Tackled Chapter 6 again before putting it out there for critiques. Oof. I spent as long editing it as I did writing the damn thing and that's just on this pass. It's the same problem, not enough happens and too much is going on. I am sorely tempted to cut the bloody thing down to five hundred sixty words instead of 5600.
Arg. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back and edit it some more.
One problem is that chapter 6 sort of kills the pacing. We have a heightened threat in chapter 5, a clear call to action and this chapter is spent convincing people to let Jacob go and getting ready to go.
Maybe the threat is too delayed. Maybe I should have the villagers come for Jael that evening or that night. That makes good literary sense but the problem with that is that it would take a while for even the Storyteller to get people riled up or enticed enough to come to a neighbor's home and try to take Jael by force. So, in a sense, they can't come any earlier than they do. Plus, I need to show Jacob's father stepping up and being a good father, sacrificing for his son. I need to have him give Jacob the advice he does. I need to have him speak with pride about Jacob's decision to take Jael home. But he can't do that in front of him or Jael, so it has to be something Jael overhears.
One of the guys in one of my critique groups suggested I do something in Angel Odyssey that I did pretty well in Smooth Running: show the villian's POV and his actions. The problem with that is that it breaks the form I'm trying to follow here of Jacob's Chapter, Jael's Chapter. It also makes the story less intimate. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe I should write it that way and see how it reads, the same as what the wife suggested in putting in a prologue showing Jael's fight against the god.
So, two impulses here: One to expand the story, with a prologue and additional POVs or to trim it down to the bare essentials to what the plot requires.
Oy.
I wish I knew which to do.
Arg. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back and edit it some more.
One problem is that chapter 6 sort of kills the pacing. We have a heightened threat in chapter 5, a clear call to action and this chapter is spent convincing people to let Jacob go and getting ready to go.
Maybe the threat is too delayed. Maybe I should have the villagers come for Jael that evening or that night. That makes good literary sense but the problem with that is that it would take a while for even the Storyteller to get people riled up or enticed enough to come to a neighbor's home and try to take Jael by force. So, in a sense, they can't come any earlier than they do. Plus, I need to show Jacob's father stepping up and being a good father, sacrificing for his son. I need to have him give Jacob the advice he does. I need to have him speak with pride about Jacob's decision to take Jael home. But he can't do that in front of him or Jael, so it has to be something Jael overhears.
One of the guys in one of my critique groups suggested I do something in Angel Odyssey that I did pretty well in Smooth Running: show the villian's POV and his actions. The problem with that is that it breaks the form I'm trying to follow here of Jacob's Chapter, Jael's Chapter. It also makes the story less intimate. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe I should write it that way and see how it reads, the same as what the wife suggested in putting in a prologue showing Jael's fight against the god.
So, two impulses here: One to expand the story, with a prologue and additional POVs or to trim it down to the bare essentials to what the plot requires.
Oy.
I wish I knew which to do.
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