I received several critiques back on the third draft of chapter 3. Whew. I guess I'm not done there, yet. I guess this is a good lesson in humility. I don't mind the typos being caught, seems like every time I touch a documents, typo gremlins sneak back in. That or I have typo bacteria and need to use Purell before I type. I appreciate people pointing out logistic or logic errors, like the distance Jael can be from Jacob being too elastic or inconsistent. I need to know that stuff. The tone could be nice, though. Maybe I've been too harsh in my critiquing of people's work and that's sort of 'poisoned the well', so to speak.
What stings is when people say they hate my characters or that they're bored or that they wouldn't keep reading. I honestly thought I was a better writer than that. I thought I could craft something that immerses the reader and carries them along. Not there yet and probably there are some people who never will read Angel Odyssey or like it. I made it as broadly accessible as I can but that's still not broad enough for some, I guess. Some people said there wasn't enough action. Honestly, I don't want to shoehorn in some meaningless threat just to put in some action. And it's too early in the book for the main bad stuff to be happening. Heh. Early. I say that but I don't have the main 'imitating action' happening until chapter 5 and they don't leave until chapter 7.
The worst part of critiquing is that it gets you second guessing the decisions you make and why you made them. I'm THIS close to just cutting chapter 3 out entirely. The problem with doing that, though, is I really, really wanted to show what Jacob's life was like before I change it irrevocably. And that means showing his older brothers as jerks and bullies, showing his father as being dismissive and tough on him, his mother being infantilizing and smothering even in her love. I wanted to show him as a boy just begging for an adventure. I also need to show Jacob getting to know Jael after having saved her by offering her is soul.
In the end, I have to weigh all this feedback and decide what, if anything, to do. I'll fix all the boo-boos but for the rest...do I listen to myself or do I listen to everyone else?
What stings is when people say they hate my characters or that they're bored or that they wouldn't keep reading. I honestly thought I was a better writer than that. I thought I could craft something that immerses the reader and carries them along. Not there yet and probably there are some people who never will read Angel Odyssey or like it. I made it as broadly accessible as I can but that's still not broad enough for some, I guess. Some people said there wasn't enough action. Honestly, I don't want to shoehorn in some meaningless threat just to put in some action. And it's too early in the book for the main bad stuff to be happening. Heh. Early. I say that but I don't have the main 'imitating action' happening until chapter 5 and they don't leave until chapter 7.
The worst part of critiquing is that it gets you second guessing the decisions you make and why you made them. I'm THIS close to just cutting chapter 3 out entirely. The problem with doing that, though, is I really, really wanted to show what Jacob's life was like before I change it irrevocably. And that means showing his older brothers as jerks and bullies, showing his father as being dismissive and tough on him, his mother being infantilizing and smothering even in her love. I wanted to show him as a boy just begging for an adventure. I also need to show Jacob getting to know Jael after having saved her by offering her is soul.
In the end, I have to weigh all this feedback and decide what, if anything, to do. I'll fix all the boo-boos but for the rest...do I listen to myself or do I listen to everyone else?
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