Title: Alpha

Author: paa_rping

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 4/5

I have to say, your summary is nothing short of gripping. By the end, I nearly forgot to write about it because I was so desperate to open up the book – which is a fantastic sign, because it means it's served its purpose very well. I like the way you succinctly introduce your three main characters, you instantly launch into the conflict, and your stakes are hammered home towards the end. The final line especially is very powerful and captivating.

A few small notes, however.

You only introduced three characters at the start, but then you name-drop five characters – two who haven't been introduced yet – when you talk about navigating the final years of high school. I suggest writing down the three you introduced only, so it's not too jarring and jump for the reader. If you're going to name drop characters in a summary, you need to make sure it is purposeful and has some brief background for the reader to grasp onto.

Additionally, watch out for a few technical things:

...murder of an all-star student, everything around is forever changed.

When you say 'around', you should follow with a around them. I would actually suggest removing the around so it's more impactful:

...murder of an all-star student, everything is forever changed.

The problem is, no one was supposed to witness his death and the blackmail adept, mind control capable organisation, ALPHA, responsible for the murder will do anything to protect themselves.

That's one hefty sentence that could use some revising:

The problem is no one was supposed to witness his death, and ALPHA, the blackmail adept and mind-control capable organisation that is responsible for the murder, will do anything to protect themselves.

Grammar: 3/5

Overall, the first few chapters of your story were quite polished, by the further we progressed, the more minor errors I started picking up along the way. I thought we would go through some of these errors in a bit of detail.

First of all, dialogue and punctuation. When dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'they exclaimed – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question, and an exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"I won't tell anyone what you tell me." I said.

It should be:

"I won't tell anyone what you tell me," I said.

However, if we have an action beat instead of a dialogue tag:

"Touché," she nodded.

It should be:

"Touché." She nodded.

Next, let's talk about tenses. You're mostly in past tense, but there are moments where you jump into present tense within a single paragraph. For example:

I run the other hand through my hair. Feeling something warm, I took a glance down to find Andra's hand on my thigh.

If we break that down:

I run the other hand... [run = present tense]

...I took a glance down to find... [took = past tense]

You need to change 'run' to 'ran' to make your tenses consistent.

Also, whenever you're using the contraction of "we are", you need the apostrophe to indicate that it is the contracted version. For example:

In case you've forgotten, were all involved in this ALPHA nonsense."

Since you're trying to say "we are all involved in", it should be:

In case you've forgotten, we're all involved in this ALPHA nonsense.

There were also errors that need polishing, such as some sentences missing their full-stops, some sentences beginning without a capital letter, and some sentences beginning with an extra capital letter (SHe mouthed and I chuckled, as opposed to She mouthed and I chuckled). So I suggest a quick edit over your chapters to look out for those. 

Characterisation: 3.5/5

There's definitely magic in stories like yours, where there's a group of very different characters who have very diverse personalities coming to clash with one another. We have Andra, who, while is quite sweet, can sometimes annoy people by acting like she's on a pedestal, we have Luke's sarcasm that is hilarious (I will never forget neutrinos interact with hyper-concilated higgs-boson particles to collect dark matter neurons which enumerate radio frequence identification ramification...), Vanessa's quick wit, and Mitchell and his somewhat big ego.

But I think Paul makes the perfect grounding force as the main protagonist. He is the one who starts the story craving and revelling in normalcy, and he's so kind – literally offering to help Michelle with the letters because he knows she wants to get into film school, and sacrificing hours of his own study for her. He seems like a very good leader type to band them all together, and he's mundaneness works because it puts every situation into perspective.

I wish you slowed down the pace when you introduced them all, though, especially in that first chapter before Nathaniel's fall. I would have liked more description about their appearance, but more dialogue before they all get than synchronised text. That way, they would make an early impression, and I would feel their idiosyncrasies more, because I did feel like I was thrown in the deep end a bit in that first chapter with so many names introduced and now enough time to really grasp onto any of them.

Also, another thing: first person is great, but if you're going to employ it, make sure that your characters' decisions and thoughts are cohesive and the reader can follow through with it. First person is backed up very nicely with internal monologue, and I wish I had more of it to get a stronger understanding of your characters. I'll speak about this in more detail in the next section. 

Writing Style: 3.5/5

So this ties again with characterisation, and I mentioned it above, so I'll bring it up first – internal monologue. Overall, your writing is fluent and easy to follow, as well as engaging and quite light in tone, which is great! But I wish there was more internal monologue for your first person chapters.

Let's talk about when Luke is talking to Peter, and Peter demands his kwik from him while Luke is reluctant to give it – mostly because he doesn't know who to trust anymore. And then Peter tries soothing him, saying things like, 'You know me, you trust me' – and Luke eventually yields.

The yielding felt a bit too sudden. I wanted to see what Luke was thinking. What made him decide to finally yield? What was he thinking about Peter at the moment? What was he feeling – what did that fear of not knowing who to trust feel like on the inside? Show us his paranoia, and show us why he yields, so that we can understand more about his character and what his motive was in the moment.

Additionally, description of setting – I want more of it. I did like seeing the blaring lights and hearing the loud music at the start, and you do pepper some descriptions here and there. But overall, you need to slow down your moments for us to bring your reader into it.

For example, let's talk about the start – when the five of them have been chosen by Nathaniel, get the texts simultaneously, and start running to the roof. That's a pivotal moment, so don't gloss over it. I want to see them run through the dark curtains, but more than that, I want to know what they are thinking and feeling. I want to feel that fear clinging to them, I want to smell the sweat as they run up to the roof, I want to experience that chill. Use these descriptions to set up the mood, and it'll help your reader latch onto every word more closely. 

Plot + Originality: 4/5

Your start is so impactful, and it's incredible. Literally, starting with a splat.

There are so many great concepts in your story – I like how you handle time-travelling in a more intricate sense, in that the characters feel their bones melting and their organs inflating as they experience it. I also found it quite unique how, when we meet Alpha, they instantly tell us everything about them, like, yeah, we basically mind control without anyone's approval (and invisibility cloak? Cool).

In fact, I even laughed a little when Paul found out about the second organisation – Beta. I'm waiting for Charlie and Delta now.

Jokes aside, there were nice quips of humour throughout your story, but occasionally, it felt like too much. Yes, I think the dry humour works sometimes, but there are moments where I think you need to consider what will be more impactful – a funny quip to lighten the mood, or to make the reader genuinely tense for these characters. A moment like that, for me, was when Bob said they had sighed, and they're all like, "Classic villain move." But literally, lives are at stake, there is manipulation and the threat of instant death.

Which leads me into realism – because of the really dark, really threatening undertones that could harm the protagonists at any given moment, the constant chirpiness made it feel slightly less realistic. I just feel like there needs to, overall, be more morbidity and fear from the characters, their inner feelings, as well as the description.

Anyways, well done on writing a compelling story so far, and I'm excited to see what happens when they meet at the water fountain now!

OVERALL SCORE: 18/25

Overall, a very fascinating story with lots of intriguing elements. I recommend working on your punctuation, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!