My father would never approve of me coming to the old part of town; it's where the mutants are supposed to live. Hundreds of years ago this pier was safe for everyone. People would sit at the edge of the dock and watch the sunset, but unfortunately we can no longer do that. No one was told to stay back because of their inhuman abilities they possessed. Again that no longer happens.
I looked down at my wrist, the glowing green numbers in my skin change to eleven ten. After the earth stopped moving they invented this system of time measurement. Everyone was injected with the program at birth, and as far as I know everyone is. I tap my wrist and the glow fades into my wrist.
Jack said ten forty-five. I groaned. Jack was always late, to everything.
"Where are you Jack? You said forty-five!" I yelled into the cool air. I threw my arms behind me in frustration. Or at least I would have of there hadn't been a rusty nail sticking out of the box. I immediately pulled my hands back onto my lap and look for an injury. There was a puncture wound with a drop of blood slowly pooling in my palm.
In my mind I laughed, my dad would ground me for a month if he knew I'd hurt myself. He always told me "Normal blood is special, Willow, keep it inside your body." Of course I'd be in bigger trouble for going to the outskirts, but he'd likely never know, so not my problem right now.
Something broke my train of thought. I looked up instinctively at the pile of boxes by one of the old buildings.
"Jack?" I said unsure of what exactly I heard. I always hear things; the question is what I heard. There was a soft shuffle from the other side of the boxes. "Jack if that's you I'm gonna kill you." I tried to put more force into my voice, but to be honest I wasn't totally convinced it was Jack, so it came out nervous and scared.
When he didn't answer I got up to investigate the boxes. As I got to the opening in the piles I heard the unmistakable sound of metal. A knife, I thought, oh crap I'm dead. No mutant would shy away from the murder of others, or so I've heard.
"Stay back." says a voice that's connected to the knife. That surprised me; I was told mutants used offensive methods only. This one was using defensive methods. Never the less I did what he said. I put my hands up submissively and walked backwards into a stack of boxes, which in turn fell backwards onto the cement with a loud clang.
I risked a look backwards and in that time he came out of the shadows. His knife was in his right hand and crossing over to his left shoulders protecting his chest. His hair was black. A soft midnight black, a pretty color. It's strange that I'd notice that when I knife was just feet from killing me.
"Stand Still." he said maybe slightly annoyed. That's when I realized I was holding in a scream. It releases itself without checking with my brain if that was okay.
"Shhhhh. Scream again and I kill you." he says obviously trying to keep my murder quiet.
"Okay. Okay." I say defensively my hands still up, adrenaline coursing through my veins. My flight or fight instincts taking over. So far if I had to I'd pick flight. He reaches for my arm and my instincts pull my arm away. He reached for my neck and his hand meets its target, his fingers pinch together and my mind goes blank.
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140,752 Literary Works • 673,686 Reviews
Well this is just great! It's an awesome idea for a dystopian future. Beside the few grammatical errors, I thought it was very easy to read. It wasn't boring or too descriptive like many other dystopian series. If anything, it could use a bit more description. It would be nice to have a bit of a back story to know whats going on in this time, if it's not explain in the other parts of the story you've written.
I'll definately be readin more of this series later! Good job!
Hey there, Willow,
First up, future dystopia! I'm quite fond of stories set in scary places in the distant future, so this one definitely caught my interest. I'm intrigued by the juxtaposition of a place lit by old, orange lamps, and a girl with a watch implanted in her wrist. And the earth stopping moving? That's a great hook right there.
Thinking about ways to improve this, though, I'd like to talk first about "showing vs telling" in description. "Show don't tell" is an oft-quoted mantra among writers, and it's a very important concept. The basic idea is, rather than telling us what your characters are thinking or would think, and so on, show us how they react, and let us learn about them from that. For example, where you have "My father would never approve of me coming to the old part of town; it's where the mutants are supposed to live.", you are telling the reader about the part of town, and telling the reader what the narrator's father thinks. Instead, perhaps you could show the narrator worrying about mutants nearby, and fretting over the possibility of their father finding out they are here. Perhaps she bites her lip when she's worrying about things. Perhaps her leg shakes. And so on.
I'd also like to say, be careful not to tense-hop! Tense-hopping is where you switch between past and present (or future!) tense while you're writing. In this piece, I think it may just be a mistake, because there's just one place where you hop - "...says a voice that's connected..." is in present tense, but the rest of the piece is in past. Be careful about little slips like this, though, because they can confuse a reader a lot!
I have to say, I'm interested. Who is this guy with the knife? What does he want with the narrator? Is he actually a mutant? If you've got the reader asking questions in the first chapter, that's a good sign - you'll drag them on into the rest of the story that way.
I hope I've helped somewhat - please feel free to message me if you have any questions about anything I've said here.
Happy writing!
Cadi x
Hey Willow! After my first read, there are a couple of things that I really like about this. First, your story is jumping right into the action. Many writers (and I am guilty of this too when I'm not thinking about it) spend a lot of time explaining all of the back story and the world before getting into the story which is usually pretty boring for the reader. So I was very glad that we got right into the action because now I'm intrigued to continue. You gave enough back story to peak my interest, make me want to know more, and give me a sense of what's going on, but not too much so I felt bogged down by it. Second, I can tell right from the start that this isn't going to be the standard love story set in high school so I am intrigued by this world you have created and I can't wait to see how it develops. I love me a good dystopia!
So here are my nitpicks and specific thoughts:
I would personally prefer a paragraph or something before this with some killer opener line to really draw me in. This isn't really grabbing and I'm immediately thinking "okay? Who is this person?" Since you have what I am assuming is a dystopia going on, draw us in with that world or something first, but keep it brief, and then jump into the action.
This threw me a little the first time I read it. I wasn't sure if cement being an ancient substance was a joke or what because I wasn't sure of the time/setting. Maybe try to make this part a little more active, have the MC notice these things and reflect what is different about what she is used to so the reader has that comparison too.
Great. Tell us right away what is different about this world. The last two lines threw me and I think could be worded a little better for clarity.
Are you going to explain how there is still life if the earth is no longer moving?...
You don't need the comma there.
This is contradictory. I'm picturing her arms going up in frustration but then wait she didn't actually do that? She threw her arms back and was startled when a rusty nail pierced her skin or something.
I thought this paragraph was good because it shows that Willow is seemingly different than others and now I want to know what a "Normal" is and what everyone else is. Also, it introduces another piece of conflict between her and her dad. Last, why is her dad never going to know? Does she not plan to return to him? I'm intrigued.
What is the something? A noise? Movement?
This seemed redundant to me.
I would re-order this some so it's what she tried to do, what actually happened, and why it happened. I think it would flow better that way.
I would put thoughts in italics to clarify better.
The first sentence is in a different tense than the second. Also, new paragraph at That surprised me.
This all sounded really awkward to me.
Like I previously said, you have a really intriguing idea here and I'm curious to see where it all goes. I liked the action of this first chapter and how it leaves in a cliff hanger. I have a lot of questions about this world and who these people are which makes me want to continue reading.
One big piece of advice is to watch your tenses because sometimes you're in the present and sometimes you're in the past all within the same paragraph. I think you have a nice start here though.
Let me know if something wasn't clear or you have any questions!
-Carly
Don't ask why I chose the name 'Video Feed Series' it's a long story, the plot has nothing to do with videos