He's ready for his closeup, Mr. DeMille

Now that I'm back on the query-go-round, I've spent a lot of time thinking about Key and whether the mss is indeed perfection in its most absolute form. Reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion that portions of the prose are not deathless, and may in fact be flabby enough to slow the pacing to a cumbersome waddle.

I had an informal beta reader a while back, and she made some poignant observations that have been rattling around in my head for a while. My experience with criticism of written work is this: if the comment is spot on, chances are it will resonate with some nagging doubt the author has had all along. Several of my beta's comments struck such a chord, and that's how I know revisions are called for. It won't be a full story edit, or even a particularly drastic one. But a couple of scenes will be excised or shortened to tighten the pacing. And more importantly, a new scene or two will be added to explore more fully the MC's development.

It's always bothered me that the MC makes a bit of a quantum leap, development-wise, about 2/3 of the way through. I've let this pass until now because I was afraid of slowing down the action to dwell on something that does not directly advance the plot. But I see now that this was a mistake. It's always hard to decide which parts of the story can take place off stage and which need to be described down to the finest detail. When it comes to character development, though, I think perhaps it's best to err on the side of more.* It's no good spending chapter after chapter making your MC distinctive and comfy, only to have him walk off stage and then reappear in some new guise. Readers may not recognize him, or worse -- they might not like him anymore.

Kirin doesn't develop too much over the whole story arc anyway. That's part of his charm, and the charm of teenagers in general. But I've decided that such development as he does undergo needs to happen onstage. Not under the spotlight, perhaps (Gods, anything but that), but in view nonetheless.

*Note that I'm talking about character development here, not backstory. If you don't know the difference, stop writing. (Sorry 101 Reasons, couldn't resist. You'll get the cheque in the morning.)