Sci Fi & Fantasy / The Adamant Tower Ch. 1 (Analysis)

“I said I work wit de government.

Is this supposed to be this way? Just makeing sure its an accent not a mistake.

I liked it, I read it and I say this is one good piece of fiction. Sorry, don’t hae anythign else to say.

You’re a bit obsessed with eye colour in the first few paragraphs!  Find another way to quickly describe characters.

The tunnel was unlit except for the gratings that filtered through the already filtered sunlight,  - repetition of ‘filtered’.

I like the way you begin the story, then backtrack slightly but end up rejoining the story, although it could be done in a more cunning way to reduce the amount of repetition, but the idea I have for how to do this requires you to play around with point of view, and this leads me to my main criticism of this piece…

Throughout this piece you are sometimes in a character’s point of view, but then you suddenly switch to another character, and sometimes you are an unseen narrator telling the story.  This is a no no if you want to be published, and it also leads to you telling the reader bits of information rather than showing them the story through action and dialogue.  The two most important rules in fiction writing – ‘point of view’ and ‘show/tell’.  In short, writing as an unseen narrator encourages you to take short cuts – it is easier to tell the reader a character is sad rather than showing them they are through tears and words and thoughts – and this can leave your story seeming amateur and passive in style, and will certainly stop publishers reading your story past the first paragraph, let alone publishing it.

My advice is to ground your writing in characters, and be a little more cunning with the storyline repetition.  My idea for this item…

*  In the first section write as if you are the woman with the accent and add more about her thoughts and feelings – the pain of the wound, her fear, her anger at having been shot, what the MAN looks like, the feel of the cold wet tarmac seeping through her clothing as she sits on the floor.  Add HER thoughts on the conversation they have.

• In the second section, give the man a name and more of a personality.  Tell us about HIS thoughts and emotions, and a little more detail about why he is searching for the woman.  When he sees the woman describe his emotions in more detail, (and make the shooting more violent?).  When he draws closer to her, describe HER appearance.  Add HIS thoughts on the conversation they have.

In this way, you still get the repetition of the dialogue, but the writing around it is different and so more interesting to read.  If you’re really clever you can even give parts of the conversation a different meaning since the different characters will interpret the conversation in different ways.

Think Pulp Fiction when you see characters from another part of the film in the background of someone else’s storyline.  The camera angle is different, and their dialogue will be part of the background noise.  That’s what you could attempt here.

There is a lot of potential in this story if you’re prepared to spend the time on it.

First, I’m going to tell you what’s right about it. You have a great story idea here; it moves, you paint a good picture of the world. I was entertained. The problem that diminishes what you have is the grammar and style is a bit sloppy.
   It is hard enough doing slang or or regional dialects let alone what I am assuming is a foreign accent. You have to be careful when creating a character with an accent…believe it or not, even made up accents have to be clear and understood. The way you wrote was a bit confusing..maybe it was just me.
   Long ago, I learned that using the same word to describe something in the same or adjacent sentence makes for clumsy writing. Example:
  
‘The tunnel was unlit except for the gratings that filtered through the already filtered sunlight, through the clouds and the smog, between the innumerable people above their heads, and through the metal grate. Needless to say, it was unbelievably dark.’

   “The tunnel was unlit except for the gratings that filtered through the already filtered sunlight” is what I mean by redundant word usage. How about this instead: “the tunnel was unlit save for the gratings that further diminished the already heavily filtered sunlight.” The first sentence is unecessarily wordy and the last sentence was extraneous. there are other instances throughout this really good story. What I suspect is that you submitted this before you edited it because it started out really well, then it stared to disintegrate after the third paragraph of page 2…Go back and take another look at it. Read it aloud, that helps me tremendously in editing and revising my work…

Very engaging story- it brings you in and makes you want to learn more about what is going on. I think, however, that it is unecessary to separate the part in the beginning from the rest of the story. For one thing, it is all repeated anyway, and for another thing, it doesn’t add any suspense or mystery to the story that isn’t already there. I think you should just start out when the blue eyed man starts following and looking for the woman.

This seems like a good idea and has promise. The beginning was not engaging. It is strongly cautioned to not use dialogue to start a story. It frequently fails to engage the reader because the reader doesn’t know the characters and doesn’t care what happens to them. In your case you dump a bunch of dialogue and doesn’t tell us anything about the characters, except eye color.

When you repeat the same dialogue it’s annoying. The entire chapter gives us very little information on the characters. You need to give us reasons to care about your characters otherwise we won’t read on. Your last paragraph is very engaging. That is the type of writing that will get your reader to keep reading.

