Trako etched a line on the sandy edge with a finger, legs dangling over the side of the building—waiting. He checked the sun hovering low in the sky, almost gone beneath the horizon. The moment would be soon. Without checking the worn wrist-watch, he knew there was about half an hour before his time would be up, and before they would be upon him.
He tossed a handful of sand over the side, watching it drop to the ground below. No one looked up as it landed on their heads and sprinkled the pavement at their feet. Sand was a normality. It was a substance as common as the air they breathed.
Trako tried to wipe the gritty grime from his hands onto his filthier pants, but it stuck to his fingers like glue. A few moments would have them caked once again, anyway. Pushing himself to his feet, he stood on the edge, peering down and around the city.
Parinol. People said it was the greatest city on earth. To him, it looked like the greatest dump on earth. Or at least where he was. His neighborhood was called the Slums, and the place where the low-lifes hung out. He looked out at it all and shrugged his shoulders. Slums or not, it was home. Perhaps there were a few low lifes there, but they were fun to talk to—if they would. Most people refused to talk to him. Perhaps it was the constant dirt and smears of blood on his tattered clothes.
He checked the time—7:36
It was time to move. Even a moment longer might alert them to his position. The sun was setting to his back and the west. So he took to the east, walking across the sandy, flat roof like it was the street. It extended onwards for several hundred feet, and then fell away to the alley below.
His hair bounced as he took to a run, loping easy strides. No point in killing himself before he needed to. Sand gritted his toes through the sneakers, but his skin was used to the abuse by now. Years of life on the sandy streets had weathered them well.
He checked the time—7:38
The end of the building approached, and he drew to a slow walk as he approached it. Once, he had slipped on the edge and fallen to land on an unlucky car to save his lucky hide. And now every time he saw the car possessing the dented roof in the shape of a shoulder, he had to smile in remembrance. Some days were just destined for failure.
A few yards away, there was a ladder leading down for use as an emergency exit. Old and beaten down by the scorching sun, he knew it was dangerous to climb down each and every time. But if he discredited its usability for that reason, there would be too few things left in his life. So he used it, and used it often—each night, as the sun sank away. Spending the afternoons on the roofs was one of the few things he enjoyed in Parinol, but waiting the nights out was the last thing he wanted to endure.
He checked the time—7:41
Barely ten minutes to prepare for them. Time had proven to him that merely being on his toes and aware of his surroundings was all the preparation he needed. Remaining alert throughout the night was one of the hardest things to achieve, with sleep creeping in on him at all times. Cat naps were all he was allowed to have. No time or peace for anything else.
His hands slipped through the last few feet of the ladder, and he stumbled to the ground. Wiping his hands now coated in rust onto his sandy jeans once again, he looked about to readjust his mental picture. Above him were the backsides of apartment buildings: no backyard, no fences, no back door—Parinol style, stacking humanity like sardines since year fifteen hundred seventy-six.
Sweat rolled off his temple, tracing its way down his cheek. He lifted his hand and wiped the sweat off with a frown. Sweating already? The night hadn’t even begun.
A sound echoed from the alley to his right and he spun about instantly, his eyes searching before his mind processed everything. The outline of the alley, the run-down store front whose neon lights seemed out of place, the trash bins that leaned against the graffiti stained buildings—litter and garbage covering the ground like a multi-colored mulch. Nothing escaped his gaze.
After reassuring himself enough times in his head, repeating no one no one no one no one until his subconscious side was satisfied, he took a first step down the street. Sheltered in the alcove of grime, it always seemed gloomy, no matter the time—even with the glare of downtown only a mile away. He continued down the alley, wrinkling his nose as he passed by abandoned trash bags and month-old burger wrappers left to rot on the pavement. The sound of fly wings teased his ears as he walked by.
He checked the time—7:45
Glancing behind him, he half-expected them to be approaching, cutting off that way and perhaps even attacking from the front. But there was nothing. Not a hint of sound emitted from either side of the street, save for the ringing of pop cans crinkling beneath a bum’s shoes. From the low light, he only saw a faint haze surrounding the hunched figure. Slumped against the ancient brick building, the bum looked as though he was mostly asleep.
As each second ticked by, he switched his focus from one side to the other, continually sweeping the street for them. He used to shudder, he used to cry, he used to have a deep-down feeling of hatred and fear whenever he saw one. Now he felt empty, as though they weren’t a bad or good thing. Just a part of his life he had to deal with.
