Title: Beyond the fence

Author: shadowhunter809

Genre: Sci-fi

Rating: ASR

# of chapters: 15 (including the prologue) (ongoing) 

# of chapters I read: 2 (Prologue + 1) 

Blurb/Summary: 

Enclosing Albama and isolating it from the rest of the world, is a chain-link fence, beyond which it is prohibited to move. The government says that the fence is for the safety of the Albamaians. To protect them from the 'evil' outside.

Driven by curiosity and the poor conditions back home, Clary, holding no regard for the rules, crosses the fence to see what's on the other side. However, soon afterwards, she starts wondering if it were better to not have crossed the fence in the first place.

Join Clary and her friends in this thrilling, suspenseful tale of love, loss, and death. 

Review:

Cover:

I think this cover is cool because of a number of reasons. Firstly, the title, "Beyond The Fence" is literally behind the fence. How clever is that? Plus the author's name is part of the fence itself, which I also think is crafty (graphic designers these days—they have the craziest imagination). The only thing I find a little jarring is the hole in the fence, what I'm assuming is the city, and how damn overexposed the sun is.

The only in the fence makes me think—seriously? Why build a fence around an ENTIRE state when you can just grab a pair of pliers and chop your way through them? But it also makes me think—if the chain link fence was meant to protect Alabama from whatever is out there, it's not doing a very good job.

The 'city' if that's what it's supposed to be, looks like termite hills. I think it would have been better to just keep the place looking like a never-ending desert.

The sun looks like it's midway through a massive explosion, and is about to swallow up the earth.

Blurb:

My complaints about the blurb usually span over ten paragraphs, but this time, I really don't have much to say about this. I'm joking. I always have something to say.

Right now, it's the fact that I can't fathom how compliant the Albamaians are. What's separating them from the rest of the world is nothing but a chain link fence! It doesn't have barbed wire, electricity coursing through it, or watch-tower overflowing with the government's cronies. In the blurb, just saying that it's a chainlink fence really plays down the hype for it. If you told me that whoever was caught trying to escape was shot on site, and mentioned two or three other features of this fence, then I'd completely fall for it.

Also, what lies beyond the fence? Obviously, nobody knows (except for the fact that something 'evil' lies beyond it), but because it's a chainlink fence, you should be able to see through it. Does it look like in the picture? A deserted wasteland? Maybe you should throw that in as well, just for the sake of drama. It also supports what the government says—even if inside the enclosure people live in rundown shacks and are starving, if everything as far as the eye can see looks like nothing but sand and death, then it's fair for the citizens to not want to venture beyond the fence. It's better to die amongst your friends and family, than alone in the middle of nowhere.

Finally, I think that you could do without the last sentence "Join Clary and her friends in this thrilling, suspenseful tale of love, loss, and death." It just sounds like a way to suck in poor idiots to watch a bad movie, when the previous sentence "soon afterwards, she starts wondering if it were better to not have crossed the fence in the first place" was a strong enough hook to make me want to read on.

Other than that, this blurb has given me high expectations for this novel. I'm hoping that I won't be disappointed. *narrows eyes*

First Impression:

I liked this prologue! Seven years is a big jump to make halfway through a story, so it's good that you have it in a kind of "separate" place. You've also given us some backstory about Albama, its economic/political status, along with Nelson + Clary's friendship.

They seem to be very close already, even though they're only ten years old. I'm hoping that this bond will remain just as strong when they're older. It's crazy how people that are 'well-off' are still starving but can still afford to have clothes. It would be good to have a little more insight into the social hierarchy because right now I'm given two different extremes—people living in cardboard boxes, and people living in homes. What makes some people have a home and others not if everyone works at The Farm?

There were a couple of other oddities I found throughout the prologue and first chapter:

1. Nelson and Clary didn't sound like ten-year-olds to me. They are way too young for the kind of conversation they're having, along with the vocabulary they are using, especially Nelson.

When he said "you are the bravest ten-year-old I know," I thought this meant that he was older than her, maybe 14-15 (especially by the way he talked), but the author's note surprised me with his real age. Keep things simple, I suggest that you search how to write children realistically.

2. There wasn't a transition between Clary yelling, and Nelson appearing with the apple. His introduction was too abrupt—you missed an entire chunk there. Clary didn't expect him to come up behind her, so it should've given her a little jolt, and she should've been surprised to see him.

3. Why did she look up when her friend sat down beside her?

4. I find it weird that she goes to school despite the fact that she's starving and the whole town has a manual job. You don't need to know how to read or write if you're scooping up cow manure and ripping out weeds all day (there's no other profession to work towards). If working on the farm gets you more food, I would've expected the children not to work at all and the families to be numerous.

5. "Selfishness. Greediness. Corruption. Anything which is...morally dark."—I found it ironic that he said this, considering that he had just gone and stole an apple.

6. In the first chapter, the conversation between Nelson and Clary is just dialogue. I suggest that you break it up with actions and narration.

I felt like there were too many plotholes to make this novel 'realistic', in the sense of making the occurrence of the events plausible. As I've said to other people who've written a dystopian novel, it's very important that the world you've created is flawless, so that all the events that happen within it can sound realistic. I suggest that you spend a good amount of time working on the setting (politics, social hierarchy, weather, location, etc.) outside of the writing. Everything I've said doesn't necessarily have to be included in the writing (like who gives a shit about the election process of Albama) but making a detailed note of it can help you place your characters and plot in a realistic context. There are tons of dystopian writers out there—there's even a SciFi community profile with a book that gives you tips on how to write a compelling science fiction novel.

Writing Style:

The grammar and punctuation were flawless, and your sentences didn't sound all the same. The descriptions were alright, but I felt like you could've done a better job with the setting, as I've already said. Also, when you have two characters speaking a lot, don't just have the dialogue go back-and-forth like a tennis match. Make sure you make your character's personalities shine through, not only through their dialogue but also through their actions. This also gives you some leeway to slip in some physical description, without later having to burden the story with two paragraphs of boring nonsense. 

Characters: 

 Clary—The protagonist of the story. She is curious and apparently determined to out beyond the fence, but I haven't seen her slave away enough at The Farm to really sympathise with her. I felt like her need to run away was a little too abrupt—perhaps because the story itself is fast-paced. 

Nelson—The sidekick aka the best friend. He seemed to be very wise as a ten-year-old and is the one who really grounds Clary. While she seems like the type of girl that kind of acts on impulse (okay, she may have thought about escaping for a year and a half, but she hasn't really made a plan for it anything.), Nelson is the voice of reason at the back of her head that yells "Stop being stupid!!!" 

Diamond rating ♢ (1—10): 7

This book, as of this point in time, is a solid seven. You have a nice cover, a compelling blurb, and I liked the relationship between Clary and Nelson. For once, you can have platonic love between two characters (a girl and a boy can be just friends! Shocker!), without the entire plot revolving around the blossoming of true love. As I've mentioned a thousand times, make sure you build a solid world, where the things happening can be considered realistic, and make sure your story doesn't move so fast. I get you want to get to the juicy action—her running away, etc.—but give use a moment to really establish ourselves in the story, and get an inkling of what is going on.

Good luck!