Young Writers Society

Hi - this is the first section, of the first chapter, of a novel I've been working on for about a year and a half, on and off - it's been rewritten quite a few times, and this is the first draft of this version. But by all means, be as ruthless as you wish!!


The recently replaced, heavily worn green cushions that spread across the four long, wooden rows of benches reflected the light of the overhead lamps as the honourable members rose as one to their feet. Stark whispers of panic, disbelief and scornful remarks fluttered around the room as three men entered, one ahead of the others. His hands clutched a piece of white, neatly printed A4 paper, crumpled slightly from the force of his iron grip. The man to his right, clad in grey-green military uniform and using his medals as a fantastic shield, walked in perfect time with his master - head held high, eyes looking straight ahead. The man on the left, the smaller of the three, his glasses slipping slightly from their perch, walked out of sync, his footfalls clearly discernable against the backdrop of noise.
Upon reaching the central desk in the large, expansive room, the three halted and the room fell instantly silent.
The lead figure looked around him, feeling all eyes upon him, analysing him, as he slowly raised the single sheet of paper in line with his temples.
“This”, he began triumphantly, his black suit folding around the shoulder and elbow, “is a formal document from his majesty the King informing this government and parliament that this matter is now in our hands.”
A cacophony of cheers erupted from the members as they shouted, called, clapped and embraced one another. The lead figure’s face broke into a sly smile as he gazed at the joyous faces all around him. He did not turn to face the two men he had walked in with, who had stood by him for over a decade of his governmental rule. He knew privately that he could trust them entirely.
Neither man smiled behind his back.
Outside, Big Ben tolled twelve noon.


