Somebody made the point while reading my blook (as I must now call it) A Half Life of One that it was fine but a bit flabby in places. Which it is. My excuse is that the main character continually procrastinates and wriggles when confronted with his moral dilemma. He is, I guess, a weak character (or maybe he's a strong character brought to his knees by events) and I needed to reflect that indecision, that inner turmoil.
A bit like Hamlet. Except of course the writing's nothing like as good.
And then again, that's only my defence. Probably the writing is flabby. Very few books won't benefit from some judicious editing and my is unlikely to be any exception.
I tried following your "A Half Life of One" link but got "Forbidden
ReplyDeleteYou don't have permission to access / on this server." Huh?
Hi Glenn
ReplyDeleteI don't know why that is. I've tested the link and it works for me okay.
Try going there direct at http://halflifeone.blogspot.com
Flabby? Don't know but....
ReplyDeleteFirst, I loved your blook as I said. You wove the story very well. You take the reader through the inner torment of the protagonist and down into the depths of depravity along with him. You have talent for that character development - you even developed some of the characters around him.
However, the story itself ended up falling short and I'll bet that publishers would say the same thing. Let's look at it.
So he leaves her locked in the cottage and comes back the next day. He doesn't go inside, but he hears this buzzing. So we (the readers) are left to assume that the combination of cold and terror killed her and buzzing was a swarm of dreadful vermin chewing away at her body or something.
Then we fast forward a year. We find a little about his guilt over his father and see the correlation between that and the recent incident. And we get a bit of "Oh well what's done is done and uh oh .. that DNA cloud!". And that's it!
That really makes the story fall limp. The story has no twist, no "turn of the screw". Granted the events in the story form twists, but there is no final turn of events in the story. It almost needs another chapter or two.
Maybe she got out of the cabin? You leave that possibility open but don't do anything with it. Maybe there was a loose board on a window or something he had not noticed but that she found. A woman who achieves that level of wealth must have some inner courage and resourceful qualities. The possibilities for a final twist from there are .. well endless.
Want to have a better shot at getting it published? Put some 'twist & spin' at the end.
All the best
--- A Story Blook