Chapter 1 - Infiltration (UPDATED)

[Aero~]

[b][color=#000000][font=Arial][size=4]I'm sorry about the formatting. I've tried everything I can think of but I just can't get it to work right. I've tried copying and pasting it with the proper spacing, which didn't work, then I tried adding the spacing on here. If anyone knows what to do, please tell me. Until then, if it bugs you that much, here's an attachment. The page literally just changes it's format when I post it. I don't know what to do.[/size][/font][/color][/b]


[attachment=33998:Chap. 1 Infiltration.rtf]

[size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][color=#000000]From the shadows, I watched the soldiers collect the eighteen-year-old boy being accused of treason.[/color]
[color=#000000]“Drop to the floor!” barked one of the soldiers.[/color]
[color=#000000]They were uniformed in the traditional Premora soldier uniform. Metallic shoulder and knee pads, a blue material- most likely dyed silk- covering blue bulletproof plastic over their torsos, and a ridiculous fuzzy hat resembling that of Old England, only a dark blue instead of black. they wore high black boots, probably to protect their shins and feet from the blood of the victims they wade through.[/color]
[color=#000000]“You are committing an act of treason against the Premoran government!” Treason. Always treason. Another soldier slammed a Shock Cylinder into his back. A shock cylinder was a metallic cylinder that concealed a couple of things mostly injections used by pressing certain buttons on the outside of the device. One sent a jolt through the victim, one a paralyzing fluid, and another a lethal venom. The soldier chose to go only with the generic jolt. It could be changed in power, from one two ten, one being the kind of attack used on a teenager, ten being strong enough to knock out a full-grown man.[/color]
[color=#000000]“You are committing treason,”he repeated, “By attempting to go above the laws established in this fine nation. You should be ashamed,” he spat, as if talking to someone extremely inferior to himself, which he was.[/color]
[color=#000000]The other soldier finally spoke.[/color]
[color=#000000]“Premora’s government will give you a fair trial and if you are proven guilty, the price of your actions will be public execution. If our Accusations of Rebellion are proven faulty, then you will be warned and released.”[/color]
[color=#000000]It took all of my very little willpower to constrain myself from revealing myself and cussing out these soldiers for the crap they were trying to feed him. A trial was never fair. How could you expect a fair trial from the same people who attack and practically electrocute you in an empty building in the middle of the night, all under the false name of righteousness?[/color]
[color=#000000]Of course, I knew the reason he was here. In fact, I was here with him.[/color]
[color=#000000]“You stay back and watch. I get what we came for, you help carry back the goods that I’m gonna go get,” He, Rokko, had said, then slipped me a knife. It surprised me for different reasons, one being the fact that he gave it to me at all. Before we moved, he had looked at me for a full minute, all 5’7 of me, from my sandy-blonde hair and raggedy clothes covering pale skin, down to my worn-out shoes. “Tough,” he said.[/color]
[color=#000000]Most things owned by the regular citizens of Premora were old and used up. But in the dark of the room, I could still see that it was adorned with marks and symbols, from the gleaming blade down to the black grip that I was holding so tight.[/color]
[color=#000000]“That knife....” He sounded like he was about to say something, but he didn’t. “I’ll just have to tell you about it on the way back.”[/color]
[color=#000000]He stepped away and I could barely manage to make out his silhouette by the time he got about four yards away from me.That’s when the soldiers swooped in.[/color]
[color=#000000]Instinctively, I dropped to the ground and roll back, throwing myself behind something just as the float-lights clicked on.[/color]
