Published November 20, 2007
A guest ion of faith
by:Maki-chan
After
"Alright, all you have to do is speak clearly and loud enough so the microphone can hear you." A military man told her.
The girl scooted up her chair, making herself closer the the microphone." Now....Your name is Jenny Delean, right?" The man in white standing across from her on the other side of the metal table asked.
She lifted her head to meet the man's gaze." When can I see my sister again?"
The man sighed and quickly answered back."I told you already as soon as you tell us what happened.. Now please."
The girl looked down at the table."Yah...that's my name, but please call me J.D." J.D answered back.
The man smiled and nodded." Alright then, J.D it is." He kindly said.
" What can I call you?" J.D asked.
The man in white shifted his gaze from the girl's aquird stare. Instead he pretended to be looking at something important on his clip board." Umm, well you can call me Dr. Green, alright J.D?" He finished by looking back at her.
She only replied with a simple nod." Well we should probably get started now." He told J.D.
She nodded." Alright then," Dr. Green moved towards the table, and closer to J.D." You should probably start when you first started to notice this was happening." He ended.
" OK...." She said clearly and loud enough for the speaker to hear.
Ch. 1
Strange things
Nothing ever seemed to change in the little town I lived in, it was barely even known anywhere. Many people didn't even know there was a state called Wyoming in the US, or most importantly the little town of 50,000 people called Casper. They probably only know the state, by going to the 1st ever state park, Yellow Stone national park. Probably everyone thinks Wyoming is covered in vast forests, huge lakes, and lots of animals like bears, moose, wolves, and so on. But the truth is that most of Wyoming is covered by prairie grass, and mountains. There's barely any water, we've been in a 50 year drought so far, and it was once illegal to have your sprinklers on curtain days. I can remember my mom telling me." Now Jenny, don't waste any water. Or the police might get mad."
I know now she was only joking but back then, when I was little, I really believed her. I thought I had to sneak around and make sure I wasn't being watched just to get a drink of water! I know you probably think that's weird but I was so bored I just had to do something, even if it was really stupid.
Lets focus on the town of Casper. Casper was north of some mountains, and the mountains that where close enough to the city where called Casper Mountains, really original huh? The north Platte river runs through Casper and that's where we get our water. Most of Casper is covered in prairie grasses, and hills. Its not flat at all like the great plains, so we're right at the very edge of it. We"re in between the mountain area and the plains area. In the fall the ground is usually covered in red leaves and most of the trees are bare, except for the ever greens. In the winter its very cold, it snows and some times there are blizzards. In the spring its still cold and there still is some snow, the time when the snow is gone for good during the spring is either march or April. When the snow is gone and the heat is one, there are flowers that didn't die blooming, some trees still don't have there leaves yet, and all the animals return. In the summer it is very very hot. Its a dry heat and sometimes we won't have an entire month of rain. This is usually drought time and my family and I go on vacation during this time. One time we went to the Bahamas!^_^
But no matter where we went and how much fun we had, my mom would bring us back to that boring town.' J.D. please just start on the incident already...Please..' Dr. Green interrupted.
She smiled as she began to talk of what had happened.
It was April 11Th and the warm winds began to come back to chase away the cold long winter. It started just the same as any other day. I got up at about 6:50 am to get dressed for school, which started at 8am. After I was dressed I would go into the kitchen to eat breakfast. Then after that my mom would drive me to school. She'd drop me off at the corner and then I would walk the rest of the way.' Dr. Green gave J.D a harsh look.'
When I first noticed something strange was after 3rd lunch and the school workers let the students outside for a little bit. I was standing at the field with my friends over by the fence. I stared at the other side of the road. I always wanted to just walk off of the shcool campase and go home, but I never had the guts to. I listned to my friends, if you can call them that, chat about thier preveious classes and stuff. I was a dreary daze between awake and asleep. My eye lids opening and closing making each blink longer and longer.
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139,658 Literary Works • 672,645 Reviews
Hello!
RandomTalks here with a short review!
