Moments later, before I could reply—before the words had formulated in my mind—the lights flickered above. Fluorescents shine down upon us, just like they had minutes before, spreading out until they fill every corner of the room, the bulb dispelling all doubts and reinstating my image of the room.
The addition of light to this sterile environment brings many fruitless struggles—other teens pulling on the ropes, struggling for freedom. She begins to pull as well, but I shake my head—a minute movement but one she sees well enough to understand.
There is no way out, and we all know it. But many of us refuse to accept the truth. We don’t get out of these bonds until our captors decide to release us. Until then, maintaining a low profile does as much as struggling, except we have more strength when the time comes—if it ever does.
I hear the door open (or at least I hear it open) and the highest corner of its reflective metal surface peeks into my vision before it clangs shut. Light footsteps echo the bang, clacking on the floor with rhythmic timing.
The tension in the room builds, growing worse as the seconds drag by, miniscule counts of time but each one seeming like a day in itself.
Steps walk this way, ever so slowly coming down the path between cots. Deciding to forget my resolve to remain still, I slowly move the mask so I can see the one walking amongst us.
The footsteps indicate it isn’t The Man—the herculean mass who welcomed us here—rather someone else. But I am not expecting this… this apparition.
Tall and poised, she reminds me of a tiger—beautiful and graceful, like a lily—but denying every aspect of the flower save for its color and elegance. The way she walks, light but confident, attests that she knows more than merely how to hold herself while walking.
Dark hair is pulled away from open features—her eyes the most prominent of them. Blue and hard, they seem to pass through me, as if seeing in a different dimension of space. But behind the coldness lies an expression of deep sadness, defying everything her pose declares.
She stops beside my cot, and I stare up at her breathlessly. Her mouth twitches ever so slightly—out of pity or restrained laughter, I don’t know.
“You’re to come with me,” she says. I search for a hint of familiarity in her voice, even an accent warping her language, but her voice bears none. At least, none that I can sense. “Don’t worry; it will be fine.”
I search for words to say—something to acknowledge I understand. But my voice refuses to work, thoughts stumbling over each other before they reach the point of speech.
She smiles at my obvious hesitation, and her face turns from deadly beautiful—a scowl of pain and trials—to mirror the gentle side of the tiger, the part that seldom reveals itself to witnesses.
Her hand moves down below the level I can see, but I hear it sliding along the edge of the cot. A slight click resonates through the metal below me as she pushes something. What, I don’t know.
I don’t see it happen; the ropes restrain my vision enough to hide the entire movement. But I feel the ropes vanish. They flash off my arms and legs so fast, they leave a burning sensation—chafing the ligaments they left behind.
For a moment, I lie there completely still. I am free. I can stand. I can move.
“Why aren’t you moving?” she asks. “I told you to come with me.” Her voice is harsh at first, but grows softer as she speaks. “Everything is going to be fine. Just follow me.”
Forcing my legs to obey is difficult, their movements stiff and forced, but I rise slowly. They feel like dead weight, ligaments dangling on the end of a puppet string—moveable, but without any feeling inside.
“Feel beneath your chin,” she orders. “Notice the button? Push it, and you can remove the mask.”
The button is small, almost too tiny to be pushed save for with my pinkie. The straps holding it against my mouth release instantly, and the mask falls onto the ground before I can reach out to grab it.
A deep breath follows, an inhalation of as much air as I can suck in, relishing the lack of interloping gases. The feeling is exhilarating in a strange way, and while I can still feel the effect of the gases, I can feel them slipping away.
I reach down to pick the mask up, intent on simply placing it on the cot, but the woman stops me.
“Leave it on the ground, and come with me—hurry!” she begins to walk away, gesturing for me to follow.
I start to go after her, but a small movement to my left captures my attention. Beside me lies the girl, the one who had engaged me in conversation mere moments before. How had I forgotten her so easily?
But she isn’t shaking her head, or making any negative movements. Instead, she seems to be smiling, and the small nod of the head encourages me.
“See you soon,” she whispers, and bends her neck as hard as she can to see the woman waiting—even though the attempt is almost completely worthless. She gains mere micrometers towards that goal. “You had better go now.”
“See you soon, I hope.”
I follow the woman through the line of cots—about twenty of them, sorted in rows of four. White gowns cover their still bodies—masked faced looking straight up at the lights on the ceiling. Looking down, I realize for the first time that my clothing mirrors theirs. A spotless robe reaching to the ground, where my bare feet poke out.