The telephone display buzzed again.
“I told you, cancel them!”, the man shouted down the phone, slamming the headset down on the receiver. His hands worked quickly to gather the vast jumble of papers on his desk, all the while preventing his neatly presented uniform from falling apart. Shoving the mass of paperwork into the waiting briefcase, throwing away a screwed up piece of rubbish, he walked around the glass desk and yanked the door open.
“Mr King!”
Edward King stopped before the door had closed behind him, “Yes?”
His secretary stood from her desk, her bright red suit contrasting her bleach-blonde hair.
“It’s your wife”, she whispered, holding a phone handset to her stomach, with both hands.
Edward sighed, closing his eyes, and then reached for the phone. The secretary passed it to him and left the room with a professional, bowed head.
King set his briefcase beside the desk.
“Yes sweetheart?”
“Where are you? I’ve got dinner in the oven, it’s almost ready - how soon can you...”
“I... I can’t make dinner, honey, I'm sorry.”
“Oh...” - she paused - “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”
“Karen, you know I cannot tell you anything...”
She sighed, “I know, I know, I know! Secrets of the state and all that, of course I know. I meant had something happened to you. Anyway, I did work the system myself for a few years, remember?!”
“...Never lost your political flare, either”, he smiled.
“Watch it, or I’ll come and get you myself and give you a right royal run-down on politics!”
He laughed.
“When will you be home?”
“I don’t know, some time, I think.”
“Okay, that’s all I need to know... be careful, won’t you Ed?”
“Of course I will be - there’s absolutely nothing to be worried about, I'm telling you. Just take care of yourself and I’ll be back before you realise I’ve gone.”
“Alright. I’ll see you soon then.”
“See you soon.”
“Love you.”
“I love you too.”
She hung up.
Edward listened to the long, single-note dial tone for a moment, before clicking the phone off. Placing the device on the desk, he walked towards the door to the corridor, grabbing his briefcase.
His secretary smiled at him as he left, wishing him good luck on his trip. Ed raised his capped hat to her and set off down the corridor.
The laminated wooden floor entertained his eyes as his mind worked through a list of items he would need, trying to remember if he had added them to his belongings now on their way by private helicopter to Portsmouth. Numerous doors and branching corridors passed before he realised that he was being closely watched.
Three men stood at the far end of the corridor - one, wearing the same black suit as before, the other two donning a blue-black personal guard uniform, arms folded, a pistol clearly visible on their belts. All were looking straight at him.
“Come along, Mr King!”, shouted the lead man.
Edward turned away, pretending to occupy himself with his free hand as he accelerated towards the group. Only when he was a few metres away did he raised his head, smiling slightly as the three moved into position to walk along with him. The black suited man walked beside him, while the guards marched behind them for what remained of the corridor.
“I trust you are well enough for this journey?”
“Yes, of course”, Edward replied.
“Good. I can rely on your judgement then?”
“You know damned well you can, Russ, stop acting all high and mighty. I am your right hand man, you know”, Ed replied with a scowl.
“I know. Just ensuring my security - this is a highly risky operation, Ed. I know I can trust you, but you have to make the right decisions.”
“Or what? We’ll end up with the whole world despising us... no, wait, that’s already happened!”, Ed said sarcastically.
“Calm your temper, Ed. It’s not good for you.”
Edward hissed at the remark, “Anything else you wish to check up on?”
Russ paused.
“No.”
“Well thank you, Mr MacDonald, for a delightful send off...”, Ed muttered harshly under his breath, knowing full well that his master had heard, as he pushed one of the two glass double doors ahead of them.
The room beyond was a white-washed, sterilised expanse, surrounded by a single blue stripe that ran halfway up the walls. A few leafy plants filled in the gaps, giving some sort of scale as to the size of the foyer. A large, semi-circular front desk stood just beside the door, two receptionists working at a leisurely pace behind its raised surface.
“See you soon, sir”, called one of the receptionists, noticing King heading for the main entrance doors.
Russ Macdonald caught the door as it swung back on him, the two guards watching Edward walk swiftly away.
“You have a task, King”, shouted Russ.
King raised his free hand in a quick sign of acknowledgement.
“Do it right, for all our sakes.”
King slammed the door open with a tightly clenched fist, marching down the steps to the pavement below where a waiting car stood, its colour a pure black, tinted windows hiding the seats and driver. He opened the door and clambered inside as fast as he could, not bothering to talk to the driver.
“Let’s go”, he commanded. The car pulled away from the curb.
King sighed, dumping the briefcase on the rear passenger seat beside him. He leant forwards and pressed the small blue button, raising the soundproof glass screen between the front and rear of the car. He felt himself beginning to relax already in the comfortable, black leather seats.
He tried to busy himself by looking out the window at all the people they were driving past, none of them taking any notice of the black official car speeding away down the criss-crossing London streets. The variety of clothing made him smile inside, reminding him that after everything that had happened, the famine, the economic crises... the war.
Always, he found himself drawn back to that ominous time in history. Such dark and dangerous things that went on behind closed doors, behind the people’s backs, all the lies, all the deceit, all the treachery: secrets never told, but never forgotten...
...Secrets that would forever remain secret.
Edward reached for his briefcase, paused, and then pressed a small red button on the wooden divide just below the glass panel he had raised. The glass tinted slightly, though he knew it would be far darker on the driver’s side. He went for the briefcase once more. Unclipping the two brass latches on the main pocket, he folded over the brown leather flap. The papers he had shoved into the carrying case spewed out in an untidy manner. Lifting the bulk of the paperwork out, he sifted through each sheet, checking every page before moving on.
Reports, checklists, descriptions, diagrams all sailed through his mind as he skimmed over the contents of the stack he held tightly in his hands.
Then he found it.
A single sheet of paper peeked round the corner of three others, showing the top left hand corner of the diagram he had become so familiar with. With his right hand he grasped the paper, his left pulling the others away and shoving them against the door to lean on his left flank. He read each small annotation of the diagram slowly, taking in each and every word as if it were a holy scripture.
The large image of a 3-D cylinder filled with a green-grey liquid filled his vision, tubules and wires attaching to the top and bottom of the container, leading off towards an invisible and unspecified computer and pump system.
A remnant of humanity’s past, brought back to life.
He had seen it before.
One statement popped into his head as he gazed with an indifferent mind at the diagram, knowing what its purpose was, what it had done, and what it may still do.
“Know your enemy.”
The repetitive thud-thud-thud of helicopter blades suddenly broke over the noise of the car engine, dragging Edward’s eyes away from the paper and out the window. Just at the edge of his vision, if he pressed his head against the glass slightly, flashed the black lines of helicopter blades high above the buildings surrounding them.
The driver rounded a corner, the road leading on to a wider street at the next turning.
Ed placed the paper at a random spot in the pile leaning against him, delicately replacing them in the briefcase, making sure that he sealed them securely. Depressing the tint button for the glass panel in front of him, he tapped twice on the glass with his knuckle. The driver looked at him in the rear-view mirror, noting Mr King’s sharp finger pointing to the left, his lips mouthing the letter ‘B’.
He understood.
At the end of the road, the driver altered his course.
Within minutes, the car arrived at Marlborough Road, a thin crowd blocking the route onto the Mall. Drums and multiple brass bands replaced the sound of the engine as the driver turned off the engine. Reaching above his head, Edward flipped the heavy catch on a small panel to reveal the car’s bulletproof, tinted sunroof. He pressed a button and the glass slid into the roof. The booming of drums, the roaring of bandsmen and the cheers of the crowd flooded the car as he stood, chest and head protruding far beyond the protection of the car, looking ahead onto the broad Mall roadway.
Beyond the waving crowd, a huge military parade marched down the Mall towards Buckingham palace. British flags fluttered in the breeze as their bearers marched in neat lines and rows ahead of their specific army unit. Heavily armoured soldiers wearing semi-automated suits lead the parade, about twenty metres ahead of the current unit.
“SAS...”, Edward muttered. A shout from the parade brought his attention back towards the main procession.
Someone had noticed him, and now every flag bearer and subsequent commander made their soldiers cup their weapons in their palms, throwing a salute his way as they marched by. Yells from following unit commanders informed Edward that he would be here for a while.
Slowly, though not reluctantly, he raised his own right hand, returning every salute he could find.
“This”, he whispered to himself through gritted teeth, “is going to be a long day...”

