"Cole! Breakfast!"
Cole groaned and rolled over in his bed. He forced his eyes open and looked out the window. Disappointment filled his hopeful heart. It was all a dream; he wasn't back home on Earth. He was still on that blasted planet, Estyria. It was his home now no matter how much he wished it wasn't. He'd just have to deal with that.
It was still dark outside and it would be for the next few hours. The sun and moons (there were five of them) that circled the planet were on a different schedule than Earth's sun and moon. Back home, Cole would've woken to the sun beating down his window, but there was no such thing here. He never saw a single ray of sunshine until lunchtime.
The city was filled with street lamps, tall green poles with candles flickering inside a glass container on top. All of the electricity had gone haywire during the lightning storm so the mayor declared that they would use it no more. It was hard living off candles, but Cole could deal with it. That is, until he started missing being able to watch TV. A seventeen year old kid can only go so long without a TV.
There were only a few people out and about that early, most of them scientists rushing off to the labs, no doubt late for another day of work. But Cole didn't focus on any of them. Instead, he watched the girl across the street water the plants on her porch. She had long, curly black hair and wore large, out of style glasses with blue frames. She was in her favorite purple pajama pants and a white sweater. As if she knew someone was watching her, she stopped. Looking around, her eyes locked on Cole's. Dropping the watering can, she pointed to the watch on her right wrist and mouthed the words, Hurry up!
Her name was Leven Thomas and she was Cole's best friend.
Cole didn't miss a beat. He threw the covers off of his bed and set his feet onto the cold floor. Hopping from one foot to the other, he raced around his room to find socks. The material was sweet relief to his almost frost burnt feet. After pulling on a pair of jeans and a black long sleeve shirt and brushing his brown, bowl cut hair, he raced to the top of the steps.
"Cole!"
"Coming, Laurel," he yelled down the stairs, making sure he could be heard. He couldn't stand it when his aunt thought he was ignoring her. "I heard you the first time."
Before he started down the stairs, he paused. Turning, he walked without a sound to the door in the corner. The golden doorknob felt cool under his touch, sending a shiver shooting down his spine. Gently, he twisted the golden knob and let the door swing open.
The room was empty. His heart fell. Where there was an empty bed, there should have been a large man snoring. Where there was a mirror, there should have been a quiet woman fixing her hair but the only thing there was dusty furniture and a single, red candle illuminating the room.
Cole couldn't take it anymore. He pulled the door shut and raced down the stairs. The kitchen wasn't any bigger than the rest of the house. There was just enough room for a table, two chairs, a pantry, and a few boxes they had yet to unpack. It had only been six months since the trip; not even a majority of the unpacking had been done.
"Scrambled eggs again?" Cole complained as he picked up a small silver package between his thumb and forefinger.
"Yes," Laurel sighed from across the table. "You know that this is what we have. The space program didn't give us much of a collection of space food. And that dumb mayor had to dispose of our stoves and microwaves...so just eat the food and shut up about it. Juice?" She offered him an orange block that he took grudgingly and stuck on his tongue. It dissolved within seconds and the familiar taste of orange juice filled his mouth.
He sat down cross from his aunt and ripped open the food package. After taking a few bites of cold, soggy tasting eggs, he spoke up. "Mom and Dad not back yet?" He hadn't looked up, but he could feel Laurel's sad green eyes looking at him. There was a silence that filled the room and he looked across the table. Only then did his aunt speak up.
"Honey, you know your parents are on that mission," she said calmly and cautiously. Cole had a tendency to get angry and discouraged when they had this conversation. "And they won't be back until-"
"Until they find another city like ours," Cole finished for her, turning his attention back to the lumpy space food. "I know." The two returned to eating in silence. Cole glanced at the clock and noticed it was seven o'clock.
Leven! He was supposed to meet her outside ten minutes ago. How could he have forgotten?