Scrolvs.
There were seven too many scars down his back, etched there as marks of I was here by various scrolvs over the years. One scar made him look tough, but any more were reminders of his life. They all told a story—memories of times he wished he could forget.
He checked the time—7:49
His finger rapped against his belt buckled, while he picked up the pace, turning his head in all directions in frantic search of the scrolvs. Being caught unawares wasn’t something he planned on.
The neighboring street held few people, and most of them were out for a quick moment before diving back indoors. Trako saw it every day. As if the moon would change them somehow, warping them into creatures of the night. Or perhaps they were afraid of what he was—the scrolvs. Or that the officials would be walking the streets soon, looking for stragglers outdoors. Those were two of the many things separating him and the people around him from the scrolvs.
The scrolvs were never afraid.
He turned left instead of his normal right. The streets were carbon copies of each other, flipped backwards—nothing original or different about them. Tall buildings lined each side, with a small shop below. Most of the time, a wizened man or woman would stand just inside, selling some odd trinket or service no one wanted. At any other time of day, the narrow, barely one-lane street would be crowded with people: walking, biking, skateboarding, driving. The drivers were the peril of the roads, as though blind to pedestrians. Hardly any cars rolled down the street, and most continued past. A few stopped in front of a house, waiting just long enough for the garage door to slip up, driving in, and shutting the garage door—gone.
He took the narrow sidewalk, walking past the any people without facial contact. The fewer people who saw him long enough to familiarize, the fewer people who would be able to tell the scrolvs where he was. Above him, dim street lights crackled to life. The night would arrive on time, and yet still too early.
He checked the time—7:55
Still no scrolvs.
Points:
Time spent:
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
Hai Timmy
So we were talking about you catching up with works and I went to check that I had reviewed all of your stuff and I hadn't. This was the missing thing. You have had a lot of reviews on this already so I am going to add a fairly short one and I hope I don't repeat what other people have already said! What I can say for sure is as of everything else I have read from LOTS so far, this by far has to be the best version or chapter I have read. And if this is the first one it is definitely worthy of it. I thought you did a great job of having the perfect balance between detail and story telling here. You did some outlining of setting which was enough to keep us satisfied for this first chapter as well as introduced us to the lifestyle he is used to living since he can remember. You did it all with ease and I have to say I loved it ^^
I can understand that sand being everywhere is normal, but is it normal for it to be in the air and raining down on their heads? I thought that was a little bit weird. Because if that is so, then shouldn't they be in gear to keep the sand from hindering their breathing like scarves around their necks and mouths, and shades for their eyes. Because sand in the air is very bothersome, and if they are wearing all this stuff Trako should be too and it would be worth mentioning. I do think you mean that sand covers the ground and all, but it raining from the sky is another story. Feel free to change it as you wish.
I feel like the 'were' in the first sentence should be in italics, to put emphasis on him admitting to the belief that there are lowlifes around. As well as that, I am pretty sure lowlife should be one word, or at least hyphenated, as it should be in that first sentence. Moving on I found the 'if they would' a bit abrupt at the end. I would've suggested you change it to 'if they would talk' but we would have the repetition of the word talk, so my suggestion is gonna have to be to change it to 'if they were up to it.' The second sentence is sort of irrelevant because it already implies that a lot of people aren't up for it. What I couldn't understand was your reasoning for this. You mention it is because he looks tattered and dirty. But that means he is a lowlife, and among other lowlifes like himself appearance wouldn't matter in the slightest. So I don't see how that would be a valid reason for them to be avoiding conversation?
Sentence reads awkwardly. I do like the use of 'lucky' twice though. So maybe just reword this a bit. Like 'unlucky care that saved his lucky hide.'
One thing I found a bit iffy was the mention of the timing that the scrolvs attack and the way he said he was only allowed catnaps. In my mindset, if he had been used to attacks always happening in the nightime ever since he could remember, then I think he would've already made the switch to sleeping throughout the day and being awake and aware all through the night - eliminating the need for catnaps completely and the possibility of endangering himself in that way. You mention him being a lowlife so I can't imagine him going to school or needing to do anything then. If there are duties he has to do in the daytime, then mention that as a reason why he would not be sleeping throughout the night. Otherwise, that switch would've already been made by now.