[color=#000000]A float light is similar to an ancient invention, the flashlight. It’s shaped as a Frisbee, the top being a light and the bottom being a flotation device. It was turned on by pressing a small red button on the side, and floats up to about the shortest soldier’s height, just staying there.[/color]
[color=#000000]That was right before they tackled him to the ground with there traitorous accusations. I looked up to realize the “something” I had rolled behind was a lobby bench. I assessed my surroundings. None of the soldiers were looking in my direction.[/color]
[color=#000000]The lobby was a marble-floored room in between the one exit and the store portion of New Maine Premora-Mart. Down the center of the lobby, leading from the exit to the entrance of Premora-Mart, was a marble path. Further behind me was a desk, and up against the wall, about ten yards from the edge of the path, was a waterfall with a marble plant box at its base. The whole design was eerily symmetrical. The mouth of the waterfall was located a little below the floor to the edge of the second story of the building. It was guarded by a metal- yes, metal, not marble- rail.[/color]
[color=#000000]The bench I was behind was long enough for me to crawl a few more yards closer to the exit and still stay concealed. My heart leaped at the realization that the soldiers were now dragging my friend in the same direction I was headed. I did an awkward speed-crawl back to the other end of the bench and kept my eyes high enough over it to see were the soldiers were in the room and make sure I was completely concealed the entire time.[/color]
[color=#000000]With such a small movement that none of the soldiers caught it, Rokko slipped a keycard out of his pocket and sent it skidding across the smooth floor. It slip for about two feet, then stopped. As soon as the solders were out of the room, I ran in the general direction of the now-dark room and pounced on it. When my fingers found it, I could barely pick it up because my hands were trembling so bad.[/color]
[color=#000000]When the card was finally pressed into my left palm, I dashed to the store entrance. Below a little red light indicating that the doors were locked, I slid the keycard into the reader. After a few seconds, the light turned green and I heard a faint click.[/color]
[color=#000000]With anxiety of somebody about to rob a trapped government store- the same government that leaves its people starving- I turned the industrial handle and almost took a step into the room before I remembered the night traps.[/color]
[color=#000000]During the night, traps were set up in Premora-Mart so people can’t safely Collect. I scanned the area. [/color]
[color=#000000]A look at the walls showed me that there were a few lasers I would have to get past, an invisible rod about an inch in diameter. The only thing that gave them away was the fine dots of red from the machine on either wall, parallel to the other, that created the laser and stopped it from burning a hole through the wall.[/color]
[color=#000000]I weaved my way through them with the ease gained from over practicing an art. The first shelf I reached was the grains. There were rice sacks and other bagged goods meant to be bought by weight, but I had to ignore those.[/color]
[color=#000000]I looked ahead, noticing that there were open spaces parallel to each other on the shelves of the isle I was in. I couldn’t see the machines, exactly, but I could predict well enough what was there. There was set trap much like those described in literature as a “hole in the wall” that shot arrows. However, it would be entirely inefficient to use such technology in the modern day, and instead was a machine that did not have a ight, but a heat sensor, and would fire immediately at the first detection. I ducked down and crawled underneath of it, resurfacing to my full height to find myself between New Fruits and Vegetable shelves.[/color]
[color=#000000]They were the same as the ancient fruits and vegetables, except they did not have temperature requirements to stay fresh. Hurriedly out of habit, I grabbed apple by apple, banana by banana, carrot by carrot, and other vegetables. It was all going great until I heard a noise. The lobby entrance door was being opened. [/color]

