Published May 20, 2010
Luna sat in her desk, looking around the dull room. Why did everything have to be so blunt and gross looking? She glanced at the lockers, brown and ugly. And the floor and walls, a disgusting shade of beige. She grew up in this city, and had hated the colors ever since the day she first started school here. The shades and colors were all dull and ugly, and there wasn't a single person who wore anything else. She could hear her mother scolding her after her complaining; "This is all we have time for, Luna! We don't have anything else!" But deep down, Luna knew there was something more than this. There were blue skies, green trees, and all other colors you could imagine! She dreamed of them constantly, longing to see something else above her head other than rock when she was downtown.
Snapping back to reality, Luna realized that that these colors were only dreams, nothing else. How would a lowly student like her be able to find this land? She wasn't nearly as important as scouts or hunters. They were the ones who secretly could go see the outside, part of the government's secret service. No one, not even her best friend, Holly, knew that she had heard of them. She wasn't supposed to have. No one else in the city did except for their ruler, Vladimir, who constantly made them battle each other for his entertainment. Everyone 14 years of age had to fight, and Vladimir claimed it was to make sure only the strongest survived. Luna had figured out a long time ago what she and the rest of her community really were: Prisoners.
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141,360 Literary Works • 674,381 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
This is an interesting little start. We've started on a nice little note here with a bit of description that seems to be aimed at establishing this setting every so slightly here. Its certainly the sort of thing that makes you sit up and take notice a bit because we've got a bit of an interesting POV there suggesting that something is happening in this world to make things dull and monotonous and while it could very well just be a regular ol' city, it feels like there's something a bit more going on here almost, just something in the atmosphere of this piece.
It seems my suspicions were indeed accurate here. We've got a world that appears to be very very different from the normal one we're used to and suddenly its quite a lot. I have to say, perhaps almost a bit too much there because we've got a rather high amount of information being thrust on us in what is a pretty small paragraph and while all of it sounds interesting, its a teeny bit too much to have there, especially in just a first chapter so perhaps a bit of spreading out there and some more gradual display of this information would be better here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hey there!
I agree with the others when they say you need to make it longer than it is, but instead of just focusing on that I'm gunna help you come out of that hole.
As far as I can tell, what you have here is a summary. What you want, is a scene. What's the difference? A summary skims over information, it tells us thing, it's not in "real time". A summary consists of a beginning, a middle, an end; there's some conflict, resolution, and a close. There's an important thing that you're working towards. There's dialogue, narration, character action, character feeling.
What you have above is only a summary. You're telling us some things about the main character and her dreams, you're glazing over what her mother said, her friends, Vladimir.
Since it's your first chapter, you really can't summarize like this. Don't get me wrong: in one chapter or even within scenes your likely to have summaries mixed in, but a scene happens in real time. We are shown things, not told things. So, why not come up with a scene? Maybe it starts out with your main character arguing with her mom? Or the main character talking to her friend? Where ever you start, there needs to be something going on, some kind of conflict. It's really up to you what that is. I've read somewhere that a novel should start when something has changed for the characters, when something new is going on. So what is happening to your character that is so important it cries to be written out, in great detail?
All of the information you gave here: the king, the colors, the fighting, it's great but you don't want to put it all in at once. You can spread it out over time, let it be known by context, in other ways. Here's a quick link I pulled up on writing scenes: http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/write-scene I think the site is for screenwriting, but the ideas should all be the same.
Best of luck!
This has huge potential! I feel like with some lengthening you will have a great opening to an engaging book. Add some more details about Luna, her family, the Scouts, everything! I am so jazzed to see more of your stuff so don't be afraid to stretch this out!
Hello!
, put in italics preferably.I agree with what Elinor has said. You really need to elongate this.
If you're showing us her thoughts like this
I would like you to get her thoughts and emotions across better. Show us what your MC is feeling and why.
Your concept is good, but this is more like a plot synopsis. You need to work on it more.
PM me if you have questions.
~Lava
Hiya!
So, I think the main problem that you have with this story is that it's too short. You barely skim over the ideas that you create, and thus leaving this a confusing, jumbled mess since there is little time for character development and such. I can see where you try to introduce the plot, but I just can't tell what you're getting at, exactly.
Make this longer. Give us a more detailed description of Luna's house, and show us exactly why she hates it instead of just telling us that it's disgusting. Okay, it's beige? So what? Beige and brown might be plain colors, but it's not ugly. Is there anything in the house that's simply visually unstimulated?
Besides, looks can't be everything-if she's lived in this house her whole life, she would be used to it, don't you think? What's making her finally turn around now and realizing that things aren't the way that they should be? If you get down to the basics, what you're missing is the essential element to a story; character. I got some really good advice once, and it basically went like this. "All characters have to act. To act, they have to have motivation, and to have motivation, they have to have a past." When you're revising this, think about that; what caused Luna to snap at her mother like that, to rethink the way that she's living right now? Even if this is a fantasy story, it should be realistic. No matter what kinds of situations that we're in, we're all people, and people have motivations for the things that they do.
It would be nice to know a little bit more about why Luna considers those who live in her town to be prisoners. Is it metaphorical or literal? Are the people who run the town doing something to the citizens? Living in a boring house doesn't seem all that bad to me, especially when you can consider some conflicts that stories with such governments can hold.
I recommend that you take a look at a few such stories. Harrison Bergeron is a good example of a story with an evil government, and it shows Harrison's motivation for acting the way he did-he lived like normal with the way the government was, until it fell upon him and he realized how horrible that it really was. Vonngeut also gives the government a reason for reverting to the situation that they did; equality. When you revise this, figure out what exactly the government wants, and how the characters should react. Hope this helps, and PM me if you have questions.
-Elinor xo