But this beta reader told me (as tactfully as possible) that none of my main characters are likable. At least, not in the first 50 pages. How can my readers care about the story if they don't like the main characters? So do I wait out the rest of May, waiting for other comments before beginning to revise? Or do I dive in and work on the character motivations and arcs, setting aside the novella?
I've been working on 'the novella' (no real title yet), and completed about half the steps Randy Ingermanson suggests with his SNOWFLAKE method. The last two days involved writing the story line from each major character's point of view. It's been fun to discover some of their hopes and fears, along with bits of dialogue, plot twists, and lots of research questions. I've never done this kind of organized plotting before. Usually, the story emerges and evolves scene by scene. IF I continue with the novella, the big next step is to further develop the story with a four-page synopsis.
Goals for this week:
Purple = some progress. Red = not yet. Blue = Done!
- Another 1,000 words on the novella? 500 words so far. A little research. Just enough to know that more is needed.
- Send monthly newsletter by May 20.
- Read a book by an indie writer and review. Started reading Annette Drake's Stay at Celebration House.
- Read other ROW80 writers: So far have read x6.
- Finish organizing that marketing material/research into a REAL PLAN.
- Declutter e-mail down to under 100. Actually now at zero!
I have reorganized my e-mail (consistently over 250). Taking advice from Michelle Schaeffer on how to tame that inbox, I set up folders labelled ACTION, REPLY, READ, and REVIEW. The result so far (after sorting through everything), is that some tasks moved to that ACTION file, which were a higher priority, actually got done because they weren't invisible any more.
Hugs on the unlikable characters. I have a character in one of my novels (unpublished as of yet) that I was told by several betas that was unlikable. Ouch. Did your betas go into any detail as to why? That might be helpful.
ReplyDeleteI've used the Snowflake Method and it worked pretty well for me. Nowadays, I prefer to do less planning. But that whole "3 disasters plus an ending" is something I use a lot still.
Good luck with it.
Thanks, Erin. My betas most likely won't send me comments until the end of May, so I'm holding my breath. Maybe this month of working on other projects will bring me back to revision with a fresh eye. I trust my betas and am just preparing for another 2-3 months of intense editing. I still like my characters. Am looking at other reads to find out how quickly I 'like' characters in other stories and why. Thanks for the encouragement. :)
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