So, this is a new novel idea I've been brainstorming for quite a while. Any feedback will be appreciated, and be aware that the writing quality and length of the chapters will increase in the future. I'm a bit rusty at the moment.
Without further ado, let's begin.
Prologue
A harsh ringing echoed through the deserted hallways. Footsteps thudded on the floorboards, and a click was followed by the scrape of rough plastic.
"Yes?"
"Hello,
is this Ruth Terrace?"
"Yes,
this is she. Whom might I be speaking to?"
"My
name is Doctor Edward Folsen. I work with the municipal hospital."
"Oh?
The hospital...? Is this about our family's donation for the new wing? Because
if there's been an error in the bookkeeping, you should contact my-"
"No,
no. There isn't a problem with your contribution." A pause, and then a
sigh. "It's about your son."
"My
son...? Did - did something happen?"
"I'm
afraid there's been an... unfortunate accident."
"W-what...?
Tell me he isn't-"
"Please
remain calm, Mrs. Terrace. He's okay and in stable condition."
There
was a spell of heavy breathing. "He's... in
stable condition? I...
I don't..."
"As
I said, please stay calm and we can... What is it?" Here his voice became
distant. "Really...? Good idea."
"Dr.
Folsen, what happened? Doctor, are you there? What's going on? Tell me!"
"Just
a moment, ma'am. There's a young man here who claims to be a family friend, and
he escaped the same car crash without injury - he can relate the details better
than I." There was a pause as the receiver was handed off.
"...
Ruth? It's me, Francis."
"Oh,
thank goodness - Francis, what happened?
Where's my son?"
"It's
okay. The doctors tell me the damage isn't serious - a concussion, a few broken
ribs, and his arm’s fractured in a few different places." He sighed in exasperation. "Much as I
like Jake, he's still an absolute idiot when it comes to risky stunts. He
wanted to go on a 'test drive', or so he told me, of that new Tracer you gave
him for his sixteenth birthday - only by 'test drive', he meant flooring it at
top speed down the freeway for kicks. I guess he thought his reflexes were fast
enough to dodge the traffic. Wasn't expecting the guy checking his radiator on
the side of the road, though - that turned into a disaster. I kept shouting at
him to stop, but he didn't listen - just kept that glazed expression on his
face."
"Oh,
how I know that look too well - don't go anywhere, okay? I'll be there as soon
as possible!"
"Will
do, Mrs.-"
The
phone was slammed down into the holder; more urgent footsteps thunked against the
hardwood. "Davian? Get the car ready! It's Jacob - he's been injured!"
Chapter 1
Beginning of the
Unknown
Jake
wanted to escape, but something wasn't letting him.
The
passages he walked were gloomy, lined with smoky silhouettes and figures that
dissipated and re-formed at random. He recognized a couple of the shapes - his mother and younger brother - but most of them were too indistinct to make out.
Running
his hand along the rugged, shadowy-gray walls, he gathered an acute sense of familiarity.
However, something didn't seem right - he was certain this place unnerved him more than it
should. He kept walking down the corridor, brushing aside a curious mist
tendril with a startled gesture.
--- --- ---
Ruth
pressed her fingers against the glass separating the two rooms. "Oh, my
baby," she murmured. Across from her, Jake lay in a hospital bed with an
oxygen mask on his face and a pulse clip on his finger. The harsh white lights
burned colored blotches onto her vision, but she didn't want to look away.
"If only I hadn't given you that blasted sports car..."
"Hah.
If only you hadn't given him that spoiled attitude, you mean."
Ruth
spun around and glared coldly at the heavily-built man in a crisp cobalt shirt
behind her. "Don't talk about Jacob like that," she retorted.
"I'll have you know, Francis, that he's well-respected in this community."
Francis
gave a snort of derision. "Respected? He's
adored because he's
loaded with cash. Have you seen the way his friends act around him?" He
sat down in the white-padded chair next to the whitewashed wall. His tone
turned sarcastic. "With Jake, a credit card swipe is only a compliment
away," he said, giving an airy gesture.
--- --- ---
Whispers
began to speak in the darkness.
At
first, Jake was terrified. He started sprinting down the corridors, trying to
put as much distance as he could between himself and whatever horror was making
the eerie noises. However, the murmurs reached his hearing no matter how hard
he tried to get away.
