Young Writers Society

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I'd be glad to look at this for you, but my computer is refusing to open it because the file is too large. Is there any way you could send me two or three smaller files instead?

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hmmm...my computer is still saying that the file is too large, but I can read it on the My Documents preview screen so I'll be able to give you overall feedback just not specific intext stuff.

Or maybe I'll do it anyway.
-first paragraph: insect should be plural
-there are several places where you use a comma before the word 'and' which I've always been taught isn't grammatically correct but I've noticed that a lot of people still do it so maybe the rules are different in other countries? I'm not really sure.
-'cheapish' makes sense but expensivish? Maybe you could say something more like 'cheapish and fairly expensive varieties.' (talking about the men's suits while they're in the car)
-Right after the car drives past the town sign, it should be 'spun the wheel' not 'span'
-Introducing the twins: These thing(s) move like that sometimes, jumping over one generation.' This line sounds a little odd. Maybe something more like 'These things can move like that, sometimes skipping a generation.'
-'Peter Burke was a doctor but he wasn't in his cabinet' Maybe this is a local term but I don't understand cabinet in this context. Is it something like hospital or office?
-Very interesting source of cheap meat. I can see where this could cause some problems.

Section Two: (starting at Chapter Five)
-describing the scene at the pool, it should be 'abs' not 'ads'.
-There's a few tabs and line breaks in strange places in this section ( which may just be the way I'm looking at the file.)
-I've noticed that you don't capitalize the title 'miss'. Is that a local thing?
Section Three:
-no errors that stood out to me

General Impressions:
It's nice to see a unique plotline for once. So many stories these days borrow a great deal of their ideas from other sources but I've never read anything like this before. I like how you shift between several characters/groups to show more of what is happening and to give the reader different points of view on the events. As strange as this story is, the reasoning behind all the strange things that are happening actually makes sense. Coming from a school that is very big on being 'green' and protecting the enviroment, I can't help but wonder if this is meant as some kind of commentary on the dangers of modified foods and the risks of 'messing with nature' or if it's just a random interesting plotline you happened to think of.
Some writers get quite confusing when they use really long sentences but I found that even your run-on sentences made sense all the way through. There were some terms that I didn't know but they're probably regional/country terms from wherever you live that I've just never heard before. I also noticed a few sentences that were structured in a way that made them sound unusually formal which didn't seem to quite fit with the tone of the rest of the story but that may be because we're from different place. Aside from those two things which threw me off a bit, this story is very readable.
I'm not quite sure that I really want to know what ends up happening, considering how strange things have become already but you've written this so well that I feel like I have to finish it.

Emmily,
thanks for the feedback! Especially stuff like span/spun and abs/ads, etc. When comes time for editing, I'm sure tons of stuff like that will show up, but an outside view is invaluable. I'm glad you found the central concept interesting, I dreamt it up while soaking in a bathtub. It wasn't supposed to be allegory about anything, but as a story grows flesh all sorts of things begin appearing as conscious or unconscious subtext. Anyway, thanxs again!

“As the car sped along the almost empty highway, it rushed towards a center point around which extraordinary and chilling events would begin unfolding in less than two hours. These events would not end until a factory and a town would both stand extinguished and dark on a rainy night, the patter of raindrops mingling with weak groans and cries of maddened men and women. But for now a warm summer sun glanced off the polished roof of the automobile, insect chattered away in the roadside grass and nothing hinted at what was to come.”

This first paragraph really pulled me into the story. The way you described the upcoming events in the story as extraordinary and chilling events really persuaded me to keep on reading. The way you described the eeriness of what was to come, and then described the somewhat beautiful warm summer’s sun and the automobile under it in present time really makes the reader want to find how everything went from seeming so innocent and beautiful to dark and eerie in less than two hours.

