A Reader Response edit

I went to a writers conference in LA and met a freelance editor, Laura Garwood. She agreed to give The Story Store a read. What follows (here and in subsequent posts) are her observations, abbreviated for length.

====================

Thank you so much for entrusting me with The Story Store. I sincerely enjoyed reading it, and felt invested in Alex and his family. I also felt carried along in the suspense and action. I do have some suggestions for you, however, as you revise. A lot of my comments and suggestions have less to do with throwing away what’s already on the page and more to do with building some more structure and details into it.

…

You have done a good job of maintaining just one point of view in each section, which is important. However, I think we need to beef up Sara’s point of view, mostly in the beginning. We get a lot of Alex’s chapters, and very few of Sara’s there. We thus end up not knowing her nearly as well as Alex, her backstory could use some strengthening. She is supposed to do a lot of drugs, but we don’t particularly see her doing that or see her under the influence.

=====================

She was very good, and inspired me to begin draft #6. More to follow.