Re-Reading My Third Novel Objectively

I published The Apple (now titled, What We Conceal) in 2021. It was my third novel and one I felt much more confident writing. I really believe that an author should consider her first book a "practice book", unless she's some kind of savant. Get all the mistakes out of the way with that one, so you can move on to better writing. In my case, my first two were practice novels, because while I avoided some of the mistakes I'd made in the first book, I made a bunch of new mistakes in the second. I guess I'm just a slow learner.

Now that I'm on a quest to publish paperback versions of my novels, I felt it prudent to re-read The Apple and fix its problems. (It's always going to be "The Apple" to me, because I spent so much time querying it that the name rolls off my tongue.)

I vaguely remembered parts of the story, but since it was written so long ago, I'd forgotten a ton. I also vaguely remembered that parts of it made me cringe. I was also fairly certain that the story contained so much fluff, it basically fell apart. The premise was decent--a dysfunctional family with a low-grade criminal father, and each person in the family reacted to their upbringing in different ways. The protagonist is a well-respected RN by day and a cyber criminal by night. 

It takes a really long time to read through a novel. In one day of reading, I barely scratched the surface. (I did get to the murder part, though. Oh, did I mention there's a murder?) 

My initial impressions:

1. I'm not sure the story would hold a reader's attention. While I liked all the detail, and all the detail had a point, do readers just want to get to the BIG SCENE? 

2. Speaking of the murder, I think my foreshadowing easily reveals who the killer is. This is apparently something I'm terrible at. Most of my books don't involve any type of mystery, but with, for example, Inn Dreams, at least one of the reviewers stated proudly, "I knew who the stalker was right away." My rationalization is, the perpetrator in these stories isn't the point. I'm not writing thrillers or even cozy mysteries. Still, a surprise would be nice.

3. I'd begun the story with dialogue, and I pretty much hate that device. Not only is it confusing to the reader, who is coming into the story blind, it's lazy. 

4. I apparently went wild with adjectives. I don't know who that writer was, but it wasn't me. I don't write like that. This sparks of "trying too hard". I'd be tempted to label the story literary fiction, except a lot of the adjectives don't even make sense. They're definitely head-scratching, though. (Do you ever re-read your work and wonder who wrote it? Reading this novel is confounding.) I guess I was still searching for my voice.

So, that's all "the bad".

There is good to be found, however. I wrote fully rounded characters. And there were a few of them I needed to "round". I know what kind of person the dad is, and the mom, and definitely the little sister. The only one who is barely fleshed out is the brother, but I don't know that it was important to do so for the story. His vague personality didn't take me out of the narrative, and I did make clear his hatred for his father.

So far, I'm interested in where the story goes. As I said, I've forgotten a lot of it; I "kind of" remember the gist, but how I got to the gist is an interesting discovery. 

I've been editing as I go, and embarrassingly, I did find some typos. All the more reason to republish. I changed the opening and moved the dialogue to where it would make more sense. 

I'm well aware that I haven't gotten to the cringey parts yet. In trying to hit a word count, I know I added scenes that were superfluous. Maybe they're not as bad as I think; maybe they are. Since I no longer care about word count, I can slash at will.

Will this novel even be worth turning into a paperback simply to have on my shelf? Well, I did put a lot of work into it, and that should count for something. Why not have a record of my hard work? The Apple/What We Conceal barely sold (4 copies; zero reviews). I'm not upset--none of my books sell. 

One could say this is a character novel. The actual events aren't overall that interesting, to be honest. If nothing else, it was very good practice.

I still don't get the weird adjectives, though.