Young Writers Society

Chapter 1




Loc ran through the streets, the streetlights casting a glow all around him. He was about six feet tall, with long, shoulder-length blond hair. He didn’t usually run out of breath but it had been a while. He figured that he was at a safe distance to take a break, so he stopped to take a breath.


Loc barely had thirty seconds to rest when he saw something jump off the gray office building in front of him. It was a man with long, black hair, wearing a t-shirt and jeans with small rips and holes. There were cracks in the concrete around where he landed.


“Come here Loc,” he said in a luring voice.

Loc then realized who, or rather what, this was. He was no human, no matter how human he looked. He was just a bunch of scrap metal put together. The metal man looked at Loc and saw the recognition in his eyes. Well, its cover was blown.


It pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Loc to take aim. Loc turned around and sprinted off down the sidewalk, his fists pumping. He heard gunshots but didn’t look back. He turned into a dark alleyway in-between to abandoned buildings. They both looked like apartments. He climbed up a metal ladder that led into second story window. He busted the dirty glass with ease and climbed inside.


It looked like a normal living room. A couch, a TV, and a chair. Loc saw a kitchen in the next room. Everything had a thick layer of dust on it and Loc knew why. No one had been here for the past year. It was all because of the metal men. They had taken over. They had forced everyone to leave their homes and go to the center of the city. But Loc had escaped. He wondered whose idea it had been to program the metal men with a mind of their own. He also wondered who had been high enough in the ranks to make it happen.


Loc heard footsteps in the hallway and tensed up. He ducked behind the couch for cover. He thought he heard the footsteps go past the apartment he was in, so he waited about a minute and stood up. The metal man stood right in front of him, the pistol pointed in Loc’s face. A figure crept in behind the metal man. They were dressed in all black, wearing a ski mask over their face.


The stranger pointed a gun at the metal man’s head and said “Drop the gun.” A woman’s voice. The metal man made to swirl around, but it was too late. The woman pulled the trigger and the metal man fell. There were wires sticking out of the back of its head. Yep, it sure was a metal man. Loc turned to the woman.


“Thanks,” he said, though that didn’t cover it. The woman then pointed the gun at Loc. But Loc didn’t have anyone to save him.

His pursuer popped out of a dark alleyway in front of him. It was a robot.

Sorry, but it's just weird to have an odd bit of information thrown in like that. You should ease your way into revealing it was a robot. For example, you could make it all longer, maybe into a chase seen. Have the robot do inhuman things like jumping off a building and being okay, make the main character notice red eyes or something, have him damage it, revealing circuitry, etc (For those to work, though, you'll havfe to make the robot appear human (and if you do that it will sound better if you call it an android instead of a robot)).

He turned around knowing when he was defeated and started walking, the gun jammed into his chest.

Okay, earlier you said the robot appeared in front of him. After their talk he turned around, so why would the gun jam into his chest? It would be his back.

Okay, here are my problems with this.
1) It went way too fast and I felt as if I'd just been thrown into the story. In my opinion you need to extend the beginning to a decent sized chase. And draw everything out.

2) Describe the world around the character more. I don't think you described anybody or anything but the main character. Describe buildings, characters, changes in the terrain, etc.

3) Nothing lasted long enough to grip me. It literally went from chase, to escape, to becoming a part of the resistence in a matter of moments. Lengthen it out. I'd even leave out the part about the resistence until a bit later in the story.

4) I felt as if you were just saying things to get them out in the open so you could use them later without confusion. This is fine if the situation calls for it, but you must follow them up. For example:

“Why aren’t they talking?” he asked. She held a finger up to her lips and led him through the people to a back room. The room was small and Loc’s claustrophobia kicked in. The woman gestured to a chair and Loc sat down, glad to get a rest. The woman sat in a chair opposite him.

First you mention his claustrophobia, but you don't let the effects show. You even say he's glad about sitting down, which paints the picture that he's happy at the moment. Anyway, no offense, but claustrophobia doesn't feel right for this character. I'ts like you read a writing tutorial that told you that your character needs flaws, and you just picked a random one. If this were a story about a boy with a bunch of fears who becomes brave through some adventure than it would work, but this is a guy who's fighting in the resistence. It's just weird. If you must give him a flaw make him a drunk or something. Maybe even give him an old injury that affects his combat. This an #4 are both up to you to change since it's your story. I'm mainly pointing them out to you so that you may be ready for it in the future.

5) I think the fact that you have the robots able to hear people talking from across the city will damage your story. Whether you'll hurt your story just to keep it applied, or you'll forget about some situations, which will create a lapse in logic. For example: If he were fighting a robot and took a chance to hide there would be no way for him to stay hidden since at that range the robot would be able to hear every breath he takes. Having this could also damage perfect dialog situations, so if I were you I'd not use it. Once again, this is not necessary since it's your story, but I'd suggest it.

