The Oldland

[Brotherhood]

Hi, this is the beginning part of a story I'm writing
I'd like some constructive criticism

/Thank you very much


Prolog
In a world once beautiful but now tarnished and destroyed, the life of a certain person would now be undergoing a vast change. The trial of Adron was already underway and he would likely be facing the worst sentence you could face, the exile to the surface.

The reason behind this cruel sentence was that during the last millennia the planet’s surface had for various reasons become a lot less inhabitable due to increased solar radiation, eco- disasters, extreme droughts and a big increase in natural disasters, such as typhoons and volcanic eruptions.

The humans had no choice but to abandon their earlier peaceful life on the surface of the planet. Just a few years after the collapse of the old world, almost the entire surviving population had urbanised to one of the deep caves deeper inside the planet’s crust.

After two years of chaos and anarchy, a new world wide government emerged. The government was named Apollo and was meant to unite the people and culture together.

It became a place where there were democratic, presidential elections. A place where the people shared a mutual language and culture. A place in which people had an equal value and the same rights and responsibilities.

All was safe and sound, until one day, when there was a coup d’état in which they took total control over all the governmental positions in the country.

As time passed, things got worse, a lot worse. The government became corrupt and the democracy disappeared, leaving the ruling to one man by the name of Sylivan Barn. He used to be the chief of the defence department, leaving him with a great amount of military experience. That was just one of the reasons to fear him now that he was the supreme leader and dictator of the country. During his first years of ruling there had been a few rebellions in attempt to take the power from him, but all in vain. The ones who supported the rebellion were heavily punished. The leaders were executed to set an example, to make sure that the same event would never happen again.

The number of rebellions greatly decreased but in his paranoia of losing the power which he had accumulated over the years, he began the so called ”exile” of every man who he felt acted suspiciously and rebellious against him.

He hired a mercenary named Dagnet, who quickly became Sylivan’s right hand and was ordered to take care of the city’s street order and rooting out every rebel out of their hiding.
He became famous in his methods of psychological and physical torturing his victims.

The first man to be exiled, was a man named Nathan Cross, commonly known as the first...




Chapter 1
Apollo, 15 years later.....

”Adron, ADRON, wake up! It’s inspection day today, you know”. Adron shivered by the thought but slowly got up with a load yawn.
”Valrek, what time is it? he muttered.
”5.48, you gotta hurry up, only 12 minutes to go”
”12 minutes?”, Adron asked, as he felt the adrenaline pumping through his veins.
”Yes I’m serious, hurry up”, Valrek said annoyed.
”Valrek, thanks for being a savior”, I’m glad that I didn’t oversleep, Adron admitted, as he jumped out of the bed still in shock.

He quickly dressed up and got ready even though he felt drowsy and tired.
”Adron you gotta keep up”, Valrek said, as he ran out in the cramped hallway.
Adron stumbled after him. They passed the hallway and made it out of the building and out in the courtyard where the rest of the worker team had gather up.

The streetlights shone brightly and Adron felt his eyes flickering, he had hated the mornings in Apollo for as long as he could remember. The intense light from the shabby streetlights didn’t exactly make it any better.

They rushed over and lined up with the rest of the team. The clock was now 5.57, Adron was relived and gasped for breath. He knew the importance of not being late for inspection. There had been this one time in the dormitory next to theirs where two of their people had missed the whole inspection. They were severely beaten and the entire team lost two month of payment as an effect of theirs actions.

As said earlier, today was the scheduled inspection day, a day when all worker teams had to line up in the district’s courtyard. According the the government it was just a normal disciplinary routine. But everyone knew that it was a way for the government to check the dormitories for suspicious items that could be associated with rebellion.

[hillwalker]

Constructive advice? - all I can offer is the same as I did for your previous piece. Don't waste your time writing any more of this until you have mastered the basics of plot structure and character development. Read as much as you can to discover how writers make a story leap to life from the page. This piece of yours is deadly boring I'm afraid.
You have obviously constructed some intriguing, fantasy world of your own complete with a large cast of characters and a history of its own. But you forgot to come up with a plot. Without a plot there's no reason to continue reading.

And forget about Prologues - they serve no useful purpose. Yours in particular reads like a clumsy attempt to provide a huge chunk of background information in order to stoke up the reader's curiosity. It doesn't work.

In a world once beautiful but now tarnished and destroyed, the life of a certain person would now be undergoing a vast change.
Uh?
Why are you telling us this instead of getting on with the story? And who is 'a certain person'?? It's like you have a secret you wish to share with us but don't want to tell just yet. It's pointless.

The trial of Adron was already underway and he would likely be facing the worst sentence you could face, the exile to the surface.
Uh? again
Since I don't inhabit this fantasy world it's unlikely to be the worst sentence I can face. Addressing the reader like this is intrusive and not especially good writing. Don't try teasing the reader with suggestions about what's to come - cut to the chase for goodness sake.

The reason behind this cruel sentence was that during the last millennia the planet’s surface had for various reasons become a lot less inhabitable due to increased solar radiation, eco- disasters, extreme droughts and a big increase in natural disasters, such as typhoons and volcanic eruptions.
A long, long sentence trying to stuff in loads of back-ground information - but I can't see how this can be the reason for the sentence. You don't tell us what crime he committed.

The humans had no choice but to abandon their earlier peaceful life on the surface of the planet. Just a few years after the collapse of the old world, almost the entire surviving population had urbanised to one of the deep caves deeper inside the planet’s crust.
After two years of chaos and anarchy, a new world wide government emerged. The government was named Apollo and was meant to unite the people and culture together.
More background story that can be drip fed into the plot as the story unfolds if it's important. Dumping information on the reader like this is not the way to keep us interested. It's a huge turn-off.

It became a place where there were democratic, presidential elections. A place where the people shared a mutual language and culture. A place in which people had an equal value and the same rights and responsibilities.
Big deal. Why does the reader need to know all this before the story even begins? You're giving us excuse after excuse to stop reading.

All was safe and sound, until one day, when there was a coup d’état in which they took total control over all the governmental positions in the country.
'they' - who are 'they'?

As time passed, things got worse, a lot worse.
Correct. Just like this 'story'. It's impossible to read any further because it's so tediously boring. We don't need this history lesson surely. Most readers will have forgotten all about it once the real story starts anyway - assuming there is one.

Then when you finally get around to the 'story', what do we get after waiting so long? You describe the hero waking up and getting out of bed.
Is that it?

Most writers will tell you that waking up in the morning is a cliché scenario and should be avoided at all costs unless it's relevant to the plot - for example, if he went to bed in 2013 and woke up 3000 years later then that might be interesting. Otherwise it's a bore. . .

So how much better off am I having read through this? All I know is that Adron was nearly late for inspection. . . and that's it.

If you're writing this for your own entertainment that's fine. But if you're hoping to write material that others might want to read one day you need to take a step back and do some serious reading beforehand. Trust me, no one is going to plough through stuff like this in search of a story.

H

[Charles Darnay]

You throw out too much exposition st the start that reads more like a summary of facts. When we finally get into the story, in chapter one, it doesn't get any better. There is a lot you need to work on. I don't want to discourage you fro writing, but make sure, if you are going to do it, you learn the basics of style, structure, and dialogue.