It makes me think of initiation, the white being wiped of all that I once knew and brought into a new world—and I wonder if that is truly the reason. A symbol of this emptiness we all feel being exemplified even in our clothing.
“Why are they so quiet, so still?” I ask the woman.
“They saw you released, so now they are hopeful,” she says. “Now come on—he’s waiting!”
She opens the heavy door, stepping through as it squeals open. I follow her through the door, allowing it to shut behind me.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,852 Reviews
*clicks on my brain and waits for it to warm up and get going before continuing on to review your work*
Okay, there we go. That's better.
Hello again TimmyJake! *waves* Here to review yet again, your amazing piece. Finally got the internet for a couple seconds and was able to read your third chapter, two more minutes and I would have been dead :/ Today is NOT your lucky day my friend, I did not die! =P
First off - This chapter was very well written *thumbs up* It was interesting and made me want to know more...as you story usually does. - My reader side of my brain is still mad at you, by the way - *coughs* Anyway, continuing on. Now that I am starting to get more enveloped in the story my mind is racing with ideas and possabilities on what is going to happen, how its going to happen ect. I liked how you told us more about what the room looked like and how many kids there were. That was great because now I am starting to visualize where he is in my mind. I like having knowledge of things and you have satisfied my brain, until the next chapter.
A couple things I suggest -
#1 - 'I hear the door open (or at least I hear it open)' - when you wrote this I am not sure really what you meant....maybe its just my half asleep brain that isn't functioning, but I don't know why said that twice. Please if I am mistaken in anything or am not catching on to what you meant..tell me cause it could very well just be me who didn't quite get that. It's 8 in the morning and I woke up at 6:30, after going to bed really late so my brain is only half awake. I had a very good book that refused to let me sleep
#2 - On the second last sentence, you said 'squeals open' and it didn't really sound like the right word to describe a door opening. I suggest maybe "Squeaked" or - *mind gone blank, just a second* - okay I don't have another word, but you get what I'm trying to say, eh? I'm a poet and I did know it =P
*reviewer side of my brain clears throat*
*Nerd side of my brain slumps shoulders and closes the door to poetry again*
*Reviewer side - "Good, now that she is gone, I will continue on*
*Nerd side opens door yells, "You just did it again!" then quickly shuts the door, ignoring the glare from my reviewer side.*
*Reviewer side rolls eyes* I have nothing more that I saw that needed fixing. Your stuff is really good and I enjoyed reading it! After I am done, I go to the next part! YAY!!
*clicks to the fun side of me* BYEYEYEYEYEYEYEYEYEYEYEYYE!!!!
* slips on my magic ring and disappears*
~Selina
Thank you for this continuing review, Selina. Your sister and you are my biggest fans here, it seems. :')
Everything you said here will help me with my next chapter... which may come sooner than I thought. All these reviews are too encouraging to not.
Your story deserves tons of fans, cause it is really good. You have a cool style of writing =)
YESSSSS!!!!!!!
Hey! Me again. I bet your sick of me, eh? XD
This is my favorite chapter. It was really well paced and even. The Tiger woman reminds me of that silver haired woman off of The Incredibles lol. You left us off at a cliff hanger. Thank goodness you have more chapters put up that I can go to hehe.
Everything was perfect, except for one thing that kind of sounded a little repetitive.
When she says 'See you soon' and then he says it right after it kind of sounds repetitive. Like me saying repetitive three times in the last 50 words XD. Maybe you could rephrase that or something. That's only my opinion =)
Perhaps she can say something like, "I'll still be here." And then he says "See you soon"?
I don't know but I'' leave the figuring out to you =P
Good Luck!
FireBird99
You're absolutely right about that redundancy! Thank youuu for spotting it. I really need to cut out all of it. Thank you for these reviews, Anna. <3 They're very helpful.
Your welcome. You don't have to cut it out. Just change it up a bit. =P
Thank youuu for the review, Jumpy! As always, so amazing and helpful. :3 These older chapters bear a lot of my older mistakes, and my newer chapters bear the more recent ones. xD Thank you for your compliments. They are so encouraging. <3
Leaving a comment here again, I noticed the subtle shift in style, tone. Starting to see your voice now, and the plot. *moving on*
People tell me that the voice changes quite a bit through this, and you've probably already seen that.
