Young Writers Society

Well first let me tell you about what I am uploading. I am uploading the fist 4 chapters of my book which is going to be around 20-25 chapters long. These chapters are really setting up the rest of the book, so they may not be the most interesting. There may be some confusing techniques I used, such as opening each chapter with a conversation between the narrator and an unknown person, that will be explained late in the book. I have planned for some major twist in the book, so some stuff you read may seem unnecessary, but I put in odd details to help explain future events.

Now, for about the actual content. The story starts off on the morning of the last day of school for a certain senior. He is 17 and is absolutely sick of school and ready to get on with his life. After going through his first day of school and what happened that night, the story picks up while later when he is getting ready to move to Philadelphia. Then, the story follows him on his train ride and chapter 4 ends when he arrives to 30th street station.

I am planning to have this published as my first book, and mind you, these first chapters were the first 4 long chapters I have ever written, so I am now just getting the hang of this and hitting my strides.

I am critiquing it now.

May i ask for a point donation please? My critiquing is fairly decent thus far and it's 13 pages, which is fairly long and takes a little while to read through and edit.

I'll upload corrections regardless but i'd like to ask anyway

Yea, once I get some more points that will be no problem. Also, if you have anything you want me to critique at all, post a link.


Thank you.

Righto. I am slightly perplexed by this.

While it was good on the ground level, it was to be brutally honest - plain boring.
And while i know there are people out there who will beg to differ, well, i can't say this was the best thing i have read.

And before you get hotheaded about that (I know you want to publish) let me tell you it's only the POV of the book. I know nothing much happens but it's incredibly boring. Being inside the head of this teenage boy should be interesting (heck i'd love to be inside the head of a teenage boy one day just to hear what the heck goes on up there) but .. it's a bit slow.
You have made the MC look like a phsycotic. Showers... forgiving sins? Huh? Right *coughluneybincough*

Your description in plentiful places is riveting.

But the characters lack. Come to the girl and the sex bit. It's all over so soon and there's literally no interaction toward them. Not much anyway. Sorry to be harsh. And you are quite right - bring sex into the equation, and the magic is gone, but not always.
I have a tough time relating to this at all, or having my interest involved.

What exactly is the plot?

And i did read it all. But there was actually nothing to pick up on (I lost the original i edited which was a bit more but hardly different) and i apologise. Except the POV you have taken on bored me a little too much. I do not really care about him or anybody at all. Which isn't good. There is no emotion in him, and he doesn't suffer the same sorts of things i expect a guy to feel and he's never nervous, if anything he's arrogantly superior to himself. I want to kick him. And gosh he drones on lol. About the shower for instance.

I'm not telling you to dump the story. Not at all. You probably might not want to take this crit seriously either, because i do sound horrible. And it makes me feel terrible but there really wasn't much to say.

Too/to that was the main nitpick in chapter 2.

I always simply assumed she was too popular to talk too, or simply to pretty to talk to.

I always assumed she was too popular to talk to or simply too pretty to talk to.


Now. You CAN switch the POV so the things are in his head, and he can become an obsessive over thinker or mulls on things far too long. That way characters interactions (there is little in that depo too. He doesn't really feel/see/hear as much as he should nor react to people as he could/should) become vital and he can think all the stuff you have written in his head.

Thanks, I am taking all criticism. I am going to re-write most of the book and this does help. What PoV do you suggest I switch too? Or do you think I should switch up the style? Also, what do you think I could do to make it more interesting?


The plot does move very fast after this introduction, and I think it gets more interesting. The main character is very psychotic actually, which is a good thing you thought that. He ends up meeting back with all the characters from what you read, he ends up killing people, and then he ends up find out out he is psychotic and half of the story isn't even real. For example, some of the characters from what you read, don't exist.




But I do think what I have written is pretty boring, and it is really just a very long introduction. But it sets up the story and for what it is too come. Lot of the stuff early on seems very meaningless and odd and it may make you think I put it in there to make the story longer, but everything does come back and have a meaning late in the story. But, I don't want to lose readers before they start reading chapters 8, 9 , 10 (when it starts getting very interesting and different.

Hello, Turntable Jack. I just got finished reviewing your Chapter One of Murder Without Death and to be honest, I think you really need to work on your introduction. The first chapter should be eye-catching, something that grabs the reader and makes them want to read on.

And you didn't do that I really don't want this to come out harsh at all, but I'm really trying to give you constructive critisim and if you feel I am being like that, please let me know

Besides that you need to work on a better introduction, there are a few other things you should be conscious of:

1. DESCRIPTION. I don't think you used any, except for the storm and the clothes he wore. You need more than that. Description is what basically carries the story and makes it imaginable in a reader's mind.

2. CHARACTERIZATION. You need to develop your main character more. Right now, all we know about him is that he likes shower. Expand on him. Make him lifelike.

Otherwise, I think you know what you have to do.

So, Good luck and if you have any questions, let me know!

Right.

Okay.

