(this is just a first draft of the beginning of the first chapter, but I'd like to hear some criticism anyways)
An eerie silence lay over the city as Jason approached it, he still found it hard to believe that just a few short months ago this city was brimming with the lives of millions of people. Now the city was only filled with the rancid stench of decaying flesh, the streets that were once filled with enough people to make him wish for them to disappear just so he could walk more freely just felt empty and abandoned. Sometimes he couldn't help but wonder just why he had survived whereas all of his friends had lost their lives in the first days of chaos after the world as he knew it had ended.
He hadn't seen another living human in over a month, making him feel scared and lonely, in the past he hated to interact with others, but now he realized how much he missed having others around.
Almost against his will his steps slowed down the closer he got to the city, while he was aware that he had no choice but to enter the city his legs refused to move as he knew what dangers were lurking in the shadows of the abandoned city.
His steps ground to a halt as he heard a creaking sound from the nearest building, Jason barely managed to keep himself from running away as he slowly turned his head hoping it was only the wind, praying inwardly that it wasn't one of „them“ those creatures that appeared half a year ago, humankind was unable to stop them as they seemingly appeared out of thin air, no one could predict, when or where they were going to attack next.
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138,539 Literary Works • 672,152 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!!
First Impression: Okayy...well this was a pretty cool little start here, certainly seems like a bit of an epic apocalypse scenario is what's going on here as far as the world itself is concerned and that's certainly quite exciting, its got a few issues here and there to be ironed out however. More details on all that down below.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Okay, that was a bit of a weird rollercoaster of a start there...not terribly sure what exactly that description is trying to convey there. Its certainly very intriguing but there's just a bit of a weird loop there. One one hand, it says the city used to be filled with people but is now full of decaying flesh which indicates a lot of them died but then you talk about how everything is crowded again which kind of seems to go against that point a bit, and then again about a lot of people having lost their lives. I can kind of see the point you're trying to make here. It looks probably he just lost a lot of people close to him, but its suuper confusing to try and decipher any of that here.
Okay, so now things go back to sounding abandoned all over again, and uhh I'm beginning to think the way that I managed to decipher things in the first paragraph is correct but yeah, again it just needs to be clearer. I do like the thought being shown here though, it really does bring out a feeling of loneliness on the part of the pov character and you can see that they are definitely going through a tough time here wandering around this now abandoned city.
Hmm, well looks like that would be a situation that would certainly leave you very jumpy, definitely a pretty haunting image to leave us on here..it certainly seems to be talking of a world or I suppose city in this case that's suffering from a truly terrible situation here. Well, at any rate, pretty decent spot to end this first chapter here although I do think this is perhaps a tiny bit too abrupt, like it doesn't quite feel like its fully ended here, its halfway between a cliffhanger and a normal ending.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, a pretty solid start that we've got here to this story, and with a little bit more ironing out done to this first chapter it could be a pretty exciting one. And at any rate, this is certainly a story that I would follow after reading this first chapter.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hello there! Just came across this, and decided to review it.
So, though it was short, I really like what you're getting at! I think you should make it half of chapter one, as opposed to considering it an entire chapter, though. Overall, though, this story is off to a great start! But, i am left wondering quite a bit... such as, why must Jason enter the city? Does he need supplies? Also, what are the creatures mentioned, and what makes them dangerous? Are they mutants, zombies, or? This of course can be answered within the next chaptor, although I would feel more satisfied if these kinds of questions were answered as they occured. Other details, such as the character's life before the apocolypse, can be done gradually so as to keep it interesting, but there are some details that I find unsatisfying to leave unanswered. Other than that, I genuinely liked this story! I can't wait to, hopefully, read more!
Hello, and welcome to YWS!
Although this genre is sort of cliche, this is a good start! So, as you said, this is only the first part of chapter one correct? I would suggest putting Chapter 1 part 1 or Chapter 1.1 to indicate that this isn't a full chapter. Anyways, this was a good story start, but I would like to see more gore for I am a big fan of these types of stories. I would also suggest providing more details of the setting- what year is it? Is it in America? etc.
I noticed that in the first paragraph, in all sentenced you used the word 'just' which was kind of... Redundant? You could leave the first one in or you could take them out altogether- this is just a suggestion. By all means, you could ignore this.
Here you could further describe the scene by showing the outcome of what I assume is an apocalypse: the dead bodies, abandoned shops, etc. Also, did Jason experience some emotional trauma? I believe he would- he seems so calm about the whole thing. I would expect him to be more shocked about how everyone he saw in the crowded city is now gone; all his friends- possibly- dead.
Instead of using adjectives like scared and lonely you could become more in depth on how he feels. You could try using figurative language to make the emotions come to life. Also, you could mention why he hasn't seen another human in more than a month. Was he hiding? Where? How far away was he from the city?
Here you could add a comma after 'will' and replace the comma after city with a period. You could also remove the word 'while'.
