Hi, I'm a bit new here but I'm looking for some constructive criticism on a new story I'm writing. I'm also pretty new at world building and wanted to see what people think about how engaging the first page is and if they would read further or provide any advice on how to make it more engaging if it's not.
Thank you!
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yG_SzFJUnTMrFUxEvQkI5YnATQcxPjYIpvJSCIg2qOA/edit?usp=sharing
Posted Mar 18, 2022, 1:17 AM UTC
I think this opening is fine, an admirable start. But I can tell you're a pretty new writer because it's very trope-heavy and lacks some fundamentals. Let's go over a few.
Troupes
The small golden orb hovers above me, casting its amber glow within the confines of my canopy bed.
Chapter one, line one, is the main character in bed. It's a variation of a narrative starting with a character waking up -- top five most cliche openings in my book. Also, using the news as a method of exposition is on the list, but further down. This isn't technically incorrect, but avid readers will roll their eyes.
Watch out for repeating words in quick succession
Muffled voices rush past me and I grab the orb, muting its light with my hands. I turn it off with a swipe of my thumb, then roll it gently underneath my bed. So many times I have tip-toed across the cavernous hallways, ignoring my cold, bare feet and placing my ear against the thin wooden door of my mother’s office. One….two…three men were inside, most likely discussing the war, with rushed voices and urgency I hadn’t heard in a while.
A lot of new writers tend to repeat words in quick succession. It stems from the desire to get words out. When reading back your word, look out for this.
Awkward word choices
Muffled voices rush past me
“We would need a consensus and right now, everyone is fighting for their own selfish reasons. Fair trading for resources. Water supply. Land rights.”
Pangaea is one big massive land surrounded by torrid, unforgiving waters.
“We need to act now,” one man commands.
I found the highlighted words awkward. When I think of muffled steps or voices, rushing doesn't seem right.
The second sentence is worded in such a way that it could be read that Darren thinks Fair trading rights is a selfish thing to fight for. Fair is not compatible with selfish.
"We need to act now." is more of a demand than a command.
Things that need further explantion
The mountains fork in the north and south creating a barrier in the center of Pangaea, an arid land that is practically unsurvivable. Those who try never come back.
Why does Meridith think it's practically unsurvivable if she knows of no survivors or inhabitants of that land?
Imagine millions of people trying to share a house together.
I'd suggest changing the news clips at the beginning to stories about famine and suffering caused by the war and for Darren to talk about the lack of resources. Otherwise, this implies that Meridith thinks proximity is causing the endless fighting, when these nations are separated by mountains.
“If we can activate it, we can split the land apart, isolate the people that are threatening us. Force a peace,” I hear my mother say. “We can transport all the refugees here and make a new world for ourselves.”
I'm having a hard time accepting this conceit. From what's written so far, Monterra has devices that can project news articles, technology to turn invisible, film, and gasoline. Their plan is to deploy a weapon that will flood enemy territory to the point it becomes an island. The newly created strait can't be that wide, otherwise, Monterra would flood their allies. In a world of gasoline and film the Tenebries couldn't build a bridge, a boat that could survive torrid waters, or develop flight?
Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for in terms of trying to world build but also being realistic about certain things. I will definitely revise!
My advice, join a writing group. Assuming you're serious about seeing your WIP through to the end, you'll need a lot of practice and consistent feedback in order to get this into a readable state. What you have here is a decent start, and that's better than nothing. But your writing comes across as very amateurish, and there are far too many issues within it to note down in a single comment. To be honest, you'll likely need to gut this entire chapter and start from the ground up, but that's how the writing process goes.
Now don't consider this as a slight against you. Every writer starts off in the same place you are now. No one knows how to write until they do, and that takes work. A lot of work.
Try not to let anyone's critiques kill your motivation either. Critiques are how you learn where you're going wrong and how you can improve. Receiving feedback on your writing on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis through a writing group is, in my opinion, the best way to hone your craft.
I know this isn't the kind of feedback you were necessarily looking for, but the answers you'd receive from what you've provided probably aren't the answers you would have wanted.
Good luck!
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Why does she call it an orb? It doesn’t have a more specific noun? The guy who invented it didn’t give it a name? You just describe it by its geometry. That’s like if the television was just called “the cube”, or the smartphone just being “the small rectangular prism”. I think it should have a name. “Viewing sphere”, or “looking ball”.
And the images are described as being on the orb’s surface? That seems like it would distort the image. In a crystal ball, the visions are usually depicted as being three dimensional, and appearing in the center of the ball.
This sentence did not lead me to understand that she was currently walking to her mother’s office door right now. I had to figure it out later.
Is this meant to imply that we have an unreliable narrator? Was it really Colonel Tibolt?
And then the next three paragraphs, starting with “We, the Montineens,” is just a pure exposition dump. You are literally just telling the reader some dry world history in the middle of your story. It doesn’t flow well.
Character saying things like “yea” and “combo”, and “fuck consensus”, and talking about some adults secretly kissing, make this seem like it was written by a very young author.
How did some big armored smelly dude sneak up on her? He was standing there long enough to listen to the mother’s plan?