The sunlight through the parted lace curtains is warm on her face and she closes her eyes against it. She stays there like that, elbows on the windowsill, knees on the sofa. After a while she opens her eyes slowly, as if coming out of a dream. She looks through the window, down a street lined with lush green trees guarding houses and manicured lawns. She imagines what it would be like to own one of the houses, to call it hers.
There is no sound in the McGreggor house, only a thick afternoon silence. Rosa Bernal Gonzalez is alone; Mr. McGreggor is at work, Mrs. McGreggor is long dead, and the children are at school. The silence and stillness and sunlight keeps Rosa at the windowsill.
Some time later she makes a cup of tea and drinks it in the kitchen, leaning against the imported marble countertop. Copper-plated pots and pans hang obediently on hooks above the grills and ovens. The cook will arrive at five and change into his uniform and the kitchen will be filled with fire and the clanging of utensils on stainless steel. The cook will leave when he’s done and Rosa will serve dinner; after that she’ll clean the kitchen. Then she can go home. Her own house is small and noisy and has seven people living in it. She’s usually only there at night.
But for now the McGreggor house belongs to Rosa. These moments are important to her.
She has no idea she's being watched.
This is all telling. Whose POV is it? Maybe, if the next sentence is "I watched her." this could work.
ReplyDeleteAs it stands, no. It's some chick staring out a window when I see nothing else and have no reason to care.
I'm on the fence. I want to know why she's being watched, but I'm distracted by who's telling the story. I want to connect to a character and totally agree with just_me that if the last line were "I watched her." then I'd definitely read on to find out what the Watcher is going to do. As it is, maybe a few more pages, and if nothing peaks my interest, I'd put it down.
ReplyDeleteI'm not hookded. I think its because the narrator's voice is a bit of a distraction to me. I'm not sure why.
ReplyDeleteI'm not against a bit of telling, especially in the beginning of a story--despite the rather popular rumblings of many other critics. I think the whole "show" vs. "tell" thing can get overdone. One critic in the last SA competition commented, and rightly so, that it's called "storytelling" for a reason.
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ReplyDeleteIf you click on my name, which links to my blog I just set up, you can read the first chapter (now modified slightly).
ReplyDeleteMy writing group loves it. Gets really violent really quick. 500 words to set up the scene and then GO!
I hope the top three comments are just because somehow the first few paragraphs aren't gripping to those readers. I see what Baker said about the voice, and, well, that's just the first four paragraphs. I wrote this story after getting the best advice -- write the book YOU want to read...
The best part, the most intriguing part of this is the very last sentence. the rest all seems like set-up to me, and it would make your story much more exciting and active if you eliminated it somehow, or kept only bits and pieces of it.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but this didn't work for me for a number of reasons:
ReplyDelete1) Ditto that it's all Telling, not Showing.
2) Since Rosa didn't know she was being watched, you've slipped into an omniscient POV, which makes it hard for a reader to identify with any of the characters.
3) First person present is EXTREMELY hard to write, and I've found it to be a turn off for many agents and acquisitons editors.
4) Other than that last line, there's no tension or conflict. It's all backstory that doesn't really need to be introduced right up front.
5) The first 225 words all come from a protagonist not doing anything but musing on the state of her life. Writers Digest Magazine (and other sources, too) list this in their top three reasons why agents reject novels.
Ooh! I love just_me's suggestion. If it ended in "I watched her"--that right there would be very hooky.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the rest of the opening needs tightening up. The mention about the cook is unnecessary, IMO. I think it'll work better without it.
Given that this is a thriller (and the author's comment above) I'd read on a little.
i like it. seems literary. if this is a thriller and the writing quality is this good, then this could be a real winner.
ReplyDeletei read the whole first chapter too. whoa! is byron raping the child or is that supposed to be vague?
The descriptions are nice and paint a strong image, but I'd like a better sense of the narrator. Who is the viewer here? I like the idea of a stalker watching Rosa, but how would he know what Rosa is thinking? If Rosa is supposed to be the viewpoint character, I feel disconnected from her. I don't mind a slow build to action, but I want to know if I'm in Rosa's head or an outside viewer's head right from the start. If you're going for omniscient, it's not working for me.