“The man in front was a driver who lived on a driver's income, and went by the name of Ronny. The man lolling in the back was a senior management envoy. His surname was Ballard. His name was Edwin. His face was clean-skinned, well-shaved and handsome in a "I'm-gonna-fire-your-ass-but-I'm-a-charming-devil" sort of way.
Edwin Ballard was, all in all, a man of a democratic disposition. Not only did he give thin smiles to the waiters in restaurants and sometimes stiff nods to the cleaners back in the Gurkoff Meats Inc. building, he also drove himself most of the time, and only used his company chauffeur Ronny when on company business.”

In this paragraph you first describe “Ronny” the chauffeur. At this moment in time Ronny doesn’t seem like such an important character as Edwin does, I feel this way because you have described Edwin in a very large amount of detail, but all we know about Ronnie is he lives on a driver’s income and is only useful to Edwin when on business trips. This makes me wonder if it’s really important to describe Ronny and his income before describing the Edwin. Perhaps you could even leave “The man in front was a driver who lived on a driver's income, and went by the name of Ronny.” Out of the story and just keep the “only used his company chauffeur Ronny when on company business” at the end of describing Edwin.

(I love to nitpick on the first few paragraphs of a story because the first few paragraphs in a story really tell me if I should keep on reading, or throw the story away as fast as possible)

However, after reading the first few paragraphs of your story I could tell your storyline was going to intrigue me.
I really love the way you have described Edwin in this story, after this I imagine him being the handsome successful business man, with an attitude. He seems like a character you can really fall in love with.

“Within the plant itself, or was something to do with Fletcher's fmaily, Edwin had no idea. The idea which he had nursed in the last minutes, that at least some initial agreements would be made right now, was now put on hold.”
Just wanted to point out here that you had spelt “family” wrong, I do this type of thing all the time so it’s no biggie. Just thought it might be something you would like to know about.

As this is a quite long story so I skimmed through the remainder of the story until I got to the most important parts because I didn’t want to take too long to deliver this review to you.
Your story was quite gruesome, but always intriguing. You characters are well described and the audience would really get into the feel of the story. I love your vocabulary; you have quite a large amount of wonderful descriptive words in the story.

I think that once you have done some grammar and spelling checks of your own this story will really come to life.
Well done I look forward to reading more of your work. You are a very talented writer and with some helpful criticism from the community on YWS you could go very far in the near future.

Hello! I am here to review like you asked.(: I only managed to read these two paragraphs, so I will be back to edit the rest later. Sorry!

Red- Corrections
Blue- Comments
Green- Take out
Pink- Highliting

Brain Storm

CHAPTER ONE

As the car sped along the almost empty highway, it rushed towards a center point around which extraordinary and chilling events would begin unfolding in less than two hours. These events would not end until a factory and a town would both stand extinguished and dark on a rainy night, the patter of raindrops mingling with weak groans and cries of maddened men and women. But for now a warm summer sun glanced off the polished roof of the automobile, insect chattered away in the roadside grass and nothing hinted at what was to come.
Inside the car were two men who were divided by class, income and suits. The man in front was a driver who lived on a driver's income, and went by the name of Ronny. The man lolling in the back was a senior management envoy. His surname was Ballard. His name was Edwin.Instead of using "His" again for the second sentence, maybe say something like, "Edwin is his name" or "He goes by Edwin". Something like that.(: His face was clean-skinned, well-shaved and handsome in a "I'm-gonna-fire-your-ass-but-I'm-a-charming-devil" sort of way.

Thank you itsjustemilie and kr1117 (ever notice how communication in the Internet is like in a sci-fi story: "thank you master_of_lizards and x13pootkl" hahaha), for the feedback.
I really would prefer to find out mainly general things, like: a) was it in any way interesting? (b) were there any obvious holes in the story which made you pause and think, 'that can't be right' ; (c) was the story rich enough in detail, or too dry, or too much detail? and (d) do you think that in the end it was age appropriate, if we take the band of kids as an example of future readers?
Actually, thanx also for making me formulate my thoughts on the feedback, I'll just quickly copy/paste this into the beginning of the thread

Hey there, napal! Finally here as requested. Honestly, I was a bit terrorized when you said “sci-fi”, well, because I don’t review sci-fi (not in my request review list, check it again =) ), but I’m here now as promised. =)

For Chapter I:

Here are some nitpicks…

But for now a warm summer sun glanced off the polished roof of the automobile, insects chattered away in the roadside grass and nothing hinted at what was to come.

