Your opinion, please!

[minervaK]

I'm looking for feedback from both writers and readers on an issue with my current novellular work in progress. If you would be so kind as to take the poll on my blog, I would be eternally grateful:

http://minervakoenig.com/2010/01/25/the-horns-of-a-dilemma/

Thanks -- MK

[Eric Christopherson]

The truth IMO Minerva is the magic is usually in the execution, not the concept or premise. Now and then you'll come across a killer premise, e.g., Jurassic Park's dinosaurs brought back to life, or John Grisham's The Firm, in which a lawyer discovers he's working for the mob, but more often than not it's the execution that matters. There are all kinds of classics in the PI genre, for example, but the premise is usually someone got killed. (There's no killer premise to anything Raymond Chandler wrote, only killer prose and characterization and dialog and POV.) I didn't vote in your poll because my opinion is that both of your premises have potential, equal potential IMO.

In choosing I wouldn't go with the story you're better prepared to write--as you can always do the needed research--but with the story you're really stoked to write.

[John McFetridge]

It can be very interesting (and fun) to push yourself, to try new things and to go to different places with your writing than you would in your everday life.

Having said that, if you're going to go with the gang widow, you might watch to check out books by Vicki Stringer and Triple Crown Publishing.

There's also nothing wrong with going with what you know better.

[Dana King]

Unless someone (agent, editor) has expressed an interest in one or the other, I' write the one you think will be the most enjoyable for you. The market is tough to predict. As john and Eric have noted, execution is key, and you may well be able to execute something with which you are more familiar. You're also likely to spend a year or more on this project with no promise of recompense, so you don;t want it to be a tedious slog, either.

Good luck.

(For what it's worth, I would be far more likely to read the gang widow story. I think stories that show dire consequences on a more personal level are more engrossing than 24-ish tales of global intrigue and destruction. But that's just me. Sales figures seem to indicate I am in the minority.)

[minervaK]

Thanks, y'all -- I guess most of you have listened to me gnashing my teeth over this thing long enough to be able to tell which scenario is the one I feel I 'know more' about (and here's me thinking I'm soooo inscrutable). I'll just come right out and admit that I'm more stoked about the book I'm actually writing (the gang widow version) than the one I keep thinking 'the rules' tell me I should write (I'm an architect by profession and know a hell of a lot more about buildings than I do about gangs or witness protection). I agree with Eric that the truth is in the telling -- I guess I'm having doubts about my ability to make the reader buy my protag when I know so little about the world she comes from.

Anyway, some good has come out of the work I've been doing (I spent the last couple of days writing a summary of the building contractor version) -- I solved a few of the plot snarls I'd gotten myself into, that I think will transfer over.

I really appreciate everyone's feedback.

MK