Reviewers much too kind

[ASparrow]

I've always known about the benefits of letting a manuscript rest so that a writer can see what they actually wrote on the page and not just what they imagined they wrote.

But, man oh man, I've really had my eyes opened to the power of letting works lay fallow. I just tried submitting Page 99 of Xenolith to Page99test.com and what I found there made me queasy -- stilted, confusing dialogue, unintelligible descriptions. Not everywhere, but common enough.

My reviews on Smashwords have been much too kind. Some reviewers have hinted at the inelegance of my writing, but I think I deserve a much more solid thrashing.

As a result, I'm going through Xenolith for the umpteenth time to hunt down and destroy these clunky passages. I've killed (elucidated?) three already in the middle chapters, but I'm just getting started. I expect to release another update soon, for my own peace of mind.

[markuskane]

Someone once said that writing (or perhaps art) is never completed, merely abandoned. It'll never be perfect, for as you age, you change, and so does what you expect from your own work.

[ASparrow]

True. But it's only been a year. And it's so embarrassing to leave all that bad stuff unfixed. But there will come a point ...

[basilsands]

I've got 3 books out, the oldest is 4 years old, and still I find things in it that make me cringe. I think what happens is that we writers know our story intimately and after a while read what we think it is supposed to be as opposed to what is actually on the page.

I finally broke down and am paying for an outside editor for my next work. That will probably fix a lot of the little nagging things.

[markuskane]

Originally Posted by basilsands

I've got 3 books out, the oldest is 4 years old, and still I find things in it that make me cringe. I think what happens is that we writers know our story intimately and after a while read what we think it is supposed to be as opposed to what is actually on the page.

I finally broke down and am paying for an outside editor for my next work. That will probably fix a lot of the little nagging things.

Hiring someone else is always the best way to go. The value of a different pair of eyes is always worth the investment. If you find a competent editor, you'll save yourself a lot of work and some away with a much more professional package than you could create yourself.

[Steven Lake]

Constructive criticism is always good. I've had people flat out lambaste me before on my writing, while at the same time providing constructive criticism, and in the end I think it's made me better by helping me identify problems and fixing them. The mental checklist I go through now when writing is incredibly complex and long. But it's helped me get better and better. I'm now at a point where I can write stuff off the cuff with the same quality that my "finished" works were as little as 5 years ago.

So yeah, seek out some good, constructive criticism, the scathing, but useful kind, and then grow from that.

[ASparrow]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Constructive criticism is always good. I've had people flat out lambaste me before on my writing, while at the same time providing constructive criticism, and in the end I think it's made me better by helping me identify problems and fixing them. The mental checklist I go through now when writing is incredibly complex and long. But it's helped me get better and better. I'm now at a point where I can write stuff off the cuff with the same quality that my "finished" works were as little as 5 years ago.

So yeah, seek out some good, constructive criticism, the scathing, but useful kind, and then grow from that.

I know what you mean. For me, my 'off-the-cuff' quality isn't so great yet, but I can now achieve in two drafts what used to take me five or more. I'm not where I want to be, but I have more direction in my writing now, I don't wander as aimlessly. That's probably why the book I wrote last year bothers me so much.

[Miss_Fletcher]

I think even the best writers look back on their work and wince. After all, is a piece of prose ever perfect?

I see those more seasoned in the craft of writing giving advice, and it seems there is a large growing/learning curve you have to go through to be able to release something close to perfect without an army of copyeditors behind you.

Were your reviewer's too kind? Or were they just the people who really enjoyed your work.

[Steven Lake]

ASparrow: Awesome! Keep working on it, because it only gets better from here so long as you keep at it. I'm going to look forward to the day when you reach the point that you can write "off the cuff" with such quality that it only takes a handful of edits to have it ready to go to the editor. I myself am not there yet, but I'm still working towards that goal. It'll be fun though when we're both at that point.

[Luke King]

Originally Posted by ASparrow

I've always known about the benefits of letting a manuscript rest so that a writer can see what they actually wrote on the page and not just what they imagined they wrote.

But, man oh man, I've really had my eyes opened to the power of letting works lay fallow. I just tried submitting Page 99 of Xenolith to Page99test.com and what I found there made me queasy -- stilted, confusing dialogue, unintelligible descriptions. Not everywhere, but common enough.

My reviews on Smashwords have been much too kind. Some reviewers have hinted at the inelegance of my writing, but I think I deserve a much more solid thrashing.

