My eyes bolted open. I looked around, taking in deep breaths. I was in my bedroom, with the sun slowing rising over the city through the window. The sky was a deep blue, almost as dark as what the ocean used to look like back when the ocean was still blue.
I got off my bed, and looked over to my desk. There sat my Holotron 67000, the most latest technical marvel. It was just a grey slab with multiple hologram outputs. When you turned it on, a hologram representing a screen, a mouse, and a keyboard showed up. Of course, the keyboard and mouse were optional, but sometimes I like going retro.
I walked over to the desk and sat down. I reached over to the Holotron console, and switched it on. It emitted the familiar Holotron Inc. bing and the holographic screen burst into view. I switched on the keyboard and mouse outputs, and they appeared as well.
“Holli, call Wyatt and Kate.”
The Holotron console emitted a sharp beep as the screen faded out into three little dots. After a few seconds, the dots joined together and expanded to form a full screen. On this screen were the faces of my two friends, Kate and Wyatt. I’ve known them for as long as I could remember.
“Well,” Said Wyatt, “If it isn’t Jay Fether. How’s my little noob today?”
Ah, Wyatt. He was a total geek. All he ever talks about is video games, computers, and more video games. He always pressured me to get into them when we were younger, but they just never hit off for me the way they did for Wyatt. Unlike him, I didn’t research the entire history of gaming companies. Or go around asking everyone if they thought Steve Jobs was better than Bill Gates.
“Did you hear? Something’s going on with the Revolutionaries. They think they’ve found the government’s headquarters.” Said Kate with a smile.
The government, now that’s a name on everyone’s tongues. Nobody really knows who the government is, or where they are. All we know is that they’re bad. Sure, we in the middle class are the ones that get out the best. It’s the rich that got crippled by the Gov. In fact, the only reason that we still call them rich is because they live towards the center of the city. They’re probably the poorest people in the city. Besides the lower class themselves.
The city is divided up into five sections. In the middle, there’s a monument to the heroes of the olden times. Stuff Wyatt would know. Then there’s the rich, in a small ring around the core. Then there’s another ring around that, the middle class. After that’s the poor and then the outskirts, where the homeless make themselves comfortable within the inner workings of the wall that surrounds the city.
“Jay! Jay! Do you still exist?” Shouted Wyatt’s voice through the Holotron’s speakers.
I shook my head, and looked back at the screen. I guess I was just lost in thought.
“So, Kate,” Said Wyatt, “Do you approve of Apple’s decision to become Holotron Incorporated in order to catch up the rise of new technology?”
Kate put her hand up to her face, and shook her head in disbelief.
“Are you seriously asking me this again? This is the tenth time in past three days.”
“Oh. I keep forgetting. Anyways, are you guys excited for our meet up at the monument?”
Suddenly, my chair kicked out from under me, and I fell over. My android cat was romping around the room, tearing things up. It rammed into the desk, knocking over my 2095 special collector's edition Super Mario figurine. I got off the chair, and crouched down. The head was broken off. I suppose five year old plastic figurines aren’t exactly the sturdiest of things.
I picked up the pieces and placed them back on the desk before getting back in the chair. Wyatt, Kate, and I talked for a bit more, until we decided that it was time to go to the Monument. I was pretty excited, if only for the fact that this is the first day we’ll be able to see each other in person in about a year.
End of chapter
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140,813 Literary Works • 673,694 Reviews
I like all of the vivid language in this chapter! The characterization of Wyatt was extremely solid and I also enjoyed the world building you did in this chapter
Intriguing start, especially with all the hints of a near/possible future. I like the advanced technology combined with regular daily life, like having the android cat. Also the worldbuilding of the different castes is very interesting.
). Wouldn't it be cool to see it firsthand, like if a character had to go visit one of the other rings and passed through some others on the way, and we saw by the conditions what life is like there? That would still show us the same worldbuilding, but make it memorable and vivid/more real. Another example where there's telling that could be showing is how he describes his geek friend to us. If you show the friend acting like a geek, the reader will pick up on it, and I don't think there'd be a need to go out of your way to point it out.
At the very beginning, the bit about getting out of bed doesn't seem like it adds much, and isn't interesting by itself. What if you started the story when he's turning on the Holotron? Then the first thing the reader is introduced to is a unique, sci-fi element of your world. And also with the Holotron, there's an explanation of what it is followed by a demonstration. It might be more direct and engaging to just show him interacting with it, without the preamble, and let the reader fill in the gaps. "Show, don't tell," as they say.
