 SSG Michael B Jackson 2008-06-15 . chapter 1Not a bad start, but a couple of points:
The grammar and spelling seemed to be pretty good; that's a minor issue on its' own, but attention to detail is always important so good job in this area.
On the other hand, I was a little confused by the POV you were using; sometimes it seemed to be first person (from Carly's point of view) and then it would abruptly jump to some kind of third person view, looking in from the outside and occasionally revealing what people were thinking in an omniscient manner.
Now, there are certainly ways to mix various POVs inside a story, but sometimes yours seemed to change within the same paragraph or even, occasionally, in the same sentence. Things like that make a story seem incoherent and difficult to understand.
Another point, I'm afraid, are your OCs. There's certainly nothing wrong with bringing original characters into an already-existing 'universe', but they shouldn't overshadow or outperform the existing characters; this is the "Mary Sue" syndrome, if you're familiar with that.
One way or another, an OC shouldn't just overshadow and/or just generally give the impression of being somehow 'cooler' than the pre-existing characters, and that was definitely the feeling I got with your OCs. Basically, if they're that cool, they should probably have an original story of their own and shouldn't be 'hanging out' in somebody else's universe.
Finally, also in reference to the OCs, it would probably be a good idea to give a little more of their back-story up front. I understand that you probably intend to expand on them later, but the way they were introduced leads one to understand that Carly and friends have known them for a while at least.
This being the case, one would hope that a little more about just who these guys are and how the main characters relate to them would be included.
Anyway, please take all of this as constructive criticism; if I didn't think the work had potential or the author either, I wouldn't bother to comment. So please take all of this in the proper spirit and by all means keep writing; that's the only way that any of us can get any better, after all.
SSG Michael B. Jackson
"Punish the guilty and keep the innocent nervous!" |