Thank you.
Hey, Timmy!
It feels a bit strange going back and reviewing the second chapter when your style's changed so much, but this novel is way too good to leave alone. Hopefully you'll see me caught up before you finish. If you don't, there'll be a lot of frenzied reviewing going on.
M-dashes! I love those things. But in moderation, yeah?
I'd recommend a low-carb diet with two cups of vegetables a day and sprinkling his sentences with commas and ellipses, conjunctions here and there, and decreasing his preposition-intake; you can start by taking out "over," and the next step's to exchange those M-dashes for commas--M-dashes (yes, I'm a hypocrite) create as much pause as parentheses, and while that effect can be welcome in a statement that's supposed to leave an impression, Joe-Schmoe statements make it cheesy and melodramatic.
Even if the effect was intended, I think you've already achieved it by introducing a new paragraph.
Plus, "moments later, before I could reply and the words had even formulated in my mind, the lights flickered above" just looks cleaner. It could be my taste, but I like it better when M-dashes are only used for really loooong phrases and the sentence couldn't do without it. I mean, I had a teacher who loved them so much I very nearly accused him of cheating on his girlfriend. He said they helped establish sentence variation. Yes, they do. Yes, they lend to the writer's voice. But there's a time and a place for them, like semicolons and commas, and periods, even--"I crammed a Ritz into my mouth. Salt. Butter."
Point Two: The tense got a little muddled here. I was about to correct "shine" to "shone" when I realized the rest of the piece was present tense, and it was probably the "had" that threw your subconscious off: "the words have formulated," "like they have minutes before." This can be cured with a quick sweep over the paragraph.
Three: Reread the end of 2.1 and the beginning of 2.2 without acknowledging the break. Does someone reply to something "moments later"? They usually reply immediately, right? Unless there was a significant pause, which you didn't describe, so I'm going to assume there wasn't.
And it's a blemish on your record for perfect pacing. The writing went from dialogue-y to action-y without a transition, and I was like, gah, you're so close to making this piece flawless! Don't ruin it. Establish that transition.
(I sound like a bad motivational speaker.)
When you publish this piece and your family members are dying to read it, and the world's stopped breathing in anticipation for Timmy's fabulous masterpiece, you're going to want to change this.
1) "The addition of light to the environment." There, done. No awkward bulkiness.
2) "Brings." That word has so many juicy synonyms, I don't think I've used it in years. Warrants. Provokes. Triggers. Sparks. Ignites. The list goes on (and on, and on, and on...).
3) Struggling for what? It cuts off here and we're left in the dark wondering what the narrator's struggling to do. "The addition of light provokes another round of fruitless struggling from my fellow prisoners, all desperately trying to break their bonds, but to no avail." No, I still don't like it.
Alright, scrap all that. The paragraph still sounds awkward. "As soon as this happens, everyone around me seems to wake up and begin struggling against their bonds, but I lie still with my hands limp at my sides. I see her struggle as well, and I give a minute shake of my head as if to say It's hopeless."
Elaborating further on "It's hopeless" would make things melodramatic, so I stopped there. It's still the exposition and the atmosphere's still in the process of building itself--treat it like it's neutral.
It would sound better if this paragraph were cut.
I'm not sure what the first part is, so I'd recommend clipping it unless you have a deeper message to convey, in which case the narrator would elaborate. But the second part is just beautiful. It's both descriptive and informative, and it has the right touch of adjective.
I'm going to go ahead and kill a few birds with one stone:
1) "Herculean" should be capitalized.
2) I think quotes would serve better than italics here: "who 'welcomed' us here."
3) The narrator forgot a few words: "The quality of the footsteps indicate...."
4) I'd try "but" instead of "rather"; it just sounds cleaner.
5) Yes, I'm guilty of the "this ... this" thing, too. But read it aloud, try it in formal dialogue, look at it from a different perspective, and you'll realize it sounds really fake. You could probably pull it off if your style was more casual, but ... eh, just fiddle around and see if you can find another way of conveying his surprise.
Redundancy alert! Try inserting an "other" before "aspect," so you can conclude the sentence at "flower."
Tiger. Lily. Tiger lily?
Redundancy alert!
Maybe "attests that she knows more than her expression implies"?
Tense trip-up. Should be "leave behind."
