And I’ve yet to meet a bra on three continents that’s truly comfortable.

(Stopping now because this is obviously TMI.)

This reads as wallpaper L.A. Blond woman, convertible, works in TV, traffic jam. . . It just sounds like someone from outside SoCal writing about what s/he has seen on TV. The “light metering traffic,” while awkwardly phrased, is a good detail and she’s getting on a specific on-ramp. But other stuff feels off. The top down in a Santa Ana? There are women that do it, but the damage to your skin and hair can make you miserable the rest of the day. Usually in that weather, the top is up and the air conditioning is on. Henley top is not a term I’ve ever heard any of my friends around here use. Maybe your heroine is older than my friends and I are (we’re in our 20s and 30s) or maybe you know people in SoCal who do use it. Also, and I could be completely off on this because it’s been a few years since I talked to anyone in the industry, but I was under the impression that TV call times for cast and crew are usually really early, like 6:00 or 7:00 am. So she’d have to leave early enough that she wouldn’t be hitting a lot of the school and normal business traffic. Not that traffic isn’t starting to slow that early in the morning, but she’s more likely to be talking to the guy in the bread truck driving to/from a restaurant or grocery store than a woman in a business suit on her way to the office.

You’ve got a really great voice. I don’t think the details of the heroine’s appearance make her shallow, just that you’ve dumped too much stuff about her on the first page and it should be spread out through the whole first (and maybe some of the second) chapter. But I’ve read a lot of novels set or partially set in wallpaper California lately (Girls of Riyadh was the last, I think). So as soon as she rolled down the top of her convertible in a Santa Ana and I thought about how dry and cracked my hands have been all week in this one even with huge amounts of lotion and not being outside much most days, this became a book that I’m not likely to continue reading.

Too much shopping-list description. Using brand names as characterization is lazy. Detailed clothing description as characterization is lazy. “Impossibly” anything is cliche. I’m impatient with all of this, because there seems like a really interesting, fun voice under all of this static.

I love bras!

A bra is a support garment. If you have nothing to support, why bother?

I bother because…

+ I live in the cool pacific northwest and I don’t want anybody seeing my tits poking out at them through my shirt. Maybe I’d feel differently if I had a boyfriend. :-)
+ The little extra bit of definition leaves me looking not quite so flat chested.
+ I feel naked if I’m not wearing a bra.

I’m sure I could think of a couple more reasons but that’s enough for me, especially the third reason. *grin*

One thing I’d like to know from just anyone who cares to answer it – is it just me (and maybe it is) but doesn’t having a character go braless make you instinctively regard that character in a less than flattering way?

A bra is a support garment. If you have nothing to support, why bother?

The only thing I can think of is that perhaps when she’s waiting in traffic that she sees the dog getting dumped from a car, and you can go into more description of the dog and her whole wait, did that just happen, look at all those zipping cars, and oh God, if I don’t do something, this dog will die.

And I do think that it’s believable she would notice shoes since she went into details about her own clothes and how she looked.

I liked this and would read more. I think all that’s needed is to be tightened.

Good job! :D

Make changes if you feel you should, but stay true to yourself. You’ve got a quirky voice. Do your own thing!

EW A BUG–love it.

The gray eyes really turned me off because that’s ridiculous to me. However, the hair dyed to match the car, the manicured nails, the expensive shoes, okay, I’ve met women like her.

Assuming that she’s a make-up artist, I don’t think a movie would wait for her to show. She might more be worried that she’ll be out of a job if she’s too late.

I really felt in reading this that there’s going to be a great story following, just the beginning needs a jump start.

Good luck with this!

One thing I’d like to know from just anyone who cares to answer it – is it just me (and maybe it is) but doesn’t having a character go braless make you instinctively regard that character in a less than flattering way? I understand the letting-it-all-hang-out thing going on, but I guess I’m just old-fashioned. It gives off a bit of a ‘cheap’ vibe, to be honest–but again, maybe that’s just me.
And the visual of braless in a henley–I don’t think that’s an attractive look, no matter what boob size you’ve been blessed with.
(I know, very nitpicky!)
I do like the start of the story, however! Thanks for putting your work out to be shredded. Good luck!

