Writing 101: Page Critique - Sel

Every Thursday the Writing 101 crew, Michael and Lauren, will critique a page from a novel. If you'd like your page critiqued, please fill out the Writing 101: Page Critique Form. At this point we have submissions queued up but are still posting just one page a week, so if you've submitted but haven't seen your page yet, don't panic! ;) Stay tuned.

First we present the page without comment:

Author: Sel
Title: Light Me Up, Turn Me Grey
Genre: YA dystopian/fantasy
1st Page (232 words)


Hell starts on day one, they say; guilty until proven innocent, or until you break and bribe an official to release your name from the Book. You'll be nameless and poor but free and happy.
Everyone in our little society are here, cramped and sweaty and fussed like little robots, standing half a metre apart in the marketplace surrounded by concrete slabs, blue sky and rusty, broken walls. We almost deserve the strikes they give us, for being weak and imperfect.
The whistles in the air are as rhythmic and predictable as the moans we drive into this world. The soldiers give us a second of rest—a painless moment where our muscles relax, before a second, a third strike that makes us stiffen again. In between strikes, they shower us with salt water to keep the wounds alive. Think of grey, I tell myself, a calm, grey ocean blending in perfectly with pale skin and blood. Don't let the pain sear into your mind. Only my skin, yesyes.
The girl in front of me; she's wearing a transparent, blood drenched dress. But that is not the most interesting; she is silent even when the others bow and shudder away and scream their pretty heads off.
My eyes stay on her for the rest of the beating, so that the screams of pain fade to hums.   
The Purge-Captain coughs into the microphone.

What say you, readers of Paper Hangover? Did this first page intrigue you enough to read on? Please keep your criticisms constructive. Always be polite and considerate of the writer.
 
Michael's and Lauren's line by line edits and then our overall comments after the jump.

Hell starts on day one, they say; guilty until proven innocent, or until you break and bribe an official to release your name from the Book. You'll be nameless and poor but free and happy.
Everyone in our little society are here, cramped and sweaty and fussed like little robots, standing half a metre apart in the marketplace surrounded by concrete slabs, blue sky and rusty, broken walls. This final sentence feels like it might be trying to accomplish too much at once. Consider breaking it up into at least two smaller sentences.

We almost deserve the strikes they give us, for being weak and imperfect. Consider separating this line from the previous paragraph since it comes directly from the main characters POV. We get a glimpse at how the MC feels about the situation they are in, and with this line isolated, it packs a bit of a punch.

The whistles in the air are as rhythmic and predictable as the moans we drive into this world. The soldiers give us a second of rest—a painless moment where our muscles relax, before a second, a third strike that makes us stiffen again. In between strikes, they shower us with salt water to keep the wounds alive.

New paragraph because the next line comes directly from the main characters POV.
Think of grey, I tell myself, a calm, grey ocean blending in perfectly with pale skin and blood. Don't let the pain sear into your mind. Only my skin, yesyes.

The girl in front of me; she's wearing a transparent, blood drenched dress. But that is not the most interesting Maybe “interesting” isn’t the right word here? Perhaps something like: But that is not the most puzzling/disconcerting/disturbing thing about her; she is silent even when the others bow and shudder away and scream their pretty heads off.

My eyes stay on her for the rest of the beating, so that the screams of pain fade to hums.   
The Purge-Captain coughs into the microphone.

Michael’s comments: I’m hooked! This is a really good page. And I’m not the hugest of fans of the dystopian genre. But I’d definitely read more of this. I’m intrigued by the voice and the story questions you’ve raised. I only have a few small suggestions:

Try to introduce the marketplace a little earlier. When the MC says, “Everyone in our little society are here...” I wasn’t able to picture where “here” was until the description of the marketplace came, which took a little too long to arrive.

Also, about how many people are in this society? The reader doesn’t need an exact number, just an estimate so that we can get a better feel of how cramped they all are. You could use this as an opportunity to show us how they are a sea of people standing shoulder to shoulder, their sweat dripping onto each other or how the MC can feel someone breathing on the back of her neck. This may not be the image you have in mind (you did mention that they were standing half a metre apart which is not super close), but I think you could show us this scene a little more concretely with the right words. Not too much though. Just a few choice words here and there.

What are the whistles in the air? Is it the sound of the soldiers striking the people? If so, what are the soldiers striking the people with? Whips or something like that? The reader needs to know this so that we can picture the scene accurately. You don’t want the reader to image something that you don’t intend and then what you reveal later is actually different from what the reader imagined. That jolts readers from a story.

Lauren’s comments: Amazing voice! This whole thing is excellent; I can think of very little to say except to echo Michael. The above line edits are really where it’s at, in my opinion. I felt some disorientation with regards to POV, but making the line breaks when you switch from description to thoughts will help.

My only other issue is that I can’t figure out what’s going on! At first I thought the narrator has just become the nameless/poor/free/happy state, but on a second reading I gathered that’s not the case. Now I’m wondering: is the narrator a slave, hence the marketplace? Are these people prisoners? WHAT’S GOING OOON my poor clueless reader brain can’t handle it D:

If you can give me a little more detail on the who/what/when/where, you’ll have me hooked. (The why and how don’t need to appear right away; they’re why I keep reading!)