I have to agree, that you compress a lot of historical information into a rather short first chapter. The details of the rebellion may well be very important, in which case you could use Kylan's idea and instead of telling us about what happened to Carlos and his brother, write about it. It could be in third person or even from Ramon's point of view. That would be interesting and that way you could convey the emotion and the tragedy of the situation even better.
Also, I think some more description would be nice but so far, this looks like it's going to be an interesting novel and as for genre, I don't think it's science fiction and action/ adventure fiction seems about right, especially if you have a battle in it later. Anyway, other than that I have just a few specific suggestions -
Eager to escape the confusion, I log on to my computer to check my MySpace.
One reads: “Have you seen him?”
Suppressed tears rise up. Soon I am bawling into my mahogany desk. Why did this have to happen? Why a rebellion? We want them to have freedom, but not like this. There are better ways to solve issues; unfortunately violence was chosen due to its celerity and the impatience of the radicals. [I agree that this needs work. The word bawling really doesn't fit and it's all much too dramatic and on the verge of info dumping. Perhaps something like 'Suppressed tears rise up. Soon, I am weeping, the warm droplets of water spilling across my mahogany desk. How could this have happened? Was freedom really worth the lives of so many? The radicals certainly seemed to think so.']
The minute he found out about the NR he must have thrown what little clothes he owned into his tattered school bag, with bike chains and old combination locks attached, and caught the first boat out, 90 [I'd change this to ninety.] miles south, to the chaotic center of the uprising.
They were the first to sail out of the harbor, past the docked cruse ships, under the 7 [Again, it's best to write the numbers out in words.] mile bridge, and well [s]past[/s] beyond all signs of our territory.
Other than that, I think it might be an idea to translate the Spanish at the top? Or at least give the reader a vague idea of what it means. I mean, I can see that it's not necessary (my knowledge of Spanish can just about stretch that far ) but readers get curious and some might even go in search of a Spanish dictionary, thinking they're missing out on some real important part of the story.
Overall, work on adding more description and such but you have a good base for a novel here and I shall certainly read more.
Points: 6235
Reviews: 2631
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