quote:

---

Henry rose to his feet, a glass of chardonnay balanced between his fingers. “You know I’m always interested in new off-world art,” he said.

“Well why else would I have invited you over? Would you like to see it?”

Henry shot me a knowing look. “Of course. Lead the way.”

We left my salon, heading deeper into the house. “Now I don’t want to ruin the debut for you, but there is something you should know,” I said as we entered a dim corridor.

“Such as? Is it shocking? Pornographique? Magnifique? Degoutant?”

I shook my head. “No, none of those. It’s… they have this kind of stone out on Betelgeuse IV, some kind of mimetic granite.”

---

[This message has been edited by Wolfe_boy (edited November 17, 2009).]

First line needs a comma after "new".

It might have just been me, but I didn't understand that the POV character was speaking in line 2 - it could have been a third character in the room. It wasn't until "Henry shot me a knowing look." that I understood this, so I was a little confused trying to get my bearings. Perhaps if the first line ended "he told me" so we know who(m?) he's speaking to.

Also, the line

quote:

---

“Such as? Is it shocking? Pornographique? Magnifique? Degoutant?”

---

quote:

---

“Such as?" Henry raised his eyebrows. "Is it shocking? Pornographique? Magnifique? Degoutant?”

---

quote:

---

Henry rose to his feet, a glass of chardonnay balanced between his fingers. “You know I’m always interested in new off-world art,” he said.

“Well why else would I have invited you over? Would you like to see it?”

Henry shot me a knowing look. “Of course. Lead the way.”

---

I was thrown out by the me - because up until this time I was trying to figure out who was speaking, and had assumed a third person point of view. Since in the first paragraph the reader only encounters Henry, the dialog in the second is unattributed, and the reader is not going to automatically assume it's the narrator speaking.

Unfortunately this threw me out, hard.

I think with a little massaging I'd continue reading though, I like what appears to be an interesting contrast between the characters.

And I agree with what Ben said about the shift to first person; it surprised me as well.

I think you should start with "we left my salon," but perhaps say, "Henry and I left my salon . . ."

quote:

---

Henry rose to his feet, a glass of chardonnay balanced between his fingers.

---

This is two sentences. If you wanted to use a comma after feet, then you would have to change "balanced" to "balancing."

But then it would probably work better as.

Henry rose to his feet with a glass of chardonnay balancing between his fingers.

When I got to line 3, I couldn't decide what POV to use - first, third, Henry's or mine (Bryn's), how close, etc. Seriously, paralyzed for 15 minutes, figured I just needed to move on and I went ahead with what came naturally, but I know from the get-go I was in third and I should have just stuck there. Funny as hell that everyone else caught it too, or maybe not so funny as we're all pretty close readers.

I'll think about the opening. I was doing some stage setting and wanted to define the two characters somewhat before we run into... well, what we run into... maybe it's a detail I can fit in later.

-Liked the hook, Henry's question about the art, then MC making his idea's of risque seem mundane.

-Liked the dialogue