Work in Progress Assessed
I’ve made the occasional post about progress on my 7th novel, “Green Machinations”. After further revision, following a professional manuscript assessment, the novel has gone to my editor.
I must be improving as a writer because I found this assessment less of a shock than assessments I’ve had done of previous novels either by this same assessor (female) or two others (both male).
The assessor says of “Green Machinations”:
“New Zealand writing in the best sense of the term. An excellent story and easy read. Gives a good idea of behind the scene dealings on both a business and environmental level, with political agendas happening and vested interests being involved.”
The only advice I found difficult to take from the assessor was her judgement of two female characters in the book being undesirably “old-fashioned” in terms of their moral fervour, a sub-plot.
To me, it was important that these two characters contrasted with other players in the story who had less virtuous outlooks about sex.
I think that a character who zealously holds a minority moral viewpoint shouldn’t be ruled out, nor dialogue left out between a young couple about the noble goal of sexual abstinence before marriage.
I think it is tantamount to literary censorship to altogether deny a character the capability of zealously holding unpopular opinions about sex.
The main issue for me as a writer, however, was: To what extent would my readers think a character has to adhere to mainstream values in order to justify her place in the story?
On the Internet, I picked up this quote (www.artofmanliness.com ):
“…in many ways the virtue of chastity is the most difficult to write about…” Chastity “is a word that can make teenagers blush and grown men cringe. A word that conjures up thoughts of medieval belts, ‘true love waits’ pledge cards, and ranting preachers. Many [but note, not all] believe the concept of chastity has no place in a modern, enlightened society...”
In the end, for better or worse, I decided in revision to tone down the moral fervour of the two characters in question while not abandoning the moral issue in the sub-plot.
I must be improving as a writer because I found this assessment less of a shock than assessments I’ve had done of previous novels either by this same assessor (female) or two others (both male).
The assessor says of “Green Machinations”:
“New Zealand writing in the best sense of the term. An excellent story and easy read. Gives a good idea of behind the scene dealings on both a business and environmental level, with political agendas happening and vested interests being involved.”
The only advice I found difficult to take from the assessor was her judgement of two female characters in the book being undesirably “old-fashioned” in terms of their moral fervour, a sub-plot.
To me, it was important that these two characters contrasted with other players in the story who had less virtuous outlooks about sex.
I think that a character who zealously holds a minority moral viewpoint shouldn’t be ruled out, nor dialogue left out between a young couple about the noble goal of sexual abstinence before marriage.
I think it is tantamount to literary censorship to altogether deny a character the capability of zealously holding unpopular opinions about sex.
The main issue for me as a writer, however, was: To what extent would my readers think a character has to adhere to mainstream values in order to justify her place in the story?
On the Internet, I picked up this quote (www.artofmanliness.com ):
“…in many ways the virtue of chastity is the most difficult to write about…” Chastity “is a word that can make teenagers blush and grown men cringe. A word that conjures up thoughts of medieval belts, ‘true love waits’ pledge cards, and ranting preachers. Many [but note, not all] believe the concept of chastity has no place in a modern, enlightened society...”
In the end, for better or worse, I decided in revision to tone down the moral fervour of the two characters in question while not abandoning the moral issue in the sub-plot.
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