Okie, this is my first review, and I'm not familiar with this genre. Forgive me for
being a little nervous. ^_^;

Also remember that I have my own evil biases, and I am *not* out to hurt or insult
anyone. ^_~

This scene starts off with a good chunk of exposition, explaining the leads Robbie gave
Drake. It probably would have been better to have the actual conversation/interaction
between the two, thus characterizing them further. You could have shown Drake at work
and Robbie's nervousness. Remember, show and don't tell. This is a lot of (while not
boring to read) telling.

The point of view in this scene shifted to Drake's, first person. This (in my opinion)
is not good. The first scene was third person. To shift it to first is... well, it's a
bit off. Remember to go with what has been done before. More leeway can be given if
you're writing the next chapter, but you're writing the next scene. Please try to keep
points of view consistent, in chapters at least; it makes things easier on the readers
and the writers (they may be confused as to which point of view to write in). Almost
every improfanfic so far has been written in consistent third or first person -- the
only exceptions I can think of are Magical Girl Hunters (two chapters near the end) and
Scarlett Marquee at Indie Madnesse (the first person/third person switch is actually
done in the chapter; authors for this impro talk about it quite a bit). Keeping it in
one point of view cuts down on confusion.

Out of curiosity, where'd Robbie go? Drake never tells us... then again, this could
just be showing that Robbie's not very important to him.

Watch out for tense shifts. You go from past tense (which was used consistently in the
first scene) to present tense a lot -- most notably when talking about Hack. It's
jolting and a bit confusing; I'd suggest, again, that you keep it consistent.

Good choices for new characters: a bartender and an informant. The story needs them,
and they have a good chunk of potential (each). They were easy to distinguish by
speech, manner, and they're already showing personality.

"Hack is a very large and very mean man." Again, show and don't tell. The only reason
you could get away with this was because you were writing in first person; this showed
what Drake thought about him, not necessarily what Hack is.

Some more information about the Outfit, but not too much, good... I have a problem with
the last line, though. It could just be Hack being overconfident, but he went and said
that there could be only one spot Tanner would be hiding the kid. This can cut the
story very short, very fast with only a small amount of buildup. This is not good.

Quickie grammar rules:

* Semicolons should be used to seperate two complete sentences. The one time it was
used, you seperated a sentence and a fragment. A dash or colon would have been better
there.

* Watch your apostrophe. "It is" is "it's". It used in the possessive sense is "its".
The two are mixed up a few times.

Your comma usage is good. I'm impressed. There's a couple mistakes here and there, but
I couldn't find them unless I looked closely.

The scene flowed quite well. More description would have been nice, but that's more of
a personal preference than anything. The spelling was good, and the formatting was
fine.

There ya go. My first review. Hope it helps. ^_^

Ardweden


M.E.T.A. 1, Scene 2 Review
http://www.chaoseed.com/btr/meta/
3/22/00