Oblivion - Chapter One

Hi there!

You've definitely grabbed my attention. There isn't much information here, mainly because the main character doesn't even know what's going on. You've done a good job portraying it. I have a million different questions, but that's how it should be right now. I'm just going to have to wait it out and suffer until the second or third or twelfth chapter when you reveal the answers

Darkness… Nothing but black emptiness…

Ellipses are a good thing to use when you want to really control the pace. I don't think you used them right here. (now take this with a grain of salt because I don't know the full, 100% truth about ellipses and when to use them) Especially since this is the opening sentence, it would've been nice to see something more dynamic and powerful. If you replace the ellipses with periods or just replace the first one with a semi-colon, you'd have a more powerful punch. You'd also set yourself up for a faster pace. Based on this first bit here, it seems that the novel is going to be a bit more slow paced and that the main character isn't one bit freaked out by this darkness, which I know she is.

You tend to switch between past and present tense a lot during this. I pulled out the first two paragraphs and put them in the spoiler below.

Spoiler

Red=past tense
Green=present tense
Oh look, Christmas colors. 'Tis the season! I so didn't plan that at all.

Darkness… Nothing but black emptiness… What was going on? I couldn’t see, nor hear anything, I felt nothing. It seems to stretch on forever, until I see little dots of white in the distance. They were growing closer by the second, it got brighter and brighter, until everything was white.

I blink a few times, the white still fading. All I can hear is my heart pounding in my ears, and my breathing. I feel… Cold. Very cold. I then realize my arms are at my side, strapped down by a piece of rough material. I was against a hard metal, which from the corner of my eye, I could see was black. In front of me was, Glass? It looked frozen over, I couldn’t see out of it.

I can tell that you understand the difference between the two because you tend to keep using one of the tenses consistently through a few sentences. Then you slip up and fall back into the other tense. Find that one tense you want to use for your story. Sometimes it can be hard to decide. I've been doing this forever and I still have some stories that I look back at and think if it would be better if it were written in a different tense. But whatever you decide on, stick with it. It makes your work well polished and you'll have everything together to make this awesome.

One thing I like about your beginning is how you show the main character progressing through her thoughts. It's not just one paragraph that describes how she's in this lab strapped to a bed (I think it's a bed at least xD). There are four paragraphs here in the beginning just describing her surroundings and her feelings. I think that's the greatest thing you could do with a beginning like this. We get to see the surroundings and really relate to the main character because we get to know what they're feeling and how they're reacting to all of this.

As for this beginning being cliche, yes it could be seen that way. I've read countless articles about how no one should ever start a novel with the main character waking up to their alarm clock or waking up from a dream. However, I don't believe any of that stuff. Rebel over here! xD I totally agree with AttackOfTheFlash. Every cliche isn't cliche. It's just cliche because it's been used over and over again. If you can come up with a cliched beginning that's original and really affects your readers and the story as a whole, then go for it. And I think that's exactly what you have here. Especially with the events that follow her waking up. Take for example, the Maze Runner (which I have read so many times that it's possible I have it completely memorized). James Daschner has a cliched opening of the main character waking up and starting a whole, brand new life. It's the story behind why Thomas is waking up and why he is where he is that makes it not cliche. That's what you're doing here.

Your narrative is quite strong. You kept it the same throughout and I really felt like I understood your character. That's always something that's super important, especially when you're writing in first person POV. We want to get to know your character and understand them better, so when we get farther along in the novel we can understand why they're doing what they're doing. I'm not quite sure what kind of personality Ash has yet since it's still early, but I'm looking forward to learning more about her!

Now onto the grammar You have quite a few mistakes here, but they're all the same ones. It won't be hard to fix them. I'm not a big grammar nazi, nor did I pay attention much in school when we were learning it, but I do know about grammar. I'll just stick with the comments I'm 100% positive about.

I feel… Cold

Ellipses can be tricky. They're not used quite as often and have some rules attached to them. In the case of capitalizing the word after the ellipses or not, there's a simple rule: if the ellipses is used in the middle of a sentence (as it is in your sentence here), then the word after the ellipses should be lowercase. I actually had to look up this rule because it's something I never really thought about before. If you're using an ellipsis to create a pause within the sentence, the word after it is lowercase. If you're using an ellipsis to create time passing by between sentences, then the word after it should be capitalized.

You do seem to use a lot of commas here, which AttackOfTheFlash pointed out. I wanted to go into a bit more detail though and show you exactly where you have the extra commas. I'm only going to point out a few places because I don't want to clog up this review with them. Not that you have a lot of them, or course. It just takes up space to point out everything. And frankly, that's just boring.

I couldn’t see, nor hear anything, I felt nothing.

There are two sentences in this single sentence: "I couldn't see, nor hear anything" and "I felt nothing". I can't get too technical with the terminology (because frankly it still confuses me sometimes xD), but I can tell you that having the second 'I' in there makes it a new sentence. I mean, you have the first part that lists the MC not being able to see or hear, and then there's this pronoun linked to the third thing that the MC can't do. It's like starting a whole new sentence. If the sentence were to be a list like this: "I couldn't see, nor hear, nor feel", then it would work. So there are two things you can do here. You can either start a new sentence, or you could use a semi-colon, which would attach the end part to the first part of the sentence and it would make sense grammatically.

My heart rate picks up dramatically, I felt like I had to get out of here.

Here's another place where there's a comma where a period should be. The first part of the sentence here is a complete thought: "My heart rate picks up dramatically." Then there is the second part which is also a complete thought: "I felt like I had to get out of here."

If you read your work out loud a few times while editing, it'll really help you find the places where the commas shouldn't be. You'll hear it in the rhythm of the sentences.

Overall I really enjoyed this first chapter. Like I said in the beginning, we don't get much information, but that's what I like about it. Your MC doesn't know anything, so we don't know anything. Sure I'd like to know more, but that'll come later on in the story. Now I'm itching to learn more about your MC and what she's going through here. You've grabbed my interest and I can't wait to read more! Your storytelling is very solid. The only thing that needs some work, really, is your grammar. That'll take some practice. Once you get the hang of it, your writing will be great!

Keep writing!
**Noelle**