“Callie!” I call out. My best friend, Callie spins her head around. She sees me, and begins to make her way through the crowd of kids getting off the bus.
Once she is able to get to me, she says, “So. Big day, huh?” I nod and smile. I’ve been preparing for weeks. Callie’s twelfth birthday already passed, so she already presented her speech.
“Come on,” she says, and we walk into school. Immediately we glance into the Room of Ceremonies. Just as I expected, it is decorated. For me.
The morning lessons are interesting. Once fourth period is over, I sprint to the Room of Ceremonies. Unsurprisingly, I am the first to arrive. A minute later, Callie walks in. That’s good of her. The rest of the students arrive about ten minutes afterwards. Callie and I don’t say a word to each other until I am called up to the stage. It’s starting.
The Mayor steps up to the podium and clears his throat. Then he begins, “Over a hundred years ago, our world was torn apart. People were unhappy, afraid, and angry. This led to humans doing terrible things. Stealing from, harming, and even,” the Mayor couldn’t help but shudder,” killing each other. We decided something must be done. We eliminated what the humans before us called ‘emotions.’ These ‘emotions’ were what made their world such a terrible place. We formed a new society rid of that disease (with other minor adjustments), and here we are. We called this new land ‘Utopia,’ named after the literature of the age before our own. In ‘Utopia,’ we decided that on a child’s twelfth birthday, they shall make a speech about themselves, and we shall welcome them into the adult world. With some training, these children of twelve will become sophisticated adults. Here is one of our children, Barbara Miller, presenting her speech.”
That’s me. I stand up from the metal fold-up chair I had been sitting on. I pulled out a crate from underneath the podium. Standing on it, I am tall enough to easily see over the podium and look at my school. Ours is large; we have about ten students to a grade. Once schools were packed with students, with over a hundred in one grade! I can’t imagine that.
I lean towards the microphone. “Hello. As you already know, my name is Barbara. I am-“ but I am cut off by the sound of the double doors in the back bursting open. A man runs through them, breathless. All of us look at his in disgust. This speech is the most important moment in every person’s life. This man, whoever he is, is ruining it for me.
He doesn’t seem to care. He yells out with a terrified look on his face, “Someone has … has been…” he takes a big breath, as though he fears even allowing the word to pass through his lips, “murdered.”
The room is silent. We’re all in shock. Some of us don’t even know the meaning of this word, the others are terrified. I am frozen.
I live in a perfect world. With perfect people, perfect places, and perfect things. Everything is perfect. And then, on the most important day of my life, it comes.
An imperfection.
End of chapter
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137,435 Literary Works • 672,020 Reviews
cringe
Hi,
!!!!
I am reviewing your writing as I eat a sandwich.
I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY loved the ending of this chapter. You have a really nice way with words. The way you have your characters speak works quite well, and it is not one of those, "Hello Bob." "Hello Poppy." "How are you, Poppy?" "I'm swell, Bob," conversations. In other words, their speech is realistic. I happen to agree with some review below, that the "The morning lessons are interesting," sentence is rushed. The sentence (in my opinion) lacks something for the reader, and could use something so it doesn't feel list-like. For example, "The morning lessons went smoothly, nothing too out of the ordinary, besides Mr. ______'s outfit, and a few inhumanly rumors," (no, don't feel the need to use that). Otherwise, the rest of that part is fine.
It is really, almost, adorable how the student has to pull out a crate to stand on, and I really liked how you did this (sorry for all of the really's). One thing that caught my attention was the "come on" part. I thought that this part was a little staged, but if it doesn't bother you, it's fine.
Besides that, this is a really good beginning, and I would love to see more
Thanks!
Twinning with the aforementioned metaphorical sandwich.
I thought this was pretty cool overall. I liked it, I want more, (and I think you should present this in writing class).
Anyways, let's start off with criticism. So this is a world with no emotion, right? Because you say that she smiles at one point, so technically she's happy. That's an emotion. Also, at the end of the chapter, you say people are terrified. Also an emotion. I think you should say that they eliminate negative emotions instead.
There were also some grammar errors.
Aside from that, I really liked it. My favorite part was probably the last line, a great hook. I hope you post more!
As a response:
Yeah, I was going to share it in writing class once you found out this was me. Guess I'll do that now.
Smiling does tend to imply happiness, but not necessarily. I'll take it out anyway, because that could be confusing. As for the second part, it's explained later. I don't want to spoil anything.
WHAT. GRAMMAR ERRORS?! WHERE.
Thanks
Kay and I thought I saw an error, guess not.
Phew.
