TITLE: The Institution of Marriage
GENRE: Adult Erotic Romance
The Lounge was a block away from Women’s Health Institute of Miami office. It was lush and perfect for the high-end crowd that frequented the full-fledged bar in the middle of the rich Miami suburb. Despite it having a great dance floor, no one danced at The Lounge, and the crowd was gone most days by nine o’clock. The CEOs, lawyers, and doctors who brought clients to The Lounge for lunch often returned for their weekly happy-hour celebration of their successes of the week. The walls were lined with plush private booths where patrons could turn the volume up or down based on the desired effect.
Drs. Marissa Perez, Sonya Richards, Charissa Ricci sat in their favorite booth in the back of The Lounge.
“Ding-dong, the bitch is dead,” Marissa said while holding up her glass to wait on a confirmation glass clink from her partners.
“Stop it. She is still my friend even if she isn’t our partner anymore.” Sonya half-laughed, but she felt obligated to take up for her former partner.
Together, with their former business partner, Dr. Melanie White, the women ran Miami’s most prestigious ob-gyn office called Women’s Health Institute of Miami or WHIM for short since 2009. They had taken a gamble by subletting the remaining space of a medical office of Dr. Hornwell, the world-renowned fertility specialist.
The high-end Coral Gables, Florida, office was more than they could afford.
While reading, I found myself struggling over the opening paragraph. I feel like it would be a smoother read if you removed some of the use of "The Lounge" as it is used three times in just the opening paragraph, which made me stumble a bit. Same goes for "Miami". I actually really liked the first dialogue line and think that you should actually open with that rather than the description of The Lounge. The dialogue pulled me in immediately. Starting with your characters can pull readers in more by grounding them in the tone (especially with that dialogue line) and then slowly you can map out the setting around them. Also, I had a hard time with all of the names that were introduced. I believe we get 5 names in the first 250 words which is hard to keep up with when we aren't really grounded in the story yet. Is there a way you can introduce some of those names a little later (obviously not much later, but the first 250 words is a little rough)?
ReplyDeleteA couple of things:
ReplyDelete-I find it odd to imply that doctors are bringing clients to a bar. What kind of doctor has "clients" and why would they bring them to a bar? That's kinda creepy.
-I think this would be stronger if the narration was interspersed with the dialogue, an if we had a clear POV character. This feels like you (the writer) are floating above telling us what you see and we really need to be engaged with a single character to start.
Good luck!
Holly
There is a lot of information regarding The Lounge and I wonder how much of it is truly needed to set the scene. I’d recommend cutting back quite a bit and getting to the women faster. Also, I’m not entirely clear who is the narrator. This story seems to be one that would benefit from a 3rd person limited POV—but that hasn’t been established yet. The dialogue is great and we are getting a hint of where the tension may lie in the story, but I’d like a much stronger sense of what direction this story might be taking.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it would be better to start with the first line of dialogue rather than bogging down the beginning with so much description about the lounge.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you're telling too many details too soon. Instead of telling us they run an obgyn office, why don't you SHOW us by having them talk about it?