I really just skimmed over this (sorry) but one thing I noticed is your descriptions. Too much. For instance,

The recently replaced, heavily worn green cushions

If you want to make a note of them being recently replaced, try another sentence or something. Maybe...... "The new, yet worn green cushions covered the....."

Similar comment on

His hands clutched a piece of white, neatly printed A4 paper

you don't have to describe everything about the paper to give us a visual.

Overall, your style has promise.

Thanks for the feed back - I can see exactly what you mean, I have been considering altering the over-descriptive sections, but I thought it was best to post it as a raw material, as it were! I'll definitly make the alterations necessary
Thanks very much!

I agree. I think that a bit less details, and you'll be good to go. Sometimes if you have too much details, the reader can forget what they're actually reading about.

Okay, so here is the promised review (I wonder, did I promise you a review, or everyone else?) Whatever, anywho here goes. You're very right in that it sounds political, although I do like how you automatically give us a bit of mystery. What is the mission? Anyhow, Here are my nitpicks, and just so you know, i don't delve too much into spelling, so that's not what i was correcting. Here goes.

Feardser wrote:The recently replaced, heavily worn green cushions wait, so if they're recently replaced, then how are they heavily worn?that spread across the four long, wooden rows of benches reflected the light of the overhead lamps as the honourable members rose as one to their feet. Stark whispers of panic, disbelief and scornful remarks fluttered around the room as three men entered, one ahead of the others. His hands clutched a piece of white, neatly printed A4 paper, crumpled slightly from the force of his iron grip. The man to his right, clad in grey-green military uniform and using his medals as a fantastic shield, walked in perfect time with his master - head held high, eyes looking straight ahead. The man on the left, the smaller of the three, his glasses slipping slightly from their perch, walked out of sync, his footfalls clearly discernable against the backdrop of noise.
Upon reaching the central desk in the large, expansive room, the three halted and the room fell instantly silent.
The lead figure looked around him, feeling all eyes upon him, analysing him, as he slowly raised the single sheet of paper in line with his temples.
“This”, he began triumphantly, his black suit folding around the shoulder and elbow, “is a formal document from his majesty the King informing this government and parliament that this matter is now in our hands.”ooooh! What's going on??? It sounds important.
A cacophony of cheers erupted from the members as they shouted, called, clapped and embraced one another. The lead figure’s face broke into a sly smile as he gazed at the joyous faces all around him. He did not turn to face the two men he had walked in with, who had stood by him for over a decade of his governmental rule. He knew privately that he could trust them entirely.
Neither man smiled behind his back.
Outside, Big Ben tolled twelve noon.right, so we are now in London