Suddenly, he heard his name. Not spoken by a stranger or a monster, but… by his mother.
He slid to a halt, trying to process this. After a moment of thought, he switched tactics – straining his ears to discern any other words. Most of the speech was too unclear to understand, but he thought ‘respected’ was in there somewhere - possibly ‘community’ as well.
He drew in a sharp breath. “Ruth! Ruth, where are you?” His shouts echoed through the empty space, though they quickly turned to anguished cries. “ Mom! Answer me, please!”
--- --- ---
Ruth started to massage her temple, wincing due to a sudden headache. “Did you… hear something?”
“No. Did you?” Francis asked, curious.
“I… I almost thought…” her voice faltered. “Never mind. I-It’s nothing.” She crossed her arms to stop her hands from trembling.
He gave her a quizzical look, but he didn't press the issue. Glancing at his watch, he rose from the chair and put his hand on her shoulder. “The doctors say I’m unscathed, so I’m going to head home. You can stay here with him if you’d like.”
“No!” she responded forcibly, pulling away from his gesture. Jerking her eyes to a downcast position, she looked surprised at her own answer. “You… you’re right. We can’t do anything for him at the moment. Best to leave the doctors to their work.”
Francis raised his eyebrows, taken aback. This was uncharacteristic of her. “Are you sure? I thought that you would –“
She shook her head. “It’s okay. Jacob will be okay.” She shook her head again, harder this time, trying to silence the distant sound of Jake's voice. “Today has been… stressful for me. I need some rest.”
She walked out into the hallway, her heels clicking on the tiled floor, murmuring to herself. “Hearing things… need sleep... Just stress. That’s all...”
End of chapter
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139,276 Literary Works • 672,524 Reviews
I have yet to read any of the reviews for this yet, so I would like to apologize in advance for any thing that might be repeated.
So, I love how you start off the prologue. It's very eye-catching, at least to me.
"A pause, and then a sigh". THis seems weird. I don't think the comma is really needed here, or if you want the comma for the effect maybe you should exclude the "and"?
"Here his voice became distant" The "here" isn't needed. It gives the sentence a weird feel.
I'm confused by the next paragraph. Why would the family friend be able to tell the details of it better than the doctor himself? Does the doctor not know what the injuries are? Or does he just not want to deal with the distraught mother?
Ok, next paragraph now. As far as I know, doctors can't tell people who aren't family members (that have shown proof they are family members) about the injuries to a patient unless it was allowed by an actual family member who is next of kin. So, how would Francis know what his injuries are, unless he had some experience in the medical field and figured it out during the crash? Francis...seems way to calm to have just been in a car accident. Why isn't he injured like Jake? I mean, Jake is beat up pretty badly it seems, so it must have been bad.
Onto the first chapter! You changed POVs way to quickly here. In my opinion, if you start off in one POV you should stay there until the end of the chapter so that the reader gets the chance to get to know that specific character. Otherwise it's like a whirlwind of POVs and has a tendency to leave the reader slightly confused.
If he's in a stable condition why isn't Ruth allowed to go in and see him? Even if it's for ten minutes, I'm sure that would have helped setting her heart at ease.
I don't like Francis. That line "Hah. If only you hadn't given him that spoiled attitude, you mean." I...yeah..I don't like him. What kind of person -- that has just been in a car accident -- says that about an injured person, regardles if he is spoiled or not? Again, he's acting way to calm for someone who just got in an accident.
"crisp cobalt shirt" there should be a comma between crisp and cobalt.
I'm assuming Jake is sixteen, yes? I've never known a sixteen year old to be "well-respected" in his community. Even high-rollers.
"He sat down in the white-padded chair next to the whitewashed wall. His tone turned sarcastic." I think this would flow better if it were all one sentence.
If Jake is sprinting down the corridors, how did he hear his mother's voice? Is it in his head or did he actual hear it? And now I know he heard it with his ears since he's "straining his ears to discern any other words".
Why is he calling his mom Ruth? It seems to me they might be close to each other, so why does he call her Ruth at first?
Why does Ruth not finish her thought to Francis? I suppose she may not want him to think she's nuts, or something.
Why is her wanting to go home uncharacteristic? I think perhaps this might need to be explained?
Three times you've described how her shoes sound against the floor. I think perhaps you should describe what she's thinking as she leaves instead. Maybe, what she smells, sees, hears, her mental state at the moment, etc.
