When your best is not good enough
Or your first, at least, isn’t.
I finished the first draft of a major chapter, one that tied up a situation that had been brewing since the middle of the first book (this is the middle book). Reboot. Start over.
Those of you who are first readers, I strongly suggest you do not, after reading draft work and providing little or no positive comment, say, “That was well-written!” when the above-referenced writer reads you a fight scene from a mediocre published book (especially when the fighters, who could have been quite reasonably presumed to be dead, are magically healed in the next chapter).
You may go “Wow!” if China Miéville wrote the scene. His dead remain dead. If they do come back, you will probably wish they hadn’t.
Edited so the first sentence makes sense. (It had read “Or your first, at least.”)