I would suggest starting this chapter with the confrontation in the subway. It’s exciting and engaging.

“She clenched her dark, bloody, wet sleeve” How did she clench her sleeve?

“gushed the blue-eyed man.” This doesn’t sound like a gush. Don’t be afraid to use said.

“wit de government. Whish, as a maetter of fact, is what leads to dees hostile meet & greets when I walk dees streets.” This is annoying. Use other ways to show she talks different other then bad spelling.

“murky filtered rays of sun” I thought it was raining?

“the woman could see the man’s face” You shift points of view here. We were in the young man’s head suddenly now in a woman’s.

“easily or smoothly, and promptly” Watch the use of adverbs. Use them sparingly a strong verb makes writing more engaging.

“she reasoned from his shoulder.” Explain, why would his should give her an indication that he was a soldier.

The last paragraph is the most engaging part of this.

I liked the way you started with the action, and then recapped. It was a very good hook to keep a reader reading as you pose the question of why has the guy just shot the girl, and then with ‘Earlier that day’ promise us the answer if we keep reading. Good tactic.

One of the things that I didn’t like is the way you describe speech. Too many words like ‘muttered’, ‘gushed’ or ‘shouted’, and adverbs like ‘gruffly’ or ‘stridently’. These are good if they are needed and impactful. But if you use them every time they lose their impact and become noticeable and off-putting. What’s wrong with ‘said’?

Also you use a lot of adverbs throughout, not just near the dialogue. These words aren’t as effective as you’d perhaps like them to be. I’d recommend going through and wherever you have a word ending in -ly see if you think it’s really needed there. Or to try and replace it with imagery or action which gets your meaning across.

The guy goes from having shot the girl to trusting her pretty quickly. She was following him into the underground, they don’t yet know each other – why is he  trusting her so quickly. Plus he’s just shot her – so dropping his flashlight and gun at her side – where she could pick it up and use it on him doesn’t seem like a smart move, especially if this guy is a soldier. Plus you don’t say whether he picks up the gun and flashlight before taking the woman. Does he just leave them laying there? How does he see his way out ?

Implying or showing an accent is a difficult thing to tackle. I think it’s also a matter of personal preference for the reader. I think I prefer to read stuff where the accent is described, as you did with ‘thick with something Eastern’, rather than done phonetically, as in the speech. But it’s a difficult line to tread. Best to keep it consistent and not intrusive. I can’t offer anything concrete in the way of advice. Just to tread carefully, as it was something I noticed negatively, and other readers might too.

The accent is a little bit too hard to understand.  Perhaps saying ‘in an accented voice’ with a few ‘des’ thrown in would be much better, I think.

I am not sure she should be able to see his face either… isnt she following him? Unless he turned, his back would be to her.

Also, instead of repeating the entire ‘robot’ part of the discussion, perhaps say ‘and that brought them to where they were now, standing off’.  Mayhaps leave off with the spatter of blood? Its a good point I think for the sudden shift of ‘time’ so to speak.

As well, how was the man evidently an Old Bronx man?  I’m not sure what those look like myself.

A good start. I see a lot of promise for this one and I’m now curious more about this age of smog, no cars or vehicles, and a robot-building government. Keep at it!

“The Adament Tower” is an intriguing bit of sci-fi.  Apparently New York City bureaus have been combined and then split into two.  This reader is not sure why the woman is following the man, possibly it will be explained more as the novel continues.  The unique aspect of that time is that most of those who work for the government are robots. Sorry I can`t get much more out of this prose.

I like the way you describe the state of the world indirectly through describing the qualities of “Old York City.”

When you say the blue-eyed man “walked right through it” it made me think he’d passed through a barrier or checkpoint.  I think you could make it clearer by saying “the streets” “the crowd” or something to specify what “it” is.

I think “needless to say” is a qualifying statement that you don’t really need to write: you’d do better without it.  Also, “unbelievably dark” is a very non-specific description.  It obviously wasn’t pitch-black, or the trash that you’ve described would not be observable, and you mention some light getting into the tunnel.

Why  would the guy with the gun ask “Why have I been following you?”  Did you mean to write “Why have you been following me?”

So far you have offered a glimpse into what could possibly be a well-developed world for your novel to take place in.

I kind of got lost towards the end…who point of view is this story from. Also I like the goverment workers sentence…is it a hint that the majority of people who work for the goverment is robots in the future. Also I liked New York since it’s in the futrue being called Old New York. Even though I got lost a little bit in the story like after they venture into the subway…I thought it was okay.