Young Writers Society

Hey, I am back with chapter 1. I'm assuming it felt like a long time since I posted the prologue because that always happens to me when I am waiting for the author to update. I tried to be as fast as possible, but I had commitments over the weekend. I am quite sure this peace has plenty of flaws in terms of grammatical errors. Hopefully you as the reader enjoy this chapter and are entertained by it as much as the prologue. This first chapter only contains just over one thousand words, so only half as long as I planned, however if everyone thinks it should be longer than I shall try my best to present a longer piece.

A big thank you to everyone who helped get my work featured within the first twelve hours as well as all the criticism! It inspired me more than you can imagine.

Sorry for ranting on here I am sure you just want to read so enjoy,

~DayDreams

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My eyelids slid open and my bright blue eyes sparkled. A new day had dawned and the sun’s rays flooded into my large apartment. The black walls all around me began to change colors to a dark red as the sun’s light hit them. Sam, my servant robot, rolled into the room and stood their waiting for me to get out of bed. My petite lips formed a smile and I threw the covers off my bed. Slowly I stood up and walked drowsily toward my closet. Filled with anything my heart desired all I said to it was “the usual” and it presented me with jeans, a white tank top, my black jacket, and clean undergarments. The sapphire necklace that completed my apparel never left my neck. Glancing back toward my black nightstand the time read 9:32am. Why does school have to start so early? I mumbled. Slipping into the bathroom I began combing my unruly pitch black hair until it became untangled then started to straighten it. Walking out of the bathroom and into my living room I glanced past the red velvet couches toward the kitchen, but without much thought decided I would skip breakfast.
After I closed the apartment it automatically locked as usual. Slowly I strode toward the elevator at the end of the hallway. When I arrived the elevator the doors instantly opened beckoning me onto it. The elevator only took thirteen seconds to travel down the 1,900 floors and gently set me down on the first. Walking through the beautiful, but empty lobby reminded me of how perfect it all was. The front doors automatically slid open allowing me access to the street.
Earth looked as it always did lush and beautiful, but I put that behind me and focused on the day that lay ahead. I only have two days until graduation and I have no idea what I want to do. School was only a mile away, but you could see it from the base of my building. Turning my gaze to the garage I called “E10072” and my round board glided over to rest at my feet. Stepping onto the silver disc I said “school” and it began to fly off at an alarming rate. Within a minute I was dropped off at the school’s entrance. Slipping through the doors, I began walking down the beautiful mahogany halls of the prestigious Newman school. The first class I had was the history of the arena in room C311. I get to sit through another boring lecture, but I guess I still get to see Elise I thought miserably. Sighing, I glumly walked in and took a seat at a floating desk near the back of the room. Glancing up at the board Mr. Lance, our history of the arena teacher, had scribbled the date December 22nd 2819. It seemed like everyone was trying to remind me about the 500 year anniversary graduation, but my mood brightened when I saw my best friend Elise walk in.

Smiling she excitedly said “hi” and rushed over to sit next to me.

“Hey.” I replied back while I opened up my textbook. “So how was your weekend?”

“Oh, it was great! Logan took me to the ravage game on Sunday. How was your weekend?” Elise replied while setting her bag down.

“I didn’t really do anything exciting although Kyle, my brother, and I sparred a bit, but other than that I just stayed inside and slept. I’m kind of still depressed about graduation.” It made me sad that I couldn’t even tell her that I wouldn’t be registered on the governments system if they called my name at graduation and tried to hand me the computerized diploma. I really didn’t like the career options anyway, but Kyle had taken care of getting me into school, and now I couldn’t graduate. Why was he always telling me I couldn’t be registered on any computer network? I gave up my train of thought as Elise began talking again.

“Don’t worry Serena. I’m sure you will decide what you want to do when were out of this place. Why don’t you work on the arena with me?”

Unclear about what Mr. Lance had begun talking to the class about I whispered “Why is their only two career choices to choose from? Whoever designed this system was the stupidest-”

“Excuse me Mrs. Banks, but would you like to tell the entire class what you two are discussing?” Mr. Lance called from the front of the class.

Oh, god I hate teachers. “Um, I was just expressing my dislike for the career choices available after graduation.”

“An interesting concept, please elaborate.”

Now I was frustrated, but solemnly began the familiar explanation. “Why should everyone have to choose between being an engineer on the arena or competing in it? Is Ravage the only thing people care about?”

“You know as well as I that the robots do all the other work for us. The arena is the only thing that needs real people. I think we have wasted enough class time discussing things that are irrelevant to today’s topic.”

The rest of Mr. Lance’s class and the school day passed by uneventful. Soon I was back at the familiar black door that led to my apartment. I heard a click as the auto recognization system identified me as Serena Banks. I wondered now why I had never bothered to ask Kyle why he had taken all these precautions to protect my identity. Ah well I was too tired to think very hard so I opened the door to my apartment. Suddenly I had a strange feeling and began to mental make sure everything was in place. The couch was in place on the left wall with my glass coffee table between the couch and my large TV. Gazing toward the far end of the room my small open kitchen looked just as I had left it. I guess I have been imagining things. Walking past the TV and into my bedroom it also looked normal, so exhaustedly I plopped down on my bed without getting changed. The last thing that crossed my mind was graduation, but I shut down that line of thought and soon my eyes shut for the night.

