auxiliary verbs (to be + gerund, to begin to + verb, to seem to + verb). You used “began” SIX times on the first page, and only one of those times was it a stand-alone verb that worked well (When the screaming began), and even then, there are more effective ways to write that clause.

I think this lends to the problem of ‘telling and not showing enough.’

2. There are too many names in one sequence that mostly features just two people. I would find a way to make the scene solely about the boy and the father.

3. The small boy, hysterical with fear, wet the bed. Not only have you already said “the small boy,” the adjective is unnecessary. In fact, so is “hysterical with fear.” We as readers should know that without you having to say it. How about The boy whimpered and wet the bed. (I know, two w words, but I’m using a quick example)? There are so many adjectives that I don’t think you need in this scene.

You’ve kept the adverb count low, and for that, I salute you. Just don’t forget that adjectives can be overused, as well. (<–Passive voice is okay here because I’m not trying to be exciting.)

I think I would read on to see if the POV and verbiage improved, because it’s a powerful scene. But it’s so rare to see good prologues outside of a Tess Gerrittsen novel (the only author who comes to mind immediately when I think of good prologues) that I wonder if there’s a way to open on a suspenseful note and work this into the story a bit later.

Of the five or six first pages I’ve read here, this one was the best IMHO. It still needs a lot of work, but there’s always room for improvement.

Good luck!

Great work. Some excellent prose and imagery here. I do agree the POV should be tightened, but outside of that, it’s wonderful. Good luck!