[color=#000000]I pressed on to the meat coolers,Quickly, I looked around. There was nothing but shelves on either side. I ran ahead. The doors were being opened slowly, luckily. There was no keycard being used. They were being opened using a string of code drilled into the brains of the local soldiers.[/color]
[color=#000000]I ran ahead, [i]sprinted [/i][/color][color=#000000]ahead, until I was out of the isle. To my right was a door. I had no idea what was behind it, but I ran towards it, yanking the keycard out of my pocket, praying it was the embedded with the code to open this door, also.[/color]
[color=#000000]I shoved it into the slot and waited. The seconds it took, in reality, seemed like hours.[/color]
[color=#000000]I had Collected at this store many times before, but I had never been in the building while it was being searched. Also the traps had been rearranged, so I had to re-memorize them. After an eternity where I felt like my heart could burst, I hear a click. If I was caught, I would by killed on-the-spot. I shoved the door open, pulled out the keycard, and shut it behind me as quietly as I could. [/color]
[color=#000000]I heard one door open as mine closed. I turned and examined the scene in front of me. There was.... stairs. Downward stairs. The passage was dark, given the lights installed into the walls. They were few and spread out, I discovered, as I raced down. About halfway, I froze.[/color]
[color=#000000][i]You idiot![/i][/color][color=#000000] I scolded myself. I had not even surveyed for traps. I continued down the steps more slowly now, making sure there was nothing hidden. And there wasn’t, it appeared. Eventually I reached a flat dirt floor. It was empty, despite some dusty barrels in the corner. I wondered what was in them, but I feared to look. I wasn’t, however, boxed in. [/color]
[color=#000000]On the left wall was a wooden door. This place terrified me. It was so... ancient. Wooden floors, a wooden door, adorned with dirty iron, an actual barrels. Wooden barrels. I slowly approached the wooden door, suddenly paranoid for reasons I couldn’t explain. Reasons I didn’t even understand.[/color]
[color=#000000]I wrapped my hand around the doorknob and slowly turned it. It creaked. Inside was a pitch black room. I reached back to my Collector’s bag and unzipped it. Knowing exactly where it was, I grabbed up the float light and pulled it out. I had traded for it at the one blackmarket in this town a while ago.[/color]
[color=#000000]There was just a long hallway. I walked, just waiting for something to jump at me from nowhere at any time. I realized that I had never noticed the door that led me down to the first room before. It was so strange. Eventually things started changing. The hall began to look more like a system of pipes.[/color]
[color=#000000]Eventually it was. Huge pipes. Large enough to crawl through. I stopped and sat for a minute, to think. It was’nt as if this was going to be the first place the soldiers would look. How had they known I was in here? I was positive Rokko wouldn’t have turned me in. How did they know he was here? The Collection had been planned, but I don’t see how it could have leaked. There was no purpose in thinking about it. And the freaking barrels.... That whole freaking room... It scared me.[/color]
[color=#000000]Faintly, very faintly, I heard a noise. They had entered the room. I had been walking the hall for about ten minutes, at a very, very slow pace. Quickly, I looked around, and pulled myself into a pipe. It was clean, despite a layer of slime. I didn’t understand why they were there. It didn’t make sense. I put together what I knew and made a vague inference that the whole thing was probably some kind of ancient system for something or another. I didn’t care to think about it anymore. The pipe began to climb at a steeper rate. It became ledges, and eventually I put out my float-light, seeing that I was nearing the end. I was scared of what I would find, and scared it may be a bad thing to have on my light. Before I flicked it out, I indicated the handle. It was a freaking trap door. [/color]
[color=#000000]I pulled it and climbed out. I was in bedroom, I realized as my eyes adjusted. [/color][color=#000000][i]holy s***[/i][/color][color=#000000], I thought, as I realized that it was [/color][color=#000000][i]my[/i][/color][color=#000000] room. I had never seen a trap door. I flipped my float light back on. The door blended perfectly with the ground. I couldn’t see it at all, even knowing the general area of where it was.[/color]
[color=#000000]I snuck into the kitchen, not to wake anyone up, and stored the food. There was fruits and vegetables- carrots, coconuts, apples- and meat- jerky, eggs, and even a steak. I finally decided it was okay for me to go to bed, and as I laid there, I pondered things. Had the trap door ever been used in my lifetime? In my parents’ lifetimes? When was it put in? How old was this house? Why did a fourteen-year-old boy have to live like this?[/color]
[color=#000000]I fell asleep with these questions in my head.[/color]
[color=#000000]My dreams were about ancient barrels and doors.[/color][/font][/size]

