OVERVIEW:
What immediately strikes me about this piece is the unique narrative style of first-person present tense. It's almost stream of consciousness like, you capture the feel of following someone's thought process in the moment. It's not used often, especially in combination with switching perspective between characters. That bold stylistic choice deserves some praise in itself. It's a style that would seem to lend itself well to fast-paced plot, examining internal conflicts, and action sequences. However, it would provide a challenge in providing details of setting and characters without getting into long narratives of "this looked like that and these things were like this", which isn't really how people think, and would interfere with the "in the moment" vibe I mentioned earlier.
You have an interesting set-up which has lots of potential for intrigue and plot twists. You have some of your classic sci-fi elements; shadow-organizations, authoritarian regimes (you never discuss directly, but I'm guessing any political body capable of sentencing someone to fight in a coliseum isn't exactly a haven of liberty).
I would recommend studying up on military, legal, and bureaucratic lingo. Your story blends these fields together and they all have there own unique terminology and character that can be challenging to portray convincingly without a some personal experience. For instance the Fang offering options dialogue didn't seem "official" enough. The language in these types of fields tends to be "clean" and technical, void of emotional. So instead of "killed" it'd be "naturalized" or "terminated".
In the sections with Fey referring to herself being framed I didn't feel like I was reading an account of a military operation from a soldier. I'd suggest reading some non-fiction war novels written by military vets, looking for the commonalities of speech patterns, terms, and attitudes. Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger, is one of my favorites. He has this distinctively German detachment to the horrors of war as he recounts them, that I could see being effectively instituted in the character of seasoned assassins. Perhaps even Fey herself, as she does seem to be a somewhat stoic character.
The set-up for the framing needs work. I see couple problems with it. Who ordered Fey to operate in a marksmen capacity? Was it her squad leader during the course of the mission, or was she assigned the role during a mission briefing? Was it to provide cover fire, or eliminate a designated target? Also, snipers tend to work in pairs with spotters, which you could work into the narrative as being one of the reasons the assignment was odd. Where are they on a mission, and who found the bodies? Was it another squad sent to assess the situation when whoever was in command lost contact with Fey's squad? Did she return, find the bodies, report it to superior officers, then get detained, and accused? How do authorities stumble upon a murdered squad that was out on a mission? Where they conducting operations in an urban environment within the jurisdiction of whatever authority they were operating under? I think this needs more thoroughly explained, even if you intend to give it a more complete treatment later in the book.
My biggest complaint would be that your writing style can be, at times, unwieldy and confusing. I've tried to provide examples below of portions I felt could use improvement. I just looked at the your profile, as the thought occurred to me that English might not be your native language, and it looks like that's the case. It's hard enough to write in a language that you're intimately familiar with, I can't imagine trying to do so in a second language. So you have my respect for that.
Do you have a completed outline?
PLOT:
This is hard one to discuss in the context of a novel with only a couple complete chapters. Though, I have no complaints. You set-up the overall direction the story is going to take well, while leaving a lot of wiggle room for plot-twists and intrigue.
CHARACTERS:
Fey:
Like I mentioned earlier, Fey seems to have a touch of stoicism to her. She's in the incredibly stressful situation, but comes across rather casual. Her recounting of her squad being massacred is given with little emotion. These are people she's fought side-by-side with, she's put her life in their hands, and she talks about it in a very "eh they got bagged up, it is what it is" fashion. Which I think is interesting. It's a trait reminiscent of the "do what has to be done" type anti-hero archetype. This plays well into the hardened soldier persona.
However, I do think she could be more effectively portrait as a military operative.
Fang:
The shadow-organization point man. It's an interesting choice to take his perspective. I see an opportunity here to have the duality of the robotic, official, poker-faced side of the character and the behind the curtain human-being. There's definite potential for character development here as well, perhaps a switch of sides.
