Yeah you’re right, I suppose my natural inclination is line by line because of my interest in poetry

A lot of your critiques are basic line edits. We will probably allow it given the depth and length, but going forward that's not really what a critique is about. Its not wrong per say but yeah.

The mother flashback is not a bad idea, but it comes at a bad time. Finding the right time to insert it is important. Right before a huge event in his life like the robe ceremony, for instance. Except it’s followed by the discovery of the water, so it doesn’t feel like good timing. Moving the water discover back should fix this. But just my opinion.

 I agree on pretty much everything, especially these areas

> I don't really get the MC's motivation at all yet.

> if the premise isn't solid

> character are the two things I would hammer down

I will spend a lot of time working and thinking around those key points. Thank you

Also - do you think axing the mother flashback scene is a good idea?

[I will working on changes based largely on your suggestions, thank you](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gh71hegzLuU7wWf5R2aQ1iJTRhqDCuVYAGGxGsfGeOI/edit?usp=sharing)

**First impressions**  
I read the first 3,000 words. I was able to follow along with what was happening and could enjoy the story as you presented it. That's unfortunately hard to find in some places, sometimes. You effectively introduced a slew of things that the reader needs to know. I liked the shape-shifting technology of the house, and how you could simply drop your glass on the floor and it absorbs back into the home. That's what stood out to me the most. I think I understand what the outside looks like, with the ever-looming dome and the maze of... roads/paths/streets (?) in the air above the surface. I like how simple their society seems to be, regarding the colors of the robes and their roles. I had to go back up and look at what each color meant a couple of times, but that's nothing I couldn't learn easily enough as I continued to read. 

I liked the main character and the grandfather. I sense there is a larger perspective and things happening in the universe that the main c

Happy to have share them, it was an enjoyable first chapter.

Yeah moving Reds into a more creative function really helps with differentiating them from Grays, and helps cover a cultural role for the society that wasn't present in the original role description. Black's definitely makes sense for a militant branch as I can think of plenty of other novels that paint soldiers in  that garb. The contrast of Yellows being an excellent and bright color, and Grays being a dreary dull color also helps highlight how you described them in the first chapter. 

I figured that's what it was with Blacks but, yeah commit to the color roles I think it's clear that you're not describing skin color with it and just made it confusing when not everyone was defined by their robes.

Good fix on pointing it out it was on Earth where these water problems are occurring as that wasn't clear originally.

There can be a place for Yellowtocracy certainly but I don't think it's where you had it originally. That fee

Thank you for your comment. It was very interesting to hear your perspective on everything!


You're totally right about the robes. I need to think about how I categorise them more. My main emphasis, at the time of writing, was yellows and greys. There's definitely a lot of thought time needed on that. Blacks soldiers seems pretty comfortable, blue youth, green food/medicine is what I'm aiming for, reds creatives (as you said) is what seems right and yellows are simply... ​excellent. 


You're right about the robe conventions too for how I refer to them. To be honest I was weary because I didn't want to say blacks and have people assume I meant race, but that's just silly of me. I've committed now and made the amendments.


The dome is supposed to encompass the entire city of several million (quite efficiently spaced mind you) people. And the laser war scene was supposed to be on Earth and my lack of clarity on that is a mistake. Thank you for pointing that out to me, invaluable 


Ver

General Good  
  
\+ Dialogue  
Through your story I found the exchanges between Issac, his grandfather, and Silas to be very strong. You imparted weight in the conversations that I thoroughly enjoyed, and even got me to laugh allowed with one of the lines. Besides a few missing capitalization's and grammar errors I saw tagged already in the comments the actually meat of it was very engaging and kept me entertained through the first chapter and made me want to find out more about these characters. The way talked imparted a lot of life and character into them in one short chapter, most especially for Micah.   
  
\+ Establishing relationships  
In a handful of words for both the father and Micah you were able to give the reader a good window into what we could expect for their relationships going forward. I believe it's much better for the story to get background for the story introduced in as little words as possible instead of with large information dumps and you were able to sh

Glad it helped and was understandable! I think you got it on the nose, you just need to study people a little more. That’s my strong suit haha, I like it. If you want to add more depth to a character it’s pretty easy. Think of it’s core values, fears and strengths, life events and make it act accordingly. For instance Isaac would be probably be a bit angrier or scared/disappointed by his father. He’d be a bit more affected by meeting his mother. I pretty much live as the character if I picture a story. I can pretend like I’ve lived my entire life on Mars, grew up with the same conditions, etc, and project who I would be. I imagine childhood events and such. You just need to turn the empathy knob all the way up, and adjust it to where it’s comfortable, if that makes sense.

Your review was very insightful and well articulated, a lot of your thoughts on issues I had in this draft have since been rectified but I would have loved to been saved the pain of figuring out what they were by your review! The issue with the main character being passive and somewhat weak is one I agree on and still want to find solutions too. I think I need to study people more.

> bit too passive, a bit too weak, sort of repels me. I feel like he should have more spunk, in any different way. Maybe he could either feel more deeply, or have a bit more of a backbone. He feels sort of. gloomy for some reason

This is all very true, and in my current revisions I am doing what I can to figure this out. Perhaps it’s a case of writing the main character being the hardest or I need to rethink him altogether.

Also you totally didn’t need to read through the entire draft but thank you nonetheless

This is my first critique so please take that into consideration. Also, english is my second language, so, sorry for spelling mistakes.

General impressions: I enjoyed the story and the atmosphere you were able to project. To be honest, the best way I can sum up how I felt in general is sort of a yo-yo vibe. At some points I found myself really captivated and involved in the story, but at other times something about the writing felt slightly "off" and sort of annoyed me. Not that the writing was bad, but that there were parts that felt like they weren't really "flowing" and where you might have rushed a transition to quickly (for instance, the dialogue with Issaac and his mother felt very abrupt and sudden, and not natural). The way Issac calls his grandfather by his name repeatedly also felt somehow offputting, but I could understand the concept, since Isaac's. father. does not show emotions and martians are supposed to. At first, I had a little trouble with the concept of the robes, 

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