The White Cliffs of Dover. During World War Two they had been a beacon of hope for all. Now they reflected the red flames that danced through Dover. Just off the coast, little more than half a mile away, a ferry carrying refugees was on fire, slipping silently beneath the waves. Screams and the sounds of burning houses floated up into the hell burnt sky. It was a scene of chaos, the army were in a desperate attempt to make a final stand, but with every burning building they were being forced towards retreat, or death. Lord Venom smiled victoriously at the horrifying spectacle he had created.
"This green land shall burn with the flames of revenge!" howled Lord Venom.
"It's good to be on top again, it really is good to show them what true hardship feels like at last," sighed Vincent, standing beside Lord Venom and gazing at the peril he had devised. He strolled casually through the chaos lit streets, humming to himself quietly as terror was bestowed upon those around him. Vincent was so deep in thought that he didn't even notice the bearded man who ran towards him, punching him in the jaw.
"Filthy bastard! I hope you burn for this!" the man screamed. Vincent's upper lip trembled with anger, as the demonic light reflected in his stone cold eyes. Immediately a scar faced lizard leapt from a rooftop and landed between the two of them. He then grabbed the bearded man by the throat and lifted him off the ground with ease.
"I think, human scum, you are the one who will burn upon this night," he chuckled softly to himself. With that he turned to wards the nearest inferno, and threw the man in. A gut wrenching howl rose from the flames as he did.
Hours later, as dawn rose over the smoke of humanity's first defeat, the Reptiliad gathered to witness their triumph.
"That went well," mumbled Lord Venom, "This attack has proved your worth to me after all, Dunthorpe,"
"That's good to hear, but like I planned, next is France, and I'm sure the minute you set foot anywhere on the mainland, they will fight to the very end, and I mean what I say." explained Vincent.
"We need to cross the water first, and very few of my kind can do that," muttered Venom in thought.
"He's right sir, the train has gone and the tunnel is sealed, all the ferries have either gone or been sunken" stated one of Vincent's men.
"Well I'm sure our new friends can help with clearing the tunnel," said Vincent suggestively, a sly grin appearing on his face.
* * *
"I reckon we're just wasting our time here," sighed Maria, gazing out of the cafe window at the misty grey ocean.
"Yeah, we definitely won't get a tan here" sighed Catherine.
"I see you're back to your old self, with the sarcasm and all," said Tom. It had been four days since they had seen the news report back in Rome, and after much heated debate, they had just about decided to make the trip by rail to Calais. It was a gloomy day, a thick fog loitered on the horizon, shrouding the island across the water in hidden mystery.
"I think we should just head South, if this is true, then those things could come busting through that tunnel any day now," suggested Ian.
"Yeah, it seems nothing really is happening, they won't let us head any further North, and the place is crawling with soldiers, we should definitely head back South, something really doesn't feel right," whispered Tom
"Why's that?" asked Catherine.
"I've got this feeling that today or tomorrow something is going to happen, this fog is making me nervous, but believe me I'm not letting my guard down, for all we know the Reptiliad could be halfway through that tunnel already" mumbled Tom nervously. Just as he had finished his sentence, the sound of a massive explosion darted throughout the town. Smoke rose from the direction of the port and gunfire could be heard little more than half a mile away.
"You were wrong about the halfway thing, but we need to move, now!" answered Maria hurriedly.They burst out onto the street and immediately sprinted in the direction of the train station. Tanks and gunner cars sped towards the port, all weapons primed and ready to fight back furiously. It was clear now that they weren't going to let the Reptiliad past easily. After ten minutes of panicked sprinting, the four made it onto a platform and jumped for the nearest train. The station outside was a scene of chaos, no order or authority was to be seen, it was a mad and desperate scramble to escape from the scaly horror that was advancing ever closer. Almost at once the train doors hissed shut and the train pulled away at full speed, into the safety of the South.
"Crikey," panted Ian, "Did you see that back there? We were bloody lucky to get out of that place, looked like Survival of the Fittest out there," panted Ian, even he was out of breath, seeing as that was the most intense sprint any of them had ever done.
"I think we all saw that you stupid git," panted Catherine with a serious look on her face.
"Hey! Yes that was really chaotic, but do you really have to give me the lip? I suggest you shut it instead Cath," snapped Ian in retaliation.
"Shut up!" shouted Maria, creating order out of chaos. "Catherine, I agree with Ian, enough of your lip for one day, this is bloody well real!". Catherine opened her mouth to fight back, but she admitted defeat and stared at the floor blankly.
"Anyway..." Tom began, "my theory is that Paris will most likely be heavily defended, so our best bet is to head there" he suggested. With that, the four stared out of the window at the passing fields, it was beyond obvious that war would come to these lands once again, and not for the last time either.
