Commiserate with me...

[Caged Maiden]

I'm not sure if the question is simply, "Why don't people like my books..." but it might certainly be, "Why do some people like some of my short stories and some parts of my novels a whole lot (despite them being of different genres), and loads of writers I know just feel they're a terrible miss with too many problems?"

It might sound like I'm only concerned with pleasing people, and I assure you, I'm not trying to please absolutely everyone, but yes, a target audience would be nice to focus on, and I thought I was doing so, but now, maybe I wasn't? Admittedly, I'm not entirely sure who that is, other than "people who like to read gritty stories and grayscale morality characters who struggle with their love lives and the human condition". I mean, some people just say, "I'm writing for women aged 25-55, but I'm not really sure how one could be so specific about age and gender without being specific about what the story is supposed to do for the reader. By that, I mean that I almost always feature a love story in every novel, but I can't really feel secure calling the work romance, because including a story in the category of "romance" means it needs to hit certain points and fulfill certain requirements. Mine don't. So yeah, I believe in a target audience, but I think my bigger concern is that I've been asking writer friends for several years to give me feedback to improve my writing, and I just find that so often the opinions I get conflict with each other, and I end up more confused by the process than "directed" toward my goals.

I have to admit that my writing isn't for everyone. Written in Red is definitely not a novel that will have mass appeal. In it, I give subtle clues, and indeed a whole second story is written between the lines. While I LOVE that crap, I understand many readers will be unsatisfied with the fact that I'm asking them to work for the reward. That simply doesn't appeal to a lot of people, but time and again, we hear here how people in our community enjoy older works that do exactly that--perhaps they take a more psychological point of view on story-telling, and I'm probably more interested in exploring the social and psychological aspects of the human condition than a lot of fantasy writers who just want to tell a riveting tale of adventure with clever escapes and a moral message. I'm fine with reading that kind of story, and I write it, too, but I think now I might have just bitten off more than I could chew when I began this novel and passed it off to about 35 people to read during its revisions. It was probably way too raw in its original state to get the kind of feedback that I needed, and since, i've set it aside to focus on another novel.

Sayan Soul (about werewolves and dragons) is my current rewrite, and while I feel confident in my ability to make the story into something I love 100%, I've had a hard time figuring out what's the right route. Do I hand it off to writer-readers now, as I rewrite, to gain outside perspective on what's working? Or do I just ask a friend to help me brainstorm right form the get-go because it needs a full rewrite? It feels like a lot to ask of a friend who is basically donating their time to me, when I feel like I already know the results. I'm going to once again hear, "This isn't working at all because..." and that's detrimental to my process, because I feel like what I'm doing is pretty close to what I want it to be, with perhaps the exception of my execution being somewhat vanilla right now as I try to ditch the Serious Writer Voice I've adopted so as not to be polarizing in my story-telling.

tough choices.

 

[skip.knox]

Caged Maiden, you made some comments about sewing that struck me, so have to ask: when you started to make clothing for other people, did you submit them to a critique circle? I know that sounds absurd, but bear with me. Did you show designs or prototypes (I don't sew!) as you were working on them to entire groups of people to get feedback? Did you work entirely from pre-set patterns? Or did you rely on your own experience plus internal judgment to produce an article of clothing specific for one person?

I realize we all want to write for a large audience. But it made me wonder, for myself as well, whether it might make sense to write for one particular person. Chances are, that's not the only person built like that. Chances are, if the story hangs together and flows and engages for that person, it will do so for others.

It's an interesting notion; I'm going to think about it wrt my own work, but I thought I'd toss it out there because, really, you don't have enough different perspectives yet, do you?

 

[Caged Maiden]

I can answer your questions about sewing...

When I began sewing, I used premade commercial patterns. I kept it simple and cheap where I could. I'd compare that to the same place I was those first few years writing (it has taken about the same length of time to get good. I've been sewing for 20 years, and writing for 15).

After about 4-5 years I was using patterns my mother drafted (not commercial ones), only changing things slightly, making alterations for myself, but typically sewing simple garments for other people, like shirts or trousers with elastic waistbands.

After that, I got much better because I became an every day sewer (sound familiar to a writing journey at all?). I had to figure out a lot of things, and also began experimenting with unusual fabric, trim, techniques, and patterns and methods of construction. I also compiled photos that inspired me, and I still have those all in a binder, where I can always go back and get ideas, though they have no construction directions or patterns. This relates to that phase where I wrote whatever weird thing for challenges I felt like, because I no longer had to overthink things like POV, voice, etc. Those things became inherent and I no longer needed to remind myself what I was doing.