You could probably apply that to other areas as well. Overall I felt like there was a lot of telling. For instance, the explanation about the city setup is interesting, but doesn't have anything to do with the scene (even the characters know he's daydreaming about something unrelated
My other thought is that the end is a touch sudden. What's the significance of the broken figure? Is it important to him, will it feature later in the story, or is it just a little touch to colour in the world you're creating? And there's not a lot of tension to ending right there, nothing to show that this is anything other than an ordinary day. I know it gets exciting, but maybe you could end with a stronger hook, something that promises all is not well, or a twist that changes things for the character. I've heard it said that it's best to start a story as late as possible, right at the life-changing moment for the character. (For example Luke Skywalker's story starts when he meets the droids. We don't spend much time watching him working on the moisture farm before that.)
Happy writing! I'll keep an eye out for the next chapter.
This is amazing. There were so many details! I feels like this could be the start of a T.V series. I must say though, this was kind of short so, I couldn't get a lot from the characters, ( Kate and Wyatt ) expect from the...i'm guess main protagonist Jay. Other than that, I really, really want to see more of this because you have turned my world around. I don't really like sci-fi, but you changed my mind. Keep up the fantastic work!
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed and I was able to turn you mind around. You can find some really cool books around the Sci Fi genre, and I hope this will become one through YWS's awesome users!
This is brilliant! I love how you've portrayed the future, and how you've outlined a possibility of what this present time can lead us to, but I love it, the way you built up suspense and didn't really reveal the situation until the end was great!
But you need to change 'that's' to 'that its' because it doesn't really make sense at the moment.
I love how the rich have had their position in society turned against them, and I love how the Government are 'in the dark' so to speak. It's pretty much like the Labour government turned to extremism, love how you've combined so many ideas about the future, both political and technological.
Anyway I can't wait for the next chapter!
LordofLit101
Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed it, and I can't wait to upload more!
That was cool! but here “Did you hear? Something’s going on with the Revolutionaries. They think they’ve found the government’s headquarters.” Said Kate with a smile. there should be a comma instead of a period because its she said, and she shouldn't be capitalized. “Did you hear? Something’s going on with the Revolutionaries. They think they’ve found the government’s headquarters,” said Kate with a smile. Also, you don't need to explain everything in the first chapter. explain it as the story goes along, it makes it more interesting and makes readers want to find out more about the story and keep reading. I cant wait to see more!
Thanks for the review! I did notice myself that a good chunk of the information did feel very off-put and forced. Thanks for the thing about the dialogue, I actually had no idea. I legit thought that capitalizing the "Said" was what you were SUPPOSED to do. (fail)
I'm glad you enjoyed and I can't wait to post more!
Hello friend,
your premise is solid. I like sci-fi stories, and I think teen protagonists can be appealing to a vast audience. You've provided with enough information to make me curious about the setting, but I also think that this chapter focused too much on the setting, and not enough on the characters.
The way a lot of the information is presented strikes me as contrived. Why would Jay describe his Holotron? He uses it every day. I wouldn't think about my computer that hard. Why would he be deeply pondering the structure of the city? He lives there. The fact he mentions what year he got the figurine in and how he mentions it's five years old also seems very unnatural. He brushes it off as if it were nothing, too. I would at least swear once, haha.
I understand the need to convey information to the readers, but it doesn't all have to be rushed in the first chapter. Tidbits can be shared along the way, when it makes sense. It would make sense to describe a place the characters are in, for example. When people talk or think about something, they often omit details because they're obvious to them. In a novel, you can't do that so often, it's true, but information presented should always appear to be so in that character's voice.
For example, Wyatt. Instead of Jay telling me he's a geek, wouldn't it make more sense if he started the call blabbering about the most recent article on TechStuffForNerds.com? It's in character and achieves exactly the same thing. Likewise, if the figurine is important to Jay, he should have some form of emotional reaction. Then somebody can make a comment on where and how he got it.
For me, the most important thing in a novel is the characters. You should seek to get me interested in them right away, because it's their story I'll be following, not the cityscape. Especially in the first chapters, I would focus more on defining the personalities of your main characters. Setting information follows naturally as they do things and encounter people. If I care about the characters, I will be interested in the world they move about in. The inverse is not necessarily true.
Technically, the grammar is fine here. The only thing is you cycle between past and present tense. It's very distracting and confuses me. Choose a tense and stick to it. Your premise is interesting, all you have to do is get me involved with the characters. Hope this helped
-Ita
Thanks for the review! You made some very good points, and I'll try to use them later on in not only this novel, but others I write as well. I suppose that Jay did have a very underwhelming reaction to his figurine getting broken, and it would've made more sense if he would've been a little more upset over it. Also, after re-reading myself, I did realize that a lot of the description did feel very pushed.
Switching tenses is usually a pretty bad habit of mine too, so thank you for pointing that out. I'll do what I can to fix that in the future.
PS This book also has a prologue posted, so if you would like to read that, feel free to.