Sometimes it just works

Since the release of Blood of Two in August, I have had conversations with readers (some friends/family, some not).  To my pleasant surprise, some elements of my story worked how I wanted them to.

When I created Tarimot, he was to be the comic relief, but he didn't agree.  He became more of the advisor to the group and not so much funny, though he does have his moments.  But, one of the things that I used to round him out was his speech pattern.  I actually have a file called Tarimots cadence that I revisit from time to time just to make sure I write his dialog correctly.  In my mind, this wasn't really a big thing, but many of the readers picked up on this and were complementary of it.  I was told by one reader that he felt like I could write a paragraph of Tarimot's dialog, and it would be apparent that he was the speaker without the use of a speaker attribute.  If I could pull this off with all of my characters, I would be ecstatic.

Blood of Two had its share of unexpected events, at least I hoped it did when I was writing them.  Again, I was happy to find out that they worked as I wanted.  One character was expected to go off the deep end, but most of the readers didn't expect the degree of the dive.  There were a couple of deaths in the book, and one in particular that made a reader or two really ticked at the author (mission accomplished).  I wanted to create characters that got the reader hooked, and for the most part I succeeded.

One death scene received the greatest complement I could hear.  The reader told me that the emotion and reactions of the characters around this one death was so spot on that he assumed that I had suffered the same loss.  I was so taken aback that I failed to tell him that I hadn't.

And finally, there was the end of the book.  I agonized over it for months.  It still bothers me from time to time.  It came across as so damned altruistic, but the readers liked it.  That's what counts in this business of sharing the imagination.

The point of this post?  I once read, in one of my many writing books, that if you are particularly proud of a scene, or phrase, get rid of it.  Balderdash.  If after a few edits, you are still proud of it, then it must be good.  I have several readers that will back me up on this one.

Sometimes, it just works.

Shameless plug:
Blood of Two (Drums of Rallinwar: Book One) is available at most e-book outlets.  Check it out at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Diesel, Smashwords, and other electronic retailers.  Buy it, rate it, review it.