Then, yes, I did compete with my clothing. I've entered clothing in competitions since about 2009. And you know what? I've consistently scored 7/10 on that too!!!!! I can tell you why, and now that you have me on this tangent, it's SO MUCH like critique with other writers, in a way. So, I put a few dresses in a competition, and I got picked apart because I had a few elements that weren't documented. One, it was sleeve trim, and on the other, it was the closures, which were too modern. While the items weren't really "bad", the judges felt my lack of acknowledgement of those items meant that I should lose points for not having simply said, "I chose this sleeve trim because I liked it, though I have no proof it was used..." So yeah, that was lame, and that was one of my first times ever putting clothes up for the contest (I'd done other things).

I tried to step up my game. I put the red dress in another contest, fully expecting to do "okay" because it's totally made of synthetics, machine sewn, and with modern machine-made trims. So yeah, a very expected 7/10 on that one, but I got to meet some really knowledgeable ladies and networked and found some new resources, and the experience was good. Here's the link: http://mythicscribes.com/forums/members/caged-maiden-albums-costumes.html

A couple more times I got similar scores, and one lady told me that they really couldn't give me higher scores unless I put in the extra effort to make it more "historical" which I COULD have been doing the whole time, but I really wear the crap out of my clothing, so I don't want to use expensive, special fabric on something i'm going to be camping or working in, right? Well, I decided to give it a go. I made a Celtic men's outfit from the 1530s and it was as hand-done as I could get. Allow me to bore you with details for a moment, because yes, this is parallel to my writing career, and where I feel like I am now, actually. I made a pair of Killcommon Bog Trews (from a sacrificed man found in a peat bog), designed them from photos of scraps, patterned them, hand-sewed them in a nice wool, and totally stuck with a historical look, though it took every bit of my impulse control to not redesign them for a better fit. I bough saffron and dyed a swatch of linen, and bought a similar colored cotton fabric, writing it all up as a learning experience, but one that I couldn't fully follow through with because of cost (it would have cost me $90 for the saffron to dye the yards of fabric, so I DID the work of dying the swatch, but then substituted a pre-dyed fabric for the final look). I made a cloak that I fulled myself (I got it wet and put it in the dryer for a controlled shrink that made it thicker and tighter, and very water-repellant). I carved a bone pin for the cloak. I wrote up a beautiful research paper with GREAT research and citations. There was absolutely NOTHING wrong with my research.

So, when I turned in the outfit, I scored....7/10 AGAIN! I hand-made every single element of the costume, stuck to a historical look, and even managed to go outside the box, making something people had never seen, rather than a plain 1450's French court dress, which we see every competition, I reckon. The judge told me she was giving me a 7/10 because "We expect more from YOU, Anita." And I was like WTF? If I had been a new person, I'd have won the whole prize category with a 10/10. But people's expectations of me were higher because they'd seen all the court dresses I'd been making on my machine and with synthetics and decorator fabrics, so they expected me not to make a rustic outfit that was all perfectly constructed and uniquely realized, but they wanted me to do some over the top dress with all the frills and awesomeness, but also make it all by hand. I mean...how can you call that fair? NO one else would have had to do that. And just so I'm being clear, there are levels of the art awards and the top-ranked artists are masters of their art. Well I'm the first rank--the bottom rung. I'm right there with everyone else, having only one small recognition for the fact that I can do art at the most basic level of competency.

The standards were skewed, and while I'm not one to argue with scoring, I did stop competing after that. You have to understand that in a category, a gown as beautiful as Queen Elizabeth's is scored on the same scale as a plain viking dress, or a knitted shawl. But there's a shit ton more work that goes into a gown than a shawl. Like, 80 hours of hand-sewing, which I've done before, but refuse to do every time. I felt they were never going to give me a fair score for the amount of work I was putting in, so I quit putting myself out there to get walloped and criticized in every way, when I knew it would never yield positive results--because I'd listened to their earlier advice, taken it, and still got told I needed to do better than what they expected of everyone else. Ludicrous. I'd anticipate they WOULD expect more from me if I'd been competing in the higher tiers, but they chose not to elevate me to those levels. I wasn't on the VARSITY sewing team, I was on the PEEWEE team, yet they expected me to do varsity level work, alongside the other peewees competing against me, to get the same score.

