What We Become

[Delsan]

The first chapter of a novel I plan to publish in the future. I was originally going to post one chapter, but I may post more if I get good feedback.

One
~
BLAKE​

When the world was on the brink of destruction and the apocalypse was inevitable, there was only one word invading my thoughts: survival. I thought about it every day when I continued working on my bomb shelter. I used it as an excuse to hide underground by myself, not caring for any of my family or friends. I wouldn’t let any other selfless thoughts take over my mind because I thought helping any one besides myself would tarnish all the work that I did to prepare for my new life in solitude.

But then I soon realized that what I pictured for my new life wasn’t going to happen. That old saying, “The world can be full of surprises,” should basically be my motto because what happened on my days in the shelter was the beginning of a life I thought I would never experience.

There will always be one side of me that will always want it to never begin in the first place, but the other side of me knows better. The other side knows that without the events that took place in late August, I never would’ve become the person I am now. If I didn’t experience anything up to the point where I am now, I would still be the lonely man living underground with his dog.

It’s going to be tough telling the story from the beginning. I’m going to have to go back to the old Blake Dolan, who didn’t know that watching TV on that fateful day would change his life forever.

×××​

It was a nice day outside. The sunlight was streaming through the blinds of my windows, and birds were chirping to their content. But when I arrived home after I drove back from town, I covered the blinds with blankets. Knowing I couldn’t shut those annoying birds up, I put the TV volume to the highest it went and sat down on my armchair with my Rottweiler, Brutus, at my side. It seems ridiculous that I would be cuddling up with that kind of dog, but Brutus was my companion ever since I bought him when he was a pup. I originally got him for protection, but we bonded more when he got older. The companionship was just what I needed. On top of protecting my newly-bought home from intruders, he was also good at keeping me company.

Anyway, I was channel surfing. There was never anything good on at 1:00 P.M. After going through all my available channels, I sighed knowing that I’d have to fess up and switch to one of the news channels. When I did, I was instantly greeted to a headline streaming on the bottom of the screen: Toxoplasmas found linked to recent attack.

I didn’t know what the hell Toxoplasmas was, but I was at the edge my seat, waiting for an answer.

“It has been a week since that horrific attack occurred at Gilligan Corp. when CEO Jacob Johnson went rouge in his office, killing most of his workers by biting the flesh out of their necks. Since then, people have been clamoring for answers on what caused him to do it since officials preformed an autopsy on Mr. Johnson, who was shot by police after the incident.

“According to information given directly by law officials, it was confirmed that while preforming the autopsy, a parasite was found in the victim’s brain—Toxoplasmas. You might remember the fiasco a few months ago, when the same parasite was found in multiple farms, all in cattle that were at some point going to be sent to meat manufacturers. As it was for the animals, it was later deemed harmless by the CDC; but after this discovery, they might receive fallout for releasing that particular information, which, obviously, was not true.”

I was expecting more to the report, so invested in the news that I was disappointed to find out that it was over and they started talking about something else. I don’t understand how they can go to a celebrity break up after just talking about an insanity-inducing parasite, but that’s the news for you I guess. That’s why I usually don’t watch it, but I’m going to have to now. I want to see where this goes, and how it ends up. It’s obviously not gonna go away, that’s for sure. The parasite was primarily in cattle, which means that a lot—I mean a lot—of people have consumed the infected meat by now.

After watching the report, I know that I’m going to have to start working on my bomb shelter again. I purchased it a couple years ago when I bought my house. I’ve been working on it progressively for twelve months when the structure was finally complete. Although I got most of it finished, I still got to take care of some things.

Most people would scoff at others who invest their time and money in bomb shelters (including my daughter, Lena). But there are times like this when having a bomb shelter is actually sane. You think I wanna be around anyone who consumed the tainted meat?

With that in mind, I got up from my arm chair. I walked into the hallway that led to the kitchen, which in turn led to my backyard. I looked out the glass double doors and looked at the bomb shelter, wondering if it truly would be my new home if this parasite thing didn’t subside.

 

[Nyangoro]

Not a whole lot to go on for a single chapter. The majority of the problems I had were simply awkward sentence organization/word choices (since, again, there's not a whole lot here). That being the case, I'll just go over general things before delving into any specifics.

