WIP: Damning with Faint Praise

[cathschaffstump]

Reading between the lines of well-couched and friendly critique, I find that even though my readers are being polite, I have clear messages about WIP from 3 readers:

1. The braid isn't working. It's choppy and hard to follow. You only put up with it if you're vested in the story.

Solution: Time to ditch the braid. Artistically noble, indeed, but probably not what a non-published novelist should try to do with the first book of a series.

2. We like Janetta so much, we don't understand why it's a bad thing that Pettigrew is out. Now there's a problem I didn't see coming, but should have!

Solution: Someone suggested we see Pettigrew and Hero before they're out. Actually, Hero *isn't* as nice as Janetta. This one requires some thought.

3. The description is lean. Everyone keeps saying this isn't a problem, but everyone keeps mentioning it, which makes me think that it is an issue.

Solution: Ponder, read, see if it is an issue. I'm pretty sure it is.

4. We like Grant and Janetta, we don't know the Sudanese as well.

Solution: Get crackin' on the characterization!

***

Overall, it looks like I have the problem many of my students have--I can see what's in my head, but my readers can't, and I need to get more of that onto the page than I currently have.

New strategy: write one story at a time, see what you get. See if it's appropriate to mix things up or not. After you've written the stories, see if it's appropriate to put them together or not right away.

Re-envision what you're doing. After you've laid the pipe of the rough draft, beef up that imagery. You can do that, especially if you go in purposefully to do it.

***

*sigh* I was rather hoping for some positive reinforcement to keep me going right now, but instead, I got the usual writer problem-solving stuff. It is *just* like writing your thesis after all.

Okay. Time for a little writing vakay. About a week. Do some sewing, girl. That always gets your subconscious moving in the right direction.

Also, get that academic paper done for Mr. Iwahara while you're on vacation.

Foo. Today, I get to be the mopey writer. We shall soon recover, once we've got a solution.

Catherine

Originally published at Writer Tamago. You can comment here or there.