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First, congratulations on having written something. Many of us end up thinking about ideas and never taking the time to get them down. My critique is rather heavy in tone, but I want to be clear: that doesn't mean your piece is without merit. Keep writing.
I think you can safely call the piece fiction.
Your grammar is generally fine. That's based on a quick read-through. Your best friend here is a copy of The Elements of Style.

"An" instead of "a" in the last sentence, paragraph six. That sentence is also a rather long, clunky fragment. I don't mind fragments, especially if they have a certain punch to them. This fragment does not. Avoid it and others like it.
The only other grammatical change I'd recommend is in paragraph five: "They would've to do..." While "would" and "have" do combine to make that contraction, it feels out of place with the infinitive "to do." Instead, try, "They'd have to do..."

It's difficult to critique something both unfinished and this brief. I will say that the opening is generic and uninteresting. It strikes that unpleasant balance of being unimaginative and over-reaching. Your idea, when you start writing about it, is more engaging. Would you consider shaving the first few paragraphs down to one or two? Alternatively, you could open with a very short (I'm talking 1-2 sentence) exposition on the technology.
I hope that is helpful.

My newest short story is free on Kindle today (and indeed through Monday) — Kiss Me, I'm Iris

It's a YA romantic comedy about fitting in, standing out and everything in between. (With a St. Patrick's Day twist, of course.) From an author who's been praised by Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, The New Republic, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Back Stage, Broadway World, E!, Maxim, IGN, Film Threat and more.

A confession.

I love high school stories. I pride myself on writing in a lot of different genres and media, but really, if I had to pick one, I could probably settle down in high school and just rehash my awkward years ad nauseum.

I like stories about young people. I like the way their brains spin at furious rates, I like how they take everything so seriously or not seriously at all, I like how they're all cooped up in one institution and have to just live with each other for hours and years on end.

I've written teenage girls before—but usually for movies, and usually for movies that didn't get made. So in a strange way this is the first time most people have seen the result of my strange little tours around their heads.

Anyway, this is a fun one, a cute one, about a girl who, bless her angry little heart, just won't wear green on St. Patrick's Day. OR WILL SHE?! (More goes on than that, obviously, just, this is the hook.)

Anyhoo here's a bigger look at my cover should it amuse you: http://i.imgur.com/CV4Ao.jpg

So get downloadin', Kindle folks! And if you dig it, leave a review or whatever one does in these situations.

For the next couple of days, my second novel is free on the Amazon Kindle store via Kindle Select. Synopsis below. For anyone who's a reader of action-thriller novels and would like to grab it, it's on the house with my compliments.

Pump on the Amazon Kindle Store

Pump:

In the not-too-distant future, after a catastrophic and world-wide economic collapse, the United States is a broken shell of its former self.
But on the island of Manhattan, a comfortable standard of living still exists that only the world’s richest can afford. Sheltered from the chaos and anarchy of the outside world, New York City has become a privately-run sanctuary operated by a mysterious and powerful company named Maddox Corporation.

As one of the world’s last remaining and fully functioning cities, Manhattan requires ongoing human resources for its daily operations, and to provide the luxurious services that wealthy clients still demand. To recruit workers for the island, Maddox runs a lottery program, which offers its winners the chance to escape what is now a brutal and desperate existence in the real world, and instead begin a privileged life in the safety and comfort of a city that most will only ever dream about again.

But, of course, there is a catch. There is always a catch.



EDIT: Based on a number of people interested in reading my novel but not having a Kindle, I've made it available as a PDF to grab from here. I won't leave the file up indefinitely, so grab it when you can. Thanks for the interest!
Pump (PDF)

Last Day FREE ;-) Everyday Inspirations, Photo-Poems Vol 3

Thank you everyone for a great response. Is currently # 1 in Amazon's listing of free books for Travel Photography.

All images are from in and around Burlington Vermont.

Story by Robert McKee. This will show you The Matrix.

Story Grid by Shawn Coyne. This book will take your novel from vague concept to power-outline.

Also excellent is /r/Mistborn's lecture series, available for free on the Youtubes. It's aimed at fantasy and sci-fi writing but has plenty of relevance for any other genre.

I've had two successful self-pubbed novels with a third one coming soon and these are the resources that took me from scrub to author.

Holy crap, it's a free book! A Small and Perfect Work of Art (http://amzn.to/IvyW0H), a collection of tragicomic short stories from Radial Works, is free on Amazon until April 30th. Here's a description:

> An amateur cryptozoologist tracks a two-tailed flying squirrel through the Pacific Northwest. An alienated hacker returns home to Birmingham to visit his dying mother. A failed science fiction writer moves to a new medium in an attempt to create a lasting work of art. In these and other stories, John Shutt explores the sometimes comic, sometimes tragic travails of people on the edges of society and sanity.

