Young Writers Society

Hi! The type of feedback that I want for this piece is:
Any words/phrases/sentences that seem out of place or confuse you in any way.
Anywhere that I need to elaborate on a sentence/action that is happening.
Grammatical errors.
Anything that you think I should take out because it is confusing or in no relation to the story so far.

I realise that I have use a lot of "I"'s and "My"'s in this piece. As I am writing this entire book in first person, I would like to know if you did/did not notice it and if there is any way I can work around having to use them too much, Quick examples will be appreciated.

Any feedback appreciated, and thank you for reviewing my story!

CHAPTER 1 PART 1 BEGINS

The pounding of my heart quickened as I opened my eyes. It was no use though, as I couldn’t see a thing. My back felt the arc of the surface I was lying on, but it didn’t register with any memories. Who am I?
Panic shot through my entire body, the beating of my heart so loud that I swear I could hear it echo. My face scrunched up in a futile attempt to squeeze the pain out. Tears welled up in my eyes, and big, heavy sobs came from my throat. It was all I could do to stop myself from screaming in pain. The internal pain of having no identity was worse than anything any physical endearment.
I tried moving my arms, but they immediately struck a hard surface to the side. Claustrophobia closed in on me as I followed a curve around to the apex… I was in a circular tube.
I thought hard and pushed myself for answers, but all I could get was what I had woken up with. Fear: Send-a-shiver-down-your-spine fear, the kind that makes you break into a cold, hard sweat.
‘Everything is alright, just get out of the pipe’
“Who are you?” I questioned. “Everything’s alright?” My voice cracked on the last word, echoes reverberating off the walls again and again. Whenever someone utters those words, something has gone terribly wrong.
I took a moment to listen to my words, fascinated by the noise. The voice I was hearing was exactly the same as my advisor. Was I talking to myself?
Well, that’s one big fat check on the ‘are you mental’ list.
As I pushed myself for answers, trying with every ounce of will to remember past my awakening, I felt more and more alone. Who am I, why am I lying in this dreadful tunnel, and is there a reason I am talking to myself?
I was snapped into the present -Which is when? - by a sharp pain in my wrist. I twisted and writhed in my small enclosure, but I wasn’t able to stop the torture.
“Oww…” The sting got worse and worse, until it was almost unbearable. As my left hand finally found my right wrist, I touched cold metal, most likely copper or stainless steal, tight around the flesh. As I grasped the metal, the pain quickly receded, and I inhaled a deep breath. A bracelet of some sort was loose enough not to cut off the circulation, but tight enough that it wouldn’t budge.
How can I know about the circulatory system, bracelets and even distinguish different types of metal, without knowing my name?
I looked hard through the dark, but saw nothing. I would have to find a way out, and then inspect myself. I don’t even know what I look like for Christ-sake.
It was impossible for my heart rate to increase, so by some miracle it lost pace, a strange sense of calm, like the eye of a storm.
Damnit! How the hell could this happen…it doesn’t make any sense? The sub-lingual mutterings came without any sense of panic, fear or dread. I started to hate myself, for having simple knowledge, but not knowing something that a two year old would know.
What is my name?
Where does this knowledge come form?
Why am I in a pipe?
How do I get out, and how did I get in?
The questions never stopped, the pile of complexity growing until I was drowning in my own confusion.
‘All of your questions will be answered, just get out of this hell hole NOW!’
What? Do you know who I am? Answer my question, girl, ANSWER ME! I addressed the voice, which I now knew to be in my head, feeling more than mild embarrassment at the stupidity of this situation. It was like a conscience, telling you what not to do, but different. She sounded like my life was in danger. Instinct, that’s what you would call it. She is my instinct, warning me of danger that I don’t know is out there.
No reply came to my un-asked question. Why was she/I being so secluded? I almost expected an answer, but again, there was nothing in my head but thoughts, chemical impulses of your brain.
