Young Writers Society

This is my novel. Some chapters are very long, others are quite brief. The first chapter of my book is easily the weakest part, so please do help me with that part. I could use any advise. The story is told in the third person omniscient point of view by five teenagers. You will learn their stories. Some very sad, at least that's what I intended, if the stories are flat in their current state please do tell me. And now I leave you to your job as the reader. I wish to hear from you, I'm all ears. I mean, technically I'll be reading your words not hearing them so, "I'm all eyes."

Oh yeah, I'm sort of at a loss of what proper formatting is at the moment, so for everybody who is in the know of what it is please bear with me. I plan to address that issue very soon.

If this were a movie it would be rated
PG-13: PARENTS STRONGLY CAUTIONED
Some Material May Be Inappropriate for Children Under 13
For Intense Thematic Elements, Fantasy violence, intense action, Some Teen Partying, Including Underage Drinking, Brief Sexual Dialogue, Innuendo, Language, Brief Drug Use, An Intense Sequence Of Terror, And A Brief Disturbing Image.

If you're in Canada it would be rated
Canadian Home Video
14A
Rating
Violence, Frightening Scenes, Mature Theme, Disturbing Content, and Course
Language.

If you're from some where else I have no idea
what it would be rated.

By the way: If you are going to read it please tell me first so I can submit the latest version.

Sorry, Adrian this chapter is SO long I’ll only be able to do about the first part. I’ll do some more later on. I'm not sure if this is really Advanced Critique . . .

1. The Dream and Dreamers
Daniel had no clue as to how he ended up in a vast open field, in the middle of a forest surrounded by burning trees and greenery in every direction.

First off the sentence is contradictory - how can he, at the same time, be in a vast open field, but be surrounded by forest? When you think vast, you think large, when you think open, you think free. Not caged in by forest. Also, the sentence sounds a little odd. At first I thought that Daniel was surrounded in burning trees, and then I thought, "Oh, wait, it's just normal greenery," then I realised that it was actually burning trees AND burning greenery. Perhaps if the sentence were worded so,

. . . in the middle of a forest which caged him, stretching out in every direction made up of entwined burning trees and shrivelling greenery . . .

Let alone why he was even in a forest in the first place. All he could think was how was he going to get out. He frantically scanned the environment, for any opening in his flaming surroundings.

You used the base word "surround" twice in this paragraph, well, it might not be this one, but they feel too close. Try something else. Also, the comma after "environment" is not needed.

The fire was in the form of a square, matching the too distant tree line. Finding none he panicked as the realization of his predicament hit him like a ton of bricks.

Okay, well first, how can a fire be in the form of a square? I was under the impression fire didn't have a distinct shape and they freely danced around. Second, do you mean "matching the NONE too distant tree line"? Third, "Finding none". Finding none of what? You may have mentioned it before, but I would've forgotten it by now. Also after "none" there should be a comma.

The grass singed and blackened as it crept in on him. The flames were at least a quarter of a mile away from him in every direction, but closing in by the second. The oddest thing of it all was that he was wearing a thick black coat, his hands were mittened, and he was wearing two layers of pants, and he didn't sweat a drop.

The grassing was creeping up on him? Maybe substitute "it" for blaze or another word for fire. Too many "and's" in the second half of this paragraph. Possibly, take out the first "and".

A frightened fawn taking shelter in a flower bed caught his attention. The poor young deer was crying out an agonizing melody of sorrow. Its animal cry struck a nerve in his soul. Then he saw something so terrifying he had the impulse to run straight into the dancing flames, hoping he could run the distance out of the fire.

Woah, where did this flower bed come from? Also, you used run twice in the last sentence. Maybe flee or sprint, instead?

A stag came into view as it galloped out of the wall of fire and toward the bed of flowers where the fawn hid. Its antlers were on fire, while the rest of its body was unsigned by the flames. It was as if the stags brown fur was coated with fire resistant pheromones.

