Got my line edit back from Susanne Dunlap today. She started out with some encouraging words – then she hit me with the things I need to fix. Pacing was a big one.

The first scene with Vasili in the cabin was too long. She said I could cut the chapter almost in half and still have plenty of material to create the tension, raise all the questions, and give the reader a sense of all the characters involved. The bigger problem was in the sections with the baron and Dante, where I dive into the history of the painting and the techniques of art forgery. Susanne said to think of it like a movie, “You’re caught up in the action, really engaged, and then suddenly, you get a history lecture that’s so long it derails the pace of the film.” 

This echoed some feedback from my beta readers on Chasing Money, but it was still hard for me to hear – I really loved all the details I’d worked out about the painting, the baron, and the forgery. I pushed back on Susanne, but she told me I have to “kill my darlings.”  I’ve got some work to do before I can show this to an agent.

Michael