Urrrggg! That set me off, chemical impulses - how could you forget who you were if your brain was a delicate machine designed perfectly by nature? It didn’t make sense! I banged my fists against the pipe, hearing the echo of my anger as it traveled through its metal walls.
Right... Out first, then answers! I will get answers!
I sorted a plan in my head, the strange sense of calm enveloping me once again.
Look at me, being all logical, I teased.
It was even more frustrating not knowing if I were a logical person or not… or if I was some escaped biochemists creation, wrecking havoc on the world.
Well, that’s one thing I know about myself, I did read a lot of science fiction.
That was at least a start, I told myself. I moved slowly, careful as to not knock my head against the metal casing. I propped myself up and looked in the direction of my toes. A pinprick of light was barely visible in the distance. Twisting around to look the other way I saw nothing.
I was obviously heading that way, as this pipe’s hardly big enough for two people, let alone would it have space to turn around. I reflected, nodding my head upwards, into the dark tunnel that seemed to go on for infinity.
The real question was if I was crawling toward something good, or away from something bad. I decided that this pipe would make a perfect hole to hide in, as you couldn’t see anything further in than ten meters, and it would just fit a person of my size or smaller - any bigger and you would get stuck.
On the other hand, there was the fact that I could only see light coming from one direction; the way I come from. That was a big problem, seeing as I could hardly follow the tunnel until I reached dirt, metal or whatever there would be, as that would be a waste of time and I was already bursting with impatience to find out my appearance.
As soon as I moved, I realized that I was on a slight upwards tilt. The mysterious pipe was tilting down into the ground. I filed this information away for later, steadily building up a list of things to do when I reached fresh air.
As I began my awkward journey, shuffling on my front in prone hold, I started to reminisce in the tranquility. Every so often I would stop, roll onto my back and tilt my head until I could see the gaping hole of sunshine. I made it my goal to get there before dark.
When I had halved the distance, there was a sudden change of cold to hot. As I moved farther up the pipe, it steadily got warmer and warmer until I could hardly bear the heat. I was soon panting like a dog, forcing myself to move on until I reached the exit. I figured that as well as being on a tilt, the bottom half must have been buried under earth for quite some time, and then surfaced where I noticed the sudden temperature increase. That placed another fear in my head; would I be meters above ground and not be able to jump down to the ground?
After what seemed like hours clambering up in the sweltering heat, my biggest fear came true, I had reached the end of the tunnel. I was about to walk into the light, figuratively speaking. I vaguely thought that this might be death; that I might be venturing from one world to another being none the wiser. Tossing my concerns into the depths of the tunnel, I stopped to take a breather. Twisting and writhing my way around, I managed to set myself on my back, the way I was when I woke up. Without delay, but certainly not without dread, I propped myself up and peered into the light.
It was blinding at first, but then my eyes adjusted and I could make out the outlining of my mangled and scathed body.
What have I been doing?
It seemed that I was wearing black or navy clothes, but I couldn’t be sure because it was still moderately dark. I could feel the constant scratch of nylon, so it was most likely that I would be in a track suit. I looked on in fear as I pieced it all together; the tattered body, clothes in rags and the memory loss.
I had been in a fight, and either crawled down the pipe to save myself, or had been dumped here by the victor, disposing of the evidence in somewhere no-one would look, where no-one could look.
Someone knows who I am, which means that I have to find them.
But why was I in a fight, who was I fighting, and why did they dump me here?
The strange eeriness of the question hung in the atmosphere, as I rolled my conspiracies over in my mind. Was it the truth?


