A few good points

Did you know that the thriller genre has action while the suspense genre has danger  but not necessarily action? I had not even considered the difference between the two genres, but of course it is true.  I wish I had the kind of analytical mind that can cut through these things at a glance. On the other hand, I'm not so bad at symbolism.

The rhythm of a novel is the rate the reader reads, the speed at which the novel events occur and unfold. Dialogue can speed things up very nicely.  Pacing is the  length of time between moments of conflict. Though a protagonist may not know what his goal is on the first page, he jolly well ought to know by page thirty, and hopefully, earlier than that. Every step afterwards should be a step towards that goal. Interest is maintained and heightened if he encounters obstacles that must be overcome, and other characters will usually have a different set of goals that collide with his.

These things sound so simple when put  on the page like this, but trying to "see" what is happening in the half-written novel is a different matter altogether. This is where the skill of the writer comes in, though I suspect some would say it is where a good editor tells you where change is required. I can't help the sneaking feeling that a) I would love to have a good editor and b) that a good writer should not need a good editor to point out where things could be improved. Call me conflicted!

Gabaldon and Jamie's charm

My attention has turned to Gabaldon's Written in My Own Heart's Blood now. It was published in 2014 but the waiting list was long at my library and I don't care for the these later novels enough to pay the high price they demand. So I waited, and lo! patience is rewarded.

I remembered that Jamie was thought to be dead at the end of the last book, and that Claire had married Lord John. Then the news came through that Jamie wasn't dead and the book ended. Well, this one starts by trying to kid people that Jamie is still dead. I'm 85 pages in, and Jamie and Claire still haven't re-united. Now some people might argue that this is artful suspense; others might claim this is sheer bloody-mindedness on the part of the author. Keep 'em in suspenders as long as you can!

There will hundreds of fans out there who have no problem with the complex relationships that pepper the series. After so long away, I'm having a hard time fixing who everyone is. The members of the family Fraser aren't so bad; it's the hangers on like Dottie and Rachel who give me problems. Plus which there are new characters no reader will ever have met before. And I see we're still fixed in the American war in 1778. Duh. (I wonder why Americans  like English history so much? I have absolutely no feeling for the American wars of Independence and I assume that unless there are English forebears involved, Americans would feel the same way about English history. But out of the 240 million or whatever the US population is now, only a small percentage will have English roots.)

Gabaldon writes with such detail. Every thought, every wriggle of an eyebrow is recorded. No wonder each book reaches 800 plus pages. Growing bored with it last night I flicked ahead to see what else might be in store and noted two gruesome operations and a time shift section. There are also places where Jamie tells Claire very prettily how much he loves her, and I suspect this is where Jamie's charm lies. Every woman dreams her man will say these things to her!

On the other hand, the writing has a strange page-turning quality I find hard to define. It isn't literary, like Mantel., and not lyrical like Chadwick. Nor is it attention grabbing like Gregory. It is chatty in style, almost as if she were speaking direct to the reader. There is wit in the dialogue, beauty in the description, sound common sense and philosophy mixed. There is also the banal and the commonplace and it does go on at great length, At times I long for the story to move forward. Why haven't Claire and Jamie met yet? I might skip ahead.....

Revision Fatigue

Durham Market Square

In spite of the rain clouds and the dull, windy sky, I'm feeling pleased with life. That's because I have finished - hurrah! - what is probably the fifth edit of  my first Matho story.  I haven't been counting the edits, but this one feels like I'm really getting the hang of revising a story.
I was pretty chuffed with the first draft, but that was probably four years ago. I made the big mistake and sent partial submissions out, and of course got rejections. About six months later, I had another look at the story, wondering why it didn't have agents queuing up at my door. That's when I saw all the niggling little repetitions and awkwardnesses, even the occasional plot problem.

A year on, and I went through it again, and found still more to change. Does this process never end, I wondered? Will I be doing this ten years from now? Then I read a piece about revising and though I can't remember who said it, I jotted down the four things that really count: Conflict, Suspense, Drama and Emotional Intensity. One or the other of these should appear on every page.

The full meaning of the phrase Revision Fatigue hit me. The story was as good as I could make it and I didn't want to go through the damned thing again....but I knew I needed to do it. Nobody warns you about this process. Some authors blog about doing their umpteenth edit, but like every other newish writer, I must have glossed over it. I certainly didn't properly take it in.

But you know what? This time around, I gave myself permission to be ruthless. I chopped boring bits (yes, there were some) re-drafted sentences so they were less clunky, upped the intensity every which way I could think of and even subjected poor old Matho to be a bit of torture along the way. Punctuation and missed words (yes, there were still some of those, too) chapter endings and beginnings - all were given the old critical eye. I re-wrote two chapters from a different POV because I thought it gave the whole more intensity. The last chapter was finally finished off properly. I think I'd got so tired at the end of writing 110,000 words that it had always got short shrift. Now it is done, and I can can go off and have a jolly day out. Yeah!