Paksworld

And it’s gone, and Editor has received it (email is a lot easier, I will admit.  No days of waiting to find out if it actually got there.  OTOH,  no days of absolute safety during which I can’t be told it’s awful.)

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Even though I just found yet another unfixed rough spot  in the new book,  Book Two is almost certain to take off for NYC and its Editor tomorrow.    What rough spot, you ask (thinking, surely this writer has filed off all the rough spots and polished them smooth by now…)

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As mentioned, some alpha readers found “motivation holes” in the book.  Motivation holes arise when a) a character’s actions aren’t tied to a motivation or b) when the reader doesn’t find the motivations shown to be believable.   Motivation is a huge topic–critical to the success of any story–and it’s a fragile, brittle link between writer and reader.

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Alpha-reader K.S. called up this evening, having seen the very latest draft, with a major motivation-hole to report.   I smothered my intense desire to waily-waily-waily-o-no-o-woe  and actually listened to what she said, which was similar to what a couple of you had said, but expressed in a way that suddenly made complete and total sense.  (She has this gift.  I think we were separated at birth or something.  Or maybe, having fixed so many other problems, my mind was uncluttered enough to Get It.)

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I had already started Book Three, sometime back, when I needed to know what would happen if…for Book Two.    In one of those potential chapters, someone turned out to be a whiny, complaining twit.  I’m not fond of whiny complainers, so my first instinct was to toss this fellow out of the story…don’t need no whiners, boy!  But on second thought, now that I’m looking at Book Three before diving into it again…maybe I do need whiny complainers.  At least that one.

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Now at page 760, though I left some unfinished business a couple of chapters back…needed more stewing over.   For one thing, the chronology of the various POVs, though accurate, is reading “off.”   This is always the most difficult part, for me, of writing in multiple viewpoints…the viewpoint shifts can’t violate the real chronology of the story but at the same time, exact one-to-one correspondence would make the book full of “Meanwhile, back at the ranch” paragraphs every page or so.    Sections must be long enough to give flow, but not so long that the next POV change requires a flashback-type transition.

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Reached 497 just now, with the word count for the whole coming down slowly.

Here’s an example for discussion:  A courier arrives with an urgent message.  While the courier catches his breath, the recipient opens the message case.

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Finally cracked the 300 page mark in revisions.

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