You really don't need the "came into view". The sentence sounds the same, if not better, without it. And I'm not sure you actually meant pheromones. Aren't pheromones chemicals given off to attract the opposite sex?

He watched as the stag bent down to nudge the fawn as if to comfort it. The fawn backed away as the burning antlers of the stag touched the flowers. They instantly burst into flame. In the blink of an eye the fire was extinguished and all that was left was a pile of ash. The ash then turned white. Daniel was puzzled.

“The fire was extinguished” . . . that doesn’t sound right, I thought that somehow the stag had put it out! Maybe, "the fire consumed itself". Describe the whiteness, please. First, Daniel was terrified for his life, but then he is just puzzled – that is a radical leap of feelings.

Suddenly the kind of vapor that you see when you exhale during a particularly chilly winter day whiffed out of the whitened ash. The ash had become snow! The fawn slowly walked forward and stood on the snow it's hoofed feet sinking into it. Suddenly plants began to sprout in the snow. Instead of flowers something else grew in its place.

Please exclude mentioning the reader, such as: you and you’re, it feels weird to suddenly be INSIDE the story. Perhaps, “the kind of vapour that appears when humans warm breath escapes into particularly chilly winter air whiffed out of the whitened ash.” There should be a comma after snow (the second one.) “in the snow” is not exactly needed, but you can leave it there.

Where there once stood beautiful flowers now rose an ominous rose bush. The thorns were coated with blood, and the flowers were of various unnatural colors that no rose bush he had ever seen sprouted. Black, blue, and whitish silver like colored flowers were in full bloom on the plants stems. Daniel thought it was neat looking, but something deep within him told him it was the most vile and repulsive thing his eyes have ever had the displeasure of seeing.

I’m quite aware that the two "rose’s" here mean different things, but seeing them so close together in a sentence is a little bit disconcerting. However, other than that I like this part.

Something besides the bizarre scene unfolding in front of him struck him as odd. Why couldn't he smell any smoke? He should have been coughing uncontrollably with all the smoke floating over him like a ghostly apparition. He was no expert on the chemical and physical breakup of fire, but wouldn't the heat of a fire this intense reach him even from this distance?

This is a nice paragraph, I applaud you. Only mistake – it would intensity not intense.

Duh, this is a dream. It sure seemed all too real though. He even pinched himself, because he heard that you couldn't feel pain in a dream. It wasn't true. When he pinched himself he felt it alright.

Very nice.

He jumped when the stag let out an ear-piercingly loud deer noise. Its head was reared toward the sky. The flames scorching and licking at the trees were suddenly extinguished. Unlike the flower bed not all of them turned into the snowy ash. Some of them, most notably the taller and healthier looking of the trees weren't even burned at all.

Loud deer noise? . Unsure of the noise that deer’s make? They don’t make much noise. Deer, when they are warning other’s of danger, make thumping noise with their hooves or do something called a distress call.

Like with the flower bed new plant life began to grow in the snow. Some piles of snow simply melted and left behind normal looking grass. The trees that did grow back, were as equally menacing as the rose bush. The bark of their trunks was the same whitish gray color, and the leaves which were shaped like stars were black. They glistened like oil stains in the faint glow of the stags burning antlers.

In the first sentence there is no need for “with”. Love the imagery in this part.

Mountains loomed beyond the trees. Their miles high peaks were obscured by misty clouds. Those mountains make the Himalayas look like ant hills, he thought. When he was done gawking at the wondrous view of the mountains he scanned every inch of the trees looking for anything blue colored, finding nothing. When he gave up he shifted his attention back to where the fawn was beside the rose bush. It was gone! Where it once stood was a miniature pond of clear water.

How does he know what the Himalayas look like? Also, something blue-coloured? Why would he being doing that? Also the sentence about the fawn here is a little strange; say it out loud. “. . . he shifted his attention back to the rose bush where the fawn had been standing.”

