Well, I’ve had feedback from my wonderful beta readers. One hasn’t finished yet (just got a new job, so I let him off), but the other two have, and the feedback is consistent.<\/p>\n
Consistent not only with each other, but also with my own suspicions about what didn’t work and what could be stronger. Although they did relieve my concerns about a couple of things, such as whether I’d been descriptive enough.<\/p>\n
All three of them (and my other reader who gave feedback on an early partial draft) disliked the parentheses. Having almost eliminated semicolons from my writing, I think parentheses may be next. They all felt the parenthetical explanations of background facts broke the flow, and I need to find a better way of communicating the worldbuilding aspects of the story.<\/p>\n
I’m gearing up now for a major rewrite. I’ve not done this with my previous books, but they were less ambitious and not surrounded by dozens of other stories begging to be told. I need to streamline the story, focussing on Berry as the main character and viewpoint character. If Berry didn’t know about it directly or from someone who was there, it doesn’t go in this book.<\/p>\n
It may well go in another book, though, or stand on its own as a short story. I don’t regret writing the backstories of so many characters. I think it was a good exercise, and they won’t be lost – except for one.<\/p>\n
Tranquil the statistician defied my attempts to make him interesting, and he’s going to be cut altogether. I’m going to have a smaller, more focussed group of characters with a clearer purpose and better-thought-through character arcs. Some of the characters will drop into the background, while others will take on new significance. Originally, I thought this would be an ensemble-cast book, but it really is Berry’s story.<\/p>\n
Most of this is subtraction, but there will be addition as well. I want to spend a bit more time on the three secondary characters (Rain the ex-gang enforcer, Breeze the werewolf and Vigilant the spiritually-inclined lawyer), and I’ve come up with a major change to one relatively minor character which gives her more depth and sets up for one of the other books. Here’s a hint: when you have a character who’s already kind of a badass, how can you make her even more so? Answer: take away her legs<\/em>.<\/p>\n It’ll be a lot of work, but I think I’ll come out of it with a very marketable book. My betas think the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, I’ve had feedback from my wonderful beta readers. One hasn’t finished yet (just got a new job, so I let him off), but the other two have, and the feedback is consistent. Consistent not only with each other, but … Continue reading