Published March 28, 2009
This is the first page of MY part of the book and I hope you like it! Remember, this is only my first page, not the whole first chapter.
Chapter 1- New York
The sun slowly sinks down below the New York skyscrapers in the distance. The sky is streaked bright orange and red, resembling the hue of blood. My skin tingles as I take in everything around me. I love dawn and dusk, the time of the day where you can observe the battle between the sun and the sky for the prize of light and dark.
Darkness spreads over the sky, causing my bigger fears to pull me towards the door. I take one last glance towards the gleaming New York skyline, then turn away. I prick my finger on the door needle, wincing as I do so, and press my slightly bleeding finger up to the keypad. Years of practice tell me where exactly to position my finger so the pad reads it correctly. I feel a tingling sensation on my finger as the keypad reads my blood DNA for recognition. Lovingly, the doors creak open for me.
I close the doors behind me and flick the light switch on the left side. The living room lights up, inviting me into its warm, ancient comfort.
My sister and I have lived in this house together since our parents turned into Nightmares, and before that even. This house has been owned by our ancestors for hundreds of years. It is surrounded by trees, sits at the base of a very tall hill, has seven acres, and is in the Staten Island borough. Our hill is so tall that we can easily see the skyline of Brooklyn and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge if we have the strength to even make it all the way up.
Coming across the granite floor, moaning and whining, is my pet Sorrow, Bunbun. I found my dog Sorrow digging through my shoe closet one morning, chewing on my favorite Vans, and he looked so lonely I decided to keep him and name him Bunbun.
Sorrows are not actually animals. They are lost human souls that take the form of animals or items. They are completely dark, shadow-like. You can see through them in sunlight and they don't eat, drink, or use the bathroom. I treat Bunbun like a human (besides the name) because that is what he once was.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
140,859 Literary Works • 673,695 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,
Ooooh this is a very exciting entrance there. I have so many questions about the science and especially the hygiene behind the sort of lock that's there with the whole DNA thing but ignoring all the nitpicking I want to do there as far as science is concerned, it definitely tells you that something very serious must be behind such a lock and this definitely gets our attention as a reader right away. So this is pretty solid, although yes so on a science sort of perspective, if one was to do a DNA lock, that doesn't seem like the greatest method to do so, I'd look into that a little more.
Okay...well that adds some interesting details to the mix. For starters this being a family home is just instantly making the whole pice even more fascinating because it really is quite something to imagine a family needing a lock like that and the claims here about the hose definitely end up adding to that quite nicely. Well, well, let's see where this actually ends up taking us here.
Well that was quite the note to end on with this first page. I have to say I'm a little conflicted on that particular one. For starters the idea of a simple pet was a cute one, then we learned what they are and naturally its time to be aghast about a human soul being treated that way, then there's the ending but also the fact that Bunbun is being treated like a pet doesn't help it too much so ultimately, I just think that part needs to be a little clearer as to what exactly Bunbun is and how they are treated.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall as far as the first page of something goes, not bad at all. Plenty of things for us readers to latch onto and think about and I think that's wonderful to see at the very beginning of a story. I only really had a couple of nitpicks here and there.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Definitely presents a very interesting concept. I'm really interested in how nightmares play into this. I do however, have one small complaint; for some reason, I can't stand present tense writing. Not a flaw in your writing, I just find them hard to read. I was confused though when you were talking about Bunbun. I wasn't sure if the name was Sorrow and it was a Bunbun. I would change this to be more clear. Later on I understood though. I think this has potential to be really good.
I DEMAND YOU!!Er...ummm..well, bye-bye now!Hey
I'm ella, I use too many smilies and watch way to much tv 
. Also, i tend to sound pretty smarmy when im doing a long review, (just warning you in case this one turns out llike that 
)
amazingly, all the vocab and language fits, and i didnt find anything that was out of place there so you are my new offical favourite person 
The idea sounds really good, im intrigued by the fantasy element of it so tell me if you post more ... unless you already have 
i'll check that now :L
Also, I suck at grammar so i only review people on language, character, plot..etc and its kinda hard to tell some of that from the first page but i will do my best because i like this so much
Firstly, I love this for many reasons
Ella
XOX
Hiya!