The telephone display buzzed again.
“I told you, cancel them!”, the man shouted down the phone, slamming the headset down on the receiver. His hands worked quickly to gather the vast jumble of papers on his desk, all the while preventing his neatly presented uniform from falling apart. Shoving the mass of paperwork into the waiting briefcase, throwing away a screwed up piece of rubbish, he walked around the glass desk and yanked the door open.
“Mr King!”
Edward King stopped before the door had closed behind him, “Yes?”
His secretary stood from her desk, her bright red suit contrasting her bleach-blonde hair.
“It’s your wife”, she whispered, holding a phone handset to her stomach, with both hands.
Edward sighed, closing his eyes, and then reached for the phone. The secretary passed it to him and left the room with a professional, bowed head.
King set his briefcase beside the desk.
“Yes sweetheart?”
“Where are you? I’ve got dinner in the oven, it’s almost ready - how soon can you...”
“I... I can’t make dinner, honey, I'm sorry.”
“Oh...” - she paused - “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”
“Karen, you know I cannot tell you anything...”
She sighed, “I know, I know, I know! Secrets of the state and all that, of course I know. I meant had something happened to you. Anyway, I did work the system myself for a few years, remember?!”
“...Never lost your political flare, either”, he smiled.
“Watch it, or I’ll come and get you myself and give you a right royal run-down on politics!”
He laughed.
“When will you be home?”
“I don’t know, some time, I think.”
“Okay, that’s all I need to know... be careful, won’t you Ed?”
“Of course I will be - there’s absolutely nothing to be worried about, I'm telling you. Just take care of yourself and I’ll be back before you realise I’ve gone.”
“Alright. I’ll see you soon then.”
“See you soon.”
“Love you.”
“I love you too.”
She hung up.
Edward listened to the long, single-note dial tone for a moment, before clicking the phone off. Placing the device on the desk, he walked towards the door to the corridor, grabbing his briefcase.
His secretary smiled at him as he left, wishing him good luck on his trip. Ed raised his capped hat to her and set off down the corridor.
The laminated wooden floor entertained his eyes as his mind worked through a list of items he would need, trying to remember if he had added them to his belongings now on their way by private helicopter to Portsmouth. Numerous doors and branching corridors passed before he realised that he was being closely watched.
Three men stood at the far end of the corridor - one, wearing the same black suit as before, the other two donning a blue-black personal guard uniform, arms folded, a pistol clearly visible on their belts. All were looking straight at him.
“Come along, Mr King!”, shouted the lead man.
Edward turned away, pretending to occupy himself with his free hand as he accelerated towards the group. Only when he was a few metres away did he raised his head, smiling slightly as the three moved into position to walk along with him. The black suited man walked beside him, while the guards marched behind them for what remained of the corridor.
“I trust you are well enough for this journey?”
“Yes, of course”, Edward replied.
“Good. I can rely on your judgement then?”
“You know damned well you can, Russ, stop acting all high and mighty. I am your right hand man, you know”, Ed replied with a scowl.
“I know. Just ensuring my security - this is a highly risky operation, Ed. I know I can trust you, but you have to make the right decisions.”
“Or what? We’ll end up with the whole world despising us... no, wait, that’s already happened!”, Ed said sarcastically.
“Calm your temper, Ed. It’s not good for you.”
Edward hissed at the remark, “Anything else you wish to check up on?”
Russ paused.
“No.”
“Well thank you, Mr MacDonald, for a delightful send off...”, Ed muttered harshly under his breath, knowing full well that his master had heard, as he pushed one of the two glass double doors ahead of them.
The room beyond was a white-washed, sterilised expanse, surrounded by a single blue stripe that ran halfway up the walls. A few leafy plants filled in the gaps, giving some sort of scale as to the size of the foyer. A large, semi-circular front desk stood just beside the door, two receptionists working at a leisurely pace behind its raised surface.
“See you soon, sir”, called one of the receptionists, noticing King heading for the main entrance doors.
Russ Macdonald caught the door as it swung back on him, the two guards watching Edward walk swiftly away.
“You have a task, King”, shouted Russ.
King raised his free hand in a quick sign of acknowledgement.
“Do it right, for all our sakes.”
King slammed the door open slammed the door open. Hmm. I've never heard that phrase before. Do you mean slammed the door closed?with a tightly clenched fist, marching down the steps to the pavement below where a waiting car stood, its colour a pure black, tinted windows hiding the seats and driver. He opened the door and clambered inside as fast as he could, not bothering to talk to the driver.
