This is my first book ever written and can see that I have a long way to go.

First book, twentieth book, it’s true for all of us. At least you know there’s work to be done, and are prepared to do it. Good luck!

I’ve reworked my first page since submitting and have taken out most of the offending “info dump”. I don’t know what the rules are about posting the fixed product but if anyone would like to see it let me know at lacey2002@md.metrocast.net.

BTW Ava does not find Roxi’s bloody corpse, but her older brother stretched out on the couch. Jace is 6′ 3″ of prime quarterback perfection and during the prologue (which is where the first page orginates) is escaping the pressure of being slated as the number one draft pick only two weeks before the NFL draft.

This is my first book ever written and can see that I have a long way to go. LOL

I certainly committed all the mistakes in the book when I first started, including having my heroine driving and thinking about her life — a contest judge once told me that if my heroine was driving in the first scene, she was probably driving to the beginning of the story (same thing with your heroine pulling up to the house). Once I reread it, I realized she was right.

OTOH, when I mentioned this to my editor recently, she had no idea what I was talking about. :) My advice in a nutshell: get your character in trouble immediately, and then start trying to dig her out. You can do it. :) Keep writing, keep learning, keep growing. Good luck, and don’t give up. :)

How old is your MC? Is she still in college? Because I have never met a college student who wears a “form fitting” dress on a first date. A sundress, maybe. Jean skirt and cute top, maybe. But usually girls that age are wearing pants and a cute top. I know it’s minor, but it’s details like these that keep me from reading contemporaries as often as I’d like.

Like the others said, there are too many modifying phrases in many of your sentences. A modifier is a word or a phrase that gives information of “where,” “when,” and “how” something is done. A misused modifier becomes a dangling modifier.

Your first sentence is one:

Pulling into the driveway of her inherited ranch style house, Ava's temper was as volatile as the approaching storm.

I do a lot of modifying phrases too and to avoid overuse, I always read each scene aloud to see how it sounds. A modifying phrase puts distance in an action scene and also makes the reader analyze too much. This is especially comical in a sex scene where limbs are getting tangled. I think I once did a “Kissing her lips hard, his body was on fire” which gave me a not-very-sexy visual when I reread the chapter.

To be more specific, the problem here is the participial phrases, which are a type of modifying phrase.

“Pulling into the driveway…” is a participial phrase; it begins with a participle. In your example, “Kissing her lips hard” is a participial phrase.

The problem isn’t so much with the phrases themselves, as with their position in the sentence and the fact that the subject and participle/verb/participial phrase/modifying phrase do not agree. (And yes, that they’re overused in this piece.)

Participial phrases in the beginning of a sentence must refer to their subject. This is why the first sentence sounds like Ava’s temper is driving the car; the writer has, by placing “Ava’s temper” immediately after the participial phrase, made her temper the subject of the sentence. This is grammatically incorrect and turns the sentence into nonsense (Strunk & White call such sentences “ludicrous”.)

Personally I dislike the use of participial phrases to begin sentences; I think they sound amateurish and clunky–especially since, again as in this piece, they are overused (as you pointed out); for some reason it seems as if beginning writers are totally enamored of participial phrases.

Sometimes they can’t be avoided, but when they can be, they should be. They have a singsongy rhythm that creeps right up my spine. They tell action without showing it; they are often responsible for sentences which make not only no logical sense (subject-modifier disagreement) but no physical sense, i.e “Opening the door, she crossed the room,”; you can’t do both at once, but the participial structure makes it sound as though the character is in fact doing so. They’re a way of racing through the action, it seems, or at least I see them used that way a lot.

All I know is, I hardly ever see them in published work of high quality, but I see them all the time on free sites and in the work of unpublished writers. So you make your own judgment there. :)

For example, mixing up sentence structure is a good thing, except when the departure from subject-verb-object becomes repetitive.

* Pulling into the driveway . . .
* Looking across the hood . . .
* Stepping into the foyer . . . (Although this sentence begins with a gerund and not a dependent clause, it nevertheless opens with an -ing verb. The last example is the same.)
* Stopping only long enough . . .
* Shedding the dress . . .

Repetition — unless intentional, to achieve a certain impact — can grate on a reader’s nerves. Too many of these paragraphs open in the same way. And, as another poster noted, be careful about the subject being modified by a descriptive clause; it was Ava, not her temper, that was pulling into the driveway.

Aside from that, I concur with nearly everything said by everybody else. The page isn’t horribly written; it just doesn’t pack any kind of dramatic wallop. Unless you can hook an editor’s or reader’s interest from the jump, s/he won’t bother reading on.

Best of luck!

In Karen Hawkin’s recent contemp, her first sentence is, “On Monday, Roxanne Lynn Treymayne Parker bleached her hair blonde, had her navel pierced, and got a tattoo on her right ass cheek. And that was before noon.”

That opening sentence makes the reader want to know what has happened to this woman to make her go to such extremes. Or, it did for me.

I think Linda’s on to something.

I suggest the author of this piece read the openings of her favorite contemporary books and see what hooked her in. That might give her an idea how best to shape her story, I think, so that Ava connects with the reader…we don’t have to like her, but we do have to be interested in what happens to her.

I agree with the comments on the info dump, but I’d also add something about character. So far, I don’t like Ava very much. And actually, I think it’s because of the info dump.

I think she’s too identified with “stuff” — her house, her car, her roommate, her margaritas, her robe, her dress, her date.

From this point of view, she’s kind of boring. Maybe you could get to the reasons we’re interested in her and fill in the details later?

I don’t mean this to be harsh — I think the hardest thing is to get the info out without the info dump. I mean, we’re not writing haiku here, right?

Nitpick: “freshmen” year of college? Plural? Or should it be freshman, singular? Unless she had more than one?

The way the information is presented, with clunky sentence structure and jarring details, slows down the reader. The newly painted door, for example, is like a stop sign. If this detail is important, have the heroine notice it in a more natural way, as she’s walking through.

The soft fabric on heated skin also seems misplaced. I don’t want a fluffy robe when I’m hot/angry.

Good luck to you and kudos for submitting.

Remember, editors and agents don’t have time to wait for something to grab them. This, as is, doesn’t grab. Try starting right at the moment where this woman’s life changes…and then, if you need to set the scene, add backstory, etc, you can do that afterward.

Start with the big change and see how it works.

If the author wants to show comfort and warmth better to go with some other architectural style or just call it an aging bungolow and let the reader mentally fill in the details.

inherited ranch style house
late model Ford Escort
fluffy terrycloth robe
delicate fibers brush
heated flesh

Description is good… but this seems like over-description.

The writing style itself works okay, but there’s just nothing that would keep me reading.

Good luck~

Your first sentence is one:

Pulling into the driveway of her inherited ranch style house, Ava's temper was as volatile as the approaching storm.

I do a lot of modifying phrases too and to avoid overuse, I always read each scene aloud to see how it sounds. A modifying phrase puts distance in an action scene and also makes the reader analyze too much. This is especially comical in a sex scene where limbs are getting tangled. I think I once did a “Kissing her lips hard, his body was on fire” which gave me a not-very-sexy visual when I reread the chapter.

I would just drop all the info-dumping and start the narrative with Ava’s first words:

“Roxi! Where are you? You’ll never believe this loser that I went out with tonight.”

Ava grumpily threw her silk purse onto the counter. The luxury of sharing house with your best friend meant you could come home venting, and she would have the margaritas blending by the time you changed your clothes.

Of course, then you have to decide whether to change the “you” pronoun to “one.” ;-)

It isn’t easy putting up one’s work up for critique. Thank you for sharing yours. Good luck!

As others said, a better start to the story would be:

Stopping only long enough to drop her keys on the credenza and kick off her shoes, Ava called out, “Roxi where are you? You will never believe this loser that I went out with tonight.”

From there you could have Roxie come to greet her and a conversation starts up between them right there that should establish/hint at the possible Goal/Motivation/(and story) Conflict of the main character.

Your voice is good, the writing just needs a bit more tweaking.