Writing a book, and looking for constructive feedback

in books •  8 years ago 

Ok, so for absolutely ages, I have been trying to write a book, and finally, i have got about half way through the first chapter (not expecting it to be ready for a while though), and am looking for some constructive feedback on the first part of the first chapter. I am particularly interested in the appeal of the characters, and the direction the community thinks the story should go before reaching the conclusion (which is handily hinted at in the first paragraph). Any ideas which are used, will be credited in the book, and if I successfully finish the book, 50% of all profits from the first month of sale will be converted to steem, and distributed to the users who successfully contributed to the development of the book.

Chapter one (unfinished as yet) -

13th November 2020, the day the world ended. The news had been full of reports of an Avian Flu like illness for weeks. Doctors’ surgeries and hospitals had been overrun with panicking people trying to get vaccinated against it. There was no vaccine, there was no cure. Hope is all there was left, and that was in short supply.

7th September 2020.
The morning TV news has been filled with reports of a new strain of Avian Flu, a variant of H9N6, spreading through South East Asia. With a mortality rate of <1%, the CDC in Atlanta has advised that travellers to the area should carry hand sanitiser, and drink only bottled water. DEFRA has also issued similar advice, and are monitoring the situation.
Leaving the house at about 8AM, I put my briefcase in the boot of the car, and slipped behind the wheel of my company Mondeo, putting my cup of coffee in the holder in the dashboard. Starting the engine, I reverse out of the drive, and sedately make my way down to the main road so I can join the daily grind, flicking between the stations on the radio, trying to find something interesting to listen to, and failing miserably. No sooner than I had turned onto the main road than my phone rang. Tapping the on-screen display in the dash, I heard the voice of my PA through the cars speakers.
“Hi Joe” came her voice, sounding more serious than usual
I put on my happy voice, thinking she might have had another argument with her girlfriend “Good Morning Amy, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“We need you here ASAP, DEFRA have called an emergency teleconference, and you’re needed” came the reply.
Shit, that’s why she sounded serious. “Did they say what it was about?” I enquired, switching to my normal office voice.
“No, but we have received some sealed briefing packs about 5 minutes ago, and the teleconference is scheduled for 9:00. We have also arranged for Police escorts to get everyone here, yours should be with you shortly”.
It must be serious for them to arrange a Police escort. “OK, I assume you have given them todays tracking code for the car?” A stupid question to ask, of course she has, that’s why I insisted on keeping her as my PA in the last round of budget cuts.
“Yes” Amy sighed “I am observing the Police tracking now, and they are just coming up behind you. I will give you any new information I have when you arrive at the office”.
The speakers clicked, and the phone went dead, but sure enough, coming up behind me were 4 Police cars and 2 Police bikes. The bikes and two of the cars passed me, with the other 2 cars pulling in behind. As soon as they were in position, they turned on their lights and sirens, and sped me through the traffic towards my destination, the main lab at Contrast Pharmaceuticals, a journey of normally 90 minutes in rush hour traffic.

