The six kids looked strange as they headed east on the highway while the rest of the crowd went in the opposite direction. They all felt uneasy, and now realized why Ethan had wanted to stick to the woods. Yet, they were stuck on the road until they could pass the cut out, the high walls of rock that enclosed them would be impossible to climb.
“Up ahead…” Carter announced, pointing up the road. Ethan had seen it too. An un-mounted convoy of two-dozen or so U.S. infantry was heading toward them.
“Ok, Jason, hide the SKS, let’s rest here until they pass.” Ethan said as he took off his pack and set it down on the side of the road. Jason un-slung the rifle from his shoulder and laid it in the tall grass and Allison smoothed the surrounding leaves over it with her foot.

[This message has been edited by Rikki_Ross (edited April 20, 2010).]
 

I think your first line was a bit long. I think you have some minor pronoun/antecedent confusion in the second sentence. You also have several names/characters without one lead protagonist (so far). I'm actually fine with that, but others might not like having a main protagonist to hold on to.
 

I see what you are saying about the first sentence,thanks for the feedback. I am just not sure what you meant about the second sentence
 

This to me made it seem like you don't have a viewpoint character. Instead it seems you are writing in third person omniscient. Was that your intention?
 

I'm saying that I had to assume you meant the kids (not the crowd) instead of being reliably told that. The pronoun is normally preceded by the antecedent (the word the pronoun refers to). If that is the case, then the "they" refers to the crowd (the last noun before the pronoun). I was pretty sure you meant the kids, but since both the crowd and the kids are plural like the pronoun, it isn't crystal clear. It ain't mud either. Shakespeare did the same thing, but he had a cute accent. If an editor dropped you for that, he or she needs to drink more.

I got hung up on "the cut out" that the high walls of rock enclose. I can't picture it. You probably describe it elsewhere, but here at the start it was a stumble 'huh?' that interrupted the flow.

I got the impression that Ethan was the leader and maybe the MC, given the emphasis on his thoughts. At least, my first working assumption.
 

I sensed that Carter was the leader and Ethan the constant irritant, again probably part of the confusion created by the election to go with the group as the main character.

Try playing the the sentence structure to see if you can make it more compact. Like

quote:

---

They were now forced to stay on the road until they were past the high rock cut.

---

[This message has been edited by Utahute72 (edited April 23, 2010).]
 

You do do a good job of introducing and handling a group of characters rapidaly, though - you already give us four of the six in the first 13 and do a nice job of balancing those. So I think you can probably do it with the setting, as well.
 

I thought the only other people they saw were the soldiers in the distance.

Edited to add: never mind. I just reread and saw "the crowd."

Then how did they see the soldiers in the distance, if they were passing through a crowd?

[This message has been edited by Corky (edited April 23, 2010).]
 

I don't see how carter could be seen as the leader if he is only mentioned once and never gives any orders, while ethan does give orders and is mentioned three times. and i have no idea where the "constant irritent" idea could possibly have come from.

[This message has been edited by Rikki_Ross (edited April 24, 2010).]
 

I ask because I'd be suggesting ideas and rewriting sentences.

I can also send directly to your e-mail if you wish.

Or not at all.

It's up to you.

Axe
 

If Rickie doesn't mind I'd like to see your hack up. I really liked your comments on my story.

Thanks

UU72
 

The only question in my mind was why they'd decided on the road over woods if it was more dangerous for them. (I'm assuming it's dangerous in some way, to them or their mission, and that's why they were nervous about looking strange). I realize that it's only the first thirteen and there's no need to have the explanation stated so soon, I just mention it because you seemed ready to move on from that issue to the next event with the soldiers. As a reader, I always like to have a sensible motive provided for all the stupid or disastrous things that characters do. If taking the road turns out to be disastrous for these kids, I'd like to know why it seemed correct beforehand, otherwise I'll just be annoyed with them the entire story. Still, I'm not suggesting you put it in the first thirteen, just letting you know what I was thinking while reading.
 

