Comments on: The Set Up

By: Kait Nolan

Kait Nolan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:24:35 +0000

That’s totally what I told the not-miniature version of Pot when she predictably said “I’m really impressed with how far you’ll go to avoid writing the trials.” It did occur to me that the front should connect to the back and right now it doesn’t. After a little brainstorming, I came up with a few other scenes I can write that don’t go back to far and will keep the hero and heroine fairly back and forth equal through the set up, so I’m pretty sure I’m happy with that. At the moment, I’m going through my draft making notes on where and what to add, as well as places to be sure and weave in some of the threads that have come out as things that should go through the entire piece.

By: Stace

Stace — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:19:29 +0000

Here’s a thought – not to feed procrastination or anything, but . . . maybe you should write at least some of that front bit before launching into the trials. It was reading over the bit about demons that might come back to haunt that set bells ringing for me. Maybe finding out what those demons are will help you to craft that journey – that could just be where the demons spring up, and it might lead to the missing pieces in the trial. So you don’t spend two weeks on it, but a few hours might give you the direction you need. It would serve to connect your front end and back in a solid structure, as well as giving you something to work with.

I wouldn’t find it annoying not to meet the heroine for several chapters, AS LONG AS the hero’s story was compelling enough for me to care about him without the romance to help it along.

By: Jamie D. (@Variety Pages)

Jamie D. (@Variety Pages) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:04:10 +0000

I did that same thing in my first blog serial – my hero didn’t get enough “face time” (good term), and at least one of my regular readers ended up not understanding his motivations (because I didn’t show them soon enough), and ended up hating him, even though he was “redeemed” in the end. I’m currently editing that to add more scenes from his POV, so that hopefully his motivations are far more understandable right from the beginning.

So yeah, I think it’s really, really important that heroes are given enough time right from the start. It’s difficult to impossible to gain back the reader’s sympathies otherwise.