[Aero~]

Bump?

[Twig]

Smaller text and more spaces between paragraphs please.

[The King of James]

[size=4][font=times new roman,times,serif]A detailed review of your story's first chapter:

Part I - The Constructive Criticism:

First, I would like to say that you are very brave to start the story off with an infiltration mission completed by your protagonist. The notes and details pertaining to the traps in the store area and the path from the lobby where the story began to said area were vivid of course, but you lacked a refined organization that would help us better understand the current situation. I will give further details about how you might improve this below and in 'Part II - The Final Verdict' of this review.

As a proficient reader I can thoroughly understand the situation, as well as imagine the scenes occurring in the various locations inside the government building where the chapter took place, which were described well enough for an intermediate or advanced reader to interpret.

However, for the average demographic of fan fiction readers (10-16 years of age), I would suggest either increasing the usage of simple details, or decreasing the amount of complex or vaguely conceptual sentences that you used. One prime example of such a sentence would be, and I quote directly from your chapter, "[color=#000000]Th[/color][color=#000000]e third soldier, the one who had been still and silent throughout the entirety of the intercourse, finally spoke."[/color]

[color=#000000]To us with intermediate and advanced reading abilities this would seem a simple sentence to understand and we continue reading without intrigue. But as a reviewer I must see the angle at all different skill levels - Advanced, intermediate, and even novice reading levels. [/color]

[color=#000000]To a novice, or casual reader, this sentence and ones of similar nature would leave a reader either confused or, if the reader was apathetic to learning what the words contained in these sentences implied, they would likely read them with a grain of salt, because they could not understand and did not have the time, or of greater probability, the willpower to [/color]search for the definitions of elaborate keywords.

I would assume that your story takes place in a world thousands of years after the modern day, because of such objects which are used to describe modern technologies as "ancient", however this is not made clear to the reader, and as such There is still some confusion as to whether technology and culture have advances or regressed, and also whether or not the ruling body you described as the "Premoran Government", had technology far superior to normal people, because many of the technologies, as well as the traps placed, did not seem like they were improved by far to what the government of the US currently has access to or is developing publicly for later use in security.

For example, the lasers between the walls actually seem like a regression from current security technology, which is that for important vaults at key locations such as the treasury, said lasers are used but are in an oxidated room where the superheated light particles from the cutting beams not only burn one who might try to enter but set off a plethora of alarms and close the entire area offf, all while being invisible to the naked human eye.

Also, the soldiers who came and searched the area were not very thorough, or in other words, did not act like trained individuals. It seemed like a simple guard duty patrol rather than a search and sweep mission to find the protagonist. Also, I can understand the traps being disabled on their way in, for reasons of making the search proceed more smoothly, but I cannot understand how the search ended without the traps being reset as the soldiers made their way out. It shows that the soldiers were either A) Not trained soldiers but rather rag-tag militiamen or mercenaries hired to do a search and sweep or regular guards on a normal night shift doing a patrol without looking in the shelves for anything out of the ordinary.

These facts alone crippled the enjoyment factor, but I believe that you could improve them by doing the following things to change your chapter:

When the protagonist sneaks into the story, have him not open anything while he gathers the supplies he needs, which is logical because as a thief one wouldn't open something in a store which they shouldn't even be inside, not to mention spilled ingredients could reveal his location to the returning soldiers or guards on patrol duty, and even if he hides well, if they had brought a trained tracking hound, then the spilled ingredients, which he had touched, would leave his scent for the dogs to lead the soldiers to his exact location, even over a distance of miles.

Second, after he notices the soldiers returning his immediate action should not be to duck into the shelves, but to find an inconspiuous place to hide, such as a closet or a small room opened via the keycard he received. To be in the same room as the soldiers while they are searching for you guaruntees that you will be discovered, and so this is the only measure the protagonist might have had to ensure his safety in a logical situation.

Third, The soldiers must reset the traps as they leave, as well as do one of two things - if there are cameras, they will now be activated because that is logical surveilance for a place which has been searched for a wanted person being accused of a crime. If there are no cameras, the soldiers will instead trade shifts with a couple of trained guards to patrol the areas in which the crimes had occured. These guards will not come within the vicinity of the traps but will watch for any suspicious activity beyond them.

Fourth, the protagonist must not leave the way that he and his co-conspirator had originally come in. He must find an alternate method to exit the building, for example, a ventilation system or perhaps a basement level with tunnels leading to the railways or the sewers, or something of that nature.

