Q is for Question

Looking  for the Like a Virgin Blog Hop please scroll down to the post below this one.  Thanks.


Q was going to be for query but since I changed P to pitch, which is a key part of your query I thought I would go with a less repetitive post.  So Q is for Question.

A lot of books that I like, including the one I am currently unable to put down, Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers started with a 'what if' question.  What if.. half the people on the planet just vanished, what if super heroes had to go into hiding?  Let your mind wander and embrace these wacky trains of thought you never know where they might lead you.

I was asked by a fellow author if I had questioned if my story would work better in the first person point of view, instead of the third person.  I thought she was nuts to suggest changing how it was written, especially when I was already 50k words into it, but taking her advice seriously and running the exercise proved to be an incredible help to my story.  Sometimes we are so close to what we are doing we don't question the basics and these things we take for granted may be exactly what we need to change to let your work soar.

Ask your beta readers and writers specific questions.  Don't just ask what do you think?  You know where your concerns are and unless you ask very specific questions you won't get the answers you need.  Is the pacing okay?  Are the main characters names too similar or hard to pronounce?
What do you think motivated my main character to leave her true love?  You get the point.

Happy Writing!