I would suggest "... it wasn't one of... them." (the word 'them' in italics) period after 'ago'
I would suggest replacing the first comma with a period and taking out the second comma.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this but I believe you need to work on describing the scene a little more. I'd like to read more from you in the future- especially if you decide to continue this! Keep writing!
Thank you for your helpful review.
Don't worry there will be gore later on
I will try to think of a location, for now it's just a generic city but once I get deeper into the story it will become more fleshed out.
The second chapter is going to show how and when the apocalypse happened, I am planning on having the second chapter (titled something like "Six Months ago") be the real start of the story with about three or four chapters telling the story up to the point we are at now.
This is pretty much just because I like tv show episodes where something happens to the characters in the beginning of the episode with most of it showing just what led to this point.
I am planning on describing the state of the city in more detail, but right now he is just starting to enter, so there aren't that many dead people lying around yet.
How does this: "He hadn't seen another living human in over a month, making him feel afraid he might be the only human left on this whole planet, worried he might be alone until his death, in the past he hated to interact with others, but now he realized how much he missed having them around." sound, instead of: "He hadn't seen another living human in over a month, making him feel scared and lonely,"
The reason I wrote "them" instead of writing it the way you suggested was that "them" is what Jason calls the creatures for lack of a better name.
Thank you for your useful tips, I will make sure to try and improve my writing.
Sounds great! There's more detail giving it a more suspenseful mood.
Hello there!
This was certainly interesting! Not just because of the aliens, but also how or why Jason survived. Maybe he's immune to the aliens. But I'm not sure entirely what this story is about since you said "humankind" couldn't stop them, suggesting that the entire human race is dead, except for Jason. So I'm wondering what exactly Jason is going to do.
So, this was a fairly short chapter but it's definitely interesting. I'm wondering what happened to cause him to ask himself how he's the only one that survived. There are a couple of grammatical mistakes, but we can fix that. I'll just point them out for you.
Stuff
Spoiler
Alright, replace the comma with a full stop after "Jason approached it,".
Alright, this little bit actually says quite a lot. When you say "why" he had survived, it gives the idea that whatever happened, he was left alive for whatever reason. I'm not sure if this is what you're going for or if you meant "how". If you did, then you would be telling the reader that Jason did something to help him survive, like hide under a bomb shelter or whatever.
I just wanted to point this out in case you meant "how" instead of "why".
I dunno, this part doesn't make too much sense. I understand what you mean, but you should reword it.
Maybe something like:
"the streets that were once filled with so many people that it made him wish they were all gone. Just so he could walk freely, without all the noise."
A part that I didn't understand was "just felt empty and abandoned". It doesn't make any sense. Maybe consider getting rid of it.
Ok, after the first "city" should just be a full stop. And the second "city" is redundant. I recommend replacing it with "it" instead.
I don't even know how you got the speech marks down there...
And there should be a full stop after "them".
Plot
Spoiler
Um, I think that's all I got. I eagerly await your next chapter!
Bye!
Hi thanks for your review
Stuff:
The reason I used why in that line: "but wonder just why he had survived" was because he is suffering from survivors guilt, he is wondering why he survived instead of all the people he knows. I am going to go a bit more in depth later in the story.
The reason the "just felt empty and abandoned" felt weird was because I suck with commas, I really need to practice the correct placement of those things.
The reason there are speech marks at "them" is because thats what he calls them, as he doesn't know who or what they are he just named them "them" in order to point this out I put the marks there.
Plot:
Don't forget it's all written the way Jason sees it, he might be (at least partially) mistaken.
Anyway thank you for your helpful review.
Hey, chris1312! I see you're new, so welcome to YWS! If you need help with anything, don't be afraid to post on my wall or PM me! I promise, I don't bite
usually. Anyways, onto...(Also, I apologize if I get harsh at any point.)
Spoiler
The other thing is to Show, Not Tell. I'm not really good at explaining this, so I'm going to link you too this helpful article. Oh shoot! I can't seem to find it, well this is embarrassing. So, um, I guess I'll do my best to explain Show Not Tell myself! Upon re-reading there isn't a whole lot of telling, but I'll still point out a small example type thing. Here's the original, that kinda just "tells"~
And here's an example of a bit more "showing" that I've quickly written up. Since it was written quickly, it probably isn't the best.
"Now instead of smelling fresh baked goods from stores, Jason's nose was burning with the rancid smell of decaying flesh. Bodies littered the streets, and Jason didn't dare to look closely at any of their faces."
This helps you to be telling, and also helps the reader visualize the setting a little bit.
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Have a great day!
~Myth
Thank you for your review.
I am planning on having some sort of flashback chapter for either chapter 2 or 3. I just decided that I'd like to go for an opening that just throws the reader right into the story as it's something I find rarely done in books.
Also thats about as much of an info dump the readers are going to get for a while and it's not even 1/10th of what I have planned for chapter 1 so it shouldn't be too much.