Young Writers Society

Shawn woke up with a throbbing pain in his forehead and to the sound of a rumbling engine and wheels scraping against rough sand. As his eyes adjusted to the dark interior of what appeared to be a trunk, he saw the metal sides of a van. He shifted his weight in an attempt to sit up, but his arms, which were, apparently, asleep, refused to cooperate. He groaned from the exertion, but was finally able to sit up. “Good afternoon, Shawn. I hope my associate didn’t hurt you too badly. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. He has been—how do you say it—taken care of.”
“What do you want from me?” Shawn yelled. “You are valuable to my organization. You will see what is in store for you when we get to the compound.”
For the next two hours, he looked and listened for signs that would give him a clue as to where he was. Then sand ruled out tons of places, and because of their Asian accents, he had to assume that he was somewhere in Asia. North Korea wouldn’t be nearly bold enough to kidnap an American citizen. South Korea was on friendly terms with the U.S. China was brave, but they weren’t stupid enough to mess with America. That left Japan. Japan was also on friendly terms with the U.S., but the man had said something about an organization. Now the only question was what did they want with Shawn?
Before Shawn could even begin to think of an answer, the van stopped. He heard four doors open and shut. Then the backs doors opened and Shawn was instantly blinded. He heard the man say “Shawn, time to meet the members of our prestigious organization.”
He motioned behind him and two men went to grab Shawn. Shawn, still blind, felt two hands grip either of his arms. He tried wiggling his way slowly out of their grasp, and when this didn’t work, he tried a different tactic. He made himself go limp. “What happened?” one of the man asked. They laid Shawn on the sand and he felt one of the men taking his pulse. He suddenly opened his eyes and lashed out with a vicious punch to the face. He felt the man’s nose break. He leapt up and started running. He got about five steps when he got tackled from behind. He picked Shawn up off the ground and asked “Where were you going to go? There isn’t another town for 15 miles!”
Shawn let himself get carried inside what the other man had called “the compound”. Before long, the man turned into a room with gray, blank walls and set him into a cold metal chair. “Wait here” the other man said. Then the two men walked out.
A few minutes later, an Asian women in her mid-thirties walked in. “So you are Shawn McAcvoy. I have heard quite a lot about you.” she said. Shawn eyed the sword on her belt. “So you admire my katana? Let me show you what it can do.” She smoothly pulled her sword out and cut off a stray lock of his hair. “I bet you are wondering exactly why you are here. Your great-grandfather, Scott McAcvoy, was a Scottish general. He became sick with what the world had become. He travelled to Japan because he heard that we had some of the world’s most ruthless warriors. He trained and became a samurai. He created this organization is pursuit of his original goal. This goal was to rid the world of weak and useless people. This is part of the reason why it is called KATANA. It is an organization you will soon be a part of.”
“I don’t want to become a part of some sick, twisted society bent on killing everyone.” Shawn said. “Not everyone, just—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. The ‘weak and stupid people’. This is the part where you threaten me, right? Well it won’t work. I have nothing now. You already killed Katherine.” he said.
“Killed her? She’s right here.” Suddenly, a wall next to the woman opened up to reveal, of all things, Katherine. Her eyes went wide when she saw Shawn. “Shawn! You’re here!” She tried to run to Shawn, but the Asian woman grabbed arm. “Now. Join us, or she dies.” Shawn was still reeling over the news that Katherine was still alive. He knew he couldn’t bear to see her die again. “O-okay. I will.” he said.
“Shawn? Shawn! What are you doing?” Katherine cried. “I can’t bear to see you die again.” he said, his head down, staring at the floor.”
“On to your first test then.” the woman said.

You caught my attention right away with Shawn in the van and not knowing where he was. Your story was easy to read but I beg you to put an extra line between each paragraph and when a another person speaks start a new paragraph. Example- ""What do you want from me?" Shawn yelled. "You are valuable to my oraganization. You will see what is in store for you once we get to the compound."" What you should've said was-
"What do you want from me?" Shawn yelled.
Start a new paragraph here. I had to reread because I thought Shawn was the one talking about the compound at first!
"You will see what is in store for you once we get to the compound."
Most people would probably be freaking out more but Shawn kept his for the most part. I'm not sure if you should change that or not but it really depends on Shawn's personality. I liked your story and I wonder how excatly the KATANA destroy 'the weak and stupid people.' It had the right amount of action and a hook that makes you want more. Keep writing and welcome to the YWS. I hope you like it here.

