The first, most obvious was that I ran into a genre vocabulary issue. I submitted a fantasy story to the table, and a number of people got confused by the medieval armor terms: curias, gorget, falcshion, barbute (okay, I'd have to look that one up, too) and a few other fantasy tropes. Once again, I had to ponder how much in-story definition I needed to do so as not to confuse the reader, and how much knowledge on the part of the reader I could assume.
The manuscript also skirted with The Dictionary of Obscure Usage and the Twin Towers of Tolkien Sclerosis and Not Enough Detail.
The manuscript also skirted with The Dictionary of Obscure Usage and the Twin Towers of Tolkien Sclerosis and Not Enough Detail.
The other question that came up was 'What do you want the reader to take away when you write." And my answer was that I wanted the reader to feel like I had after a violin loop performance, where the violinist started swaying as he played and had a fierce smile as he bowed. I thought about it later and I wanted the reader to have the same sort of experience I remember skydiving when I jumped out of the plane and located the sun, moon, mountain and me. I want my stories to be like good ritual.
And now, editing!
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