First Page Saturday – Unpublished Contemporary
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Welcome to first page Saturday. This is an opportunity for authors to submit unpublished works for critique. You are welcome to comment anonymously. The first page form is here if you would like to submit your own piece.
The Closet From Hell.
It deserved either a pizza with extra cheese or a thick hamburger with pickles and relish.
Olivia Carter decided to go for broke as she headed for the kitchen.
To hell with the calories. It also deserved a Triple Fudge Brownie with ice cream to round it all off.
Those were the only things that would restore the brain cells that had been expended fixing The Closet From Hell.
Simone Bessemer, wife of communications tycoon, Franklin Bessemer, had paid Olivia an arm and a leg to restyle the gigantic walk-in closet that she and her husband shared in their sprawling mansion estate.
The Closet From Hell was the size of Olivia’s living room and Simone had filled it until it was bursting at the seams. Franklin had given his wife the ultimatum. Either hire a professional organizer to fix it…or a divorce was going to be a distinct possibility.
Simone put Olivia’s name on speed dial.
It had taken Liv three mind-numbing days of wanting to stab her own eardrums with sharp, pointy things.
Three days of poking, prodding and arm-twisting to steer Simone into allowing The Closet From Hell to be reshaped into something that you didn’t need a compass and guide dog to wade through.
As a professional organizer running her own business aptly named Life In Order, she’d received more challenging assignments. Like the time she had to help a couple rearrange their ‘shoebox condo’. It was a nightmare trying to shove their young, urban professional lifestyle into 325 square feet of living space.
But this was her second toughest assignment since Simone literally broke into tears every time Liv pulled out an item to discard.
A pair of Jimmy Choo shoes couldn’t be tossed even though the heels were beyond repair, since they reminded Simone of the lovely time she and Franklin had on their third honeymoon. A moth-eaten scarf given to her fifteen years ago and worn three times couldn’t be pitched in the trash because it was a sentimental present from a neighbour she hadn’t laid eyes on in ten years.
With a migraine starting to tap its way into her head, Liv was nearly tempted to go for a pizza topped with a hamburger.
She rummaged through the freezer trying to decide when she heard the car pull up.
By the time she got to the front door to check, a man was getting out of his car and pulling out a hefty looking cardboard box from his front seat. It gave her a start. Along with an icy shiver down her spine.
But only for just a second.
That was progress, she thought. This time last year she’d be keeping her door shut and bolted before reaching for the phone to dial 911. Even now there were some days she wondered if she should buy a gun.
Just in case.
But she relaxed and told herself this man wasn’t trouble.
Until he straightened and headed for her front door with a scowl on his face.
Those eyes were the first thing that caught her attention. Sharp blue that contrasted with his coppery tan. Obviously he never heard of the phrase “SPF 75”. His face was made up of angles and edges and his dark brown hair was carelessly mussed by the wind. Scruffy face enhanced by dark stubble. A tall body encased in worn jeans and an expensive looking black jacket stretched over broad shoulders. He was carrying that large cardboard box, perched on one hip as he walked to her. Sexy walk.
Sexy and dangerous.
Dangerous she could do without.
When he got close enough, he called out. “Are you Olivia Carter?”
The dangerous thing he had going for him looked even more dangerous close up. She was almost tempted to call back, ‘No. No Olivia Carter here. Try 50 miles down the road…. and keep walking’.
“Yes, I am. What can I do for you…Mr…?”
“Jordan Locksbridge.” His voice was a smooth baritone, tinged with irritation. “My sister gave me this thing. She said you could help me.”
He shoved ‘this thing’ at her with one hand while he balanced the box on his hip. When she looked down at the paper he handed her, her mouth lifted in a smile. “Oh, your sister gave you a gift certificate for Life In Order. That was nice of her.”
“Yeah.” He nodded to the box. “So, if I give you my stuff, you sort it out for me? That’s how it works, right?”
Poor guy. He didn’t realize it was time for a dose of reality.
I might have been interested, because the premise is interesting.
What puts me off and means I wouldn’t be reading on are a) the unbearably cheesy tone and b) the disgusting stuff she is stuffing herself with. The idea alone that a professional needs to treat herself for having worked is so putting me off this character, together with her childish and self-indulgent voice, that I wouldn’t continue.
Hi Author and thanks for sharing. You have words on paper, er, pixels on a screen, and that’s an accomplishment.
I can’t quite put my finger on what’s not grabbing me about this first page.
Anytime anything is called “It” in a story, I think Silence of the Lambs…or Stephen King. I’m pretty sure neither is what you had in mind.
I wasn’t necessarily put off by the binge eating after a hard day. Although a glass or three of wine might have been a more adult choice, and taken up less real estate on the first page. You spend a lot of time on something that seems irrelevant.
Same with Simone and Franklin. Are they pivotal characters in the story? There’s a great deal of space given over to Simone’s sentimental attachment to clothes. Is that important?
Finally, I don’t think I like your MC. Or specifically her attitude toward her clients. She gives off a distinct lack of patience and caring for people who seem to need her help…the people who are paying her to organize their lives, or at least one closet’s worth of it. If she’s going to complain about every client she has, which she’s already done, that’s going to wear thin pretty quickly.
I do like the guy though. He’s direct, upfront, comes to the point. Not fond of the “encased” description for jeans though,
I think you have an issue with tense in this sentence:
“This time last year she’d be keeping her door shut…”
And maybe that’s where your story starts. Home from a hard day digging through someone else’s stuff, and then a mysterious stranger arrives at your door. You have a past, and he has a cardboard box. That to me is more interesting than Simone or the Yuppies or her food cravings.
Speaking of food…the last thing I’d want if I were getting a migraine is a giant meal of all that stuff. I’d probably want something more like a dark room and an ice pack. Just give her a plain old headache and call it good, please. That’s a nit-picky thing, but it has me shaking my head. I know not all migraines are created equal, but I just want her to have a lie down instead of a buffet.
I’d keep reading. I like the breezy style and I have no issue with comfort food after a hard day (I’m not a drinker really so wine doesn’t equal more adult to me than chocolate/junk food) and it’s not a problem for me that she doesn’t always enjoy her job. I didn’t find it unbearable or cheesy, childish, or self-indulgent particularly, which I guess goes to prove that taste is subjective.
The premise is interesting and fun and I liked the heroine well enough for a first page. I mean, I’ve barely gotten to know her of course, but so far, so good.
Personally, the “Closet From Hell” was repeated too many times for my liking. That was really the only thing that stood out to me as an issue. Though I agree with Carol’s suggestion to just make it a headache rather than a migraine. Food and migraines don’t play well together I don’t think!
I liked the start, it showed that she was competent and introduced her work to set the scene. I assume her business is going to be a large part of the story, after all. I like knowing she has more than one client (the hero) and it gave context to their meet cute.
It’s only the first page but there was certainly enough there to keep me reading.
Good luck with it!
Frankly, I found Simone more sympathetic than Liv. Simone clearly had love and sympathy for people. She remembered her former neighbor with a lot more affection than Liv felt for her clients. Are we supposed to sneer at Simone because her memories are broken Jimmy Choos, not broken plastic flip-flops? The fact that she lives in a big house just means she had time to acquire a lot more before the crisis.
That said, this didn’t sound realistic to me. If your job is dealing with other people’s clutter, you’ve met a ton of Simones. Further, Simone’s husband could have just evicted Simone from their mutual closet and given her a spare bedroom to use as a closet, so I don’t believe the divorce thing. That’s a luxury of being rich and having a huge house.
You hint at trauma in Liv’s past and call Jordan dangerous, but I don’t see anything dangerous about him, other than a scowl. I need more showing to understand Liv’s reaction.
Most of the first few paras belonged in one. Separating them gave too much importance to the food.
Get rid of the stuff about Simone, unless she’s going to play an important role in your book. Start with Jordan and focus on Liv’s reactions to him.
I’d pass on this.
‘The Closet from Hell’ is a nice phrase, but it’s not a good first line in itself, and after four usages in 200 words the joke wears thin. Also, as you read the page, it turns out not to be accurate – the closet is fine, it’s the client that’s hellish.
Initially the page feels chick-litty – work-challenged young professional with a humorous take on life – and then suddenly the page turns and we’re in romantic suspense territory with a traumatised heroine reluctantly opening the door to a sexy stranger.
And while I read both chick-lit and romantic suspense, the fusion doesn’t work for me here. And in addition I found the style hard to read – it felt choppy.
Sorry to be so negative. On the bright side, I could have warmed to either half of the page. At the moment, I’m more interested to read about whatever’s in the box: the romantic suspense half seems the stronger, more readable section. But I think with a little finessing, the first chick-lit section could work too: I could get interested in Simone and Franklin’s cupboard.
It’s the blending of the two that I found problematic.
Good luck.
I have no problem with what the heroine wants to eat, my only quibble is why is it being talked of so much? Yes, the phrase, “The Closet from Hell” felt gimmicky. And, by the end of the first half I wasn’t bonding with the heroine because she was too negative about her clients.
But, I’m liking the second half better. The premise that she’s a personal organizer and he’s hiring her is good.
This has good bones! Good luck with this. Thank you so much for your bravery in posting.:)
I would continue reading. I have no problem with the idea of food for comfort. I can get behind it more than the wino mentality. I’m an adult. I’m not much of a drinker. And I find all the wine talk in a lot of contemporaries pretentious. So, you’ll have a wide range of opinions on that and shouldn’t worry about people nitpicking over it.
My question is why a woman with some sort of traumatic experience in her past would run a business out of her home, so that strange people would arrive randomly at her door. That’s not smart. At least, I assume it’s her home since she’s speaking about the freezer and the front door, etc.
First off, I don’t have an issue with your heroine being stressed from the days spent working with Simone. I do agree with some of the other commenters in that you might want to make her less bitchy about her job. Let her recognize how hard it is for Simone to let go of items, but perhaps make it something like they had to debate every item and perhaps Simone would rescue discarded items, etc. Something that’s irritating but doesn’t show disdain. As for the food thing, yeah, probably too much emphasis. And I wouldn’t open with Closet from hell. Honestly, I thought that was a place she was going for the food. You could try opening with Olivia getting a rush from that first bite of burger and how she hates she resorts to cheeseburgers when she’s had a rough day. That would be a good hook for me as a ready because I’d want to know what drove her to desperately seek comfort food.
I also agree that if she’s had some sort of trauma in her past, she would not have her address accessible to strangers. So I don’t buy this random guy shows up at her house and not her place of business. If she runs her business from her home, I would think she would not have an address listed. And if she’d been victimized in the past, she wouldn’t have opened the door without verifying who the guy is and taking precautions.
The tone is fine, but I’d recommend some polish and searching for some unique characteristics that make your heroine interesting. Like something odd she indulges in (my husbands office manager eats two Whoppers in her car when she’s stressed) or perhaps Olivia is good at sorting out other’s lives but her own place is a mess? Something that makes her real and interesting and relatable (even though the stress eating sorta does that)
As another mentioned, you have good bones and the hero sounds fun. I love a mussed man who needs some help fixing his life. That’s serious romance crack!
Good luck :)
I found this challenging for two reasons not cited above.
The first is that every sentence is its own paragraph. That is a writing style that is fingernails down a blackboard for me. I understand occasionally having single sentence paragraphs for emphasis, but this repeatedly has three of them in a row. It’s no longer for emphasis, and most of those standalone sentences would work better combined as paragraphs.
The second issue I have is that we are being told about, not shown, the Closet from Hell. I would be much more engaged if we saw a conversation between Olivia and Simone about the closet. If the goal is to get right to the bit where the gentleman is introduced, then I think the Olivia and Simone bits could be trimmed down. Like, way trimmed down. If Simone isn’t going to appear again, it could be trimmed to two sentences.
The end with the hero made me interested, but the single sentence paragraphs that led up to it were again a real block for me.
@Kaetrin:
I like how Kaetrin summed up everything. I’d keep reading.
This didn’t grab me until the guy who doesn’t use SPF showed up…that’s where the character starts to show nuance rather than just be a brat. Maybe cut the descriptors ahead of that and start there?
“The Closet from Hell” might be used once and thereafter just be called The Closet, or something like that.
I would read on, but I would also be wary of prose that sounds slightly more like a newspaper column than a novel, e.g. “As a professional organizer running her own business aptly named Life In Order, she’d received more challenging assignments.” More of a telling, not a showing.
I don’t want to repeat too much of what has been said above, so I will just agree with the comments about too much Simone, too much negativity about her clients, and too many one-sentence paragraphs. What works on a web page doesn’t always work in a book.
But I do want to know what in that box — so you’ve hooked this reader!
HOWEVER — I know this is nitpicky, but this sort of description always really bugs me — I don’t know how on earth she can see his eyes in such detail, when he’s too far away to be heard. Can you move the detailed description of his appearance until after they are face to face?