I'm going to repeat a bit of advice I've probably given you before:
Treat the reader like they're smart. Treat them like they're insightful and perceptive, and bright, but they have the worst memory in the world. You're constantly going to be repeating information, but there's a reason writers use symbolism; no matter how deep it's buried, someone will notice it, someone will notice it and praise you and see you for the author you are. Write for that someone.
Okay, I sound like a load of fluff. Still, readers know what dead weight is. They know what the narrator means as soon as they make that connection to the puppet string, so acknowledge that and elaborate on the simile instead of explaining it. Pwease? I want to know more!
I'd also recommend cutting the word "ligaments," because that was used only a couple paragraphs ago.
Forgot to capitalize here.
Think you meant "masked faces" here?
Now that that's over with...
The second part is absolutely amazing. It's like you grew into this rhythm as you wrote, and the description began flowing better and the pace slid back into place. I am so intrigued by this tiger-woman. Why does she hold herself so elegantly? Why was she so kind to the narrator? What the heck is this button beneath the prisoners' chins? Can you please never stop writing Affinity?
And I like how cryptic you were about the bonds unraveling. Cryptic enough that you didn't lead yourself into any cliches and detailed enough that you piqued my interest.
Gosh, you act so humble about this novel, and yet I'd be shocked if you weren't immensely proud of it. Your language is the best I've seen it; your imagery is ascending toward flawless; and you never lose my interest, not even when the narrator delves into one of his/her reflections. I feel like I can't express my amazement enough. I still remember that dragon prologue I reviewed, which was well-written, but different from what I see here. I don't know many people whose voice has strengthened as quickly as yours.
And after that cheesy speech, I'm going to say for the millionth time that I wish I could lend you more help than grammar and basic techniques, but sorry, I got nothing.
Looking forward to more!
Your reviews are what I show my parents and friends when they ask me what reviews should be like. This was amazing, and helped me more than words can say. Even though my style has changed from this, I still see so much that can help me with the new style - and beyond. To be honest, I always though the Tiger Lily thing was awkward and stupid, and it shall be removed. I think a plain description may benefit her character better. Egh, I am still having problems with the overusage of Em-dashes. Even in the most recent chapters. I usually just write the work wihout thinking, and then go through and edit out what I see as unnecessary. And then weeks later, I go back and see that many more of them could have been removed, as well. Gah. Just one of my things.
Your reviews are priceless to me. <3
Haha, I don't think I've blushed so much since I spilled hot tea-water on myself and my skin got all splotchy.
You're amazing, you are. I love reviewing your work because it's so well-phrased and fun to read, and I can tell you're dedicated to your craft. The tiger-lily part? I see why you included it in the first place--it's a beautiful oxymoron--and I see why you're clipping it ... but to be honest, I kinda like it. I like how regal you painted her.
I'll admit I have an addiction to contractions. And commas. And character descriptions and hyphens and fragments. All writers probably have addictions, and considering the ones I've seen so far I have to say yours is the coolest. M-dashes (em-dashes, m-dashes, blegh) really help with sentence variation, actually. XD
My pleasure. <3
Guten tag, Timmy! I am really, really sorry for not being able to not review. I got reviews block on another work and I couldn't review this until I did the other... and all that. So, I am now here to review! Er, I'm sorry if this review ends up being really bad, it's 30 minutes until I go to bed, so yeah, I'm tired.
I don't want to repeat myself in my reviews, but the work is full of description and the seemingly blank character is relatable. The work gives me the chills because it's scary and... odd. A good sort of odd - I'm not sure how to express how I feel about this, really.
This "organization" seems untrustworthy, to say in the least. Keeping all these kids tied up for who knows how long. Is it illegal, or something like that? These people have families! Taking them away from various parts of the world, even. Could they be snatching kids out of places in time? Twenty geniuses taken away, over twenty young minds? Are they planning an army of sorts... Ugh. I just had to rant.
The pacing is fine and I am left wanting for more of the character and chapter. This left at a good cliff hanger that can keep readers hooked, making them want to read more.
I guess there isn't really much to say, besides: I love the book. Keep on writing.
~Rae,
Guten morgen!
Thank you for this wonderful review, Raven! hehe, you will find out in time. In time...
Hi, Timmy <333 I am here yet again!
I am going to work my wonderful wonderfulness again by giving you a top notch review. XD So, I am going to get straight into it again.
I know you like dashes, dearest... but... This was the perfect opportunity to have a minor sentence and blow our minds away!