Tense: The present tense got to me a little. This seems like it's set in the future, and while this might sound strange I'd rather see this in past tense. I feel it would flow better.
Descriptions: The opening ones were nice, but when you get to the house it feels a bit info-dumpy and flat. The description of the house has no real relation to what's going on in her life, which would be a good idea to fix. Tying descriptions to your MC is the way to make them more interesting. ^_^
...Nightmares and Sorrows? I'd spend a bit more time explaining the "magic" in this story. What is a Nightmare? Are your MC and her sister slated to be one? The "dog Sorrow" caught me at first, especially when you don't call it a "dog Sorrow" again, until you tell us what a sorrow actually is.
Overall: Your description of the dawn and dusk was strong, but the rest of the description, as I mentioned, it a little flat and confusing. The confusion comes from the tense used, the flatness I mentioned in my section on "Description." ^_^
Questions? PM me.
~Rosey
Very nice little preview of your story. I found it interesting to read. I love how you describe the sky and the narrators emotions, you did a very good job of that =D. The only thing I can think of that would make it better is to use synonyms for darkness and I think "Skyline" in New York Skyline is capitalized.
I don't know if you intended this, but i got the sense it was similar to I Am Legend.
Great Work! Please continue writing =D.
Apologies for the epic delay in critiquing. I'm here now!
A couple of things:
- Just out of curiosity, why did you post only the first page? I'm asking because it's kind of difficult to critique thoroughly with an incomplete chapter; it feels more like I'm critiquing an excerpt than a complete piece of writing, you know? Even a chapter is somewhat self-contained but this feels too much like a fragment of the story.
- I like your idea but towards the end of this page — as in, only a few paragraphs into the story — you start info-dumping. Avoiding the info-dump is difficult but it's pretty much imperative because it's one of the fastest ways to drive away potential readers. It's also the easiest way to avoid building your world in real and interesting ways — I'm sure you've heard/are sick of the old adage of showing and not telling but it really is important, especially in moments like this. Instead of telling me a flat-out breakdown of Sorrows and what they are/aren't, try to incorporate it into the story. For example, you say they're not animals but you call her Sorrow a "pet", which doesn't really suit it. Especially after you say that the character tries to treat Bunbun like a human. (The name doesn't help give us the impression that it was formerly human, either.)
In a story with fantastical elements, it's an easy option to do the infodump but I would definitely advise against it.
Okay, onto the story itself. You wanted me to point out everything, so I'll try.
First of all, "resembling the hue of blood" seems a little awkward because it seems to be referring to the sky, which doesn't make complete sense because it's not only red but also orange. And orange is hardly the colour of blood. Secondly, bloody red sunsets is kind of a cliche (and rarely an accurate cliche at that). Thirdly, "resembling" is a clunky word to use when trying to describe something. To be honest, I think your sentence is more powerful just as "The sky is streaked bright orange and red" — if you really feel the need to talk about the bloodiness of it, I think it's more effective to go with, "The sky is streaked with blood and bright orange", or something to that effect.
Nice line. : )
I'm assuming that you're trying to say that the darkness is her biggest fear, but the way you've phrased it doesn't say that. Instead, it says that darkness causes the thing that she fears, and That Thing is what pulls her towards the door. I'd suggest nixing the "causing" because it's not at all accurate and rephrasing the sentence in some manner. You can rearrange the words ("Darkness, my biggest fear, spreads over the sky and I pull towards the door") although that's a little clunky. I'd suggest having some kind of reaction to the darkness — a shudder of revulsion or something and then she makes her way to the door.
You've already mentioned that you're in New York and you've already described the skyline as the "New York skyscrapers". Cut the "New York" here.
