Feedback from my Instructor

My most recent assignment in the Novel Writing course at ICL was to send my instructor, Nancy Butts, the 'last third' of my novel. Unfortunately for her, it ended up being as long as the first 'two thirds' put together. Thank God she liked it.
She gave me some great feedback, both in constructive criticism and encouragement. I tend to pack too many descriptions, words, or scenes into one chapter (that's the story of my life), and I slip into a narrative style that makes Sophie seem emotionally distant at times. Gotta fix those things throughout the ms.
Nancy also gave me terrific encouragement, especially regarding the last 30-50 pages. Get this: "...you suddenly revealed yourself as a master plotter. I'm serious; talk about magic!" and "Kids will not be able to put the book down from that point forward." and "This is magnificent storytelling."
Holy Cow!
So, now I dig in. I'm going to hole myself up one day this week and read straight through all 279 pages. Hopefully, from that vantage point I'll be able to see what needs to be changed to make the ms more cohesive. I already planned out a couple new scenes that need to be inserted near the beginning and I know there's some wordy scenes that can be cut completely.
My plan is to start editing the first half of the novel in the next few weeks and have it to Nancy before my grandchild is born in early November.

Letting it mellow

Well, my writer's critique group listened to the last 20 pages of my ms last week and had some great suggestions for tweaking the ending. Not changing it, mind you, just switching a few details around so the effect is more of a Pow!.
I'm taking a break from my story for a week or two. Going to catch up on some pleasure reading, finish my last few days of summer program work, go to a wedding, take a couple day trips with my hubby, that sort of thing. That way, when I pick it up again, I'll see it with fresher eyes. I know I need to rewrite the beginning, in part to introduce a character that plays a strong role at the end, but also to better line up the conflict described at the beginning with the resolution offered at the end.

The first draft is done!

It's taken me 2-1/2 years, but I've finished the first draft of my novel. What a journey this has been! My first concepts for the book included fantasy elements along with historical fiction, but I quickly realized that I'm not skilled enough to create something that complex. So I teased the historical fiction story line away and focused on that.
Now that I've written the ending, I've identified at least one scene that has to be inserted near the beginning. It will probably be the opening scene so that the beginning and the ending coordinate, like slices of bread on a sandwich.
The last third of the novel now goes off to my ICL instructor, Nancy Butts, and the last 20 pages will go through critique with my Writer's Group. While I'm waiting for feedback from them, I'll start editing the first 125 pages or so.
Onto the next part of the journey: editing, fixing, tweaking, and making it all make sense. Wish me luck!

The Library of Congress visit

As planned, I went to the Library of Congress on Wednesday. It's a huge place with multiple buildings and security checkpoints, plus rules and regulations like crazy. I could easily have been intimidated there if I wasn't so excited about what I might find.
I had already searched their archive listings on their website and identified about 6 months of German newspapers I wanted to see. I also identified 3 LOTS of photos I wanted to look through, about 300 photos altogether, and I submitted requests via email for permission to access both the newspapers and photos. Librarians in both departments emailed me back the same day, acknowledging my request and assuring me the materials would be ready and waiting for me on Wednesday when I arrived. And they were right.
With my bare hands, I actually touched newspapers from 1938 Germany. I used the LOC's scanner to save dozens of pages of text and newspaper photos onto my memory stick. I had to don white gloves to look through files of photos, and I was able to photograph the photos (sans flash) to save the image to my computer. Plus, I was able to access and print out full-text articles from the Times of London during 1938 to help me understand the world-view of German events at the time. What an amazing resource. What an experience.
I am indebted to Amber Paranick and Jeff Bridgers, Research Librarians at the LOC for their help in accessing and readying these materials for me. I plan to cite both of them (plus Elisabeth Angermair, helpful librarian in Munich's Stadtarchiv) in 'Acknowledgments' when I get this book of mine published.

Focusing for my final research run (I think)

As I'm finishing the finale, I find I have a few outstanding questions to answer in order to accurately ground the piece in place and time. A little more research is needed in primary sources, newspapers in this case, and yet finding newspapers printed in Germany in 1938 has been a challenge. Since the German media was controlled by the Nazi Party, the newspapers went out of print when the war ended and most of the copies were herded into large libraries as part of the 'denazification' of Germany. Lucky for me, the Library of Congress has original copies in bound volumes, and a librarian there will get them from remote storage for me next week. Yay!
I'm very excited to get my hands on them, look at the pictures, and search for specifics of the Day of German Art procession which figures into my finale. Facts like time of day, number of participants, number of spectators, and weather should be there. Random points of interest such as a spectator interview, maybe a photo of a street vendor at the parade, etc. will hopefully add color to my portrayal of the event.
Now if only I could figure out how to save a scanned newspaper file to a Word document so I could run it through a translator.