Shame on me for being late!
Okay I'm here now and I'm sorry it took me awhile to review this.
Alright so I've already heard the main plot for what will happen (and it's a VERY good one at that) so I'll praise the work later and point out the nitpicks first. (I'm sorry if people have already pointed these out):
"A pause, and then a sigh." I don't know why, but I always think short sentences that don't have a subject and a predicate don't need commas. Especially here unless your intentions were to create a pause for the readers. But I just don't think it needs to be there.
"only by 'test drive', he meant flooring it at top speed down the freeway for kicks." Unnecessary comma here, unless you want to keep it. To me it feels the victim should be rushed as they just experienced a crash. The commas would be giving breaks, which means the person may be not as excited as I would expect. I would be talking as fast as I could, because I was just in an accident, but that's only me. Francis may be calm and collected regardless. If you're confused, please don't hesitate to ask.
"don't go anywhere, okay?" I know you're trying to add a pause here, but I would still capitalize the 'd' in 'don't'
So I LOVE the description in this. The prologue, I see, is trying to be as vague as possible but still beckon the reader to read more. (Yes, you described the crash, but that's ALL you did. No background information was given, which was fine). I will have to agree with Squall about the conversations, however. I certainly wouldn't be joking or bickering when someone is in that kind of condition. The chapter was promising, and I like the POV switches and how clear you made those transitions.
More nitpicks:
"Whispers began to speak in the darkness. "
I feel this is a little redundant. We know whispers somehow speak, as they are a form of talking. Perhaps add more description and imagery. "Whispers began to fill the darkness, closing in on Jake." Or something like that (not the best example). But give us more imagery in places like that.
I can't wait to read more! Please tag me in the next chapter
Keep writing!
Hey there Crunch.
The prologue: So all we know from the prologue is there was an accident. Not much else to say about it, but does this really warrant a prologue? The prologue doesn't foreshadow or hint at future events, and it doesn't subtly reveal a bit of what the world is like, it only establishes the point that an accident has occurred. I'll leave that up to you to decide, but I don't think this prologue is necessary. It doesn't have enough depth, nor the required criteria to be a prologue. It's just a pretty mundane conversation that only shows one thing: An accident has occurred.
Jake was involved in an accident, and yet they are acting really carefree about his current state if they can bicker around like that. I would think they would be more solemn and upset in his presence?
Overall impressions:
So I like the idea of Jake ending up in an accident, and being trapped in the dark recesses of his mind. It does allow for some interesting things to happen. What I don't like however is the execution of this. I get that you were trying to juxtaposition Jake being trapped in the dark recess of the mind and the real world, but each scene is very brief, and it switches back and forth so much that it doesn't establish a lasting impression, and so it feels very rushed, and very hollow to read.
If you plan to improve this, I think you need to start chapter 1 in the dark world of Jake's mind and really expand on what's going on in there. At the moment, all I know is that he's trapped, but it's not enough to hold my interest. You need to expand more on what this dark world is: E.g: Is it a place where his memories become twisted and played back in haunting ways? Is it a place where the fears in his life become reality? Your description of this place is OK at the moment, but it's too arbitrary and uninteresting right now to make me want to read more of this.
You should also take this time to characterize Jake more. You said that he's a rich person whom everyone hates. That's a good base to start on, so let's build on that more. Show more of what his personality is like. Is he a cocky and self centered person? Does he use the money to hire female escorts? Is his money obtained through illegal ways? Does he spend the money only for himself, and never lending/giving some out when his friends and people in the community really need it? Does he participate in charity work, or is he only focused in furthering his success? How old is Jake, and why does he have so much money? If Jake is just a teen, it's pretty abnormal for Jake to be so wealthy.
Point is though, you don't hate someone just because they have a lot of money, but because of their attitude towards people and what they do in their lives and whether it agrees with people in the community or not.
With the real life scene, you need to show more of how these people are related to Jake and characterize them more. Right now, you have them only reacting to the things Jake does, but not once do they feel like independent characters with independent lives. So I think it would be better if you spend the first half of the chapter really adding meat to Jake's back story and character, and the type of world he is trapped in, then you can switch to the real life scene, really developing Jake's family and associates there and how they are important to them, and compare and contrast there. Two real meaty scenes together in juxtaposition is how to go about it. Cutting it back and forth without building any plot or characterization is really rushed work.
