Hi Laurie. I think it is great you are self publishing this novel. Some quick comments. Your dialogue is strong, sharp and short – realistic – well done.
Try to keep the adverbs ending in “ly” to a minimum. Such words “tell” us rather than “show” us. Example: rather than telling us: “Maggie twists her hands together nervously .”, show us she is nervous: “Maggie twists her hands together; her palms are wet, she wipes them on her hips.” Telling is lazier than showing and doesn’t engage the reader as well.
Also, in the police line-up scene you have two point-of-view characters. Maggie is the primary one, but a couple of times you have us in the head of Wolfrom. More than one point-of-view characters in a scene is usually a no-no.
Other than that, you are moving the scenes along well and I look forward to the next installment.
Yes teach. 🙂 Seriously; thanks for the feedback.
(You know, Rich, I’ll be in the market for beta readers for the next novel pretty soon… )
It’s really easy to forget whose head you’re in when tweaking, and I’ve already learned some valuable lessons… the chief of which is to not fiddle with stuff (i.e. rewriting lines here and there) to make it format nicely). What I’m doing now is correcting errors caused in haste by excessive fiddling. The finished product will form the basis of the eBook version and revised print version.
Meantime, in response to your critique, I’ve backed out of Wolfrom’s head in the Chapter 99 line up. The one observation that may appear to be his POV is actually neutral narration.
If I’m not mistaken, there are a couple of sequences that work best with a mid scene POV change. (Elsie and Eric in the coffee shop had to be that way.)
Hi Laurie. I think it is great you are self publishing this novel. Some quick comments. Your dialogue is strong, sharp and short – realistic – well done.
Try to keep the adverbs ending in “ly” to a minimum. Such words “tell” us rather than “show” us. Example: rather than telling us: “Maggie twists her hands together nervously .”, show us she is nervous: “Maggie twists her hands together; her palms are wet, she wipes them on her hips.” Telling is lazier than showing and doesn’t engage the reader as well.
Also, in the police line-up scene you have two point-of-view characters. Maggie is the primary one, but a couple of times you have us in the head of Wolfrom. More than one point-of-view characters in a scene is usually a no-no.
Other than that, you are moving the scenes along well and I look forward to the next installment.
Yes teach. 🙂 Seriously; thanks for the feedback.
(You know, Rich, I’ll be in the market for beta readers for the next novel pretty soon… )
It’s really easy to forget whose head you’re in when tweaking, and I’ve already learned some valuable lessons… the chief of which is to not fiddle with stuff (i.e. rewriting lines here and there) to make it format nicely). What I’m doing now is correcting errors caused in haste by excessive fiddling. The finished product will form the basis of the eBook version and revised print version.
Meantime, in response to your critique, I’ve backed out of Wolfrom’s head in the Chapter 99 line up. The one observation that may appear to be his POV is actually neutral narration.
If I’m not mistaken, there are a couple of sequences that work best with a mid scene POV change. (Elsie and Eric in the coffee shop had to be that way.)