Young Writers Society

Hey there Serenya
Belated welcome to YWS!

Sorry, but I haven't read part of this chapter (which I would assume is implied by the 'continued' at the end of your title), so forgive me if I criticize anything unnecessary.

And I tend to point out a lot of small details, so also forgive me if I annoy you ^.^'

Hello Serenya. Before I start reviewing this, I feel I should mention that I haven't read the first part to this, mainly because the first part isn't showing up in the sidebar to the right like related parts usually do (which is a bit weird). In any case, if anything I bring up in this review was already explained in the first part, feel free to disregard it.

With that said, this feels rather incomplete, not so much because it's a continuation of the first part, but because of how it ends. Right now, most of this chapter is talking and remembering, and while there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, right when things start to get really interesting and it looks like something actiony is about to happen, this part just stops. Erin and Miah start following the stranger. The end.

It just doesn't feel like an ending to a scene, much less a chapter. Instead, it feels like you cut this off just as a really interesting scene was just about to start, and so I feel cheated as a reader because it feels like a rather lame place to put a cliffhanger just for cliffhanger's sake.

Basically, you need to give us more than just the very beginning of a chase scene. Right now, you're teasing your readers with the promise of some action that you cut off before you can deliver, and it's quite frustrating for your readers.

Hi, I'm jhoi and here are my thoughts about this chapter. Please keep in mind that I haven't read any of your other works. In a way this is a good thing; imagine I am an avid science fiction reader, perusing the new sci-fi releases at a book store. I hem and haw and finally pick up your book and flick past a few pages to this one. The following are my honest criticisms, and I hope they'll help you as a writer.

Speech: I feel as if your dialogue is forced and terrible for fiction. Whilst you may say those things to your sister in real life, readers read novels in order to escape reality. Instead of focusing on average or "normal" aspects of your story, cut straight to the things that people want to read. You never read about Harry Potter going to the toilet, or Bella Swan hugging her dad goodbye every morning before school.

Characters: From this chapter alone, I'm thinking your characters are pretty flat and some may even be unnecessary. How vital is the younger brother to the plot? How vital is the sister? If you have too many characters and they serve a similar purpose, it's not that interesting.

Story premise: I have no idea what this story is about beyond the fact that they are orphans, there was a blackout and it's safe enough to "go to town" to borrow out a book from the library. This seems unrealistic to me. Is this an apocalypse story? Is this a survival story? What kind of town is this that the library is running, and these people can borrow out books, but they rely on the charity of others for food. As the potential buyer in the book store, I find many of my questions unanswered, and I'm unsure whether I would bother unlocking the answers by starting at the beginning or reading further.

Pace: It's pretty stale. Nothing is happening. You could have devoted time spent detailing the town and inhabitants. How did they get to town? Is that part necessary? If this was an anime episode, it'd be called "filler", an episode put between the plot episodes to make up screen time. Filler episodes can be skipped without any detriment to the story. You never want your chapters to be filler episodes.

Hope this helps somewhat