Second step, tell it it's the story you're dreaming of

It's been almost a month since the last time I had a chunk to send my seestor to look at. Truly, I am the tortoise of writers.

But I managed to send her another chunk earlier this week, and she's got back to me with her comments, and now I am digesting. Here's what I have come up with:

To be perfectly honest, I did feel a twinge of disappointment initially when I saw that Kee hadn't responded by going into raptures over my glorious prose. ;-) Hey, I am only human and a newbie to boot. Perhaps one day I'll be a hard-bitten writer who doesn't give a crap (actually, I hope not), but not today. But I got over that in about 5 minutes. What's the point in asking for someone's honest opinion if you are not going to listen to it?

I've read before, usually on a more experienced writer's site, that negative reviews are actually the most useful, because they give you another perspective on your work. I've also read that getting feedback from people who don't read in your genre can also be useful, for basically the same reason. I'm not saying that Kee trashed my work, but she was able to point out what wasn't working for her and why.

I found some of the reasons interesting, because she seemed to have a different expectation of the tone than I do. I think part of that goes back to the genre thing I mentioned. She sees that my protagonist is a werewolf, and that leads her, as someone who doesn't read fantasy, to expect certain things. There's nothing wrong with that. Everyone has their own ideas about what belongs to which genre. Unfortunately, since this is a work in progress, and one that hasn't been mapped out in advance, I couldn't provide her with a handy blurb to help her set her expectations, the way I could for a finished work I was trying to pitch to an agent or that was being marketed for sale. I have a friend who asked me to read her first 3 chapters recently, and she was able to provide just such a blurb, and it was extremely helpful to me, because then I could tell her if I thought she had hit her target with the actual writing. Maybe that is something I should work on for my manuscript, too, if only for my own use.

In a recent post, I reminded myself "not to be afraid of 'telling'." But I am afraid I had veered too far in the other direction in my more recent writing. And a big chunk of what I had added--she said with a blush--was shamelessly ripped off from my own family. That is *not* the kind of writing I want to perpetrate on the world.

*chop chop chop*

Finally--and the most heinous sin in my personal catalog of writers' sins--I found my last paragraph wallowing in melodrama. Oh. Hell. No.

*chop, douse with gasoline, set on fire, cauterize previous passage*

I know Kee was worried about hurting my feelings or making me mad, but I can do those things to myself with my own writing, thank you very much. But sometimes I need someone to scrape the rose tinting off my glasses so I can see what is right in front of me.

So for that, I tip my hat to you, Kee.