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Well, the end of the world has been delayed. Moving along.
Freedom Does Matter is being read by
critters from Critters.org. I enjoy the feedback.
However, I’m not sure how to
interpret some of the comments. For example, in one scene, Beckie’s
been captured by a sheikh who’s not sure what to do with her. She’s
on the beach with a Bedouin girl, talking. The beach is on the
Mediterranean Sea, and it’s July, in the mid-morning. They have a
guard, but in the sun, he’s fallen asleep. This point is made three
times over the course of the scene. Beckie and the girl run away, and
the reader questioned why the guard didn’t stop them.
So, I didn’t make it clear the guard
was sleeping? Or, more likely, it didn’t register as important. But
I don’t really want to beat the reader over the head with things
like this: Hey, look here, this guy is sleeping so he won’t notice
when the girls leave. I was afraid that three times was too many, so
I’m just not sure how to fix this.
A different reader had a different
problem in a different scene, but it boiled down to the same thing:
missing a point that had been made earlier, so the current action
doesn’t make sense.
How to strike the balance? Any thoughts
on that?
I hasten to add that these same readers
have made many useful suggestions, and I appreciate their help more
than I can say. I guess it goes to show that while readers are
intelligent, they are no more perfect than the writer.
Feedback on the part of Background
Check I finished during NaNo was highly positive (if I took it as
intended!), so far. Results are not all in. Now I have to figure out
where the rest of the story goes, make it all neat and then do the
minimal outlining that makes even the first draft a lot easier to
both write, and I am reliably informed, read. Maybe I can get that
done in less than a year!
Comments are welcome.
