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Hello, Anon du jour! Welcome to the neighborhood. Anon has brave submitted the first page of what appears to be a domestic thriller or gothic suspense novel titled The House on Horace Street which features an unsuspecting homeowner and an archetypal adversary known as a real estate agent! Just kidding. Let’s take a look at what we have:

Neither of them saw the cold black eyes that watched them from the bedroom window as the car meandered up the dirt pathway and pulled to a stop. A quiet eeriness hung heavy around the house. Theresa drummed her fingers on her knee. Joan, Theresa’s real estate agent, let out a nervous laugh. Theresa got out of the car and cupped her hand over her eyes to block the glare of the sun ash she stared up at the home. White with red shutters. Old. Solid. Proud. Nothing about it fit in with the rest of the neighborhood. The street was neatly lined with identical cape cods on both sides, each on a half acre. The 1790s colonial farmhouse sat on five acres of land in the middle of the neighborhood. At some point the entire neighborhood was once part of the five acres. The lot was in disarray: trees here and there with no order to them, grass that, upon closer inspection, was just weeds the current owner cultivated into a makeshift lawn, and an overgrown circular garden in front of the house that suffered from neglect. Still, Theresa was intrigued. She’d always wanted a hobby farm and the house on Horace Street fit the bill which made her willing to overlook the fact that the house changed hands 7 times over the past ten years.

“Well, the land is in desperate need of landscaping,” Theresa said.

“That just means you have the opportunity to design it to your tastes, and there’s plenty of open, level space perfect for the vegetable garden you said you wanted to have,” said Joan.

“Some of the trees will have to be cut down, too.”

“Free firewood for the fireplace.”

“Are you trying to sell me on this house, Joan?”

“I am a realtor!”

Their giggles chipped at the tension neither of them admitted to. Joan hesitated for a moment before she made her way onto the covered porch to get the key from the lock box. Theresa was looking at the porch, taking note of its sturdiness.

“The porch was rebuilt last spring,” Joan said, “wraps all the way around the house. Just needs a good staining and it will be beautiful.”

“Usually porches just go around one side.”

Anon, I got a kick out of your first page since I have had many conversations with real estate agents over the past few months. I live in an area where there is a very low inventory of homes for sale and very high demand, so I get called once or twice a week by agents who urge me to put my house on the market. You have their patter down, um, pat. Anyway, your first page has good bones. The interior, however, needs a bit of rearranging. So let’s roll up our sleeves and get to that.

— Let’s start with that first sentence. Move it to the end of this opening vignette — which is probably on your second or third page — changing it so that the car is driving away from the house rather than approaching it. You can then build your suspense incrementally, with the kill shot, if you will, coming at the end of the chapter or vignette.  Begin with the line “A quiet eeriness…” then go ahead and introduce Joan and Theresa.  Describe the outside as you have done (but see below), and then have Joan and Theresa go into the house and walk around a bit. If you haven’t already, set up the elements which hint that all is not right within. Let Joan and Theresa hear a couple of random creaks (“These vintage houses have good bones, but bones creak occasionally!”). Also have Joan notice that a couple of very minor things seem out of place from the last time she was there (if she was there), anything from a toilet seat being left up to a pencil being left on a counter or her real estate business cards being moved. Then, after they’ve left the house, mention how neither of them notice the cold black eyes watching them drive away.

— The rest of the first paragraph needs a bit of updating. We’ll talk about that in a minute. Before we do that, however, I’ve got a couple of punch list items that should be fixed:

1. There’s a glaring typo in the fourth sentence:  “in the sun ash she stared”…  I believe you mean “in the sun as she stared…”

     2. You describe the home’s lot with a long sentence composed of clauses with a colon            and commas:       

“The lot was in disarray: trees here and there with no order to them, grass that, upon closer inspection, was just weeds the current owner cultivated into a makeshift lawn, and an overgrown circular garden in front of the house that suffered from neglect.”  

Turn those clauses into sentences:

“The lot, however, was in disarray. Trees grew here and there with no order to them.  The lawn was a collection of weeds which threatened to engulf a neglected overgrown circular garden in front of the house.”

       3) I think what you are saying here is that some of the land that was a part of the original farmhouse acreage was parceled off to create the surrounding neighborhood and that five acres still belong to the farmhouse. If that is the case, the neighborhood wouldn’t have once been part of the five acres. It would have been part of a larger acreage that had been parceled out so that only five acres are left of the existing property. If so, you want to say something like this: “The surrounding neighborhood had been parceled out from what had once been a much larger farm.”

       4) While we are talking about numbers, you want to be consistent in how you state them. I’m referring to the house changing hands “7 times over the past ten years.” Try “seven times over the past ten years” (my preference) or “7 times over the past 10 years.” Most but not all writing guides say to use words instead of numbers but consistency is key here.

— Now, let’s go back to the paragraph in general; You discuss the house exterior and lot, then talk about the neighborhood, then return to the house and lot. Let’s describe the house and lot first from Theresa’s viewpoint, and then talk for a second about the neighborhood in comparison to the house. While we are doing that, let’s break that long paragraph up into shorter paragraphs. I think it will be easier to read::

Theresa got out of the car and cupped her hand over her eyes to block the glare of the sun as she stared up at the home. She had done plenty of research on the 1790s colonial farmhouse when she had first considered looking at it.

She felt that the house and lot were a mass of contradictions.  The house itself looked old, solid and proud. Its white color set off its red shutters nicely. Its fiveacre lot, however, was in disarray. Trees grew here and there with no order to them. The lawn was a collection of weeds which threatened to engulf a neglected overgrown circular garden in front of the house.

Nothing about the house fit in with the rest of the neighborhood.  The street was lined with identical neat cape cods on both sides, each of which sat on a half acre. The lots had been carved from what had been the much larger working farm property at some point in the past. Theresa was intrigued, however, even considering the property’s drawbacks. She’d always wanted a hobby farm and the house on Horace Street fit the bill. It made her willing to overlook the fact that the house had changed hands seven times over the past ten years.

In short, Anon, your first page is a fixer-upper but has good bones and with some updating and changes, your story will find a good home with lots of prospective buyers. Good luck!

I will now attempt to remain uncharacteristically silent as I turn the page over to our many friends at The Kill Zone for their observations. Thank you, Anon, for bravely submitting your work to our First Page Critique!