My Adventures in Editing a Paranormal Romance Novel: What I've Learned from Critiques/Reviews

I've been trying to be more attentive to this blog, since I seem to get so caught up in life that I often neglect it.  I'm happy to say that I've written two book reviews in the past month, and although I've always known that reading makes one a better writer, I'm also finding that critiquing makes me more critical of my own work in a beneficial way.

I just now posted a review of Brandon Sanderson's first Mistborn novel, and one of my biggest issues with the story was how much the author told instead of showed.  Because I discovered this paradigm in another, it's causing me to turn a more critical eye to The Serpent's Tale and wonder if there are more instances of this phenomenon that I can cut out in my next edit.  Am I making sure I'm showing what the characters are like through dialogue and action rather than just telling what they're like?  I know for a fact that Maya often remarks both internally and aloud on Uriel's strength, but in the wake of seeing this in Mistborn, I want to ensure that I'm not falling into the show vs. tell trap.

I think an even more important observation is the harsh review I gave of the first Mortal Instruments.  I was disappointed in that book for a variety of reasons.  One, I really, REALLY want to find a novel based on fanfiction that is favorably received by a sizable portion of the population, but I have yet to see this occur.  This..is a bit discouraging since my novel is based on a fanfiction I wrote back in the year 2000, and it would be nice to see some validation of such a paradigm while I'm still in the editing stages.  Unfortunately, nearly every novel I've seen that can claim such (50 Shades of Gray, Mortal Instruments) has such glaring issues that I can't call such a claim anything positive.  Of course it's possible that there are novels out there that don't promote this as their claim to fame, but this presents the problem of assumption.  There are many stories I can see parallels in, but I never want to assume that perhaps it's based on something I've read, viewed, or played, because, well I find random and weird connections in everything.  I could begin a conversation course that would end in Death of the Author versus Word of God, but you should already how I'd arrive at that crossroad.  Of course perhaps the novels not making their fanfic base a claim to fame is a good thing and maybe the authors are assuming or targeting their works towards an audience that is clever enough to figure this out themselves without needing it advertised.

Besides the above, Mortal Instruments presented a critique that I desperately want to avoid in my paranormal romance novel.  I absolutely hated the character of Jace, the bad boy (initial) love interest.  He was a complete jackass and douche whom I had no attraction to at all.  I was discussing this with a friend and we decided that you want a character to be a "bad boy," but not a "bad guy."  Essentially, you want to pull off the bad boy status without making the character just an asshole.  They need to show redeeming qualities even before the big reveal as to why the character is a bad boy after all (because you know there HAS to be a reason) aka the character should have a show multiple layers that keeps the reading interested and wondering why they're putting on this veneer of douchebaggery.  But you don't want your reader to hate the character even if the main female lead does or isn't sure.  It's a definite balancing act.  Even worse than Jace is of course anything pertaining to Twilight (cries tiny tears) and I want NO association with that at all.  It's bad enough just mentioning the term "paranormal romance" usually garners it as a response because apparently it's become the paragon of what paranormal romance is.

Fellow writers and intelligent thinkers this HAS to be changed, but this shows that even faulty writing has merit.  It stands as an example of what not to do and how to improve your own works.  It's also encouraging to realize that a novel doesn't have to be perfect to be published as long as the right representation is discovered and convinced.