I don't think anyone's being unfair to me as a writer, but I feel like when I get feedback, I'm getting a lot of mixed messages. I take the advice given because it sounds good to me, and then the next round of critique just keeps going with the same or same-type criticisms. And it doesn't seem to be getting any better, no matter what I do.

I just don't think I'm that much worse than a professional writer. I have the skills and understanding to do it, but perhaps I make some really foolish mistakes. But the issue with that is that when I hand the manuscript to a writer-reader, they don't listen to my questions. Say I asked, "Can you tell me where you feel really connected to the characters, and where you feel that's lessened for you?" and then they comment back things like, "I didn't like this character at all, she's too WHATEVER, and I couldn't understand her." (Okay, fine, specifics would be awesome, though) "And I think you need to lose the first two chapters because it would be more interesting if you started with her already running from the cops." (Hm, okay, that's an interesting take on it. Maybe there's something to that suggestion). Then I consider it, decide yes or no, and make changes if I agree. Next, I get another reader who will say they didn't like the opening with her running from the cops, because it was too much action without any explanation. Not a moment to get to know the character before they're forced into a situation they can't relate to because they don't yet care about the MC. Fair enough. So what do I do next?

I was frustrated about this SO MUCH in January, so I compiled ten critiques together all on the same novel, and sent it to a friend who got done reading it and didn't feel he could be very helpful because he's way outside my genre. I showed him the words of readers who got the subtle hints I dropped, who loved the characters and their unique quirks, and their voices. And I showed him the words of people who felt the characters were boring and hard to get to know, the plots were useless, and the descriptions flat. I showed him two sets of comments about the same opening, where one person told me to cut all but two paragraphs and rewrite everything beyond that, and another who asked for me to tell more about the world and conflicts right up front, so she could understand. And it just went on and on, completely not in line commentary, from a wide range of readers with various experience levels.

It felt like the costume thing all over again, but instead of me knowing my costumes kick ass and not caring what others say, I just don't have as much confidence in my writing. My dresses don't have an emotional impact on viewers. Some folks respect the work despite disliking the color I chose, maybe, but with writing, every reader is looking for an emotional experience, to be wowed and dragged into a tale. And every reader thinks each small complaint they have should somehow be "fixed". For the life of me (and as a rather contemplative and alert person) I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do with these comments now.

Hope that helps with my analogy. I'm not complaining about the comments because I never take it personally, but it just really confuses me moving forward, what I should do to listen to them all. Because, if I listen to them all, I'm still going to have a mess, maybe a worse one, for trying to do TOO MUCH. HA!

 

[Penpilot]

Hey CM

Today, I was listening to the radio and they were chatting about the new Batman V Superman movie. One person, let's call them Dave, had seen it on the recommendation of another, let's call them Sue, and was sorely disappointed. Dave said the story didn't make sense. Sue said, but the fight was epic.

The two had different expectations. Dave expected a complete movie with good writing and good action. All Sue expected was Batman and Superman to punch each other.

One person's expectations were met. The other's wasn't.

Maybe part of how to make sense of your feedback is to find out what your readers tastes are and what they expect.

I once heard a conversation on Star Trek and Science Fiction. One person asked don't scifi fans want something more than just Star Trek? Another responded, some people want more Scifi, others just want more Star Trek.

Perception is definitely skewed by expectations. I remember after first watching Pulp Fiction, I couldn't wait to see the next Tarantino film, Jackie Brown. But I ended up hating it. Years later, while channel surfing, I stopped on a movie and thought it was really good and wondered what the name of it was. I realized it was Jackie Brown.

When I first watched Jackie Brown, I wanted more Pulp Fiction and nothing else would do. It didn't matter that Jackie Brown was a good movie. I couldn't see it because it wasn't what I expected.

I've said this before in other threads, but when someone is critiquing my stories, I'm critiquing their critique. I try to judge if they've made the effort to understand what I'm trying to do with my story and are trying to help me achieve my vision. OR are they trying to shape my writing to be a clone of what ever they like or expect?

Sometimes it's about the author not setting up story expectations correctly. Other times, it can be the reader just not understanding what you're trying to do.

There are many who don't like GRRM's writing style, and who would love to shape it to something else. But would that really be the best thing for that story? I would say no.

Sorry this was a bit rambly but hopefully there's something useful.

 

[Devor]

This is a big thread and I haven't read through all of it. But I want to chime in anyways because if I don't comment now and commit I don't know if I would get a chance to catch up. So bear with me if I'm repeating things other people have said or if the conversation has moved and I'm behind.

I want to talk about three things from the OP:

The problem I've run into on this one is that it's too long. Like hella long, and I trimmed all I could, but then I noticed I cut "me" out, and eliminated my tone and style, for the sake of brevity.

It sounds to me like you've got your lines of advice crossed. You're trying to force brevity into your writing style, but it sounds like it's the content that needs to be cut. I can't tell you if your writing voice is fine. But it's clear that it's your story structure that's causing all of these problems. You need to look at cutting whole pages, combining characters and scenes, rearranging your content into something that's got a tighter pace.

The best thing I could tell you - and this I've never done, but I have friends from college who make successful youtube videos and they swear by it - is to storyboard your novel. Name every scene on an index card, lay them out chapter by chapter, and stare at them. Look for scenes that have the same characters and combine them. Look for the big event scenes and if they're too far apart, pull out some of the cards in between them.

Stop fretting about your writing voice and do whatever you can to streamline the content. Tighten up your storyboard, not your sentences.

The main thing I realized was that readers have a hard time getting their bearing in the story because right from page one, there's a whole lot going on, because the inciting incident happened two years before the story opened.

My first thought here is that you're thinking about this wrong. Your character's backstory has a big event that happened two years ago. Your novel needs an inciting incident of its own. As I gather, it's a revenge story, and the incident that your MC is revenging was two years ago. But what's changing as the novel begins that causes the revenge plot to get under way? That's your inciting incident. For instance:

- Guy sits in jail, bitter and sour, with parole coming up. He was framed for a crime, but he's depressed and prepared to lose the parole hearing. This is the home, the status quo as things begin.

- Guy learns that the person who framed him has committed another crime. Maybe the new crime reveals something about his enemy. This is the inciting incident that causes the character to change and the story to begin.

- Guy becomes determined to ace his parole and get out of jail so he can stop the guy who framed him and get revenge. Getting out of jail, and hooking up with the resources he needs to get his revenge, that's the first act. The inciting incident makes that happen.

The inciting incident is the why now? What's about to change, as you open your story, that makes this the right starting point? That's what it sounds to me like you need to figure out with your novel to answer the criticisms you're receiving.

I don't think a prequel would solve the problem you're having with this story.

I'm unsure whether my problem is that I need to turn writing into a recipe I follow that will yield the results I'm hoping for (because I've never believed much in formulaic writing as a definitive tactic to achieve professional quality), or whether I need to just take an extended break and rejuvenate (which I've been doing and keep getting back to the same stress level in shorter periods of time), or whether I just need to cut ties, do my best, and send stuff to someone else to edit, and just get over it. The worst thing is, I can totally write new stuff at any time, but then I do the same things to it, too.

What I think you need is to find a new way to think about your writing and about the way you consider advice. A novel takes a bundle of different skills that you have to hone to tell a good story. It sounds like you've been working on the wrong skill set for the problems that you're having, and that much of the feedback you're receiving has worked like a red herring, pushing you to improve in the wrong areas.

I would suggest looking at story structure formulas. I know people fume about them, but really, it's not that much of a formula. Crime shows are formulaic; basic story structure techniques hold firm for just about anything.

There's only so much that I can say without reading more of your work. But I think you would do better by focusing more on story structure and pacing than on whatever feedback you're getting. Your readers are confused, but they're not the ones who can equip you to solve the problem. You are.

You just need to see it differently.

 

[Devor]

The faint green glow surrounding Daveed, the man across the table from Raisa, was an anomaly she couldn’t explain, a peculiarity often attributed to eccentric wise women—just a nice way of saying witch. While Raisa didn’t consider the brief and unannounced appearances of the oddity a skill, any more than drunkenness was a skill learned by imbibing, it had its merits. Past experience taught her that a person’s aura flickered like a candle near a window when they were deceitful, and Daveed’s had flickered twice in the last breath he sucked between sneering lips. He checked but didn’t raise. Not yet, but he would.

