Published October 31, 2009
This is just an intro for a story that I am working on. This is the first writing project I have done so please criticize as much as possible.
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Ten years ago the most powerful country in the world lost its first war. The victors hired an assassin, Kayn, to kill key members of the government throwing the country into chaos. Martial law was initiated and the new government sought control by brute force and intimidation. It soon became apparent the new leaders had no intention letting the people live peacefully. They held too many grudges from prior conflicts.
People naturally fought back. I was in that group, the resistance. My two friends, Matt and Hunter, joined me in a mission to roam the country and organize the resistance into cells that could operate independently and efficiently. We became the most wanted people of the new regime. They sent the military and assassins after us. We evaded capture and death for several years, but no plan is perfect.
We were supposed to be leaving town the next day when we were captured. I still wonder if we were set up or if it was just our time to lose. We were separated, interrogated, and sent to different prisons. I was sent to an island in the gulf where a large city had been built for the new capital. It was the center of government and military operations. If the world every decided to rise against this government this would be their stronghold for the final stand.
The prison that I was in was how prison should be. It was overcrowded and we were underfed. There were no privileges, media, or entertainment other than the stories we would tell. The worst part was that we had done nothing wrong. It took almost two years, but I managed to persuade a guard to see my point of view and help us escape from prison.
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141,471 Literary Works • 674,496 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,
Well that was quite the start. I love the vibes it creates though. It manages to hit a bit of a sweet spot there between being a recounting of history and having some emotion baked into it at the same time giving us a bit of this history lesson like moment but phrasing it so its actually very intriguing and drags us into this story very effectively.
Oki this is settling into one of those tried and tested grooves of the idea of a resistance. Its an interesting place to start as it always is but at the moment this feels quite a bit like every other story of this nature so I hope it becomes a little bit more unique in the times to come here. Besides that little situation, I am still loving the vibes you manage to create here. You're managing to give us a lot of info without making it feel like too much is being dumped.
Well that's a lovely place to close out this little introduction here. I think it leads up to what I assume is the starting point of the actual novel really well here and it builds just enough excitement here because we're exposed to the best moment here in this little backstory. I think you've done a great job picking the moments to zoom in for maximum effect on us readers.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Thanks for all the input. What are some good resources for learning about show vs tell? I've got 3 chapters written and somewhat edited. If anyone wants I can email them. I have to leave soon for several weeks of training so I wont be on the boards very much. Thanks again for all the help.
Hell-ooo there! I'm June! Welcome aboard the ship that is YWS! I'm going to review this for you.
The title of this caught my eye, probably because I have a slightly morbid interest in military-related things. I think you have good information here to work with, but there are a few things that can be ironed out in this. Namely, those few things are clarity, storytelling, and conflict. Let's begin.
Clarity -
Forgive me for my awkward wording in this, but I was recently reading over revision strategies for writing, and one of the key things that were mentioned was to use clear facts only.
The underlined part here is arguable. In writing, it is best to try to give statements that can be true. You say this country (we'll use X to denote this) was the most powerful, but how do we know that another country (which we will denote as Y) doesn't have secret forces that can easily overpower country X?
In writing, use facts. Use clear facts, dear. Don't give your audience any reasons to argue with what you write.
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Flesh this out!
You're writing a story here, dear. It's not a run of the plot, so you can take a minute to expand on these conflicts. Don't give us all of the information at once, but when you give details, it is wise to not just state a fact, but to back it up with additional information.
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Storytelling -
I like your first-person narrative voice. Choosing to write your story in first person was a good choice, I'll say, because you're enabling your audience to have a direct recount of the events that happened.
However, I think that you can expand a lot on your story telling. Some people say that it's better to 'show' the story, meaning to use imagery and not just tell the story. Bring it to life through metaphors and capture everything-- the smell, the side effects; virtually everything.
Telling isn't half bad, either, but I think it should be done with caution. Instead of telling us all of these in such a short, concise way, why not describe events in between? Surely there's more to the story than this.
Take a look at this:
This, as this excerpt displays, happens over a period of years, dear. I think, instead of just saying all of this like this, you should include fattening details, such as things they did, either on purpose or by total accident to let us know why people are after them.
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Conflict -
Okay! So, you have all the reasonings for conflict here, and all the plot to back it up. The problem is, your narrator doesn't feel the conflict, or at least he's not showing that he is, you know? He seems rather laid back about this all. He's in prison at the end, and if that were me, I'd be frantically trying to plan ways to get out and such. And... he just seems a little relaxed.
Now, if it were a journal, he could write about it a little lax-ly, but, even then I think he'd add a touch more description. Description is a wonderful thing in story telling; I think you should incorporate more of that in here.
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I enjoyed it. A bit short, a bit brief. I would have liked it to run out a little longer, just to get a better feel of things, but that's all good.
I'd recommend adding more description. It'll really boost your quality. You don't make common spelling or grammar mistakes here, which is really, really great; your writing's pretty good, to be honest.
Thanks for the read. I enjoyed it.
June
This was an enjoyable little read. I liked the dystopian setting you have managed to construct and how we can see from a inside perspective of this resistance soldier; I'm into all that fighting against the upper power and all that stuff so this is a story close to my own heart.
Although I thought that we could have learned more about "you" in a sense, I mean the prologue is necessarily meant to draw people in and cover all the small background details that would slow down the pace of the action packed story, if tried to be told in the main chapters, and although you have managed to do mostly that, there is still some small things you missed out like:
Whats the narrators name? (Even though we know his friends:\)
Name of the country?
Date its set in?
Sorry but these things all add to the general atmosphere of the story and really draw in the reader, I think anyway, especially with a military story.
Pm me when you release the next installment dude.
Hiya! I'm Irish and welcome to the site!
So, this was a pretty good piece! It was a little short for a prologue and it seemed to move kinda fast, but only slightly. For me at least
I didn't see any grammar or spelling issues with it, and I think you have a good start!
If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me! I'm always happy to help!
Keep up the good work and hope to see you around the site!
-Irish
P.S Happy Halloween!