Hello.

I agree with Sannah about the formatting; this would be much easier to follow if the dialogue was properly formatted, with a new paragraph for every person speaking.

As for the dialogue itself, it needs a lot of work. You basically have the bad guys telling your protagonist their plan in the introduction. My only question on that choice is: why? If I were kidnapping somebody, I'd give them as little info as possible until they were very safely under guard, so they truly had no choice in doing anything about it and they had to just go along with it. Cars have this tendency to not be the safest places to store somebody, as they're designed to be escapable. Especially if the character is unrestrained, which your guy seems to be. (Which begs the question, why doesn't he work on finding an escape instead of figuring out where he is?)

The guy speaking seems to want to get on Shawn's good side. But that's not explored. And if he is trying to get on your MC's good side, why aren't they there to make him feel comfortable? In fact, where are there, and how do they know he's even awake? If he has no sightline to the front of the vehicle then he's essentially in a metal box that'd be semi-soundproof, if not completely soundproof. There's no setting established for his direct surroundings, which should be the first priority. If he's trying to figure out where he is for two hours and all he can see are the metal insides of a van (he'd barely be able to see them until his eyes adjusted to the dark— please mention if it's dark or not) and he's hearing voices from somewhere outside the box he's currently in, then where in the world is that description? You have a bad case of talking heads here, and as the article says, talking heads can very quickly confuse the reader especially when there is no previously established setting to fall back on.

Also, the accents. 1- The countries you listed are not the only countries in Asia. There is India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, and every other country on this map to consider. 2- An accent does not equal the country you are in. An Oriental accent (which is the proper term for what you're listing) can be found in several places across North America and most likely Europe as well. If you want to show your character's ignorance through him only using those countries and being proven wrong, be my guest. But at this rate it looks like he'll be proven right that he's in Asia, so he should be much more educated on the matter than he currently is. If he'd been in Asia already (which didn't seem to be the case) then how in the world did he get there? Knock-outs for extended periods of time are very dangerous and can result in brain damage if the person is out for too long. They are also very long to wake up from and you almost certainly have a concussion and the resulting symptoms, which the link lists. If a tranquilizer was used, he'd need constant monitoring and it's likely the dose used would kill him or make him a bit woozy; the ideal zone of "safe sleep" is very hard to get and why anesthesiologist is a specialized form of doctor that tends to get paid a lot.

Overall, please please please do more thinking on the idea. It might be interesting, but right now everything is so blatant and reads as so unrealistic (why would a crime boss [which is basically what your villain is] talk to the character? How would he talk to the character, if they're not in the same part of the van together? Why does he automatically assume Asia from just accents that are only a small fraction of what Asian accents are, and usually distinguishable from each other [Chinese sounds different than Japanese, for example]?) that I cannot get into it. The lack of description does not help matters at all. If your character is in the dark and bound so he can't see past a certain space, mention that. If he's looked around the van and only then settled for "there is no escape" then mention that. If he feels it'd be suicide to try and escape, then you're probably picking up a pattern here, mention that.

You seem to be so determined to get to the main plot you're not taking the time to slow down and ground readers in this world. We have no setting, no backstory, no connection to the character (easy to slip in; once he starts describing things and thinking about his situation, you're on your way to creating a connection. Add in his thoughts on the matter and why he's behaving the way he is, and you've got yourself an actual flesh and blood character instead of the current narrator who only seems to exist so things can happen to him and he'll react a certain way because that's what you, the author, wants, instead of thinking about what he'd actually do and why) no nothing past a few random snippets of things that don't make much sense.

Ground your readers in a current situation through description, and let them have a flesh and blood character to connect with and follow this plot with, so this story is entertaining and worth reading past chapter 1.

Drop me a line if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey