That could work: “The Contessa Licciardi wrote, circa 1750, that…”

I don’t have any constructive criticism to add. Just wanted to say that as a reader, I enjoyed it and would keep reading. Especially after reading this part of your post…

The stranger is British Secret Service, a James Bond type, on the trail of a jewel thief who is trying to steal the diamond. He’s there to warn Maddie. For various good reasons she disregards his warning. The diamond is stolen, she’s suspected and the pair join forces to go after the thief.

This makes it sound like a screwball 1960s romance starting Audrey Hepburn, and I would consider buying the book because I loved those type of movies. In which case, the Modesty Blaise reference would fit nicely, if that’s what you’re aiming for. I would consider the reference quirky rather than dated. And the hero saying “circa,” I would also take that as quirky rather than stuffy. Although I do agree with leela (comment #24) that adding commas would make it flow better.

ETA: I didn’t read the “circa” sentence as the person being circa 1750; I read it as the action took place circa 1750. Maybe that needs to be cleared up, being in reference to the person or to the action.

People aren’t “circa” anything. Their birth and death dates may be “circa” something, but if only one date is known for a person, the term used is “floruit” (sometimes Englished as “flourished”).

Nobody who was pedantic enough to use “circa” in conversation would use it incorrectly, I hope.

What an historian would actually say there is either “The eighteenth-century Contessa Antonia Licciardo could…” or “Contessa Antonia Licciardo, who lived around 1750, would…” or, if they were the most pedantic and fusty person ever, “Contessa Antonia Licciardo, floruit 1750, would…”

I like the idea of the panic button. Right after the last paragraph posted I have Maddie reaching for her cell phone but a panic button is better.

The diamond is from the Kimberley in Western Australia which is a region known for its pink diamonds. My research tells me that the deeper and more intense the color, the rarer and more valuable the stone is with cranberry being the most rare. The only stretch to the truth here is that generally such dark pink diamonds are much smaller than Maddie’s diamond.

Maddie is a gemologist/mineralogist and it was she who actually found the rough diamond while on a research trip which is why the diamond company is allowing her aunt to display the cut stone prior it going to auction. Various versions have had more of this information up front. It’s hard to get all the important stuff on the first page!

The stranger is British Secret Service, a James Bond type, on the trail of a jewel thief who is trying to steal the diamond. He’s there to warn Maddie. For various good reasons she disregards his warning. The diamond is stolen, she’s suspected and the pair join forces to go after the thief.

Re the comment about writing foreigners. Getting it wrong is a pet peeve of mine, too, so you can be sure I’ll be watching that. I’m Canadian living in Australia and have English friends so my ear is tuned to the English way of speaking. Not that I personally know any aristocrats, lol.

Circa stopped a few people. I admit I didn’t like it either and tried to find a way around it. I’ll have another think about it.

The thing that pleased me is that quite a few people said they’d like to read this story. I’m pubbed in category and this is my first attempt at single title. All the agents I queried with this liked the premise, characters and writing but said there was no market for this type of story. This exercise has given me renewed inspiration to get the ms back out there.

Thanks again. And thanks to Jane Litte and Dear Author for this site.

Joan Kilby

Nicely crafted. A good showcase beginning for the character. Nice general ’shape’, if I can put it into my own terms.

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What you’re doing– I don’t have to tell you this — is setting up the character’s dichotomy (a trichotomy, I guess,) of running shoes, action fantasy, and geeky expertise. Then we go right into story action when the man walks in. All in one page. Good.

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Suggestion.

You could tighten the structure a bit by removing the ten minutes of stage business.

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What I mean.
The action of reading-thinking-hearing the clock is stage business and could be cut. We could go directly to the looking-at-the-jewel action.
The iconic images and the internals could be placed during the inspection of the diamond.
We’d eliminate that empty five or ten minutes of lead-in.

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A structure to do this might be:

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1) You could start with the lovely:

The sheer sensuality of the jewel held her captive. The deep cranberry [sic] color, intensely saturated, was as rare as it was seductive.

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2) Go to the paragraph:

She rotated the zoom knob to deepen …

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3) Bring the iconic objects in. Have her reach over to pick up the frogglesprocket which happens to be sitting on top of the Modesty Blaise book.
You use that moment to describe her working desk.

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4) Then connect the Modesty Blaise internal to the POV character’s immediate situation, rather than letting the internals float free, without reference

She sees the book and thinks . . .
If [insert villain] broke in to steal the jewel I’d kick him the– She looked at her red Converse All Stars sneakers. Hmmm. Not good for kicking butt. Maybe I’d knee him in the groin.

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5) Then we start the story with ‘the man walks in.’

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Two suggestions on wordage.

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– Strands of wavy brown hair escaped her ponytail and fell past the shoulders is a classic, but not in a good way. Leave out the wavy brown and you can do the rest.
Find a place for the ‘brown hair’ later.

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– Drop a good 20% of the modifiers.

Lookit your first paragraph, stripped down 20%.

Maddie flicked a page of the graphic novel, her red Converse hightops propped on a drawer containing scientific articles, chunks of quartzite and the odd gemological tool. God, she would love to be Modesty Blaise coming face to face with that ape-man Delicata. Wham! Blam! Look out ma’am! She would look so hot in black leather.

Fewer modifiers. Same ‘picture’. Faster pace.

As an aside, you may put me with those who found the Modesty Blaise reference to be dated. If the POV character is under thirty there are many other kick-but characters who are more likely in that spot.

As for circa, well… I’ve used the term in conversation, in a tongue-in-cheek way, and assumed the character is either poking fun at historian types, or is one himself. I’d put it in commas, though, to make it easier to read and clearer that it’s an aside: Did you know that the Contessa Antonia Licciardo, circa 1750, could reach orgasm simply by looking at a beautiful gem? That gives it even more of that pseudo-academic feeling, which works better for the sly humor that’s only revealed when it’s set against the rest of the sentence, seeing how it’s about the last thing you’d expect a professor to say.

All the other adjectival details, I’m with some of the other folks: I got so much in the first three paragraphs that I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to remember, and it ended up a blur. The bit about the million dollars of diamond got my attention, except that it’s after the first paragraph and the first time I read I was skimming fast by the end of the paragraph and ending up skimming right over that hook-ey sentence. (What made me go back and try again were the comments here, to be truthful.) Maybe drop some of the details — do I really need to know she’s wearing red converse, this early in the game? — and try to get to that bit about the diamond in the very first sentence.

The end of the page… well, to be blunt, I’d only keep reading if it turns out her first impulse upon hearing an unexpected voice was to hit the panic button right as she jumps up. Because hello, when you’re talking ‘twenty million dollars’ worth of anything, let alone ‘pink diamond’, then you’d have to know that no security is perfect, and you always have a backup, and that people would most definitely kill for such a thing. If I get to the next paragraph and the cops don’t come busting through the door thanks to that panic button, then I’m consigning the character to the land of Too Stupid To Keep Reading, and call it a day.

I’m not saying she has to be paranoid, just that I appreciate a dose of realism in my comedy. Unless she’s supposed to be a teenaged prodigy in hightops, and maybe is that naive about what people would do to get a million dollars. But then I wouldn’t read the story anyway, since little bores me like clueless teenaged scientific prodigies.

One reader’s cute is another reader’s boring.

Nothing about this made me stop and say oh that’s too much or that’s not enough. I could probably go back and find a nit to pick but I just liked it. I wanted to keep reading.

Actually, I thought the author was telling us “rich girl” without using the words and I was really impressed. Now I really want to know if I was right.

Perhaps cut back on the adjectives a bit: ‘deep’ voice instead of ‘deep and cultured English male voice’ (work in his nationality a bit later), or ’strands of hair’ instead of ’strands of wavy brown hair’. To me, all those extra adjectives sound forced.

But I would certainly read on. I really like your heroine and I think I would like your hero too. I think they’re gonna strike sparks off each other!

Sounds quirky and reminds me of JAK earlier work, which I loved.

I agree with those who questioned a gem of that value being displayed in a shop; if it turns out to be a (fictional) shop that rivals Tiffany’s, though, or if it’s a shop attached to a gemological museum, it’d make more sense.

The only wording glitch that jumped out at me: “A deeply pleasurable sigh escaped her lips.” This sounds like an outside viewpoint, not hers, and “pleasurable sigh” makes me think the sigh’s what’s giving the pleasure, not a sign of pleasure.

I also wondered at a $20 million diamond displayed in her grandmother’s case. ‘Her grandmother’s jewelry shop’ makes me think of a cute little mom and pop shop, which obviously wouldn’t have such an expensive piece of jewelry. So you probably want to lower the price tag or clarify the shop reference.

Great job!

Kate Hewitt

There were too many other tiny details which made my eyes glaze a bit. I don’t need to know every single thing in the first three paragraphs. Perhaps the man who entered the locked room could notice her tennies and a few other of her personal details.

Pink diamonds are generally of a more fluorescent quality, and a brighter pink. Cranberry is too dark a color for a pink diamond. Granted, diamonds are carbon and rubies corundum, but after working for a jeweler for many years, I learned a lot about color variations and the cranberry reference doesn’t work for me. The price of $20+ million works as recently, a 5 (or 7ct pink diamond, the size escapes me now) was expected to sell in the 7 million dollar range. But even that would have been in a private collection so the reference to that expensive a diamond being in a display case in a shop makes no sense to me. Also, if you’re going to use the cranberry to make this the rarest pink diamond ever, then no, there’s no way I’m buying into it being on display in some shop window. If it’s going to be that rare, use it to your advantage.

I say all this because…if you want to use objects in stories that are grounded in fact, and your remaining description of the 3Cs is accurate, then don’t toss something as unbelievable as displaying that item in a shop in. It makes my trust in the author drop. I agree with whoever said it would be much more believable as going on display in a museum or private collection.

I would break up this sentence:

The cut was stunning; the edges clean and sharp, the pavilion carved to the perfect depth to reflect light internally so that sparks of iridescent fire scattered deep within its heart sparkled out of the crown.

because I had to read it twice and it still didn’t flow with the way it’s written. There are a few other sentences that are rather long which could also be broken up a bit more.

I like the premise, I got a chance to see the heroine through the extraneous info and like her! But I think some editing and cleaning up of checkable facts would go far in making this a nice, tight first page.

Good luck!

I’m following the comments here, because although I found the sample interesting enough to want more, it pushed a few of my “description” buttons. I don’t know when I’ve ever paid attention to the length or color of my hair except immediately after a visit to my stylist. I’ve had long hair, short hair, and enough variations on curl and color to populate an entire novel, but when a character does something with her “shoulder-length red curls” it pulls me out of her head. I see thinking about hair that’s getting in the way, but beyond that, I don’t need more. Yet. Let me see these things later. At this point in the story, for me, what she does is more important than what she looks like.

Likewise to brand names or other clothing descriptions. Once I put on a t-shirt , I don’t think of it as my “Will Sell Husband for Chocolate” shirt. It’s just the shirt I’m wearing that day.

Product placement and personal descriptyion references always seem contrived to me, and will pull me out of a story. I want to see them from another character’s POV, not the POV character who’s wearing them. Red hi-tops is fine, but I don’t need the brand name. (But at least I recognize Converse here — too many times I’m clueless. With the exception of my New Balance workout sneakers, I couldn’t tell you the brand name of a single pair of shoes in my closet.)