Have you read The Name of the Wind or its sequel, The Wise Man's Fear? I recently re-read both, and one thing that I admire about Patrick Rothfuss is his ability to write a compelling chapter. Even if the conflict in that chapter isn't essential to Kvothe's quest (and boy, does this often seem to be the case), by sustaining tension throughout, and inserting enough of a "hook" at the end, Rothfuss keeps the reader turning pages.

This is one model I have at front of mind as I'm rewriting Draft 3. At present, I'm continuing an exercise I've mentioned before: for each character in a scene, I'm identifying that character's motivations and ensuring the scene either (a) moves them toward their goal or (b) hinders them from it. It's slow work, but it's led to tighter scenes and even some unforeseen opportunities to develop secondary characters.

I'm about 65% of the way through this process and closing fast -- or I'd like to be. Assuming I can truck my way through the last of these edits, I'd like to run another beta-reading group during February. Woohoo! I'm excited about approaching this milestone and even more excited to share the evolved book (I'd estimate fewer than 15,000 words of Draft 2's 90,000 remain intact). For the sake of my sanity, I'm going to try and keep the group small, so if I receive a lot of interest in this round, preference will be given to folks I've worked with before. (I also won't take any offense if previous readers bow out.) Without further ado...

~~Please sign up here if you're interested in beta-reading The Blood of Their Dreams next month (see link for more details). Thank you!~~ [obsolete link removed]