CHAPTER 1 PART 1 ENDS

My hands found each other immediately, the left one trying to strangle out the pain that was torturing me from the opposite wrist.

What hand met what wrist? My hands found eachother, it should be your hand found your wrist.

metal and bone

Bone colliding with metal. It's the character's head colliding with a metal surface, unless the character's head is metal and it's colliding with a bone surface.

[/quote]hellishly cold environment[quote]
Hell is usually imagined as a burning place.

Correct the small mistakes.

I think your story's good so far, i liked the prologue too! I think the story moves at a nice pace and has a good amount of detail, i've only got a couple of comments on parts i feel could be improved upon:

Lie down for a moment, and then check the damage.

As this is speech and you have put the rest of the characters thoughts in italics i think you should put this into speech marks.

I got a bit confused whilst the character was in the tunnel as at first you said it was pitch black and then that they could vaguely see their clothing. I realised afterwards that it was because he was moving towards the light but i thought he couldn't get to the light as it was behind him? You could add in about him shuffling back along the pipe awkwardly so that it is clearer to the reader what is happening.

I hurriedly made my way onto my back, and tore at the walls to find purchase

I like this sentence but i thought he was already on his back?

I think you could mention somewhere at the begginning about the pipe being angled downwards as you said later that he had been pushed down a shute whereas i had gotten the impression that the pipe was level.

Overall I liked you work and look forward to reading more!

Thanks alot you two, they were helpfull critiques!

Here's your review!
It was really good, but soon you're going to need to have something happen, or else it'll get boring. Just saying. On to the review.

Ahch” I groaned as I felt another spasm of pain enter my wrist, dropping myself to save my wrist from another moment of torture.

I think there should be a comma in between groaned and as.

Why did I nod off in a pipe?

You said to tell you if something is weird or out of place. Well, there it is.

I decided that I would have to fund a way out, and then make conclusions based on what I saw.

Typo, it's find instead of fund.

The real question was if I was crawling toward something good, or away from something bad. I decided that this pipe would make a perfect hidey hole, as you couldn’t see anything further in than 5 meters, and would only comfortably fit a person my size or smaller. On the other hand, there was the fact that I could only see light coming from one direction; the way I come from. That was a big problem, seeing as I could hardly follow the cave until I reached solid rock, as that would be a waste of time and I was already bursting with impatience.

Hidey! Lol, probably a typo.

Thank you, Anyone else??

Thank you, Anyone else??

Hold your horses, I'm getting there XD :p

My left hand tried to strangle out the pain that was torturing me from the opposite wrist.

Huh? 0.o This doesn't tell us anything at all, past that his wrist hurt. And how could his other hand strangle out pain? Squeezing something that hurts doesn't tend to help, unless it's a cut and you need pressure. But you haven't said it was a cut, and besides, he would be strangling the bloodflow, not the pain. But technicalities aside, the biggest flaw is that, as a reader, I haven't got any idea on what you mean. This is very confusing, and is that is definitely not what you want your reader to feel, especially so early. Later in the story, while it's still not good, your reader is invested in the story and will probably keep reading, even if slightly annoyed.
It's difficult, so work on it. Finding the right balance is critical- teasing your reader with just enough information to keep them intrigued without confusing them is almost an art skill. Telling them it was, say, a manacle causing the pain would be fine. Because that would give a bit of information, but you're not giving away the whole plot. If it is a cut, mention the blood or some such. Don't make your reader guess the simpler details, you want them to be guessing at the whole picture.

I sat up with a jolt, and then whimpered back down,

If it was really that painful, he would be more likely to gasp in pain. Whimpering is more... passive. You are more likely to gasp involuntarily then whimper.

my head aching from the deafening bang of bone and metal colliding in a symphony of sound.

Cut 'in a symphony of sound.' It doesn't add anything new to the sentence- you've already described the sound as a deafening bang, and weakens this description, as well as making the sentence longer then it needs to be.

Lie down for a moment, and then check the damage.

Is this in his head? The italics suggest so. His reactions suggest not. If it is, then state somehow that the voice was in his head, but not his own. If it's not, then give it speech marks and cut out the italics.

Okay, I have no idea where he is. Since the last section was a dream, where is he really? Safe in bed? In a cell? I really can't tell.

Ah. I read a few lines further and find out he's in a pipe.
But you already had me confused, and that's not a good thing. Wouldn't he be wondering where he was himself? One of the first things you think when you wake up in a strange place, after "Do I have all my limbs?" Is "where am I?" and he spends a long time before he even bothers. It seems a tad unrealistic.

Look at me, being all logical, I teased.
It was even more frustrating not knowing if I were a logical person or not… or if I was some escaped biochemists creation, wrecking havoc on the world.
Well, that’s one thing I know about myself, I did read a lot of science fiction.

Wait, he doesn't know who he is? Scratch my earlier comment. The first thing he would think is "Oh My God who the hell am I?" Lol. You have it here as a sort of afterthought....

seeing as I could hardly follow the cave until I reached solid rock,

First off, it's a pipe, not a cave. You said so. And pipes lead places. Whether it won't get smaller, or lead to something dangerous, is another matter. But it won't just end in rock.

a time by which I had already arrived within 10 meters of the bright white opening

Wasn't he going the other way, into the darkness....?

My biggest fear had come true, I had reached the end of the tunnel,

is it a pipe or a tunnel? There is a difference. Tunnels usually have stone walls. Pipes are usually metal or that white plastic stuff (which you wouldn't be crawling through). Tunnels are for people, to get from A to B, pipes are for transporting one substance or another.