Overall: I quite enjoyed this. I know this is just the very beginning, so you can expect more praise from me a little bit later. You have quite good talent in describing things which many people, for some reason, leave out. The only bit of which I wasn’t quite satisfied with was the character. He doesn’t have much of a personality. I found him a little . . . vacant.

I promise to read the rest of the chapter sometime later, but for now, I shall rest my brain.

Have A Nice Day,
Azrael.

Thank you Light_Devil! you have given me great feedback. Goodness I never really noticed how oddly I wrote this part of my story. It's radically different than the middle and end.

I did the second bit as well.

First of all, I enjoyed reading the first chapter. This dream world you brought into the story was unique and beautiful. The descriptions, for the most part, were fantastic to read, and the characters were consistent with their given personality.

As I was reading I noticed that there was a misuse of comma usage, and it wasn't in one general area. It was throughout the first chapter. Also, while we're on the subject of punctuation, be careful when using its and it's. This was only a problem in Daniel's section, and it was very minimal. Be careful about possessives as well. Examples:

“Aren't you just the cutest thing, you look like Bambi.”

Two sentences would work much better, I believe.

The fawn raised it's head to look at him

It was as if the stags brown fur was coated in fire resistant chemicals.

^It only needs an apostrophe. It was mostly found when talking about the animals. The lion's teeth were large or the dragon's body was green, etc.

Finding none he panicked as the realization of his predicament hit him like a ton of bricks.

None what? Finding no opening?

...hoping he could run the distance out of the fire.

Did you mean outrun the fire?

...while the rest of its body was unsigned by the flames.

The word you would be looking for is singe but it would be unsinged (not a word). I'm not sure what could replace it.

As a note, you tend to use "-looking" or "-like" to describe something.

silver-like

or

fierce-looking

You don't really need those endings. It sounds much better without 'em and it unclogs the sentence.

He could see himself in bed sleeping like an old man with the fan on high during a hot summer night. An old superstitious rural man who had a sack of garlic on his bed stand within easy reach of his hand in case a vampire ever entered his land.
Little did he know he was allergic to his garlic amulet. He would cry out in fright if he woke up in the middle of the night to black. So he always slept under lamplight, what a bright light. An old man who was about to die after taking his last breath on his death bed. With no one around to even notice, until they found him in the morning.

I was confused when you switched to do this part. It went from the animals to the old man. Is it needed?

Also, watch your tenses. This was the only example I found:

...and almost feel a cold electrical current in the air being emitted by the stag.

The word "felt" would work.

That's it. The dialogue and thought chains were on cue. The characters and descriptions were tantalizing. I can't wait to read the second chapter. Thank you for sharing.

Yo,
I got to Bismark Propaganda News
Here are my impressions.

Unlike a short story, where nit-picking is very welcome, concerning an unedited novel nit-picking I believe to be counter productive. So I'll just point out two types of things should be on the lookout for when come the time for editing. They are: internal inconsistencies, and missing descriptive sentences which disrupt the rhythm of the narrative.

Internal inconsistencies

Daniel: almost never dreams - has had many strange dreams
( another thing, make sure the style of the internal dialogues of the protagonist and the style of the author do not overlap unless its very necessary for the plot)
Stacey - father doesn't beat her harshly - he beats her harshly.


Missing descriptive sentences

There is a description what type of alcoholic Stacey's father is not. A balancing sentence of what type of person he is is needed.

I can't hear a thing! Gradually Stacey's hearing came back, and she faintly heard powerful deep breaths - There's a missing descriptive sentence between the two.

You get the idea. Some sentences left by themselves create a hanging feeling, like something is missing. That something is a description.

Summary:
I can make an educated guess that there is some sort of agony of the biosphere going on.
The novel begins like a delirium, then it picks up speed in the sense that details and characters accumulate at an alarming and desrienting rate. All this seems to be happening in the context of an endless build-up.
With some many details and characters and flashbacks and whatnot, you really must differentiate between the props and the important people/scenes/bits of news. You have to underline them in some way, to make them stand out from the torrent of information
I'll try to read the rest in the coming days, good luck

I don't know what the f@#k it is with misfortune taking a liking to me, but I now have to make a lot corrections that I already made to my book. I even lost about five pages of new content that I added!