Okay, I don't have much to say that I would doubt has already been mentioned. But this chapter alone shows such an improvement to all the other chapters i have read before. Keep up with this, and let me know whenever you have something else for me to read
Deanie x
Oh. I never even thought about the sleeping in the day. o.o Of course that would cross your mind, you person who sleeps during the day all the time. xD
This was a very helpful review. ^^ I've editing this since I posted this, but everything you mentioned is still the same... so more work! Thank youuu for pointing all that out, and reviewing for me.
<3
Hey Timmyjake
I've seen you around YWS and you seem like a pretty cool dude so I figured I would check out some of your stuff! Boy, you got skills!!!
I was transported by this piece. I love the gritty city you've built here. I can see it as I read which is awesome.
I really don't want to say you should change anything in this but since I always dislike it when people don't leave any suggestions. I will mention a few places you could fine-tune.
***
*Parinol. People said it was the greatest city on earth. To him, it looked like the greatest dump on earth. Or at least where he was. His neighborhood was called the Slums, and the place where the low-lifes hung out. *
This bit doesn't have the same touch of finesse the rest of your writing has. It feel a bit more like telling rather than showing, which I have trouble with in my writing all the time, plus it is a bit on the choppy side.
For example:
*People said it was the greatest city on earth*
Period
*To him, it looked like the greatest dump on earth*
Period.
*Or at least where he was*
Another period.
*His neighborhood was called the Slums, and the place where the low-lifes hung out.*
It feels a little awkward especially because the rest of your writing flows so smoothly.
The only other thing I didn't care for was...
* He checked the time.*
You write those exactly words 6 times in your story. Now I don't have an issue with him checking the time. That's cool, build suspense, I totally get it but do you have to write *he checked the time* 6 times? He could glance at his watch, or squint at the gritty face of his time piece, or turn his wrist to see the hands on the clock had only moved one space.
Maybe I missed the whole point and you wanted to use the same words every time. If so, feel free to ignore my advice, you seem to know what you are doing.
Lastly, I just wanted to make mention of a few spots I loved.
*stacking humanity like sardines *
Nice!
*His finger rapped against his belt buckled, while he picked up the pace,*
Love this, I would never have thought to write that but it creates an amazingly clear picture of his actions.
*He continued down the alley, wrinkling his nose as he passed by abandoned trash bags and month-old burger wrappers left to rot on the pavement. The sound of fly wings teased his ears as he walked by.*
Reading this I am right there with him.
You've done some good work here Timmyjake! You have left the readers with questions but not confused and your description build your story, not distracted from it.
Way to go.
DG
I
Thank you for this lovely review! And your suggestions are very helpful. I always appreciate it when people take the time to read my works. :3
Thank you, yet again. <3
My pleasure!
Heya! I hope I'm not too late.
To contribute to what people said on the semicolon:
They're pretty much alternatives to periods, but they can do other stuff besides bridging independent clauses: separate items in lists, cut sentences at coordinating conjunctions, join three or more expressions. Read J.K. Rowling's work and you'll catch up to four sentences strung together. So if you want to use them properly in lists, you have to check that there's a comma in at least one of the items: "I'm going to bomb San Francisco; Montgomery, Alabama; and NYC tomorrow." You were in the right direction. ^_^
The writing was amazing and fluent, as always. I'm just going to skate over the nitpicks:
I love the subtle suspense this opening sentence built--that M-dash isolating the word "waiting," the symbolism with the sand, and the induction of questions to the reader's mind about Trako's location.
But the reader's also being introduced to too many objects at one time, too much information saturating their head: you want to start with one piece of information and build from there. I'd try using a possessive pronoun where the hand is concerned, to start off; you could cut the legs-dangling bit because that doesn't really correlate to the sentence's main idea; and to emphasize that he's on the edge of a building, try introducing the sand first--discuss the setting before you discuss Trako. Etch every detail in the reader's mind.
I'd recommend a possessive pronoun here, too ("his wrist-watch"). I'm also kind of hesitant toward "worn"--I'm assuming it has something to do with it being scratched and weathered, but the adjective doesn't contribute much to the setting, or paint a strong image compared to your other description.
Also, there's this sense of urgency you're constructing, but Trako's actions seem so ... idle. He's throwing sand down the building. He's reflecting on the city. It's a good way to familiarize us with the setting; I just feel like the atmosphere is wavering a bit and becoming unsteady.
If there was enough sand for Trako to see it sprinkle the pavement, there'd probably be a reaction from the pedestrians--also, acknowledge the hyperbole: "a substance almost as common ...."