I could have easily slid all of that way down the pipe on the thick layer of slimy moss.

Wait, it's on a slope? Then why would it be on a gentle enough slope to move through? Obviously the people who use it don't care if the person they throw in there is going to come out and break his legs from a drop, and if it's sloped gently enough for him to stay stuck, unconscious, it is an escape route. And why haven't you mentioned it?

Overall, I think you have quite a few flaws in this section. What you need to do, is put yourself in your character's shoes, how would you react? He seemed too calm, and had his ponderings in a unrealistic order.
And do sort out the pipe/tunnel/chute thing, it's confusing. Also, how does the character feel about his apparent memory loss? How deep is this memory loss?
Add more description. I am still confused by the wrist thing. And it took too long for me to find out he was in a tunnel/pipe/chute. And obviously it wasn't clear when I did.
Work on the character. I don't know anything about him, as of yet. You are showing the story through his eyes, so make sure everything is tainted with what his opinions, beliefs, and his personality.
But if you work over this, do some tweaking, you have a solid part for your story. Good luck, and if you have any problems or questions, send me a PM.

-Nutty

Hey, sorry about that. I did change the story around a little bit, and I have edited the starting post! thx for the review

asxz wrote:
Ouch! That hurt! I addressed the pain in my right wrist, not knowing what it was, but desperate for it to stop. My left hand automatically found the source, even though I hadn’t yet opened my eyes, and had a feeling that there was no reason to.

Here, I see what you're trying to say, but I don't think you're quite saying it, if you know what I mean. When a person is hurt, they are going to naturally open their eyes and look at the wound. If there's some reason your MC is keeping his eyes shut, you have to explain that you us, otherwise we'll just wonder why this dude won't just look at his wrist. Saying 'he had a feeling there was no reason to' doesn't quite explain.

If it's not important that he keeps his eyes closed, I suggest just letting him see what cut him.

I sat up with a jolt, and then whimpered back down, my head aching from the deafening bang of bone and metal colliding.

You don't whimper back down. As Nutty said, it's more like a gasp. And, while the description is good, I'm still not sure what's happening. He's being hit with something metal? If that's the case, someone would have to be around him, and I doubt he'd still have his eyes closed or sit up with a jolt.


“Lie down for a moment, and then check the damage.”


I was startled by the voice but knew that I had to obey it. Somewhere inside me, I trusted that voice, the familiar sound and musical harmony in which it spoke. Nice. I knew that the speaker would guide me to safety.


But who were they? On that subject, I managed to summon up enough courage to ask myself the big question.
Who am I? Start a new paragraph here, methinks. Discarding the question, as I knew that I wouldn’t get any answers [s]in this small enclosure[/s], I moved onto the more achievable goal. Finding out who the stranger was, and then once I was talking, I could ask the [s]odd[/s] question. They must know after all!
Why had the stranger come into this monstrously cold environment? As I lay there biding my time, I tried to remember my dream. It was there; in almost perfect clarity and brain-numbing description. It was almost as if it had happened only moments ago, still etched into my mind like this. Who was I running from? I pushed myself harder and harder but still couldn’t find any answers. It seemed that, like most dreams it was just a random sequence of events that my imagination has conjured up purely for amusement.

This paragraph is nice. We can relate to your MC's opinion of the dream, expecially in the last sentence. However, you asked me for my opinions on believability-- and here, I'm not buying it. Why doesn't he just open his eyes and look at the stranger? Is there a blindfold? Is he blind? If so, tel, us, so we won't just think that he's really, really stupid.


As I pushed myself for answers, trying with every ounce of will to remember past my dream, I felt more and more alone. Who was I, and why was I lying in this dark and damp place, and who was the stranger that I felt sure would guide me to safety?


Certain that time would heal all wounds, I propped myself up on my elbows, realizing that there would be no more voices; that there was no-one trying to remind me to move, only to keep still. Huh? The stranger had already left me.
That was strange I thought to myself, there were no footsteps. Strange and stranger are too close together. Change 'strange' to 'odd' or a synonym of that sort.

“Ahch” I groaned, as I felt another spasm of pain enter my wrist, dropping myself to save my wrist from another moment of torture.

Two 'wrists' here close together. Putting the same word twice in close succession normally ruins the flow of your sentences, FYI. And 'ahch' isn't a groaning sound. It's not even a sound. If the pain is sharp, you would gasp/scream, and if it's dull and aching, you'd moan like 'Uhh...' or 'Owww...'.


