Young Writers Society

I took the original off of this site! sorry!

Hi! I'm Teardrop. First of all I thought this was a good start and has a lot of potential. However, it could have used some editing and a lot of detail/emotion.



Okay, so you kind of just take your reader straight into the middle, so to say, without really introducing your plot. But, you wouldn't want to just dump a paragraph or two describing your plot, but as of right now the reader has no clue what's going on. Maybe you could sprinkle a bit more about this in here, or keep that in mind in the next few chapters.

-By the way, I'm sorry if this is harsh, really, I think this is really good!

Overall, I think you have a good, complex plot. Keep up the good work! Keep writing!

~Tear

This has potential. But I think there are a couple things you could do to make it better.

I'm not sure about your first few lines. I mean, the idea is good, though 'waking up' is used a lot. The commonness of this theme isn't what I have a problem with, though, because I think it'll be fine as long as you do it well. The part that makes me pause is the redundancy of these first few lines. "My eyes snap open and I'm awake." We already know he's awake if his eyes are open. "The room is dark. No lights are on." Obviously. Maybe this is just how the character talks, and you're trying to do something with the style of narrative or something, but so many lines saying exactly the same things doesn't really grip me. Maybe they'd work later on, but with them being the first words that I see in this... I'm not really gripped yet.

He can't sit up straight. So is there a ceiling to this walled-in bed, too? Because sitting up straight doesn't require much horizontal movement.

"No lights are on... The only light in the small space..." So there's only one light. Why did he say lights plural earlier?

"The door to the room slides up when it’s time to work and the bed slides out into the changing area.
It’s a while until work I’d guess... finally I lay flat on my back and stare into the darkness until Work Call...
I lay flat on my back as the door slides open and the little mat that they say is a bed slides out into the Change Room." Not only are these sections a little repetitive, they're also a bit confusing. I think you can cut out the first sentence I've quoted entirely. We'll see the door slide open and the bed slide out later on, when it actually happens. For now, he can just make a brief mental allusion to Work Call, and we'll be able to piece it together as we go. We already know that he's laying flat on his back, so you don't need to say that again. I was confused when you called the bed a mat, because I don't picture a mat being surrounded by walls. Are there still walls around him, or did they retract when the door slid open, or what? I can't really picture what's happening here very well, because to my way of thinking I've got two conflicting images in my head.

Oh. So this is a girl? :/

If this norm culture is trying to make everybody the same, giving them the uniforms and all that other stuff, when why let them have different haircuts? Shouldn't they all have the bob, or a short cropped look, or something to further take away their individuality? I don't picture these girls going into the norm salon and picking out their favorite styles, or having much free time to do something themselves.

"All of them…except me." Here we go. Conflict! Plot! Intrigue! Up until now it's just been your generic, grey-wearing slave society serving the oppressive leaders because they don't know any better, but this line gives us our first hint that all is not as it seems. Our MC isn't a normal norm, and that makes us want to keep reading.

That said, the story up until now hasn't been that gripping, nor has the narrative. Is there a way you can give us a hint of this earlier? Some kind of interaction with the black-haired norm, or some inner thoughts or dialogue that show us our MC isn't exactly what we would've expected based on the people that surround her? You need to grab us from the very beginning, and hold us until we get sucked into the story.

In conclusion, I think this has some potential. I'd like more of a hook at the very beginning, more emotion, more show and less tell, less info-dumping, maybe a little more of a hint about why she and she alone is different. Obviously, if this is a novel, you're going to have a lot of time to tell us how she got to this point. But right now, I don't know if she's a spy, or if the memory-altering device thingy malfunctioned or has no effect on her, or if she's a royal who's had to flee for her life and hide among the normals... You've given us a handful of lines that hint at the plot of the story, but they're few and far inbetween. Right now, I don't know much about what's going on and I haven't formed enough of a connection with your main character to even care. :/

Keep writing. :]