I like the consonance here, but I usually associate grime with greasiness, the stuff that coats windows and dirty plastic. I don't know if it can be sandy.
Requires a period after "7:36," and I'd recommend a colon or period instead of an M-dash.
BUT THAT BACKGROUND STORY. Ugh, so many questions blooming in my mind. So much suspense and mysteriousness. I wants the next chapter.
This description I had to read several times to envision. Do people walk across streets in a specific way? I suppose they have a purposeful stride, kind of ... but it's not distinctive enough to serve in a description. I think this requires elaboration.
The way this is worded, it's suggesting the car adopts the dented roof every time Trako sees it, as opposed to it pre-possessing it.
I'm also kind of wondering what a shoulder is shaped like.
Check the subject: days can't be destined for failure, but the events/people contained within them can.
Some of the words here fit a bit awkwardly--round pegs in square holes. Like they'd serve better if they were replaced by their simpler counterparts. Try "do" instead of "endure," and you could sacrifice a word for a phrase here and there. Fluency is the top priority.
I think "humans" would serve better, because we're discussing the individual components of "humanity." It's also difficult picturing sardines as being stacked. I guess you could say "packed together like sardines in a cane," but stacked is more suited to paper and poker chips and cards.
Years are one of those exceptions to the write-out-numbers rule, and it's usually advised to express them through digits. They're easier to read that way (1576 versus "fifteen-hundred seventy-six").
Should be hyphenated when serving as a singular adjective ("out-of-place").
The word "side" can be clipped here.
I think the narrator meant "eye contact" here. Facial contact would be a bit awkward.
The thing that really lends your writing distinction ... is this scarce sort of quality about it, your ability to manipulate words and phrases into shapes they're typically not associated with. Like instead of cloaking your description in flowery imagery, you'll spotlight the preexisting imagery, in a way that's slightly reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides. It's amazing.
That said, though, I have to agree with Writer on the excessive description. The atmosphere kept hopping around from anxious to calm to dark, and you'd established this urgent tone and I was wondering why Trako was sitting and reflecting on life ... I wanted the suspense to crescendo, but it didn't; the narrator maintained a flat minimum.
So the atmosphere and tone fluctuated a bit, and the description could be trimmed (not too much because it's wonderful to read).
I think those are the only major nitpicks I have.
I could read your passion in the story, more than a lot of your other works. The pace was perfect and the description of the city, parfait, and the single-sentence paragraphs dedicated to telling the time--they established an atmosphere of ominousness. Really well-executed. I loved the description of the city, especially: "The streets were carbon copies of each other, flipped backwards—nothing original or different about them." There just seemed something so symbolic about the writing in that paragraph.
Looking forward to more!
Woah. This review is the kind of thing that pushes me and my writing forward. It's amazing! And I agree with every. single. thing. you said, so I'll print up this review and slip it into that chapter's slot for editing.
Editing is meh, but I think I'm beginning to tolerate its existence. xd
I took this piece to my writer's group last night, and everything they said basically amounted to one of the points you had: too much inconsistent description. It's a fault of mine. Last week, I took out 1000 words from a 5000 word chapter, all because there was too much description. So, yeah. Thank you for pointing that out, and I'll take the pen through this again - getting rid of all that extra stuff. :p
Really, this kind of feedback is what makes me write.
Thank you <33 (Oh man, don't get me started on editing. I guess it's a skill you develop, but I'm so terrible at it. XD Like how you took out 1000 words from a 5000 word chapter--das amazing.)
No problem! It's always a pleasure to read.
Heya TimmyJake,
And guess what? Currently, as I see I am the second one to review!YAY! I promise to look at all of your semi-colons but I got to say that I am proud of you for starting this 
pretzelsing here for a review, as I promised you. I like to always be up to date with reviews so I don't lag behind or be behind.
Let's begin,shall we?
Filthier? the ER implies something that he is already wearing something filthy. Maybe tell us what he is wearing that already was filthy.
You used some very questioning terms, perhaps and few. When I think of the slums, I think that almost everybody there is a low-life, because that is the only place that they can afford to live. This quote was just almost contradicting to what Trako thought before:
Spoiler
He knows that low-life's live there, in the slums. Also why did you use the phrase "hang out" because that's what teenagers do in their free time. Really,I am sure that the people in the slums work hard, go visit their relatives, drive/walk to work, take care of their kids, go to school, etc. They don't just "hang out" and if you use that, it depicts them as lazy and laid-back but maybe they are the most hard-working people.