* * *
Paris was deserted. After less than an hour of heading south by train, the four had stepped out onto the stone paved streets of Paris. Empty buildings and shops gazed blankly at them as they quietly crept through the silent streets. An eerie breeze drifted half-heartedly down the long, old street, carrying nothing, no smell, no sound. The Eiffel Tower stood defiantly in the centre of the city, standing guard over a city that had since stood long before it had.
"It's obvious that your supposed theory was a dud after all" evaluated Catherine approvingly.
"Fine, you can have that, I was wrong, congratulations Cath, another pointless victory," replied Tom disapprovingly. Catherine threw him a filthy look out of the corner of her eye, as Ian cleared his throat loudly, sensing another dispute would arise without question.
"Please just give it a rest, will you? Honestly Cath it's time you grew up a bit!" said Maria insistently. "What now then? I suggest we find a place to stay for a few days, there's obviously nothing else we can do," reasoned Maria. Tom and Ian nodded in agreement, whilst Catherine stared in the opposite direction at the setting sun. The four then made their way through a few more streets, before coming upon an abandoned hotel. The door was unlocked, and they easily entered the building and walked carefully over to the reception counter. There was a hurriedly written note on the desk, it briskly flew off on the wind, but was caught by Tom. He opened the note, it said only one word; absent.
"What does this mean, Ian?" asked Tom, handing the note to Ian. He studied the note for a second, then replaced it on the desk.
"It means gone, and in a hurry too, by the looks of it," he suggested. The group pushed on cautiously to the second floor, where again they found not a single human in sight. They each carefully entered a room and checked them for any people, or any mutant lizards. Again, like the first two floors, there were no signs of life, only overturned tables, chairs, and more cabinets and cupboards that had been looted. A few smashed windows on the floor granted entry to an unwanted yet strange breeze. Maria looked out of a window and saw helicopters land in the city centre.
"Tom!" she shouted, at once the other three came into the room. "I think your assumption may have been right after all," she explained, and pointed towards the city centre. It appeared that Tom was right, a dozen helicopters had landed near the Eiffel Tower, and military vehicles were making their way up the street.
"Well, an armed guard won't do us any harm, I really do hope those things don't make it this far south." said Catherine warily.
End of chapter
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140,455 Literary Works • 673,224 Reviews
I'm thinking politically here and I feel you would be best to use the roman numerals II. I feel it's 'respectful' in a way. (My mind thinks weird.)
This chap is longer than the ones I've read so far and the ones from 10 to I want to say 7. Keep it consistent. Don't want to odd man out. (or chapter out)
Not time to talk, really enjoying this so On the chapter 4.
~Sharrae out, tottles
Hello again!
Plot wise, I thought this chapter was good. The plot moved forward, there wasn't any unnecessary extraneous detail, and there was action. However, I still think you could slow down a little like I talked about in the previous chapters. This is still moving pretty fast.
I thought this chapter was better than the previous ones. You have some really nice descriptions in here - I could see this sort of plot becoming a big action movie
A few things I noticed in this chapter:
1. I thin the dialogue reads a little awkward at times. Dialogue is hard to get exactly right sometimes. Some examples of what I mean:
To me, it just doesn't sound like people (and I'm assuming teenagers) talking. It sounds too formal or clunky or something to me.
I think the best way to improve dialogue is to first just listen to dialogue. Sit in the food court of a mall or anywhere where lots of people gather, and just listen to conversations. The content doesn't matter, listen to the way people talk. Where do people put inflections? What kind of tones are used? What's the rate or volume of speech? What kinds of phrases or words are used to describe things?
Another thing you can do is read it out loud and see if it sounds natural. To take it a step further, get a couple of people together, each take a character, and then read it. That way could even be better because you'd have some non-biased eyes to read it and you could hear it for yourself in a different way.
2. You love adverbs.
What's an adverb? - Does it end in -ly? (Then it's probably an adverb)
Adverbs aren't bad. But like all things, too much isn't so great. I personally found the adverb use to be really distracting. Most of them aren't adding anything to line. Others could be replaced by a stronger adjective or verb (adverbs tend to be weaker).
An example of when I would take the adverb out because it's not adding anything to the line:
And now without the adverbs...
You see how the meaning is still there? Strolling is usually done casually so you don't need to add that in. Humming to oneself is usually a quiet activity so you also don't need to add that in.
An example of when to replace it with a stronger adjective or verb:
Here you could show us what "disapprovingly" is. Something like...
I'm sure you could come up with something better than that, but what does Tom being disapproving look like? That will help with character development too! That whole showing vs. telling thing
I'll stop there and move along to the next chapter! Let me know if you have any questions or if anything I said was confusing!
