Chrono Hustle #11 Prisoners

Hello.

It's probably a good idea to copy the story on YWS instead of posting it on tumblr, for a couple of reasons:
1- It will make it easier for us to review the story because we do not have to copy a link to somewhere else into our browser (you did not actually hyperlink your tumblr, so copying is required) and if you want to get reviews, make it easy for us.
2- It is far safer in the legal sense if you ever want to publish professionally.

That being said, I did copy paste the link, and I will review.

Unfortunately, this was unremarkable and plagued with infodumps. You reveal the key pieces of information about the premise, characters, and backstory within the first three paragraphs, leaving me with no mystery and no reason to keep reading.

When it comes to backstory, you have to parse it out in such a way readers only find out critical pieces of information after they have asked to receive them. What I mean is, if something does not need explaining and readers aren't wondering what's going on, then you keep your worldbuilding to yourself until they are. And even then, you answer the smallest amount of information possible, not revealing anything more than what is immediately relevant to the question you've already raised.

If you find yourself thinking "readers really need to know this" stop yourself right there, because they most certainly do not. Readers want to know about the characters, want a reason to care, and want interesting forward progress. A giant infodump is not interesting forward progress. It is boring.

Give me a reason to care. Give me a hook. You only have a single line to hook readers, and right now you're not using that first line to your full potential. If this is meant to be a jumping off point, and a self contained story, then you need to treat it as such and make me interested without having read 11 stories previous. Right now, you don't really have anything that makes me want to keep reading because you've done nothing but infodump for the first four paragraphs, and I don't need to know the vast majority of this information. If I do need to know this information, then you need to either find a way to work it in smoothly for forward momentum, or you need to start earlier when they escape their memories getting erased. One of the two.

Overall, this could be fascinating, but right now you're completely killing my interest with a cliche, backstory filled beginning that has way too much information that doesn't appear relevant, and I have no reason to care about what's going on.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey

Hello! Pendr here to review for The Grinches/AKA:The Green Team. I'm more of a nit-picky reviewer, so beware Also, this is the first of this story I've read, so I apologize for my possible confusion. Let's go!

Whoa! I can already tell how plot-twisty this is! It's extremely creative, and I've only read a few paragraphs so far!

The only thing I'd mention so far is that the time with each character is pretty short. Maybe it's just because I haven't read any of the story before this, so I don't know their personalities or the plot as well as would be recommended

Hey! I finally found a punctuation mistake!
"Meanwhile, Agent Jack was lying down, in his cell. His vision was starting to blur, and he was getting dizzy." You don't need a comma after 'lying down'

"He knew it was probably either the other Jack, or Melinda, possibly both." take out the 'or' before Melinda, and put it before 'possibly'

"Back with Melinda and non-Agent Jack, they were making their way through the base. They had changed into soldier’s uniforms." I understand why you did with the first sentence, but it may flow better if you just had 'Melinda and non-agent Jack were making their way through the base.'

"He took a step to the right and back, and then body-checked the guard that was behind him, into the wall." What is body-checking? You can take out the commas after 'back' and after 'him'

“You too,” he said to Melinda, before turning to Jack. “Which Jack are you?” Put a comma before the first 'too'

“Hmm, that is worrying,” Harkon said. “But first things first. We need to get Agent Masterson, and Mary, and get out of here.” instead of have ',and Mary,' it'd be better to have ',get Mary, and...'

"Eventually someone picked him up, and started carrying him out of there, and that was the last thing he remembered, at least for the time." maybe make it 'at least for the time being.'

"The conversation had lasted less than a half minute though, before he went back to speaking with Mary." add a comma before 'though' as well.

Alright. I'm sorry I'm not finishing this chapter, but I'm so very tired, and I don't want to continue to bore you with my detailed corrections
You have a creative mind, awesome content, great detail, and fantastic ways of expressing things!