Raisa picked up her cards as play passed from quiet, smug Daveed to his polar opposite, the unreserved socialite of Brazelton’s criminal underbelly, Andrew Strange.

Through a curtain of cigar smoke, an ironwork chandelier’s light filtered down, imbuing the ballroom with a warm ambience that made the gambling tables below seem intimate despite the constant din of party attendees. From her vantage point on the gallery, Raisa perched above a sea of stale bodies, debating how she wanted to play the pair of knaves under her left palm.

Despite strong hole cards and being up coins overall, she battled a lingering dour mood. Lion overruled her when she wanted to order centerpieces to dress the hall in fragrant autumn blooms, claiming the hired security for the evening cost him too much to spend any more on frills. But he’d spent twice as much for booze as they’d settled on, and a dozen boxes of infused cigars managed to make their way into the party and onto the bill. For their annual Longnight celebration, she decided, she’d insist he pay out for the flowers, if for no other reason than to keep their home from being mistaken for a seedy tavern.

With regard to the pair of knaves, slow-playing might entice Daveed to commit to a bluff, and like the greedy merchant who braves the stormy spring sea, he’d sink himself. Antes were already in the pot and no one had raised, so when it came her turn to bet or check, she rapped the raspberry-red felt and parted with a coy smile. “I won’t argue with seeing a cheap flop.”

Dark eye powder and a dusting of crushed mica enhanced her insidious expression. Cosmetics, being the art of the elite chemist, gifted youth to the old and beauty to the plain, but Raisa used her collection of rare and special tints to create an ambiguous mask upon her rather unremarkable face. What better place to demonstrate her aptitude for fakery? It was a high-stakes game with no limit, and though Raisa worked hard to earn her reputation as a shrewd player, she’d brought her coins and jewelry to take a stab at the desperate deals men make at the end of the night. Strange had something she wanted and judging by the sweat sheen on his brow, he was close to his limit. Primed to hear a reasonable offer. All she needed was an opportunity.

^ Anita, for the most part this is a pretty solid opening. If this is an indicator of anything, your writing has tons of strengths and your fourteen years has gotten you plenty of skills to show for it.

But I have two comments for you, concerning the two sections I've bolded.

The first: You've opened on an info-dump. It's not really a dump - it's a well-written paragraph and a compelling piece of information - but the very first image and emotion you've evoked for your readers is about the magic instead of the characters.

The second: She's trying to play him, to pull one over on him, in a way that isn't really about the poker game. That's clear with the last three lines, and it's really compelling. What you need to emphasize throughout the scene is the slow build up to this reveal.

If it were me, I would start with a sentiment closer to the one I've underlined. She's eager, she wants to play him and the thought excites her. Open with and build on that excitement, leading right into the action that is her checking her cards and getting the cheap flop, and then explain the magic aura and the rest of the scene.

The hook, in this scene, is: She's excited about playing this guy in a way that has nothing to do with the poker game. What's she excited about? I want to know. That, I think, is the sentiment you need to tease and play up throughout a passage like this. That's the throughline that everything needs to connect with.

I won't care if you've got a couple of wordy sentences if you're delivering on that hook.

 

[skip.knox]

Thanks for the reply on the sewing; I found it interesting.

I'm not going to try to offer more advice; I've already offered mine. You have enough, with more for leftovers. It does seem, however, that you are committed to writing. You have faced plenty of discouragement, yet you keep going. I do believe that fits the classic definition of a writer. I hope you can find a way forward, and you always have a home base here!

 

[Caged Maiden]

@ Skip :grouphug:

@ Penpilot:

The only thing I could say to explain how much I agree with what you said but am still confused, is that SO MANY times I contacted crit partners and specifically said, "Hey, thanks for critting for me, I really appreciate your time. Just to let you know what kind of feedback helps me most, I like to know when something stands out as bad, yes, but I really need to know when something connects with you, makes you feel something, or otherwise leaves you with a strong impression, especially if it's positive, because that helps me to know what works so I can repeat it."

