I mean, with Elmore Leonard, it could be a planned prison break, but with Anne Tyler, it could be "These people are weird and wacky..I want to see what they do next."

That's what I meant by a strong narrative voice. Even if a book/story doesn't open with a really dramatic, action-packed scene, a unique and persuasive voice will do the trick in convincing readers to stick around.

My criteria as a personal reader used to be that if you can't hook me in the first 30 pages, you're outta there. (Goodbye, Dune.) And these days it's getting even more stringent. With fanfic, it's like the first three paragraphs just based on SPAG or formatting. After that (since some fanfic can be really short), I give it a couple more pages to see if they have any real world knowledge about what they're writing or at least made a decent attempt at research. I hate poor research. I'm harsh.

Big revision was sent off to my agent this week. Hoping it goes well and the next revisions aren't quite so big.

Ah, I liked Dune. Of course I was listening to the audiobook which had a full cast and was excellent. My favorite audiobook remains The Golden Compass though, also with a full cast with the author doing the narration himself.

Just sent out my first partial. Oh if there is book~ma to spare, I'd love some.

Good luck, lots of ~ma. It didn't take you long to get that first request :).

What Gud said! Yay!

wrod.

So I'm working on a story. The character is doing stupid things. She has to do the stupid things to further the plot, and they're in character, but god, I hate having to associate with this person who's being so blatantly stupid. It makes it difficult to write the scenes. I can't even look forward to her comeuppance, because it's going to be painful and messy and bad.

Sox, lots of ~ma to you!