Abandoning his breakfast, he rushed about the house grabbing his backpack, a small brown bag for lunch, and pulling on his shoes as he walked through the front door. Laurel had called out something to him, but he ignored it. Once he slammed the door behind him, he paused. Leven was sitting on the second to last step of his porch, her hair moving with the wind.
"Hey."
She turned and narrowed her eyes. "Bout time you woke up. Come on, we're gonna be late for school as it is." She jumped down from the steps and starting walking down the street. Cole rushed to catch up and fell in step beside her.
They walked their usual route to school down the main street. There was only one school in all of Estyria. That's all they needed seeing as only five hundred or so people had made the one way trip to the planet and a quarter of them had died because of the lightning storm. That left even less kids to go to school.
"So what's going on tomorrow for the anniversary?" Cole asked. The next day would mark three months since the lightning storm. Leven shrugged.
"Probably the same funeral procession that happens every year. I don't think that..." she trailed off and suddenly stopped walking, holding an arm out to stop Cole. "Did you hear that?" Her voice was barely a whisper and Cole only just heard her over the wind. He listened closely, not sure what he was listening for, but only the wind reached his ears. He shook his head and urged his best friend to keep moving. She must have just been hearing things.
"You're right," she said. "I didn't get much sleep last night. That could be it." They continued walking, but not even a minute later, Leven stopped again. "No, I just heard it again!" And then without warning, she turned and ran off in the opposite direction. Cole sighed and took off after her. They were going to be late again and Mr. Letts was not going to be happy.
Cole tried his hardest to listen as they ran, but he heard nothing. The wind whipping past him was the only sound. It made him even more annoyed as Leven led him towards something that wasn't real.
But then he heard the screams.
End of chapter
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137,660 Literary Works • 672,057 Reviews
Hey there, sorry for not reviewing until now! Okay, lets get started, shall we?
I'm pretty sure somebody else already mentioned this, but I will anyway. This is unnatural seeming, and I think it'd have more of an effect in narration, not dialogue. So yeah.
This is very nit-picky, but "Bout" needs an apostrophe in front, to show it's an abbreviation of "About."
Did you mean to write month instead of year in the second paragraph? Or year in the first paragraph? Yeah, that should be ironed out soon.
My last little bit is completely opinion based, so feel free to ignore this. I don't know, I just feel like the main character's "normal life" should be well established before the actual plot line changes everything. So, maybe have your characters quickly go through an entire day, make the reader know that that is what happens basically everyday, then let the plot take everyone wherever they go. Yeah.
So I thought this was a great first chapter, I can't wait to catch up and read the rest of the chapters you have up! Alrighty, have a nice day!
It's me again!
Didn't you mention the mayor being dead in the prologue? This obviously could be a new mayor, I guess, but still
I can't help feeling that that would be better as this
I think you need a comma after shirt here. Also, a bowl cut. Harsh.
I can't exactly pinpoint why, but this dialogue sounds a bit scripted or something to me. It kind of feels like you've just put it here in order to explain part of how this world works, and give us information on it and what not
Nit-picky, but how was her hair moving? Like a tornado was ravishing her head or wonderfully and gracefully? I'm assuming the latter, but I don't think there'd be any harm in specifying that in the writing
Wait, if the lightning storm happened three months ago, how can they have a funeral procession every year for it? It hasn't even been one year yet... Am I missing something?
Really picky, but the repetition of wind here sounds a little awkward
Entirely personal opinion here, but I think the end of this sentence would sound better as something that didn't exist. Entirely up to you though, of course
Great ending line!
Well all in all, another good chapter methinks. I like that you introduced us to Cole and Leven because although we haven't seen an awful lot of them, I think that they have the potential to be really interesting characters to follow. Generally speaking your grammar and punctuation is good as well, not perfect, but whose is, eh? I also really like the originality of this novel so far, I mean, I've definitely never seen a film, read a book, watched a TV show e.t.c. that was anything like this come to think of it, so that's a seriously awesome feature of this novel. If you do one thing well above the rest, I think originality should be that one thing.