8:42, Contrast Pharmaceuticals Head Office
I pull into the car park, still flanked by the police escort, swinging to a halt by the main entrance. Leaving my coffee, which was now cold, I popped the boot of the car, grabbed my briefcase and ran into the lobby. Amy was waiting for me, with Steph Wright and Phil Green.
“I see they’ve got you guys here early, how did they manage that? Fly you in?” I said jokingly, swiping my card on the security panel to let me through the security barrier.
Steph gave me a stern look, Phil grunted.
“We received calls at about 7:30 giving us a location for a pick-up.” said Steph “Phil was waiting by the time I got there, and they flew us straight here”
“Bloody hell, this must be really serious if they chartered a chopper for ….” I began
“It wasn’t chartered,” interrupted Steph “It was a sodding military job, so yeah, it must be fucking serious”
“Ease up Steph, I didn’t know” I responded, realising that something big was going down. It can’t be linked to the new strain of Avian Flu, as they aren’t advising people not to travel, which would be normal if there was a fear of mass infection. “Anyway, I don’t understand why you’re here Phil, you work in PR”. A little dig that I couldn’t resist, Phil had gone to Uni with me, and had dropped out of his Biochemistry degree to pursue ‘other interests’.
“Stop it you two, we need to get your security passes updated” interjected Amy before Phil had a chance to rise to the bait
“What do you mean updated?” asked Steph “DEFRA Telecon’s only require level 3 clearance, and we all have level 5”
“This is different, you need Level 7 clearance for this one, it’s a director level conference” replied Amy, leading us to the security office.
Jane, the security officer this morning greeted us with a grim smile. I could tell that she was not happy at having to update passes at any time of the day, let alone this one.
“Please swipe your ID card through this reader” she said, indicating a small card reader which looked like it belonged on a supermarket checkout.
Steph swiped her card first. Jane referred to the information which appeared on her security console, and said “Please state your name, role and department for ID confirmation”
“Stephanie Wright, Lead scientist, Pathogen Mutation Department”
Jane tapped a few keys, waited a moment and then told Steph that her clearance had been updated.
Next to go was Phil. “Phil Green, Chief Press Officer, Public Relations”. Again, Jane tapped a few keys, and after a moment told Phil that his clearance was updated.
I stepped forward and swiped my card through the machine as indicated. “Joe Fisher, Lead Scientist, Immunology and Virology Department”. Again, Jane referenced the information on the console, tapped a few keys, and then told me that my security clearance had been updated as well.
“What about you Amy?” asked Phil jokingly “Are you getting bumped up today?”
“My clearance was updated at 8:00 this morning” she replied “so that I could collect and distribute the briefing packs to the meeting room ready for the conference to start.”
“I’m sorry,” said Phil “you’re telling me that a PA has been given Level 7 Clearance?”
“I am more than just a PA, you jumped up little spin doctor.” came Amy’s reply, sharp and cutting “Now please follow me to the meeting room”
We followed Amy to a lift at the end of the corridor, Steph walking beside me, and Phil walking behind us, sulking after his verbal whipping at the hands of Amy. We reached the end of the corridor, and Amy took a left turn, heading down a side corridor towards a service lift.
“Why are we going this way?” asked Steph “the lift is back that way”
“Just follow me please” replied Amy, and that appeared to be all we were going to be told.
We reached the service lift, and Amy slid the doors open. We stepped inside, and the doors were closed behind us. Amy swiped her security card through the card reader. A panel slid aside, and a scanner popped out of the lift wall. Amy placed her right hand on the scanner and said “Delta Alpha 2 1 Kilo”. The hand scanner disappeared back into the lift wall, and the lift started to move downwards. After a few minutes, the lift stopped, and the doors slid open, revealing a large room with a security desk, and several heavily armed guards. We stepped out of the lift, and the doors closed behind us. We proceeded to approach the security desk, and Amy spoke to the guard sat at a bank of computer screens.
“Meeting room 2, Defra, Contrast delegation” she told the guard.
He pressed a few keys on his keyboard, and pulled out 4 security boxes from under the desk, and we were instructed to place all personal belonging, phones, keys etc into one of the boxes. Once we had done this, the guard locked the boxes, and removed two keys from each one. One he placed on a key rack, the other he passed to each of us from the box with our belongings in, before issuing us with Visitor ID badges.
“Please go through the door on the right, and follow the blue line on the floor until you reach Meeting Room 2” he barked, and then, as if we had been turned off, he turned back to his computer screens.
“Right,” said Phil “let’s see what all this is about”. We walked to the door indicated by the guard, a revolving steel affair, and swiped our passes through the reader. The door rotated to allow us through one at a time, and when we were all through, we followed the blue line to meeting room 2.