Hey there! Sorry that I haven't read any previous chapters, so if I asked questions that have already been answered, feel free to ignore those ^^
I'll start off with some nitpicks~
First off, there is some minor repetition here with the word "Dover". It could easily be edited out with something like "the city" in its place. But repeat the same word in such close vicinity can throw off the reader and often times ruin the flow. Watch out for that.
Also, the first sentence in this quote is really awkwardly worded. I can get the effect you were going for, stating the name of the place and then describing it, but that didn't really work here. Instead of a comma, try a period so the reader knows to come to a full stop, but even then it may not connect the first time that they go together. My advice is to reword it completely.
Final thing that is related to the quote (the White Cliffs of Dover specifically, but still) is that I have no idea what they look like, or why they are even mentioned. It doesn't really seem to add anything, and they only help with locating a place if someone knows where or what they are. Perhaps go into more description, tell more about their significance. Something more so that we readers can better grasp this place.
Whenever a noun is mentioned as 'the', it means that the mentioned noun has been, indeed, mentioned before in the recent past. That means within the chapter. In this case, the lizard man is completely knew to us and it's only confusing, because we're trying to remember when another was mentioned. Unless... you're talking about Vincent? It didn't occur to me that this was it and I had thought it was another man entirely, but perhaps you could be more clear about this? It was honestly very confusing to me.
This doesn't sound very natural to me, and because dialogue is supposed to be natural, this doesn't work well as dialogue. I believe that Vincent said this, but it's not a very well structured sentence. It also never seems to end. If you read it out loud, you can tell that it doesn't sound right -- you want it to end! I recommend you reword this.
First off, you don't need to repetition with "panted Ian". Second, panted isn't really a dialogue tag. Sure it describes the manner in which it was said, but you cannot pant words. You can pant while you are talking, but it's the same as laughing. You can't laugh words. It's fine to leave it there, but perhaps before the dialogue and have it sort of show us the manner his is in now. Finally, this is a run-on sentence that repeats exactly what 'pant' means, so it seems unnecessary.
There only needs to be one dialogue tag. Simple as that.
In the beginning, I can see you trying to create a beautiful image in our head (I say beautiful as in well crafted, not that the world burning is pretty >.> ) but the images that are given jump around so much that they don't connect in our heads. It goes from a boat burning to home burning, people screaming. Work on connecting the images better to gain a better flow and more effectively give us these images.
A lot of this feels a little rushed, with so much happening! First there's the attack on Dover, and then they tunnel through the blocked tunnels, then they attack France and then main characters make it to Paris. PHEW ~ that was a lot. I feel like you should slow things down a little bit and drag out somethings, like the Dover attack. Take some time and have Vincent and Lord Venom converse. Have us learn somethings, perhaps through foreshadowing or dramatic irony. Don't just skip over the details ^^
My final thing is that Tom's part seemed super cliche. Because, honestly, how coincidental that he felt like something was going to happen and it did? Coincidences should not happen in writing. Everything has a purpose, and there is no way that Tom saying something will happen then equates to something happening. Unless he had a reason, which none was provided. Maybe give Tom more of a motive to think this way and his friends dismiss him as paranoid.
You have a really good grasp on imagery, but all you have to do is work on connecting them better. The descriptions seem well placed and effective enough, just a little jumpy. A little bit of love they'll be nearing perfection!
Happy Review Day and Keep on Writing,
~Wolfare
Hey there, yizhongt here. Let me first start by saying," why did the UK have to fall...?"
Anyways on to serious business, first of, I like your story it really pulled me in even though I had not read the first two chapters. Conceded I did not know who the characters were but nonetheless I enjoyed reading the story. I'll be sure to check out the other two chapters after this. Your descriptions were well written and I could clearly visualise the destruction.
I might be jumping the gun, as I haven't read the first two chapters, but I don't like that Vincent fellow, more since it looks like he betrayed human kind.
Grammar and spelling wise I don't see any mistakes. Honestly, I have nothing negative to say about this piece of work. Cannot wait to see how the French defends themselves against those lizards.
Continue writing and cheers !!
Well, to answer your question, normally it's USA that coms under attack, sees a load of action, blah blah blah. I wanted to take a different turn with it, anyway, the Reptiliad want to take the world, and think of Britain's position, good links to Europe, which also lead onto Asia and Northern Africa. Also, this kind of area of the world would raise the threat level a bit more, as many land masses can easily come under attack. Yes, Vincent is a real asshole, he's power hungry, and how society basically put him and his company at the bottom of the pecking order. Normally though, revenge would stop pretty sharpish as the craving for it would disappear, but Vincent shows how revenge is a dangerous thing, it triggers more hatred and violence, and can only end badly, which is a moral, especially in this day and age. But anyway I'm really glad you liked it! You should really check out the other chapters, and Chapter Four will be out soon!
Chapter Four is published! ;D