FIRST PAGE SATURDAY: Untitled Contemporary
First Pagefirst page / literary critique13 Comments
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Karen’s life spiraled into complete disarray. One little statement put her whole life into a tailspin. Her orderly life stopped, taking an unknown turn from three little words… use or lose, forced vacation time. Here it was, late November with her boss breathing down her neck to take leave. Karen was self-sufficient and had everything planned for the next few months and did not like change. Karen scheduled her life and planned her days- months in advance.
Karen was a petite warhorse at work. Life did not revolve around her, she understood that, but her work did. At 30, she already clawed her way up the ladder to be a project manager. Her presence alone put people to work. Without her, the office would dissolve into chaos, or so she thought. Ten or twelve hour days did not bother her; she thrived on the stress, tension and deadlines. Every day for 8 years, Karen arrived at the office before her co-workers and left hours after them. This was her life- without it, what was she to do? She’d spent so much time on the last project. It had taken a long time to go over the construction bids and get her report ready. She thrived on work and loved looking at companies and dissecting their weaknesses. Karen instinctively calculated which companies had the ability to perform above standards and which settled for the bare minimum. On her newest project, one company caught her eye. It was the lowest bid by a small builder. LaRosa had underbid all the competitors. They built homes, solid, well-built units, but LaRosa’s competence with a project this large is uncharted. Karen scoured LaRosa’s proposal with a scrutinized eye. She investigated the company and went to their job sites to inspect the workmanship. Then she interrogated employees about their craft, ethics and supplies. This morning, Karen had driven to their development. She loved impromptu visits to watch the construction process. LaRosa impressed her with their merits. The workers said that they were happy with the construction techniques and that quality was their main goal. No shoddy construction there. However, the company’s name gave Karen pause. Who would name a construction company LaRosa? It sounded too feminine to her. A construction company should have a nice strong name to it!
She had met the foreman, John, at the LaRosa Construction site. Nice guy, good looking too. He came looking for her soon after she arrived. Obviously, someone had tipped him off that she was there. He had taken her on a guided tour of the properties and offered lunch. Karen did not mix business and pleasure, so she nipped that one in the bud. Men thought she would be someone easy to work for and manipulate. However, she was neither. Oh, she could be sweet- if she felt the need to be sweet. She wanted to be the best at what she did and she expected the same from everyone else. They had a nickname for her and she loved it. The little General. She did not mind as long as they did not say she had a Napoleon complex or something like it.
John had been gorgeous; he had long, dark hair, just below his shoulders, and piercing gray eyes. A hypnotic combination that gave off a devil-may-care attitude many women find irresistible. Nevertheless, she didn’t yearn to be a notch on his belt. Karen understood that he just wanted a fling for his amusement. She enjoyed flirting with him and he tried two or three times, to get her to go out with him. But she turned on her hard face and shot him down with an icy glare. He got the message and decided that she was not worth the trouble. Karen felt vindicated when a woman called John- in the middle of the inspection- to schedule an afternoon fun-time with him. He was popular, that one.
Karen gazed out the office window at the city below, scrutinizing her reflection in the glass. Petite- she hated that word. Dainty. Small. Tiny. She was a powerhouse on the inside, why couldn’t her outside be the same? She wanted to be tall, broad, and powerful. A brown-haired woman, perhaps, with fierce eyes. It took people a few minutes to understand that this dark-eyed, black-haired, baby-faced ‘girl’, had a steel spine and an iron reserve.
Hi author, thanks for sharing.
I think you’re rushing ahead too fast here. You introduce a “problem” in the opening, then start to try to explain why your character doesn’t want to take a vacation, and then go rushing into her investigating a company and meeting what sounds suspiciously like the male lead.
By this point I’m wondering, okay, so what’s her problem with losing the vacation time if she doesn’t want to go?, but it just doesn’t feel like we’re ever going to touch on the subject again.
It also feels like you’re overusing her name. The number of times seems weirdly high to me. *shrug* That may just be my personal taste, but please consider at least not clumping so many uses in the opening paragraph.