Listening to the sound of my voice amused me, “Hello?” I asked intending on getting an answer from my advisor, just incase they were shy that I had awoken.
“Hello, hello, hello” came the response.
“Well that’s odd” Mumbled my talkative self.
“Odd, odd, odd” came the reply, barely a whisper near the end.
Curiosity was eating away at me by now, and my epiphany started to make sense. The answers were whirring away in my head, questions getting crossed off of my mental checklist three at a time.
I was in some sort of metal pipe, that’s what the echoes were, and there was no stranger, it was me talking to myself all along. Only three questions remained unrequited.

I don't think 'unrequited' is the word you're looking for. 'Unanswered would work fine. Don't try for fancy words when a simple one would work better to get your meaning across.

If it was me who told me to lie down, then where did that knowledge come from?
Who was I and why couldn’t I remember?
[s]Any why was I unconscious in a pipe[/s]? Why had I been unconscious in a pipe?
I decided that I would have to find a way out, and then make conclusions based on what I saw.

Look. This just isn't likely. You're in a dark, smelly tube, and although these things could possibly be rather important to your story, your first priority is to get the heck outa there. You're not going to be contemplating your existance, and definately not this calmly. Frankly, you'd be flipping out. totally. Freaking. Out. Here, you're like, 'Oh, I was unconscious? Interesting. I'll jot this down for further examination'. You should be like 'What in tarnation?' See what I'm going for? Your MC here is not experiencing the anxiety and fear he should naturally be feeling.

Look at me, being all logical, I teased. While this is cute, there's not usually teasing in a fatal situation when one finds themselves alone in a dark pipe.

It was even more frustrating not knowing if I were a logical person or not… or if I was some escaped biochemists creation, wrecking havoc on the world.
Well, that’s one thing I know about myself, I did read a lot of science fiction. That was at least a start, I told myself as I opened my eyes to pitch black. Moving slowly this time, careful as to not knock myself again, I looked down in the direction of my toes. A pinprick of light was barely visible in the distance. I twisted around to look the other way, but to my dismay I saw nothing.

Give us emotion! Give us fear! Give us any hint that this guy is at least a bit worried.

I was obviously heading that way, as this pipe’s hardly big enough for two people, let alone would it have space to turn around. I reflected, nodding my head behind me purely for my own benefit.
The real question was if I was crawling toward something good, or away from something bad. I decided that this pipe would make a perfect hole to hide in, as you couldn’t see anything further in than 5 meters, and would only comfortably fit a person my size or smaller. On the other hand, there was the fact that I could only see light coming from one direction; the way I come from. That was a big problem, seeing as I could hardly follow the cave until I reached solid rock, as that would be a waste of time and I was already bursting with impatience.
As I began my awkward journey, shuffling on my front in prone hold backwards, I began to reminisce in the tranquility. It was hard work, but within about an hour I had nears the entrance enough to nearly choke on the small particles of dirt. The slimy walls were now green, and I could faintly make out the coarse layer of sawdust coating the walls. I twisted onto my back to bask in the accomplishment of light. Nice picture here, although I'd like to see a bit more of his reaction to the slime and sawdust.
The pipe had gradually warmed up as I scrambled upwards, so I figured that as well as being on a tilt, it must have been buried under earth for quite some time, and then surfaced in the last [s]100[/s] hundred meters or so. That placed another fear in my head, that I would be meters above ground and wouldn’t be able to climb out backwards.
I lay there for a moment and then decided that I would try to identify myself inside. Who knows what I might find out there? I felt that I had some attachment to this slippery hole, and the endless time I spent clambering upwards and outwards, well, who knows? It was my only home that I could recollect, and what about sheltering me from what I was hiding from, whatever that might be.

Frankly, I'm not sure what's going on here. Was he climbing up a pipe? Then why didn't he fall down? Gravity applies to you, too, whether you like it or not. Just clarify if this pipe is horizontal or vertical. If it's the latter, then you've got to add some fear of falling back down.