As a result, I'm going through Xenolith for the umpteenth time to hunt down and destroy these clunky passages. I've killed (elucidated?) three already in the middle chapters, but I'm just getting started. I expect to release another update soon, for my own peace of mind.

Xenolith actually had me hooked. I was interested. Into the story and wanting to know what would happen next. Then I got to Chapter 6 and you introduced a new point of view character. And at that point I stopped reading.

There's some "rule" about point of view characters and setting up the pattern early. If you're going to have x number of point of view characters, then they should appear early - or, alternately, you can add one relatively late into the novel (perhaps a third of the way in) when the reader is firmly hooked.

At the point where you introduced Gi, I wanted to know what was happening with Frank on the river, and what had happened to Liz. I figured Gi was some sort of Amazonian, but I'd already been taken through a frame from the present, into a backstory, the present of the novel, and then had a mystery set up - Liz disappearing, and then Frank was in the river. That was where I wanted to be.

If you had set up Gi earlier - even if we'd had a small snippet from her perspective, then I probably would have read on.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I didn't have any problem with your prose that I can remember. I thought it was quite good.

[ASparrow]

Originally Posted by Luke King

Xenolith actually had me hooked. I was interested. Into the story and wanting to know what would happen next. Then I got to Chapter 6 and you introduced a new point of view character. And at that point I stopped reading.

There's some "rule" about point of view characters and setting up the pattern early. If you're going to have x number of point of view characters, then they should appear early - or, alternately, you can add one relatively late into the novel (perhaps a third of the way in) when the reader is firmly hooked.

At the point where you introduced Gi, I wanted to know what was happening with Frank on the river, and what had happened to Liz. I figured Gi was some sort of Amazonian, but I'd already been taken through a frame from the present, into a backstory, the present of the novel, and then had a mystery set up - Liz disappearing, and then Frank was in the river. That was where I wanted to be.

If you had set up Gi earlier - even if we'd had a small snippet from her perspective, then I probably would have read on.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I didn't have any problem with your prose that I can remember. I thought it was quite good.

I know exactly what you mean. My first inclination was actually to have the POV alternate much earlier in the story, but my early readers found this very confusing. They assumed that the band of warriors that assaulted Frank in Belize the first chapter is the same group that gets stuck in Connecticut later on. Separating the POVs created a distance that prevented this particular confusion from happening, at the expense of alienating readers like yourself who thought they were getting one kind of story and then are smacked over the head with something completely different in Chapter 6. Those who survive this transition generally go on to get hooked again, but I agree that the structure of Xenolith was not conducive to maximizing readership.

Thanks for the feedback. It's nice to hear how different readers have experienced the story, whether positively or negatively. As for the prose, I keep finding paragraphs that make me go, 'huh;' and I'm supposed to be the writer. I think I have them all fixed now, but who knows?

[bobavey]

Good editors are worth the money. Now, if I just had the money.

[ASparrow]

Originally Posted by bobavey

Good editors are worth the money. Now, if I just had the money.

I know what you mean. It's quite an investment. One that I can't afford, either. That's why I give my work out for free or next to nothing.

So it stays rough around the edges, not in terms of grammar, spelling or formatting anymore, but in plot arc and character balance. Things like that.

But I would fear having a pushy editor or agent reshape my work into a form that makes it resemble everything else that's on the market. But I won't have to worry about that, will I? Because I don't query agents.

I actually like quirky structures that depart from the usual formulas. They don't always work, but they can often be exciting.

[DavidRM]

The other option is...learn to edit your own work.

It's a myth that you can't. Just like you get better at writing by writing, you can get better at editing your own work by editing your own work.

Use your first readers to discover your blind spots.

If you read a lot, you should be able to spot good writing versus bad writing. Apply the same objectivity to your own work.

And use a tool like the Serenity Software "Editor" to fix your glaring copy errors and tighten loose prose.

Write write write. Edit edit edit. Repeat repeat repeat.

-David

[altworld]

Hey, don't knock it a kind review at times is a good thing.

As Indies we do the best we can, with the tools that we have, from grammar checkers, structure analysers, family and friends being constantly bugged, checked and annoyed. At some point you just have to let the words go and hope you've done right by them.

I've just gone through a painful prose experience with dialog, and had to reflow a lot of it. A new experience, more pain, got a headache, learned something new and now tired of looking at words. Which sucks at the moment because I was getting to climatic end of my second book's rough draft, when the first book blew up. Lession learned, and a little family time, then back to the keyboards.