--No POV-- Alice was a normal girl before the incident. She had a loving family, friends, and-most importantly- her sanity. Now she was stuck in a small, barren room in the Old Oaks Insane Asylum in her small town of Widow Oaks. The incident made her crazy. She wasn't born this way. Was she? She wasn't too sure of anything anymore. All she knew was that her name was Alice Lester. Nothing else came to her mind. Except for the occasional glimpse of a horror filled world. But that was at the beginning of her stay. She now seemed to live in theis world and was unresponsive to her doctors and therapist. All she ever did was look out into the world with unresponsive eyes, looking at nothing but the horros that lie within herself. All the people around her wonder what she lies there thinking about, the world she lives in day in and day out. Some people even imagine them living in this world as well. As if it were some sort of paradise. But oh how they were wrong. They were all so wrong...
--Alice's POV-- I woke up in a fright, underneath a thick, green willow tree. I couldn't see out and no one could see in. As long as I was in here, I was safe. Looking down, I noticed the dirt and dried blood splattered across my arms and hands. If only I could bathe. But what if they find me? I've been in living in constand fear for quite some time now but it keeps getting worse. After trying to pick off the blood for a frustrating five minutes I decide to peek out of my hide out. No one's out there. I take my chance and run for it all the way to the pond. I go in fully dressed. Who knows when I'll have to make my way out of here or how quickly? I bathe silently, hoping I can fully clean myself before I am discovered. I have a blade trapped into my boot but I don't know if that will always be enough of a weapon. Once I finish bathing, I take a look at my surroundings. Strange that no one is around. I decide to try and find the Hatter. He seems to be the only one around here that's on my side. I hope he's alright. If anything happened to him, I might as well let them take me too. No sense in fighting when your only reason to live has gone away into a better place without you. I find his house quickly in the overgrown forest. I've been here enough times now to find it easily enough. I push his door open and walk in. He gets terrified if I knock because he fears it could be the Red Queen's guards coming to take him away. When I come in, I see the Hatter asleep at his table with a half finished hat next to him. It's rather good and I think of how tired he must be from just getting that far. I quietly make my way to his closet and pull out one of the many dresses he's made for me in case I ever need them. He wakes up shortly after I finish dressing and smiles at the sight of me. "I was wondering when you'd ever wear one of the dresses I made you," he laughs and comes over to me, pulling me into a hug. In his arms is the only place I feel safe her in this hell. I wonder if he feels this way too. When he lets go, I quietly sigh. He winks at me and I smile. This is a happy moment for the both of us but it quickly ends as soon as we hear the army marching close by.
--Hatter's POV-- We look at each other in panic. We both know what that sound could mean. Either they're coming to take me away or to kill her. I can't either of those things happen so I grab her hand and guide her out the back window. We run all the way to the clearing about 5 miles away. Adrenaline is a godsend. Once in the clearing, we both collapse and start to brathe heavily. We know we've lost them and if we're lucky they were looking for that damn cat. Like they'll ever find him. But that would definatly put luck on our side. Once it's dark, I know I have to go back and get supplies. I'll have to make sure Alice stays here and hidden. I just hope she chooses not to be stuborn this time. I just want to protect her. Well, the sun is still high. No need to worry about that now. Or, at least as much as I will have to later on. For now, I should just keep her happy and unafraid because I know she is even if she doesn't want me to know. I pull her into my arms and she starts to cry silently. I wipe away her tears gently. "It's okay," I whisper, softly into her ear. "Hatter, this is hell we're living in. No it won't and you know it," she replies through her tears. I cup her face in my hand and look her straight in the eye. "As long as I have you, this hell of ours is a million times better than heaven." She smiles to this and I hold her even tighter as we watch the sun set and our depressing world grow dark.
--Hatter's POV-- Keeping Alice safe and hidden proved to be much easier than I expected. She fell asleep in my arms and I sofly layed her down, careful not to wake her. I slowly and quietly made my way back to my little house in the forest. The walk was suprisingly peaceful and I was accompanied by fireflies. If only Alice could have been with me. But she's safer back in the clearing. Luckily, my house was empty when I arrived and it seemed that, besides me, Alice was the closest person to it. I silently slipped in the window and grabbed a large sack. I put in as much supplies as I found neccessary. Clothes for the two of us, food, water, a few small weapons, and any other thing I saw fir to bring. Once I was done, I swung the sack over my shoulder and quickly made my way back to Alice. --Dr. Braunsten, Alice's therapist's POV-- I looked down at the poor girl. So much trauma. All she ever did now was stare off blankly into her own little world. I wonder what it's like in there. I hope it's a happy place. This girl doesn't deserve anymore suffering after what happened to her parents. Such a sad story. She was so young and promising. It's a shame to have her life ripped away from her at such a young age. Poor, poor girl. I looked away as the orderly's came to take her to the place I liked to call the torture chamber. They did so many despicable things there and today they were going to try to bleed the insanity out of poor Alice. If only they listened. But no one ever does...
