Vague Genre Novel (a piece I wrote for English)

[Milk2Go]

We have to write a story for English.
I would like it if someone could review it and add notes about what should be changed/made different, reworded, etc.

[Puchiko]

Quote:Every day at 5AM it would ring – Matt hated it.

I think this sentence could be better. "Max dreaded its daily 5 AM ring."

Quote:Today would be no different from any other.

The sentence is unfinished, because it can't be different from any other todays. "Today would be no different from any other day." would be grammatically correct, but it wouldn't sound good. Not sure what to mold it into "The day would be no different from any other." doesn't seem to cut it either.

Quote:Shortly after getting showering and getting dressed

Just leave out the getting.

Quote:“Why can’t you just be a good student,” someone in the room called out.

Put a question mark there.

Quote:Matt heard part of the conversation:

It's okay to leave that out. The reader will understand.

Quote:Matt immediately heard, “…to new studies, we have concluded that the human brain does not stop developing until the age of 40, not just 35. This breakthrough in neurological…”

"not just 35" should be replaced with something like "contrary to the mistakenly thought age of 35". Remember, this is propaganda. They don't want people to think 40 is too late.

Quote:Alcohol was also restricted to those under the age of 35. The new driving age is 25. School now had 18 grades, and was mandatory from the age of 3 to the age of 20. President Kay claimed it to be better than the old system because it “cut down the amount of free time available to minors – and thus effectively cutting down the time minors had to break the law. Past events like Colombine and the 2010 NYRA protests will be things of the past.” Matt hated it all.

Quote:Matt knew it would almost definitely be horrible; ‘kid meat’, as it was called, was the only kind of meat decided appropriate for children. It was mostly leftover scraps of ‘adult meat’, or the meat only allowed for adults. Parents were given total sovereignty over their children. What they eat, what they wear, what their hobbies are, are determined by parents. At school it was worse: buses were obsolete by the year 2023; parents had to drive their kids to school, and then walk them to their desks. “To make sure people are safe.” Students were forced to stay in their desks by chains. “To end truancy,” President Kay claimed. School hours were 6:30AM to 6:30PM.

Quote:It was not uncommon to receive inhumane amounts of homework each night. And with it being illegal for anyone under the age of 20 to stay up beyond 10PM, it would be harder and harder each day to complete assignments on time

Quote:Education was slowed down drastically to comply with the extra 8 grades added to the new system (and the thought that anyone under the age of 20 would be unable to comprehend too much information at once; biased studies “proved” it). And most children didn’t learn the alphabet or numbers or colors from their parents; school would teach them in year 3. Most children didn’t learn to talk until just before their first year, when they would turn 5. Toilet training was an even bigger issue – children were deemed as unable to handle the complications that came with using a toilet, and were fitted with diapers until the age of 11, when their brains were deemed “mature” enough to handle a toilet. School would then teach them.

Quote:Common disciplines included several days in a behavior modification facility, house arrest (which is actually being chained to a heavy immovable pole in your room, at least for minors), or a suspension from school.

Try to use the show not tell technique for conveying this information.

I liked it overall, but you've got to admit it's heavily based on Sarah's Challenge. But it's a great job, just correct the few bad sentences, replace explaining with action, and you'll be fine.

[Michio-kun]

Always use active voice instead of passive voice. Always.

This is a better show not tell article than wikipedia lawl

[Milk2Go]

Puchiko Wrote:I liked it overall, but you've got to admit it's heavily based on Sarah's Challenge.

It actually is. I was going to try to combine Sarah's Challenge with 1984, but somehow, it ended up being a Sarah's Challenge ripoff.
Hopefully my English teacher doesn't go to this site.

[magikarp]

You characters aren't really believable. I know that since the story is so short there can't be much character development, but even if your characters are generic, they should at least seem somewhat like people instead of just being there to fill in the plot.

Why does Matt seem to have so much perspective on the situation even after not being taught much and presumably not having access to historical information besides what his grandfather told him?

Quote:15 was the new 5.

If 15 year-olds had been treated like that since Matt can remember, he probably would think it was unusual. And he wouldn't be able to make that comparison, because he wouldn't know how 5 year-olds are "normally" treated.

Actually, I'm not sure if that was supposed to be Matt's thought, or just a comment from the narrator. There were a few parts where I couldn't really tell, but it seemed more to me like they were meant to be things Matt was thinking.

Quote:“Excuse me, Matt!? What were you doing, talking to Chris like that!? You know how rude it is to discuss irrelevant topics in front of an adult! What were you about to say!?”

This doesn't seem like something that a person would actually say, although I don't know how to improve it.

Quote:Category 2 offense – minor independently thinking

Independent thinking is usually said to be positive, even if it's discouraged in practice. It could be alright, I guess, if you told enough about the society in which Matt lives in to make it seem like they would frown upon that even in theory. The thing is, though, if they don't (openly) discourage independent thinking for adults, they're unlikely to make a rule against it for children.

It might help to think of why the government in the story makes these laws to "protect" minors, and then include the laws that it'd make, instead of making up whatever you want and thinking of ways that they could be justified after.

Quote:“Damn it,” Mike thought to himself. The age of majority will be raised once again.

Is this supposed to say Matt?