Today’s going to be a busy day for me, so I’m going to adjust my goals downward accordingly. I’ve been working on a beta read for a friend, so I’m going to try to finish that this morning. Beta reads can be challenging: I never know whether I’m being so critical that I will be discouraging or providing the kind of intense feedback that’s hard to get. Anyone can read a story and say, “Oh, I liked it,” and that’s nice, of course–we all want our work to be liked–but it’s much harder to find people who will question our assumptions and be specific about our characterizations. In this case, I suspect I’ve crossed the line into discouraging, so after I finally finish the beta read, I’ll probably go through and tone it down a bit. So that’s Goal 1 for the day.
Second goal: at least 500 words. I’ve got two outside-the-house activities today, so my writing will be disrupted. On a typical recent day, that’s meant no writing at all. I want to do better than that, but I’m not going to be so ambitious that I try for 1000.
Well, it’s all in the tone – isn’t it?! You can either say something like: “POV alert here – character doesn’t usually or continually refer to their own hair color”. Or you could say something like: “Really?! She’s remarking on her golden blonde tresses – AGAIN??!!”
See. It’s all in the tone. 😉
Well, sometimes. But I don’t think there’s a gentle way to say “I don’t find this character’s actions plausible.” I mean there’d be a mean way to say it, of course, but by the tenth time you’ve written “oh, yeah?” (the wise reader reaction to suspension of disbelief), it’s probably crossed over into more discouraging than not.