Hope this helped.
Andy.
Hi there!
Prologue
To be honest, there isn't much to say about the prologue. It's just a phone conversation between a mother and a doctor. There isn't anything going on besides that. Which is fine, really, because this is a prologue. The way I see it, prologues should be short and straight to the point. They should introduce some part of the story and spark our interest in the story.
I do have to say though, that it would be nice to have dialogue tags. The conversation is easy enough to follow, but it would be more clear with dialogue tags. Besides, how exactly is Ruth reacting to all of this? All we know is what she says. We don't know how she says it. Is she screaming? Can she barely find her voice? Does she sound like every other freaked out mother when they hear that their son has been injured? Give us some feeling here. Right now you've just got the story. Dig deeper and show us something of Ruth's character. Even if it's just something small, show us.
Chapter 1
The part I underlined here makes it seem like it's his choice whether he stays or leaves. When really, if he was getting checked out by a doctor, it would be their decision to let him leave or to make him stay. So instead I suggest you say something like, "and they're letting me go home". That seems more realistic to me.
This chapter is a bit choppy to be honest. It's easy enough to follow, but there is so much back and forth so quick that it just seems...rushed. Right when I found myself settling in with Jake's point of view, it switches to Ruth's point of view. Then the same thing happens with her. I'm not saying that you should completely change how you wrote this, I'm just saying maybe think about adding some more content, descriptions, feelings. Then we'll get a better look at the characters and it won't be so choppy.
I am quite interested in what exactly is going on in Jake's mind. It's very interesting, seeing as he's in a coma, or at least something relatively close to it. Yet all of this is going on in his mind. And Ruth can hear him. I'm really interested in finding out how this is all possible.
I do have to say, I was a bit surprised at how Francis was acting at the hospital. From the way he talked on the phone, I thought he'd be more caring and less snippy. That's where the dialogue tags come into play. If you use those tags in the prologue, then we'd get a better understanding of the characters. You do mention that Francis sighed in exasperation, but I want something more than that. Anyone can sigh in exasperation. What makes Francis so different? Show us how annoyed he is with Jake and how he lives his life. Because it's quite apparent by the end of this first chapter that he is annoyed by it.
Overall I really enjoyed reading this. I have to say, you've definitely got me interested. I'm wondering how all of this with Jake is possible and what his life is like. I can't wait to read more!
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Thanks for the review!
Yeah, I have a tendency to create rushed sequences. I suppose a side goal of writing C.U. is to help me fix that. Anyway, I'm glad that you're interested - shows that I'm doing something right.
No nitpicks! What do we do about that, hmm? You are going to have to tell me!
Some friend Francis is. Knocking Ruth out of her grief with his foul words. I guess he doesn't feel sympathy. This does have to make you wonder how he didn't get a single scratch on him while Jake is in a somewhat critical condition.
Where is Jake's little brother in all of this? You should think that Ruth would take him to see his brother. What if Jake just suddenly died or something? BOOM, dead. It would be even more depressing taking her son to his dead brother rather than taking her son to his living brother.
I'm going to guess that Davian is her driver person. She sounds rich enough to have one.
Keep writing,
-lost
Hello, love! Aurora here with a quick review for you
.
This is you being rusty? I only have like.... one critique for you! If you get better, there will be nothing to review because it's already so perfect!
Okay, since I found no grammatical mistakes, I'll just critique your plot and writing.
Alright. When you mentioned the guy checking his radiator I was like... What?! And started wondering if the guy was still alive or not.... you might want to mention that.
Also, I think a little more description of the hospital would be useful. You say the walls are gray, but do the fluorescent lights make it look bleak? Also, you sort of just skipped past the part where the hospital staff checks that Jake's mother is his mother, tells her the room he's in, and etc.
When Jake's mother started hearing voices, I didn't catch on at first. A sentence or two later, I understood. Also, I didn't understand what was happening with Jake. At all. Was he dreaming? Was his spirit wandering?
Also, I wasn't sure what Francis was to Jake. The doctor says he's a friend, but he sounds more like a bodyguard to me, the way you described him and the way he talks about Jake.
Finally, the prologue didn't really seem like a prologue to me. You could put that in your first chapter and just delete the prologue, if you ask me. It adds on to the plot perfectly... so, yeah.
That's all I have for you, love!
Keep persisting.
Aurora