@ Utahute72 -
well Ethan isn't really the leader either. They arejust a group of kids heading in the same direction with no sort of organization or leadership
 

Axe
 

THE - Starting a story with the begs for the word or words following it to be extremely descriptive or specific.
SIX - ok.
KIDS - What kind of kids? Right now six is all I have to go on. I don't know anything about them including what I'd consider to be an important first impression - their age.
LOOKED - Looked as in they are doing the looking, or I'm looking at them?
STRANGE - How? The whole sentence has been building to this word and strange is too general.
---
KIDS - Even after finishing the 13 I don't know their ages. I'm going to assume they're teenagers since one's carrying a gun, but teenagers is a boring description. I'd rather see their situation through an adjective used to describe them. In order to do that, I must remove the word "Six".
Now you've got three words to play with.
Can you call them "armed" Probably not in today's world. How about "Camouflaged"?
They may not be camo'd in your mind, but they're strange and that should stand for something visual beyond merely the direction they're walking.
Perhaps they are all dressed in leather overcoats like the people in the Matrix. The agents wore suits and sunglasses, the good guys wore tight black leather and sunglasses. They visually stood out from everyone else.
Camouflaged could make them military though and since the U.S. infantry is coming and they need to hide their gun, that won't work.
You could use a foreshadowing placeholder instead. "displaced". This is assuming they are which I'll learn past the 13. You however, know now.

THE DISPLACED
Not the greatest visual, but it's moody. Tells me someone isn't where they belong and probably didn't like the idea. Two words in and we have conflict.
"youths?" Too My Cousin Vinnyish. "teens" maybe, "friends" maybe, but are they? If you call them friends I'll expect them to get along and if they have infighting, why'd you call them friends? "high schoolers" it's two words, but it fits with displaced and gives me their age and unifies them to some degree. They're on a trek together, they're not at school, things aren't normal. Let's see if the extra word is worth it.

THE DISPLACED HIGH SCHOOLERS
LOOKED - "appeared" as it's not how the reader views them, right? But how they'll relate to others in the story.

THE DISPLACED HIGH SCHOOLERS APPEARED
Here comes the money word. How do they appear? This 13 is giving me a "Red Dawn" feeling. I'm going to go with that.
Are they tired? Frazzled? Nervous? Edgy? Later on you say uneasy.

THE DISPLACED HIGH SCHOOLERS APPEARED UNEASY AS THEY HEADED EAST ON THE - what highway? "The" is not a good adjective to describe a highway unless it doesn't matter and I feel like it does. How far in the future after a calamity are we? Was there one? Was it physical? Is the highway endless and describes how they feel about it and life? Let's remove the word the and call it abandoned for now as this removes cars from the equation.

THE DISPLACED HIGH SCHOOLERS APPEARED UNEASY AS THEY TRAVELED EAST ON AN ABANDONED HIGHWAY.

*The rest of the crowd went in the opposite direction*

You use "the" two more times. Four times in one sentence.

THE REST OF THE CROWD - this tells me there is one crowd and the kids are a part of it. Yet, they're traveling a different direction. Did they all start in the same place? It seems to me the kids met the crowd along the way when they didn't take the woods. Also, let's populate your world more with the addition of only one letter. "crowds".
Now let's describe them. What do they look like. How are they NOT strange. To answer that we must know their motivation. Going with the Red Dawn theme, and the kids being displaced, and being on foot on a highway, I'm going to make them downtrodden.

CROWDS OF PEOPLE SHUFFLED PAST THEM IN WAVES.
The word shuffled indicates aimlessness, and weakness. Crowds and waves indicate a large scale exodus. The kids walking past them (opposite direction) indicates strength in the small group.

*They all felt uneasy, and now realized why Ethan had wanted to stick to the woods.*

I know you've said Ethan isn't the leader, and you're writing in OMNI, but I'd recommend strongly against it. OMNI is as out as teen vampire stories are in. It's distant, and hard to identify with and attach to any characters. i.e. care. Would you rather read about "the resistance" or John Connor?
I'm going to proceed 3rd person, so you can officially tell me to stuff it from here on. (if you haven't already)

We've established their uneasiness in the first sentence and saved a few words. They've been walking past waves of people, so a sudden realization is out. Ethan wanted to take the woods but was overruled. Where does that leave us? Conflict.
You can switch to dialog, an argument or an I told you so, or go in Ethan's head.

*Yet, they were stuck on the road until they could pass the cut out, the high walls of rock that enclosed them would be impossible to climb.*

-Ethan felt trapped...
-Ethan felt claustrophobic...
But these are both telling.
Try: "Ethan glanced back and forth, trapped by vertical rock on two sides and hordes of refugees from the front."

It's easier to identify with one twitchy person than tell how a group felt en masse. Plus we've added another description to the crowd(s) of people.

*“Up ahead…” Carter announced, pointing up the road. Ethan had seen it too.*

Is Carter a first or last name? If last, use both names until it's established how they talk to each other or how you as author plan to use the name. (Same should go for Ethan)

Tense shift. - PointING - Ethan HAD seen it.