Don't really need to put the "slightly" in — it doesn't add to our image of the blood but it does help to make the sentence clunkier. We already know it's a pinprick so we don't need the "slightly" to clarify anything. At this point it's just taking up extra word space.
Find a word other than "tingling" — you've already used it with "my skin tingles as I take everything in" just a paragraph ago. You also don't need to specify "blood DNA" — "DNA" will suffice. The way it's written right now, "blood DNA" makes it seem like there's different DNA for blood than there is for, say, skin. Which is hardly true.
How do doors open lovingly? She might feel surge of love when it opens but the image of a door creaking does not conjure up loving for me.
You don't really need "the left side" — it's just unnecessary detail that few readers will retain and at this point, it's bogging the sentence down.
I'd suggest finding a synonym for "lights up", partly because you just mentioned that she turned on the light but also to help give us the impression of warm ancient comfort. If you're at a loss, consult a thesaurus. Words like, "glow", "bathe", "blossom" help give the impression of comfort much better than just a plain "lights up".
I like this line. : )
"Hundreds of years" = centuries? It's also kind of implicit that if it's an ancestral home, it's been in the family for at least a hundred or so years.
Here's another example of the infodump not meshing with the character itself. You say that Sorrows are humans manifested in animals or objects but Bunbun doesn't even remotely resemble a human in the narrative — he does things that all dogs do and doesn't seem to have much human in him. I guess it might make more sense if, the longer the Sorrows stay in their animal bodies, the more they lose their human traits (or some such explanation) but as it is right now, the idea of Bunbun being a human soul doesn't really match up to his actions.
Anyway, I'm done; if you have any questions or comments or need me to clarify anything, don't hesitate to PM me. I think the idea of Nightmares and Sorrows sounds pretty nifty but be wary of infodumping and make sure that the Sorrows make sense with their human/animal parts. Good luck with the rest of the story! And again, apologies for the delays in commenting.
Heya, Peanut! Here as requested!
Personally, I really don't think the sunset is the color of blood. Blood is more of a dark-red, while the sunset is... ugh, I'll stop rambling.
Lovely description.
This makes it seems like the sun was out and then BAM! darkness. It just seems rather sudden.
I wouldn't say that automatic doors open lovingly.
So this was short -- very short. Therefor, I didn't see any grammatical errors except...
You keep capitalize the word sorrow. Sorrow should not be capitalized unless it is a name.
For example, you woulnd't say "My pet Cat." Cat isn't a name. The same goes for Sorrow.
Overall
This was short, so I can't really review plot.
The one thing that bothered me was the sorrow, Bunbun. If the sorrow was formerly a human, I would not call it Bunbun. That's a humiliating name to give one.
This piece also had a lot of "telling." This means that your story reads a bit like an outline: "I did this, I did that..." You brought in many concepts (Nightmares, sorrows) very quickly without explaining them.
Perhaps you could start your story with her finding the sorrow or her "nightmare" parents making a scene.
Sorry, this wasn't much help.
--Sakura
Ok here I am. Just so you know I bolded parts in certain paragraphs and then explain them below which is also bolded. If something didn't bold right I apologize.
Overall great story. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading more. Sorry if I was a little harsh or anything. Good luck with the rest of your writing.
Hi Peanut,
You are a marvelous writer. Your strong prose successfully paints a clear picture, giving us almost spooky chills down our spines. Only a couple of minor corrections and tips.
You have repeated the word "sky". I would suggest trying something a little different. Perhaps, "The sunset paints orange and red streaks, reminiscent of blood, across the massive blue canopy."
The times of the day.
Try, "My sister and I have lived in this house together since before our parents turned into nightmares."
Try, "The house". It's less repetitive.
Decapitalize sorrow. This is seriously confusing to read.
Hyphenate dog-sorrow.
This line is beautiful.
All in all, your piece is remarkably beautiful, and you've written something that I really want to read more of
Have a good one!
Just a question...is this the edited version? If it is I have already done my part.