It seemed that I was wearing black or navy clothes, but I couldn’t be sure because it was so dark. I could feel he constant scratch of nylon, so it was most likely that I would be in track pants, and my top felt cool against my skin.
My biggest fear had come true, I had reached the end of the tunnel, I was about to walk (so to speak) into the light. I vaguely thought that this might be death; that I might be venturing from one world to another being none the wiser. Tossing my concerns into the depths of the tunnel nice, I stopped to take a breather. Twisting and writhing my way around, I managed to set myself on my back, the way I was when I woke up. Without delay, [s]and[/s] but certainly not without dread, I propped myself up and peered into the light.
It was blinding at first, but then my eyes adjusted and I could make out the outlining of a mangled and scathed body. I looked on in fear as I pieced it all together, the navy outfit, the tattered body and memory loss. It all pointed to one thing.

Is he looking at his own body? If so, say so.

The dream was real.
The men were real.
The fear was real.
I had been captured by an organization, for what I didn’t yet know. They found me trying to escape, and dumped me down this metal Shute. I could have easily slid all of that way down the pipe on the thick layer of slimy moss. If they didn’t kill me then, that meant that they were coming back. Who knows how long I could have been unconscious, who knows how long I had left. Letting the panic set in, I hurriedly made my way onto my front, and tore at the walls to find purchase. As I pushed my way out of my death trap, I marveled at the way it had all pieced together so quickly. It was almost like a book, or a movie, when the hero has a revelation and the jigsaw puts itself together without effort.

Uh-uh. We call this 'info-dump' here, dear. That's when you take information and, unable to find the proper place to subtley sneak it in, get lazy and dump it on us in a big chunk. We don't want to know that he had been captured yet, and he shouldn't know quite so soon either. The light and his clothes probably won't be enough to remind him. If he needs to be reminded here, make it come as a flash of painful memories, instead of this cool, calm revelation. You can but the three lines I underlines at the end of this flash, if you like. Now, you don't have to rewrite it like I'm suggesting, but it'll be a bit more beliveable, methinks.

Now, for the good stuff!

I didn't notice any overuse of 'I' or 'My'. That's the least of your worries here. You pulled of first person very well, I'd say.

Believability:

I'm not so sure. Mainly, right here, I'm more confused than anything else. You're the writer-- you'll know what he's doing, where he was, when he figured this stuff out. But, as readers, we can't know that unless you tell us. So, I'm thinking it'll be a lot more believable when you

A.) Give us more emotion. Your character should be a whirlwind of feelings, and even some he can't quite figure out yet. Here, you could ass much more fear.

B.) Cut back on the thoughts a bit, I think. You could show us his thought process without giving us these conversations he's having with himself, since they seem rather unrealistic/

Description:

Altogether, not a problem. I can tell where this person is, and I can feel the slime. Eww, but good for you. You can do description, but you're having more trouble with...

Characterization:

We don't even know if this is a 'he' yet. Surely you can slip that it somewhere? All we have now is action, movement, thoughts. We need something from your character besides thier thoughts to get to know them. This has to do with adding emotion, since his reactions to these events will tell us about him. And, adding a few more characters really soon will be necessary.

Over-all:

I'm not going to do such an in-depth on all of the others, but I'll always give you an over-all opinion. I think this is pretty good, and has a lot of potential, as long as you work on connecting us with your character. This is a lot of words that, primarily, is about nothing but a guy climbing up a pipe and wondering who he is. We'll get bored unless you give us something a bit more exciting to process pretty soon, kay?

Up and away!

~Evi

Hey again,

Here’s the review:

Ouch! That hurt!

Not too fond of this beginning. It doesn’t work so well as an opening sentence for a chapter. You’ll need something stronger. Maybe turn the second sentence into the first, and fit what is currently the first in elsewhere.

My left hand automatically found the source, even though I hadn’t yet opened my eyes, and had a feeling that there was no reason to.

Well then, what’s the source? You say you found it, and don’t tell us – that’s no good! You made me curious

I sat up with a jolt, and then whimpered back down, my head aching from the deafening bang of bone and metal colliding.

Whimpered back down? You can whimper AS you lie back down, but you cannot simply whimper down. The deafening bang of bone and metal colliding is what makes the MC’s head ache? I’d reckon it was the actual impact of the collision, not the sound of it, that causes problems.

As I pushed myself for answers

You repeat these words.

That was strange I thought to myself, there were no footsteps.

Comma needed after “strange”.

“Ahch” I groaned, as I felt another spasm of pain enter my wrist, dropping myself to save my wrist from another moment of torture.