“Let’s go”, he commanded. The car pulled away from the curb.
King sighed, dumping the briefcase on the rear passenger seat beside him. He leant forwards and pressed the small blue button, raising the soundproof glass screen between the front and rear of the car. He felt himself beginning to relax already in the comfortable, black leather seats.
He tried to busy himself by looking out the window at all the people they were driving past, none of them taking any notice of the black official car speeding away down the criss-crossing London streets. The variety of clothing made him smile inside, reminding him that after everything that had happened, the famine, the economic crises... the war.
Always, he found himself drawn back to that ominous time in history. Such dark and dangerous things that went on behind closed doors, behind the people’s backs, all the lies, all the deceit, all the treachery: secrets never told, but never forgotten...
...Secrets that would forever remain secret.
Edward reached for his briefcase, paused, and then pressed a small red button on the wooden divide just below the glass panel he had raised. The glass tinted slightly, though he knew it would be far darker on the driver’s side. He went for the briefcase once more. Unclipping the two brass latches on the main pocket, he folded over the brown leather flap. The papers he had shoved into the carrying case spewed out in an untidy manner. Lifting the bulk of the paperwork out, he sifted through each sheet, checking every page before moving on.
Reports, checklists, descriptions, diagrams all sailed through his mind as he skimmed over the contents of the stack he held tightly in his hands.
Then he found it.
A single sheet of paper peeked round the corner of three others, showing the top left hand corner of the diagram he had become so familiar with. With his right hand he grasped the paper, his left pulling the others away and shoving them against the door to lean on his left flank. He read each small annotation of the diagram slowly, taking in each and every word as if it were a holy scripture.
The large image of a 3-D cylinder filled with a green-grey liquid filled his vision, tubules and wires attaching to the top and bottom of the container, leading off towards an invisible and unspecified computer and pump system.
A remnant of humanity’s past, brought back to life.
He had seen it before.
One statement popped into his head as he gazed with an indifferent mind at the diagram, knowing what its purpose was, what it had done, and what it may still do.
“Know your enemy.”
The repetitive thud-thud-thud of helicopter blades suddenly broke over the noise of the car engine, dragging Edward’s eyes away from the paper and out the window. Just at the edge of his vision, if he pressed his head against the glass slightly, flashed the black lines of helicopter blades high above the buildings surrounding them.
The driver rounded a corner, the road leading on to a wider street at the next turning.
Ed placed the paper at a random spot in the pile leaning against him, delicately replacing them in the briefcase, making sure that he sealed them securely. Depressing the tint button for the glass panel in front of him, he tapped twice on the glass with his knuckle. The driver looked at him in the rear-view mirror, noting Mr King’s sharp finger pointing to the left, his lips mouthing the letter ‘B’.
He understood.
At the end of the road, the driver altered his course.
Within minutes, the car arrived at Marlborough Road, a thin crowd blocking the route onto the Mall. Drums and multiple brass bands replaced the sound of the engine as the driver turned off the engine. Reaching above his head, Edward flipped the heavy catch on a small panel to reveal the car’s bulletproof, tinted sunroof. He pressed a button and the glass slid into the roof. The booming of drums, the roaring of bandsmen and the cheers of the crowd flooded the car as he stood, chest and head protruding far beyond the protection of the car, looking ahead onto the broad Mall roadway.
Beyond the waving crowd, a huge military parade marched down the Mall towards Buckingham palace. British flags fluttered in the breeze as their bearers marched in neat lines and rows ahead of their specific army unit. Heavily armoured soldiers wearing semi-automated suits lead the parade, about twenty metres ahead of the current unit.
“SAS...”, Edward muttered. A shout from the parade brought his attention back towards the main procession.
Someone had noticed him, and now every flag bearer and subsequent commander made their soldiers cup their weapons in their palms, throwing a salute his way as they marched by. Yells from following unit commanders informed Edward that he would be here for a while.
Slowly, though not reluctantly, he raised his own right hand, returning every salute he could find.
“This”, he whispered to himself through gritted teeth, “is going to be a long day...”

