Revising My Story

I have to say that revising my story was quite a challenge.  Some of the impressions that everyone got were not things that I ever expected.  With that being said,  I am so glad that I was able to have that input.  A lot of the things that people thought were not at all what I intended when I was writing. 

The main thing I had to take in to account while revising my story was the fact that most people thought that Haylee is the protagonist.  I intended for Emma to be the protagonist.  I need readers to understand this from the beginning.  I had to figure out a way to make this clear from the beginning. 

Another thing that was not completely surprising was the fact that most people thought the two girls from the prologue were Emma and Haylee.  I understand how they could get this impression.  However, I want to make it clearer that they are not the children being abused.  The suggestions made to add the year to the beginning of the chapters is a good suggestion.  However, it is not something I wanted to do because it gives too much away too quickly.  I had to rework the prologue to make that situation a little clearer. 

The main thing that I never even thought about was the situation involving the accident.  Now, that people have pointed out to me seems so stupid that I never saw it before.  Why didn’t the cops question Haylee’s sobriety?  I still need to completely rework this scene to fit that in.  For many reasons I think this will add to the story.  One, it will raise the tension of the situation.  It will also help with the later moments in the story when the accident is brought up again.  I see now that I have a lot of research to do  on police procedures involving these types of situations. 

Overall, the feedback that was given was very helpful.  I was really thankful to get fresh perspectives on the story.  I think that through all the feedback that was given will really help with the completed product.   I cannot wait until I have some serious free time to really take these comments and add these suggestions to my piece.