Met with reader two, covered about two-thirds of the novel, and scheduled a follow up session for Tuesday. Since the task remains open, it’s inappropriate to focus on specifics–don’t want to taint the discussions–other than to mention their razor sharp editing prowess. I can speak in more general terms, though.<\/p>\n
Throughout the life of this project, the material attracted a great cadre of voices with very definite ideas for improving the story. And by and large, each individual concentrated on different elements: characters, plot, technical details, narrative flow–and that’s just a partial list of pieces a story needs to work.<\/p>\n
Reader feedback has been invaluable in making the novel work. When a sentence lacks coherence or a scene falls flat and three people mention the same concern, it’s a problem that needs attention. I submit that a group focused on a common focal point generates synergy, even when members express their opinions completely unaware of other viewpoints. Synergy makes the manuscript better. The more I yield to forces greater than myself, the more solid the final results.<\/p>\n
Hitting a similar place on my own with the manuscript would have taken two to three times longer, and meant a lot more frustration. Even if I did recognize the foibles and work through them, picking off one gremlin at a time, The Last Track would be very different right now.<\/p>\n
And now I’m really itching to find it a home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Met with reader two, covered about two-thirds of the novel, and scheduled a follow up session for Tuesday. Since the task remains open, it’s inappropriate to focus on specifics–don’t want to taint the discussions–other than to mention their razor sharp editing prowess. I can speak in more general terms, though. Throughout the life of this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}