Meredith Mansfield, Author

I’ve gotten back the second (of three) critiques back on WAR OF MAGIC.

With later books in a series, I always try to have one beta reader who hasn’t read the previous books. They’re the ones who can tell me when I’ve assumed too much after living in this story for a couple of years. When I haven’t reintroduced characters sufficiently–especially minor but important characters. When I haven’t re-grounded the reader in the world or the magic system. Or, in the case of DUAL MAGICS, what the various groups of people feel about magic. When I haven’t established where scattered characters are in this world at the start of the story. Things I’m much too close to the story to judge.

Though I label each book with its number in the series, there’s no way I can control how readers come to them. Some might pick up the fourth book first. Or, someone who’d read the first three books might not read the last for–well, at least a year, because that’s how long it’s probably going to take me to get it published. But maybe longer than that, too.

That’s okay. Each book in this series is meant to stand alone, but they’re also part of a larger story. So I try to make it easy to step back into the story. And there are clearly some places where I failed to accomplish that.

Also, it appears that the first part of the story is too slow. I’ll have to think about how to fix that, too.

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The first critique of WAR OF MAGIC has come back–earlier than I expected.

And it’s given me some things to start thinking about.

There are some slow spots. Not really surprising. What to do about them . . . well, that’s part of what I’ll have to think about. Some things are necessary to the plot, so cutting them isn’t really an option. Finding a way to spice them up might be possible, but will require thought.

Some things aren’t clear enough. That’s easier to deal with.

And some things might need to be expanded a little.

The climax worked, so that’s a relief.

I’ll let these things turn over in my mind while I wait for the other critiques.

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For me, the first revision pass is mostly about trying to read through the manuscript as much like a reader as possible.

To read in a matter of a couple of weeks what took me months to write. Of course, it’s never quite like a reader would, because:

1. I already know how the story ends
2. I am making at least some revisions as I go through, so it’s a lot slower than a reader would go through it.

Still, I am trying to go through it as quickly as I reasonably can, to get a feel for the pacing and find any little inconsistencies that crept in over the time it took to write the first draft.

In the case of WAR OF MAGIC, I’ve also been slowed down by trying to fill in some of the gaps I left in the first draft. Places, mainly, where I knew I needed something, but I just didn’t have a clear enough picture of it in my head. And didn’t want to halt progress on a first draft that had already taken longer than I expected to figure it out.

I’m roughly three-quarters through that first pass. I’ll still have some of the notes I left myself in the first draft–and a few I’ve made in the first round of revisions–to go back and deal with before it’s ready for my beta readers.

Still trying to aim for a September release, though it may be late September.

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