It's a serious book, dammit.

Read the final 30 pages of Led to the Slaughter at writer's group.  Gary, who is my toughest critic, just looked up and said, "It's really very good.  There's some real depth there that I'm not sure I expected."

"Yeah, but isn't that's where the depth is supposed to be -- the last thirty pages?  It's the culmination of the whole story -- if I can just get them there."

I think established writers are given the benefit of the doubt.  If you can keep the reader's interest they'll stick with you for the first half of the book and then you can turn up the heat.  A published book is almost given that due -- an unpublished book isn't.

I think it's a bit like a job interview -- the interview may or may not be reflective of the actual job.

The sad part is trying to cram so much in the first 10 to 30 pages artificially, instead of letting the story gather steam. 

But really, I meant this as a straightforward serious novel.  A survival story, a story of what happens when things fall apart.  The werewolves are almost a force of nature, who are another thing the immigrants  must deal with.

So I think I'm going to take out the subtitle -- The Donner Party Werewolves -- because I think it leads people to believe the book is something different, something kinda silly. 

I tried to make it historically accurate and to make it as realistic as I can.  Even the werewolves...