For anyone who wants to review this, I have a request.
When you read this, I want you to respond with the questions that this chapter made you think.
Like, for example: Who is she? OR... Where is this?
In answering the questions, I hope I can discover something about my writing. Maybe a message I'm sending that I didn't know I sent or some flaw that I need to fix.
It's a new kind of review idea I'm working on. Thank you for your help.
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I can see the finish line now. My last lap is almost over. I will show them that I can do this. My legs pump faster against the rubbery track, my lungs scream and my heart vibrates to achieve the full extent of its power. I speed up and the track flies beneath my feet. 10 feet…5 feet…I’m there. My legs carry me a little further and then I turn to face the judges. Their expressions tell me nothing of my results.
I remain calm as I try to slow my breathing to a regular pace. I stretch as the last few of the judges make notes on iPads that they hold. I try to focus on stretching rather than the incoherent mumbles that I hear. Did I pass? I keep stretching until I hear my name called, “Weaver, Emma.” I look up. I am the only person here, but the process has a strict formality so they announce my name as if it was part of a roll call. “Yes, sir, “I say confidently, standing as boldly as I can without wincing from my aching muscles. The older gentleman in the center begins speaking in a dull, monotone, “You are dismissed. The results will reach you in 24 hours. Good luck.” Before he finishes speaking, the rest of the judges begin gathering their supplies and heading out the balcony doors behind them.
After the man finishes his rehearsed lines, he turns abruptly, leaving me alone in the testing stadium to gather my water bottle and school uniform. I walk nervously out of the stadium. My thoughts tumble, searching for one phrase that was said that might ruin my chances or one that might guarantee my success. The judges were stoic, absolute statues. They said nothing to me, unless it was to give me an order. They said nothing to each other, unless I couldn’t hear. Their expressions: stone.
When I enter the assessment waiting room, I scan the seats for Abbi. Suddenly, I see her strawberry-blond hair swish as she looks up from her school tablet, her stylus hovers over the next button. We make eye contact and she moves toward the front door, quickly finishing whatever she was reviewing. I walk stiffly over to the computer log to sign out. I find my name with little difficulty. Weaver is a rare last name. As I reach the door, Abbi looks expectantly at me, but all I can do is smile now. Results are not to be discussed.
The bus ride home is quiet. Not many citizens are riding home this late in the day. Most are at home with their families eating dinner. I had a assesment to complete and Abbi came for moral support. She claims that the reason I wasn’t accepted last time, because she, my good luck charm, was unable to come. I’ll need all the luck I can get.
Finally the bus arrives at our apartment division. Once the bus stops, our seatbelts unlock and we rush down the stairs and through the lobby doors. What I love about living in a big city like New Ridge is the underground apartments. The lobby has a huge glass roof and you could see the entire sky by just walking around the room. It has an indention in the middle that continues all the way down to a reservoir which collects rain water below the bottom floor. Solar panels outside create rings on the edges of the grass that give us electricity and lighting on the lower floors.
Before my family moved to New Ridge, we lived a poorer city that had no solar panels or underground apartments. Some days, the sun was a blur and the air felt thick. We lived in a tall, nondescript building with very little space and poor lighting. Those reasons made me love our current apartment, which I moved to when I was 10. We moved here so my parents could be closer to a lab job. When my parents worked long shifts, my aunt and uncle took care of me when I couldn’t stay home alone. And when my parents couldn’t be there for me anymore…I stayed with them.
End of chapter
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140,106 Literary Works • 673,010 Reviews
Sanctum of moths
Let’s have a look at your first paragraph, I feel that you can make this paragraph much more powerful if you opted for shorter sentences with powerful verbs. You’re describing the protagonist running, and it’s the last lap and they’re having trouble breathing. It’s intense, I want to feel this. A common convention would be to shorten the sentences to create tension.
In here, you wrote that your heart vibrates except hearts don't really vibrate. They beat, vibrating could be used to describe a phone vibrating or the beats of a bee's wing vibrating. Ah, you asked for the setting of this chapter and this reminds me quite a bit of dystopia city. Because of the division of cities mentioned at the end of this chapter, but ad Demeter pointed out using iPads are probably too 21st century for it.