And most often, I just receive general negative comments, not specifics. Like I said, that's not a complaint against any person from MS, because a lot of my crits have happened from other sites or from people I knew personally, but I've had a really hard time getting anyone to tell me what they liked about my novels. I get plenty of positive feedback on challenges here for short stories, but the novels have been difficult to judge whether anything's even working. That's why I compiled the crits and sent them to a friend, so he could just see what I'm facing. So many opinions that sound the same, "I don't connect to this character, he's unrelatable", and then, "I love this guy, he's so mysterious and it makes me want to figure him out, because I know something important is happening and he's just not letting on." And in my head, I want to hug that last girl and just shout "YES!! You get me! You saw it!" But the other comment concerns me so much, because I wonder WHY those other folks couldn't connect with the character. You see, they comment and make me aware of a situation, but usually have no suggestion for what might work better. Is it as simple as giving him a one paragraph goal-type internal thought the first time we see him? Is it that i've purposely drawn him as a sketchy kind of guy who is quiet with other people and almost tries to hide his feelings from the reader in his head? I mean, without specifics, I just feel like people hate stuff and good luck to me changing it so they like it.

@ Devor

That was really thoughtful and gave me a few new things to think about. If you did repeat anyone else, you spun it in a way that I've absorbed it differently.

I'm not dismissing any of what you said, but the first round of editing was where I cut scenes, eliminated characters, and got rid of anything I didn't love as part of the finished work. That brought me down 40k words, so a pretty good cut. But then I had to rebuild the story in a few ways, adding back in NEW small scenes that could do twice the work of the ones I cut. So I'm sitting at about 145k words right now, with two chapters to go, and it's a lean animal that's going to cannibalize itself if I take any more of the "special" things out, because without a little bit of flair, it'll implode and no longer have anything worth reading. It'll just be people doing stuff...without style, without foreshadowing, without the secrets that make it good. I can cut 6-7k words if I drop a few of the scenes in which the charade comes close to being exposed and then finally is exposed (and just tell the reader up front who everyone is and who's betraying who). But then it'll suck. So yeah, that's the one thing I can't do any more, is trim scenes out. If anything, I need to keep every scene I have and re-fatten them with my personality and tone, keeping careful attention on clarity.

Also, thanks for thinking my writing isn't awful. I hear what you're saying about the opening, but I'd like to pose another question to you folks about that. Do you feel like it's helpful to give a couple paragraphs of "Other" focus in a more contemplative piece? I'm asking because I deliberately didn't open with action on this one, because it's a very internal story, with a lot of contemplation. I don't want to state her motivation in the first line. The fact that she can suddenly see someone's aura is really important and would definitely dominate her thoughts (it's a rare thing to happen to her). I wanted to open with an image, a clear picture of what she can actually see and say it in a way that makes it sound mysterious, unusual, still kinda foreign to her. I don't always do this, usually I'm more direct about setting, but in this case, I just feel strongly about the opening paragraph being the sort that will set the tone of the story--contemplation, understanding, and the human condition of being authentic.

About the inciting incident of the other novel, it happens on screen in a way, but the novel sort of skips ahead. Let me try to explain, because I really value what you said, but I was not clear.

Spoiler: Little Spoiler

The opening is a woman confronting a priest. She's been in exile for 6 years, (after he told her never to return) and her son is dead, killed in a suspicious accident. She asks the priest if he hid the son before the accident, if he's scaring her to punish her. He says he doesn't know anything about it. She knows in her heart the man killed her son. After a very brief few lines of dialogue, the woman leaves and overhears the priest talking to a man who just entered. He's a lawyer, and he's upset with the priest for another reason--the death of his friend. He stands up to the priest as the woman couldn't. When he leaves, rather than going back in and trying to murder the priest, the woman follows the lawyer. But then the next scene happens 20 months later, when the woman and her associates are plotting their next move in a long line of ploys to get the old priest arrested and excommunicated.

All the reasons for this opening scene technically happen in another whole book, not in a single incident that occurred in the past. And I think maybe that's a real thing. I mean, if a person loses a parent in a fire, that's an incident in back story, but in my case, a whole life is lived that leads up to this novel, and that has been extremely torturous to bring out in the novel without info-dumping or sounding erroneous and self-indulgent. And the worst part is, that I was happy to skip it and just hint at it all, but readers time and again felt they were missing important things and it kept them from enjoying the story and connecting to the characters. THEY asked for me to open in a way that they could understand how much the lover meant to the old woman, and I simply can't deliver it in this work right at that point.