You used "once" twice her(I italicized it) and so you really need to cut one out.
I loved this description ^^, it was written beautifully!
Okay, so if Trako was looking up how would he see a backyard? Isn't it normal that apartments high up don't have a backyard or backdoor?
He used to this, and he used to do that... That is repetition and it kind of get's boring. What if you just wrote: He used to shudder,cry, and have a deep-down feeling of hatred and fear when he saw one.
You use two opposite words here: lucky and unlucky, and I am not sure how I feel about these Timmy. Is it to compare him to a car? That isn't really an equal comparison because a person's life has so much more value then a car. I would probably strikeout the unlucky before car.
Alright so here is my opinion on your paragraph about semicolons:
Commas.vs.Semicolons written by YWS
Another website on semicolons
Anyways that was just an article. To have a correct sentence with semicolons, you need to have two subjects and two verbs. It can only be used where a period could be used. So now go back over that paragraph and put a period where every semi-colon is, as a test. Does it make sense? This is how it would look like. (it's in the spoiler)
Spoiler
You used them incorrectly that is what I am trying to show you. Do you understand,Timmy? If you have any questions,PM me or look at those links.
Repeating no one so many times kind of disrupted the flow of this sentence, repeating describes it and sums it up enough.
The "around him" disrupts the flow of the whole sentence!
Alright so I would like to explain and give us a little bit more context. Who are the scrolvs? Why is he running away from them? So they come out every night, right?Since this was a first chapter to need to explain a little bit, not just throw us in, because right now we don't know anything about your character or his background.
This is going to be a very action-filled story, I realize that, but I hope that you plan on characterizing him. Tell me how Trako looks like, where does he work, his hobbies, accent, style,etc. Right now I know almost nothing about Trako, only that he is escaping the scrolvs. What are his motives, Timmy? You know your story better than I do but know you should explain that to your readers.
Anyways, that's it from me. I hope that this helps you improve your writing and if you have any question you could always just PM me. Keep writing!
Thank you for this amazing review, Pretzel. It was very helpful, and prompts many of my future edits (the semi-colons were amended last night... any better?).
The second half of the chapter goes into the ambience of the scene a bit more in depth, and the second chapter explains the Scrolvs. However, I see what you're saying. I'll work on smoothing that over.
YOU CALLED HIM TRACKO. D:
Thank you for all your help, again. <3 This is really really helpful.
Yes,much more grammatically correct without the semi-colons
Chrissy told me, I am sssso sorry that I called him Tracko instead or Trako-my mistake and misspell. I will edit my review and fix that right now! Np, glad to be of help!
I thought it was funny. You didn't have to go about fixing it!
Yes, it was very helpful.
Hey Tim! I was just scrolling through and thought I’d review this. *needs to write something*
Let me hit you up with that semicolon comment before I commence. Ehh, I’m not exactly sure you utilized it correctly in the paragraph I believe you were referring to. Semicolons, more or less, are supposed to connect two independent clauses/sentences together, and here you’re listing a few things that are happening, that really don’t need to be strung together with semicolons. In my opinion, I think commas would be more appropriate for lists. I could be wrong, but that’s how I’ve always viewed semicolons. If anything, I suggest taking each event [i.e. “the outline of the alley”] and give it its own sentence. With each event (I don’t really thing they’re events, but that’s the only thing I can think to call them…perhaps occurrences would be less formal?) you could expand on it just a little without weighing down the actual situation. It appears like you’re creating a setting…so ask yourself, would it be best to set the scene using a list, or by carefully describing it?
This might clear up the use of semicolons, anyhow.
I would get a second opinion, but this just doesn’t look right to me:
So I’m going to go review the story scene by scene. The opening paragraphs, or the first scene, are pretty well written and intriguing, but I felt like they were missing something. I was reading the whole “controversial writing” topic the other day, so excuse me when I say: this feels a lot like telling. They’re just words to me—I see a sun, I see sand, but I don’t feel like I’m there. I’m not sure what I could suggest to help fix this. But just know that I, as the reader, am just reading words. Your descriptions are fairly well executed, but they didn’t come to life to me. For example:
The sand is performing two different actions here. It first sifts, then sprinkles. Does that seem accurate to you? To me, sifting sand would be taking it in large sheets and sorting through it, or at least involving large amounts of sand. If he’s just taking a handful, it wouldn’t be sifting as it falls. If anything, take a moment to describe it fall. What would it look like to you if a handful of sand fell four stories down, while you were at the top? Then you say it sprinkles on people’s heads. That wouldn’t come from sifting, because again, sifting would come in large sheets (how I would view it), so it would be dumping on people’s heads more than sprinkling on them. I could be wrong with my interpretation of sifting, but just my thoughts on it. Also, “a normality” doesn’t read right. The use of the word usually doesn’t come with an article, just the word itself.