And finally, something about this sentence: “Without her, the office would dissolve into chaos, or so she thought.” seems a bit clunky.
As it is, nothing here would keep me reading.
Hi Author and thanks for sharing.
This is one big tell. A huge tell. A big info dump. Great honking swaths of dense, information-filled paragraphs.
But I lost interest after the “use or lose” opening. You take three sentences that repeat and reinforce that something terrible has happened, only to have it be she’s being forced to take vacation. Truthfully, I don’t want to read about a MC who can’t handle some free time. If she’s that rigid in her life, so set in her ways, so wedded to her job that vacation messes her up that badly, I don’t want to spend time with her.
Aside from that, you shot your premise in the foot with the “…or lose.” If it’s a use or lose leave policy with her company, then all she has to do is say no. And not take the vacation. She loses it. Plain and simple. Also, if she’s clawed her way up the ladder to project manager, she’d have faced this situation each and every year. This would be nothing new. So now you’ve shot the premise in the other foot. None of that first paragraph is believable.
After that my eyes glazed over at next huge paragraph, and I started skimming. And then I stopped skimming, and gave up. I rarely do that with First Page, because it’s supposed to be an opportunity for readers to critique writer’s work. But this is beyond my ability to sustain interest.
Sorry I can’t give you anything else here. Obviously I wouldn’t read on, because I can’t even get through the first page.
It would have been completely believable if the company were in financial trouble and were requiring employees to take unpaid furloughs. There you have an ironclad reason for the unexpected and forced time off, with the added drama of no pay. That would certainly throw someone’s life in disarray, more than just being told to take a vacation they didn’t want to, but would be paid for. And could refuse to take.
Hi author, me again.
The more I think about it the more this bit: “However, the company’s name gave Karen pause. Who would name a construction company LaRosa? It sounded too feminine to her. A construction company should have a nice strong name to it!” is bugging me.
The company just sounds like it was started by someone with the last name LaRosa. Why a character in 2015 would be worrying if someone else’s company name was masculine enough in 2015 is rather puzzling.
@Lostshadows: Ack! Where’s an edit button when you need one?
I’d definitely read about a driven workaholic, but you write it as a scene, not an info dump. This is how you do it. Forgive me clunky writing, it’s a general example.
Karen marched into her 3:00 appointment with her boss precisely on time. She started her presentation immediately, with all the work to be done, she didn’t have time for idle pleasantries, “We should go with the LaRosa bid. I was skeptical at first, thinking they’d underbid, but I visited their site and talked with their principals.” And she’d ignored the gorgeous John’s play for her. She hadn’t clawed her way to project manager only to fall for a pair of blue eyes. Nope, her visits to LaRosa were strictly business.
“I have a preliminary budget and construction schedule here.” Karen paused to flip open her computer and placed on her boss’s desk.
He didn’t even look at it. “I didn’t call you here for that.”
Karen made sure her bewilderment didn’t show. When you’re petite and baby-faced, you have to look like you’re made of steel. She waited.
“You haven’t taken a day of vacation,” her boss said.
“I don’t have time.” Without her, the office would descend into chaos.
You lost me very quickly with your opening.
The first sentence initially reads well. The second is irritating, because it essentially repeats the first, adding little more information. The third starts with a second retelling – so we have ‘[her] life spiraled into complete disarray’, ‘her whole life into a tailspin’ followed by ‘Her orderly life stopped’.
Frankly, even if the mysterious little statement had been: “And then they ate your grandmother, too” I might still feel you overegged the build up. But her life is imploding because she needs to take some time off work?
After that it just gets mystifying – if she plans everything months in advance, why hasn’t she booked her holidays like everyone else does? Or alternatively if she doesn’t take holidays as the passage seems to suggest: “Every day for 8 years, Karen arrived at the office” – why doesn’t she just choose ‘Lose it, thanks’ and get back to work.
