Black (Part 1)
The doors burst open as a young woman wearing blue jeans and a black leather jacket flies out onto the asphalt. Lying on the ground she shoots a look at the doors she just crashed through, noticing a crack in the glass that explains the pain on the side of her head.
Fumbling around in her pocket, the fear on her face eases when she finds what she's looking for: a black disc seven centimetres in diameter that resembles a hockey puck in both shape an appearance, lying several metres away.
Ade was right, I shouldn't have come alone, she thinks, as the door that put the bump on her head is pulled effortlessly off its hinges. Eyes-wide open she stares at the tall metallic shape in the doorway. A class-11 would never survive that. What the....
Her thoughts are cut short as it begins moving towards her. Scrambling to her feet she moves awkwardly to where the disc lies, stumbling as she reaches down to pick it up. Blood drips from her head onto the disc, collecting in a pool on its concave surface. Her hands shaking, she glances back to find the machine right behind her. As it reaches for her, she takes a deep breath and pushes her thumb hard into the indentation on the disc - the world around her fades as a bright white light bleeds into existence.
"Ally is back; she's hurt!", screamed Ade, his voice booming off the cavern walls.
Suffering from the effects of transportation, and feeling pain in places she hadn't noticed while running for her life, she turned to where she thought Ade was standing; footsteps came rushing into the chamber, accompanied by busy voices.
"They've upgraded the enforcers", she said, staring off into the distance, still suffering from the temporary blindness caused by jumping without a visor.
"What were you thinking, Ally? Look at you! You can't...", he moved to the side the let the medics put fixers on the wounds, "...run off on a one man--", before he could get started lecturing her again, she cut him off.
"I did it", she said, closing her eyes and releasing all the tension from her body. "I know which planet they're being held on."
Hi @bitcalm and welcome to the #fiction community :)
For a first attempt at fiction, this is really well done. As others have said, it's got that Michael Crichton-y vibe thanks to the immediate action-packed start and the hook at the end. The writing is tight, so you've not got much to worry about on the prose side of things.
My advice would be to work on the craft of the story more. You drop your heroine into a really dangerous situation but, then, maybe you let her off too easy. I'd have liked to see the tension of this scene build for longer before the escape, to drive home the fact that she really put herself on the line to get that information. This way you pull people in with a fight and then, when the revelation comes at the end, the message is obvious: she'll have to risk her life again to save...whoever is being held prisoner.
It might be worth checking out the #descriptionsonthespot tag for some inspirational writing exercises. I just wrote a photo-inspired short story, specifically to see if I could ratchet up the tension in the way that I think your story could benefit from, which you might want to read.
Keep up the good work!
Fantastic feedback, thank you for taking the time to write it. I'll keep this in mind for part two :)
I was hovering around the escape bit for a while because it felt incomplete. I should have worked harder on it.
You're welcome - I'm making a conscious effort to engage with the stuff other people have created because I think it's the only way that Steemit will work in the long term. And being an active reader (figuring out what works, and what doesn't, in a piece of prose) definitely makes you a better writer. That, plus a lot of practice, is how you improve, so it's enlightened self-interest too :)
Any tips on how I follow up. I really like what I've written and I'm scared of butchering my story. Maybe I should relax and enjoy the process?
Yes, just keep going and enjoy it. When I start writing, I normally have an endpoint for a chapter (or whatever) in mind, and maybe a couple of things that I want to happen along the way. But I'm always surprised that its the process of writing things down where the ideas actually happen, and little details or whole new plot points pop up along the way. I used to do a lot of academic writing and found the same thing and, at first, I thought that it was 'cheating', like I didn't really understand the subject because I couldn't plan what I wanted to write in advance - but, really, writing is a way of thinking, so you just need to get typing and express yourself.
Reminds me of Crichton's Timeline, but the enforcers sound more interesting than 14th century French knights :)
You have me hooked sir
Thanks! This is actually the first time I've ever written any kind of fiction, so feedback is really useful. If you have tips, I'd love to hear them - compliments also work :)
I'm by no means a writing expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but be aware of using past vs present tense and try to avoid using passive voice.
http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/passive-voice/
It's great to have many new writers including myself dive deep into our creativity writing fiction story's. Very well done looking forward to more in part 2, cheers! My latest isn't fiction but it will be a good read. check it out if you may thanks.
@bitcalm congrats on venturing out to fiction. I enjoy your data related posts as that's my normally my world. But my creative spirit enjoys its time as well. Glad to see yours does as well!
That, sir, was an excellent hook into what I have no doubt will be a compelling story. Someone else mentioned Timeline and I agree. The only issue I noticed was switching between present and past tense. Sticking with one or another makes your writing clearer to the reader, so I'd only suggest that you decide which one sounds better to you. :)
Thanks for the feedback. Do you mean that the entire piece should either be past tense or present tense, and that because I use both it's a little unclear for the reader what's happening and when?
Sounds interesting. Leaves one wondering as to the exact circumstances and what will happen next.
Leaves me wondering too...is it bad if I admit to making it up as I go along? :)
No a lot authors do that. I think even Charles Dickens used to do serialised pieces which later were published and became famous as novels.
Maybe you should write a novel? :P haha
Maybe about a big ship that hits a lump of ice...nah, none would like that 😉 lol