Continued my read-through of Petra last week, still making copious line edits. Also got the last crit I was waiting on. I expected it to be the harshest, and it did not disappoint. My friend
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found the crit more painful than I did, I think. And it was certainly no picnic for me. Nonetheless, I’m always grateful for honest feedback. He hammered the opening (rightly so) and the characterizations, and pointed out some plausibility issues I hadn’t thought of. I’m particularly grateful for this last, as I am really bad at finding plot holes in my own work.
A couple of interesting commonalities from my beta readers: 1) Nobody identified with my protagonist. One reader liked one of the other viewpoint characters, and another really liked someone else, and a third liked none of them. 2) Two readers found themselves sympathizing with the antagonist–at least for a little while. I suppose this means that I succeeded in not making him a stereotypical, mustache-twirling villain. On the other hand–yikes!
Still, I think all of these problems are fixable. Indeed, many of the issues may be addressed by writing a few missing scenes. I think. I hope.
Anyway, I still need to read through the last three chapters, and then get to work on the rewrite itself.
In other news, on Saturday, I decided to give my Halloween story another chance. And since I like those little progress meter thingies that all the cool LJ kids have, here’s one for me:
Assuming I’m right about the length, I should finish a first draft this week, then do a quick rewrite before month end. This is my first new fiction since completing Petra, so I feel pretty good about that.
One update for Write Club: Dark Recesses bounced “Take This, and Eat,” saying they’re “pretty full up on longer stories,” and asking if I had anything in the 3-4k range. I might, at that. Response time, about five weeks.
Onward . . .
