I heard back from the final beta yesterday (or was it the day before?) and she essentially reiterated the same thing another beta said about the pacing of my story.  It’s moving too slow.  Le damn.  You know, one opinion I could justify away as just that, one opinion, and see my work as is.  But the second one saying the exact same thing from a completely different person, I just can’t ignore that.  It’d be wrong.

Thankfully, reading that beta’s email, I had a head thump of brilliance and instantly knew where to shift my story to start it and how to change it around so the poop really hits the fan in the first chapter instead of the second or third.  Thank god.  It was meant to be, I swear.

And it took me a while to really understand another of her comments, about getting out of Michael’s voice and toning down the snark.  Initially I felt it couldn’t be done, unlimiting my limited third person POV.  That would take it out of Michael’s voice and into one that doesn’t fit him.  One beta already slapped my wrist for that and I’m whittling the stuff that doesn’t fit out now.

But considering I was done with work around 10:30 and sat around and did nothing all day, I spent a decent amount of time develing deeper into showing vs telling (something that’s hard for me to recognize in my own work) and voice.  I looked up third person limited and really stewed over the definition, that it can be such a limited view that it’s almost first person or it can be not-so-limited and told from the character’s perspective but outside of his personality.

I really sat on that one and thought and thought and thought.  And then it all came together, along with some other comments another beta gave me.  She did a lot of marking in the places where I poked through the writing and deviated from Michael’s voice.  She kept asking, “is this what a 15-year-old sounds like?”  What she didn’t ask is, “Is this what Michael sounds like?”  Lightning bolt to the brain, I tell you!  It’s like the most beautiful epiphany ever.

I can’t deviate the story from the voice of a 15-year-old because the poor kid will sound schizophrenic if I do.  But I can deviate from Michael’s voice.  Remove his voice and he’s still a 15-year-old boy.  I can tone down on the snark a little, keep Michael Michael but get other things out about the world from the point of view of a 15-year-old.  It makes so much sense!  If I keep the voice genuine to the age, as opposed to genuine to Michael all the time, I can say what needs to be said and not saturate the reader in snarkisms.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!  Tis awesome.