I was very interested by the title of your story and I liked the twist on "question of faith". I at once wanted to figure out what all that was about, so you did a great job in pulling your readers towards your story. However, unless this is the first part of the story, we do not ever really get to know what this is about. It is incomplete and it leaves the readers confused about what they were supposed to take from this story. So if this is only the first part of the story, maybe mention that somewhere to save your readers from this confusion.
I am guessing that the first part was meant to be as a prologue. It was intriguing enough, and I liked the fact that you kept everything under the covers. You gave us a glimpse of this short scene without really giving us any prior information and it worked well because it at once made the readers curious. I wanted to know what led our character to that moment in time, and it was a solid beginning for the story. There were certain interesting points that stuck out - for example, the narrator's sister's connection to all this. Overall, it was a good hook and an effective way to engage your reader's curiosity and reign them in.
However, one point that I did not like very much was the narration in the first chapter. First of all, the sudden change in voice was a little disconcerting. But it was only a while later when I realized that we were still following the same voice, only she was narrating her story this time. It was a little difficult to understand due to the lack of any dialogue tags. It is bound to confuse your readers as well, if you suddenly start narrating the first chapter in the first person POV, only to realize later that we were following the third person POV all this time, and it was just our MC narrating her story. The entire transition over there gets upset as a result and it destroys the flow of the story.
Another thing is the massive info dump near the end of the story. I get that you are trying to introduce us to this new world through the MC's narration, but you have to do that in a way that is realistic as well. For example, I don't think anyone would launch into such a massive tale upon being asked a simple question. Keep the details to a minimum at first, so as not to overwhelm your readers. And then you slowly start introducing them once you have already established a foundation base. Thus your readers will be able to add the little details and refine and reshape their knowledge of this world as they go on with the story instead of getting overwhelmed by all this extra information at the very beginning of the story.
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Like another reviewer pointed out, no one really talks like this. No matter how informal you try to make this by adding personal touches to this huge block of description, it still does not sit well at this point in the story.
Now, the ending, like I said was rather abrupt. It felt like we were building towards something the entire story with all these mentions of 'something that had happened to the MC'. However, its like we had only skimmed the surface when the story suddenly ended without any warning. I am going to guess that this has another part to it at least, but even then you have to conclude your parts in a way that does not leave your readers hanging in the air. Otherwise, they will feel frustrated at the lack of development and the story won't hold them long enough for the next part.
That's all!
Keep writing and have a great day!
In the beging part its after all this stuff happened. You'll learn how and why she's here. In the 1st part and the beging of chapter 1 she's a totaly different person than she really is. Why you ask. She's been through a lot. Like I said before this story involves zombies. So she's really messed up.
I am not a great speller and stuff like that so when I first post stuff it will probably is going to be bad. So I thank the comments to show me what's wrong is very helpful. ^_^ so thanks.
One thing that immediately stood out to me was the number of grammatical and spelling errors here. Obviously, these technical issues aren't all there is to your piece, but people WILL NOT take your piece seriously until you sort these out. Work on it. It would be a fantastic idea not to misspell "Question" in your subject line unless you really meant to say "Guestion."
This sounds like narration from a documentary or something, not something a teenage (?) girl would really say when telling a story.Prologue. I'm guessing the bit in the beginning is a prologue, correct? This doesn't do much other than give us a sense of why the story is being told. You do a good job of pulling your reader in. I'm interested as to why she's in this place, telling this story, but I think you could put this later. Begin with Ch. 1, then maybe introduce the J.D. and Dr. Green in Ch. 2.
Realism. What strikes me as very detrimental to this piece is the narration in Ch. 1. I'm guessing that this is what J.D. says into the microphone as introduced in the prologue. I want you to read this aloud. Does it sound realistic? Does it sound like something a regular girl would say, or is it too formal, too stilted?
Example:
I won't pick through the whole story and do that. But really, think about what you're saying. Remember that the story is being told through this girl, not through an environmental scholar or third-person narrator. It's got to be personal.
What can this girl show about her experience by the way she narrates? What can we learn about her hopes or fears by listening to her speak?
Keep at it!
-Colleen