One downside of this kind of board is that replies sometimes come to be held as a measure of quality. Really, a sample of 10 people isn't enough to give a fair reflection of that; especially since this board's traditional subject matter is very atypical and might arguably draw a very skewed audience.

It seems to me that you enjoy writing for the sake of writing. There are stories in your head that you want to tell. Like most everyone else, you'd like it if people enjoyed your efforts and appreciated them, but your primary motivation is "art for art's sake". This is good. Low readership can be fixed. Motivation for writing can't.

I'm sorry if I missed any World Class, by the way. I try to read and resply to all your work.




To some extent the negative comments can be the most useful. Where a reader's unconvinced about a motivation or plot twist it tells you you need to do a better job of selling that story point, or setting it up, or explaining it. It underlines technique weaknesses to work on.

And pragmatically, no comments is no criticism. You're no worse off than when it was just on your hard drive.

The other point I'd make is that most if not all of your characters don't fit the classic mould for the shared PV universe. They're not broadly-drawn slightly humerous characters like Visionary, Donar, Dancer, Mumphrey, Finny et. al. They're really "serious comics universe" characters existing in a slightly absurd one. The PV format is broad enough that they can do so relatively comfortably, but they're the wrong kind of horses in the wrong kind of race to win every time here. I'm not arguing you shouldn't tell PV stories with them - I'm very glad you're doing so - but it seems as though you could do more with them outside that frame too.




Everybody cringes at their work from a decade ago. I know I do.




Finding an audience is a perennial problem for new writers. The average first self-published novel sells in the low hundreds if its lucky. Without a marketing budget and free review copies and publishers' networks its very hard to bring the work to mass attention. It happens, but those are rare lucky exceptions.

I've never actually self-published so this is all second hand stuff, but I'm told the keys to breaking in to the market are:

1. Get a damned brilliant cover. Covers sell. The blurb's vital too.

2. Use social networks and free review sites to really push the work. Get free samples online. Maybe offer tie-in stories (say 10,000 words) free to some of the online periodical magazines.

3. Price an e-version low, say $1.99. Have a print-on-demand paper copy for the folks who liked the book so much they want a "souvenir" edition.

4. Hand out quite a lot of "free" e-book versions to people who might generate buzz, even if that means you don't get two bucks off someone who might otherwise have shelled out for it.

5. Mobilise some friends to log positive reviews of it for you on Amazon etc.

6. Have the sequel in the works. Series seem to sell these days, especially in the SF/fantasy/superhero genres.




I think you have all the skills necessary to write good fiction. I think your technical and practical skills have increased over the time I've read your work. I think it's fit to publish.

That said, I also think you could push it up a notch. You're good at self analysis, so you know (and have even mentioned in this thread) ways you could bring your game up. I have to admit, I apply different criteria re. proofing and second drafting when I'm writing PV stories than when I'm writing stuff people are paying me for. I could do better with my PV stuff, but it's beyond the level of effort I'm willing to invest, or indeed have time for.

You may find the same applies to you. If you know this is going to be a "permanent record" bit of work then you tend to hammer it in shape that one more time.

At the end of the day, if you publish and "fail" at least you've had the experience of writing an A-game story, which is bound to improve your regular game anyhow. Even if only three people ever read the damn thing, the people who read the next thing you write will benefit from the process you've been through.

And you might have fun.




There comes a time when every writer has to "leave the nest" and fly or fall.




What I suggest is that you treat the book as a sectional story, say four parts of 15,000 words, each with its own mini-plot, all forming the overall arc. That way you can write closer to the pacing and format you're used to and still have a coherent novel at the end.

Pick the four main points you want to covney, eg:

1. Lara gets her powers
2. Lara encounters others with powers
3. Lara uses her powers for doing super-things
4. Lara vs the big baddie

Then work out a framing sequence, eg:

Prologue: Lara and friends in full-blown battle, city burning, destruction everywhere. How the hell did it come to this? Then flashback to Part 1: the Origin

Have a bit more of the "conflict now" bit between each of the flahback parts, each section relevant to and offering insight into the backstory of what's happening in the now. If you're putting Chiaki in there, for example, the bit of the fight after she first appears is followed by the major part where you show her first meeting Lara.

I feel this kind of structure would play to your strengths and offer a reasonably sophisticated reading experience without being too confusing.

By the way, I'm assuming a Lara book, but the alternative would be to cover Lara, Liu Xi, Chiaki, and Anna together, charting their individual origins until it was time for them all to crash together. In that case, unify them with a single archvillain somehow behind all of their problems.




Pick out the bits you most like about what you've already done. Work out the unique selling points of your characters. Then concentrate that.

You already have the stream of conciousness. Treat it as your first draft notes. Now work that raw stuff into the next generation. If nothing else, its a technique you need to master.