However I have completed over 13,000 words of rewriting for The Duke's Shadow and am now working on a new Chapter 1 and polishing off Chapter 6 for a critique.
One of the issues that has arisen with feedback is the obvious eye on historical facts. One of the reasons I chose an historical critique group was to develop a sense of time and era from those who are interested in that kind of thing. I'm no historian but I do love reading and writing historical genres. I must say that it's been a mixed experience. At one end of the scale there those writers who are knowledgeable of the time and place and who like to flavour their writing with snippets and details that will draw the reader in and add to the story being told. On the other hand there are those who are so trapped in the historical detail that their suggestions would strangle the fiction out of the story being told. So I've had to pick my way through comments, suggestions and sometimes downright rudeness at my ignorance in deciding what advice I should follow. One fellow critiquer, James, has been most helpful, particularly following a damning critique that nearly sapped my confidence. To him I shall be always grateful for developing another shoulder pad that we writers need to protect ourselves from the nasty critique.
And for me, it will always be story first, with an eye on the historical detail to ground it, but always as a flavouring. And I now have this quote fixed in front of my desk to remind me, what and who I am...
The historian
records, but the novelist creates. EM Forster
Until Later...
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