Here you should delete "driver's" 'cause it was a bit redundant. You should probably describe what a driver's income is like instead. I know you've used this repeat-a-word trick, like the "wild","wild"...but that trick didn't do well here:

The man in front was a driver who lived on a driver's income, and went by the name of Ronny.
His surname was Ballard[color=#FF0080]; his name was Edwin.[/color] << Just suggesting the semicolon, but I'm not telling you to change it. It's up to you. =)

Today it was a matter of company business so Ronny was indeed driving, his bulky shoulders stooped over the fluid contours of the cocoa-colored dashboard, elegant steering wheel eagerly reacting to the most minute prodding of his thick hairy fingers.

You awfully use a lot of clauses. Sentence variety is good, but this one was just bit too long, it was almost confusing.

both Ronny and Ballard were in business suits, respectively of the cheapish and the rather quite expensivish varieties, there were no high-rises or office-towers visible through the windshield.

lolling on the expansive backseat

which in a time of horrendous economical conditions incited even the skeptical bosses of Gurkoff Meats Inc.

I honestly do not know what "dream on boyo" means. Was it a typo? If not, I prefer it in italics.

Vroom, vroom! Dream on [color=#FFFF00]boyo.[/color]

Someone, most likely the proud owner of the plant himself, had made sure that a sunny photo of Maple Meats (with a cute thin birch right in front and transparent blue skies above) was available in many places on the web.

He looked at the building, the guard booth in front of where they were just stopping... Suddenly, his vision doubled and his head swam.

"This" wasn't the right pronoun. Better restate what episode or even happened. =)

Deciding to ignore this episode and just hope it never happens again, indeed, convincing himself that it could never happen again,

That was when he noticed small shapes moving about the perimeter fence.

A second glance confirmed it--these were small animals, snooping about through the wild grass and sitting on their behinds at that, like little furry meditating monks.

"Of course, go right in." nodded The guard nodded but didn't step away immediately.

People in the country just didn't get what life in the 21st century was about. It was about speed, efficiency, not about making small talk.

Oh well, when in Rome... He slouched back into his seat.

"Well, it must sure be damn good burgers if the chipmunks and squirrels are lining up for it!" laughed Ronny laughed and winked at the guard.

This is "spine", unless he did have a pine. =| That would be weird.

For a second he felt chills ran up his spine as he remembered his terror-blackout less than a minute ago,

The thing is this chapter wasn’t really boring. Frankly, I thought it would be, but it wasn’t. I was laughing, dude. You’ve got a way with words! The descriptions were great and I have nothing against your writing. I felt like I was reading a Cleveland Amory Book, though with a totally different theme, of course. I just find his stylr kinda like yours. Okay, your grammar and punctuations are also fairly good, my friend. As a matter of fact, I am impressed.

About the plot, I’m still not sure where this is going (though I can see that your POVs are going to be a bit confusing ‘cause you’ve used an omniscient view and a personal one, yep..I scanned the next chapter =P), but honestly, not to be rude or harsh or such, I think this is a reading for total time-passers. XD I don’t know why, but I feel like it includes so much hilarious nonsense in it, only people who have nothing better to do will have the time to read it. I remember when you told me that you hoped it won’t bore me, it didn’t, but I would like to know if there will be some moral value or whatever. LOL
Thanks for the request anyway. The chapter was, I’ll admit it—awesome. =)

~~ Jash ♥

Woooo, aaaaah, Jashie, thank you for the chapter 1 review. And a few more words from me on your wall:))

All of my edits and comments are in the file. My general impressions are these. This is good. It read mostly well, but you have too many long sentences. Some of which I think are run-ons. I think you should break the sentences up. I think you should draw out the scenes a little bit more, chapter 7 and after seem kind of rushed. I am a bit confused as to how Alex and Sasha volunteered or were volunteered to be in the car when it was going to hit the power line. Can you make that part clearer? All of my comments in the blue and red( I did this on two different computers) are all suggestions. You don't have to follow them, but the changes I made were for clarity. I hope this helps you.