SETTING:
Seems to be a near-future vibe here. You have some sci-fi tech, but USB's still in use, so I'm guessing not too far in the future. I could be wrong, as it's not fully addressed yet. Usually, I'd criticize the lack of description in this regard, but getting too wrapped up in descriptive writing wouldn't really suit the narrative style. It would be an interesting challenge to provide the necessary description of things like environments and characters without loosing the train of thought feel, as people don't tend to think about scenery and objects in the moment like writers write about scenery and objects to paint a mental image.
SPELLING and GRAMMAR:
"What took you so long? Were you sleeping in there?" I don't know how she could smile.
I'd recommend separating your dialogue and narration into separate paragraphs. This is wear the reader expects a dialogue tag "He said", "She responded", etc. Though, you could make an argument for keeping it, seeing as how you have a rather unique narrative style as it is.
I presume that stack would be other candidates within this here, yet I find it odd they would issue me this guy when they're most likely going to execute me.
Is this the right word? Within this here what? Cell-block, facility, compound.
I close my eyes. She's right.
You have a slip into past tense here.
This whole setup started when I was framed for the murder of my squad. or This whole setup started when I was framed for the murders of my squad members.
Subject-verb agreement: "Squad" as a cohesive unit is a singular noun and therefore requires a singular verb.
SUGGESTIONS AND NIT-PICKING:
Once again, the incessant buzzing reared its ugly head.
WARNING, WARNING, CLICHE DETECTED! You might consider rewording this seeing as how the term "reared its ugly head" is such a common expression.
I didn't expect my body to feel completely healed after my first real night of sleep; yet, I didn't expect to feel like I'd skipped sleeping altogether/completely either.
I'd suggest adding an adverb after the second sleeping to enforce the idea feeling like not having slept at all. I also think it helps to balance the second half of the sentence against the first.
Those words flashed the past few days before my eyes. Sentence.
The sentence structure here is a tad confusing. I thinking you're meaning to say those words caused the past few days to flash before her eyes. However, the sentence can also read like the words themselves flashed before her eyes. You might consider something like, Upon hearing those words the past few days flashed before my eyes.
Obviously, being an expert of our laws and the judicial system, you're fully aware that the courts will escalate your sentencing and will have you killed for your crimes.
Might I suggest something along the lines of you're fully aware of the sever sentencing the courts will impose; you will be executed for your crimes.
However, what you're not aware of is that there are alternatives to dying.
Here I have a couple suggestions However, what you're not aware of is that there are alternative ways to repay your debts to society or However, what you're not aware of is that there are alternatives. Paths to redemption. The second one has more flare to it I think, but runs counter to what I said earlier about making him sound more "governmental"
I suppose I divulged similar emotional responses from very similar circumstances.
A more appropriate word might be "displayed".
If you've ever been to Altekka, then I shouldn't need to elaborate on what this entails to. It is a fight arena to the death.
The "to" at the end of the first sentence seems unnecessary. The second sentence doesn't read naturally, you wouldn't say "It is a fight arena to the death" instead you might say something like "It is an arena, where participants fight to the death."
Altekka. I've heard the stories. A coliseum of sorts, centralized around the punishment and mutilation of prisoners. I'd only ever found reason to attend once. Not the sort of place I'd like to go again.
I'd suggest dropping the first half. The two concepts of having heard stories and having seen first hand are at odds with each other. If someone asks you about an particular event or place you've been to, you're not likely to lead a respond with how you've heard about it. You're more likely to just say "yeah I've been there, it's like this, that, and the other thing".
When they found their bodies with their only lead as me, being the only survivor, what chance did I have?
This sentence reads awkwardly. I'd suggest a restructuring along the lines of "There wasn't much need for a thorough investigation. They had a massacred squad, one lone survivor, and a long trail of evidence leading right to her, what chance did I have?"
The Black Swan is a league of skilled assassins only known for recruiting/obtaining/acquiring the most skilled personnel/operatives/agents.
Nothing here warrants this much interest from the Swan. |