First Page Critique #3

Hey everyone! Here with another critique :)

Happy Friday!!!


First Page: 

London

I’m guessing you’re still up. Can you call me?

After sending the text, Kat Williamson set her cell down and combed the tangles from her wet hair. When the phone rang, she answered on the first ring and shut the bathroom door in case her boyfriend, C.J. entered the adjacent bedroom.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” her stepmother Jilly asked.

“Yes, of course I’m okay,” Kat said quickly. “I’m about to go to the first major social event of my life, and tomorrow, I’m going to attend a real royal wedding with a prince no less. How could I not be okay, right?” She sank down onto the closed toilet seat and groaned. “I am so not okay.”

She closed her eyes and took a couple of long, slow breaths while ordering her spazzy inner teenager to go away. “What if I do something stupid tonight? What if I trip going into the Abbey in front of the television cameras tomorrow? Half the world will be watching.”

“You’ll be fine,” Jilly said softy. “It’s just a case of nerves. It’s to be expected. This is your first real public appearance with C.J.”

“What if it’s my last?” Kat whispered, voicing the real worry that had been plaguing her for weeks now. “What if he’s only doing this to give me something to remember him by? He’s done with grad school in less than a month. He’s going home to Höhenburg. The fact that I haven’t been there yet since I came to Europe is pretty telling, don’t you think?”

“Well…”

“See?” Kat said, trying not to cry. “You know I’m right. Maybe I should break up with him first.”

“No!”

Critique:

Overall, I think the writing is pretty solid. However, I didn't feel there was much of an into., so I felt like I was kind of thrust right into the story. I would maybe suggest just a little more of a set up for the scene to help readers get grounded in the story/page(s)--maybe a little interaction between Kat and her stepmother?). Also, I was wondering why she thought C.J. might show up...it seems that it's kind of late because she says she guesses he's still up. And her stepmother seems like she's just appeared, which was a bit jarring. Not a bad start, though :) 

First Page Critique #2

Hey everyone! I hope you guys are finding these critiques helpful. Please feel free to comment. Here is critique #2. 

First Page:

Nobody could outrun Rosa Walker. She raced along the eight-kilometer loop that encircled Wirthlin Base, passing enlistees and fellow officers as if they were standing still. Many increased their pace when her blond ponytail streaked past, but each would fall back after a hundred meters or so, shaking their heads.

Seventy-nine meters from the broken tree to the water tower, Rosa calculated. Elapsed time, nine-point-one seconds. Average speed: thirty-one-point-two-five kilometers per hour. Twelve minutes to dawn.

The numbers were a constant stream, a flood that ceased only when she slept. Most of it she pushed aside like background noise, focusing only on the bits she needed. Right now she was more concerned with putting one foot in front of the other, with the slow burn in lungs and leg muscles as she pushed her body to the limit.

Above her, a glittering arc of asteroids crossed the sky--the white and orange rings of Pegasus Four. They writhed as a trio of tiny moons spun through at eccentric angles, shepherding them into complex, serpentine waves. The rings grew fainter with every passing moment, paling until they might have been one long cloud stretched across the sky.

Soon the slow burn became a fire that would not be denied, and Rosa reduced her speed. A breeze filtered through the trees to either side of this part of the loop, stirring the azure foliage and cooling her face. Wind speed eight kilometers per hour, north by sixteen degrees west. Dawn’s light cast a reddish hue across the sky, promising rain before nightfall.

Ahead ran the neat double file of Wirthlin’s Tactical Armor squad--a dozen men and two women, all with hair cropped to a centimeter or shorter. Each bore the winged egg of the Nidus Defense Forces across their white T-shirts and athletic shorts. A pair of officers led the file.

Rosa wet her lips with anticipation. This was her favorite part of the morning run--the final 500-meters. About a year ago the TAG squad started running it with her whenever they happened to share the road. No one ever beat Rosa to the training yard, but they made her push herself hard.

The younger of the two officers spotted Rosa coming up from behind and caught the attention of Captain Reynolds, a steel-eyed man with a touch of grey in his brown hair. Reynolds checked the traffic on the road and nodded his approval. Eager grins rippled backward through the squad.

Just before they reached their marker, a lamppost on the right, a familiar sensation washed over Rosa. It was an invisible wave, a subtle vibration that reminded her of sunlight filtering through a canopy of leaves. She didn’t know what caused it, or why nobody else ever seemed to notice. It was just something she took for granted, like the numbers that inundated her day and night.

The squad spread out across the road beside Rosa and the other officers. Ten meters to the lamppost. Five. The Tactical Armor squad took off like lightning, but Rosa stumbled. A second vibration had joined the first, new and unfamiliar. It had its own rhythm, more rapid and erratic than the first. Like a bonfire flickering on a hilltop.

The others had almost a forty-meter lead by the time Rosa shook off her surprise. The new vibration was distracting, an anomaly that demanded explanation. She couldn’t focus, and it cost her precious seconds.

Rosa reached the exercise yard in fifth place. She tried not to let her embarrassment show as she walked a cool-down lap around the yard, but it was difficult. She hadn’t run that stretch so slow since before her last promotion.

Critique: 

I think you have some good descriptions here. For instance, I really like the imagery in the paragraph about the asteroids. However, I didn't really feel I got a good sense of the setting/characters. Are we on Earth? For me, there seemed to be an abrupt transition between this paragraph and the other paragraphs. I know it's only the first page, but I think this paragraph is the only one that hints at the story being science fiction. Also, I felt there might have been a little bit too much emphasis on numbers (why are the numbers so important to her and how is she able to calculate certain things?), and I would have loved to see some interaction between the characters.