Prologue-
The man in the lab coat stared blankly at the computer screen. The small cubicle he was in was cluttered with unfinished reports and papers, along with a few proposals that all but a few had any real interest in. And even they didn't want to fund them, the price tags were too expensive. He kept thinking if he could only convince them of all the good it would do, but no one listened. They'd say things like "Make it cheaper" or "You can't seriously think this will work with any benefit towards mankind?" Okay... Maybe that last part was himself.
"Jonathan! Come on man, everyone else is in the observatory. You should see it, it looks amazing. Even standing outside without a telescope... It's breathtaking!" Jonathan jumped and turned to look at one of his colleagues who was looking at him over the thin cubicle wall. He turned back in his seat to face his monitor.
"I already saw it... In fact, I've been seeing it since the last week." Jonathan said, he let out a deep sigh.
"Suit yourself..." His colleague shrugged and turned to head back toward the observatory.
Jonathan squinted at the screen as a small red dot flashed on the desktop. Jonathan scrolled the cursor to the dot in the task tray and opened the program. His screen was filled with numbers and readings, scientific data from a probe... But the probe was...
"What the...?" Jonathan sat straight in his chair, scrolling through the composed spreadsheet. "No way..." His eyes widened in realization. "Hey! Hey Will! Come back here!" Jonathan called out to his colleague.
"What?" Will quickly came back to the cubicle. "What is it?"
"L-look at this!" Jonathan said, excited, pointing to the screen.
"Spectroscopy readings? Where'd you get those?" Will asked, looking at the screen more closely.
"The IT guys whipped up a nice little intranet that linked all the systems together... Everyone should be getting one but..." Jonathan stood up looking around the office, it was barren and desolate. "No one is at there stations... Everyone's outside watching the... The observatory! The computers aren't hooked up to the intranet in there yet! We have to get these to everyone!" Jonathan said excitedly, sitting back down in his chair.
"Jonathan... These readings came from-" Will began.
"I know! It doesn't make any sense!" Jonathan copied the results into a file and sent them to the nearest company printer.
"And they say-" Will began again.
"Yes! If it's not a malfunction then... Oh who knows!" Jonathan jumped up in his seat, almost tripping to get past Will and out of the small cubicle. "Will!" Jonathan turned to face Will, almost stumbling again, placing his hands on Will's shoulders. "Get everyone into the conference room, or... No no, get them into the seminar room! It's bigger, everyone has to know about this, I'll get a presentation ready!"
"But, they're all outside, watching the-" Will began, once again.
"I know! Tell them... Uhh... Just... Tell them it's more important! You know that, you saw the readings for yourself!" Jonathan stumbled again as he headed toward the company printer.
"Uhh... Jonathan-" Will watched as his colleague scrambled out of sight. He brought his attention back to Jonathan's monitor, another flashing red dot had appeared in the task tray. He moved the cursor down to the red dot and opened it. The window was headed, "TELESAT-1." Will's eyes moved back and forth as he read the data. "Oh my God..." Another red dot appeared in the tray. Will opened it, this window was headed, "TELESAT-5." Will spent another moment reading it, the tray began to blink again as more data came in from different telemetry satellites. "Oh no..." Will sighed, he closed his eyes rubbing them, trying to determine if anything was real anymore.
The computer pinged as more readings came in, Will couldn't bear to open any more of them. Then, the pinging stopped.
Another ping resounded in the now empty office setting from all computers, this one indicating a new email. The email system wasn't linked up to the intranet, everyone had their own personal company email accounts, that meant everyone received an email at the same time. Will opened Jonathan's email application from the task tray. The heading of the email was "EUROPA-1."
"Jesus Christ..." Will held his hand to his mouth as he read the email. He stumbled out of the cubicle, tripping over Jonathan's chair, then shoving it out of the way.
"Jonathan! Jonathan!" Will's voice cracked as he chased after his colleague.
Jonathan's monitor flashed a few times as new readings came in, the single email left open on the computer read, "HUMANITY DOESN'T DESERVE A SECOND CHANCE."
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
Hello @Bumpeh!
What an exciting opener for a story. As @kymorhens mentioned, your dialogue does have a way of really putting the reader into the shoes of the characters. It is because it is more humanistic.
however, this is something I often see happening with writers (including myself) who get excited about their stories; they tend to unknowingly rush through them using either pure dialogue, no dialogue, brief descriptions, and tons of exclamations points. For you, I think you are thinking of this story in a cinematic point of view--meaning, you are seeing your story as if it were a movie. That is perfectly fine, in fact, is the first step to really becoming a good writer: capture everything that is necessary. You don't detract from what you want the reader to see, instead you give us a box of vision, and that is perfect.
With all that said, however, I feel like there was too much dialogue to really get a feel for what exactly was happening in this piece. I never knew where the characters were and at what point in time they were doing something. And I never knew what these characters looked like nor who they were-- I did not know enough information. No worries. A simple way to fix this is either by filling out a character chart (there are tons online, just type it into google) or by filling out the following template for every scene that occurs in this chapter:
*Note how I used the word describe for some categories (though, essentially, this is what you will be doing all-throughout your story). That is what you need more of: description. And please, don't make it clunky description. Write it as beautifully and as naturally as you wrote your dialogue. It all has to be natural. What emotions are happening? What color is the room? What is the general air/aura of the room? Happy and positive or gloomy and depressing? Intense? What is it? Describe these emotions by either using props, such as what type of light is used in this laboratory (a constantly flickering fluorescent light will give the sense of creepiness, while a blindingly bright light bulb gives the sense of hominess and happiness).
What is the tone you are trying to produce? Are you trying to make this a funny story or a serious/dramatic story? Or is it a combination of both? If so, be sure to evenly disperse such content. For instance, if you are trying to create a serious moment, don't ruin it with a one liner, unless you are planning to write the rest of the novel that way. In that case, it would not really be a serious story.
Lastly, I want to call to attention your tendency to consistently use the names of your characters in each sentence. Check out the following sentence:
With a mistake like that, it makes me ask, how many Jonathan's are in the room? Don't sweat it though, because it is an easy fix. The easiest way to do this is either to combine the sentences or use other pronouns more often, such as he, she, it, and they (though I think it'd be best for you to choose the former over the latter).
In terms of all else, I would really like to read more of this. You have quite the interesting title and beginning there, and that last line was very suspenseful and interesting. Please tell me when you will have more!
This... is... riveting. Let me just say that your dialouge and descriptions are amazing. As an author, I struggle a lot with both of those attributes, but the way that they react to each other tells you so much about who they are. They're not rambling on and on about themselves, but you get a sense of who they are.
And that last line... it makes me want to turn the page! Even if there isn't a page to turn since I'm on a computer. But you get the idea.
Your grammar is really good as well. No obvious changes need to be made from my perspective.
I just have one question...
Are you planning on writing in past or present tense for the rest of the story? Are you going to write in first or third person?
I'm just curious as another writer what you plan to do, because I'm writing a similar type of novel. You know... just need a different perspective on the whole thing.
I give it two thumbs up! Feel free to message me when a new chapter is on its way. This has lots of potential.
<3------KY
Thank you Ky! I will be continuing to write this story in third-person omniscient in the past tense. The story involves a lot of recurring characters, so perspectives will change.
Ok. I'm writing my first novel, so I'm interested in writing perspectives because I'm not sure if I should change mine to a different form.
Message me when chapter 1 comes out. I'd hate to miss it.
<3-------KY