Now as for critiques, a few of the ones I conjured up have been covered already so I will briefly echo them, but I won't stress on them because you hardly want me to just repeat what everyone else has said. Basically, I agree with what people have said about your characterisation and pacing because I do feel that Cole and Leven are a little one dimensional at the moment, and your pacing is a tiny bit faster than I might like. In fairness though this is only the first chapter, so your character development is hardly going to be incredible. Nonetheless, I would like for you to try and make your characters stand out more so that they are more memorable. I know that's difficult but try and differentiate your characters from other characters by giving them unique attributes and personality traits.
As for the pacing thing, I do agree that you could slow it down a little. I don't necessarily mean that you should change what actually happens in the chapter in order to make it more spread out, but maybe you could just add in more detail and elongate the chapter length so that the pace slows down. Take this from someone's whose average chapter length is 3,000 words: be careful not to go too over the top though if you do decide to lengthen this in order to slow the pace down... I mean, hell, I really need to figure out how to write shorter chapters.
As for other critiques, I kind of wish there was more info and backstory on the whole lightning thing that happened three months ago. I mean, in the prologue we were thrown straight into it and so we had no idea what caused it, if it was natural, if it's common on this planet e.t.c. I was sort of hoping that we'd get some more information on that in this chapter, and while we did get a date of how long ago it was and what it did to the electrics, that's about this. How about Cole? Where was he during the lightning? Did it freak him out? Did he consider it a normal thing? But then the city's holding some memorial thing, right? So that implies that these lightning storms aren't common. Basically, I just want to know more about the lightning storm!
And I think that's all I have to say actually... I'm sure there was something else I wanted to mention but my mind has gone completely blank. Hm. Annoying... Well it can't have been all too major and important if I can't remember it, so I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. Overall I think this is a great progression chapter from the prologue, and with a few tweaks here and there, I think this could be a pretty epic chapter.
Keep writing,
xoxo Skins
Hey Noelle! Black here for a Review!
Okay, first off: AMAZING WORK! The originality in this piece is stunning and VERY well written, your descriptions are really, really nice, your names are cool (Though 'Cole' made me raise an eyebrow). Most all of your main Tools of Fiction (aka: Description, Dialogue, Monologue. . . (etc.)) are really, really well done! I think I'm going to give you a big fat A+ on this piece. I'm truly impressed.
But you do have a couple of small problems. . . . Mainly in your grammar and pacing. Small things, and fairly unimportant in compare with your strong points: but you have to keep your eyes on them. Don't ever view something in writing as below you! Keep vigilante on everything! Do that and you WILL improve.
I'm goin' to do what I can to help you out, but in the end you CAN'T depend on reviewers! Okay, that was a little harsh: But my point is you need to solve your problems on your own. There are two things that you should really try: A: Reading your work out loud to yourself BEFORE you post your work (It really works! Try it!) and B: Getting yourself a grammar/ spell checker. (That'd take down most of your problems.
Anyway! I'm going to start this thing with Grammar: I'm gonna show you your specific problems, fix them, generalize from them, and then hope that you act upon what I say! Remember though: do what works for you! Never work your style around anybody else's.
Okay, read the last part of this sentence. Do you hear the problem here? There's no need to put that 'hopeful' in. See how it messes it up? You're starting the action and 'hope' too fast. You need to be careful with this kind of thing! Remember that your readers are smart, but don't make them assume TOO much.
Okay. Again, same problem as in the previous sentence. You're introducing the action and information way too fast and in the wrong way. If you want to mention that he's from earth then A: Do it earlier using Narrative summary (Telling) or B: Put it in later, in action and dialogue.
You might want to say 'He'd never seen a single ray of sunshine before lunchtime' instead of that last piece. I'm not sure that sun 'beats down on windows'. Maybe sunshine. Maybe something else . . . It's up to you here! I can't tell you want you want.
>> That last part is complete hocus pocus ^^ Believe me, I know from A LOT of experience.