And the last but not the least of the improvements I suggest you make is that the protagonist does not return to his own home, seeing as his so-called friend had turned him in, but rather contacts his family via some discreet and untraceable method, and has them relocate somewhere where they are safe but where he will not stay for the majority of his time - thus avoiding his family being brought into the conflict and the mess that his 'friend' had caused him.

That is all for the major improvements I can suggest - though might I suggest keeping splitting that bulk of text into a set of 4-6 sentence paragraphs, and perhaps check for proper spelling, grammar and punctuation? It will make your story much more pleasant to read, and of course the flow of the story will proceed more smoothly if you can end a certain subject with the paragraph and begin a new subject with the following one.

Now, on to the Final Verdict of my review.

Part II - The Final Verdict:

I will be rating stories and fan fictions based on three major, which I believe inlfuence the overall quality of the work and enjoyment a reader could obtain by viewing a person's work:

Aesthetic Ease: 2/5
My reason for this rating is because the text was not neat in its organization, and the chapter itself had quite a few grammatical and spelling errors, as well as misused or misplaced punctuation. The text near the bottom of the chapter was also of a different size than the rest of the chapter's text, thus creating a need to adjust my eyes slightly to continue reading it effectively. It is certainly far greater than the sloppiest work I've ever read, but it does need aesthetic improvements, of which I suggested in Part I of this review.

Description Quality: 1/5
I grant this rating because even though the fact that you made the protagonist a thief and had him do an infiltration mission at the beginning of the story, which was indeed an interesting concept, you left out many descriptions which should have been there, such as the character's name, what they looked like, what they were wearing, and also descriptions of their friend Rokko, about his apparel and appearance.

In fact, I could accurately assume that your protagonist is either a boy or a girl, a teenager, a child, or even maybe an adult, with blonde, no, black or brown hair, or maybe green hair? We as the readers do not know anything about this protagonist or their personality, one could assume that they themself were the protagonist but know that it is not true when they take one step backward.

Even a first-person narrative still needs to describe the character being portrayed at some angle, whether through descriptions of their appearance tied to tasks they perform, or images of their apparel which are painted alongside their entrance into a scene, and any other method one might think of to vividly portray a character, even if that character is assumed to be oneself.

For the description of appearances, I suggest reading a dictionary and a thesaurus to find adjectives and synonyms to words that you know already, and try to use them to detail a character's appearance as they are introduced, as well as while they are moving from scene to scene.

For the portrayal of your protagonist's character, i.e. their personality, I recommend either thinking of various people you know and what their personalities are like, and using parts of those as a base to create your character's unique persona, or instead, perhaps you could roleplay with a friend who is interested in doing so, in order to create a realistic personality that you can use for the protagonist.

With that, I will now move on to the next category.

Originality Factor: 4/5

While you may not deliver a perfectly well-orgnanized chapter or paint vivid pictures of the scene in the reader's mind, you certainly embarked on the road less traveled by placing the storlyine in a non-post apocalyptic, yet controlled environment, where the first thing that the hero does is rob supplies from the government who keeps the people they protect quiet and obedient, as if the general populous was hostage.

Also, even though this is placed in a fan fiction section for a trading card game you clearly avoided making it anything like a fan fiction - if you continue to embark on the interesting path of uneven and unexplored writing, your original work may become something of great value. Of course, it still needs aesthetic improvements and more description, but that is something you can easily apply with more experience and effort.

There were a few things that erked me, which of course seemed less creative, such as the laser and floor based trap system, and also the fact that the soldiers were adorned in uniforms the colors of modern-day police forces in the US. Also, the shock cylinder sounded quite similar to the already-invented electrified baton - which is used for the same general purpose as a taser - to dismantle, or to disable a hostile attacker, or a wanted criminal.

The improved flashlight, called a float light, was a very interesting invention however, which im sure very few, if anyone, have ever thought of using in a story - a machine with lights atop itself, which hovers via the device on the bottom. That is certainly one of the most original inventions I've read about in a story yet, and although one could accuse it being in the realm of a UFO - it is not, because the object itself was identified as 'floating', and was identied as the object used as the flashlight of that time.

