How to Breathe Underwater (trilogy: Lessons in Skills for Life) (Page 6 of 8)

It also doesn't alert people that there's new material up for review.

I don't understand what you mean by 'keeping it all in one place'.  After a complete rewrite, how does it help to have the old reviews mixed with the new?  You can republish under the same name and chapter by creatimg a new version.

This version is much sharper than the original. Some food for thought (I post it here because I don't want to collect points for only reviewing a paragraph).

Consider:

You've mentally skipped an important scene here. You already visualize the character in the destination room and are hurrying us past the walk to get there.

But that movement is extremely useful because it tells us so much about her.
a. How much does she dread about that meeting?
b. What does her world look like?
c. How does she interact with her environment?
d. Is she guilty of something the meeting will being about?
e. What time of day is it (You have the room shimmer later - is that afternoon sun?)

In the above example, I can use the tension of the approaching meeting to hide the fact that I'm totally info-dumping her age-height-race-clothes-time on the poor reader. In addition, we know this character is in serious trouble and anyone who's been the subject of such a glare is forced into the character's shoes.

Don't use that example - I'm just demonstrating the raw awesome amount of data you skipped.

Take this advice with a grain of salt. In [J e n n a]s story, I got about 3000 words out of her walking from one room to another to see her father (for her execution), and in another story, I got about 7 chapters from a scout taking an overnight jog.

thanks NJ, problem is, I had all that in the earlier version, but no teenager liked it, it was just toooooo slow and full of info. So this time, I am dumping them into the middle of something happening, they don't know what, or why, or what the world is about, they have to read on to get all that.

Oh sorry, it was you, K not NJ who mentioned that, I mistook the avatar.
Hmmm  So you would elaborate a bit more where Vair calls her in? There is more of this scene in Chap 2 as recollection, but it is later in the scene, rather than upfront.

Izzy spends her life being hungry.

I will have a think today and give you something to chew over later.

I think in the adult fiction arena, all openings are acceptable, depending on the style of the writing. But I am guessing that with their lives lived in snippets and on screen, the teen reader needs more action from the off. Personally, I like both. There are chunks of interesting personality that came through in the earlier versions, but are missing in the new in medias res version, but the life and zing of the new version offsets that. Which is better? Who is to say...

Not really progress, but fitting. here's just so many distractions these days, I find a book has to sparkle harder to get me engrossed. I go back to re-read books I liked back in the day, and sometimes I'm thinking wow, how did I ever have the patience to slog through 200 pages of this crap to get to the good part? (Tommyknockers, I'm looking at you)

All things being cyclic, this fad will one day disappear. Probably not until we as a society find a way to tame the noise of entertainment

I thought the son did an ok treatment of Butlerian Jihad... but I still think Chapterhouse was heads and above the best of any in the series.

I have Hunters here unread tho. I read page 1, put it down and never came back. Erk

New chapter 2 up now, shoe-horned in (and other chapter numbers altered accordingly) to introduce the antagonist nice and early. He won't appear again until Part 2 though. What do you think of introducing him and his world now, then leaving it to ferment in people's minds?

p.s. I hate to think what NJ will make of this one...

p.p.s. Link in case it is all getting confusing https://www.thenextbigwriter.com/conten … /version/0

No major quibbles. Details don't override the pace. Of course you can thin / make precision-based finesse on future passes. But nothing felt brushed over - nothing screamed to me "missed opportunity".