There are tons of secrets of which I simply can't make a reader aware, especially in the beginning. But if the prequel could show all of it (in an interesting and well-executed way, of course, not as a sort of tagalong cliff notes version of a story, just to give clarity on the other book, but as a fully realized story), I love the idea. And here's why:

Spoiler: Super Spoilery

Basically, the woman told the old man the son was his (which I can reveal in a prequel but not tell a reader upfront in this one), but the son looks like his real father (who isn't revealed until the end of this book, but I could totally write that into the prequel, thereby eliminating the secret's late reveal in this book and instead having it as a secret the reader knows from the prequel and is already aware of how tense that makes the scene and how much trouble the woman is in). Also, the novel has three groups of characters. And this has been a HUGE problem, getting to know them all. I first have the antagonist, the priest above. Once, the old woman above worked for him, along with another priest (her son's real father), and the old priest was a fair and formidable man. But he grew hungry for power and did some bad things, which ultimately ended in the woman and her lover leaving his employ. So...there's no way I can get to that info until halfway through the novel, but if I did a prequel, it'll all be on screen and the tension will be real and feel like a "first time" rather than tacked on as an afterthought to explain things away. The woman and her lover are the second group. They have a small network of spies they run, and their goal is to destroy the old priest's position of power by catching him in an act of treason (the only way to convict a priest). If they murder him, another priests will just be able to take his place, so they want to affect social reform to change the double standard. The third group is a young woman in the countryside, and her family and friends and lover. She's engaged to a man in the city (in chapter four, I think), and I'd have to call that the other inciting incident, but it's hard to pick just one, when you have multiple groups of characters). So she's wed to the city's chancellor...and he's the single element that holds everything together in this story. He's married to the MC girl, partner to the old woman and her lover (not revealed until chapter 14), and he's the one working for the old priest and attempting to get him to commit treason so they can bust him. So...it has been really REALLY hard to get all the information out to the reader up front, and there are so many character names to learn, I just can't help feeling that if the reader was already familiar with the old woman and her priest lover and their history with the antagonist and his lackeys, that this novel would make so much more sense as a second one in the series, rather than trying to make it hit all the points on its own. I could eliminate chapters that exist solely to reveal a complicated history between the old woman and her lover (they're no longer lovers in this story).

Hope that all sheds light on the serious why of my considering writing a prequel. Honestly, the more I look at how much work a prequel could do, and the ability of it to take the weight off the original novel, the more committed I am to writing it.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Today, again, I find myself unable to make decisions. You know, this is really killing my spirit, friends. I might be the most prolific word-putter-outer I know, and yet, I'm spinning my wheels and can't see the finish line.

Okay, one quick question for today, because I already feel guilty over the length of this thread and how much I've shared my personal weaknesses here:

Pretend you're at a waterpark, and there's two lines to get onto two different slides. (please don't tell me you hate waterparks...call it sandwiches then... )

So the one slide, the red pill, the sandwich on the left, is one that is about the world, it's many workings, and it shows plot and information and violence right from the beginning. It sets a tone that will follow the story, but it begins with characters whose POV is never the main one. It hints at the MC's connection and rather than show her, it tells how she's important and begins the journey to find her.

The other slide, the blue pill, the sandwich on the right is a personal one. It is more of an acquired taste, but it deals with a character's deeper personal stakes in her own life, and then the world sort of blows up after, showing the change in this one character's life first, and only after shows how she fits into the world. It's slower, but attempts to invest a reader in a person first, before the world and greater plot situation.


I can't decide which side to commit to, which pill to take, or which sandwich is going to fill me up at this moment. I like them both, and readers are torn 50/50 on which they like, too. And I'm really stuck again, because I thought at first that my target audience would enjoy the more personal story, but 50/50 aren't great odds. It's a crap shoot. Is a hung jury okay? How can I decide which pill to take? I like the Matrix, but I also like being "me". I love subtle personal stories that blow up, but I also like broad strokes that start with a panoramic and tell me right from the beginning why things are important.

Do you guys have any thoughts on how a writer makes that kind of decision? Is it a good idea to bland the two things? I mean, can you have a vegan Whopper, or is it then un-vegan by its very nature at that point? Do I risk alienating both sets of readers by combining things? Or is that just the difficult choice every writer must make to please an audience?

 

[Penpilot]

Can you do both? Make both sandwiches--They'll have common ingredients--then eat them both and decide which one you like more, and call it Old Blu.

Then you can take the one you like less, spruce up the recipe, change some of the flavors around, and call it New Red.

