January 5 2015
00:30:00 before first infection
I was playing Pandemic II as a boredom killer. set difficulty to realistic, set race to virus, and actually won by dumb luck.
After that I went into the kitchen to celebrate. I placed a glass on the counter…
*Glass shattering*
I look back from my place at the fridge to see my cat on the counter where the glass should have been and a lot of broken glass on the floor… And some odd substance.
I knew I did not put anything in the glass as that was why I was over at the fridge.
I got some of the substance on my finger, to give it a taste.
“Bleh! that tastes disgusting!”
I went to the bathroom to wash it out.
After Increasing my water bill by two hundred percent. I get a call from my doctor on a blood test I had a few days ago.
“Hey Allen. Hows it going down there.”
“Ehh… Nothing much, just some weird substance appeared in my kitchen. Tasted like blood and potato juice now that I think about it.”
“Huh… Blood and potato juice are used to grow bacteria colonies, we might want to take a look at that.”
“So I probably shouldn’t put any in my mouth?”
“Not until we know what it is. I got some friends who are biologist, they may be able to help.”
“Alright… So what are the results of the test.”
“Healthy! You have scored negative for diabetes.”
“Thanks Derick!”
A few minutes later the biologists Derick were talking about came to see this substance. I showed it to them and they started looking at it through a microscope.
“Where did you get this?” Asked one of the biologist.
“I have no idea. The stuff just appeared when my cat knocked over an empty glass.”
“Not all of this glass is a glass cup. these glass shards are of a test tube. And from my understanding of physics. This tube fell like the table it was sitting on disappeared .”
“What does that mean?” I said.
“Either you’re lying and dropped this yourself, or you’re telling the truth. In which case this may be our first possible way to prove whether or not there are parallel universe’s.”
Its at this moment I realized that the biologist were all wearing face masks. which made me notice I was not.
“Can we take some of this for further analysis.”
“Take all of it! I don’t need it.”
When they left with the entire substance, I was relieved.
Too bad this was the easy part.
Please update soon.
5939724 Thanks! I will tell him that. In all truth. he has not done much yet. (just the prologue. he has not yet made one suggestion on Day zero yet. as such I had to reread it a few times to try to spot my mistakes. Almost all the mistakes are probably bad grammar that I missed because I thought it looked alright.)
5940164 I got one chapter ready for editing and another I'm still writing. Don't worry.
5940235
thanks for Letting me know.
i.warosu.org/data/g/img/0459/19/1420343895535.png
Really? The first thing that comes to mind is growing bacterial colonies? instead of, you know, some old mushed up rotten potatoes?
Also, sending some biologists there just because some potato tasting substance randomly appeared on guy's kitchen? Not gonna happen.
MINUTES! FKING MINUTES.
img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130212065557/mlp/images/e/e4/Picard_facepalm.jpg
Really? Either the guy is lying or there are parallel universes? Maybe someone threw it in from an open window? Maybe some of his friends left it over? Maybe it was hidden somewhere in the kitchen and the fell from a shelf? Nope. Parallel universes.
Just instantly parallel universes. No other possibilities.
Please note that though my dick-ish attitude and pointing out certain things, I am trying to give constructive feedback. Anyways, a more detailed thing below.
1. Pacing and the length of the chapter
The problem:
Ok, first off. The chapter is kind of short. I know personally that a writers block or finding content to write about can be horrifyingly difficult, but chapters should have more substance. Here is less than 500 words we have
1. Guy finding the virus vial
2. Guy getting infected by the virus
3. Guy getting a call from his doctor in order to initiate a plot device for people to get the virus analyzed and getting back his diabetes test.
4. Fully equipped biologists appearing to the house in minutes and instantly finding out that the virus is from a test tube and it came from another dimension.
Thats way too much stuff happening in 500 words. My advice to this would be to include meaningful "filler". Yes, I know everyone hates it, but it's necessary in order to keep the story flowing at a proper pace.
Have an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo5Rhn8zuPA
The video is perfectly understandable to people who know the source material, but if you show this to someone who has never seen the series or knows nothing about it, they are not going to get anything from it. All the basic plot-points are there, but there is nothing to tie them together. It's an incoherent mess without all the "filler" keeping it together.