--Dr. Braunsten's POV-- It finally happened. Alice was responsive for the first time since she arrived. It was only for a brief five minutes but it was progress. When she awoke from her dream-like state, she spoke in fear of this mysterious world she's been living in for so long. At least it wasn't a mystery for me anymore. This world her mind has created for her isn't happy at all. It's her own personal hell. --Alice's POV-- I had a strange dream that night out in the forest clearing. I dreamt that I awoke in a strange room next to a strange man. He was writing down notes as I frantically told him about this hellish world. He seemed interested but very frightened. I could also see a glint of sympathy in his eyes as I told him about this nightmare I live in. Once I finished telling him of this world, I woke up calmly next to the Hatter. He had a large sack next to him full of supplies. I smirked at his cleverness. He was going to get it when he woke up, I laughed quietly to myself.
Hey Angel,
Let me just give you a belated welcome to YWS. I hope you enjoy your time here. I'm going to go right into it and give my compliments at the end if you don't mind.
First, I agree with Loose.
There's no reason to have so much warning. I've read several multi-POV books, and I've often seen the POV at the top of the chapter which is a classier way of doing it.
This shouldn't be necessary. You should't have to go to 3rd person to explain your MC's situation. If you can't explain it well as is, do a flashback and slap some italics on it. Try to keep it 1st person though.
You had a few tense issues as well. Make sure everything you mean to be in past tense is in past tense and everything you want to be in present tense is in present tense.
Careful with this who Alice in Wonderland fanfic. I love it personally, but there are tons of versions where Alice is in love with the Hatter or vice versa.
I honestly don't see the point of switching POV's at this point. The plot will move along either way, and it just stops the reader from going on.
You already said it would be lucky. You don't need to repeat it. I would get rid of this sentence.
Again? You didn't switch POV's.
STOP! This is a fantastic place for description which is the easiest way to deepen your story. How does the Hatter feel? Is the wind rustling through the tress? Is the sun just setting or has the sun dropped below the horizon, painting the forest a dark purple? We, as the readers, want to know the details.
...Why? It's his house and no one is in it. Just use the front door.
With Dr. Braunsten's story, there's no need for that beginning bit. It explains everything sufficiently.
The struck out part is a big no-no. Let us deduce. It's fairly obvious what he is without your announcing it. Assume your readers are intelligent.
Hm... You might want to make the time of the story known. Bleeding is an archaic form of medicine that hasn't been used since the 1800's. Perhaps electroshock instead?
So, I think your characters are very flat. I want emotion, real, genuine emotion. That would blow them up in a heartbeat.
I also suggest paragraphs. Paragraphs organize your writing which helps the reader understand what's going on. Without paragraphs, it's harder to understand.
One last thing, think about plot. You need a hook at the beginning. I didn't get a hook. I got running and really strong romantic interest hints.
You have to remember as the reader, I don't know your characters like you know them. You have to build everything for me to see. You can't assume I know something about the Hatter's personality or any of them for that matter.
I did like the whole insanity take, and I like Dr. Braunsten. That's a very nice twist that I can appreciate. Just make sure that he actually adds something to the plot. I'm very sure he could.
I hoped I helped. If you have any questions, just PM me. If you need another review, I have a WRFF thread. The link is in my signature.
Megsug
Oh wow… Okay. There are several points I would like to raise with you, and I’m going to try and do this as concisely as possible. Here we go:
1. I’m not a big fan of the multi-POV style. I’ve dabbled in it myself and I can’t commit to it. However, of all of the books that I’ve read, I have seen it done well. I didn’t enjoy Wuthering Heights, but this is the example I’m going to choose to use. Despite my lack of appreciation for the story, there is no denying that it is a classic. Within the text, there are several points of view. From memory, there are at least Mr Lockwood and Nelly’s perspectives. I would very strongly suggest that you look into other books and stories that use multi-POV narratives if you plan to use the style yourself.
