Feedback from critique groups can be confusing.
It’s always good for a writer to get some feedback on a work in progress. Writing is so solitary, and we spend so much time in our own heads, that we get blinded to a lot of things that need fixing.
Sometimes a passage that makes perfect sense to us leaves a reader scratching her head and wondering what’s going on.
Or a transition makes no sense to a reader when it’s clear as a newly cleaned windshield to the author.
Or a character suddenly appears in the middle of a scene with no indication of how he got there and where’s he’s been.
I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea.
So, critique groups can be very helpful at pointing out these kinds of issues. But they’re also fraught with contradictions. For example, in response to a chapter I submitted to my critique group, two readers highlighted the same passage. One wrote (I’m paraphrasing here), “Your descriptions are beautiful. Your ability to craft interesting descriptions is one of the strengths of your writing.” The other said, “your descriptions go on too long. I found myself just skipping over them.”
Besides the obvious, “you can’t please everyone,” how’s an author supposed to respond?
My immediate reaction on seeing those two comments was, “huh?”
My second was, “well, I guess I need to decide who’s my target audience.”
Now, before I go any further, I need to tell you that both readers are cozy mystery writers, so they’re both intimately familiar with my genre.
This actually ties in with the question I asked last week, about how early in the book you want the first murder. If I had to guess, I would say the second reader above likes her bodies early and often, while the first is happy with a slower pace. Very different readers, even within the same genre.
My job is to decide which one I want to write for, and then do it.
That’s partly why I asked you last week to take a second a fill out this poll. If you didn’t respond last time, I’d really appreciate it now.
What I’m Reading
Homicide in Hardcover by Kate Carlisle
Kate Carlisle has written two series. I started reading her Fixer-Upper series some years back, and enjoyed it. Although there are now 17 published titles in the Bibliophile series, this is the first I’ve read, and it’s the first in the series.
Brooklyn Wainright is an expert book restorer. She loves books, and has advanced degrees in how to fix them. Then her friend and mentor is brutally murdered during the museum opening for a collection of books he’s restored, and Brooklyn suddenly finds herself in the middle of long-simmering anger, rivalries, and danger.
Even worse, her aging hippie mother confesses to the crime because she wants to protect Brooklyn, who looks like the #1 suspect.
Brooklyn can’t let that slide, so she sets out to clear her mother by finding the real killer.
The Library Murders by Merryn Allingham
Flora Steel and Jack Carrington are newly engaged when Jack gets roped into helping a friend put on a book convention in their small village. Flora’s selling books from a booth on site, and her friend Maud has driven the mobile library van to the parking lot so attendees can easily buy or borrow the books they’re interested in.
It’s a great idea until Flora finds Maud dead on the floor of the library van and Jack nearly gets killed while he’s introducing the keynote speaker.
Can they find the killer before any more innocent people die?
Buy Me a Chai
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Notable Quotes
After a night out with friends and too much alcohol, Brooklyn is on her way to the commune where she was raised, and where her parents still live.
Turning onto the road to Dharma, I said a silent prayer of thanks to the traffic gods, then another one to the wine gods who kept most tourists from starting their wine country tours until at least noon.
I wasn’t speaking to the Irish coffee gods.
- Homicide in Hardcover by Kate Carlisle
Extra points if you guessed the drink that did her in was Irish coffee.
My designated home for the weekend contained the largest four-poster bed I’d ever seen. It was big enough for a family of eight, and I was worried that I might get lost inside it when I went to sleep.
- Murder at Everham Hall by Benedict Brown
Wise Words
I seem to be seeing more and more of this — the wrong homonym in a sentence. Is it sloppy proofreading? Too much reliance on AI instead of human editors? Did the author goof?
I don’t know. Probably a combination of all three. So let’s make a game of it. I’ll give you a quote with a blank space, and you fill it in. I’ll provide the answer next week.
Was this the woman that the fisherwoman had _____ to? The one who’d been spotted racewalking with Mr. Chips this morning?
Murder at an Irish Chipper by Carlene O'Connor
I think it's a personality preference. My hubby and I both enjoy murder mysteries, but he prefers authors who use lots of exciting action to get right to the point. I don't mind meandering descriptions and lots of details about the characters' personal life ("soap opera stuff," as my husband would put it). Different strokes for different folks. 😉
I love that sign, BTW - I would definitely read it!