—–Sophie Reid’s car inched onto the Laurel Canyon entrance ramp, slowing to the usual crawl to enter the Hollywood freeway heading east. The hot, dry Santa Ana winds blew across the San Fernando Valley, causing waves of heat to shimmer on the asphalt. She flipped down her visor and looked at herself in the mirror while waiting for the cars to creep through the light metering traffic at the top of the ramp. She snapped her fashionably oversized shades over her gray eyes, and smiled, knowing she looked good. She pushed the appropriate button with her French manicured finger, and the convertible top glided down with a whisper.

The sentences in the above seem unconnected. There’s no real flow. Too, the action here doesn’t interest me. The character doesn’t interest me. In fact, I already find her boring.

Too much description of unimportant details. Too much description period.

Is this chicklit?

Just as a matter of curiosity for a rural gal — what is a “light metering traffic”? Is this some common term I’m too much of a hick to know? Or will other readers be left scratching their heads as well?

—-On a whim, she had dyed her chin length bob sunflower yellow

I had to wade through that and reread it to figure it out. Do we need all that info? “Bob” tells me her hair is short. I don’t really care how short. Besides, wouldn’t someone just think of their hair as hair and not go into that much detail?

— to match the color of her new Volkswagen Beetle convertible, and she felt like showing off a little. She’d gone braless as usual, and wore a raspberry colored Henley top adorned with rhinestone buttons.

Too much description. Does she really give herself fashion reviews?

—She even gave a pageant style wave to the person behind her who had laughed and pointed at her vanity license plate. EW A BUG. It got her, and the car, a lot of attention, and admittedly, she liked it that way.

Again the paragraph doesn’t flow smoothly. It’s more like a shopping list.

—-When more than a few minutes had passed, and Sophie hadn’t moved but a few centimeters,

A centimeter is about a third of an inch. Do you really mean that her car moved all of about an inch? Why use metric anyway? Is the heroine not American?

—–she was sorely tempted to bang ineffectively on her horn to try to get the cars to move faster.

She was tempted to be ineffective? Or she thought about blowing her horn even though she knew it wouldn’t be of any use?

—-At this snail’s pace, her good mood was fading fast. She had left her house with little time to spare, forgetting about the ominous back to school and work traffic that jammed already clogged freeways every September.

Ominous means to foreshadow evil. How is traffic foreshadowing evil?

Is this detail even important?

—Now she started to worry that her late arrival would delay the filming of the television show she worked on. The idea of an entire production team of at least hundred people waiting for her arrival made her hands sweat.

Is she the director? An actor? Sounds more like she’s a peon. Directors would direct. Actors would star in a show. So how is she holding up production?

—–She shunned a lot of traditional values, but punctuality was not among them.

As a character description, that doesn’t exactly endear the woman to me. Nor has anything else so far made me want to like her. Do you mean to set the character up as unlikable?

If she liked to be punctual, why didn’t she leave early?

—–After what seemed an interminable wait,

Interminable means “wearisomely protracted.” Protracted means “prolonged” or “delayed.” So was the wait actually long? Or did it just seem that way to a really impatient woman?

—-she finally moved from the entrance ramp onto the actual one-oh-one freeway

Do you mean 101? Is there a reason for spelling it out that way?

—-only to find the traffic at almost a complete standstill.

How did she make it onto the freeway if the traffic was almost completely stalled?

—-She looked at the car’s dashboard clock and knew she was going to be very, very late to the studio for her call time

Okay, now it sounds like she’s an actress. But if she is as vain as she appears to be, I wonder why she doesn’t cast herself in a starring role in whatever show she’s in instead of describing herself as simply “working on” the show.

—- if she didn’t get across six lanes of stopped traffic on the Hollywood freeway and onto the Ventura freeway to speed her way to Burbank quickly.

