Finished the latest round of re-writes on City of Heretics last night. See, I thought I was done with it until my good friend Christian did a detailed critique that revealed all the problems with the manuscript... and fuck me, there were LOTS of them.
The hard part was, I was expecting him to return the manuscript full of comments like 'Oh my god, you're some kind of genius, Heath! You're the greatest writer in the world and I'm not worthy to read your work!'
Eh, it didn't work out quite that way...
Here's the funny thing: Christian doesnt' even write this kinda stuff; he's a fantasy writer... (a damn good one, though; he just secured a big name agent and things are looking good for his book)... my point being, he's only passingly familiar with the conventions of the noir thriller.
And yet, his analysis was right on the money. There were long bits in City of Heretics that needed trimming, there were misplaced info dumps, there was boring charater stuff and scenes that went nowhere. Christian had red ink all over the damn place.
I wound up using about 95% of his suggestions. Some of them I had to think long and hard about but in the end I had to admit he was right.
So thanks, Christian, you literary hard-ass, for making City of Heretics a better book.
Ha...it's al good right? and guess who I'm going to ask to read The Dead Souls when it's done????
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