This is a phrase my dad use to say when he was explaining something unpleasant or painful that must be done in order to heal or improve a situation. Now, my dad wasn't a surgeon, so maybe I should have taken his advice with a grain of salt.
But since I recently entered Lydia Sharp's blog critique contest of your first 500 words (to your novel), I took Dad's words to heart.
This contest (now known as The Awesome) was great, because even the losers (like me) got a great (and free!) critique of our first 500 words. So, having mulled over Lydia's comments, slowly digesting their meaning last night, I took the opportunity today to cut the heck out of my manuscript (well, the first 500 words of it, anyhow!) and try to address the issues she spotted.
The result? A much more interesting, dynamic opening! My biggest problem was that I didn't really give a POV, even though in the rest of the story I do have a clear protagonist who's POV is shown. Know what? I hadn't even realized I'd screwed that up in my hook! That's the danger of knowing your story too well--you can miss big problems that an unbiased mind might see.
So, big thanks to Lydia for taking time to do such a cool contest!
And soon we'll see if my writers' group agrees with my changes. I think they put The Awesome back in my hook. :)
1 comment:
I hear ya. I knew something was wrong with my opening, it just didn't match the rest of the book and was driving me nuts! I gave it others to read but no one jumped on that POV problem like Lydia! Sometimes we're just to close to the problem and we edit our great POV's right out of the scene, eh? Anyway, I enjoy reading what you write and wanted to award you with the Sylish Blog Award. You can pick it up at my blog. Congrats
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