Within Wuthering Heights, the transition is pretty quick. Lockwood, whose narrative initiates the story, pesters Nelly to confide in him her past, and the first line we are given in her point of view goes like this:
Before I came to live here, she commenced, waiting no further invitation to her story, I was almost always at Wuthering Heights…
And now Nelly is narrating instead of Lockwood. The narrative seems more like we are hearing what Lockwood is hearing rather than following Nelly’s perspective the way a typical narrative does. There aren’t any flashing lights saying THE PERSPECTIVE WILL CHANGE NOW and, in a way, it’s very effective. It flows. That’s the crucial element. Changes in perspective can be incredibly jarring, especially when they are put across with the inclusion of things like
******LOOSE'S POV*******
You want a narrative to flow. If you feel a great need to distinguish between when someone is talking and when someone else is, might I suggest you divide them up into chapters? This, I have seen done. One chapter dedicated to, for example, Loose. Another is being told by AngelofyourNightmare. It’s a little less jarring because the reader comes to expect it. Plus, it gives you the room to really develop your characters' voices. One of the main reasons why I’m so against multi-POV in my own writing is because I feel like I’m cutting my characters off. I like for them to bloom in their own ways because I feel like it helps character development more. That’s my OPINION. I’m not telling you to eliminate it altogether, but, if you want to use multi-POV, you need to make it easier on your reader. Also, third person is a good way to get the feel of multi-POV without explicitly having to have multi-POV.
2. You haven’t specified whether or not this is a stand-alone piece of prose or if it is a part of a greater story, so I won’t pick at the plot too much. I’ve decided to treat it as a first chapter or a prologue, simply because that’s the way it reads in my mind. In that case, it’s a bit fast-paced for my taste. I’ll be honest, I don’t feel any sympathy for any character, nor do I relate to them. The pace of the piece compromises on character development. I’m not a fan of describing a character as “normal”, unless it’s coming from a character’s mouth (therefore, it is an opinion and not the way a writer actually thinks about their character) because the world “normal”, much like the word “perfect”, sets the character up to be a blatant Mary Sue. If you don’t know what a Mary Sue is, there ought to be resources within YWS to explain it. I was going to provide a link to the Wikipedia page, but I feel like that might be misleading considering the page’s heavy focus on fan fiction characters.
Basically, a Mary Sue is a character without any considerable flaws. There are tests online that you can run your character through to determine if you’ve made them too awesome. Even Harry Potter could be considered a Mary Sue (or the male equivalent) by the right critic.
When you’re writing prose, you want your main character to be likable and relatable. While it might seem true that flaws can be alienating (for instance, how many people can you imagine would identify with a character who crashes cars for sport?), it’s more alienating to read the story of a character who is perfect, because it makes them seem unreal. While characters aren’t real, realism is what you should strive for. As I said earlier, I couldn’t find myself caring for the main character in the story, and that’s because the word “normal” kept coming up in my head. If your character is “normal” (in itself unachievable) then your character needs some work. How often did she submit her homework at school? Did she ever sneak out? Has she been suspended? Does she not get along with a family member? And, once you’ve answered all of these questions, answer this: why? You’ll find that your perspective on your character (her profile, if you will) will start to branch out like a family tree. New answer, new branch. Does she make her bed in the morning? Why, or why not?
Let me show you what I mean. Take one of my current main characters, Kiki. You know nothing about her but her first name (which is actually her nickname), so let’s start asking questions.
First: Has she ever cut class? Yes
Why? To meet her boyfriend.
Why? Because he asked her to.
Why? Because he wanted to cut class and go and get lunch with his girlfriend.
Why? Because he found PE boring and took no interest in it and thought that it would be better to spend some time with his girlfriend in the hopes he’d get to make out with her instead of playing baseball.
Why? Because they’ve never made out before.
Why? Because Kiki isn’t attracted to her boyfriend but she stays with him out of security.
Why? She is too afraid of what people might think of her if she were single.
Why? Because she thinks a woman is a failure if she’s not with a man, and she doesn’t want to be seen as a failure.
So, what have we learned? Kiki is misogynistic. There’s a flaw. You can ask other questions, too, like “how” and the other “Ws”, but I always find “why” to be the most effective at getting to the core of a character. You ought to do the same with Alice so you can eliminate the word “normal”.
3. Okay, final point. I said I was going to make this concise and I have clearly failed. My last piece of advice to you would be to whizz this through a spell-checker before you submit it. A few errors popped up while I was scanning through. It’s fine, we’re all human so don’t agonise over that. There should be a spell-checker function you can enable in your browser (at least, I know Chrome has one because it corrects me every time I write the word “colour” or something of equal British-ness). Otherwise, just give it a quick read through to see if you can pick up on any.
I’m sorry for writing a novel in reply to this. Hopefully, you find some of what I said helpful. Otherwise, don’t hesitate to send me a message and I can help you out wherever you need.
It’s a good story idea, all said and done. You should definitely keep going with it.