When a book ends up not being well-received, I often run across sentiments like, “where was the editor?” and, “what were the beta readers doing?” in reader reviews. (Truth be told, I’ve been guilty of expressing similar myself.)

Thing is, while editors and beta readers do invaluable work, it’s the author’s name that goes on the book. It’s their story, which means they are the one who ultimately decides what that story is.

Not the editors. Not the beta readers. The author.

“What is the story?” is the most important—and most difficult—question you have to answer as an author. Sometimes, even when you’ve figured it out, you still can’t articulate the answer.

A good editor recognizes what the story is without needing to be told, even when the story is still in its primordial form. (Great editors often recognize it before the author has figured out what they’re trying to do.)

But when you can’t afford to hire a good editor…

If you’re one of those rare geniuses (which I’m not), you’ll come up with the answer yourself.

For the rest of us, we rely on beta readers. Their role is to give honest reactions on the manuscript. I have wonderful beta readers and 9 times out of 10, when they tell me something is off, something is off.

But every now and then, I’ll get a piece of feedback from someone whose opinion I value very much, and my reaction to it will be, “Nooooooope!”

This chapter of Petition is case in point. The feedback I got was, “This whole chapter seems unnecessary.”

Cue instant despair, then acknowledgement of why:

• it’s slow;
• it’s got that same “waiting” quality to it as Chapter 23;
• it’s weird to get so many details of the Lowdocks—a location that’s so important that it’s basically the source of the protagonist’s motivations and thus drives the plot—this late in the book;
• arguably all those details are unnecessary because you already have a vivid image of what the Lowdocks are like;
• the conflict with the Breakers is introduced and then immediately resolved (and the resolution is basically implied and happens off-page as we cut to the next scene);
• and the conflict is used as a vehicle for revealing the only plot-important detail (which House Rahelu picked).

That feedback is correct on all counts.

Yet I didn’t toss this chapter into the prose graveyard. In fact, I kept it pretty much as I had originally drafted it, albeit with one small expansion in Lhorne and Rahelu’s conversation in the first scene for Dharyas.

Why? Why leave a chapter that trusted beta readers—more than one—told me that they thought was completely unnecessary?

I suppose if I were going to analyze this book with respect to various plot frameworks (*Note 1), I might point to this being the “Return” in the Hero’s Journey, since Rahelu is, quite literally, returning to the Lowdocks, her quest to become a Supplicant to the Houses complete, and wealth to share with her family.

Or, if we’re going by the Save the Cat beat sheet, I might say that this is the final image—except under that structure, the final image really is supposed to be the very final image before curtains down and blackout, and we’ve still got a whole ’nother chapter and an epilogue to go.

Truth is, I—being an incurable discovery writer—didn’t set out to write it that way: this was originally written to be the end of Act I and then became the end of the book during a structural reshuffle when I couldn’t figure out how to write Act II.

Also: Petition is book 1 of a series.

No matter what happens next, Rahelu is never, ever, going back to the Lowdocks. That’s not who she is anymore.

This chapter is here because it’s a goodbye.

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*Note 1:

Honestly, I think most of those storytelling frameworks start to fall down once you remember somebody came up with them after the fact, i.e. they analyzed a bunch of stories that they thought were good and noticed patterns across them, then sold them as formulae on how to write good. Maybe some authors on the extreme end of the discovery-writing/outliner spectrum can, hand-to-heart, say that they plot their books according to these frameworks and never deviate, but for me, it never works out that neatly. (back to text)