Z-Day

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

Anyway let's get right to it,

On April 1st, 2013 a virus called Solarium broke out and basically affects anyone who's blood stream has been contaminated with it. When contaminated the person slowly and painfully turns into a zombie. Eventually after two years it spread so much that military tried nuking it but all it did was make the virus spread faster. Its been six years after the nuke and finally we came out of hiding from the saftey bunkersand tried to survive once more in our home.

My name is Wyatt Blackwell and I survive with the only bit of family I have left, my brother Derrick. He was once a Navy Seal but all of this chaos has happened and he left his old life to protect me. I trained to fight and shoot since i was eight years old. derrick and I have been holding out in a mansion somewhere near Fort benning, Georgia.We haven't really had any problems with the infected or the thugs and other gangs, but thats only because we've been playing our card slow and steady while we covered our tracks. My brother worries about me a lot due to the fact i have a very rare disease called AKS which means if I dont take my pill I will pass out. Everytime i pass out there is a light loss of one of my six sences!

Derrick and i have a plan to go search a local wal-mart for food, water, and my pills.Its night time and we need our rest for tomorrow we have a big day!

This rather seems like a summary of the story. There is a lot of information in here and not really much else. I think you could definitely do better. If you want it to be like a diary, think about writing it as if he's looking back on what happened.

"On April 1st, 2013 the virus broke out. Solarium. They said it was supposed to help us grow stronger, but instead it destroyed us. Infecting anyone if their blood came in contact with it, the Solarium would slowly and painfully turn them into a zombie..." etc etc. A diary, written from the perspective of your main man, Wyatt, would have a lot more personal information, feelings about what happened, and even some inconsistencies because he probably doesn't have all the information right now.

It could go somewhere, and I like the AKS thing (though perhaps you should explain precisely what that stands for), so there is potential. You've just gotta be careful, though. Slow down a little. Give us more details. :]

Whoops. Wrong space.

Here to review! I agree with the other reviewers that this was somewhat of an info-dump; it all came so fast and clumped together that I didn't have a chance to even get a grasp on one thing before another came along. This is just personal preference, but Wyatt seems unusually...perky. Not that that's a bad thing, but it just seems a little off in this case.
Now, I do like your two main characters so far, and it seems like this story has some serious potential with some elaboration. I'd like to see where you go with this.

Also, there were numerous spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, including capitalization.

I obviously got here a little late to review, but if and when you choose to continue this, please let me know!

Hello, DeepBlack! Here to review as requested

So firstly, I'll start with what I liked. Your story is very intriguing and it really does want to make me read on. You seem to have a very good kind of story-line so far, and it is quite interesting, because I, personally, find this sort of subject interesting.

Now, I have a few problems with this piece; firstly it it rather short and lacks description at all which makes it a bit boring to read. (Talking about the second and third paragraph) I think that you could expand on some ideas you have written about. To be honest right now, reading it feels very factual and you're just stating facts and it's not really a story, and you're not really expanding on anything you write- making it quite short. Now, it's not the shortness that's the problem, but it's the quality of your writing. It's very kind of informal and sounds more like dialogue than actual narrative.

Also, I think you need to make your characters a bit more. Obviously, this is just the first paragraph, but I hardly know anything about them, and they are quite boring at the moment. So just, nothing major, just maybe adding a bit to them, which is like what I was talking about earlier about description.

I think that your first paragraph needs to be more formal, and really to the point. Again, it sounds like a character is saying this and it needs to be less wordy. I understand that this is the first person, and you want to make it sound like the character is speaking, but to me it doesn't read very well. Now, this is just a suggestion, but perhaps you could take the first paragraph, make it more like it was written in a newspaper, but quotations around it and act like it's a cutting from a newspaper- so the readers get a more general idea of what is happening.

Finally, it's been mentioned already, but your grammar I think needs a check-over. Obviously it's fine if you can't make things perfect, but make sure you always check your work for things like that. If you need any help with that, feel free to ask me! But yeah, and in the future, when you're posting work, make sure it doesn't need to many corrections.

I hope I helped, please let me know when you have the next part up- I'd be happy to review it!
-Arc x

Hey Deeeeeeepblack! Just Alf paying a visit in this thread...and ha, I'm also here for a review! Caught you in the eye, huh? Ain't my acting becoming better and better! Anywho, let the reviewing start!

Firstly, I was at first caught myself titling my head because of the very short chapter we're having here. I wondered why. After deeper consideration, I realized the Day 0 subline. Then I figured out that you were only putting a section of the whole chapter one. If I'm right, then okay, I'm cool with that. But maybe you can post the whole chapter so that we can review all of it! If not, if this is really its length, then this chapter might be lacking a few notes

Now, on the review itself. I'll just chop the piece into sections that need some look-sees, okay? I'll give a general impression now (Why am I even telling this ?). Story-wise, the zombie thing had gotten a bit common. We all know what happens next, either blood, gore or bullets. Here, I found that you combined elements of science fiction by determining a ground cause to whence is the epidemic and you started with a friend with your character, so plus points to those two. Style-wise, I think we have some stuff to see before we can bring this baby to the publisher. There are parts in which the narrator, Wyatt (like the name by the way), have been becoming too telly. When one is too telly, he can destroy the suspense of the many elements of the story.

