Plot Holes and Boring Bits

I can always tell when I've written something boring. My mind skims over it when I read it back. Or I avoid that section entirely. It makes me feel stuck. I think part of that is because my brain knows it needs to be fixed.

My current rewrite is finally flowing. I was cooking along nicely when I hit the major plot hole reader #1 complained about. It was a sloppy, easy solution to a complex set up. Therefore it was totally unsatisfying for the reader. And ultimately me, too. So I had to go back and rearrange some things, then write some new chapters. Yikes, not just a scene or two, I needed to write a whole lot of new stuff.

It was a bit of a struggle, but I feel good about it. I think the set up pays off properly now. And the new stuff dovetailed nicely with the old stuff. Whew. That could have been a big mess. I still might need to cut some chapters if reader #2 finds them boring.

The good part about my beta readers is that I can hear their voices as I write. I know the bad habits they call me on, and I try to clean them up before I hand out the manuscript. But I can also ask them to look for any new bad habits. Or the overused word/phrase in this book. In the last one, I must have used for a moment every other page. I suspect there's a new one that needs to be cleaned up.

The end needs a bit of a pick me up, also. But now that I have all that new stuff in there, I have more to work with. I'm excited to get back to it. And I can't wait to finish up so I can get this out to the next reader.