Young Writers Society

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night (whatever it is when you get around to reading this),

And the review juggernaut rolls on. (I must finish this. I must finish this)

First Impression: THINGS ARE HAPPENING!!! My suspicions seem to be correct. Overall well written and conveys a good amount of mystery.

Isaac’s back was extremely sore from laying down in the same position for hours. Thankfully though, the shard of glass was removed from his side and he was able to continue work.

It took hours to remove the shard of glass? Seems unlikely.

“Welcome to my office, Isaac Johnson. I hear you were the one to pinpoint the location of Unknown number one’s base of operations. An impressive feat. Do you have anything to say about your heroics?”

“Um… well... “ It took all of Isaac’s brain power to keep a straight face with all of the giddy excitement mixed with the extreme social anxiety that he was feeling. “Err, I was just doing my job, sir.”

“Ah, yes, and you did your job brilliantly. Now, I believe that you deserve a promotion. Do you agree, young Johnson?”

“Um… if you think I should, I think I should.” What else am I going to say? That I totally deserve a promotion? That I don’t deserve a promotion? thought Isaac. Donnovan laughed. His laugh was deep and something seemed… almost sinister about it. Sinister? Don’t be ridiculous, Isaac. He’s a hero, he chided himself.

“Well, a tactful answer. Yes, I believe you should get a promotion. Isaac Johnson, you are officially being promoted to head Inspector,” said Donnovan.

“H-head in-inspector?” gasped Isaac. Head Inspector! He can’t be serious, he doubted.

“Yes. Head inspector. Our last head inspector was disposed of- I mean fired, for... well, lets just say she began investigating some, uh, things that she shouldn’t have been.”

Isaac didn’t notice the strange thing his boss just said. He was too star-struck by the incredible promotion. I just don’t believe it! This time he couldn’t keep a grin off his face. He tried to force it off, but it didn’t want to leave.

“Also, you’re getting a pay-raise to $300,000 a year,” added Donnovan Gaver.

Isaac began to fear that his stupid grin might become permanent if he got any more good news. “I-I don’t know what to say,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Save your sentiments. This is a very difficult job. Here is the password to the top-secret information about all the Unknowns that we are investigating and capturing.” Donnovan handed Isaac a slip of paper. It had the password on it, which was a bunch of random letters and numbers. “If you tell or reveal in any way to anybody this password, you will be immediately fired and the password shall be changed.”

“I understand,” said Isaac solemnly.

I love this whole exchange. You've finally given Isaac that extra couple of traits that make him more unique as a character. It's really well done.

Since he was now head inspector, he had to assign different people to different jobs, put together facts, and, of course, inspect things.

This seems a little unrealistic. Wouldn't he have to like learn the ropes a bit before commanding people. If we knew more about Isaac's rank in this organization maybe we'll know better but this seems like he's starting work much too quickly.

Several hours later as he was looking through the files on various things, he found something strange. What is this? he thought. The file had no title. He clicked on it. What…? he thought as he read the short text, his eyes widening.

This is a message to the head inspector after me. You don’t know what you’re getting into. Please leave now while you still can.

"Theory Confirmed," says my subconscious.

All he could get from the stubborn memory was that there was something more to this place than simply trying to deal with extraterrestrials. Something that even the people working here weren’t supposed to know. Something unusual.

Something horrifying.

Okay that was some really nice writing there. Now we are all going to be on the lookout to figure out what on Earth happened in that room. Like I said earlier I hope we found out but I feel that there is a lot of stuff going on here. Lots of theories.

And I almost don't have to say this anymore but once again an amazing ending that keeps us wanting to read more.

As always not trying to be harsh. Take what you think is useful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry

Hey there Necromancer14! Tuck dropping by for a quick review. A quick word of warning, I haven't read any previous installments, but I'll do my best to provide you with some valuable feedback regardless. Let's jump into it!

My favorite part of this story was the way that you added a layer of mystery to the story that was alluded to but not explicitly stated. You struck an excellent balance between giving enough hints to perk the reader's interest and not oversharing at this point in the story. I also liked the split in this chapter between the two perspectives. It was easy to balance and added some complexity to the plot.

The contrast between these two sections was sharp. In my opinion, the second one was stronger because you had more vivid and lengthy description, introduced a more gripping plot point, and had more originality than the first one. Perhaps I'm missing some important information here, but the first section seemed somewhat dry. Some more physical signs of Isaac's anxiety and more uncertainty around what's about to happen could help make it a bit more interesting.

The second point of critique I have for you is your usage of dialogue tags. You don't need to use a dialogue tag ("he said", "he whispered", "she shouted") after every statement by each character. They should only be used when it's necessary for clarification. Otherwise, it slows your story down and distracts the reader with unnecessary information. Furthermore, they don't all need to be creative, contrary to a lot of school lessons. If your writing is strong enough, you shouldn't need a dialogue tag to communicate the emotions behind what the character is saying. You could easily cut at least half these dialogue tags, which would improve the flow and remove some distractions from this chapter.

I think that's all I have for you today! I hope these notes were helpful to you, and if you have any questions, please just let me know!

Best,
Tuck

Hey there! Thanks for requesting another review in this story. I'm bad at following novels, so I forget when you update chapters.

If I recall correctly, Shadowscale, alongside Alice and a few scientists were trying to get him out, and escape themselves, but they were defeated and captured, and Alice is in her own kind of trouble. Let's see how things shook out.

Isaac's view has returned, alright! I like that out of our three main views, they all bring a different aspect to this whole scenario - Isaac working for the I.S.U.E., Shadowscale for literally being not from this world, and Alice, who is, or was, an actual regular teenager. Every time the view changes, we get to learn different things in different ways, so that's always fun.

Alright, I'm definitely thinking that Donnovan Gaver is suspicious, mostly because I have learned that most sci-fi/action adventures have a leader/supervisor who might be more than they appear. I'm glad Isaac is already a little onto him, but getting a high promotion out of nowhere to someone who was still in high school should be raising eyebrows. Also that warning at the end. Ominous, indeed.

Let's see. From Isaac, I think we get a look into what a soldier (now investigator!) of ISUE could be thinking or viewing Shadowscale as a threat to the human race and everything like that. There is a mix of subtle hinting at bad deeds coming, then a more blatant use of foreshadowing, but I think it works well. We're onto the tenth chapter of this story, so adding a little more to the plot helps with making storylines and figuring out what'll happen next.

And then a bit of Shadowscale's view, interesting. I can assume that his rather analytical and straightforward thinking pattern comes him being a (dragon) but sometimes his narration can read rather technically and not like even a regular made-up character would behave. I think that's fine, but it's an interesting not if you ever want to look over this story and want to change things around a bit.

Not that Shadowscale should be a super friendly fellow, but I think in some cases the story feels a bit rushed in his view, that he can think things through so quickly and latch onto the important information within a few paragraphs, compared to the other characters that might not be sure if he wasn't the alien that caused all the wreckage. If that makes sense XD.

Overall, though, I think this is an interesting enough chapter, more so I think on the standpoint of Isaac diving deeper into the I.S.U.E. and getting that warning from a mysterious person. I do like Shadowscale's character, but sometimes I think he's a little overpowered - from the sense that he learned everything about humans instantaneously after getting into the world? Oh, maybe all aliens are overpowered then.

And I am certainly curious to how this story will turn.