Powerless
Chapter 1
First breath
At 6:30 in the morning the president of the United States vanished. There was no bang or flash, the president didn’t disintegrate he just vanished. Thousands of people across the states saw it happen and this was just the beginning. Two hours later the wealthiest oil sheik in Saudi Arabia also vanished closely followed by members of the Kremlin and the Chinese president. By now panic was setting in, everyone who had power was disappearing leaving a terrified population behind. Naturally the police tried their best to maintain order but they too were disappearing fast. It took 4 days to turn a highly advanced intelligent population into a huge group of wild animals struggling to survive in a Mother Nature that wanted them dead.
Harry Mcguilden sighed unhappily as he looked around at the house he had lived in all his life. He didn’t want to leave but he had no choice, there was nothing to stay for. Food was running out fast despite his efforts to ration himself and the taps had run dry the day before yesterday. In his little orange rucksack there were 2 granola bars, ½ a loaf of bread and a bottle of water. Stuck in his belt was a long bladed kitchen knife and an air pistol for protection, he knew that the air pistol would not really heart anyone but it made him feel safer. Strapped to his bike was a massive Bergan ruck sack filled with camping gear and toiletries. He also had a home crafted sola still that he hoped was strong enough to withstand the journey. “All set he muttered as he mounted his bike and peddled of towards the sunset.
Kate was feeling pretty down in the dumps. The fiat 500 that had got them so far was finely out of fuel, her little sister Sue was crying, her dad was asleep, her mum was collecting fire wood and no one wanted to hear her suggestion that they should make a shelter for if it rained. “Well” she grumbled “it will serve you right when you all get wet”. But still her sister bawled her dad slept and her mum wandered around scanning the ground. Siting back against a tree she thought back over the past months. They had left their home two weeks earlier to get way from the dangerous gang ruled streets of London and now were sticking to the woods. Neither Kate nor her mum much enjoyed it but dad was ex-military and he said it was the best way. Along the way they had seen many other people in the same predicament. Kate had noticed something that united them all. They all were going somewhere but they didn’t know where somewhere was.
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140,685 Literary Works • 673,594 Reviews
Hey there!
I liked your story. Much suspense.
I think you should have written a little more about Harry and then kate. You know at first I thought Kate was related to Harry!
You should have written the dialogues in a different para. It might look better!
Well, that's what I think.
It was a good one. I hope the story leads to a mysterious one.
Looking forward to the next chapter!
~Maisha
Hi Ribena,
Hope you are having a good day. Here is my review of your work.
You have a really good story. I like how you set your world up first, then introduced your MC.
Some things you should think about include your dialogue formatting, and your point of view.
Generally, you should format your dialogue as a separate paragraph. This is all I have for dialogue. Look forward to reading more!
Usually, in a chapter, it's not a good idea to switch to multiple points of view since this can confuse your readers. Maybe when you switch you POV you should add asterisks to tell the reader it's a different character's head.
Hope this helps, and keep up the good work!
~Aneli Defanif
Hi, here is my review.
This first chapter was very short but that’s not necessarily bad. I understand why you would divide it in three paragraphs, but it would be easier to read if you jumped a line here and there and if you went back to the line more often. Let your reader breathe here and there. Use punctuation marks. I noticed that you had a few issues with punctuation in general.
I rather enjoyed the chapter. As a first sentence, “At 6:30 in the morning the president of the United States vanished.” is nice and striking, I thought. I felt that there was a big disparity between paragraphs two and three. Paragraph 3 did way more to set Kate’s character than paragraph 2 did for Harry. That’s probably because she is part of a group. I wonder how you’re going to give Harry a defined, interesting character without anyone for him to interact with.
I still think that you missed a great opportunity at the end of paragraph 3. You wrote “Along the way they had seen many other people in the same predicament. Kate had noticed something that united them all. They all were going somewhere but they didn’t know where somewhere was.” The second part, starting with “Kate had noticed” would have more ‘punch’ if you had a less general sentence right before it. It wouldn’t take much. Maybe you could just describe some of the people Kate and her family had seen.
I’m curious to read the rest of your story. Good luck.
Radrook here to review.
This is an excellent beginning to a novel since it poses an intriguing mystery which tweaks the reader’s curiosity. We want to know the reasons behind the disappearances. We want to know how the two families will fair in their attempt to avoid the growing pandemonium which is emerging in a seemingly leaderless lawless society. Also, the mystery of their destination tweaks curiosity.
Of course, as a reader the first thing that popped into my mind was the end-of-days rapture where some are taken to heaven and others are left behind. Why? Well, because I have encountered this idea in recent films. Since I assume that the writer has also encountered this idea, I assumed that this is not the direction that the story intends to take since that would make it far too derivative. So I would continue reading to see how this story differs from, others which are similar in the proposed scenario of people disappearances.
suggestions
I would use something that is readily identifiable to prevent reader perplexity.
What’s a home-crafted sola?
“Well[,]” she grumbled[,]....
....[two] granola bars [half]a loaf of bread
....[in case] it rained
....to get [away]....
[Sitting] back....
[“All set,"] he muttered....
Fiat = proper noun
Tense Consistency
There is a verb shift from past to present that needs attention.
By now panic was setting in.... [by then]
All in all a very interesting intro. Looking forward to what happens next.
Thank you very much for your comments and detailed review. I will try to follow up on your suggestions.