I know I'm a perfectionist, which is why I tried to stop myself from over-editing it. I'm never really happy about anything, but this in particular I had some bad feelings about. I didn't feel like I was as inside my character's head as I was in the first part and it bothered me through the whole thing. I really should have written the whole thing at once but I wrote the first part in an inspired rush of writing and I think that's partly what's to blame. I always feel better about my writing when I just can't get the words out onto the page fast enough, it's just flowing and flowing, but with this second part it came slow and gave me trouble. For some reason I also feel like it isn't suspenseful enough. I've never really written anything with much action that's not fantasy-based with tons of magic and weird things going on before, so I guess I just feel like it isn't as intense as I wanted it to be. But at the same time I didn't want it to be "this happened. then this. then this. then this." because as fast-paced as that is I also think it would've come across as a little boring.
I am happy for your comment though. I hoped to get that frustration across. You just know that something happened to get them into this mess. Which you will find out about btw, I hate it when authors do that. I hoped to also get across that they don't know each other, which is the reason for the lack of names in the first part, but that won't last for long. Instead of starting at the beginning I figured I'd jump right into the middle of it and get everyone's attention first. That's what people are always telling me, that you gotta get your reader hooked very quickly, gotta give them questions that need answering so they won't get bored.
But I promise the answers are coming! There will be big chunks of information coming in the next part, hopefully creating more questions while still giving answers, if I can manage to do that right.
Yeah, I can see what you mean. I have trouble writing action without sounding boring, too, and what I do when that happens is that I try to sort of lace together the character's thoughts and fears and memories and impressions with the action itself. For instance now that I'm working on this WW2 story, when I'm writing the action I often fill it with questions the character would make. He wonders, as such and such happens, if they'll make it out alive; then something else happens and he clutches his gun and remembers what it was like to have quiet afternoons at home. I don't know if this helps, but if you want to get into the character's head AND make the action sound less monotonous, I've found that's something that works for me.
I am happy for your comment though. I hoped to get that frustration across. You just know that something happened to get them into this mess. Which you will find out about btw, I hate it when authors do that. I hoped to also get across that they don't know each other, which is the reason for the lack of names in the first part, but that won't last for long. Instead of starting at the beginning I figured I'd jump right into the middle of it and get everyone's attention first. That's what people are always telling me, that you gotta get your reader hooked very quickly, gotta give them questions that need answering so they won't get bored.
But I promise the answers are coming! There will be big chunks of information coming in the next part, hopefully creating more questions while still giving answers, if I can manage to do that right.
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