I always glaze over whenever an author goes into such exacting detail about a real place. I don’t care what streets someone turns onto or what landmark they pass. It always takes me out of the story as I think, “Yeah, yeah, you did your research. Now get on with the story.” But that’s probably just me.

—- Looking at the clock again, then her watch, as if the large faced man’s timepiece on her wrist would give her a different time, she realized it was unlikely she was going to make it.

I read the description of the watch as describing a man with a large face. Why not just say “watch”?

—-After berating herself for leaving too late and taking the freeway rather than the street,

You mean a residential road? A feeder road? A main thoroughfare?

If she left home late and knew the freeway at that time of day and time of year would be jammed, why didn’t she go ahead and take a different route?

—- she fished in the large orange tote bag on the passenger seat

Why can’t she just fish in her bag? Or tote bag? Or purse? Do we really need to know it’s large and orange?

—-for her mobile phone

Again I ask — is the heroine not American? Otherwise she’d be reaching for her cell phone.

— ready to make her excuses. When she noticed that almost everyone was out of his or her car, and the freeway had come to a grinding halt,

What the heck was she doing that she didn’t notice the other cars coming to a complete (from an almost complete) stop and everyone getting out of their cars?

—-she stopped worrying whether she would be able to complete the actor’s make-up in time for the filming,.

Is she an actor or a makeup artist? If she’s a makeup artist, she only does one actor’s makeup? Or do you mean “actors’”?

—”Hey, what’s going on?” she called to an older woman, who had exited her Bentley and nimbly sprinted past several cars in a designer business suit and spindly four-inch Jimmy Choo heels.

Do we need that much description of the woman’s clothing and shoes? If she is driving a fancy car, I’m going to assume she’s dressed fancy as well.

—-”There’s a dog on the road,” she said breathlessly,

Why is she out of breath after a short, nimble sprint? Nimble sprinting indicates lively dashing. Not an old woman’s huffing shuffle.

I’m with those who wonder why traffic would grind to a halt (even if cars were creeping along an inch at a time) so that everyone could go chasing after a dog. Now, maybe if the traffic had been stopped for twenty minutes or more and everyone was bored, I could see them deciding to play a game of Chase the Doggie.

The description of the heroine as a long dormant dog lover doesn’t work for me. All of a sudden she is concerned with another living being and wants to join the chase? Why? Not like they need another dog lover chasing about. And what’s with her personal safety issue if the cars are at a dead stop? Why would she be scared of a dog, innocent or guilty, getting killed? Better she should be scared of the dog’s heart beating a million miles a minute. Or the freeway guy’s impossibly broad shoulders.

I’m also with those who wonder why we got so much description about trivial matters and none when something actually happens.

—–The handsome stranger waved at the frantic Angelenos,

Why were they frantic? The dog wasn’t in danger in stopped traffic. The rescuers weren’t in danger.

Anyway, back to topic-

I agree with most of what’s said above. Don’t start sitting in traffic, slice and dice away all the fluff. I’m of the group who doesn’t mind the shallow heroine. But if she *is* shallow, chasing the dog’s out of character, like everyone else has said.

But it looks like I might be setting myself up to be Fist Page Sunday’s resident nitpicker:

When more than a few minutes had passed, and Sophie hadn’t moved but a few centimeters

because – why is she thinking in centimeters? Word choice is incredibly important. Honestly my immediate thoughts are that the writer’s not from the US, from which I segue into them likely not getting the SoCal area right, something that’s an immediate turn-off for me, since I grew up there. If the heroine is a transplant a bit of the fish out of water thing could be fun – but needs to be explained more clearly.

If I were rewriting this, I’d have her arriving for work, late, just a one-sentence thing to explain why she’s going too fast up the slip road to her job, screech to a halt when the dog races across the road, making her skid and maybe nick her bumper on the safety barrier, and then have the confrontation with the hero. Only this time she has an attitude. She’s worried about the dog, angry that he could let it go like that, and angry that she’s nicked her precious car. She grabs the puppy and when he asks her for it back, she lets fly. Her lateness adds to her anxiety.
Everything else comes through in the subsequent conversation with the hero. Anything you don’t need, save until later.

