Yet another long post. Sorry.
I think I wrote 3-4 really bad novels before I started writing anything worth the effort. I look back on them now and feel they were juvenile. Yet, I don't regret writing any of them. It is all part of the process of learning your craft.
I don't think those novels are bad; you just realize that they don't work, but that's another thing and, as you say, you discovered it as you wrote and improved your writing.
The fact is that in a creative process several things happen and they are all linked to each other; the brain of each person has a lot to do with all this, of course, and therefore it is recommended to have an open attitude. But, in any case, having a mind restless about learning does not guarantee anything either, since it is also true that some of us are slower than others to deduce some things. Which obviously also happens with our writing. It evolves as we practice it but it does so at the speed of each person. In addition, these supposed rules serve some more than others.
What can we do then?
We already know that reading a lot and everything, hopefully canonical works, is the other oar we need to advance as writers. It is even logical: if we think of the brain as a network of associative matrices, it will obviously create more connecting synapses the more rich ingredients (literary references that is) we provide. That is why I say works of the canon; no trash. Even in the Bible itself we have the case of Joseph of Egypt. Well, he's not an orphan, but he's an excellent example of bildungsroman anyway.
The point is that reading gives us bases for comparison. That is why as we write, and read, we begin to notice the cracks in our imaginary boats or finally we begin to develop certain techniques that allow us to say: "yes, this story works better than the other one" precisely because our ability of comparison is larger. And well, if someone says: "then, why aren't all librarians great writers?", well, the answer is very simple: because not all librarians write. Also, this is like chess: many of us know how to play it, obviously, but on the other hand, greatness is something else. That's where each person's own talent comes in. And yet people endowed with a great intellectual capacity, or a brain that seems to come with that mental agility already from the same factory, still do not take advantage of all that talent, perhaps because they are lazy or do not have enough determination to reach an objective.
Head broths is a Spanish expression.
It refers to when you give too much thought to an issue that doesn't really require that much analysis, perhaps because right now, rather than being stuck analyzing that story over and over again, what you really need is to keep writing. Remember the difference between perseverance and obsession. My impression is that, before undertaking the execution of a large project, you should first find your own narrative voice, because your characters are flat and without substance, your orphan seems more like a listless millennial than a being with the affective deficiencies and needs basic that orphans usually have, and the kidnapper does not seem like an abusive and despotic subject or at least alcoholic and vicious. So that's where character psychology fails. For other hand, in what I have read, the feeling of a white room remains. That is to say, that sense of wonder that as readers we should discover when entering a world that in theory is what you have most thought about history is not present either. For example, in
Moby Dick, while Ismael walks through the port in search of an inn to spend the night, Melville even makes us feel the smell of the sea, the cold and the need for shelter (and therefore lack of protection), he opens the door to an exotic and strange world, but fascinating, it catches us from the first page precisely because there is present the narrative voice that usually exists in good canonical, universal and transcendent literature.
On the other hand, if instead of improving this story you just change it from the pot, which is basically what it will be if you turn it into a prologue, you take away the possibility of attracting the reader because we know that many simply ignore the prologues.
For me the real threat (plot?) should be the worgens and the goddess of luck should have some utility related to how many times she has saved travelers or something. In my opinion, your orphan should be as afraid of becoming a worgen's dinner as he is anxious to procure his own next meal.
But those decisions belong to you, obviously.
