Helix: the feedback

So, two people have now read my 50K NaNoWriMo novel and they both said it was good. In fact, one of them said that not only did he enjoy but it also made him seriously reassess the course his career is taking. I made him think. Scary.

The interesting thing is that, although being quite different personalities with different reading habits and tastes, they both liked the same aspects of the novel and also made similar criticisms.

Things they liked:

• the basic premise
• the flow of the prose (with the caveat that the first five or six pages are awkward but then the style settles down)
• the observations about office dynamics and politics
• the psychology of the protganist and how I convey his sense of failure
• the fact that I don't cop out at the end and attempt to offer a coherrent explanation that neatly ties up all the loose ends

I did fear that the whole thing would be too weird and nonsensical but, even though both readers conceded that they never figured out who certain characters were supposed to be or what the hell happened at the end, they felt the book too oblique for its own good.

Between them they made the following criticisms:

• it takes a few pages for the style to settle down
• the dialogue between the protagonist and the two main female characters is ropey and, by extension, the female characters are underdeveloped (although one of the readers thought the break up between the protagonist and his first love was very well handled)
• some of the prose is repetitious
• lots of typos! (but, hey, they both know I churned the sucker out in 23 days, so...)

In conclusion, they both felt that there is an excellent novel in there that, with revision, is of a publishable standard.

So, there we are: I've got absolutely no excuse not to persevere with rewrites and send it out. I admit that I was surprised to get such positive feedback, especially considering that I had major reservations about the quality of the thing. It just goes to prove how difficult I find it to judge how good my writing is. I have a lot of work to do to knock the book into a publishable state but at least I now have confirmation that it will be worth the effort.

A big thank you to you both (you know who you are). Your critiques have been very useful.

Onto draft #2.