hehe, I'll bet

This was very entertaining! I never got bored, and that's a great thing, because I can get bored really easily. I desperately want to know how it ends, gory or not because I'm just a violent person like that and I really dont care how violent it is . Tell me when you post Chapter 1.2!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As soon as I saw the "slammed the door open" I cringed!! I can't believe I missed that!!
I've got the next part ready now, so I'll post it a.s.a.p., possibly as soon as I've finished typing this! - and just to warn you, it gets A LOT darker!
I'm glad it's been enjoyed! I might try repeated proof-reads this time though...

I read the first half of this. To be honest, it's so forthcoming (elegant descriptions, bold characters, stately settings, etc.) However, your robust descriptions and plot-lines contrast directly with the story's required pace.

Here's what I mean- your summary suggests a desperate mood ("the brink of a new conflict", "what lies beneath their feet"), but the actual pace of this segment is slow. In other words, I expected a "BANG" when I began reading, but I got a controlled "hiss" instead.

My suggestion for keeping the reader hooked would be to make the first few paragraphs of your novel a riveting Flash-forward. Perhaps a main character could find himself on the verge of death, or a very general statement could be made, such as:

At first, the world was shaken. But now, in brutal disarray, it crumbled. All were powerless to stop the darkness inside it, to make the unknown known. Only so-and-so could save, etc.

If I had seen a flash-forward, or if the brutal circumstances of the characters were made known to me, I might have been hooked. Instead, it felt a little lethargic and disconnected.

If the above criticism seemed harsh, it really wasn't. I was only saying that the pace of this segment was drearily slow. Everything else was awesome, so the only reason I'm even bothering with criticism is because pace is so vital to the attention-span of the reader. If you gave the reader a taste of what's to come in a flash-forward or tried upping the overall speed of the plot, then they'd stick around.

I can see exactly what you mean! The next part of this chapter, 1.2, has a more fast-paced part to it, and this did originally have a captivating start-point, which I think I'll add back in
Thanks very much for all the comments and pointers!
Feel free to continue reading, if you so wish!