Inklings & Musings

Editing & Writing Rules

The first two chapters of "Spellbound" are finally edited to my satisfaction.  We will see what the Wise Reader has to say.  The two main problematic areas were:  too much back story in the opening (a fairly normal issue with a first draft or even second draft) and a bunch of reader quibbles over the first failed romance.  Apparently my readers didn't find a first romance before finding true love realistic.  I am of the opinion that this is actually how it usually is in the real world.  That was actually my only serious quibble with "Twilight"  -- that Isabella had claimed to have never been in love prior to meeting Edward.  If only it worked that way.  It would sure save a lot of heartache and angst in the teenage set.

One of my readers even went so far as to suggest that there was a rule out there that the male lead in a romance storyline HAS to be the first person of note the female lead lays her eyes on, and likely vise versa.  (Or something to that effect... has to be introduced first in the book before any potential rivals, that sort of thing.)  This reader was very serious that this rule was not to be broken.  I remember blinking at her for a few moments before realizing she was serious, and then my brain trotted through the plot lines of at least a dozen fairly popular books or series, of all different genres, some of which are classics, where this is simply not the case.  I bet you can think of a few.

I can see the point of the "rule," but as a rule, this isn't how romance works in real life.  At all.  Just about ever.  And it totally gives away the ending if it's always followed.  I asked this reader if she wouldn't, just once, like to be surprised at the ending of the book, trying to decide how serious an issue this was for her.  She told me that the good news was that I had made her very curious to read on.

Yes.  That would be the point.  If you always follow the rules, your story becomes a novel-length mad-lib.

But... I did think over the reader's comments for a few months, ran the issue by my sweetheart, and decided to at least tone down the expectations.  Perhaps someday I will post the writer's cut version of Chapter 2 and other readers can decide for themselves.

The ironic thing, at least from my point of view, is that the male romantic lead was in fact mentioned in the book long before the other fellow came along in Chapter 2.  But I couldn't tell this reader that... it would spoil her ability to be a good reader for the rest of the chapters--and spoil the surprise.  Wonder of wonders.  I followed the rule.  *grins*

When you write, do you always follow the rules?