And having raised this as the issue facing our character, the page then wanders off to tell us about one of the projects she’s managing. I’m open to be wrong here, but I couldn’t imagine that actually happening. I could imagine her grilling the company boss, and maybe his accountant, but having discussions on craft and ethics with his labourers? Plus the LaRosa comment read oddly – firstly because it doesn’t sound a feminine name to my ear, and secondly because there’s a hint of misogyny to her thought.
Then, when the page returns from that digression, we find her gazing out the window and pondering her reflection, as if she’s forgotten that she is currently distraught about her forced vacation.
I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t read on.
Good luck.
I enjoy stories where the MC thinks they have it all figured out and then have the rug pulled out from under them, so I’m interested in this.
Stories about a workaholic heroine who learns to relax sometimes goes in ways I enjoy (work/life balance is really important to me) and sometimes in ways that feel regressive or anti-feminist, so I’ve learned to be cautious about this set up.
One note about the feedback about not wanting to spend time with your heroine – there is an audience for the so called difficult heroine – it’s smaller than for a more relatable heroine, but it’s there. If your character needs to be difficult, I say let her be difficult but make her compelling too.
I agree that there is too much info dumping and too much telling, not showing. I’d rather read a few sentences that show your heroine at work rather than paragraphs telling me how hard she works. (If you want examples, read the first few pages of Charlie all Night by Jennifer Cruisie – see also the first few pages of Breathing Room by SEP (not as brilliant as the Cruisie IMO but still effective) and probably anything by Julie James.)
I also see some writing errors that need cleaning up (slipping into present tense, etc). I think it needs work, but I think you could have something here. Good luck and keep writing.
The thing that sticks out to me is how many times you use her name. So many sentences start with “Karen”.
I’ve currently slipped into an extended period of lots and lots of work, with little outside life. Not ideal but temporarily necessary, and also temporarily driven by some life factors too. I know and can identify with who I think you are trying to make your heroine. But I think you’ve gone too broad. What makes her tick? What is is about her job that she loves so much, what makes her so passionate about it that she forsake vacation and outside life? And you don’t have to answer all those questions in the first paragraph, reveal it slowly through her interactions with her world.
I also have experience with project management, and production management. I’m not sure what her job actually is but it doesn’t ring completely true. Running a project is a much more than just sifting through bids. It’s identifying things that could be a problem before they are, having the ability to pivot when things or circumstances inevitably change. It’s the details and the big picture. It’s solving immediate problems and having the foresight and knowledge to rearrange future tasks as a result. It’s being able to lead people and give them a clear view of the vision which guides the project. It’s herding cats, and 3D Tetris. It’d being the thing that connects all the moving parts.
Marianne McA put it perfectly as to why I couldn’t read this. I made it to the end of the first paragraph where you kept repeating the heroine’s first name and I winced. Then I glanced at the rest which I saw was dense paragraphs and no dialogue and I couldn’t continue.
Maybe this needs to be rewritten in first person, or at the very least in a deeper/closer third.
Good luck with revisions, thank you for sharing.
Bravo for subbing it here. That takes courage. I agree with other comments that it’s not the best start.
You have grammatical errors/typos that pulled me out of it.
They built homes, solid, well-built units, but LaRosa’s competence with a project this large is [should be ‘was’} uncharted.
At 30 [thirty], she [she’d] already clawed her way up the ladder to be a project manager.
If you have a couple of mistakes on the first page and didn’t catch them, there are probably more you missed in the rest of the ms. Maybe get a beta reader to give it a look; no one ever sees their own errors after multiple revisions, in my experience.
And it’s clunky in places:
She did not mind as long as they did not say she had a Napoleon complex or something like it.
It’d read better if you used contractions and ended with ‘complex’. And possibly rewrote to avoid the repetition of ‘didn’t’.
‘Which was fine if the words ‘Napoleonic complex’ remained unsaid.’
Good luck!
Read out loud.
I think you would have caught the first three sentences as being the same thing AND the over use of names instead of ‘she’ and ‘he’ if you’d read out loud.