First Page: unpublished manuscript (New Adult)
First Pagefirst page / literary critique11 Comments
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“She fucking hates me.”
Alley sat there staring in disbelief at the grade for her philosophy paper. This was the third time she had received a D. She was definitely going to fail this class.
“Who hates you now?” asked Brianna, popping her fully primped head in from the bathroom as she was getting ready for the Lock and Key party.
Alley was rubbing her head in frustration, a mirror image of her father. She could just hear him now, “McAllister’s don’t fail.” The family motto.
“Professor Kline fucking hates me,” Alley spat out.
“Maybe if you weren’t so distracted by that smokin’ hot TA, you’d be doing better.”
Brianna was right. But that crush started long before they arrived at college. George Thomas DeWitt had been her secret addiction for as long as she could remember.
“Well sugar, this is definitely the party to make you forget about all about philosophy papers. Now go put on your assless chaps and let’s go. If we don’t hurry we’ll be handcuffed to losers all night.”
Alley ran to the closet to change her clothes. Clearing the adolescent memories of George from her mind and replacing them with, Mike. His piercing blue eyes and sultry voice practically melted her panties off the first time they met. She loved how every tee-shirt he wore was too tight for his sculpted arms. He was everything she needed, fun and sex, nothing more.
“Hey dumbass, she’ll still hate you tomorrow,” Brianna joked, “Ready to go?”
Based on what I read, I wouldn’t read on. The heroine comes across as a whiney airhead and the love triangle is way too obvious.
Not where your story starts, imo. There’s nothing here that can’t be worked into a more active scene. You have a passive MC, who is, as Lin points out, whiny. You have the obligatory bitchy roommate, who reinforces the passivity of the MC by bossing her around, and by dint of having a personality, may overshadow your MC.
I’m not sure who George or Mike are. There’s something muddled about who the crush is, and who is the long-term addiction. Or it’s lack of coffee on my part. I’ve read that bit a few times, and I come up with something different with each.
There are issues with the writing, speech tags that could be removed, and this strange non-sequitur has me shaking my head: Alley was rubbing her head in frustration, a mirror image of her father.
I would not read on.
On the other hand, you wrote something, and that’s a good thing. Thanks for sharing.
The above commenters have most of it nailed. The story doesn’t start here. Does the story start at the party? Is the intended love interest there? Is the professor (probably unlikely, but I don’t know whether this is college or high school)?
I’d identify DeWitt as the teaching assistant, and I’d use the full name before I used the abbreviation TA. I had to think past tits and ass and wonder for a moment whether this is a f/f story or what have you.
McAllister’s should not have an apostrophe, as it’s plural and not possessive.
You have the bones of a good tale here. I’d read more after revisions.
I’d prefer a less “overwrought”, cliched style, especially from the start. For example —
“Alley spat out” — she’s upset and worried, not angry. As Carol pointed out, the speech tags like (and “Brianna joked”) could removed to make the writing cleaner and stronger.
“Alley ran to the closet” — adults don’t really run to closets
“piercing blue eyes”, “sultry voice”, “practically melted her panties off”, “sculpted arms” — this has all been done so many times before.
I think with some more work, you’ll have something. I also think you’re incredibly brave to submit a first page here, and especially to put words down on paper (or computer) in the first place. There’s a reason I’m a reader, not a writer! Good luck!
I think you have something here but I agree with the above comments that it needs some work.
The new thing I have to add is that I can’t tell their ages – both characters sound very young to me, but the assless chaps and the Lock and Key party seem older (and kinkier) than something 18 year old college frosh would be into. Or maybe I’m just too old to know that this is the latest college fad.
Your writing style is very engaging. Based on this I would read on even though I don’t usually read NA.
As mentioned in the comments above mine, your piece does need cleaning. I don’t mind a passive protagonist. She’s young and feels quite unsure of herself, especially if she has demanding parents. I’m guessing by the end of the novel she’ll come into her own. BTW, assless for the chaps isn’t necessary. Chaps are assless, so saying “chaps” is fine.