This is almost all telling not showing, setting the scene, and it wouldn’t draw me in to read more. Since I don’t know Sophie and I don’t have anything vested in her yet, not even a few chapters read, I couldn’t care less what she drives, what she’s wearing, what colour her eyes are and where she’s going.
It has some British-isms, like “mobile phone” and some sentence construction, but it might be just a quirk of the LA scene, so I’m not sure if this fits or not.

nimbly sprinted past several cars in a designer business suit and spindly four-inch Jimmy Choo heels.

The cars sprinted? They wore a designer business suit? And she has to have really sharp eyes to note that the shoes were Jimmy Choos. Watch your sentence construction.

After about five minutes darting around the freeway, she and a tall impossibly broad-shouldered, sandy-haired man were able to corral the dog between themselves and their cars.

She had time to study the man before they caught the dog? Again, you’re stopping the action to describe someone.

“Hey Sunflower,” he said nicknaming Sophie for her bright yellow hair, “You want me to take him?”

Argh! Change of pov and stopping to describe something?

Just as an example, I’d do something like this;

“Hey Sunflower,” he said. “You want me to take him?”
She shook her hair out of her eyes. “As I recall, the bottle said ‘Clairol 234, not Sunflower.”

I don’t really like the heroine. A superficial person with more than a touch of the Mary Sue about her. And a bit of Pollyanna thrown in. I don’t believe that the traffic would stall so badly on a major freeway because of a dog – the minute it ran across the road, someone would have mowed it down. And you really have to cut the descriptions and try to integrate them into the plot.

I have to add that this isn’t my kind of book, unless it’s by Susan Elizabeth Philips or Jennifer Cruisie. In general, not my thing, so you might be addressing the wrong audience in me. But keep at it. You do create a nice atmosphere and your style is pleasantly breezy, when you’re not stopping the action to describe something, for instance, the dog darting in between the cars is done really well.

Also, why are she and the hero suddenly the only ones chasing the dog? With all those cars stopped, and at least one older woman going after it…where is everyone else? You mention her “join[ing] the dog pursuit”, so where is everyone else? How many people does it take to catch one little dog? Surely somebody had some jerky or something they could have tempted the dog with?

An “Angeleno” is a citizen of Los Angeles, there is nothing at all wrong with its use here. And I’ve been to LA a few times; traffic really does stop on a dime there, often for no apparent reason. Not to mention that weirdo pedestrian law they have where cars have to stop the second someone steps off the curb. So I had no trouble at all believing that a bunch of Angelenos stopped for the puppy. I just had a hard time believing our heroine got out and ran around.

And I ditto what Courtney Milan said about the puppy chase 100%. You spend all this time introducing the heroine, then rush through the actual action, when the action is a perfect opportunity to not only engage the reader, but to actually show us the heroine’s character. This could be quite cute and sweet, and get the heroine nicely rumpled and mussy and she could get upset about it and that could add some conflict.

I have to echo the people who don’t think traffic would stop for a dog on the freeway. I’m sure it’s happened a few times, but really, when you’re barrelling down the highway at 60-80 mph, you’re not going to swerve or stop. When I lived in Indy, a whole family of ducks tried to cross the junction of I-70 and I-465, at the height of rush hour. Traffic was jam-packed and very fast–I’m sure we all felt bad, but no one stopped or even braked that much, because we all wanted to get home in one piece. Also, I think you might need to justify her interest in the dog with more than just “long-dormant animal lover.” Does it remind her of a childhood pet who was hit by a car? Also, when I was single and childless, my pets were pretty much my substitute children, so I can see her having a soft spot for critters, no matter how vain she might be in other ways.

I like your voice, though, and I like your heroine. Keep with it!