Published December 30, 2011
The prime minister cleared his throat and stared at the papers in front of him. The dark circles under his weary eyes revealed how hectic these past days had been. He was obliged to take part in briefing after briefing and knowing how easily he could get fired, Mr. Yallov didn’t complain about the long hours. He looked at the huge group of parents in the cityhall and nervously straightened his tuxedo. This wasn’t going to be easy.
The group quieted down when he greeted them in an awkward and formal way. Mr. Yallov had always prefered sitting behind his desk but today there really was no other option. All the other ministers had been sent to Yarutsk to fix what the president of The World Commision (TWC) had ruined by opening another labour camp. The thought behind it was to transport all the criminals to these camps so that the people would feel saver in their homecountry. Unfortunately for them, these camps made the people doubt the humanity of TWC and they started protesting on the streets.
Mr. Yallov quickly went through his papers one last time and focussed on the high-lighted sentences.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I want to thank you all for coming here today”, He cleared his throat again and tried to ignore the fact that they had been obliged to come. “As you know, TWC has been searching for ways to make this World community function perfectly. No crime, no corruption, no poverty and just keep on going like that. Some of these attempts have not succeeded in a way we hoped they would but most of them have been giving us great results. Motivated by these results and by the will to make this World a better place for you, we have decided to start with a new program. It’s called -The Preperating Youth Program-.”
The prime minister was forced to pause in his speech as the crowd started to shout their disagreements. He had expected their protest but his hands started to softly shake none the less. Mr. Yallov tried to calm them down but it took a gunshot from an impatient guard for them to remain quiet.
“The youth is our future, they always have been. That’s why the TWC has decided to focus on them. The youth will be brought to special facilities called ‘Youth Camps’. In these facilities they will learn everything that they need to know. They will become motivated and disciplined and will help us with achieving a better future. There are over a million camps all over the World, each for a certain group of age. This way we will be able to give the kids exactly what they need at that particular age.”
Mr. Yallov spoke for another twenty minutes about the camps and sighed relieved when he finally left the cityhall without any injuries.
The people would get used to this new program too. They really didn’t have a choice anyway.
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.
140,699 Literary Works • 673,669 Reviews
Hi qara-pie! 8D
So I'm sure I've read this chapter a while back, but never really got to review it. And now that I have all your chapters, I can promptly give you those much deserved reviews. ^.^
Introduction
The first two paragraphs for me set what needs to be highlighted and show us a certain setting where we get the idea of how this story is going to take place. Mr. Yallov seems like a poor soul who probably needs to take a much needed rest from his tiresome job. I like how you started this with the first paragraph because it's made me form a certain sympathy with that character and to grasp that much within just the first few lines is admirable. Having said that, I would personally have preferred that you add in more atmosphere to the mix of the first paragraph. Speak about how the hot weather wasn't doing much help for him and his state or describe how the scene looked from the stage and other mundane things like that so I can soak up in the background and the environment.
The second paragraph could perhaps use some more tweaking. The first line here says that, 'The group quieted down when he greeted them in an awkward and formal way.' Here, there's some lack of description and one can only but just understand that there was awkwardness and formality in the greeting. But how did he actually greet the people? What made it look like it was awkward and formal? You could maybe be more explicit in the ways of conveying these actions. I liked how you brought in elements of the plot here too and made the story graduate by talking about the TWC and about the protests, again, in so few lines, but yet nothing to be missed out on. ^.^
The Level Of Conflict
Now, we see that there's a lot for the reader and the upcoming characters to be upset about during the course of the story. That atmosphere of the crowds outwardly protesting was nicely portrayed, but it was very brief and didn't really that much of an impact. You could perhaps talk more about certain people in the crowds who managed to throw slippers at the PM and getting kicked out by the guards or having there been recurring interferences by certain individuals in the crowd during the speech and things. It would create that much of a mood for there to bring out feels from the readers, y'know? And I could only sense a little hint of that here so I thought it could use some more.
And I understand the way you've tried to portrayed the TWC's decision of letting the criminals reside in the public camps as being a bad move and having them all protest against them. And if the public was so convincing in its protest of not allowing that, why would it not work for them again to protest against the new program too? Was there some sort of blackmailing regime set up by the government or have people become to weak to fight back any more? Perhaps a little more expansion on this would do some good. *nods*
Overall
I really like this prologue. And it's nice that it's short too and doesn't make it difficult for me to understand much. It's straight-forward and puts up quite well with interpreting what's going on. I'm looking forward to the next chapter and all the chapters that occur after too! This novel seems very interesting. Keep the ink flowing, qara-pie!
Murtuza
Qeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenguin! Hi!
So sorry for taking a while after I said I'd check it out. But I'm here anyway!
My first impression: Wow! This is rather intriguing. You've made the TWC seem sinister so early. It reminds me a lot of the Nazi camps. Is it anything like that? I wonder. I'm definitely intrigued and I'll probably read on.
Anyway, I've only found one typo.
Cityhall should have a space between 'city' and 'hall'.
So, apart from that, I really don't have much to say! I totally agree with Misty about there being more detail. That for me was just the only bit that lacked here. The thoughts of the character in that quote I pointed out earlier would be really interesting.
I do have a question though:
You know when you say parents, will there be any MPs? (Members of Parliament. Like Members of Senate in the USA etc. I don't know the political system in Holland though.)
But that's it really! Well done! Keep Writing,
*huggles*
-Ducks
Hey Qara,
Nice prologue! After reading the first Chapter and realising afterwards (typical me) that there was a prologue, I had to read it. And although it has explained quite a bit to me, it's not answered everything straight away. There are still lots of questions to be answered and I love that. Now I'll just cling on to my desk while reviewing this until I can find the next chapter and discover what happens next!
This isn't going to be a particularly long review, but I'll try and make a few points about what I thought of this. I liked it, and it definitely kept me interested. I love how the TWC are beginning to seem quite sinister over the first two parts of the story.
Honestly, I can't think of all that much that you need to improve with this. My only suggestion would perhaps be to add a bit more detail -- I'd love to know more about the setting, the characters' thoughts, and the story in general. Then again, you wouldn't want to give too much away in the prologue.
There was just one tiny mistake I noticed in the line above -- it should be "All the other ministers had been sent" rather than "All the ministers had been send". I'm pretty sure that's just a typo, though.
Overall, I love this and I want to know where it's going! I'd love more detail, too, but it's already great as it is.
(I'll be reading the next few chapters soon, just because I'm so on edge to find out what happens.)
~Misty~
Okay so I haven't been on latley, and just stunbled across this. I'll admit I almost didn't read the rest after the first paragraph, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Thank gosh I did too! It's a good start. There are a lot of things out like this at the moment(heck I'm even writing one) about futuristic socities. I think it is because we, humanity as a whole, are wondering what's going to happen. There are a lot of problems e.g. global warming, overpopulation, oil food and water shortages etc. but I think this is promosing and I'm going to read chapter one now!
- Panda.