Now you have two different sandwiches to serve your audience.

I suddenly feel hungry now.

 

[Caged Maiden]

So what I did was write the new opening (that focuses on the MC and her life before any change, or more precisely, as she's trying to change her own circumstances) into the first chapter slot, and I moved the old opening (with the change in the world and an outside influence that will pull the MC into a group on a quest) into the chapter 3 slot. I did that so I could keep them both, and that way, the old opening became the climax of act 1. To me, it's the best possible solution, and I think it flows really well.

I guess I thought it was the best I could do to keep everything as it should be, without wanting to preserve old things for their own sake, but to tell the complete story with the world and the character. I just worry now that with a character-based opening, a slower start, I'm maybe not creating as much impact for some readers?

I suppose this will eventually come down to my target audience and the agents I target and who they feel most comfortable marketing to and what they prefer to see in fantasy. Yeah...definitely time for a sandwich...with all the toppings...

 

[Heliotrope]

Oh dear I'm afraid I was part of the 50% that preferred ham to turkey (and even helped make the ham and butter the bread)... So I can't comment.

But what I can say is that you need to trust your own creative voice. What feels right to you? Sometimes I'll be working on a story and it is like pulling teeth to work on it. Other times I will be working on a different story and the time will be past midnight and I still want just ten more minutes...

Which story is more compelling to you?

And if you think it is a slow start, then brainstorm how to make it a more compelling start. What else could happen, how could you ramp up the tension?

I hope you figure it out because I can't wait to read chapter 2

 

[Peat]

Everywhere I go, the advice seems to be "Start with a hook! Reel them in quick! Show them the action, show them the goods!"

And it leaves me slightly puzzled because

a) I actively prefer slower starts. Books that plunge straight into the action without establishing why I should care lose me double-time. I find characters more interesting than action scenes.

Now, that might just be me being a relic who started his reading in the late 90s, but...

b) When I read the greats in the genre, I read slow, character based starts that take a while to get to the action. The opening page of Harry Potter doesn't even mention Harry Potter. Maybe this is inertia over what's considered to be the greats, but I don't think so. I think there's an under-estimation of readers' interest for strong characters.

So... I think you're doing the right thing. I may be wrong though! But still, at some point, you've got to stop second-guessing what you have and take a punt on it - and I think you also have to accept you can't please all the people at once. The closest you can come is to have incredibly engaging writing that overwhelms normal preferences, but then everyone has a different idea of what incredibly engaging writing is...

Good luck, and as Heliotrope says, trust your own creative voice.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I think at this point, a rewrite is a rewrite. It won't be perfect, but I can certainly make up some ground on what wasn't working in that first draft I left behind so long ago. My next instinct is to write the best chapter two I can, and see whether in the future I can trim away some of what makes the opening terribly droll for some readers and excites others with a promise I'm announcing I'll fulfill. Both the old opening and the new one have something important to add to this book, and I guess at the end of the day, I can only keep in mind what this particular story is and who it will most likely appeal to. And I don't just want to put my own name on that list.

Thanks to all my friends who have put up with my many drafts of my many novels. Some of you have been punished more than others, but I can honestly say that though you've seen me at my very worst, wading through words a decade old in some cases, I have become better because of your sacrifices. I sincerely appreciate this forum and its members who share their experiences and advice. I wouldn't be where I am without you all, and as for now, I'm just going to try to finish what I began, thought it's uncomfortable at times.

I'm taking the red and blue pill and hoping for the best...

 

[Caged Maiden]

Thank you so much friends!

Since posting this huge problem that had me super upset and questioning my will to continue, I've found a crit group with folks who really push me, encourage me to be myself, and put the screws to me when I start to self-doubt.

That's been an amazing experience. I also let my mom read the book I'm rewriting. I wrote about that in another thread.

Well, I'm not out of the woods yet, but I feel well on my way. I came back to re-read these posts, so I didn't forget what brought me to this breakthrough. It was a really rough patch, there, and I'm glad you all weighed in and told me that the world was going to go on, whether I figured things out or not.

I figured things out.

But there's still more progress to be made.

I'm 30k words into the rewrite, and things are going well! Better than I ever could have hoped for. Three tough critters and my mom have read it, and not one negative comment or lukewarm response! WOW!!!

 

[skip.knox]

>I'm taking the red and blue pill and hoping for the best...

Purple! The imperial color!