Exaggeration. It is good to vary your sentences out a bit. I am actually known as The Sentence Master, but I have been withholding this side to me until now. I thought it would be better as a minor, but it is up to you. It would be good to add that in for effect.Tut tut tut. And I thought you liked dashes! You have em in the wrong place. They should be after "moments later" as the replying part is one idea (or piece of info) and the lights flickering is another, so "before I could reply" should be in with "before the words had formulated in my mind". It does kind-of work... You could keep it the way it is. But think about what I said
What doubts? I am curious. I cannot think of some off the top of my head, but if you could add that in, it would be helpful.
I think RavenMoonStone mentioned it last time, but you tend to use a lot of dashes. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there are other opportunities for other punctuation and connectives. You could put instead: "The addition of light to this sterile environment brings many fruitless struggles and other teens begin pulling on the ropes, struggling for freedom."
"low profile": position of avoiding or not attracting much attention or publicity. Why would this matter when they are trapped?
Hmmm... I like the use of different punctuation. But when you say, "I here the door open", it notifies the reader that the protagonist hears and not sees the door opening. So it feels like you are just adding on extra info for nothing.
DUN DUN DUN. Redundancy my dear friend!
I am sorry. But this is a no-no. This sentence needs to be rearranged. Like so: "Tall and poised, she reminds me of a tiger—but beautiful and graceful, like a lily, denying every aspect of the flower save for its color and elegance." TA-DA! See? All better.
But on the outside? XD joking. The "inside" isn't needed.
[/quote]
It should be "an initiation" because without the "an" it sound like you are talking about a specific one/a memory of one.
O.O Wow. I come for answers and I go away with more. This was a truly epic chapter! I really want to know who this woman is (lemme call her... Tiger xD) and what she wants. I want to know if she is leader of this "group" who oversee the teens. I am so curious. G'agghhhh! Seriously, Timmy! You know how to draw a reader in.
Cannot wait for the next!
Yours sincerely,
Traunt
Thank you for this wonderful review, Heather. I love reading them, and you help a lot with plot and style. As for the dashes, I have been working on them a lot and tweaking them. You may notice me using them more... appropriately as the book goes on. Or at least I hope.
Thank you for all you do. <3
<3 <3 <3
Awwwww, shucks ^-^ I enjoy reading this story! Never mind reviewing it
glad I helped.
I'm sure it'll be great!
Well, we all improve as time goes along. (I know first hand).
<33333333333
Hi there!
I have decided to stop slacking on my reviews! xD Just kidding. I finally found time to get around to reviewing again.
So I'm feeling in the nitpicky mood today and I was all ready to write nitpicks into my review when I realized everyone else already gave you those nitpicks. Boooooo!
Some other unlucky soul will have to suffer through them looks likeTwo things:
1) No way out of what? The bonds holding them down or the building their in?
2) This is a definite statement. It's a truth. "There is not way out". But maybe there is a way out and your characters just haven't found it yet. From what I've read about them so far, they don't seem like the kind of kids who would just give up. There has to be some kind of hope in them, right? The bottom line is, it just seems like they know more than they actually do.
Have I ever told you how wonderful your writing style is? It's so consistent from one chapter to the next (or in terms to this one, one chapter part to the next
I'm assuming that by this you mean the other kids lying on the cots. Problem is, you never mention exactly who the 'they' are. We can use context clues to figure it out, but from my experience, it's better to be frank about things instead of leaving it to the readers to assume. I think the best place to mention the others is when he's walking through the rows of cots. Mention the bodies lying there, not just the white sheets and masks. In the sentence that says "White gowns cover their still bodies", you can get specific and mention that the 'their' refers to the other kids.
Overall a great chapter here. What I really like about this novel is that we're learning what's going on along side your MC. There are so many secrets being hidden from him that it becomes doubly mysterious to us. I'm feeling the same hopelessness and anticipation that he's feeling.
Just a general comment before I go. I feel like these kids haven't been trapped here for all that long. When the boy gets up and just follows the woman out, he doesn't stumble or struggle to use his limbs. He just walks out fine. If he had been trapped there for a long while, he'd have had a lot more trouble getting about. Just something I observed.
I'll check out the next chapter soon!
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Thanks for this amazing review, Noelle, and for all your comments and nitpicks. I agree with everything you mentioned.
You just get around to them when you can - no pressure.