> This short story collection includes A Note from a Man in a Tree, A Small and Perfect Work of Art, Zay Shun, Goodbye Zyxxnra, What Price Bananas?, The Contents of Harold Fredrickson's Pockets on the Day He Died, The Zen Master, A Brief Eulogy for Sammy Banyan, and Knuckle.

I know! It sounds amazing! You should go download it right now! Also, follow me on Twitter @jdshutt, I guess.

Have a couple things up, working on getting a third fourth story and a collection up by the weekend. Here's what I have:

The Death of Camera 162 - (WARNING: This short story contains some scenes of a graphic nature.) Elise Ashcruft is a Patron—a wealthy, highly skilled elite, with an army of Cameras at her fingertips. Her Ten, her loyal guard, are equipped with the latest technology, the most expensive accessories, all to carry out her will. She monitors them and the other Cameras under her employ from a bank of sixty-four screens, her windows to the world. But even in her innermost chamber, the winds of change are beginning to blow.

A Tin Can To Nowhere - (Short story) A man is marooned on a government base on the far side of Earth's moon. It doesn't appear as if anyone is coming back...ever. There is food, shelter, air, and water to allow him to live on the base for a long time. But the man doesn't want to just continue existing. He needs a goal—a reason to survive.

The Investigation of Irmão Paulo - A weary skeptic travels to a small town in central Brazil to investigate a mysterious faith healer who has started attracting tourist pilgrims from all around the world. (Novelette - 16,000 words)

I wouldn't mind feedback on my blurbs and/or cover art. Thanks!

I managed to miss Friday as I only submitted it then, so I hope it's OK to post here as I don't want to start a different thread...

Please check out my short story The Last Spike (Kindle) (or UK Kindle) which is free on Amazon for Sunday and Monday. It's in the 'urban fantasy' category, which I didn't realise existed until I submitted it.

The story follows a Police officer working through the outbreak of a series of attacks and the disappearance of bodies. I think my description and cover need work, and now it's up I'm a bundle of nerves about it, so any feedback gratefully received.

Pretty much inspired solely by posts and people on this subreddit, I finally finished a short story, edited it, and self-published it on kindle. It's a weird sort of fantasy/horror metaphysical mediation on godhood, or something. I'm not really sure. But I got it done!

After some revision my short story The Courier's Game is free again!

Brian Anghel lives in a city where knowledge comes at a price. He's a Courier, working for one of the big three corporations in Atlanta. He tries to ignore the consequences of his actions in the name of the greater good. But when a smaller corporation reaches out to him his past is painfully revealed.

The Courier's game is a short story at approximately 6000 words.

AAAAAWWWW SNAP!

I finally published story #1 of a series of zombie stories. This one's about a random dude who wakes up on Monday and OH FUCK ZOMBIES.

My girlfriend copyedits my work and she got pretty grossed out by it.

Escape From the City - Amazon link

Escape From the City - Barnes & Noble

WOOP WOOP

That library looks like the anti-panic room.

Also, I have to plug Dave McKean's Cages, he did all the sandman covers. They both did MirrorMask, too, along with the Henson company.

Another recent non-traditional is S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst. It takes the form of an old library book that was passed back and forth between two people making notes in the margins as they attempt to unravel the mystery of the author's identity. Comes complete with various prop items stuck between the pages of the book-postcards, photos, news clippings, etc.

Facades This is the second part of my compilation of short stories called "Songs of the Deconverted."

This is my writing bible, for whatever its worth...

Last month I put out a new short story, a dark little comedy, and gave it away on KDP Select for five days. There was no /r/write "Shameless Plug" thread that week and my thread for it in /r/selfpublish got downvoted into oblivion and that was the last I told Reddit about it.

It's called Chicken Crossing and alas I have no more KDP Select days so it costs 99 cents for about 3500 words. However if you read the following description and/or the sample text I think you will grasp very quickly if it's your kind of humor or not. Suffice to say there's a reason I use 'Offbeat or Quirky' as my tag around these parts.

------------

Why DID the chicken cross the road?

Finally, the truth, as told by the bird himself, accounting for his actions on the brink of a momentous step into literary history. It's not the simple story you thought you knew. It's a fable of love and loss, a pitch-black comedy of abject despair and a bleak, blistering contemplation of the human (and chicken) condition—all in the voice of a soulful and sensitive creature contemplating roadway traversal.

Award-winning writer and filmmaker Adam Bertocci has been praised by Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, The New Republic, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Back Stage, Broadway World, E!, Maxim, IGN, Film Threat and more. "Chicken Crossing" is a poignant meditation on the forces that drive our choices and the search for reason in a seemingly meaningless world. With a talking chicken.