Too/To. Now seriously lol...
to do something: to
too much of something: too
switch too should be switch to. lol i am vicious

POV: First person narrative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_view_(literature)). A POV that is told from him, but not as in he's talking to the reader... have you ever watched one of those cartoons that has the actor walking around and the voiceover is telling you what they're thinking? You have done that in your story (okay lizzie mcguire is the cartoon i am thinking of - everything she thinks of it told in voiceover). It uses 'i' and distinguishes one character. it allows one character to show what they think, see, feel, hear, taste, touch, do etc. JUST that character. Nobody elses thoughts or feelings except those spoken.
I suggest you go with one that is told from his point. eg: [random blabbering] :

'I walked down the lonely street alone. the sky was black and the street empty; i sighed as the branches swayed in the light breeze'

or.. to relate to your story: 'This early morning was no different than any other. I walked directly to the bathroom at 5:01 A.M. I turned the shower dial to its hottest point, and I took a solid step back and waited for a minute, then turned the shower dial to about the middle. After waiting another solid ten seconds or so, I inched my way to the middle of the shower…perfect temperature.'
TO: 'This morning was no different than any other: as usual i walked directly into the bathroom to turn the shower dial to its hottest point. Just as the water gushed out i took a solid step back, watching it rush down the drain; i counted slowly in my head to sixty, then switched the dial to half-way. ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. I undressed and stuck one leg beneath the jet. Mmm, perfect temperature'


^^See that? Instead of saying 'perfect temperature' you can give your character a little more of a head by putting it in italics and letting it be his personal thought. Gives the character more life, i think.

The point of view i think you should adapt to is the one that is from his point: the world as he sees it, only what he feels, what he sees, his interpretations of character reactions (eg:)
'i hate you john' luke snapped, feeling hated and lonely. That is what he would feel but to John, he would simply snap, frown, or something like that that would allow John to know he feels hated or lonely or something along those lines. Make sense? Ah i am so sorry if i dont!

Right: to make it more interesting - make something actually happen, would be a start. Now because the POV i have suggested above (would allow least rewriting so most of what you have can be salvaged) means you cannot simply breeze through in one paragraph his relationship to the girl. You would have to make them experience things, give them voices, make them hate each other, love each other, and develop the growing struggle to have an actual relationship outside of sex.
And it would make him have to actually do something in the schoolyard in chap 1 when he gets off the bus and sees the flock of animals.
And it would allow us to feel his angst when he is departing and time flies. You would give him real emotions, and allow the readers to connect - right now i don't give a rats butt about the characters. Simply because it's boring and it's boring because all it is is like a journal - but not a journal. And who wants to read all about that when you skip through everything so fast? Hm. Nobody would actually want to read on much farther than chapter one.

Now: to make the introduction more interesting, well, it must be rewritten. Somehow i cannot manage to figure out how on earth to make ^ more interesting, sorry. There isn't really anything happening other than the stuff in his head and well... there isn't much happening in his head. You need to develop some sort of STUFF to actually happen to him - interactions with the other characters, being at school, that sort of stuff.

And while that plot sounds great - some of that needs to be introduced in chapter one. Usually (the books i like best and most people would prefer) books have some sort of inkling to the plot in chapter one. Like... it can be totally twisted or something - maybe in your case have a prologue. That would draw readers in because as long as it has some sort of action and preferably a few questions people want answered, well, readers will read - even if they don't like it they will still read just to find out the end and if it's a fab end then they'll love your book, no matter how boring the beginning is.

Hope that helps. Feel free to further clarify

Thanks, I understand what you are saying, and that does help. In my original version, i started the book out in a situation where the main character awakes from a bed and there is blood around him and on him. And he doesn't remember how he got to the bed. And then I may simply shorten the first chapters and add in a few events. Few things like that.


Thanks again everyone, o and I also have a lot of grammar mistakes and such, I never proofread that as of yet with this. So i am sure there are several too, to, there, their mistakes

hey, critiqueing now. I actually want to give up,. the first bit is SO boring. But, I will continue, and I'm sorry if I sound harsh at all, but it isn't really the best part to start off a book. how about you start qwith the blood thing, then you wake up from the "dream" and do the last day of school thing. But none the less, it is VERY boring for a starter point, I wouldn't buy this book.

Sorry
^~^

Hello, I have all comments in the file. Sorry if I was harsh!

I've managed nearly two pages of the story before I simply had to give up. I've edited, and edited, and edited. But although your start was so promising, it quickly became mundane. Around the time of the shower description, any non-reviewing reader would have handed the book back to the shop to get their money back. :/ No one wants paragraph after paragraph of the routine, boring start of someone's day. You started decently, but soon it just became too much - and also, you really need to work on your tenses, as you jump from past to present quite frequently.

I'm sorry, but this was not an enjoyable read for me. The POV and sentence structure was choppy, and It was hard for me to follow. I made alot of the edits right there in the document, and hell, I mostly did my nitpicking on chapter one. I edited out the whole introductory paragraph, because I feel it would be a better story without it. All it did was leaved me confused.

When you describe the main characters routine in the morning, you had bad sentence structure and word choice. I tried to fix as much as I could with that, by merging some sentences togheter and changing alot of the vocabulary used.

You also wrote in fragments. Fragments are incomplete senteces witch do not state verb and noun. Even if its the person thinking, you shouldn't talk in fragments. I fixed alot of that too.

Don't worry, keep going with your book. It has a lot of potetional, and with some good editining, you can probably get it far