My life is already bad, but this added stress is killing me!

*Sigh* I'll be sure and go through what was lost. This feels a lot like what happened on January 1, 2010 a few minutes after the new year began.

I always go through my anger alone. Well I guess being consumed by it won't help. So I'd better get busy on it sometime.

Sucks, stuff like that has happened to me as well. There's one foolproof system - at the end of each day, email your files to yourself. Takes a minute, may save major headches

I just saw Avatar man!
There are parts there which are mirror images of your burning biosphere agony scenes, only in an alien setting of course. This means two things, I'm being serious here:
1. You are sensitive enough to tune it to the zeitgeist and when concepts float around you also react to them. This is good. This means you are intuitively in touch with what is happening.
2. You have to get on your ass and finish and edit this thing in a month flat, and I really mean in a month flat, and start looking for publishers. Avatar will open many doors for a while, including for your piece.
Best of luck

I had never seen things that way. And to the person above me, I hadn't even seen Avatar until a few days ago, and I didn't finish watching it because of technical difficulties.

I started writing the book months before I even heard of the movie.

And this is to all people:

"How do I find a publisher?! I'm going hysterical just thinking about it! And please do help me figure out what should be edited! This could be my ticket out of my town! Something I have been desiring for years! If that ever happens I will no doubt cry with joy!"

Dude, dude, unles you are a lucky woman who invents Twilight or Harry Potter, and unless you are a lucky man who scores a hit with his first novel like King, or with his fourth novel like Brown, you do it the hard way. This is the bibliography of the first books by Dean Koontsz:
Star Quest (1968)
The Fall of the Dream Machine (1969)
Fear That Man (1969)
Anti-man (1970)
Beastchild (1970)
The Dark Symphony (1970)
Hell's Gate (1970)
The Crimson Witch (1971)
Demon Child (1971) (writing as Deanna Dwyer)
Legacy Of Terror (1971) (writing as Deanna Dwyer)
A Darkness in My Soul (1972)
The Flesh in the Furnace (1972)
Starblood (1972)
Warlock (1972)
Children of the Storm (1972) (writing as Deanna Dwyer)
The Dark Of Summer (1972) (writing as Deanna Dwyer)
Chase (1972) (writing as K R Dwyer)
Dance With The Devil (1972) (writing as Deanna Dwyer)
The Haunted Earth (1973)
A Werewolf Among Us (1973)
Hanging on (1973)
Demon Seed (1973)
Shattered (1973) (writing as K R Dwyer)
After the Last Race (1974)
Dragonfly (1975) (writing as K R Dwyer)
Nightmare Journey (1975)
Invasion (1975) (writing as Aaron Wolfe)
The Long Sleep (1975) (writing as John Hill)
Night Chills (1976)
Prisoner of Ice (1976) (writing as David Axton)
aka Icebound
Time Thieves (1977)
The Vision (1977)
The Face of Fear (1977) (writing as K R Dwyer)
The Key to Midnight (1979) (writing as Leigh Nichols)
Whispers (1980)

...his success came with whispers! Count the books, count the years. Only with whispers did his success come.
So never, never pin your hopes like that on an unfinished semi readable book man. It may get published, it may not get published. Getting out of town is either through university or through finding a job

This town is a death trap.

I've just downloaded it, ill read the whole thing and note down the minor mistakes I pass by. Hope that would help. Only problem is I have to print it out, and I don't know where i can print out a 104 pages.

Whenever you are ready to print do tell me Ahmed. I have edited the book a bit more. I really do mean a bit, but it still gets rid of some annoying typos making it easier on the eyes.

Never mind, already have, but I will edit more. So, maybe do tell me.

Just loaded it. it may take me a while to review the whole thing but when I do I will attatch a new version of your novel with my comments included in red in a post in this thread.