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My buddy Marcus read my sci-fi draft at a diner in Tulsa and called the middle "one long nap"
I handed him 40 pages at 2am, and he pointed at page 22 and said "this is where I stopped caring." Now I'm stuck between cutting the whole middle act, which I spent 3 weeks on, or keeping it and adding a chase scene to wake it up. Half of me thinks he was just tired and grumpy at a diner booth, the other half thinks he was dead right. What do you all do when one reader's note makes you want to gut your whole draft?
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jadep412d ago
My friend Dana got the same note on her thriller, and she killed a 30 page subplot about a hotel maid. Turns out that subplot had the only scene where her lead showed any real fear, and three beta readers later told her they missed it. She ended up cutting pages 15 through 60 but kept 12 pages of the maid stuff and moved it later in the book. Just something to think about before you gut 3 weeks of work over one guy at 2am.
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