6) Didn't the leader of the resistence trust him too quickly? She just kind of took his name then brought him in.

7) I think you should use more time to tell us about your character since all we know is that he's buff and thinking about joining the resistence

Overall: I think you could go somewhere with this. Despite the harsh review above, don't worry. I'm just picky. You've actually got a good start here, and I think you'll be able to pull this off. (And I really like the future robot vs human stuff). Anyway, keep it up. If you have any questions feel free to PM me.

Thanks for reviewing. I'm going to try and revise it today or Thursday so check back soon!

The man had barely had thirty seconds to rest when he heard a loud BOOM from behind him. He turned quickly to see a man behind him with knees bent as if he had just landed a jump, which he had. The cement sidewalk around this man was now cracked.

Just a little thing. Get rid of the 'which he had' part. It ruins it a little.

It didn’t look like the man weighed much, so the jump must have been from high up. The closest building was about ten stories high and a simple gray office building. It looked to be the building that the man jumped off of.

Okay, here's another thing you shouldn't have done. You put in too much effort to point out that he'd jumped off a building. This disrupts the flow of the story. If I were you I'd have him see it happen.

Other than that? Bravo, man. This was ten times better. And I loved how you made the resistence more realistic by having them treating Loc in such a way. For those who haven't read the other version will now be wondering who these people are and are they friend or foe. Overall good job. I also liked how you changed the title of the bad guys from plain old 'robots' and switched it to the less used, yet better 'metal men.'

Just two little things:
1) At the beginning of the story you don't have to refer to Loc as 'the man'. Since he's the main character it's not necessary for someone to say his name before you use it in your writing.
2) At the end, when the metal man has the gun pointed at Loc and those people come and save him, stretch it out longer to apply suspense. Even if you just have one string of dialog coming from the metal man it will be okay. Like you could have him say the common thing, "Any last words?" and then they come out and kill it. Or whatever else you want. It doesn't even need to be dialog.

Alright, good luck with the rest of the story.

Hey Toomak!

The man ran through the streets, the streetlights casting a glow all around him. He was about six feet tall, with long, shoulder-length blond hair, [s]and big muscular arms[/s].

It's rather awkward to read descriptions like this, attached onto the paragraph after mentioning the character. Try rewriting this, incorporating the description into the action. Example: "The man ran through the streets, his blonde hair alight around his shoulders; the streetlights cast a glow all around him." And I simply don't need to know about his muscles. I can gather he's strong about things he does throughout the storyline.

He didn’t usually run out of breath [s]while running[/s] but it had been a while

His long, black hair was now ruffled up and his simple outfit which consisted of a t-shirt and jeans had rips and holes in them.

"which consisted of" is an awkward phrase in writing. Try: "and his simple outfit, a t-shirt and jeans, now had rips and holes in them".

It [s]then[/s] pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Loc to take aim

.
This should be a new paragraph here.

Okay, as a writer, you're going to start hearing a lot about this and it may get annoying, but it's something you really need to keep in mind while writing:

Don't tell - show.

You tell. To help explain what I mean, I'm going to use this example: to tell would be to say, "He ran fast down the road." Okay, you told me - I get the idea. But it's better to read - and more fun to write - when you SHOW. Which would be this: "His feet pounded on the asphalt of the road, his legs pumping fiercely underneath him; he could hardly catch his breath".

The difference there is that vivid imagery is given. Instead of someone telling me that he was running, I can really get a good image of my head of this. I'm being shown the image, rather than being told.

Get it?

It really helps in writing if you follow this one rule. If you show us, throughout this piece, rather than tell, the imagery will dazzle my brains. I'll be able to truly see these characters and this world you've set up.

This has potential. You need to work on the descriptions, and I think you should, and then keep going.

I hope this helped! PM me if you have any questions! C:

~ Clo

This is going to be short because everyone caught the changes that need to be made. I liked the idea behind the story but I do have a problem with the way the robot was introduced. Here's an idea:

As Loc was running, why not have the robot catch up to him and throw him on the ground.


This was just my idea. The word robot is a bit generic. Why not come up with a different one for the group.

One more thing. The woman. How did she know that the robot was a robot? How did she know where Loc was?

Anywho, I thought it was good for a start. I'd like to read more.

I'd continue writing if I were you. Robots VS Humans is nothing new, but you it may possible to make the story interesting without overusing cliches. I don't know all the details of your story, as I've only read one chapter, but if you haven't already, you might want to "twist" some cliches. I think with a revision the chapter should be sufficient. As was mentioned, your writing does need to be fixed a little, but that's very common in drafts. Also, bad writing habits tend to disappear with experience, or so I think. With a rewrite the story should be good.