You use “wrist” twice. Also, I don’t particularly like the “spasm of pain” description, nor the “Ahch”. Make it “Ach” or “Argh” or something else that we can imagine more easily.

I asked intending on getting an answer from my advisor, just incase they were shy that I had awoken.

Read this sentence; I’m sure you can figure out the mistake. Hint: Comma needed, confusion in second half - what's "shy that I had awoken" supposed to mean?

Okay, I’m not going to continue this line-by-line thing, ‘cause it’s the same type of mistakes. Be careful with repetition, and punctuation. Read through your story once to look particularily at both these things – maybe even say the words out loud, because that can help with tracking down mistakes – and I’m sure you’ll catch almost all of them.

Your character’s revelations regarding the echo in the pipe seem a bit odd. Why did your MC decide to lie down, thinking someone told them, when it was really the character themself? It makes no sense for your character to have such knowledge, and act without realizing it, when just waking from being knocked unvonscious.

I reflected, nodding my head behind me purely for my own benefit.

Don’t use words that are too big – sometimes you can simply say “I thought” instead of “I reflected.”, because she's not doing some philosophical reflection.

On occasion, a word comes up that seems quite out of place, and it makes me wonder if you either didn’t know the meaning of the word, or weren’t paying attention and meant a word whose spelling is similar. Read through your stuff and check to see that everything makes sense to you.

Try to look at it with a clear mind – this is something you’ve probably heard before, but try to leave it for a day or two and then go back to it.

Well done, though – I’m still eager to continue. So I'll get to chapter one part two when I'm back from school.

^^

XxxDo

Hey, Asxz.

Review number two, as requested!

Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 3:33 am Post subject: Split personalities 1.1

Ouch! That hurt!

Something about this line really bothers me. Instead of having the character think about the pain, you could describe it. That would be much more interesting. For example:

A sharp pain shot through my wrist. Wincing, I... etc.

Other reviewers have addressed this (that's what happens when you post a million chapters in Will Review for Food threads at the same time! )

My left hand automatically found the source, even though I hadn’t yet opened my eyes, and had a feeling that there was no reason to.

Uhm, what? I think this line should just be taken out. I don't understand the significance, which makes it confusing. Why can't your MC just look at their wrist?

and then whimpered back down

You whimpered back down into bed?
That makes no sense.
Whimpered describes a way of speaking, not movement.
You could cower into or another sort of timid movement, but not whimper.

deafening bang of bone and metal colliding.

Wait... so your MC hit their wrist on metal? What? This is very confusing...

As I lay there biding my time, I tried to remember my dream.

I didn't know you MC was dreaming...

Perhaps you could open up the chapter with the dream?

Only several paragraphs in, and it is already very confusing. You switch topics too much... the wrist-pain, the voice, the dream...

The dream wasn't even mentioned until now.

It seemed that, like most dreams it was just a random sequence of events that my imagination has conjured up purely for amusement.

Comma after "like most dreams".

“Ahch” I groaned, as I felt another spasm of pain enter my wrist, dropping myself to save my wrist from another moment of torture.

Back to the wrist again. You switch topics much too fast.
Dropping yourself? What does that mean?

“Well that’s odd” Mumbled my talkative self.

Comma after well and de-capitalize mumbled.

it was me talking to myself all along.

So at the beginning they were talking to themselves and didn't know it? That's highly unrealistic. In fact, it makes no sense whatsoever.

nodding my head behind me

What do you mean, "you nodded your head behind" you?

Your head is in the front of your body...?

last 100

Always spell out numbers as long as they aren't something like 6,897,077,988.56.

I had been captured by an organization, for what I didn’t yet know. They found me trying to escape, and dumped me down this metal Shute. I could have easily slid all of that way down the pipe on the thick layer of slimy moss. If they didn’t kill me then, that meant that they were coming back. Who knows how long I could have been unconscious, who knows how long I had left. Letting the panic set in, I hurriedly made my way onto my front, and tore at the walls to find purchase. As I pushed my way out of my death trap, I marveled at the way it had all pieced together so quickly. It was almost like a book, or a movie, when the hero has a revelation and the jigsaw puts itself together without effort.

Whoa! Major info dump here.
To subtly put in information, I would start the chapter with "the dream".

The major issue here was...

Your MC

-- First of all, is "your MC" a boy a girl? Some pronouns would be nice.

