Reflections - Review Requests

8. Nation Fifteen (TO)

Author: humblebragging
Genre: the Otherworldly (TO)
Reviewed by: squirrelg

Nation Fifteen is a story set in the future on Earth, where the planet is terribly overpopulated and relies on a totalitarian, "Big Brother"-esque government to monitor activities that ensure what they think is survival. We follow the journey of a group of rebellious young people who seek out freedom in spite of threats from an assassination division of the government called the Shadows.

First impressions:
At first glance, the cover looks really good. I'd say that a sci-fi fan would definitely be drawn to your book because of the cover, however, I expected more of a "spacey" story rather than a dystopian story from just looking at the cover. Your blurb is interesting and immediately sets out questions that the reader wants answered, which is a job well done. A lot of Wattpad stories don't seem to know what to put in blurbs, but yours has a good balance of intrigue and mystery.

Great job on:
The character Chester - he is well-explored from the start and is set up as a character that the reader can relate to. In dystopian stories like this, the reader likes to root for the nice guy like Chester. I also like how you introduced Warwick's personality through his backstory of his parents being killed by the Shadows - it's a good link to the central conflict of the story and explains why he's behaving so aggressively from the start.

Things to improve:
In general, I thought you could use a bit of proofreading. There are places where you don't end sentences with full stops, tense changes throughout and a few spelling mistakes. If you'd like, I can comment on them specifically so that you'll know where to look. I think you can also refine your dialogue a bit more - especially at the start, it's a bit hard to tell who is speaking because everyone talks similarly like teenagers. You should aim to feed the personalties of each character into how they speak; that way, not only is the reader more immersed in the writing, they will also be more attached to your characters. Also, you don't need an adverb every time someone speaks (e.g. "he says ___ly). It gets tiresome for the reader.

You could also flesh out the setting a bit more. We don't know what this dystopian world looks like. For instance, does everyone live with a dozen random kids like the main characters do, and why so? Is the world polluted badly due to the overpopulation? How does the Government monitor the people outside their career tests? By having a stronger setting, readers would be more hooked onto your story!

The main character/narrator Rookie is also not a strong presence in the story. I feel like Chester and Warwick overshadow him as more 3D. I didn't get a strong sense of Rookie apart from the fact that he's 20, hears voices, and recently failed his test. You need to let his personality come through more! I'm sure he's a great guy. Speaking of characters, you introduced way more than I could keep up with! Maybe it's because I can't really distinguish them, but I feel like some characters were introduced too quickly, for example Alex, Lora and Lucky. Also, who is Tenner?

All of these things made me feel like there are too many unanswered questions, and they kept piling up in the 5 chapters I read without being clarified. I'll make one last point that you shouldn't have that random "facts about me" after chapter 5 - it has no relevance to the book at all and looks a little unprofessional!

Breaking cliches:
Here comes the juicy part! Just kidding. Overall your concept is good, but being a dystopian book, there are a few dystopian cliches, for example, the mysterious unreachable government that is evil, which makes the angsty and young main characters want to rebel. In the case of your book, there is also the mysterious assassination organisation that's evil. I feel like if you want to make these organisations bad, you'll have to explain why they chose such evil ways to prevent overpopulation. Add some complexity to the situation! Maybe even get older people involved, to neutralise the hotheadedness in the story.

The names of the setting are also a bit cliche - to create your new world, you've simply added "New" to the original name, like New Earth. Since it's your original setting, why not play around with names? Also, going down your list of chapters, I can see that you're trying to spell out "the government". I think that's a little cliche too.

Lastly, I feel like the interaction between Rookie and Lora was cliche. The whole "you're a young girl so what we do is not safe for you; stay here" scene has been done a lot before, and I found Lora's reaction to that a bit lacklustre. She does end up joining them, so why timidly back away? That looked like an inconsistency. When she turns up in the cave, everyone sees her as someone who will let down the team, which had been done before too - the melodramatic and useless young girl who needs saving. Why not give her some essential skills to impress everyone? If that is what you do in later chapters, I apologise.

Ending notes:
Good work! Lots of things to think about. I'd be happy to chat with you if you have any questions/look at your story again if you decide to make changes. Best of luck!