I like the tone the prologue sets, and the brevity of the exposition: just enough to prime and inform the reader, and not so dry or so long as to bore him. For some odd reason, I really liked the last line of the first paragraph: "That all happened between 2006 to 2013, the year is now 2018." The tone, for me, seems almost ominous.
And I must say, the conclusion of chapter 1 was undoubtedly intriguing. Why will this shift be his longest shift? What will cause it to be so? What will happen during it? After?
But first things first: Punctuation, punctuation, punctuation! As well as a a verb ending:
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Ashley Johnston a level 3 security guard for the Biotech research station was waiting at mini-train platform. He had brown hair and a good looking face most women would want to be with him, but being a security guard for a big company and living in the middle of nowhere lessens the chances of him in a relationship. He looked at his watch 9:42.
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As a thorough list of every punctuation error that appeared in this chapter would be neither profitable nor amusing for you to read, I will just take this first paragraph and point out a few things that occurred several times throughout the chapter:
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Ashley Johnston a level 3 security guard for the Biotech research station was waiting at mini-train platform.
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A comma should be inserted between "Johnston" and "a", as well as between "station" and "was". Because the sentence, "a level 3 security guard for the Biotech research station" interrupts the main sentence ("Ashley Johnston was waiting at a mini-train platform"), a comma needs to separate those thoughts.
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He had brown hair and a good looking face most women would want to be with him…
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A run-on sentence. Separate "face" and "most" with a period or semicolon. There were a good many run-on sentences throughout the chapter—complete sentences joined without any or incorrect punctuation. Be on the lookout for them; run-on sentences can force the pace of the passage on far too quickly, and confuse the reader.
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… living in the middle of nowhere lessens the chances of him in a relationship.
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"Lessens" should be "lessened"
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He looked at his watch 9:42.
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A period should follow the word "watch".
Dispatch with the sudden appearances. There were two instances of suddenly appearing people/things: the train at the beginning of the chapter, appearing from the nothingness, and Jim.
While you did offer readers a "heads-up" regarding the train (in showing Ash thinking and complaining about it), the train's appearance is too sudden ("… the humming of the train
was getting louder.") "
Was getting louder?" thinks the bewildered reader. "But there never was any humming to
get louder to begin with!" An essential bit of information is skipped (you go from no sign of the train to the train's hum growing louder), and the reader is thrown off course, distracted.
But it's a situation easily fixed. You might write, for example,
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"Why's the train so late?" Ash muttered, peering down the tracks. It was usually on time; what was holding it up?
A sudden, rumbling hum broke the silence along the tracks, followed by a rush of air, coming closer. Ash straightened, rolling his eyes with relief. Finally. The train. He glanced again at his watch, just to see how late the train was arriving. The humming was getting louder. And then the train was sliding to a stop; its electronic doors slowly opened.
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The same problem of "sudden appearance" happens with Jim as well. Jim is a new character, and we the readers must have our introductions; the dialogue, without dialogue tags to identify which lines belong to which person, confuse readers' grasp on the action. Who is this Jim character, and who's saying "all right" to him? Who's talking to our good hero, Ash? Where is all this speech sprouting from? Oo
Because you don't introduce Jim until after the dialogue—and the dialogue introduces him in such a sudden, murky way—readers are left to wonder what's happening. When we finally
do meet Jim, he seems to have materialized from the nothingness. The affect is most distracting.
But again! easily fixed:
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Ash caught sight of a man with jet black hair and features decidedly better than his own seated with his back to one of the train windows. Ash grinned. "All right, Jim!" he called, stepping onto the train.
Jim glanced up and grinned. "Ash!" he exclaimed. "Sit here."
Ash seated himself opposite Jim, another three level security guard who had been his best friend for years now…
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And using dialogue and dialogue tags as a springboard into my next subject…
Make use of dialogue tags to enrich story, character, and character interaction: Judging by the guard's reaction to Ash saying, "No, this is a social call," I suspect that Ash's words were somewhat sarcastic. But the way in which their exchange is written didn't give me the impression that Ash was joking. The flavour of that entire passage is lost; it's like listening a tennis match with your eyes closed, with every sound but that of the ball being smacked from one side of the court to the other blocked out. Readers aren't given any sense of the
characters engaged in the conversation; it's a bland "he said this,
he said that, he said this…" with the meat of character interaction removed, leaving the mere bone.
What are the characters doing as they speak? What are their expressions? Their tone of voice? While it's not vital that for every conversation you delve into the actions of the characters, it would definitely enrich your writing if you mixed action and dialogue. You have a handle on depicting character action, and you have a handle on character dialogue: now all you have to do is put the two together. Rather than,
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"Shouldn’t you be on your shift?"
"The train was late"
"You’ll be wanting your gun then?"
"No, this is a social call"
"Ha ha, here’s your gun"
"Thanks"
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which, when dragged on for too long, becomes dull and repetitive and sometimes even confusing, try adding in character action and description, such as:
Quote:
The guard looked up from his magazine.
"Shouldn’t you be on your shift?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow.
Ash shrugged. "The train was late."
"You’ll be wanting your gun, then?" The guard set down his magazine and reached behind the desk.
Ash rolled his eyes. "No, this is a social call," he said, dryly.
The guard grinned. "Ha ha. Very funny. Here’s your gun."
"Thanks." Ash took the gun and two clips of ammunition that the guard held out to him, holstered the gun, clipped the ammunition onto his belt, and left. He trekked back to main lobby…
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I've noticed that you divide your writing into two distinct parts when it comes to characters and their conversations: Dialogue and Non-dialogue. You take the "non-dialogue" stage to describe character and character action, and "dialogue" to show characters speaking. But you can make your writing all the more powerful if you weave those two parts together.
Going back, for a moment, to Jim and Ash's conversation: I think it would be wonderful if you used that passage to experiment with combining dialogue and non-dialogue, and through that combination show to readers what good friends Ash and Jim are. Rather than telling readers that, "they had been best friends for years now",
show us through their dialogue, through the "general things" they talk about "which would be useless to list here" (and speaking of that line, I must lift my voice and disagree. If you took but one of those general subjects and showed readers the conversation Ash and Jim had upon it, it would cement the fact of their friendship in the minds of readers, as well as enrich their characters and your writing and story.)
Much luck with your story. I hope this critique is helpful, =)