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The Opening Line
Adam settled into his seat as the silent speed of Europa’s newest anti-grav monorail, Eden, sliced its way through the countryside.
Adam and Eden. Hmm, well this is certainly an interesting start. Just the fact that this is far different than what most people think of when Adam and Eden are mentioned is enough for this to be a hook. Any other two names, and I probably wouldn't have wanted to read too much farther. So far, well done here.
Also, I felt like I needed to say this--I'm not a religious person by any means, but when it comes to fiction, reading about how people interpret such things is always a fascination.
First Paragraph
While the first sentence did wonders for the start of your story, I feel like the rest of the paragraph doesn't match its quality.
The main thing for me is we get four proper nouns.
Outer Rim - I can see this as being a name. And the meaning behind it is obvious, but the outer rim to what? The reader has stepped out of the real world and into a fiction one. Which brings me to the next one.
Raja - The only reason I think I know what this is, is because I had read it in another story and it was kind of explained. If I hadn't read that other story, I wouldn't understand what a Raja is, unless I happened to stop reading entirely to browse Google to find the meaning. One thing you don't want to do is have the reader stop reading, because it will just turn their attention away to other things, and they may not find a reason to come back.
So, with my understanding, Raja is someone's title. A leader of some sort? Which leaves me still with wondering what the Outer Rim is connected to. A place, obviously, but what kind of place? City, town, state, world, house? I've got ADD, and normally when I can't figure something out, I'll keep thinking and thinking about it without ever really getting into the story. As an example, I've tried to read Cabin in the Woods, but I couldn't get past the first few chapters due to not having a name for the facility the people worked in. I did, however, watch the movie.
Yin and Yang - I don't believe these belong in the proper nouns category. Yin and yang kind of belong in the good and evil, so if those two are capitalized, then why aren't Good and Evil as well?
Line-by-Line Critique
As he told his body to relax, easing the tension that came from his chosen profession, he was reminded of something his teacher had told him once, “A perfect balance often hovers on a razor’s edge.”
Instead of a comma like you have before the teacher's speech, you could use a colon instead.
Onto the part that irks me. He's telling his body to relax, but I wasn't aware that he was on edge and tense from his work. So basically, we skipped that part of knowing, and decided to jump right into the part of relaxing.
As a reader, I like to be one with characters. I like to know what they feel, think, hear, etc. All the senses that I can get. When he gets on Eden, I feel like you could show us the tension he's feeling. Rolling his shoulders, stretching, breathing in and out slowly. Something. I think one of the things that is going on here is a lot of tell and no show. The small backstory of what he does is interesting, but when it comes to the here and now, showing is best.
And today, he felt every aching bit of it.
Here's an example of telling instead of showing, to me. He's feeling every ache of the price for his ability, but what are his aches? I couldn't tell you, because I don't know. I'm simply being told he's having aches.
He glanced about the car; a dowdy couple snogging in the back and three salesmen, not one older than 21, seated along the far wall like huddled penguins in black wool suits, starched white shirts, and oddly identical haircuts mumbling shop.
Agh, that's a big sentence. Chop it down and separate the people he is looking at, otherwise it reads as if the snogging couple are with the salesmen, which isn't right.
Numbers
I notice that you use numerals instead of writing out the number. In some cases, numerals are fine, but when it comes to writing age, it makes it sort of amateur writing. So with 16, write sixteen, and with 21, write twenty-one.
Accents
When Adam first notices the businessmen, I never would have guessed that they'd sound like...well, hicks.
“We make gooood comp’ny.”
This kind of speech can get irritating fast. I understand that some people do actually speak this way in reality, but come on, if I ever heard a salesman like this I would leave. But I digress.
Don't write out a word longer than it's meant to be, such as with "gooood." Write good, and in the narration say that he drew the word out. Otherwise it looks like an amateur move.
Another thing is how is it all three of these guys sound like hicks? No smooth talkers at all? All salesmen, or at least dressed like them? I don't buy it, even if their hormones are turbo-charged. The moment I got to this part, I would've stopped reading completely, unfortunately.
Ending Note
The ending was confusing to me. I didn't really understand what happened, so maybe a bit more description to fill in the blanks would work. I'd expected her to be Eve, so it threw me off guard when that wasn't her name.
All in all, a good story. Just needs to be plumped up a bit. But that could be just me. |