Correcting Past Mistakes #AmEditing

About a month ago, my coworker said he was rereading Thanmir War to prep for beta-reading Isto. That surprised me (it isn’t exactly a short book), and I told him to tell me if he comes across anything confusing (since that’s a common issue of mine). He promptly responded, “The first two chapters.”

After I got over the shock, I resigned myself to the truth of the matter. I’ve got a double prologue in Thanmir War, and those were the issue. The first one was added after I yanked out a bunch of world-building aspects and compiled them into a history lesson that a couple of my critique partners at the time really enjoyed. The second one is more applicable to the plot, but it was also written back before I was any good at streamlining the story.

He also pointed out that one battle scene where a character dies has an issue with breaking tension due to how I switched the POVs. *sigh* But at least those were his only primary complaints.

At this point, I’ve rewritten the plot-applicable prologue to cut out excessive backstory and description, and I’ve moved the other prologue to the back as bonus material. Skimming through, I’ve also noticed some wording I can tighten up. The grand plan is to fix the small stuff, and then rerelease Thanmir War a month before I release Isto, probably around June of 2019.

And speaking of Isto, my coworker read the whole book. Twice. You can probably imagine my exhilaration when he told me it consumed his entire attention and he had to finish it in a weekend. He went through it a second time to try to be more critical in his reading, because he was so absorbed with the story the first time. Talk about a boost to the ego.

My other coworker, who was my primary pesterer to finish the darn book and is also beta-reading, tells me he’s on page 3. Hey, I’ll take it! I thought he hadn’t even started reading yet.