How to fix this in my opinion:
Have everything more spaced out. Give is more time to get to know the protagonist better. Have some inner dialogue about stuff. Make the discovery of the virus slower and actually show us him washing his hands and mouth. Make the call from the doctor longer and show us what relationship these two have. I got a feeling that they know each-other well, but it's not implied in any way. Have some actual time between the call ending and the biologists arriving. Have him take a shower or calling to another person who might or might not be important to the plot later. Make the story feel like that we are following someone and seeing what he is going through in normal pace, instead of getting a bullet point list of what happened.
2. The human stupidity and plotholes.
The problem:
I apologize if this comes out as rude or insulting, but what is going on with the people here?
Firstly, why is the guy tasting random magically appearing liquid on the ground? You don't know what that is! You do NOT put it in your damn mouth! What if it was extremely potent poison or something?
Secondly, the Doctor immediately thinks that fluid on one of his patients' floor is bacterial colony incubation fluid. Not only this is extremely strange because only thing he had in order to guess that was the taste, but it is completely insane considering the fact that the flu is caused by a virus. There is no need for it to be kept in a bacterial colony for viruses only need moisture and proper temperature to stay alive. They only need living cells in order to reproduce. Granted, I might be wrong on this one. I do not know how viruses are held in laboratories.
Anyways, the doctor instantly feels that he must send two of his biologist friends over to one of his patients' house because he found something strange on his floor. You have no idea how dirty some people's houses are, and I wouldn't call it a miraculous happening if suddenly something that tastes like potatoes and blood appeared on someone's floor. Again, nothing points out that the doctor and our protagonist know each other better than a regular patient and doctor knows each other. This could be understandable if the doctor and Allen are extremely good old friends and his biologists are nearby and currently idle.
We never see how the call ends, and then IMMEDIATELY after that the biologists appear to the house fully geared up and ready to analyze the fk out of everything. The fk?
Ok, they arrive at the house with a microscope and gas masks within minutes after the call to his doctor ended . Let's presume that the hospital they came from is 10 kilometers away. It would take them AT LEAST 30 minutes to get there, considering that the doctor needs to call them, tell them whats going on and where they need to go, collect their stuff to the car and leave and then drive those 10 kilometers to the house. This happens WAY too quickly and is completely impossible.
They immediately set up a microscope and begin studying the virus sample. Considering that the regular light microscopes are unable to see viruses due to viruses being smaller than the visible electromagnetic spectrum, the biologists would not see anything with that, and more test are required. Then the biologist does the impossible and somehow deduces that it was a test tube that fell from the table, because physics say so, and that it might have come from a parallel universe.
Comon on now. NOBODY can know that. Not that it fell from a table and any sane person would slap the living hell out of the person who said it came from another universe. ANYTHING is more probable than that happening. Including that the aliens from another galaxy used their super-teleporter to teleport it into the house. The whole line is completely insane.
How to fix this in my opinion:
Make the human characters more believable. Have the doctor be Allen's old friend and let them have some small talk after the doctor has delivered the test results and then start talking about the virus vial. Have the doctor tell him that he has couple of friends over at the investigative unit or something nearby and they are off-duty at the moment. Take some time for the biologists to get there and use the time in the middle to build up the universe or establish the characters more. When the biologists arrive, have them take their time studying the sample and then giving a more detailed report about the mystery fluid. Have them not make brain-fart level insane comments that would produce a flat "what." from anyone hearing it and calling the men from the mental ward to take in the brain-farter.
Rude tl;dr:
Make longer chapters where everything does not feel like its a bullet-point power-point presentation but an actual, slow, story. And have the people acting like sane individuals instead of mental ward patients with insane ideas and an infant-like need to put everything in their mouth.
Once again, trying not to insult anyone. Thats just how I write.
EDIT: This whole thing was written before I kept reading the following chapters. If the identity and background of the doctor are revealed or expanded upon the following chapters, thats good. But the information still should be given in the same chapter as the character is firstly introduced, preferably before major dialog happens between the two.