I see this same mistake in another sentence: “a glue” doesn’t read correctly; “glue” by itself will do just fine ^.^
More nitpick here:
That redundancy sticks out like a sore thumb. *wince* Anyway, who is “they?” You’ve mentioned them a few times, but I guess I’ll just have to wait impatiently. *grumbles*
These sentences were pretty confusing, most likely because your wording was vague and oddly placed. I had to read the first two sentences twice because I had no idea what the word “Parinol” meant. But now I realize it’s the city *facepalm.* This is most likely because you give it a pronoun, it, rather than saying, “People said this city was the highlight of the world, and the greatest place on earth.” Or you could say “People said it was the highlight of the word, and the greatest city on earth.” I dunno. But honestly I would scrap this sentence and structure a better one, because you basically degrade the first claim that it’s the highlight of the world by then stating “and…there’s more…it’s also the greatest city on Earth!” Uh, wouldn’t it being the highlight of the world make it so much better than just being the greatest place on Earth? I’d try rewording the sentence, or even switching the two dependent clauses. Another note—highlight doesn’t really make much sense here. To me, highlight would be the greatest part of the day, or the year, or something like that. Basically, it’s just a great, but fleeting thing. Highlight isn’t the best term when trying to make this place sound super awesome and so important. *time for the synonym game.*
Moving on.
I’m going to start with grammatical errors. “Low life’s” should be “low-lifes” because they’re not possessing anything. So what if Word gave you a red squiggly line under “lifes?” You gotta make sure it’s grammatically correct before the spelling is proper xD And eh…the label “low-lifes” is kind of generic anyway. I say this because it’s a term used to describe anyone, whether they’re poor or just act like trash [and can be rich].
I also feel “slums” should be capitalized, because he’s naming the place where he lives. It just makes sense to capitalize that name. Anyway, what does the Slums look like? Why is this where people of the lower class hang out—is it grimy and dirty? Why were these people fun to talk to? I just think you were so quick to mention this, and you could’ve taken more time to really set up the scene, describe the ideas you present. Elaboration!
As I read this, I see you have a lot of excessive description, especially when an action is being executed in the present of the story being told. In other words, when the character is walking, don’t take so much time to describe things and recall past events. It makes me feel like he’s walking forever, when really [if he’s walking in such large strides] it wouldn’t take him too long to reach the side of the building. So when you go back through this again, really read those sentences and determine what’s unnecessary.
The part in which he’s climbing down the ladder is very unclear. You don’t ever actually tell us he proceeds to climb it. You just say he’s used it before, etc. Then you say, after he checks his watch again, that he doesn’t have enough time to be laid back and slow, etc. And then you say “His hands slipped through the last few feet of the ladder, and he stumbled to the ground.” What? When did he actually start climbing? If this building is four stories high, he couldn’t have climbed down /that/ fast. Another thing that doesn’t seem realistic is the time it takes him to reach the side of the building to where the ladder is. He first sees that the time is 7:42 before he “approaches” the ladder. This means he’s more than halfway near it. Then, before he climbs it, the time reads 7:51. What was he doing that nine minutes passed? xD I would go about revising that. I can see why it might be this way, if you’re trying to speed things along to get to the real action, but you’ve got keep reality in mind as well. What takes nine minutes long? Surely not what he’s doing
As I mentioned before, the semicolon thing doesn’t seem accurate. But I won’t talk about that. I want to focus on the setting you’re describing here. I actually kind of like how they are a few phrases, and not elaborate descriptions, but I still feel they should each have their own sentence.
For example, instead of “The outline of the alley,” you could describe what that outline looks like. Is it hair-raising (outlines can be pretty scary)? I dunno, just work on bringing it more to life, because an outline could be a pretty loose interpretation. Keep these descriptions tight and specific, so we can really experience what the character is experiencing.
