Writing News

Did I tell you that I redid my prologue due to a critique at the writers conference? Well I did. The author who read it for me did not know that the protagonist was female and 16. She thought it was a 10-year-old boy. Oops. And was also a bit horrified that I used the word “Crap” in the first 3 pages. “Maybe you should build up to “crap” or not use it at all. I haven’t run across any protagonists in the CBA that are so opposed to God and cynical. Maybe she should be nicer.”

I changed the other things. And I really tried with “crap”. I tried: tripe, rot, filth, and after a few days I just went back to “crap”. I did take it out of the manuscript the one other place I used it. But it just seems right in the prologue. My protagonist is grumpy and jaded and…I like her. Maybe no one else will…but I do and right now that is all that matters to me.

I also continued with my word search revision and looked at ever instance in which I used the words:

Just

Really

and 72 pages of my uses of the word:

All

Hopefully I will finish “All” next week. I use it a lot. Too much. But they all seem vital to the text somehow. And who knew that I use the word “Just” on almost every page. Several times a page sometimes. Aaaaaahhhh!