Yo. I is back for more~
Okay, so you've been writing in present tense all this time and then suddenly switch to past-tense. It's a bit confusing, actually, since your character's not supposed to tell us what has already happened, but what's happening now. It happens as we see it, not as we saw it. Make sense?
All in all, I'd suggest you edit this to read something like this: "Before I can conjure up a reply/Before I can reply--before the words have the chance to formulate in my mind--the lights above us flicker." I played with and shuffled the words up a bit here, too. You can, of course, just switch this to simple present-tense in the way that suits you~
~ Insert comma before 'but.'
~ Wait, what? But you've already said that you hear it open... Why the repetition? Unless you meant to say: "The door opens (or at least I hear it open)"?
~ How can one sound cause another sound to be echoed? An echo is the bouncing back of sound so our ears detect it several times. Inserting 'after' after 'bang' would make more sense, methinks.
~ Pretty awkward statement. How do steps walk? I'd suggest you rephrase this so it reads better.
Hm. Okay. So that's all the nitpickiness I've got. You did get a little clunky in places, as well as ambiguous, especially in the part where you introduce Tiger-lily lady and then follow her. I'm not getting as clear a picture as I would like, to be honest. Her shifts from mean to sad to almost-kind were very abrupt, and I can't really see her all that well. Lemme type out a couple of quick points I think you could work on, then?
1] Setting. You showed us your main character's surroundings in the first chapter. Steel-panelled walls and fluorescent lights. And that was while he was lying down. So I wonder, now that he's on his feet and stuff, wouldn't he try to get a good look around? The last few paragraphs felt like they were kind of floating in air, and I felt as if the Boy got to his feet a little two fast for someone who's been strapped to a cot for goodness-knows-how-long. Usually, people's limbs get really stiff if they're kept in one place, and movements might be slow and awkward. Also, it really hurts. Trust me on this. Scouts and being tied up and cupboards and evil classmates have given me enough experience in that department.
I also want to get a better look at the other teenagers, at the masks they wear and so on. I also think some sensory descriptions would enhance the I'm-pulling-you-into-the-zone effect, like what the gases smell like, what the Boy's footsteps sound like against the concrete floor. How the concrete feels beneath his feet. Is it grainy? Is the floor clean or covered with dust? Are the beds meticulously arranged? These are the kind of questions you should ask yourself. I also want a little bit of reaction to what the boy is seeing. Does he feel disgust? Contempt? Pity? Does he feel free, now that he is no longer strapped up--and does that make him guilty?
2] Characterisation. The Girl and the Boy seem to be pretty good buddies already; I'm actually surprised Tiger-lily lady let them talk to one another like that. I'm also surprised that the Boy didn't get a closer look at the Girl, because I would have liked to know what she looks like. But appearances aside, I think they'd be more wary of one another. The Commander didn't sound like he was joking, when he asked for silence. I'm also surprised at Tiger-lily lady answering the Boy's question so easily, and talking like the others couldn't hear her. I expected her to be more ... y'know ... glacial. Let's talk it over character by character, shall we?
Okay, so that's all from me. As usual, your writing flows seamlessly; your descriptions are simplistic yet they dive in deep, and this is as brilliant a chapter as I could have hoped to expect from you.
It's one in the morning. I think this is where I should end my review. >.>
Keep writing! Keep it up!
Hope this helped~
~Pompadour
Thank you for this wonderful, wonderful review, Dory! It helps me so much! <3
One thing: I was experimenting with personalities of characters in these, so you may find the next chapter quite astonishing when you see the difference in the girl.
Just wanted to warn you. xD
Ooh, sounds interesting. Yay for character development! ^^
Hi Timmy!
Well, this chapter was by far the best of them all. Honestly... I wouldn't know what to review. So I am just going to leave a short little quick comment because ArcticMonkey has pretty much said all I would do myself :3
I'm going to second her and say that although you do want him to be more formal than her, he still sounds overly formal to me. Too much for it to come natural. Just something to think of.
As for that sentence, you don't need the word 'but' in there.
If all the chapters are gonna be as good as this one, then I really won't be left with much to say. I wonder where he is being taken...
Deanie x
Why. didn't. I. reply.
This is sooo a review.
Not in my books it isn't. Too short xD
Hi again, timmy!