The first line of dialogue was intriguing, but afterwards I’m disappointed because she’s dodging responsibility and whining that her bad grades are all her professor’s fault. So immediately I’m not connecting with the heroine.
After reading the rest…I agree with everyone else that you need to start this elsewhere, or spend a bit of time on this particular beginning making the heroine more likeable, and helping us to differentiate between the two guys you throw out as possible love interests, making them more distinct.
Thank you so much for sharing your wip! Keep going! It’s all about the rewriting- we all have to do it. :)
An editor once told me that swearing is a cheap way out of writing something more interesting and more descriptive – it’s a shortcut. You have two fucks and a dumbass in the first page – which IMO might work in a large fight scene or a military engagement or something, where swear words might really be a vital part of the scene, but when two girls are getting dressed to go out?
Using ‘fuck’ casually may be how girls this age talk, but people don’t want to read how other people actually talk – that’s a lot of ‘uhs’ and ‘yeah’s. We want to read a more interesting, more polished version of how people talk. We want to read how we wished we talked, and it has to be interesting – and swear words in this type of casual usage are more like filler words, and they don’t actually tell the reader anything.
For instance, is this a sad ‘I’m fucked and I’ll lose my scholarship’ type swearing or ‘I’m fucked and it’s all because that prof hates me for accidentally spilling a latte on her white coat, and it’s so unfair!’ type of swearing. No emotions really conveyed by those words anymore in this type of usage – whereas a different word might convey a lot more detail to the reader. Why does the prof hate the narrator? What’s a stake with the grade? Surely the narrator knows or has an opinion of whether she actually tried to write a better paper, or went to the prof’s office hours – is the grade unjustified or maybe justified? And — is the grade important? Just a few swear words doesn’t convey any of that. And the narrator doesn’t actually seem to care about the grade b/c she’s all of a sudden about the hottie and the panties and the party – the grade doesn’t seem to matter, which makes me think maybe it was deserved.
I also suspect that if you use fuck twice on the first page, you use it a lot in the rest of the book – suggest you do a word search and see how many times you use various profanities. No word should be overused, and profanities lose their allure as quickly as overusing noticeable verbs.
FYI at least for me, dumbass always makes me think of cranky old men (childhood issues ringing here). For that reason, I have a hard time picturing a college girl calling the other dumbass. And wouldn’t the narrator be annoyed that her roommate calls her dumbass? I’ve never had a friend call me something like that to my face that I can recall – I wouldn’t put up with it — so why does she?
Easier to avoid these issues by just using very few profanities! Save them for when truly nothing else will work, or they have no power left when you do need one.
You start off with a story problem, which is good. There are lots of plot points on this page.
You start off with a conflict/problem. Great. Except having spent half a page on it, Alley does absolutely nothing. That’s a big red flag.
After she got the first D, why didn’t she talk to the prof, the TA or some more successful student in the class? Why didn’t she drop the class? Instead of doing something positive, Alley (which you spell like the narrow, dark street, when Ally and Allie word, too) swears and blames her prof. Then she drops the issue to go to a party.
The next issue you bring up is George. Okay, 2 issues on the same page is good. Except Alley hasn’t done anything about that, either. The obvious solution is to ask George for help. Why didn’t she do that?
What you are announcing to the reader is either 1) your heroine is passive or 2) you will bring up issues that will get dropped, wasting your readers’ time with dead ends, or 3) you take way too long to set up your scenes (if some cute meet thing is happening at the party).
This is why few of us would read on. However, these things can be fixed, as long as Alley isn’t basically passive throughout the book.
Nits: Alley is the way the street is spelled, I’d change to Ally or Allie. Also, if your dialogue is strong, you don’t need dialogue tags. If you do need them, you are better off with actions.
She has a crush on the TA, but appears to do nothing about that, either. The obvious solution to both is to ask the TA for help. I can’t read on if the MC is too stupid to figure out what is obvious to me.
Maybe if on the next page George Thomas DeWitt tears into her for being passive, I’d read on, but with this, no.