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Losing your way. Should he dump 30,000 words?

30 09 2013

Years it has taken him to write in time snatched away from a busy life. The story of many a first time author is written in the years of beavering away in lonely solitude. Perhaps getting some tips and hints from sharing the odd chapter with close friends or family but no-one has seen it all yet. Not until he is happy.

Then you choose someone. That special someone whose opinion you trust and who you also trust to feedback honestly. Someone like me, for example.

I’ve mentioned before a book codenamed GW. I said it needed work. Unfortunately it needs a lot more than just work.

The first half is good. Dragged me in even though the genre is not my favourite and the subject characters are abhorrent and not nice people. Then halfway through there is a coincidence which dictates the direction of the third quarter or so. The coincidence doesn’t work! It doesn’t hang true. It is too much of a stretch in credibility for the reader.

There are passages in that third quarter that can be salvaged and the end still comes together if a few bits are turned around but a solid third of the manuscript needs stripping out and either binning or overhauling completely.

What do I tell him?

Do I lie?

No. Truth is all when you are trusted so much by another.

There is a way forward with the only cost to him being in time. He may not have a finished book anymore but he does have 30,000 words of a new story which opens on a freestanding coincidence. Many novels do!
Reuse, reduce, recycle. Works in writing as well as waste management.

48.388748 -4.458046

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Tags: coincidences, Critical feedback, editing, first manuscript, first novel, mentor, reuse reduce recycle
Categories : editor, first book, First manuscript, first novel submission, HH Coventry, new author, reading, Subjective opinion


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