Also, it seems that you hop in tone too much. you were like dead serious the first time around, but that quickly resolved to an exciting singe you and Derrick'll do the next day. It seemed to fast, we can't hang on! I think you need to at least give in with one voice, if the character is serious, then he is serious. It's not that you'll stop jerking in some funny parts now and there, but, for instance, when he jokes, try to give an imagery of a serious face trying to hold a laugh. Remember that you're one character here, the narrator I mean. So try your best to be a bit more believable.

Grammar-wise, I think that you need some double (or triple checking!) It's okay to have them mistakes at times, but be sure to, like, really check up on them as much as possible. In totus, your grammar probs usually lie in capitalization and some spelling.

Description-wise, try to bundle up more! Try to describe everything! And when I mean everything, not literally everything, but everything you are in. Try to explain but don't share. Be critical See this one out:

I trained to fight and shoot since i was eight years old. derrick and I have been holding out in a mansion somewhere near Fort benning, Georgia.

Like JohnLocke said (Hehe I love Lost), this seems like the very basic, world in disaster, zombie attack. But this AKS seems like it could change the story dramatically.

A couple more things. One is, remember to capitalize I and to capitalize after a period. It seems that you kind of switch from first person point of view into a diary of sorts. Did you change it after John's post?

(Sorry john, I always forget to put the reply up here... not done where it says Reply)

Hey DeepBlack,

My main problem with this is it's just not how anybody writes a diary (I'm assuming this is a diary entry because of the informal tone and Day 0 at the top).

Nobody writes in their diary and says "My name is this and I am this, etc." If this is Wyatt starting a diary because of the virus, then that's intriguing, but why would he start it eight years after the initial contaminations? People don't usually just write all this information at once. Look at the diary of Anne Frank: she doesn't start he diary by saying "The Nazis invaded Netherlands and passed a whole heap of anti-semitic laws and then we had to hide." She starts off slowly. Your story instantly comes off as unrealistic because it doesn't sound real.

This is an info-dump. It strikes me more of a sketch of an idea for your overall setting, but not the start of your story. I concur with Wherethewindgoes: it might be better to stretch out this information over the course of your story. For example, it might be more tense for us to find out that Wyatt needs pills for his AKS later in the story. Perhaps he's doing something heroic and saving somebody's life, and they're escaping a building, and then he suddenly realises he forgot take his pills. Instant tension! Backstory and character traits are always more interesting to the reader if they're revealed slowly. Don't give us all the good stuff first!

Hope this helps. PM me with any questions.

This is intriguing , and gives potential for a very interesting story to come. There are a few thoughts I have.
Firstly, I'm not sure if you want grammar corrections, but there are a few instances where commas or semi-colons should be added or sentences should be re-worded in order to break up long clauses. For instance...
"Eventually after two years it spread so much that military tried nuking our problem but all it did was make the virus spread faster." (Perhaps "It spread so much that after two years the military tried nuking our problem; all it did was make the virus spread faster.")
"It's been six years after the nuke and finally we came out of hiding and tried to survive once more in our home."(Maybe "It's been six years since the nuke; finally we came out of hiding and tried to survive once more in our home.")
"He was once a Navy Seal but all of this chaos has happened and he left his old life to protect me."("He was once a Navy Seal, but all of this chaos caused him to leave his old life to protect me," perhaps.)
...Those sorts of things.
Another thing I would recommend is being careful with tense. With the way the character is telling the past and the present, the tense sometimes gets confusing. For instance:
"He was once a Navy Seal but all of this chaos has happened and he left his old life to protect me."
I'm not sure that that's grammatically incorrect, per se, but making the tense consistent would make the writing clearer and smoother.
Another thing I was wondering about:
"Everytime I pass out there is a light loss of one of my six senses!"
I like this concept, but I'm curious: Did you mean six? Were you referring to kinesthetics, or fear, or something else? Is the sixth some element of your story?
Also: Does the disease "Solarium" have some connection to the sun?
I have one more thought. Evidently, I have not read the rest of the novel and don't know how it's going to be set up, but this chapter seems a little bit too much like an info-dump. The setting and backstory are interesting elements of your story; perhaps instead of giving all the information here, you should spread it out across the story as to add tension and make it easier to digest.
All in all, you have an interesting world with a potential for a very intriguing story. I hope this was helpful to you. Good luck with the rest of the novel!

For the opening of a story, this could use some description and explanation. Tell us more about this virus. What was the outcome of the outbreak? How did it affect society? What was nuked? Why were they forced to nuke them? Where did they go into hiding? Why is the virus called Solarium? Tell us more about AKS. Although you may answer these questions later, I think it will make this chapter more fulfilling and interesting if you answered them now.

You are treading very dangerous waters with this plot. This seems like a very standard zombie story. Disease. Post apocalyptic America. Well trained survivor. Thugs. Raiding Walmart. Although, the AKS is very interesting. However, you cannot allow your story to follow the stock zombie plot line. Try to make it different in some way or readers will feel like they are reading unoriginal writing. Also, many zombie stories are written from the "diary point of view".

Overall, you could have a very enthralling story in the makes if you are careful not to fall into an overused plot. Keep me posted. Happy Writing!