First, I try not to harp on chapter length anymore, since how long an installment of anything should be is based partly on the author's desires and on the medium used. However, you've expressly stated that you intend to turn this into a novel; and if that's so, I'm sorry to say that this is simply too short for a single chapter. There's too little going on to justify the kind of separation that a "chapter" entails. It all happens so quickly and with so little context that the reader is left completely uncaring and disinterested.

This chapter needs to be fleshed out more. Throw in some extra time with the character. Gives us more of his day-to-day life before it suddenly gets turned upside-down. Show us who he is and (at least hint at) why we should care about how he handles the disaster. Hell, you might even want to make this the second chapter, using a first to show us the "before" instead of jumping head-first into the "after."

Second, and this is going along with the first point, everything is too vague. We've got some sort of parasitical bio-hazard causing trouble, and that's it. We don't have any idea about the world that this is taking place in. Not even remedial stuff, such as simple descriptions that at least give us and idea of how the world appears. Not to mention the fact that we only know this one character, so the setting already feels pretty empty and lifeless.

Third, nothing feels very believable thus far. The character said it himself:

I was expecting more to the report, so invested in the news that I was disappointed to find out that it was over and they started talking about something else. I don’t understand how they can go to a celebrity break up after just talking about an insanity-inducing parasite, but that’s the news for you I guess.

He's right, the news would be talking about this. A potential epidemic with disastrous symptoms? They would be all over it. That they would just pay it no attention is, honestly, clumsy writing and tells me that you were just looking for a reason to end the scene quickly. Of course, there's nothing wrong with ending a scene quickly, but I can't know that your doing it. For example, you could have the MC turn off the TV.

Now, on to the specific examples.

I thought about it every day when I continued working on my bomb shelter.

You want to say "...as I worked on my..." here. The verb phrase "continued working" not only adds more words than needed, but it confuses the reader. "Continued working" implies that we've seen him work on the bomb shelter before, which we have not. It's a more specific phrase. You want something more general (such as "worked on").

I wouldn’t let any other selfless thoughts take over my mind because I thought helping any one besides myself would tarnish all the work that I did to prepare for my new life in solitude.

This line is too expository. Barring the lack of punctuation (seriously, some commas would be much appreciated), its problem lies in the fact that this character is just dumping his feelings on us. Emotional info dumping, if you will. We need to see his emotions through his actions, not just his audience-directed monologue. You've got a great means to do that too (the current situation), so take advantage of that.

That old saying, “The world can be full of surprises,” should basically be my motto because what happened on my days in the shelter was the beginning of a life I thought I would never experience.

More telling without showing. Then the issue is compounded with bizarre wording. "Should basically" sounds wrong, mostly because of the latter word. "Basically" shouldn't play any part in this. He knows that it should be his motto, and mincing words like a high school student just doesn't fit what's going on.

There will always be one side of me that will always want it to never begin in the first place, but the other side of me knows better. The other side knows that without the events that took place in late August, I never would’ve become the person I am now. If I didn’t experience anything up to the point where I am now, I would still be the lonely man living underground with his dog.

This entire paragraph looks like an exercise in boring, convenient exposition. The way he describes specifics to himself feels unnatural and forced. Of course, this is aided by the sentences themselves. The first sentences suggests that the event hasn't happened yet, while the rest suggest that it has. I'm assuming the latter is correct, so take extra care in fixing up the first sentence.

I put the TV volume to the highest it went

This is more of an issue with believability. Televisions usually have extremely high max volume levels. I mean, I could be wrong in assuming this, but I'm willing to bet that the guy would rather his eardrums remain intact.

After watching the report, I know that I’m going to have to start working on my bomb shelter again.

I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately, but keep your tenses to one. The character is obviously relating a past event, so stick with past tense.

In closing, this needs quite a bit of work. The length is to short, the exposition is too contrived, and comma errors run amok. Speaking of which:

Purdue OWL: Commas

Definitely review this, since you'll need to learn how to use commas well as an author.

I apologize if this is harsh; but anytime I hear that someone plans to get their work published, I become slightly less soft and fluffy. Things must be corrected, and if you want to break into the commercial market, there are no buts about it.

 

[Delsan]

Thanks for the honest review. It really helped me work on some things.

The funny thing is that I wrote a revised version earlier today when I was bored. I'm actually more pleased with how the revised version turned out, since it merged what I had in mind for chapters 1+2 and added a few things. But your review helped me on some problems that always seem to appear in my works, so thank you for that. You also pointed out things that I missed even after reading it a few times.