Chapters Fifteen through Eighteen Today.

I mentioned to you last week that a fellow member of one of my writing sites, where we all publish online, suggested that my opening chapter was too full of backstory, glimpses of Karen's past, that might confuse the reader. I was a bit surprised, because I thought it read quite well, but then a second writer at the site said the same thing. So, whether or not you've noticed, I chopped a couple of chunks out of the first chapter, reducing it somewhat, and plopped them down farther along in the manuscript. It all seems to look fine, but I keep having this niggling doubt that I've dropped slivers of narrative from Chapter One more than once in the following chapters. If you should spot such duplication, please tell me immediately. When you are working on re-writes, it's so hard to spot something like that. I find myself looking at a paragraph and thinking, "Hello, haven't I seen you somewhere before?" But there is no way I can start at page one and scan through to find its twin, if, in fact, the twin exists. You would see it immediately, because the story line is all new to you. Help! I would appreciate it.

I want to tell you about the huge number of fantasy and horror manuscripts floating around out there. On one of the afore-mentioned online writers' sites, we are encouraged to critique each other's work, but I've found it difficult to find many books that I enjoy reading. The fantasy/horror books outweigh the classic literary novel about ten to one, from what I've seen. I gather, from other blogs, that this is a general problem for agents and publishers right now. How many more vampire books can be written? It's not to say that the books aren't well written, just that there are so many of them! If you are considering the genre, think about this carefully. If you believe yours is the one vampire story that hasn't been told, then go for it, but I would recommend you browse a few writers' sites for yourself to see what the competition is. Everybody's doing it!