Only Chapter One

Hi, Lorraine!

Thanks for your submission. You're always welcome to 'pop by'!

I hope you find the review useful.

Review of "Capita"

Hello, Shaye!

Thank you for requesting a review from "Only Chapter One " 

Before I start, do not forget,
writing's an art, so do not fret
if you should find that I am blind
to your fine flair, and be aware
this opinion — it is but one.

When approaching your opening chapter, I'm searching for specific elements that separate the chaff from the wheat, and each will be addressed under a different header.


Hook — does your opening have something that stops this reader putting down your book?


Your opening begins with action and conflict. That's great. I like that a lot.

You need to make it clearer who A is, and who's speaking the first, opening sentence. Also, you need to fit a bit more scene setting into this opening so that the reader begins to imagine where they are. You don't need much, just actions that impact on setting, eg. second line beginning. Captain Alexandra dug her fingernails into the armrests of her command chair and quickly read the data on the approaching ship that appeared on the holoscreen to her left.

Characters — are they well rounded?


I love Captain Alexandra. I like that she hates humans and that she has a father who is super important but we don't know who he is. I like that we're shown she's naughty but the humans need her.

I also like the admiral, especially how she was hidden to begin with.

The AI and Houdini are adequately sketched for the moment.

Plot — is it driving the story?


You have a very clear main conflict, and it's a good one. Your chapter ends on a good note because the reader now expects an interesting investigation. If you wanted, you could have created a cliffhanger situation where the admiral and Alexandra are facing off against one another, leaving the reader wondering at the chapter's end if Alexandra and the admiral will come to an agreement or not. But if you did that, you'd have to produce a good transition in chapter two from the cliffhanger point and into the current chapter two start.

Pace — does your story feel like it's going somewhere?


Your story is nicely paced.

Language and voice — does this reader 'feel' the story? Are your characters' voices distinct?


It's a bit rough at the moment, but everything is clear. It just needs a bit of polish. Read each sentence aloud and decide if it couldn't be written better.

Notes

“We have a Federation Defence Force cruiser on approach, A. -> Addressing Alexandra as A tells us nothing about her. Maybe address her as Captain.

“Alexandra, you are wanted by the human authorities for the murders of 12 humans. And there are only technically two humans onboard. -> small numbers in words not numerals, so 'murder of twelve humans'. Most of the numbers after this should be given in words, not numberals, with the exception of the percentage, which I think would be fine left as it is. I was a bit confused by the 'technically' here. Are there other near-humans onboard, like half-humans or something? If there are only two humans, say two humans.

she could talk aloud, or so only I could here. -> hear.

The male held is hand out. -> his hand

Captain Soren went to his inside jacket pocket, -> Captain Soren reached into his inside jacket pocket,

Settings — is this reader grounded in 'real' scenes?


Although it's clear where we are and what the tech is like, you don't really describe the settings much at all. I mean, I've no idea how large Alexandra's ship is in comparison to the Federal ship, and I don't know much about what the tech looks like. The quantities of weapons and suits of armour felt a bit much to me, to be honest. Usually, a big deal is made about how expensive and rare the best armour is within speculative fiction, and kings tend to only have a few sets, or even only one. Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight series is a great example of this, where the magical armour manufactured during a golden age of technology is passed down through a family line OR won in battle against enemies, and kings only usually have one set, and owning armour automatically makes you one of the elite people in the Stormlight world. Another example is in Old Man's War, where the humans are bioengineered to be superior warriors, but they're warned that their upgrades are only the cheapest possible upgrades to survive the harsh conditions they'll meet in the war with alien races because no army is ever sent to battle overfunded and overprepared. They're always sent out with the bare minimum to survive the conditions and fight the war. If armour is so cheap in your universe that the captain can have a hundred sets, then the Federal guys could afford to have better armour, too, and it becomes pointless, if you catch my drift.

Captain Soren of the FDF Cruiser 12321A, out.” -> even when they have numbers or designations, ships usually have names, and the name would be used to identify the ship rather than the number, I feel. Maybe ask if anybody has been in the Navy and what they think about this. Spaceships usually follow naval traditions in space operas.

A gentle click told me they’d successfully linked their ship to ours -> in most space operas they have a small shuttle to fly from one spaceship to another, like The Maurauder in Dark Matter or the raptors in Battlestar Galactica.

My hand rested on my pistol, and I tried not to tense as the ship announced decontamination had completed, and the door opened. -> don't they have any scanners outside the door or video feed so that they can see what's there before they open the airlock?


and withdrew his hand slowly with a terachip; a data storage device. -> it's obvious from context what a terachip is, and it sounds out of viewpoint to state it.

Conclusion — a summary of how this reader personally felt about your chapter.


I think you have a great plot and characters here, which are the most important things in space opera, but you need to work on your settings a lot.

Thank you for sharing your chapter. Good luck with your writing.

Best wishes,

Bob


This was a review from "Cross Timbers Novel Workshop On Hiatis"