Shelter

Jeff,

Your story reminds me of Fallout 3. Maybe because of the caves and the colored tape.

Overall I liked it. However, I think there's one major flaw that diminishes the piece:
The stakes.

The stakes feel low to me. What happens if our protagonist fails? He feels sad. That’s about it. He still has his son and his community, and while you’ve hinted things will eventually turn out badly for those in the cave, that seems to be inevitable regardless of the outcome of the dog run. Your protagonist doesn’t gain anything tangible from success or failure except a change in emotional state. And you’ve not done enough to make me care about him to need him to succeed.

To do that, I need to know this character better, understand why he loves his sister so much and why it’s so important for him to tell her their uncle died. It feels like in this environment people die all the time, so why is this one so important to him? I’m not saying it can’t be that important (characters in stories, like real people, value all sorts of things), but that you’ve not demonstrated to the reader that it is that important.

The dog training bits were well done, although having trained dogs I know that it’s extremely hard to get them to break an attachment to a master. Even a cruel one. And dogs trained as you describe become sullen and violent because they’ve essentially been ostracized from their pack. You might want to toy around with an alternative training regimen that rewards the dog for staying outside. Dogs are smart—I once trained a Brittany Spaniel to sit at a set location for up to an hour and return to me using either a hand signal or a vocal command. I think it’s plausible that with rewards for staying out longer and longer times, you might teach a dog not to come back—especially if you explained to the dog what you wanted. As I said, dogs are smart and can learn to do pretty crazy things if you give it time.

That said, I know you’d lose some of the gravitas of the scenes and the protagonist's mixed emotions in the process.

Kind Regards,
Nathan

Loved this story. I don't know what effected me most, but I think it was the boy and the dog. Heartbreaking. Must admit, it took me a while to understand the overall setting - with the 'shelter' aboveground and the people driven underground. 

But I really, really liked it. Very dark. Great job! 

This is a story that is kicking at the barrier of Wordcount wanting to get out. I really liked the nice in-story touches of this one (the colour coding of tape on the walls, the "light rations") nicely thought through.
My real critique is that at times there is more "tell" than "show" particularily in the beginning. I also would have like more of a sense of the world around your characters; I had a hard time sensing what life was like day-to-day for these people.
Overall I got the impression that you know these characters and given the space would be able to flesh out something with just a little more meat. Wanting more is a good way to leave a reader.
Cheers!
LVK

Jeffrey,

I agree that it feels like there should be more at stake. Maybe, you could give us something that indicates why it is important to Isaac for Carys to receive the letter. I'm thinking that it's to tie up some sort of loose ends with the world outside of the underground caves but I don't know why it's important to him.

I also think you need to develop the characters a little more, I don't feel like I know Isaac or Sullivan that well. I'd like more involved dialogue between the two, maybe some physical attributes and a little more about what they do in the cave aside from Sullivan training the dogs and Isaac watching the haze. Which are both very good!

Be wary of not using dialogue tags. There were several instances when I wasn't sure who was talking.

O.K. enough of the bad. Onto the good.

The strength of the story was the second half. Most of the beginning felt expository and “telling” but you  really got me interested during the training of the dog and most of those scenes were written well and the end was pretty good. I like the bond between Boomer and Nate and I like the final lines were perfect!

There were a couple of descriptions that blew me away, especially ones pertaining to characterization of the dog.

...the dog’s white coat flashing like a ghost in the dim glow of the cave bacteria.

Issac stepped on his back paw accidentally, and Boomer flopped onto his belly, quaking tail pinned to his stomach.
 

Both of these were great and you had alot like it in there!!!

Actually, I don't mean this to be an insult, rather a compliment, because it's extremely difficult to do, but I think Boomer is the most developed character in this story, He is the character I identify with most and it's because you did a great job with establishing "heart authority" for him as well as giving physical and emotional descriptions and "on the body" sensations. I give you big Kudos for that.

This one gets a thumbs up for me because ultimately in the end I walked away satisfied, but I think the story could benefit in the first half with deeper development of Issac and Sullivan and an inclusion on the importance of the letter. Thanks for sharing.

--Jonathan--

I agree with some of the other comments, this could have done with more at stake.  It's a great segment of a longer story - the world is well written, and the story flies by.  Everything with Boomer is really good.  With little at stake though, and not even a hint of whether or not the message gets through, it does make it a little harder to fully invest in the story.  The written hint from the outside world feels like a nod to a bigger story, and I liked that.  I was half expecting the conclusion to be the first steps into the outside world.  There could be a lot of tension here between the shelter and the caves.  You have all the ingredients here for a cracking story, and obviously the talent to write it well.  I hope you carry on developing this one.