8:59AM, Meeting Room 2
The meeting room was a large room, with a semi-circle of desks facing 3 large flat screens mounted on the wall. 5 people were already seated, waiting for the meeting to begin. We filled 4 of the remaining chairs, and looked at the sealed briefing packs on the desk in front of us. For such a high-level conference, the briefing packs seemed incredibly slim, a few pages at most.
The screens on the wall lit up, and showed that they were connecting to whoever was on the other end. After a few moments, each screen went live, and we were greeted with an American Colonel, Clive Barratt the head of MI5 and a young looking man, possibly in his mid-late 20’s.
Once the communication channel had been established, a short man, with dark hair and glasses stood up and introduced himself.
“Good morning gentlemen, and ladies. My name is Darren Colden, Senior Civil Servant. Please open your briefing packs, and we can start the briefing”.
We opened our briefing packs, and were presented with a few pieces of paper, the top one marked as TOP SECRET with one sentence on it – “Chinese Genetic Manipulation Program Update”. Turning to page 2, the briefing notes indicated that the Chinese Military had been working with the North Korean regime, attempting to manipulate human DNA to improve the endurance of their military in extreme conditions, with varying degrees of success.
The American Colonel was the first to speak. “We in the US military attempted a similar project a few years back, and the results were similar to what the Chinese and Koreans have. 3% of all test subjects initially showed a marked increase in resilience to extremes of temperature and improved stamina when sleep deprived. The plug was pulled on the project after the majority of the successful test subjects suffered from severe mental breakdown between 2 and 5 days from treatment.”
“Thank you Colonel,” said Darren “and can you advise what happened to the project notes?”
“The notes were sealed in the Pentagon secure storage facility, until they could be transferred to the Dreamland facility for permanent storage.”
“And have they been moved to Dreamland?” asked Darren
“The notes were being transported, when the shipping container became ….. misplaced”
“Hold on a moment, are you telling us that A, you genetically mutated your own military personnel, and B, that you ‘lost’ the notes and now the Chinese have them?” asked Phil, still looking through the briefing pack.
“Not necessarily, but it would appear that is a likely scenario” responded the Colonel abruptly.
“So why involve us?” asked Phil, “What does this have to do with Contrast?”
“Some of the initial testing material was supplied to Contrast for screening and disposal when the project was shut down” said the young man on one of the screens
“So,” said Steph, “we handle a shit load of material on a daily basis, and so do a number of other companies contracted by the US military”
“That may be the case, but all of their material has been accounted for” barked the Colonel, clearly agitated at having to be in on the conference call, and admit that the US Military carried out genetic experiments
“Whoa, so you’re saying that we lost some of the material?” I asked
“Not so much lost, as failed to neutralise” said the young man
“I’m sorry, but who are you, and what do you mean by ‘failed to neutralise’” asked Phil, referring to the young man on the teleconference screen
“My name is not important, all you need to know is that if I am involved, then it is a very serious situation that we find ourselves in, and as for the meaning of ‘failed to neutralise’, it means that some of the material went missing once it had been received by Contrast”
“How much material went missing, and when?” asked Phil
“The amount of material that went missing is not important at this point, but initial investigations indicate it went missing in February this year, and if you turn to page 4 of your briefing packs, you will see the available intel”
We flicked to page 4 of our briefing packs, and scanned through the information presented to us. On first glance, it clearly seemed to indicate that the material, classed as medical samples, arrived at Contrast Pharmaceuticals in January 2020, and was logged through the system properly right through to neutralising in March 2020. Further down the page, there was extra information, showing deleted logs which had been retrieved from the servers, showing that 3 grams of samples had been removed from the system, and the remaining logs had been edited to make it look like it had never existed.
“Do we know who edited the logs, and who took the material?” asked Steph
“Yes, we know who edited the logs, but we do not know if they are the same person who removed the materials from site” replied Clive Barratt
“Have you asked them?” I quipped, realising that this would be one of the first things that they would have done.
“That is where we hit a slight problem, as they left the employ of Contrast shortly after the material went missing, and their whereabouts is currently unknown, although we believe that they are currently a guest of North Korea” responded Clive.

OK, so chapter one is not complete as yet, I am still working on it (around running a busy household), and any similarities to persons or entities (living or dead) is purely co-incidental.

Let me know what you think, and any suggestions for taking it forward

Thank you for reading, and don't forget to upvote

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The easiest start is to separate yourself from the character. People don't know you, and therefore don't want to read about you. Create a main character with a fascinating back story and refer to him in the third person. This is a novel, not a monologue, yes?
Second tip would be to change your first paragraph. You're jumping the shark too early. Perhaps your story could start 24 hours before the virus is known. This will give the reader something to invest in, and allows you to swing back around in the final chapters to reference the beginning, showing that the story doesn't end bad. People love that happy ending shite. Or perhaps you could keep the paragraph but rephrase it so it appears to be coming from a local news station. Or maybe it was read from the newspaper by a man waiting for a bus?

Hi, thanks for the suggestions, I can see where it would be better by detaching myself from the story and will try re-write this later today. I will also look at the first paragraph for re-writing or possibly losing until later in the book, and will let you know when i have done it and added a bit more to the story

Oh, and also thank you for your second comment about it sounding interesting, as the only feedback I normally get is from my wife who might be classed as being slightly biased

I'd like to add that this book is fascinating. I would gladly pay you 100steem at current market value ($10usd) for a copy of this competed book.