Okay, for some reason you give me the impression that he's sleeping in a glass box in the middle of the city. That's the only explanation for this view he has. You need to remember that he has a certain view, you can't go out of that area, otherwise . . . you'll really mess up. Anyway, keep to your own style.
Okay, that covers pretty much all of your grammar problems right here (I did NOT cover everything wrong with your grammar, I'm just trying to show you your general problem. Good luck! Good work!
I think, after already reading what I had to say about your grammar you may have guessed as to what the problem with your Pacing: In case you haven't then let me fill you in! You introduce information too fast. End of story. You jump from world to story way, way too fast.
What's wrong with this? Well . . . in pretty much anything BUT Fantasy you can jump into the action fast. However, in fantasy, seeing as you usually have an original world (About which your readers know virtually NOTHING) it's a very good idea to give something about the story world before jumping into the action. Just saying. Do what works for you!
Anyway! GREAT WORK!
~Black~
This seems like two stories fused together. There is this typical story of a young boy in a normal city with a troubled life which goes side by side with this other story which I only got hints of. I liked how every now and then there were these cracks that showed up this false sense of reality. My favourite bits were the fact that the room was cold, his parents being on a mission and the orange juice being served as a cube- genius, sounds really delicious. It really shows up the makeshift reality that has been spoon fed to us.
The characterisation is pretty good as well, I already have a good sense of who is who and how they usually behave. You did a very good job of settling your readers into the pace of the story. I am glad the ending seems to go towards action.... and I get to read it straight after this, see you there
Hey Noelle,
The beginning actually made me smile xD It was kind of a slight twist to the trope of: Hero lives a normal life in our world and then ends up in a fantasy world, here we start directly in the fantasy/futuristic world where the hero is dreaming of home, very very nicely done. The only thing is I'm not sure how he got there, I work out by the end that he's in another planet, and his parents were on a mission, so I'm assuming that it's through space travel. Correct me if I'm wrong x.x
Eh, I'm not feeling this paranthetical phrase here. Why can't you just say: The sun and the five moons?
The thing about that is that this information bit here sort of puts me out of the story, because I'm wondering about how any lightning storm could damage an entire city's electrical currents. At least, not to the extent that they would permanently switch to using candles/inferior technology, rather than fixing the damaged areas of the electrical plants. Why not just have a world where electrical currents were not invented yet? It'd be more plausible, and you can still have a candlelit futuristic society?
I would echo Tabithalilian about the characterization -- I'd like to see more of Leven and Cole, but all in all, I felt this was a great intro to your world. I'd like to see how the plot works out and where this story is going
So I really enjoyed your use of a cliffhanger. If the intro to the piece didn't catch my attention then I wanted to know more about this story by the end of it. Your voice carried through well in this piece and I really liked the sci-fi futuristic dystopian vibe. I don't know if you have ever read Brave New World but in some ways it kind of reminded me of that futuristic society where everything is supposed to be perfect but nothing is quite right. Anyway back to what I was saying earlier, I think the story is really interesting.
I think what was most unique about this sci-fi piece was that nobody is walking around in a space suit with fancy inventions. Things are futuristic but subtly so and the society not being able to use electricity was an interesting touch that I have never seen before so I'll be more interested in seeing how this world develops as it has half in the past and half and in the future.
Anyway onto the story, I think your characters need a little more, character? Your main characters resentment with this new world that he lives in is a kind of an interesting trait and I think that starts to describe his character but right now he seems a little one dimensional. Same goes for his friend. She starts to develop and she will probably develop more in part two but right now she too seems a little flat.
As for the world that you have created you start to describe it in detail in little bursts. But I kind of wanted more. More about the lightening storm and more about the funeral procession that happens every year. The tone instantly changes at one point from kind of annoyed to sad when he starts to talk about his parents. I'm still confused on if we are supposed to assume that they are dead or on a suicide mission. And I want to know more abou them too. Telling more about these characters and details of the world that Cole lives in would give the story a little more pacing and create a more three dimensional world.
Can't wait to read part two!