Lack of excitement

[igenlode]

Rough-typed the first chapter of "Familiar"; a bit over three thousand words. I'm not sure why I'm procrastinating so much about getting this published -- I always do tend to put things off once the 'hard work' has been finished, namely the manuscript, but I'm not particularly enthusiastic about this one.

And I'm still feeling a fresh surge of nervous dread every time I get a review notification on "The Opportunist", even though the vast majority of them have been unallayed praise; I'm just not equipped to deal with any kind of criticism (other than by trying to be extremely good at everything) and not used to people finding things wrong with my work. Which sounds, and is, very arrogant, especially as I'm finding things wrong with other people's work all the time.

Comments

[igenlode]

My work is technically competent and reasonably talented (which is enough to make it stand out amongst a mass of incompetent inexperienced amateurs). But that is the baseline for critical quality.

I can ignore someone who says "I've run a word count on your piece and you've used the word 'was' too often, which makes it passive", because she has (probably) got a bee in her bonnet. If she then adds that her attention kept straying because it was too slow-moving, that's a problem.

If someone says that there's no sense of urgency in my action scenes because they are too digressive and wordy, that's a problem. If yet another someone says that a speech seems to be going on so long that she is wondering if the speaker was deliberately stalling for time, that's a problem (and a certain pattern...)

If someone says that a character is sitting there calmly analysing her situation for the readers' benefit when her circumstances imply she ought to be jumping up and screaming in horror, that's a problem. If another person says that the start of a chapter comes across as just a run-down of all the characters present in the action, that's a problem.

And I've had all these comments over three separate stories in the course of the past month or so. None of these things are elements I pay any conscious attention to when writing a story -- I just rely on my subconscious to get the pacing etc. right, and if it's not picking things up then I don't have a toolkit of experience to deal with it.