Evaluation I Received from Book Doctor/Editor of my Latest Historical, THE WOLF OF BRITANNIA
I realize this is a very long passage, but for those of you who know about my efforts to get my next historical novel published, you might appreciate what I am going through by reading this. Some of you may remembered I submitted my manuscript THE WOLF OF BRITANNIA to my book doctor/editor for review. I just received a four page evaluation (down from twenty-three pages last time) along with a partially line edit copy of my manuscript. The biggest issues she found that need to be fixed are dialogue and individual thoughts. The following is a partial from the evaluation:
"Voice: You know exactly what you want everyone to say, but I still think you need to work on writing dialogue and thoughts (see the next section for more on thoughts) in each character's unique voice. So really go through your lines of dialogue and add some "oomph" to reflect each character's personality. Almost everyone sounds the same, so now that you know what you want to say, and have done so much work on the story, go back and tweak that dialogue so that each character is distinctive. Most of your characters' voices show promise in certain scenes, but their dialogue is not consistent in reflecting each individual's personality (and in most cases, you must still decide what that personality is). You don't have to do an overhaul of all of your dialogue--your characters are saying what you need them to say to advance the story--but you should recraft the lines so that they are stronger for your characters..."
As to length this is what she had to say: "Length: I think that the length of the story (160,000 words) is doable for a historical novel. I definitely don't think that you can divide this into two parts, or should. If you need to get it down, it would require a line edit, as I don't see any huge chunks that can be taken out without sacrificing the story. I suppose you could completely cut out Porcius (he is the Roman adversary and only other POV I use other than Caratacus) if needed to get it down to size for cost reasons or because your publisher wants it shorter. Caratacus is the main character and the story could technically be told solely from his POV."
In all honesty to delete Porcius's POV would reduce the story's effectiveness as far I am concern. I would still like to submit the entire novel to Sunbury Press, publisher of THE SIGN OF THE EAGLE, once I have completed the rewrite and get there opinion as to whether it can work as a duology or not. It will probably take me six months just to complete the rewrite. If I had to delete Porcius's POV, it will take me a lot longer.
"Voice: You know exactly what you want everyone to say, but I still think you need to work on writing dialogue and thoughts (see the next section for more on thoughts) in each character's unique voice. So really go through your lines of dialogue and add some "oomph" to reflect each character's personality. Almost everyone sounds the same, so now that you know what you want to say, and have done so much work on the story, go back and tweak that dialogue so that each character is distinctive. Most of your characters' voices show promise in certain scenes, but their dialogue is not consistent in reflecting each individual's personality (and in most cases, you must still decide what that personality is). You don't have to do an overhaul of all of your dialogue--your characters are saying what you need them to say to advance the story--but you should recraft the lines so that they are stronger for your characters..."
As to length this is what she had to say: "Length: I think that the length of the story (160,000 words) is doable for a historical novel. I definitely don't think that you can divide this into two parts, or should. If you need to get it down, it would require a line edit, as I don't see any huge chunks that can be taken out without sacrificing the story. I suppose you could completely cut out Porcius (he is the Roman adversary and only other POV I use other than Caratacus) if needed to get it down to size for cost reasons or because your publisher wants it shorter. Caratacus is the main character and the story could technically be told solely from his POV."
In all honesty to delete Porcius's POV would reduce the story's effectiveness as far I am concern. I would still like to submit the entire novel to Sunbury Press, publisher of THE SIGN OF THE EAGLE, once I have completed the rewrite and get there opinion as to whether it can work as a duology or not. It will probably take me six months just to complete the rewrite. If I had to delete Porcius's POV, it will take me a lot longer.
No comments have been added yet.
