A friend and I are working together on what we plan to turn into a novel. It's a tale about you, a member of a motorcycle club, and.. Well, you'll have to read to find out.
You can find it here.
You can leave me tips/comments here, or on the website itself. Anyhting would be appreciated!
Life is a party.
You are not invited.
This is a good start to a story, it catches and hold the attention. Your writing is good but there are some issues I would like to point out.
The choice to use a second person perspective is interesting, as it's the hardest perspective to use effectively. It works reasonably well in this first chapter, but you need to be hyper aware of what the protagonist does and doesn't know, see and hear. When the man comes up to check on Kat her vision is blurry and she seems not to recognize him, but she can clearly recognize that he rides a Harley. This may be okay as I assume Kat is a motorcycle person and may be able to tell models of bikes by their engine noises, but as Kat is the reader and the reader may not know they know the difference between motorcycles by sound it's something you need to watch out for. This is one of the challenges of second person perspective, gently feeding your protagonist the info they need.
An example of gently giving this info could be something like: "...as does a loud, deep rumbling noise of an old Harley Big-Twin engine, that shakes the ground as it gets closer."
I'm not a motorcycle expert so you may need to change the engine type, but that little bit of detail lets the reader know what they should know. Look through your writing and see what you absolutely need the protagonist to know, but that they might not know. Then, see where you can gently give information without it sounding like you are talking down to the reader. Try to avoid the phrase, "As you know," when writing a second person narrative as it almost always sounds like you are talking down to the reader (you haven't used it yet, it's just a heads up.)
Secondly, you switch tenses a bit, especially in the first paragraph. Look at this example from your story:
"The voice shouts angrily, choking on sobs as it does. A peaceful, yet eerie light was cast from the giant sphere far above the world."
The first part with the voice is present tense, "shouts" and "choking" are both happening in the moment. Whereas the eerie light "was cast" meaning it happened at some point in the past, making it past tense. Pick a tense (I suggest present tense for a second person narrative) and then go through your story and make sure all your verbs are in the same tense. By the way, having all verbs be in one tense is called "tense agreement", so you know if someone comments on this in the future.
Third, make sure that you know what your sentences are trying to say and make sure they say it in the best way possible. For example in your story you say:
"You watch as a blurred bald man steps off of the Harley he had arrived on."
This is a clunky way to word this action. The part, "he had arrived on," is totally unnecessary unless he might have gotten on another Harley after he arrived and then stepped off of it. This can be more simply and clearly written as "You watch as a blurred bald man steps off his Harley." Go through and look at each sentence as a unit unto itself and make sure it makes sense... If you need more help with this let me know!
Last, the use of 'male' and 'female' seems strange. Man and woman, dude and chick, guy and girl, there are so many ways to say the gender of a person, and each way of referring to a gender says something about the person speaking. Male and female are fairly clinical terms, especially when referring to people.
As an example look at the following lines, they both say the same thing but vastly different people would say them.
"I lost myself in the crowd of humans, males and females milling about me, successfully concealing my identity"
"I lost myself in the crowd of people, men and women milling about me, successfully concealing my identity"
Also if you want it to be even more interesting describe the person instead of referring to them by gender, so you show us that it's a man or woman without having to say it.
"Is that Tramps?" A male.
Becomes
"Is that Tramps?" asks a low gravely voice full of concern.
Okay so that's it. I really liked your writing and I see a lot of potential, so please don't take the critique too personally! If I comment on a post it's because I see potential and want to see that potential fully realized! Good luck and I look forward to chapter two.
Also if you need more help feel free to message me!
Please take any criticism as helpful advice not an attack. I wouldn't have taken the time to reply if I didn't like your post!
At 11/11/13 07:59 PM, elreybon wrote: _
Thanks for the critique~
I'm working on "gently feeding" info to the reader, like you mentioned. It's in the back of my head, I usually go back later and make sure things like that make sense.
And god, I drive people CRAZY with the way I switch tenses. I do it without even thinking- It's all meant to be in the present tense. I'll fix it in a bit.
I get whatcha mean by making sure they make sense.
And ya, I see what you mean by the male and female thing. Sort of did it on purpose, as that's how the character thinks. I haven't really opened up the main character at all in the short bit I put out, but if it still seems odd after I give her more depth, I'll change it up a bit.
Thanks!
Life is a party.
You are not invited.
I've done most of the edits on paper. I'll be changing them where it's posted this weekend, and might put up another page.
Life is a party.
You are not invited.
