Young Writers Society

Hey there, bekka, and welcome to YWS! I hope you stick around because this really is an awesome website, and it's the best one I've come across for improving my writing. If you have any questions regarding the site, just let me know and I'll see if I can help you out

I woke, slowly opening my eyes.

Okay, so this is extremely picky so ignore me if you want, but I'm not very keen on this opening because it's a bit of a cliche. A lot of novels open with the main character waking up, so I would suggest maybe conjuring up something more original and different if you can.

At the moment, though, my major concern was getting to my feet and figuring out where I was.

This should technically be At that moment because you're writing in past tense, whereas At the moment is present tense

Keeping my eyes closed, I slowly pulled myself up until I was in a sitting position, then rolled myself onto my knees...

I looked down at myself now, and was somewhat surprised by the sight that greeted me. A sort of combat boots, but very small. Thin, slender legs dressed form-fitting jeans fitted with a brown leather belt, with a hunting knife in a sheath attached to this belt, a black tank top, adorned with dog tags, and lastly, very long, thick, red curls.

This is a bit more of a personal thing, but I don't really like it when a physical description is laid out all in one go because I feel that it ends up sounding a tiny bit forced, like, it's obvious it's just there to describe the character and nothing else. Maybe instead of throwing all of the physical description into one paragraph, you can sprinkle it around the piece more. That is entirely up to you though.

I noticed that there seemed to be no other people around. Not even a barking dog, or birds chirping. It seemed to strange for me. This seemed to be out of the normal. I didn't seem to have personal memories...

You use an awful lot of the word 'seem/seemed' here! Overusing a certain word can end up sounding really repetitive and awkward to read, so try and vary them a little if you can

Overall

Okay then, bekka, I think you have a really interesting beginning here. It's not the most incredibly original idea with the whole apocalypse thing, but I think there's loads of potential for you to make it original and put your own twist on the apocalypse idea. I really like the idea of your main character waking up and having no idea who she is, where she is, what has happened e.t.c. because it creates a great sense of mystery and intrigues me to read on and find out more. I think it's really awesome that you ended this on a cliffhanger too. Cliffhangers are basically the best things ever when it comes to stories because they work a charm when it comes to drawing the reader in, and I think you've done it very effectively here. I want to know who's found her!

Now as for critiques, there isn't a massive amount of writing to work with here so I don't have loads, but I have a few suggestions and bits of advice to give you. My first critique is that I think you could increase the imagery and descriptions in this piece. You've actually got some nice description already, but I think sprinkling some more on top could really make this chapter pop. For example, I think you should describe your main character's emotions some more because as of now, I do find her a little blank and I really want to get into her head some more so I can see how she feels about her current situation. When it comes to the descriptions of the setting here though, I think you've done a great job so well done.

One of the main things that bothered me with this piece was that your main character seems incredibly... calm. I mean, she's randomly woken up in somewhere unfamiliar and she has no idea what's going on, no idea who she is, no idea what's happened to the world, no idea where everyone is e.t.c. Call me crazy, but if I woke up and was as clueless about everything as she is, I would freak the hell out! This girl, on the other hand, just accepts it immediately and goes to have a wander around in a completely normal frame of mind. It just all seems a little bit unrealistic to me, plus by portraying her as more panicked and less calm, you'll also be helping with my first critique by showing your character's emotions more clearly.

On a sort of similar note, your main character seems awfully prepared. I don't mean that as in she has lots of supplies because that's obviously due to this Dustin guy, but I mean it as in she's prepared in the sense that it's as if she expected to wake up in this world and she's happy to deal with it. By the sound of it though, she's not supposed to expect all of this and know what's going on. It's just that she seems to be so calm about the whole thing, she knows that she needs to get to a house and she knows no one will be in the house without checking e.t.c. I don't know, I just think it all seems to be a bit of a walk in the park for her.

I think that's about it! Negatives aside, I do think this is a well written piece with bucket loads of potential. With some small tweaks here and there, I think it could be even better, and you will be left with a really awesome opening chapter

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins