May 30 2009
First Page: Unnamed Romantic Suspense
Welcome to First Page Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a first page read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. You may comment anonymously.
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The assassin began a silent countdown. Two hundred yards away, looking through the rifle’s scope, made the mark seem an arm’s length away.
Conrad Andersen pulled a hooker over his lap and playfully spanked her ass. The middle-aged tramp shook her head and kicked her legs in false protest. She slithered against his portly belly, gave him an exaggerated kiss, and then vanished from the scope.
The john wiped his mouth and traces of the hooker’s lipstick smeared across his face. Frowning, he got up moving out of view.
Lucky used the free time to ease the tension built up after a two-hour stakeout. First, a stretch and twist sideways popped a few vertebrae. Flexing both hands and rotating both ankles brought the circulation back. Then Lucky wondered if military snipers did similar exercises when they watched a target.
Doubt any of them ever had to watch an Olympic, Viagra-induced, sexcapade.
Lucky eased back into position as Andersen appeared in the scope again. He was dressed in his best Sunday suit, blue pinstriped with a white shirt. A decent looking older man, but knowing what he’d done made him vile enough to eliminate.
The hooker reappeared and kissed him before gathering her belongings off the ratty nightstand. When the lights dimmed, Lucky began taking slow deep breaths to maintain a steady heart rate.
Directing the scope three feet to the right and targeting ten inches below the top of the motel room’s doorframe was the perfect height to hit the target. The window of opportunity was five seconds. The wind factor, distance, and bullet drop was already part of the equation. As the door opened, Lucky let out one last breath and started counting.
One: the hooker emerged laughing.
Two: Andersen appeared and draped his arm around the woman’s shoulder.
Three: she glanced up at him. Lucky eased the crosshairs of the scope on his head.
Four: he leaned down and kissed her.
Five: the mark lifted his head to search the parking lot.
In the sixth second, the bullet penetrated his skull. The man’s eyes popped as it exited, spattering pink bits of his brain on the door behind him.
The hooker screamed.
Andersen’s body slumped against the doorframe. Other rooms instantly sprang to life with commotion. A dog barked in the distance.
The remnants of his face stared back into the scope. Kill confirmed.
Burn in hell, bastard.
The brass catcher on the rifle trapped the bullet casing. Lucky removed the silencer and quickly popped off the shoulder stock. Then she packed the Heckler and Koch MSG90 in the trombone shaped case in record time.
She rolled up the blanket, surveyed the roof for noticeable evidence then slipped down the side of the house. The quiet development she found behind the motel provided excellent cover. However, the occupants and their neighbors could be home any moment and she had to move.
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May 30, 2009 @ 05:07:08
I just wanted to leave a comment to let you know I was here and that I enjoyed your blog! Feel free to check mine out whenever you get the chance. If you are interested in promoting your blog, submit an article to my blog carnival! Thanks, Kate
May 30, 2009 @ 06:34:05
Hmmm… there is way too much telling in the first couple of paragraphs. I’d probably delete them all…especially since your first sentence says he began the countdown, but the countdown doesn’t start ’till farther down the page. The “Directing the scope” paragraph would probably work much better as an opening paragraph, if you re-did the sentences in that paragraph to be less telling.
Also… is Conrad Anderson, the middle-aged tramp, and the john the same person? Or different people? At first I thought that the middle-aged tramp was Conrad, but then you said that he was dressed in suit, so I have no idea.
Finally, I think you need to somehow show us that Lucky is a woman right off the bat. I was assuming the assassin was a guy for some reason, so I had to stop and re-adjust my mental image of the picture being played out. You don’t want your readers to stop reading for ANY reason. Even just a disgusted thought about men, or using the pronoun “she” would do it.
May 30, 2009 @ 07:18:07
Not for me–I’m not a fan of assassin protagonists, whatever their gender. I expect you deliberately delayed the revelation that Lucky was female? That could work but, as the commenter before me pointed out, it can also backfire. Maybe an oblique hint early in the narrative would be an acceptable compromise.
The writing seems choppy in places, such as when Lucky is stretching. The description comes across as “First, the MC did this. Then the MC did that. And then the MC thought about what he/she was doing.” And the tone is too distant–we’re being told what Lucky is doing rather than experiencing it with her.
The series comma is also overused:
Two hundred yards away, looking through the rifle's scope, made the mark seem an arm's length away.
If you’re trying to say that looking through the scope makes the target seem much closer, the second comma in the above sentence needs to go. As written, the sentence seems to contradict itself.
Doubt any of them ever had to watch an Olympic, Viagra-induced, sexcapade.
You don’t need the comma after “Viagra-induced”–there shouldn’t be one between the last adjective and the noun it modifies.
Be careful with your gerunds too.
Directing the scope three feet to the right and targeting ten inches below the top of the motel room's doorframe was the perfect height to hit the target.
The two –ing clauses are used as subjects of the sentence, which is permissible, but the use of the verb “to be” makes no sense in this context. The transition from subject to predicate is very awkward. Try reading the sentence aloud. It might work better as two shorter, more declarative sentences: “Lucky directed the scope three feet to the right and down. Ten inches below the top of the doorframe was the perfect height” or something like that.
May 30, 2009 @ 07:41:47
I’ve seen this somewhere else IIRC, and I think many of the same comments Kathleen made here were touched on at that time as well.
The opening pulls me in at the “Directing the rifle” paragraph as well. Everything before that is full of nice little details that are way more than I need to know as a reader. Except for the clothing Anderson is wearing which, in the “Directing” paragraph means little, you’ve shown me everything with those six points that you told me in the first seven paragraphs.
Most writers find it hard to cut sections they love, but sometimes it makes a world of difference. I think in this case, removing those first paragraphs would benefit the story and the reader as well.
Good Luck.
May 30, 2009 @ 08:00:00
Let me offer some disagreement. I think there is a whole lot in those opening paragraphs that gets lost if you start at the “Directing the rifle” paragraph, and that’s what is drawing me in.
It seems to be fashionable to start books off, especially suspense, in the middle of the action. Frankly, as a reader, I find this annoying. I prefer a start like this one, where I get some idea of what’s going on.
I was surprised to find that Lucky was a woman, but I thought that was done intentionally.
In short, I liked this one. It caught my interest, even though I really do not care for assassins.
May 30, 2009 @ 08:07:40
Good, crisp writing. However, if the entire book is done in simple, declarative sentences, the style would probably start wearing on me.
Too bad I hate kickass heroines, because this could very well be an excellent story!
May 30, 2009 @ 08:16:22
Hi All,
Thanks for the comments. Most of what everyone is say, well, it’s true. I submitted this back in December 08 and have mad a bunch of changes.
The book opens like this now:
Through a small gap in the grimy motel curtains, Lucky watched as Conrad Andersen pulled a hooker over his lap and playfully spanked her ass. The middle-aged woman shook her bleached head, kicked her legs in false protest, shaking the entire bed. She slithered against his portly belly, gave him an exaggerated kiss, and then vanished from the scope.
Andersen wiped his mouth, traces of bright red lipstick smeared across his face. Frowning, he got up moving out of view.
Two hundred yards away, Lucky shifted on the rooftop, using the free time to ease the tension built up after an hour stakeout. First, a stretch and twist sideways popped a few vertebrae. Flexing both hands then rotating both ankles brought the circulation back. She wondered if military snipers did similar exercises when they watched a target.
Doubt any of them ever had to endure an Olympic, Viagra-induced, sexcapade.
Lucky eased back into position as Andersen appeared in the rifle's scope again. Even with the obstructed view into the room, she could see he had dressed in a blue pinstriped suit with a white shirt. A decent-looking older man, but knowing everything he'd done made him vile enough to eliminate.
The woman reappeared and gathered her belongings off the ratty nightstand. When the lights dimmed, Lucky began taking deep breaths to maintain a slow steady heart rate.
Directing the scope three feet to the right and targeting ten inches below the top of the motel room's doorframe was the perfect height to hit the target. Once she had a clear shot, the window of opportunity was five seconds. She already calculated the wind factor, distance, and bullet drop. As the door opened, Lucky let out one last breath then started the countdown.
One. The hooker emerged laughing.
Andersen appeared and draped his arm around the woman's shoulder. Two.
She glanced up at him. Three. Lucky eased the crosshairs of the scope on his head.
Four. He leaned down and kissed his escort.
The mark lifted his head to search the parking lot.
In the fifth second, the bullet penetrated his skull. The man's eyes popped as it exited, spattering pink bits of his brain on the door behind him.
The hooker screamed.
Andersen's body slumped against the doorframe. Other rooms instantly sprang to life with commotion. A dog barked in the distance.
The remnants of his face stared back into the scope.
Kill confirmed.
Burn in hell, bastard.
The brass catcher on the rifle trapped the bullet casing. Lucky removed the silencer and quickly popped off the shoulder stock. Then she packed the Heckler and Koch MSG90 in the trombone-shaped case in record time.
She rolled up the blanket, surveyed the roof for noticeable evidence before slipping down the side of the house. The quiet development she found behind the motel provided excellent cover. However, the occupants and their neighbors could be home any moment and she had to move.
Thank you for all the helpful comments! It is much appreciated.
May 30, 2009 @ 09:03:11
OK, I love a good romantic suspense story but this ‘First Page’ had me confused and basically uninterested in reading more. Why? First of all, I kept having to refer back to who is who. Assasin, hmm, Lucky? Conrad is the John? In addition, the beginning paragraphs seem jerky and I quickly started to lose interest. Finally, if this is going to be a romantic suspense story, give us a hint of it in the opening paragraphs. It feels more like gorey straight suspense fiction.
May 30, 2009 @ 09:04:18
OK, I love a good romantic suspense story but this ‘First Page’ had me confused and basically uninterested in reading more. Why? First of all, I kept having to refer back to who is who. Assasin, hmm, Lucky? Conrad is the John? In addition, the beginning paragraphs seem jerky and I quickly started to lose interest. Finally, if this is going to be a romantic suspense story, give us a hint of it in the opening paragraphs. It feels more like gory straight suspense fiction.
May 30, 2009 @ 09:38:55
I wasn’t confused by any of the characters, and I found the writing smooth. I like the reveal that Lucky is a woman. I’ve done that in one of my books, so I can’t find fault with it! The countdown is also a nice touch.
The description of the mark and hooker are a bit obvious/distasteful, as in “these are bad people!” rather than real people. There could be more nuance there.
Good job and good luck!
May 30, 2009 @ 10:09:46
I remember this from Illona Andrews’s paragraph troubleshooting posts.
I think a count down instead of a count up would make the scene more suspenseful. Also, I don’t like the colon between the numbers and what’s happening in the room. The numbers are what Lucky is saying inside her head. Putting the colon before the corresponding event makes me think she’s going “blah blah happened” between counting up.
Replacing the colons with periods and italicizing the numbers looks and reads betters.
May 30, 2009 @ 10:42:44
This sentence jerked me out of the story before I had a chance to get into it.
May 30, 2009 @ 11:32:00
I was a hair confused at first–maybe need some coffee. But for a moment, I got confused about whether the shooter was the john, and then something about the middle aged hooker really annoyed me. Okay, I’m middle aged, but not a hooker.
May 30, 2009 @ 12:02:50
The second sentence seems a bit awkward to me.
You use “away” twice in the same sentence, and the sentence structure isn’t as smooth as it could be, IMO. It sounds at first like someone is looking though the rifle’s scope two hundred yards away from the assassin, except of course that is impossible.
I’d prefer something like,
“Lucky began a silent countdown. The mark was two hundred yards from her, but viewed through the rifle's scope, Conrad Andersen seemed an arm's length away.”
Otherwise I don’t object to these opening lines — they are suspenseful.
May 30, 2009 @ 12:46:33
I was super, super busy today and only decided to stop by for a brief visit. The second sentence lost me. The repetition of the word “away” in the opening made me think, “Lazy.” Done. Editors and agents could do the same. Don’t give readers an excuse to put your book down. Proofread.
BTW, the gender of the assassin doesn’t bother me. That would not put me off from the book. However, what did the victim do that was so vile (and required assassination) other than have sex with a prostitute? I hope it’s something more or I would stop reading. You might want to hint at that earlier. As it reads, the assassin is just on a moralistic crusade…and a rather silly one, truth be told.
May 30, 2009 @ 13:19:44
There’s lovely potential for an exciting story here. A crusading female assassin. Interesting.
I do like to see new career paths for women.
Now I have a couple or three small problems with this that you might look at. Fairly minor points, really.
– I can see a woman spend the months and the training necessary to become a marksman. I don’t see how she’d do this without studying the routine professional snipers use. Why wouldn’t she know whether they stretched?
– And what is this countdown thingum?
If I wanted to kill somebody,
and I were reasonably accustomed to this activity,
I’d set the gun in a convenient position and look down the scope and pull the trigger the first time I got a clear shot.
I wouldn’t ‘count off’ random things and miss opportunities to complete my mission,
(unless I had an obsessive need to count stuff, being deeply nuts,)
because Lord knows whether the target is going to wander off to make love in the shower or lie down in bed to watch football
and never show up in my cross-hairs again after the first two minutes.
– Why can’t a man who routinely wears a business suit,
and who is worth shooting in a professional and determined manner,
afford somebody young and pretty as his whore-for-the-night?
– Finally — this is getting to a technical comment at last — I wouldn’t delay telling the reader this sniper is a woman.
The delay in revealing the sex of the sniper feels like ‘pulling a trick’ on the reader. I’m not sure there’s much of a pay-off for doing it.
If you want to play the ‘my sniper is a woman’ card . . . maybe you could do it the other way round . . .?
Show her as a woman first and then slowly let us know she is a sniper.
May 30, 2009 @ 13:27:42
The biggest problem that I noticed is that you go from calling the guy Conrad Andersen, to “the john”, to Andersen, to “the mark”, and back to Andersen again. Going from personal to impersonal to personal to impersonal to personal when you are talking about the same person is very confusing. Having the 2nd impersonal name be completely different quadruples the confusion.
Assuming that who he his is unimportant, my suggestion would be to stick with calling him “the mark” the whole time. If it is important to know his name, then either replace “the john” and “the mark” with Andersen, or introduce him as “the mark” ie “The mark pulled a hooker over his lap…” and then give his name later.
No matter what you do, I highly recommend deleting “the john”. Afterall, that does not describe Conrad’s relationship to Lucky.
May 30, 2009 @ 14:30:00
I think I could have enjoyed a fair bit. I figured from the opening couple of lines that the assassin was female, just because of the studied lack of pronouns (and probably also because I’ve read another book that did this). I agree that showing the woman being unremarkable and then revealing that she’s an assassin might raise the surprise factor. From your second draft, it doesn’t appear that surprise is a primary goal, though.
What pulled me out repeatedly was the grammar. Others have mentioned the comma issues, but these are the bits (from the second version provided) that I had to stop and reread:
I’m not enough of a grammar expert to explain why this hooked my eye and made me puzzle, but I’m guessing it’s because you don’t have an independent clause here. I (I think) was a style choice not to say “He was a decent-looking…” However, the way it’s set up makes it seem that “knowing” is the subject of the sentence, and then my brain explodes.
You need a better verb to go with your subjects of “directing the scope” and “targeting … below the doorframe.” Maybe “found” or “located,” but not “was,” which doesn’t make sense.
A misplaced modifier issue also hooked me right out:
This basically is saying that the man’s eyes spattered pink bits of brain. (Also, I’m not a doctor, and I don’t play one on TV, but this eye popping business seems like a movie image more than the physiological reaction to a bullet through the head). Where does it enter? His forehead? And, from the sounds of it, the real damage is at the exit wound, so the later “remnants of his face” don’t seem to mesh with that.
Why not use an “and” after the comma? Leaving it out kind of gives a sense of ‘tautness’ in the prose, I suppose, but in my mind’s ear, I’ve been set up to expect another item in a series, which doesn’t happen. It’s not only grammatically wrong, it’s wrong and irritating. Although I think an author can get away with it if the series is of very short items, where the reader can see at a glance where the sentence is going. For example: “It was the most exciting thing ever to happen to her – mysterious, breathtaking, wondrous!” (I made that up, but in the spirit of a certain historical author I won’t name).
I’m willing to put the red pen down when I’m reading a novel, but I definitely won’t read far if I have to keep stopping to figure out what the author meant to say.
May 30, 2009 @ 14:36:15
I wouldn’t read it – I don’t read romances with assassins as hero, or heroine, because I can’t care whether they have a HEA. (Sorry, personal taste thing.)
That aside, I think the second version is definitely better, though I actually prefer the reveal in the first version, where we’re surprised by the assassin’s gender.
There are still a couple of sentences I don’t like:
“A decent-looking older man, but knowing everything he'd done made him vile enough to eliminate.”
Doesn’t read smoothly to me, because it’s not the fact that Lucky knows what he’s done that makes him vile enough to eliminate.
I’m so not a writer, but it’d make more sense to me if it said something like ‘…but everything he’d done made him vile enough to eliminate’ or ‘but knowing everything he’d done Lucky was convinced he deserved elimination’.
Equally:
“Directing the scope three feet to the right and targeting ten inches below the top of the motel room's doorframe was the perfect height to hit the target.”
doesn’t read smoothly either. I can sort of imagine what’s happening but the structure ‘Directing…. was…’ just doesn’t make sense to me.
May 30, 2009 @ 19:57:58
Somehow, I think I’m the only assassin novel reader here. :-) Thank heavens for books like White Star, Point of Impact, A Time to Hunt, and many others. :-) I sincerely hope she wasn’t counting time from a trigger pull as the speed of a .762 sniper round would have the bullet at the target in under a quarter of a second. And that round would have likely kept on going after it hit the target and gotten whatever was behind it as well. I am only passingly familiar with this, but it would be wise to take some time and try shooting at targets if you haven’t done so already. 200 yards is not much of a distance for a real sniper. A number of distance shooting championships have been won by women, so a woman sniper is perfectly realistic, if rare. Most women distance shooters are not police or military.
If I were opening this book I think I start with something like
“It was a great day to be alive. The air was clear and still. The sunlight neither too bright nor too soft. Warm enough for people to be outside, but not so hot it would to drive them indoors, out of sight. On the rooftop 200 yards away sweat trickled lightly, stinging the sniper’s eyes.
Retribution was a heartbeat away. It didn’t take much. Years of training, an utterly still body, adjustments for crosswinds, elevation, the heaviness of the air, a single .762 Sierra match grade round, X pounds of pull on the trigger of the (choose a high end customized sniper rifle, but not a 50 caliber, that would be serious overkill.) between one heartbeat and the next, and the man responsible for ……………… would find it was it a great day to die.”
Kill the target and fill in the whys later.
But that’s me and I'm no writer. (By the way, the reason a sniper works with a spotter is because the recoil from the shot knocks the scope off the target and only the spotter can confirm an immediate hit. The view you described would have been outside the shooters vision thru the scope. I am assuming a bi-pod on the barrel and a sand bag or sock as a level for adjustments. A real sniper trained shooter could tell you more than I. Keep in mind, I nearly shot the oil burner when doing target practice in the basement using a .22 semi pistol as my dad stared in panic as he saw the barrel swinging down. He took me to range after that. :-) )
May 31, 2009 @ 05:29:24
People have covered all sorts of other stuff, but I just wanted to pop my head in and say I liked getting surprised that the assassin was a woman.
I read Action Adventure a bit too, so it was a nice “Oh cool!” moment that it wasn’t a man.
May 31, 2009 @ 08:47:04
I agree with a lot of the comments made, but I still want to cast my vote for liking the original surprise/reveal that the assassin was a woman. Though I’m not sure how you would pull that off in if it was published as I’m thinking the back cover blurb might ruin the surprise… Still, I liked that surprise in the original.