At the beginning, he/she could think something like, "Lie down, William." Then we would know the gender!

-- They have schizophrenic conversations with themselves -- they talk to themselves constantly and don't know they're doing it.

-- They have random Epiphanies, and explain everything to the reader at once. Have memories come back in a jarring, blurry fashions -- not all at once.

Hope this helped,
Sakura

All nit-picks have been done. Overall elements:

Setting: It took me awhile to figure out the setting, and how it tied into the prologue. Yes, I am looking for instant tie-in here. For about half of this I though your MC had been greatly enhanced and, in desperation, had managed to meld his/her body into the pipe, causing them to pass out.

You don't mention any sort of moss at the beginning, yet you do at the end. It doesn't matter how much memory or how disoriented your character is. The first thing they'll be aware of is sensations. Pain is usually first, followed by wetness, dark, softness, ect. Be sure to include basic sensations like this, especially if your character is just waking up.

Characters: Just plain confused here. Sakura covered some nice points.So has Evi. Listen to them. (Sakura's last mention about the random memories coming back is one you should pay particular attention to)

Realism: I don't find this very realistic at all. You've got some good base emotions near the end, as she starts to have random memories float back at her, but other then that things are just jumbled fragments. You really have to spend the proper time going from one idea to the next. A rule of thumb I use is for each minor transition of idea, you use one line to slowly change from one idea to the next. For major transitions, you use a paragraph or more. Your transitions are a bit of both, so just add in about two- four lines per shift to make things clearer.

Now, another thing that's confusing is what state of mind your character is in. When people are knocked out, they do not have any thoughts what so ever going through their head. Depending on the way they were knocked out (anesthetic, for example) it can take hours for any sort of thought patterns to come back. Since you are in first person, you really have to be careful that whenever you have your character black out that there is a time-laps of some sort where nothing happens.

Info dump: You only have one here, and it's very confusing. Mostly due to these lines:

I propped myself up and peered into the light.
It was blinding at first, but then my eyes adjusted and I could make out the outlining of a mangled and scathed body. I looked on in fear as I pieced it all together, the navy outfit, the tattered body and memory loss. It all pointed to one thing.

You tell us that all that points to one thing, but you do not tell us what triggered the memory, what your MC is looking at, and what that one thing is. It makes things very confusing.

Power: I have one bit that I simply love, just because the lines were so powerful:

The dream was real.
The men were real.
The fear was real.

Now, if only you would expand on them a bit more, they would be a lot more powerful! Take a few lines to explain each element, and they will fit into the story much nicer. It will also help ease our very confused brain.

Overall: Eh, this was okay. I liked some bits, but mostly this was too confusing and jarring to really have me understand everything. Listen to the nit-picks above me. They are good.

If you have any questions, PM me.

~Rosey

Hi! The main post has been edited... Thank you for all of your reviews everybody!

[edit]This has gotten quite a few reviews, so sorry if I repeated anything. Also, has this changed recently? I cut and pasted it into Word, and have a different version. Oops...

Also, this is a pretty short review. Sorry about that. I'll try to go a little more in-depth on the next one. [/edit]


I only found a few typos, so good job there. Here are the ones I did find:

likely copper or stainless steal

Should be “steel”

this knowledge come form

“form” should be “from”
A place where I was confused:

on my front in prone hold

Front hold?

Anyway, I really like the premise. It was fascinating. The plot was interesting and engaging, and while I think this needs a good edit for grammar and flow issues, those kinds of things are easier to fix that the idea behind the story. 
I think you could change the first part, maybe even deleting the first few sentences, rearranging them like so:

Who am I?
The pounding of my heart quickened as I opened my eyes. It was no use though, as I couldn’t see a thing. My back felt the arc of the surface I was lying on, but it didn’t register with any memories.
Panic shot through my entire body, the beating of my heart so loud that I swear I could hear it echo. My face scrunched up in a futile attempt to squeeze the pain out. Tears welled up in my eyes, and big, heavy sobs came from my throat. It was all I could do to stop myself from screaming in pain. The internal pain of having no identity was worse than anything any physical endearment.

The other major problem I had was that I found the MC a little disappointing. I hope to see more development later on.
So… I guess that’s about it. I hope this helps, and I’m off to critique the next installment.
See ya!
~Lupis

P.S: You may want to change the rating to PG for some cursing.