I finally got back the last copy of my MS that was floating around out there from the last of my alpha readers (thank you Katie!). She had the third draft, and since then I had done a 4th draft which included all of my grammar, POV, passive/active, and tense corrections. What she gave me was the last piece of the puzzle I needed to make everything snap into place.
She pointed out plot issues, which I knew I had, but had a hard time pinpointing because in my head, I knew how everything was supposed to go. With her observations, I realized I had to rearrange the last half of my book, and the disaster that happened in Act 2 is now happening in Act 3 and so on.
Eek! But it works. The story flows much better now and has more tension. The other small problems she pointed out are now fixed because I moved one scene to later on in the book. I’m glad I didn’t adhere to my July 1st deadline, because my submission wouldn’t have been as good as it is today.
Now that the scenes are all arranged in the new order, I have to go through and make minor changes to make sure everything flows. But that shouldn’t take long at all.
I’ve been working on my query letter a little, so once I’m done with the storyline ironing, then I will get to polish the letter and send out queries. Hopefully by August 1st, but we all know about my empty promises and nasty procrastination habit.
During NaNoWriMo this past November, I threw together the first half of the second book in the series and then packed it away to work on polishing the first one. I am so excited to get back to it. I dare say I will have more fun writing the second one (Escaping the Night) than I did the first one (The Heir), but I think that’s only because I’m beating a dead horse with The Heir.
I gave the first five chapters—very rough and very much a first draft—of Escaping the night to another one of my alpha readers the other day. I got the feedback and am happy she enjoyed it so much. The things she brought up that she’d like to see were useful. It lets me know I’m on the right track heading in the right direction with the story. All the suggestions she made she will see in copious amounts...which I don’t know if she’s ready for. Mwahaha!
I’ve posted the first chapter to The Heir. Go take a look.
--Me
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