Struggling and Surviving (A Work In Progress)

[kbmusiclover]

You can see it in my signature, and the explanation is in my profile, but I'll explain it anyway. It's fundamentally a writing project in which I was given premade characters and am writing a story based around those characters. Constructive criticism would be nice; everybody I've shown it to has given naught but raves and quite frankly I'm growing tired of not getting any constructive (but not deconstructive, please!) criticism.

 

[WriterJohnB]

kb,

It's good writing, but I found it a bit choppy, and it needs some proofreading. "living their carefree, unfathomably young life" (lives)
I found it unbelievable that a doctor would shoot someone to ask him what he was doing, and I think most people would recognize their brother even from behind. The beginning of ch. 4 jarred me, since we're all of a sudden presented with an omniscient narrator and a seemingly unrelated story. You're telling us something is about to happen, why not just "show" us with action as you had been doing?

And I don't know what this is:

“Ooh, close shot, Mari.”

Ashe’s words of encouragement did nothing to soothe her friend’s savage breast as one of the bullets glazed Mari’s cheek. Mari felt this no place for words of encouragement, nor for that matter any words at all.

Is Ashe complimenting Mari on her shooting? But Mari is the one getting shot. (and it should be "grazed," rather than "glazed," shouldn't it?) Do they shoot at police cadets in your world of 2009 during training?

My problem is with the motivation behind your character's actions. When somebody shoots out the window of a cop, she yells, "Hey?" That response seems rather lame. Then she picks the bullet off her dashboard and drives nonchalantly away? Things like that would make me stop reading.

So you didn't get a rave this time, but it's definitely good and the problems are easily fixed. Hope this is helpful crit.

Take care,

JohnB

 

[kbmusiclover]

Yes, that criticism is actually very helpful, and let me address a couple of your questions.

I found it unbelievable that a doctor would shoot someone to ask him what he was doing, and I think most people would recognize their brother even from behind.

I guess what I was doing with that was trying to present the society that they lived in. I should have probably picked a year later than 2009, more like 2013, in order to make the differences in the societies seem more realistic. And the motivation behind shooting the guy was that he didn't know who he was (hadn't seen his brother for awhile), and he thought it was one of the Comatose (who will be explained later). It'll be explained later why he'd want to shoot one of the Comatose first and ask questions later.

Do they shoot at police cadets in your world of 2009 during training?

Indeed they do; the training for the police can be lethal. A liberty I'm taking, to be sure, but it is a plot point, because there have been many large scale terrorist attacks. Note that this is not a political commentary at all, they're just some liberties I'm taking with the modern world.

My problem is with the motivation behind your character's actions. When somebody shoots out the window of a cop, she yells, "Hey?" That response seems rather lame. Then she picks the bullet off her dashboard and drives nonchalantly away? Things like that would make me stop reading.

Heh. I guess that would kind of take you out of the moment, wouldn't it. Never thought about that; I guess it is kind of dumb. But I'm glad you seemingly enjoyed the rest in any case.

 

[WriterJohnB]

Yes, I did enjoy it and it's very well written, as I said. Almost all of us need criticism; I belong to a critique group with two english lit profs, a HS english teacher and a former editor, along with a few others. Many is the time they've laughed their asses off at some of my odd situations and I laugh along with them because I know they'll also write something that will make it my turn to laugh.