I am loving this story so much, not only because I love this genre, but because there's still so much mystery and you always reveal just the right amount. I really feel in this chapter we learnt more about the MC, through his actions and dialogue. There is still room for more characterisation, but I see an improvement before previous chapters. And of course, my favourite thing about this, the plot is unfolding really nicely. I think the pacing is good, a bit slow at times, but overall it flows well.
With my suggestions, I'll start with some specific things:
I find this sentence quite long, the repetition thing in the brackets has already been mentioned, but a comma, maybe before 'and' is needed to break the sentence up a bit.
This bit was a bit confusing, what 'bang'?
I think after this you should go on to speak about how the tension in the room builds, rather than just saying it. You begin to kind of, but this is a perfect opportunity to describe things more.
I think it should be 'my' way, because as a reader, I don't really know what 'this' means.
The descriptions of the woman in general, I find quite odd. Like one minute she was a beautiful tiger, then really scary, and I know that was the point, to show how quickly she could change, but then the image of a tiger was mentioned again and I was like whaaaat. I'm probably not making any sense, firstly, in this sentence you say she's 'like a tiger' and then 'like a lily'. It's just quite hard to interpret, and I'm not really sure what to imagine when you're describing her. I think a brief physical description should be the first thing to do, then you can talk about her stance and what animal she reminds the MC of.
Okay, so when he was allowed to take off his mask, I was like 'wait, what mask?' I genuinely forgot that they were wearing masks. Not because you didn't really describe it in previous chapters, but you described it, but then didn't really show the effect it had on the characters. Think about what it's like for the to speak and move through the mask, because I forgot those were even part of the story.
Another thing is, 'the Man' was really really scary, and he was in a position of power. This woman is also in a position of power, and the MC doesn't seem to scared of her, because, again, you're not really showing his thoughts. Sorry to repeat myself. I can totally understand why he obeys her, but he doesn't really show much hostility. Think about what you'd do in his position, I'd be really scared. The fact that she keeps saying 'everything is going to be okay' only makes me trust her less. You, as the author, knows what's going to happen next, but your character doesn't.
Overall, good job. This review was quite quote-heavy, but there were a few sentences I picked out as not flowing so well. All the other suggestions are generally repeats of what I've said in previous chapters, I just really want to know more about this MC. Anyways, as always, I hope this review helped, feel free to ask me any questions or if you'd ever like another review on anything.
Keep writing,
~ArcticMonkey x
Thank you for your review! Everything you have said I completely agree with and I will work on in the future--and when I come back to edit these. I admit this style is a little hard to get used to, and you may find chapter 3 a little more... personable?
Thank you again! I really enjoy this!
Hey Timmy, me again to review.
I have one nitpick, so I'll just get it out of the way.
You've used 'hear' twice, so maybe just make it 'or at least I think I hear it open'. You could also just swap one for a different word. It's probably just a minor typing error.
Right, onto the good stuff. I like the introduction of this mysterious woman who is to escort the MC somewhere. Even that has lots of mystery packed into it. What do they want with these kids? Why was the MC selected? I am definitely going to have to keep up with this.
You kind of just know she's right here; it makes me wonder if she's done this before. If so, how many times? The way she seems to say this casually before hurrying the MC on adds meaning too.
It's kind of creepy, the way that all the restraints are disabled by a single button - the mask too. You just don't imagine it being so easy. A good creepy, mind you and the potential...
I love the setting of the room and the cots. For some reason, I'm reminded of The Matrix, the bit where you see where they actually are outside the simulation. Don't worry if you don't get that (or if I've mentioned something like that before, I might have).
Okay, I'm pretty much done. See you next chapter!
Thank you for your amazing review! OOOOH. REDUNDANCY.
Hi, Timmy. I just finished reading up to the end of this chapter. It was very interesting too read.
I don't believe I saw anything that needed to be nitpicked. I don't think I caught anything, which means I either didn't pay enough attention or you did a really good job.
Now, onto my wonderful thingsto say about this chapter.
-This is a really well written chapter. So the pacing is really good. The characters where all well devolped, and their voices are really strong.
-The hope you gave the characters at the end is one way to end this chapter. It sends a good note for us readers so we can faithfully wait for the next chapter.
-I don't know what else to say about this. I believe this is all I have to say.
Keep writing Timmy,
Tulip.
Thank you for this review, Tulip. It encouraged me a lot.
If you ever want to read more of Affinity, then here is a club to keep you updated: clubs/1991