Announcing is ok, but if this is Ethan's story, he should say it. If you keep OMNI then don't mention Ethan seeing it too. You're only strengthening my innate desire to latch on to someone by mentioning him a second time and picking him out of the group. Also, up the road can be omitted. You've established they're on a road, and surrounded by sheer walls.

*An un-mounted convoy of two-dozen or so U.S. infantry was heading toward them.*

Unmounted as in horses? If so, they are cavalry, not infantry. If not, why mention they are unmounted? Also, right now this is merely information. A group of teenagers is walking against the flow. Up ahead are military. But since there are words like Displaced, Uneasy, and Trapped the mood is set for the opposition to be negative. Plus, Carter simply said "up ahead" instead of something like "we're saved".

WAS HEADING - how about marched? Military personnel march. It's with purpose. It's imposing. It's active. It saves a word.
Now lets go back to Ethan's woods.

Try: "Up ahead," Carter announced. "Military," Ethan replied. "I told you we should have taken the woods."

This says all kinds of things.
Military = Bad. Ethan = overruled or not in charge. Plus it removed a whole sentence of telling and makes it active.

*“Ok, Jason, hide the SKS, let’s rest here until they pass.” Ethan said as he took off his pack and set it down on the side of the road.*

Now you have Ethan giving orders and doing an action. This story is totally about him. Set your subconscious free!

SKS. I had to google this to find out what it was. Use RIFLE instead. This seems to be a rare case of the generic being better, but only because it's such a specific gun's name. (I think)

If the military is bad, let's have the group fear them somehow, or at least prepare to fear. Instead... they rest. It's building, then it crashes. If you're starting the story at the moment of incitement, this sounds perfect. Or at least it's setting us up for a tense scene in which we may learn more about the group and the world.

Try: "What do we do?" "Play it cool," "Let me do the talking." "Retreat." "Let's take the woods. It's too late for that." "Hide the rifle."

*Jason un-slung the rifle from his shoulder and laid it in the tall grass and Allison smoothed the surrounding leaves over it with her foot.*

RIFLE FROM HIS SHOULDER - this is saying that up until now, their walk has been casual. Or at least they aren't in immediate danger. It's mood and it's spot on, but to up the ante, have him holding it, ready to use.

JASON PLACED THE RIFLE IN THE
The word placed will change depending on the sentence leading up to it. If someone yells at him to ditch the rifle, he'll probably throw it, not place it.

TALL GRASS - needs more description. Is this a Mad Max world? Let's make it so by calling the grass "brown" or "dead" or "dry"

JASON PLACED THE RIFLE IN THE TRAMPLED BROWN GRASS
Remember there's been crowds of people walking this way.

THE SURROUNDING LEAVES
Tall grass and surrounding leaves doesn't jive. It works better with trampled grass, but to make it more active and set up a possible tense scene later on have Allison sit either on or in front of the gun. This way if the soldiers come along and "want" something from the only girl mentioned so far, there's the gun hiding behind her. If not, then their rest is forced, not casual.

****************************
Ok, that's it from me.
Hopefully this wasn't too obnoxious.

Axe

 

@ Rikki, look at the places that Axe added details then change those details to ones that do fit your story. I think your opening will be stronger for it.

BTW, isn't this same first thirteen posted in the novel section?
 

The reason I have Carter notice the soldiers first is because he is an important character that i want the reader to care about. The story could be written from the perspective of any of the characters in the group. Though, for me, Ethan is the obvious choice because i can portray his personality the best.

So, any more advice on this subject would be appreciated.
 

If you're now writing a novel, one solution is to write alternative POV chapters, sticking consistently with a POV within each chapter. Having said that, more than two or three POVs tends to become unwieldy.

What I'd suggest is while you can create six characters we can care about, you don't have to make them all characters we care about equally at all times . In real life, we might like all of our friends, but we don’t feel about them all the same way. We also change our minds about them over time and we don’t know them all equally well. You probably already have two or three characters you will find easier to write and will be more important in your story. It doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t like the other three or four, but you don’t need to have them be POV characters.

Nick

Harry Potter was great for this too. There were a gazillion characters, but for the most part it was Harry's POV.
When it was just the top three, Ron and Hermione could argue or something while Harry was standing around. Three characters interacting through one set of dialog.

Axe

[This message has been edited by axeminister (edited May 02, 2010).]