Enlisting the other kids to help was a good plan but I'm not sure I buy the fact that the kids believe they can fix everything on their own. Considering how strange everything is, how do a few kids think they can take down the whole adult population of the town (who are obviously not thinking clearly) on their own. Or is this one of those, we have no other choice so we've got to give the most likely option a chance, kind of things?

A skull pencil box? Aliens and a vampire overlord...this could get very interesting!
I hadn't thought about the possibility that the young teens might soon end up influenced by the brain themselves.
It figures that their first thought would be to use dynamite to blow things up. Personally would never would have thought of using the car but it makes sense. Nice crash scene. I kind of like that it didn't work right away.

You stopped at just the right spot. If you'd gone into too much of the aftermath I think it would have taken away from the story. Briefly summarizing what happened afterwards with the epilogue was just enough to tie up the lose ends and tell us what happened to the different characters. I especially like your last line. I'm surprised that the whole town didn't end up vegetarian after everything that happened.

I wonder if anyone who wasn't there could have been convinced that this really happened if there hadn't been any video? I could even see having most of the people who lived through it decide that it must have all been a bad dream but I'm glad that didn't happen. I think having them remember and be able to prove it makes the story even more interesting.

This isn't normally the kind of story that I would choose to read but I ended up enjoying this much more than I had expected. A very unique plot and interesting developments kept the story moving. Even though the premise was so strange, you made it make sense within the world of the story. Thanks for sharing.

Ibraax,
A very through proof-reading of the text, super! This completely saves me most of the mechanical effort, only the stylistic editing remains. As you said, the second half is rushed for one thing. Continuity issues will be dealt with firmly, remorselessly, and without regret. Cough. There are also stylistic issues which you've done your best to identify and provide a medicine, thank you for this. No offense, but I will not be implementing the majority of those:)

You also raise some questions which I'll just use this thread here to try to answer

How Alexandra becomes Sasha: "Sasha is a female and male given name. It originated in countries of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe as a diminutive of Alexander and Alexandra. It is also found as a surname, although this is very rare. Alternative spellings include: Saša (Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Czech, Slovak, Lithuanian), Sasza (Polish), Sashko (Ukrainian), Sascha (German), Sasja (Dutch), and Sacha (French)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasha_%28name%29

'Expensivish', 'terrible terribleness' and 'eleventy' are not mistakes and I shall arm-wrestle anyone who challenges this statement

A 'real thank you' is an audible thank you instead of just a nod or a smile

saccharine is an artificial sweetener

There are details like the marital situation of Lori and Peter, the exact location of Maple Junction etc. which are omitted on purpose. Embrace vaguenessiccitiationski! If pressed, I'd say that events take place about 3 hours of fast driving south-east of Detroid. Or south-west.

'X' is indeed a placeholder for a name:)

Fletcher becomes an expert on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoreanism

Again, thanks so much for the detailed, in-depth combing of this text. You've helped very much. One thing: spell-check is wise and mighty, but knows not how to bend the language to fit specific prose styles. It's up to the puny human brain to weigh and decide when and what is permissable structure-wise.

**

Emmily,
thank you very much for the general overview, including your thoughts and reactions to certain developements. This is very near to what I hoped to hear. Mmmm, come here let me hug you

What happened and you deleted this?! O_o What would you feel when you review another chapter and happily looks for the thread and when you finally find the thread--it's deleted? O_o yes, you feel sad.