ReplyDeleteVery well written. I would keep reading, definitely. Great first line. I know that feeling!
ReplyDeleteIt seems very sinister, even before the last line. I also like how it's set up to show us she's alone in a big house and is working for a family with a single father; i.e. "Mr. McGreggor is at work, Mrs. McGreggor is long dead, the children are at school." By the description of the kitchen and the cook we know it's a rich family, maybe a mansion.
I followed the link to the first chapter. This is a very powerful opening and the last line of the first chapter is horrifying. The murder is brutal but not overdone, and the kidnapping is actually very scary because it's believable. I already hate that motel room.
ReplyDeleteThe characters of Byron and Chris make my skin crawl. They seem like opposites, bad guys for different reasons. Is there a good guy in this story? I sure hope so.
I think if there is going to be a submission like this on a board where most of the entries are young adult fiction, then there should be some kind of a warning.
ReplyDeleteThe 250 words aren't any problem, but I think if you offer a link to the entire first chapter and it has graphic violence and suggested sexual abuse, then readers should be warned.
First 250 words: Good.
ReplyDeleteFirst chapter: Excellent.
It's good you linked to the whole chapter. The first 250 words don't give a sense of what's really going on here.
I disagree with the post about needing a warning. Actually it's not that explicit, except for the one paragraph. It's brutal, but if there's going to be brutality in a novel, then it's usually most powerful if it's understated. The really disturbing part is the relationship between Byron and Maddy. We can only assume what will happen, and the warm bathwater doesn't seem like a good omen.
Very creepy.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteSorry you're upset. I'm new to this board and this site, and I've never seen any content advisories. Also, if this were a book you picked up in the bookstore, you would know it's not a young adult novel, and it wouldn't be in the young adult section.
On the bright side, maybe your post will serve as a warning.
I found this to be passive and quiet, and it read to more like literary fiction than a thriller. I have a hard time imagining that a thriller could sustain itself at this pace. I absolutely adore a literary thriller (anyone who's interested in a good one, go out and read some Tana French), but they still have a sense of forward motion that I don't find here.
ReplyDeleteI understand you put up a link to your entire first chapter and that it gets moving after the first 500 words. You won't necessarily have 500 words to waste when you're trying to hook an agent. If you can do the "I watched her line", maybe even have it be the first line in the book, that would be 100xs more suspensful. As it is, this had no hook for me.
ReplyDeleteI like your literary voice. I like the descriptions, too. I think this is really well done. However, I don't believe it works for your beginning. Give me something that grabs me right up front. In the first two sentences, is best.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice everybody. Changed it...
ReplyDeleteNo. I started skimming almost immediately. I don't care for the descripton and don't know why I should care about a woman sitting around looking out the window.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm not fond of unnamed characters in the third person as it immediately distances me from wanting to care. ;)
Another thing, you killed all tension for me with the last line that slips into author's voice. I'd stop and not continue; I don't want to be Told that she's being watched and not aware of it.
I just find that too contrived to be genuinely suspenseful--if that is the case, I'd rather she's aware of it, something happens at once and we get to see it, or we get this from the POV of whoever is watching her. *shrugs*
Good luck,
~Merc
I like the dreamy feel of the first paragraph, but I think I'd like it even better if I knew the character's name. (that would save me some confusion when I hit the second paragraph too).
ReplyDeleteI think I like Rosa, and I know I like the way you've drawn her world in detail, showing how her work is a bit of an escape for her.
And I think her being watched is intriguing. I'm interested, and I want to read more--but I can't seem to think of this as a thriller--I think it's moving too slowly for that. I don't know if you need to pump up your opening to fit the rest of the story (if the rest of what you've got is at a more typical thriller pace) or maybe relabel your genre (if the rest is more like this), but right now, the genre and the opening don't match very well.
The writing here is beautiful, though, and I like the last line on the page a lot.