Over the last couple weeks, my small critique group has taken a look at the first chapters of my novel-in-the-works that has gone by various titles: The Letter from William Waiklin, Felled, William Waiklin, The Beating Heart Tree. What stands out about their reviews is that a] I suffered from having taken time away from solid, careful writing every day and b] that the parts that I needed to work did, in fact, work.
The first chapter is told from the perspective of a biind, aging Ojibwe man who has all but completely been Westernized since living his early years in "the old ways." He and William Waiklin have a tense conversation under false pretenses. Eventually the important truth about why William is there is revealed. This sets up the frame into which other stories, which constitute the bulk of the story, are told.
I mistakenly called this chapter a prologue, but as I should have known, a prologue is never 20 pages long. There is a place for a prologue, but I'll need to reorder the content of the chapter some to make it work the way I want it to. The important part is, again, that the parts of the chapter worked, so reordering is possible. I would have found proceeding in the direction I had intended had my groupf deemed the parts themselves unworkable.
I decided to leave the reordering work for later when I can revisit that section with a fresh eye.
The second looks at a young love triangle in the pre-Western-trade years in an Ojibwe village. Through back and forth flashback from one of the three characters' POV, we see the parallel between the tension building between him and a competing male and his actions on a very violent day, actions which lead to his very peculiar downfall.
The critiques were consistent. I had clumsy POV issues. I hadn't set up the backstory well. I hadn't tied the second section to the first in any way. To compound the issue, i had mistakenly sent two or three pages that I had not even attempted to perfect. Notes, basically. Members of my group were left, understandably befuddled at the beginning and at the end.
The silver lining was that, if one disregarded the beginning and end, the flashbacks themselves did seem to work. These flashbacks, again, being told from a 16th (maybe) century Indian's POV could have gone terribly wrong; however, his voice worked, all members agreed. This was key. The Indian voice in this and the first section needed to work of it was back to research.
Overall, I'm excited about the direction I'm taking. I realize the structure of the finished piece will be a difficult puzzle and possibly a hard-sell, but at my age, I'm pretty sure I'm headed in the right direction even if the course ahead is foggy.
I've already made enough changes to the first part -- notes, really -- to address the large stroke problems my group pointed out. Next, I'm working on the "evil deed" part of the second section, the killing, the mortal judgment, the supernatural penance.
But I've already said too much.
Photo: Frank Montano (Anakwad), Ojibwe musician