May 31, 2009 @ 13:34:57
Oh, hi! I can’t remember if this is my first or second post on DA. (Sometimes I start one but never submit it.) Waves.
I’m not going to repeat the comments made here, most of which I agree with. I would like to see a connection between the first two paragraphs, though. We have the assassin looking at someone through the scope, but it’s never specified who. Then Conrad is introduced in the second paragraph and it’s not made immediately clear he’s the target. I don’t know, it just felt a little disjointed.
Also, would a sniper leave his/her position to stretch? I asked my husband, a former soldier, and he said no. Physical discomfort is part of the job, I guess. Besides, if one doesn’t keep an eye on the target, one risks losing it. Unless our assassin is not a professional, in which case, she might make that error.
ReacherFan: interesting observation about the bullet. This should remind writers that research is important. The wrong information can distract the reader, and not in a good way.
Overall, would I read this if it underwent some revision? I might give it a chance, depending on the overall plot and characters’ motivations. But that’s just me.
Good luck!
May 31, 2009 @ 14:17:44
I think the revised version is much better, largely because you’ve mostly eliminated the “burly detective” problem (confusing the reader by offering too many synonyms for characters).
I probably wouldn’t read this, either, if it was marketed as “romantic suspense,” because the love lives of assassins don’t interest me. Straight suspense or thriller, fine–I certainly don’t mind reading about assassins at all. But as someone else said upthread, don’t expect me to care about their HEA, because they kill people for a living (or for a cause).
May 31, 2009 @ 15:36:14
1.) I love that the sniper is a woman. why should the guys have all the fun?! What I’d like is maybe a little more physical description or clothes description so that the reveal is truly surprising. Right now it is just “oh, gee, it’s a woman” but if some clever details were in there about strong, lean fingers on the trigger, or the sniper’s arm muscles…. you’ve given the icky target more life than the heroine that we are going to spend more time with.
2.) I think the suggestion for a countdown instead of a count up would make it more suspenseful. Counting up I never know what number the bullet is going to hit at, compare you first and second drafts. One hits on six, the other on five. Both options work. But if you count down to one, the reader knows what happens at one, odds are, we are holding our breath by one as well.
3.) If she doesn’t know how military snipers stretch, are you trying to tell us that she isn’t a professional sniper? (I mean, this is only one page of her story. There is certainly a lot more to learn about Lucky.) But that is what came to my mind. If you want to establish her as a truly professional sniper, she’d be completely familiar with military tactics. (Even if it wasn’t first hand experience; she would have studied what the military does; someone would have trained her.)
4.) I also agree with the comment about the target having a middle-aged hooker. No guy who thinks he is the boss of his world is paying for a girl who is passed her prime. Now, he might pay for some 20yr girl who has a major drug problem. But she’d at least have a hot body so he would have reason to ignore her (cough, cough) shortcomings. He is paying for a hot piece of ass. Not some road hard leftovers; he probably has a wife or full-time girlfriend who is really middle-aged. Why would he pay extra for what he could get at home. Someone middle aged is only going to make him look older and that certainly isn’t what this guy would want. He is looking for someone who makes him feel like a million bucks and young. Like he owns his piece of the world. A middle-aged hooker would talk back (she’d have been around the block too many times) by a nice young thing would do whatever big Daddy wanted.
5.) how important is Anderson to the rest of your story? If Lucky is a professional sniper/hitwoman, I think that she would refer to him as by some professional word until the mission was completed. Ever watch “Cops” on TV? Different cities use different terms: actors, suspect, etc. Pick your word for Anderson and stick with it. At the end, when he is dead. When it is revealed that Lucky is a woman. Then we learn that his name is Anderson. The “woman” inside the sniper/hitwoman gives the target a name. Refers to him once by his full name, and then quickly assesses her area and gets the heck out of there.
I think this is a great first page and I’d love to read the rest of if when you finish. I love a good hitwoman story; her love interest has to be just as surprising… strong.
Jun 01, 2009 @ 08:50:21
Hi All,
Thanks again for all the comments, I appreciate you taking the time to read it and provide your feedback.
Thanks!!
Jenn