Young Writers Society

Hi, J.C. here for a review!

Sir hadn’t shown up that day, but the five of us still proceeded to his classroom of schedule, assembled the desks in their usual procedure, and took our place, ready to discuss everything about the world that pissed us off, and everything we could ever imagine doing, inspired by our favourite historical characters.

We rushed over; the excitement unrelenting in our fingers.

Beauregard had smiled.

‘Stop it!’ He had insisted. ‘It’s what he wanted.’ His words had frozen us.

‘Didn’t you listen to anything he just said!? This is our gift to us. So don’t regret it. What’s done is done now. We can’t let him have died for nothing. We have to take what he has giving us.’

‘Just us.’ Hutcheon confirmed staunchly, balling his fist to his heart, to complete the look with the hat like some patriot.

‘Just us.’ They all repeated after him.

Alright. So you've chosen very good names for the cast here. i wonder where they all came from. Firstly, since the ending makes such a bold impact:

And that made six.

I've been following you subtly but now I am reviewing your latest piece! This guy is one of the most twisted guys in the group.

Nitpicks

I'm staying with this story, which is good. I think you owe the reader a little more at this stage. I mean I definitely like what you are doing with the back story, but you are placing a little too much weight on establishing character which is a big risk to take in genre fiction, particularly at the beginning of the story. Stephen King, for instance, is infamous for his slow unwinding of the story to the point that it's purely character driven nuanced interactions. Character comes first for King, but he had tension always. Slowly toiling beneath it all, with one open yellow eye in the dark. Tension.

You have proven thus far that you can hook the reader but a hook quickly becomes a gimmick if the story isn't moving along and if you don't give the reader anything to grip to. I'm not saying you need to up the tempo, because character and setting are monstrously important, I'm just saying you need tension and a hint of resolution. Give the reader something they should wish for or a character they can root for. Right now there isn't enough of either. I mean we are shown glimpses of insight into the protagonist just through the narration but there's no feeling or ambition. He keeps us at an arms length through out. Use every word, every scrap of narration to reveal the narrator's character, even if what he says doesn't make sense to us, it will make us understand him. Also give us a goal, give us something to wish for.

I know it's early days and you are doing a brilliant job, but if we had a little more direction, a couple of clues and a little shameless and obvious foreshadowing, you will grip the reader even more than you have so far.

I have read each and every part and your story hasn't weakened, which is good but the characters are all fusing together because there is not enough interaction and I barely get a chance to meet one character then the next is introduced, it's like being a party and being introduced to your girlfriends high-school friends in quick succession, good luck remembering anything other than names and faces and even that's pushing it. That's a little how I feel about now. Any more and I might be overwhelmed. To remedy this, you could try to incorporate each of the five surviving members of the story into each other's dedicated chapter a little more. Take care to reveal their characters in unique ways. So far this is all I know: The Gothic looking main character, the asian kid, the quiet short kid, the albino-esque one with the strange name and one that shows dominant leadership qualities, were inspired by their reverential and enigmatic teacher to join a mysterious club which met and the contents or nature of their meetings has been touched upon but is still a little vague. The teacher then hurled himself infront of a train as witnessed by the hapless crew.

If that's all I need to know, good job. If you want your readers to understand your characters at a deeper level you need to do more than simply describe them for one chapter than move on. You need to be consistent and let them interact naturally.

Now for the good stuff. You are still pushing the plot along in a natural way and your backstory is tied in subtly, it can become a little disjointed if you switch back too much and without much notice but you seem to handle these segues between past and present well.

You have a relatively strong grasp on the story but I'm concerned it's a little out of your control, like you are just along for the ride and if you need to rein it in it may be too far gone. I want you to prove me wrong.

You still have enough of a hook going with this, no one has put your story down and if you can somehow channel this momentum into something more than a concept and if you can deliver on this promise you have made of intrigue and insight, this story could be great.

JP