*sigh* Ah, the life of a writer. Inventing all sorts of cool worlds, plots and situations only to have to chop most of the extraneous stuff.
I finished my . . . oh, let's go with . . . 8th round of edits on GNOME and I sent it to my CP. This is a person who had read Lost Leprechaun Loot, but hadn't read any of GNOME. Fresh eyes, yanno.
A-and I get it back within 24 hours, which is a FANTASTIC turnaround time, if I do say so myself, BUT . . .
There's always a BUT. :-) The pacing in the first few chapters was off.
By the time my CP reached a certain point--I don't want to give anything away, so deal with the ambiguity of this statement--she was totally engrossed and couldn't stop reading. This is A GOOD THING.
So roughly the last 3/4 of story works, but not the first 1/4. All she did was confirm what I already suspected. So what to do?
This is where the Ginsu knife comes in handy--it will slice and dice through a tin can!
I'm cutting chapter one and most of chapter two. I'll wave my magic wand and *POOF* it will be fixed . . . yeah, I wish. This is where you see a writer gazing out the window, staring at nothing. Writers think A LOT, so I'm thinking about how I want to weave this new beginning into the story. To have the fantasy element a little quicker off the mark and hopefully engage the reader sooner.
But it won't happen with me blogging about what I need to do. So . . .
Later, Peeps!
Margaret--
ReplyDeleteI know you can do this. You're a great writer--and you've done your research.
I loved LLL!
Thanks, Megs! I knew it was off, I just needed your boot in the arse to confirm it! :-)
ReplyDeleteI did a beta read for a friend, and i advised her to rewrite the first 3rd of the book. She did, too. It sucks but better to have the truth.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Edie. She probably KNEW there were issues, but your nudge was what she needed to confirm her fears.
ReplyDeleteI've been doing a lot of thinking about this and I know how I want to deal with it, plus I know how I will lean up a few other fatty areas.