Genre: Action
Chapters: Prologue
SoT (Short on Time) Critique
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I. ELOCUTION
a. Major Grammar Corrections
~ "...heavily bared with iron rods..." - Should be "barred".
~ "Her treatment improved since then." - Since you tell this in past tense, to show that this is even further in the past, there should be a "had" before "improved". Past tense is always confusing for me as well, but the way that I figure out personally whether to put in the "had" or leave it as normal past is I compare the sentence that I'm writing in past (relative to the present actions, not in tense) to how I would write it if the action were in the present. If they are the same, then the one in the past needs something extra to show that it is in the past, despite the tenses. This can apply to all other sentences in the paragraph, where you are addressing something done to her before and she's thinking back on it.
~ "Eyes opened, pulse raced." - I feel like this was intended to stylistic, but the past tense interrupts it and I think it would sound better grammatically correct, with a "her" in front of "eyes".
~ "Jared had gone ridged..." - I believe you meant "rigid".
~ "...the regret he knew had been in his sons eyes..." - Should be possessive, or "son's".
b. Major Style Corrections
~ "What do you want?" - It might be useful to have a dialogue tag here. At first I thought it was the guard speaking, not her.
~ "She moved forwards..." - I noticed someone called you out on this: just wanted to say that both with the "s" and without the "s" are technically correct, though it may flow better if you changed it to without the "s"
~ "...matters what we do to others, you should be more..." - This sentence would flow better and have a stronger impact if you changed the comma to a hyphen or colon.
~ "The man had sat down and started..." - The words flow together a bit too awkwardly here, even though it is grammatically correct. Consider rewording it like: "The man was sitting down and had started..."
~ "His father watched as Jared's eyes flickered away and back to the girl." - First, "flickered" makes me think of a light going on and off. I think "flicked" would work better, as that speaks to motion. Second this would flow better if you removed "away and", like so: "His father watched as Jared's eyes flicked back to the girl."
II. COMMENTARY
- Question 1: Engagement/Hooks
The opening was well written and stunningly intriguing. You did an excellent job of reeling me right in. I am strongly visualizing the tension between the girl and Jared in the beginning when he grabs her, and really at every other point. Emotion was very high when they turned out the machine and she said goodbye to everyone, especially that last line "I'll see you on the other side". Even though we don't know her or her family/friends yet, you are still able to elicit sympathy to some degree, which is good. My mind is let to fill in all the microexpressions necessary to play the movie in my head, which is a subtle talent that goes unmentioned most of the time and I applaud you for (that's that balance you were talking about in Question 3 as well). Intensity is not something that ever bothered me: in fact, it makes a stellar opener in my opinion. Now if the intensity runs on for more than a couple chapters, I do start having a problem with it, but just as a first chapter/hook, it works very much in your favor.
- Question 2: Spelling/Grammar
This would probably, of all your questions, be your weakest point, but only hardly so. It's good that it is this one though, as grammar is easily learned/corrected and the others are much more subtle skills that are much more difficult to acquire. It seems your greatest trouble here is writing past tense "present speaking of a past action" sentences, and I did have a bit of information lost the first time I read through it, which is usually a sign that simple things like dialogue tags and flow need to be repaired or enhanced. Overall, these are very simple errors that are easily corrected with a good thorough proofreading. Hardly worth much sweating over on your part, as long as you do make sure to fix them.
- Question 3: Description
You seem to have almost perfectly balanced the amount of information to reel one in without spoiling anything significant. The only fault I could find was that you used a lot of unfamiliar terminology, mostly names and such, and that may, in small part, detract from the mystery by adding pure confusion. I think the concept of what you have going on here and you explain it is absolute perfection: but maybe dropping less names would help keep the confusion at bay and let the reader revel in the mystery aspect instead. There's not a lot more to say on that, other than to just keep doing what you're doing. Even your actual descriptions are lovely, and you seem to be very good at conveying a lot with only a few words: a very valuable skill I'm quite envious of. XD
I'm sorry I couldn't give more real advice: in all honesty, I enjoyed this too much to find that much to critique about it. XD Keep up the great work!
~ Nik