I loved it, the book was really good. I want one of those flying disks that would be so awesome! Anyway the only grammical error I found was instead of saying Miss Bank's you said Mrs. BUt any who I believe you are an excellent writer and should go professional one day.

Nitpicks:

DayDreams wrote:Slowly I stood up and walked drowsily toward my closet.

This seems a little redundant, but maybe it's just the use of two adverbs. Try something like
Slowly I stood up and shuffled toward my closet.

DayDreams wrote:After I closed the apartment it automatically locked as usual.

You seem to use commas sparingly in your work, but they need to be put some places or your work seems abrupt, choppy. Above is an example, it could/should be written like

DayDreams wrote:After I closed the apartment it automatically locked, as usual.

It may not seem like a big difference but it is, to me at least.
same with dates.
December 22nd, 2819.
That's it for nitpicks. Be a tad careful with commas/redundancy but besides that great job.
Characters
Really, only one so far. Serena, with a brief mention of her brother Kyle and her friend elise.
Serena seems to be a pretty solid character, she has a personality and speaks for herself. So I like her fine. The only thing I would suggest is, when writing about her from her perspective, use adjectives she would use to describe herself.[
quote="DayDreams"]Filled with anything my heart desired all I said to it was “the usual” and it presented me with jeans, a white tank top, my black jacket, and clean undergarments. The sapphire necklace that completed my apparel never left my neck. Glancing back toward my black nightstand the time read 9:32am. Why does school have to start so early? I mumbled. Slipping into the bathroom I began combing my unruly pitch black hair until it became untangled then started to straighten it. [/quote]
She talks about her clothes using very, very sparse words. Which, I don't know, maybe she's a sparse words kind of person. But then she refers to her outfit as Apparel. I don't know about you, but I never refer to my own things as apparel. The same with her pitch-black hair, who says or thinks that? I think of my hair as "that thing on my head that I have to wash, oh, once every week." don't compare it to the sun's tears or liquefied yellow gumdrops.
I know this sounds harsh/ ridiculous, but that's only because I see a good story that could be made even better. First person gives you the ability to have fun with the thoughts and the language of your main character, don't shy away from that idea.
Plot
Well, I pretty much reviewed this as being awesome in your prologue. But I thought I'd add that you do a good job of feeding it to us, little by little as it comes up. Instead of a huge pan of a futuristic city or an "oh wait, let me first tell you about my world..."
info dump, what you did is great so far.
Overall
Loved it, want to see more of it, just try to really put yourself into your character's shoes, think about comma's and your use of adverbs. Just little tightening and polishing.

Thanks empress and Ben.

First, and I would like to direct this at everyone, do not think you are being overly harsh or ridiculous. I understand completely that what a reviewer has to say is more likely than not something derogatory. This is to help the author and I really enjoy all the criticism.

I felt that this was much harder to write than the prologue and therefore I had plenty of errors. First person was quite a challenge, and when I go back and edit I will make those changes to make it seem more natural.

As for the plot I really felt that events were rushed in this chapter for some reason, but I shall wait and see if I get any comments on that. I really didn't want to become one of those people that dump tons of information on you, so I tried my best to highlight the key points necessary to know at this point in time and make them stand out.

My weakest point was the commas and adverbs. I shall try and work on using one adverb that better describes the verb instead of two adverbs. A note on commas is that I am definitely not the best at finding and replacing grammatical errors, and so my method is to read it over and if I think it should be a pause, but one sentence I add a comma.

Thanks so much for your input. As I like to say review short or long is better than no review at all.

~Day Dreams

Okay so the biggest problem I had with this story was the way she talked about herself. Her "sparkling blue eyes" and "Petite lips" etc, and since you're telling it from a first person narrative, that doesn't really works since really, how many people do you know that talk like that? Now what I would do is write something like this.

"I stood in front of the mirror, looking at myself. Staring back at me were the eyes everyone said reminded them of my mother's." Something like that, because having her describing herself just seems a little strange, no?

Anyway I'd like to see where you take this keep writing.

~Hope

Nice story. I like the idea of there being a city called Earth in the Earth's mantle that reflects life on the surface. I also like the part where the girl asks about Ravage. Keep writing, DayDreams, I want to read more!

Aristotle

[quote]Walking out of the bathroom and into my living room I glanced past the red velvet couches toward the kitchen, but without much thought decided I would skip breakfast.[quote]



This sentence sounds like a run-on sentence.

" Walking out of the bathroom and into my living room" This I don't think can go into the beginning of the sentence because it possibly can be a prepositional phrase( a long one, ) [It could be... ] It sounds strange either way. So in helping this sentence out I suggest it going like this ( I'm not sure if you wanted to use past tense, so I stuck with that.) :

" I walked out the bathroom and into my living room as I (had?) glanced pass the red velvet couches, coming nearer to the kitchen. Without much thought, I decided i would skip eating breakfast."

Does that sound better? I just want to help.
on the upside of that- your short story Ch.1 sounded pretty good! This part just caught my eye and sounded strange
Nice job! Keep dreaming, daydreamer!
~ Pacific