On the writer’s journey, even early on in the journey, a writer can look back with greater clarity and wisdom.

You didn’t know what you didn’t know.

The second plot thread of Salvage has always been a little problematic.

My dreams (yes, I literally dream up stories) had given me a very specific visual image for the opening of the second plot thread.

I wrote a scene depicting the ship plunging through the darkness with the stars around, introducing the reader to the ship.

However, in an online critique, a couple of people said they didn’t like the omniscient pov in that scene.

So I switched the POV to third person limited for a member of the crew. And there started my problems. I wanted to convey how dangerous space travel was, but my crewman’s personality and dilemmas kept intruding. I wanted to describe the ship so it was the focus, not a person.

I did eventually give Emmett, the crew member, more of a storyline, which is fine, but looking back at the scenes I’ve drafted, there’s no big sense of the danger.

In hindsight, I gave those reviewers too much creed. Don’t get me wrong — I’m so thankful for the critiques. They helped me in many ways. Yet, I was too green to realize what advice was reader preference versus current market desires versus story issues.

The journey has served to make that scene, and that secondary plot line, that much stronger. I’ve gone back to an omniscient POV that zooms in on Emmett like a camera focusing. I think it’s going to work much better, as long as I can balance the exposition with action, and keep a sense of conflict in most scenes.

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