Saturday, June 15, 2013

Promising the dear reader werewolves.

Drank some wine and read the first two/thirds of the book last night.  Will read the last third tonight.

I tend to read too fast, more like skimming if I don't watch out.   I need to purposely slow down and remember that most people will be reading it for the first time.

It's very fast paced, but I'm not sure there is anything wrong with that.

I think the main narrators need to have more differentiation.  The transitions can be somewhat abrupt in that you can read a paragraph or two before you realize it's a different POV character.  I'm clearly marking each section with who's talking, so the reader will hopefully learn to check.  But a couple of stylistic tricks might help.  I'm thinking one of the diary writer's might precede each chapter with a "Dear Reader..." or something.  Another might fuss around with the date.  Something that is a signifier in the first paragraph.  One always gives a weather update.

My overall impressions of the book are valid, I think.  It's more a survival narrative than a werewolf story.  (Or as Linda says, "they're surviving werewolves, too.")  I was worried about whether I could get across what was happening to them, the dread of it, but just telling what actually happened in my own fictional way does that, I think.

This focus is both good and bad.  There is an inherent fascination in survival stories --- but I'm more or less promising the dear reader werewolves.  So the one major piece of rewriting I still want to do is insert a couple more chapters strictly from the viewpoint of the werewolves.  So finish reading the book tonight, making changes as I go along, and then figure out what I want to say in the werewolf chapters and where I want to insert them.

Again, maybe the story deserves a better writer, but the story has got the writer it's got.  It's my story.




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