First Chapter Critique

Hey, if you remember a while back, I asked you guys about a post-apocalyptic story. Well, I got the first chapter done and I'd like your opinions on it.Here it is: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2891415/1/Walkabout

Some of the things I want your opinion on:

Does this first chapter do a good job of setting up the characters and setting?

How's the dialogue?

What kind of relationship does the boy and his sister seem to have? I'm going for a certain effect here.

Is the prose too beige?

What in your opinion would be a plausible cause for the setting?

Any feedback from you guys is greatly appreciated.

Also, I might want to mention that I wrote this before I read The Road.

edited 21st Feb '11 6:52:23 PM by Catarrh

This was written as I read the first chapter. So if it seems a bit rambling, then that’s your reason.

You start off to slow. There is a lot of description and exposition, but nothing that really caught my attention. It’s also rather generic.

"Are you okay?" He said, wearily. Anne nodded. "Then we'll go." Who says the second line? Anne or Hyde?

Don’t talk about why Anne is afraid of dogs. Simply showing her fear is much better as it jumpstarts the readers imagination while keeping the story flowing uninterrupted.

Whose viewpoint are we following? Or is this omniscient?

The paragraph with the description of the baby carriage, the gun and Anne picking a flower seems rather disjointed. There are other examples of this.

A lot of single sentence paragraphs. Some of these start with the same word. Try to work them together.

“Hyde snatched his rifle up and loaded a clip into it with some difficulty.” Wait, if he only had four rounds, wouldn’t a single magazine be enough, and if so, why would he keep it unloaded.

“Anne quietly sobbed with fear” Cut the last two words. We get why she’s sobbing. Show versus tell.

A lot of the sentences are somewhat awkward to read. They often contain redundancies. Stephen King has a pretty good rule: 2nd draft = 1st draft – 10%. In my experience this keeps things flowing better.

So Hyde has only four bullets, but still shoots a hog. Seems quite wasteful. A sharp stick and some patience/skill can do wonders.

Your prose is extremely beige and dull. Everything is described in short single sentences. Yet, at the same time you describe tons of things. Go for quality over quantity. Cut down to what you need to establish setting and move the plot. Then describe them in a way that is interesting to the reader. Make sure you tell the reader enough to picture the world. Often I would forget that this is post-apocalyptic. There would be references to flowers and plants and wild animals. That meant that I often thought ‘abandoned’ instead of ‘dead’.

There feels like a distinct lack of overarching conflict. There are a few incidents, but these don’t matter much to the plot. Most of the story is about two people walking and the stuff they see along the way. Give them a goal more defined than ‘we’re headed east.’

Even if you did write this before reading The Road, I’d still recommend you taking steps away from that story. I kept picturing the characters pushing a trolley far too often and you will be accused of ripping off.

Thanks for your feedback. I'll get to work on rewriting it when I have the time. I'm sorry it's so bad the way it is.

Sorry for double-post, but I went back over the first chapter and rewrote a few things. Hopefully I can eventually make it tolerable to read.