Hello~ I don't normally review chapters, I tend to nitpick which isn't really needed.
I'll try to stick with the overall stuff that should be cleaned up in the next draft and you can do what you want with it. I'll ignore things like misspellings, improper punctuation, and poor word choice, but I am not going to ignore the words that are odd, or the ones that seem like you've got the words confused.
To start off, I think you've really got a nice dynamic between the two characters here. You have both sides to this coin, the frightened and the frightening, the would be innocent, and the cocky villain. I also really like the pace of this novel so far. You've got the idea of getting somewhere and moving on down when it comes to action for the plot.
That being said, there are some moments in your sentences where you could improve the speed by cutting out repetition. For instance, we know that the buildings are all mostly white, and yet you tell us it's a white building they go into. Why didn't you leave that adjective out and tell us something new, or, perhaps even more helpfully, describe this thing that comes out of the sky?
I feel like in some ways you're really good at the description, and in others you're not. For instance, I don't really know what Shelly or her boyfriend look like, but I know what the city looks like. I don't know what the man looks like, but I know he's in a suit. I have no idea what "Roaring fans swirl and a black body over the heads of the people come swooping down swiftly" describes. Where were these fans from? What came swooping down?
Also I thought the boyfriend got frozen magically or something when you described him meeting Frost, so you might want to tone down the poetic antics a bit at the beginning of the novel and just let it be what it will be.
Here are some more tips and specifics.
Their caved in cheeks sharpened their jawlines with sunken cheeks. No one looks witted, ambitious, drastic towards life, brawny- traits people seem to lack everyday when they walk out the house
These sentences have some problems for me from a flow aspect of this. The story seems to be talking backwards sometimes in these two sentences because it uses multiple adjectives to describe the same thing in the same sentence. At most, adjectives can be stacked to three for the reader to collect the data and move on, so the big, white, scary house. The reason being because our attention span is not exactly the best most of the time. If you can keep it interesting, you can drag people through really long sentences like a summer breeze. Same thought pattern; if you are repeating yourself, they want out of a sentence pretty fast.
When the door shuts behind her as she exits from one of the stores.
First off, when the door shuts, she's already exited a store, so it's a bit of a redundant time lapse. Also if we've got "when" and "as" in a sentence, that makes both parts fragments. When the clock struck two, as the sheep did baa, the farmer ate his bread. <- Note that there are three parts to this.
When and As both allow the parts to be collected and moved about the sentence.
The farmer ate his bread as the sheep did baa when the clock struck two.
As the sheep did baa, the farmer ate his bread when the clock struck two.
This last one is probably the least likely to occur naturally, but you see my point. If you just have when and as, you're left wanting something.
Her tight curls waving at the sudden blow in the air, like snakes slithering around like Medusa's hair did.
I really don't like this imagery. We're reading a novel, not a poem, so I feel like leaving most of this out would be better because allusions can get really confusing. After all, Medusa's hair wasn't something that suddenly did anything.
It just never acquire to her that she would need it now.
To acquire something is to get something, so really it never "occurred" to her.
Some more notes are simple. Keep an eye on your tense, and watch your words. For instance, I have no idea how someone forks over their shoulder, but people can glance, or peek over their shoulders.
For instance in this case: "The suited mans eyes wonders aimlessly to Shelly's," we have too many 's's on the end of these words. "The suited man's eyes wander aimlessly to Shelly's" is a much better phrasing and more grammatically accurate. Because it's plural, we don't really need the S on wander, and it is wander, not wonder. To wonder at something is something thoughts can do. You wonder about the next time a movie will play. You wander to the theater to see when that is.
I understand that you're co-writing this? I hope that any helpful hints that aught to be directed at the other writer will find them? After all, we're all here to improve and knowing what to catch of your partner's mistakes and your own will be better for all involved.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Points: 1883
Reviews: 806
Donate