Monday, August 17, 2009

Sacrifice - paranormal romantic

Sacrifice is the piece that I wrote as a novella and then expanded it to full length novel. It has been a learning piece from start to final, final, final etc :-) last revision and I had put it away with great sadness. My opinion at the time was that the heart had been edited out of it, but I had learned so much that it was an invaluable process. It is, however, slick and right.

On re-reading it a year plus later, I'm loving it. The flow and pace are great, no messy snags, subplots are nicely woven in, and I'd managed in the process to include a lot of touch, smell etc. I've re-read 23 of the total 40 so chapters and as a reader, I am once more invested in my characters. Will others? Who knows?

It was nice to see how smooth and easy my 1st POV manuscripts work. The character is strong enough, unique enough to carry it well. In re-reading, I've fallen in love with him all over. He's such a typical guy, his name is even typical, while the powerful women in his life have been playing him through out for the best of reasons. He's decent, thoughtful, a super lover, talented, strong morals, and honestly, deeply, passionately loves his wife and she feels the same for him.

I thought I had a unique plot until Michael A Stackpole in a small group class in AZ workshop called it a "Professor exchanges the complicated world for isolation, only to be forced back into the main battle for what is right." The twist is that to do so, he has to sacrifice his beloved (from several reincarnations)'s soul--never to be with her again. Yep, get out the tissues for a good cry. Readers forced me to put in an out to keep her viable and thus two additional books charted out and partially written.

I'm glad to re-discover it, to be proud of it, and just be pleased that I accomplished such a wonderful manuscript.

Who knows? I shopped it to three agents in order to get my rejection letter goal for the year (2008) and no one asked for partials. Then I moved on to the YA. It really is good enough that I need to send more queries out. Now that I might manage a decent query letter that attracts attention.

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