Editorial Feedback (Part III) -- Character crowd control

COOL NEWS -- Magic Lost, Trouble Found is close to selling out its first printing, so my publisher has ordered a reprint. Raine is going back on the presses! Thank you everyone for snatching up those copies! ; )

And with the publication date of Armed & Magical less than two months away, my publisher has told me that they'd really like to see a push on MLTF sales to go along with the debut of Armed & Magical. Here's how you can help -- if you haven't bought a copy of MLTF yet, pop over to the Sample Chapters page, give it a read, and if you like it, hit Amazon, your nearest Barnes & Noble, or your fav bookseller and get yourself a copy (or one for a fantasy-loving friend). And speaking of Amazon, apparently the more good reviews, the better a book's sales can be. A lot of people looking for new authors/books pay close attention to Amazon reviews. So if you haven't posted one and would like to, I would really appreciate it. : )

Now on to today's blog which continues with my editor's feedback/suggestions on Magic Lost, Trouble Found. See Monday's blog for how my editor and agent's suggestions helped me cut about 100 pages from my original manuscript. And see yesterday's blog for how to manage minor characters to minimize reader confusion.

Today's topic is character crowd control.

For those of you with a small cast of characters, this isn't much of an issue. It's a big one for me. I have one main character (Raine), and a supporting cast (Mychael, Tam, Phaelan, Piaras). I have an ensemble cast, and apparently ensemble casts tend to sprout subplots, which attract more characters. One of the big problems I have with the last five chapters or so of my books is crowd control. It gave me fits in MLTF and A&M, and it's doing the same thing in The Trouble With Demons. There's just too many danged people "on stage." I literally have a cast of thousands at the end of TTWD -- because of course I have to count the demon horde. ; ) But as was the case with the first two books, they all need to be there. It results in me doing some juggling and fancy footwork. I thought that the last five chapters rocked in A&M -- a lot of people, tons of action, but it all balanced and moved like a bullet train. I'm very proud of it -- and it took a helluva lot of work (and three rewrites) to get it that way.

Anne's suggestions for crowded scenes in MLTF was to take a look and make sure everybody who's in a scene needs to be there. In some sections in the original manuscript (Tam's office in Sirens, the goblin embassy garden, the mausoleum), I had half a dozen extra people coming along for the ride, but they didn't have an essential role to play in the scene. They ended up being a distraction for the reader, and for me as the writer, since I had to essentially give stage directions telling the reader who was doing what where.

To clear up the confusion, I had to ask myself: Who absolutely must be here? And I had to give a good reason, that I liked the character wasn't good enough. They had to be critical to the action. If they weren't, they went.

Tomorrow I'll continue with Editorial Feedback (Part IV) -- Make the reader care. And I'll finish on Friday with Part V -- It's all in the details.

Have a good one!
Lisa