"The morning lessons are interesting." This sentence stopped me. Did you mean uninteresting, or were they really interesting? If they were interesting, if she really enjoyed them, I encourage you to go into more details about them because we, the readers, will want to know why they're interesting. Also, why is it unsurprising that she's the first to arrive? Is she punctual by nature, or just because it's such an exciting day, her day?
"We called this new land 'Utopia'" it might be more dramatic if you put "We called OUR new land 'Utopia'" minus capitalization of course.
The ending is definitely very dramatic; I'm really glad you didn't start with the last two paragraphs, because that would have made it way less dramatic; putting it at the end makes it so, so much better.
You have an interesting premise for it here, and a creative way for introducing the working of the society (through the mayor's speech). However, I might try to connect the twelve-year-old's coming of age speech more with the elimination of emotions and the making of Utopia.
I hope this review helped and if you wouldn't mind pming me or something when/if you get the next chapter out so I could read it, I'd really appreciate that. I understand if you don't get back to it, but this story has potential!
Have a Merry Review Day and a Happy New Year.
-tgirly
Thanks! I forgot about this story for a while, but I remembered about a week ago, so I'm writing the next chapter right know.
Hello! Bella here to review! You've got a nice start here. I wasn't particularly excited, however. I feel like everything happened too quickly. Maybe you could give us some of Barbara's character traits, maybe say how nervous she is. (So far she doesn't seem nervous at all. If I were about to make the most important speech of my life, I might be a teensy bit apprehensive!) Also, you do a lot of telling, not showing. You don't need to lump all of your info in the beginning. Reveal it to us, little by little. It builds suspense, and makes us want to keep reading! There were a lot of good points, though. "He takes a big breath, as though he fears even allowing the word to pass through his lips..." Nice imagery here! And I adore the ending. I look forward to seeing where you will take this. Keep writing!
-Bellator
Thanks Bella! Originally, Barbara was nervous, but as she has no emotions, I cut that out.
Oh. And sense is made.
Knight Dragon, here to review!
[Quick note on your utopia/dystopia comment: in my opinion, there's no such thing as a "dystopia" in the sense that George Orwell speaks when he says "negative utopia". Dystopias are just the realistic, pessimistic, and typically dark outlook on the idealistic, optimistic, and typically far too bright unrealistic utopias. So you have to pick a perspective. You're either a pessimist and a dystopia, or an optimist and a utopia. Okay, I feel better now].
On to the actual review!
Technical:
"That’s good of her." I don't know why, but that sentence just really stuck out to me and I wanted to change it so bad. Maybe something like "That's nice of her", but since Callie's her best friend I would expect that kind of behavior from her.
"These ‘emotions’ were what made their world such a terrible place." Please make this a little more realistic. "such a terrible place"? Really? The Mayor should sound a little more intelligent than that.
"We called this new land ‘Utopia,’ named after the literature of the age before our own. In ‘Utopia,’ we decided that on a child’s twelfth birthday," and yeah I'm not commenting on the rest. Basically, get rid of the single quotes. They're not necessary, and we the readers will understand that's the name of the land.
"That’s me. I stand up from the metal fold-up chair I had been sitting on. I pulled out a crate from underneath the podium." ??? How does she get from sitting down to the podium in one sentence transition? Where was she sitting to begin with? How close to the podium? Was she on a platform with the podium and the Mayor? Was she in the crowd? How many are in the crowd? Those two sentences just set off a chain reaction of questions that I don't have details to answer.
Comment on the content. I'm not sure if you're going for Louis Lowry's Giver type feel, or trying to pull themes from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Either way, I'm neither pulled into this work nor pushed away from it. I've read some "humans have gotten stripped of their emotions" works (published works), and haven't been very satisfied, so I'm concerned about the quality here. The biggest thing I'm concerned about is that humans are stripped of "emotions", but you never specify which ones or how many, so I'm assuming all emotions. That leads to some slight confusion when the Main Character seems irritated that this guy is "crashing" her big day. Those are all emotions, and if she's been stripped of them how does she still experience them? Just thoughts to chew on.
Hope this helps!
Thanks so much! This was all really helpful. As for the last part, more on that later.
Knight Malachi here to Review for the Knights of the green Room.
This is the only error I saw. It should be him instead of his.
All of us look at his in disgust.
I have to say this was pretty good. I thought you could use a little more detail about the school, but also I understand that there is supposed to be no emotions. Now I don't know how you propose to hold out on that; it seems like it will be pretty hard, but I think you can do it. Just focus.
The story-line seems pretty interesting, although maybe a little cliche. But I like your character, what little you have said about her. Hope to see more.
Keep it up!