So, here I am posting my WIP after reading so much others better. Yet I truly wish mine would see the day so here it is.
I have made a prologue and chapter1. The plot is kind of like teens against AI/aliens. Opinions? Like? Dislike? Readable? Burnable?
Here’s a bit of the backstory I’ll add on chap2:
“Around fifteen years ago, their was a great invasion. Multiples gates appeared on the west side of the US. Invaders from another world poured through. We call them Xia - referring to the sound made when gates open. Xia’s technology made them immune to most Earth’s weapons. Most believed it was the end of the world. But then, a group called the Resistance appeared and drove them off. They studied Xia’s technology, and created an organization to defend the US against them. They built impressive bases all over the country.”
Actually I posted with the idea to ask if there was any good writers out there who kind of liked my idea/work and would be interested in teaming up with me.
Please pm me.
“Opinions?”
I’m getting vibes of Heavy Rain, Alien, and The Matrix coming from the writing so far.
“Like?”
Most likely.
“Dislike?”
Most unlikely.
“Readable?”
Yes, definitely. And no obvious grammatical errors, either.
“Burnable?”
That sounds really hard to do, so probably not.
Thx RagEgnite, Is their some passages that felt weird, what do you feel about the pacing? Are their stuffs you’d have written in another way? What I’m the most worried about is about my writing skills. I don’t want to sound childish.
And yeah, I’m too lazy to print it out and burn it so let’s drop that ^^.
You couldn’t budge, you could not even open your eyes. It was like your face wasn’t yours. In fact, you couldn’t feel anything at all. Anything excepted your chest, which was hurting like hell from the water jet
I just did a playthrough, and a few things occur to me.
The writing here is rough. There are a lot of typos and grammatical errors, a few places where the characters and their dialog seem a bit off (you can beat your dog with a stick? WTF?), and some places where the writing might be described as childish or unrefined.
I suggest you do not worry about that yet. This is a rough draft. The writing is supposed to be rough. Write Chapter 2, then Chapter 3, and keep going until you have a full draft. Then go back and worry about polishing your writing. It’s easier to refine rough writing into good writing than it is to come up with good writing out of nothing.
You have a promising mystery. You have the setup for a potentially fantastic world. You have a few characters to flesh out and work with. Those are enough reasons to keep going.
I do have a few more suggestions:
Change everything that happens after the MC is thawed from cryogenesis into present tense instead of past tense. In choice games, past tense implies that you are in a flashback. If you use past tense for your opening scene, that turns Chapter 1 into a flashback-within-a-flashback. You want to avoid those because they can confuse the reader and make your story seem unfocused.
Write more description of the MC’s surroundings. I wouldn’t change what you have already written, but in your next chapters a little more description will help bring the setting to life. It’s easier to make meaningful choices when you can see the glare of fluorescent lights on the sterile white fiberglass of the cryo chamber, or smell the leather of the psychiatrist’s couch in his too-clean office with the cheap, framed paintings of red flowers on the walls over the mahogany furniture. What about those teenagers I met? Are they tired and dirty, or did Jane have time to floss and put on her Sephora Collection™ makeup this morning? A little description goes a long way.
Add the option to choose the MC’s sexual orientation. My MC was attracted to Jane, even though I never said whether I was straight or a lesbian. That was a little jarring.
it is readable and due to commonly reading mistakes when people type to each other most pass over minor mistakes unless looking for them. I only noticed one since it was already commented on. it was moderately enjoyable though faintly familiar, but i do a lot of pen and paper rpgs, some have involved both cryogenics and time-traveling amnesiacs
i liked how you went into his memories and blurred his name, it does however give the possible suspicion that its a shaped memory possibly made by a third party to produce information but it could just as well be self induced by the brain from trying to recover just out of reach memory childish it is not, at least from my perspective and im 30 at least i think i am i forget my own age sometimes getting off topic.
as for burnable technically speaking it is but im not gonna burn my computer and down the internet (im aware that’s a idiotic statement) this is however good writing so no its not recommended to be burned
dont doubt yourself so much that will stifle your creativity if your to hard on yourself and lower your self image
Thank you all for your replies, I’ll keep them in mind and work on errors. @BabbleYaggle I’ll try to add more descriptions. As for the MC sexual orientation he/she isn’t attracted to Jane. I just described her. I didn’t add any relationships yet. Yes the sexual orientation is possible. Also the reason I didn’t let players choose the npcs gender is because I wanted to have clear characters in mind. I might change it later on.
"You took his hand then stared at Jane. She was slouching against the wall with her arms crossed. Jane was taller than average with attractive curves and long silver hair that rested freely on her back.
"You put your hands on your face, your cheeks were burning and itchy. "
That’s the bit that made me think the MC was feeling attracted to Jane. There might not be a relationship stat or anything, but the staring and blushing might give the reader the impression that a crush (even an unrequited one) is coming on, and therefore that the MC has to like girls.
Of course, that is not the most important issue. The most important issue is that Chapter 1 ends with people riding T-Rexes. That raises the question of whether there will be more riding of T-Rexes in the chapters to come, and whether I, the player, will get to play a character who rides a T-Rex.
@BabbleYaggle It’s not hard to see why you would think that, as “attractive” is a rather subjective word to use, and it could be done away with to avoid confusion altogether.
Also, if @ecsh makes mention of riding T-Rexes, I’m certain the principle of Chekhov’s Gun will be followed at one point or another, even if said point is a codex of some sort.
