Jeri Smith-Ready

Beaming

Heard from my editor yesterday on the Voice of Crow proposal. Let's just say (blowing on fingertips like they were smoking guns) exclamation points were involved.

She did make two comments that were very helpful:

• Too much backstory in the first chapter
• Don't forget who the main character is

It'll take me a few tries to find the right balance between bewildering new readers by including not enough backstory, and boring, well, everyone else, and probably new readers, too, by including too much backstory.

The challenge is, I have to recreate a whole fantasy world and review the events of Eyes of Crow, all while keeping up with the current action. Events occur quickly at the beginning of VOC (why wait to start tormenting my characters?), and too much backstory can slow things down. On the other hand, readers need to feel oriented before they can buy into the story.

For that reason, I've set aside several readers to read Voice who haven't read Eyes first. (I haven't literally set them aside; they can lead their lives more or less freely until September.) That way, I can tell where I've screwed up, sequel-wise.

As for my editor's second point: I've introduced a few new characters, one of which has his own POV. It'd be easy to focus on the new guy and his issues, but I need to keep the main focus on Rhia, since she is, after all, the Voice of Crow. Everyone else's plot needs to contribute to hers. That's why they call them "subplots."

Anyway, it's nice to get positive feedback from an editor. She even said, 'This book seems like it will be just as powerful as Eyes of Crow."

Which is totally cool, because I didn't even know she thought EOC was powerful. I mean, she said she enjoyed it, but editors pretty much have to say that to keep authors from jumping off bridges before the final manuscript is in.

Labels: Voice of Crow

• posted by Jeri @ 12:35 PM
• 3 comments