That is exceptional advice, Amy. I might have to look hard for that little hideaway as it is only three blocks from his office building to the train station. he does go through a park, though. Maybe I can finagle that a little as there is a little pond next to the steam train exhibit. A small, covered alcove would work. My creative senses are tingling here....
Bill
You Only Review Thrice. Hopefully, I can make it back. Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia, just my luck.
Oh, Steve, I'm so sorry to hear this. Definitely not something you need right now.
Bill
No, MJ. MCP didn't say anything at all except "nope". When I got that, I began even more exhaustive research into the mechanics of writing (in all POVs). Under first person, there was several sites that had "do this" and "don't' do this" bullets. I violated quite a few of them right off the bat. I could see that and there was no doubt (in my mind) they could see it also. My fault. I rushed it too much. I'll get it together as soon as I can and do some more submittals. A couple look promising at the moment.
Bill
Telling instead of showing is my major hangup. I need to find all those spots and convert.
Bill
I am taking a 'wait and see' attitude, Marilyn. I'm not as eager to perform surgery now as I was before. I set the novel aside and worked on others during the two months of waiting and I think this did the most good for me. I was too close to get a big picture and missed most of the clues to errors in first person writing. I'm not confused, I'm just not ready to make up my mind I guess. Let me report back after converting the first chapter. The effort involved in that might tip the scales back to first person. I would rather do some heavy editing than a complete rewrite, but I will do whatever it takes. I want this one out there.
Bill
I've read plenty of successful books in first person. I'd think long and hard before doing a rewrite, especially based on one rejection and one article. How do you know POV is the problem? I'd ask some reviewers first before jumping to any decision.
Actually, that's what I'm doing right now. At the moment, my plans are to revise the first chapter only and present it as a "short story" to see what reviewers say. I do agree that rewriting based on one publishers rejection is not a good idea, but it DID make me do a great deal more research into how to and how not to write in first person. I am proceeding slowly because I am not sure what I'm doing. I'll work it out. Time is not of the essence here, even given my age. I'm retired so I can work on it all day if I want.
I have another novel I'm shining up that basically has only two characters in it. It is done in first person because that's a better fit.
EDIT: I am not getting any email notifications for this thread although I've subscribed to it.
Bill
Thanks, Randy. The third article I read was entitled "Common mistakes when writing in first person". I violated every one of them. As Lou Costello would say: "I'm a baaaaaad boy."
Bill
I get it. I finally get it.
I spent most of today finding out I violated almost every principle of writing in the first person.
Minuses:
I have too many "I"s.
I tell thoughts instead of showing them.
I keep sticking narrative into places where dialogue should appear - at the expense of story flow.
My story is linear, but expansive and that is hard to do in first person, especially if you cave a cast of thousands.
There are too many times I made assumptions os to the state of mind in the people around the MC.
So on and so forth...
Pluses:
I can now delve more into what Hiroko is doing when she isn't near Biru.
Events removed from the MCs can be described more fully
More dialogue will be generated
It will flow much better (I hope)
The rejection I received was my wakeup call. Now I'm going to dissect my story and rewrite it in third person. When I have the first chapter the way it should be, I'm going to post it as a short story and see if it makes a difference. It will be a daunting task to change the complete novel, but it's the right thing to do. So far, I've spent two years writing it, why not spend another six months and write it properly?
Bill
Well, that was certainly an informative thread, Ronald. The last post in the thread is a year old, so I have to wonder if the publisher might have changed strategy/operation since then. A number of writers here have been published by them.
Bill
Congrats....That's two success stories today.....Anybody for three?
Not me. I got rejected by MCP today.
Bill
How wonderful, Marilyn. I'll be looking for it.
Bill
Congrats! I'm still sweating out the acceptance of my first novel.
Bill
Ah! That's what I was looking for, Rebecca. If I don't republish, I don't get charged the points. That can get expensive at over 8 points per chapter. Thanks.
Bill
Careful there. I've lived in Ohio for almost 26 years now, JP. 
I didn't take him anywhere else, just eliminated the Ohio after Cincinnati and Columbus. Maybe I should put it back in.
As for the version number, perhaps it doesn't reflect on the public page, but I made sure it went from version "0" to version "1". I think that's what the "(V1)" in the title means. I'm pretty sure the suffix wasn't there on the first public offering.
Bill
LOL, JP. I am anything but meticulous. I like to keep things orderly, though. When I revise a chapter, I put it in another folder marked with the revision number. I have tons of disk space, so why not.
As an experiment, go to Chapter 1 that you just reviewed of TLTH and see if your review is still relevant (or if you can even see it now). The chapter version should be "2". You may have to clear you browser cache to get a fresh copy of the chapter.
Bill
Karen, would you be surprised if I told you that input from someone new is one of the best things to get. I've found that as my writing skills progressed I've managed to slide right past glaring errors in my own work. A new set of eyes might have caught it.
Don't feel as if nobody appreciates your reviews. I, for one, value any one I receive. It might just be the one review that triggers a whole new train of thought into my plot, or if you can't understand something, then I didn't explain it properly.
Jump right in and start swimming. We've all done it. The water is fine.
Bill
When you revise a chapter, change the version from 1 to 2, and click "Save and View" do you have to republish in order to get others to see the revision? If you do, does that mean yet another chunk of points to do so? I just don't remember if that's the case.
Bill
I can't ever imagine myself not responding to a review. Even if you really don't like the review, you have to respond. Face it, there will be people who don't like your article/chapter/poem/whatever and that's a fact of life. Not acknowledging it is simply rude.
Bill
I never edit online for that very reason, Suin. I used to, but I kept forgetting to make the same changes to my master copy on disk and they'd be hopelessly out-of-sync.
Bill
Submitted mine to Moonshine Cove Publishing, Rhia. No answer at the 4-week mark. They state clearly that it may take up to 6 weeks to respond.
Bill
That's the only delays I'm seeing, those of in-line review comments I make on another's post.
I am STILL not getting any notification emails for this thread despite unsubscribing and resubscribing every time I come here.
Bill
Yeah. AT&T keeps sending me emails telling of great and wonderful changes made to their system, but I don't see any evidence of it here. If we were supposed to tweet, we'd be given a bird beak.
Bill
You may be right, Vern. We've come a long way from ARPANET.
Bill
Oh, I'm quite familiar with both ends of the spectrum. I began my career with computers in 1962 and never stopped. I build computers and write my own utilities and whatnot to cover little niches that big companies don't want to mess with.
I dug deeper into this problem and found through TRACERT that there are several interim servers and trunks that react differently each time I try. It's really a minor irritation but it does happen quite regularly.
Sometimes I can cure it by rapidly clicking between two highlighted in-line comments. Closing and reopening the box will also do the trick. maybe it's the time of day or the phase of the moon.
Bill
Never got the email notification you'd responded, Janet. I have uVerse Internet from AT&T also. I'm not sure it's a systemic thing. Tonight, I waited for 39 seconds for one of my in-line comments to appear on one of Randy's chapters. According to the little app I wrote to monitor network activity it is this site that is delaying. My browser send out periodic "are you there" queries, but tNBW ignored them.
Bill
