Back to the Writing Board

I confess, I haven’t looked at my novel in a while.  I’ve been sending it off for feedback, and digesting some of the more notable comments, particularly about my apparent info dumping.  Exposition is supposedly my friend.

I do feel that I have had a significant writer’s block.   I’ve just stared at the blank pages, trying to figure out how to best go about the revision process.   As the picture suggests, I don’t hear my characters talking to me through the pages, revealing their story and what happens to them.  I’m not saying I wasn’t hearing voices.  I just wasn’t getting anything to write.  It wasn’t coming.

I started getting feedback from one of my critter partners and family members, and I tried to understand what people were saying.  I don’t know what happened, but all of a sudden a spark came back.   Something just clicked.

So now I feel like I know where to go.  I realize that info dumping and exposition with description/setting is common with fantasy writers, and that I just have to work with it.  However, I have to be happy with my story.

I know that I have to work more with the prophecy, Nakendra, and Lady Adell at the very beginning, and that I have to work out some of the more extensive descriptions.  The plot needs to go quicker in the beginning, and Linview doesn’t need such long descriptions.

Above all, I have to bring the pacing from the middle to the end of the story to the beginning.  It needs to go faster.

I remember some of my earliest feedback from my family saying that the plot needed to move faster in the beginning.   At the time, I will admit, I was very stubborn.  Now…I see where people are coming from.  It’s hard to accept, but I see it.  Which means cutting (and which author actually likes cutting?).  I just keep telling myself that it will help.

So back I go to the writing board.  I finally know what I have to do, and I am comfortable with the new revision process.  I feel like it will help.  Hopefully I won’t get another writing block like this one.

Keep writing!  And revising.