That book I kept saying was finished? It isn't.
I put all of my beta readers' comments side by side and re-read them. It's clear that I need one more little scene to help flesh out (and perhaps differentiate) a couple of the supporting characters. This will also give them a bit of screen time during a section where they are otherwise out-of-mind. For the sake of character development and intrigue, letting A say what a tedious grasper B is help to establish A as rather snobbish and judgmental and sets B up as someone who could be seen as a tedious grasper.
Plus, there's all the clunky sentences I need to polish.
The extra scene and the line edits will take this book to 115,000. As everyone knows, this is a ridiculous number of words for a first novel. I am nothing if not ridiculous, though, so it stands as is. The beta readers all said its pacing moved along at a fast clip, so my 115,000 should feel lugubrious.
If the Harper Voyager open sub window had come a fortnight later, I might have been ready for it. As it is, I'm going to have to concede the field to John Wiswell and all the others who have a book ready to roll for it.
===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
I put all of my beta readers' comments side by side and re-read them. It's clear that I need one more little scene to help flesh out (and perhaps differentiate) a couple of the supporting characters. This will also give them a bit of screen time during a section where they are otherwise out-of-mind. For the sake of character development and intrigue, letting A say what a tedious grasper B is help to establish A as rather snobbish and judgmental and sets B up as someone who could be seen as a tedious grasper.
Plus, there's all the clunky sentences I need to polish.
The extra scene and the line edits will take this book to 115,000. As everyone knows, this is a ridiculous number of words for a first novel. I am nothing if not ridiculous, though, so it stands as is. The beta readers all said its pacing moved along at a fast clip, so my 115,000 should feel lugubrious.
If the Harper Voyager open sub window had come a fortnight later, I might have been ready for it. As it is, I'm going to have to concede the field to John Wiswell and all the others who have a book ready to roll for it.
===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
Keep working away, Tony, you know it will be worth it in the end.
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