Now, on to the overall verdict for this story.

The overall rating for this story is, in my opinion as a reviewer who has thoroughly analyzed this work: 2.5 out of 5. The overall rating is the combined rating given by the three seperate categories. I also have a fourth rating category, known simply as "Specialty Trait", but can only be accurately applied when the storyline of a person's work is well under way and near the half-finished mark, and is available only on request for a revision of the review.

The Author of this story has quite a bit of improving to do, but if they take my constructive criticism and use my suggested solutions to certain problems, they may improve quite a bit if they can apply the solutions, as well as alter them, to fit similarly written work.

All in all, I believe that while I can't say it was worth reading this story for its current face value, I believe the author has the potential to take their work much further than they have, and so I wish them the best of luck. I also hope that they can muster the courage and determination to continue writing and improving themselves as an author.

Of course this applies to all people - even master novelists will always be learning and improving, and every human being is always a student to another.

Even as I write this review to help the author improve, I have been learning from the creative mind and the ideas presented by the author, and will apply the positive concepts to improve some parts of my own story writing skills, which can always be polished to a finer scale of brilliance, as no matter how talented or skilled one becomes, there is always room for improvement.

Sincerely,


The King of James[/font][/size]

[Aero~]

[quote name='The King of James' timestamp='1324363353' post='5718629']
[font="'times new roman"](Whole review was here, don't wanna quote it because it'll take up a lot of space.[/font]
[/quote]

You have no IDEA how appreciated that was. After school tomorrow my winter break begins. I'm going to consider everything and make edits, even rewrite some parts. I'm probably going to spend the majority of my time with my notebook writing out improved inventions and traps. I had planned either way on going back and making edits on grammar and flow and such. Your review was AMAZING, something I would never expect to find on YCM, and something I would pay for and honestly appreciate. I'm going to pay close attention to everything you said, however one or two minor parts will be ignored because they are saved for the second chapter. I will to whatever I can to keep your interest in the story as it progresses, because I'm not going to find as good of a review anywhere else without paying for a professional.

Thank you.

[The King of James]

You're very welcome - I do reviews on stories because I find that while I may teach new or aspiring authors quite a bit, I can also learn many things. There are only two relatively new stories aside from this one that I see are worth my time reviewing at the moment, because I only review works which I can, of course, learn from and have fun doing so.

In any case, I did forget to mention one thing I would recommend - the title of your story is completely up to you, but in my humble opinion, I would recommend it being a title based on an important element of the plot of your book which is discovered later in the story.

Also, I am quite delighted to see that this is an original work and not a simple fan fiction - It is a fresh work of a creative nature, which is something I have not read on YCM since I was in high school. Now, I am working on an associates degree as a second year college student and I need a few breaks to enjoy interesting stories with fresh potential to climb to greatness.

I wish you the best of luck with your revisions, and hope you enjoy the holidays. Make sure to make obnoxious noises on new year's day at midnight! It's a tradition internationally now.

Sincerely,


The King of James

[Aero~]

Chapter one updated.

[Aero~]

So like, they call it a bump.

[Aero~]

PEOPLE. FEEDBACK, PL0X.

[Merci]

Pretty interesting. Don't stop now! When'll Chapter 2 be up?

[Agro]

Have you tried pasting it into editing mode to make it work?
Also, is each paragraph separated by a

space, or an indent? Because indents do not work.
See?

[Aero~]

[quote name='Merciful Idiot' timestamp='1328191825' post='5795222']
Pretty interesting. Don't stop now! When'll Chapter 2 be up?
[/quote]
Actually, I might get it up tonight.

[quote name='Wraith' timestamp='1328192545' post='5795232']
Have you tried pasting it into editing mode to make it work?
Also, is each paragraph separated by a

space, or an indent? Because indents do not work.
See?
[/quote]
Is editing mode the one that says "full editing mode?" I tried that, and it still wouldn't work. I've tried using tab and using spacebar.