This little piggie (one day soon) will go to market

I've been working on finishing the switch from first- to third-person with my second manuscript, Pigs Fly.  I wanted to get that done, so I could send it out to my beta readers and start getting feedback.  I want to get a nice slew of first-round, nonwriter feedback from friends to apply before I start sending it to my League of Utah Writers group a chapter or two at a time.  I didn't do this with my first manuscript because it was a little too personal, a little too religious, for the people I tend to find in League.  Also, I didn't know this handy dandy online-only group existed when I was sending it out to readers.  Now, I have global feedback to apply from a professional editor.  However, manuscript two is more conventional, something with which this group will do well.



In the meantime, I'll be launching into a hardcore reboot based on two sets of global feedback, one from a stellar writer from League and one from that editor.  I know the story from After the Dream needs to get out there, but I also know it's not ready yet for another submission to a publisher.  I'm so close to sending it in for consideration for publication that it drives me nuts.  I just need to work through the feedback.  I can do this.  And I will.

Preparing for the Editor

When the publisher turned me down, they recommended I get myself an editor.  I'd considered it before, but now, it's become essential.  I just got an email back from said editor, inviting me to turn in my stuff [if possible] around the first part of August.

I've been incorporating the last significant feedback I received from a fellow writer.  I've chosen the middle ground.  I've been trying to figure out how it works within the typical format of the romance novel.  A lot of romance novels start when guy and girl catch each other's eye and ends when they close the deal somehow and become an item.  I don't start there.  That's what the feedback [and the publisher for that matter] seems to want.  They want my romance novel to be JUST a typical, run-of-the-mill romance novel that starts at eye contact and ends with happily ever after.  But that's not what the story is about for me.  It misses the point.  As I've said before, for me, it's the tale of two broken people who have to seek healing for themselves before they are ready to create a relationship with each other.

So now, I've cut out everything from the first 85 pages that isn't critical.  I introduce the character and make her loveable [I hope] by making the reader laugh and see her love for others around her.  They see her heart and her humor.  Now the reader cares about her, they may care about her false start at romance [the once upon a time that sounds like so many romance novels and fairy tales but ends badly] then her dramatic scene of pain and heart-ache.  All of that now happens in 15 pages, a prologue and a brief part one, which sets up [without flashbacks or dream sequences] the heroine's back story.  I can see where I need to reshape her character some, but overall, she's more or less ready for editing software and another read through with my husband.

The problem is his part of the narrative.  That same reader recommended I cut his side, where I write from both his and her points of view to add to the mystery.  From what I understand, there's no mystery in a romance novel.  Pretending there's mystery in a romance novel is like pretending there's some kind of mystery as to what's going to happen to the Titanic at the beginning of the movie.  I don't like cutting his side entirely since so much of the story revolves around him, and not just the romance.  A big part of the climax is about working out his trials.  If this is her story, his trials don't mean much.  It becomes a different story entirely.  In addition, I've just written the second book's first draft from, once again, the male and female perspective.  If I cut the guy out of this story, I have to do the same with that story.  And I'm not willing to do that.  Once again, it changes the narrative.

So does this mean I have to change it to third person?  I like the urgency of first person.  I don't know.  I'm inclined to find a new way, a brief way, to introduce him and to keep his voice as a back-up singer, less important than hers but still present.   That's the next part for me to struggle with.  Wish me luck.

Bubble Burst

I have been working on After the Dream for two years now.  I have had readers and more readers go through it.  Some have made little suggestions or even significant recommendations for entire scene changes.  I listened and shifted scenes and characters accordingly.

When I felt it was as good as I could get it, I sent it to a publisher and waited five months only to have it rejected.  I asked right away if they could give me some kind of idea about what didn't work for them.  Their response left me somewhat puzzled because it was so vague.  Then recently, I had a good author in my writer's group go over it.  Her feedback sounded like a much more specific and detailed version of what the publisher had sent me.  And it left me reeling.

I've received and given the feedback that a story started in the wrong place, that a whole section should simply be cut.  But to receive feedback that the entire first 100 pages were unnecessary and should be woven into flashbacks and such was something for which I was totally unprepared.  She also said she would cut it down to one point of view character and round out some of the characters.
I had multiple reactions to this.  One was, "Oh, that explains what the publisher meant."  Another was, "Well, that would turn it into the stereotypical romance story just like everyone else's." Yet a third was, "Well, that shows me how to get it down to the word count I'm seeking."  My emotions were all over the place because, although it's my story with which I can do as I like, I can't simply ignore feedback that so eerily echoes the publisher's.  I am waiting for a local editor to set an appointment to read through my manuscript.  If I do nothing, I will likely get the very same feedback all over again and learn nothing new.

On the other hand, I have a certain vision of what the heart of my romance novel is, and it's not just the standard once upon a time, boy meets girl. That is what would come of following this advice to the letter.  I see my novel as at least as much about healing from trauma as it is about romance.  If I cut the trauma entirely, it's not the same story.  If I cut the dream of pursuing a fairy tale/stereotypical romance only to find that both can go very wrong if not carefully considered, I cut out the heart of the story. On the other hand, it's true that most people would struggle with that first segment.  And if people don't get past that, they don't get to the part where the main character and the narrative come alive.  And to me, the man's point of view is as important as the woman's in this story, especially with the fact that my second novel also uses both points of view.

I give the advice all the time to help people care about the main character as step one.  Give them a reason to care, and they'll follow you to the ends of the world.  I thought I had but clearly not.  I have rewritten the first scene entirely to bring in the humor and the heart before launching the dream and nightmare.  I have included most of the dream but only a small fragment of the nightmare, the part that matters most. I have also included the part where she seeks comfort from a trusted confidante.  And now, alakazam, 80 pages of what was apparently drudgery becomes [I hope] 15-20 pages of meaningful backstory without extensive flashbacks.  My overly long manuscript becomes about the right length.  Now, to smooth it over and weave in the critical missing pieces.  Here's hoping the local editor and readers approve.