Emma strikes me as someone who doesn't give up easily, and she is competing in a running competition where she is been judged by others. The thing that I found out was the way the results were handled out. They call out her name to tell her that her results would be available within the next twenty four hours, why not now? I would really like to gain more insight into the judging system or why Emma is running that race. This happens with a lot of first chapters I read on YWS (and I actually have a habit of doing it too), the chapter usually starts off in the middle of a situation as to create tension and suspense for the reader. However, there is no background provided for that situation, so half the time we don't even know why the characters are there in the first place.
It's important to establish these things in the first chapter, where they are, who they are and why they are there. As some editors would say, show them their plot within the first few paragraphs. You need to come out and make a strong impression of what's happening straight away, and this would include using history and background to back up your words.
Another thing I noticed that the slight info dump at the end of your chapter about where they live, it's not terrible but I feel that it could have been better. Instead of just merely describing the building and what it looks like, a very distinct example of telling and not showing. Could you perhaps incorporate these descriptions along with some action? When she walked in, what did she see? When she saw Abbi, she could have described it. You don't want to have static description, you want them to become alive.
In summary, I believe that this could turn out into a quite interesting story. But like all stories, it could use some tweaking. If you have any questions, please let me know.
-Flite
I see that... Thanks for your advice!
I see that... Thanks for your advice!
Hello kymorhens!
After your introduction said something about a dystopia, and the chapter begins with her doing some training, I was quite easily reminded of the Hunger Games and Divergent (which I haven't read but I've heard it resembles Hunger Games and there's some training in it too), so I'd be interested to see what will make this story different.
I noticed was that you use quite a lot of different ways to describe the judges' expressionlessness. They're quiet, statues, stone... most of this are probably unnecessary, and sometimes less is more.
Perhaps you can consider rephrasing this a bit so that the body part feet and distance feet aren’t so close together.
Something else I'd like to point out is that if you want this to happen in the future, describing "iPads" is probably not the way to go. I mean, this could well happen in not-so-distant future, but as iPads are something we use and have today, you connect this fictional world with our world rather than distancing them from each other (which I imagine you'd like to do to make it seem futuristic). You could just say tablets and get away with it, I think.
This is indeed an interesting start, almost teaser-like! I want to know what they are training for, and what happened to her parents. As this is only the beginning and very short, I can't really help you with any more questions, but I hope this helps you anyway!
Demeter
x
Yeah. I'm struggling with creating futuristic words for things that are essentially the same, but have changed a bit over the years.
IPad was highlighted in my original manuscript to remind me to change it, but I almost forgot about it!
Thanks for the great review!
I have one question in regards to your new ideas for reviewing.
What is happening?
And I don't say this in a necessarily good or bad way, good stories sometimes leave you hanging and you're wondering what happens next, or even what is happening to begin with. Kind of like 2001: A Space Odyssey, you're left in the dark in the beginning but as the story goes on, more is explained.
I get a kind of futuristic feel, I think that's what you're going for. It feels a little dystopian, perhaps? Those are just my assumptions.
First, some nitpicking:
This sentence grammatically feels like it could be reworked to better fit in the story. We see your character has confidence, but maybe if you were to add an ellipsis or two between the Yes and Sir and after the Sir it would give a feeling of breathlessness to the reader that the character is experiencing. Because the character apparently just ran a long way, in some form of test or other.
Maybe you could also make it more interesting by turning the Yes sir into a question, maybe the character doesn't have the confidence you'd expect? I think it might make the character a bit more relatable to the reader, because the character is even questioning what's happening and she has context, whereas the reader has none.
This is just a minute error, "a" should be replaced with "an" and "assesment" should be spelled assessment.
Those were the English errors I could find.
Other than that, this is definitely an intriguing introduction that makes me want to read more. You might want to work on the descriptions, especially near the end, it seems to get a little long winded without giving any purpose to the story. So perhaps cutting the length, or introducing something that again gives the reader more context and makes the character more relatable. Like perhaps telling a quick anecdote of how life was like in the "poorer" city that the character used to live in.
The only other problem I have with this, which isn't necessarily a problem, is the reader has little to no context. It definitely serves as a good cliffhanger introduction into an interesting world. I'm sure you were already planning to, but after this, give the reader something more to grip onto, more context. If a reader can't find some kind of context within the first few pages of a story, they could quickly lose interest. That's my only other piece of advice.
Great little cliffhanger introduction, keep writing!
Thanks for the grammatical advice. It's another area where I tend to lack expertise.
And the last paragraph you wrote is very good insight. I've never looked at it that way before.
Thanks for reviewing my work in such a kind way. I really appreciate it.