The World Building Off Ramp

While I was busy cultivating the ideas behind my next novel - Ghost Fishing - I received feedback on a partial and full manuscript of Urban Mythos. Additionally, during the awesome WDC YA Forum's Review Frenzy last week, I received additional critiques from three fellow writers. What came out of all this commentary is that I need to really get the reader more tuned in to the world in which Zydeco lives as well as the world from where he traveled. And I need to do it sooner in the novel.

In short, I need to slam on the brakes, and take the world building off ramp.

I owe a huge debt of thanks most especially to two amazing women on the other/under side of the globe -- Louisa and Kate -- who gave me unbelievably detailed feedback. Thanks, ladies. Australia Rocks!

Based on the collective feedback of agents and writers alike, I've settled on the following plan of attack:

• Elaborate more on Parable, the land from which Zydeco and his Mythos mates came. I'm not going to go too deep or too far here, but I'll provide more detail early on about the place and why certain creatures were banished.
• Show how it is that these recovering mythological creatures, a.k.a. Mythos, in my fictional city just get by without we regular humans realizing they are there. I'll illustrate more of the social ecosystem in which they live on earth.
• Although Zydeco has been a human teenager for a couple of years, he needs to occasionally act and think like a Griffin might. Kate and Louisa gave me some brilliant ideas here. 
• Clean up Phineas Malice's motives. This may be the easiest bit.

I've got some notes on other changes I might make, but the above items are the biggies. That said, I've got a bit more to do on Ghost Fishing before I jump back to my Mythos children. I'm trying to wrap up the opening that sets the plot in motion, but should wrap that up quickly.

I'll be hopping off the middle grade highway and pulling on to the YA service road any day now.