Ehh, I don’t know if this really necessary, unless you reword this. For one thing, a space between the words “seemed” and “dark.” I really like the description in the beginning, but I think the rest of the sentence is kind of unnecessary. You could even just say “It was sheltered in the alcove of grime…” and that’s it. Or show us what that grime looks like. But saying it seemed dark (the word “seem” being the incorrect use, in my opinion) no matter the time doesn’t really do anything for the situation. Its absence won’t hurt the scene/setting either.
Whoa, too many words. Too. Many. Words. Shave this down, simplify it. Us readers don’t want long sentence with an excess of words xD “He didn’t like thinking about them; he only did so when forced to. This was because his every action was the center of their actions.” Or something like that? Eh, don’t use this example, but I think you should definitely simplify this.
I felt the ending was kind of…boring. Like you didn’t know when to end the chapter, so you ended it on the fact he’s still waiting, no scrolvs, etc. Nothing important really happened leading up to the statement [I’m only referring to the scene in which he’s in the street waiting for them.]
Honestly this chapter was just an introduction, and a pretty poor one at that. What you have is the town (which you still didn’t describe all that well. You never even gave us the reason as to why everyone believes the city is the greatest on Earth), the people, him, his situation (which was vaguely described), and his life-style (which you basically hinted at.) I’m not saying make this an info dump, but give every detail a reason to be there. You can’t just mention a statement and then never explain. I can understand saving it to be mentioned at a time in the story where it’s important, but you would still give us a brief explanation when it’s first mentioned. An example of this would be the city and why it’s so great. I still don’t even know much about the city, except that there’s a part of it where the lower class reside.
You also mention there’s a glow of the downtown, but you never actually tell us what the downtown is, or who lives there.
To summarize—I honestly felt nothing happened, action-wise. Which kind of creates a filler chapter, and I hate to call it that, since it’s only the first chapter. Give everything a reason to be there, Tim. I’m sorry for the harsh comments :/ but I see a great base here that can be built upon.
Another thing is the characterization of Tracko, whose name is only mentioned like twice. I actually forgot his name come the middle of the chapter. There are too many “hes” in the chapter. Go through and change some of those. But I do like how you characterized him. You didn’t give us any physical traits right off the bat, which is a pretty good thing. You focused more on his mental state, and I really liked that.
I hope this review helped in anyway <3 Let me know if you have any questions, because I’m not always the best at explaining what I mean [lol you know that]
~Writer~
Basically, I used the semi-colons on a whim. Instead of figuring out how they work and using them, I think I'll work around them and delete their usage - figuring out how they work, anyway. Always hated semi-colons. merh
This "chapter" is the first five pages of chapter one, sooo... that could be why the ending seemed abrupt and poor (pssst, don't tell anyone, but the end of the chapter is him getting hit on the back of the head).
I agree with much - no, most - of what you said here, and yeah, this does drift more towards telling rather than showing in many places (although I am trying to shoo him along - move along, Trako), because, uh, I don't know. >< I'll try to fit more showing in there, and make the descriptions more touchy-feely. :p
I only mentioned his name twice? D: *goes to fix that* I hate it when I can't remember a character's name. >>
I'll work on getting the time fixed, so it seems more realistic.
I will mention who "they" are when I feel like it. HMPH. Yes, I am witholding information so the story doesn't seem like mega info-dumping, because we both know how easily I can fall into that. >>
Thank you, Grace. This is very helpful. <3
(Me again
)
Yeah semicolons are real stinkers XD yeah after I submitted the review I remembered its 1.1. Sorry for that >.< I should've been more aware because that makes a huge difference.
I'm sorry if my review was harsh or anything like that... Hopefully it was more helpful than attacking? *gulp*
I know you've been writing this forever XD
I did moreee editing last night (although I didn't have your review in front of me, so I didn't do some fixes. >>).... Any better?
I have been writing this forever (almost four years now), but that shouldn't change your reviews. :p It was harsh, yes, but not unnecessarily harsh - more towards helping than attacking, duhhh. It helped me a lot. <3
Okayyy
reviewer me and regular me are entirely two different people...so look at it that way xD<3
Ok so this is about a person running from scrolvs, which are actually just people, and he perceives them as a monster or something? I read the whole thing and I don't really understand that. Perhaps try to explain this better or in the next chapter if you write one.
The following chapter explains in more depth who the scrolvs are. Thank you for your comment! It'll help me solidify and explain things in future edits.