I've received some excellent feedback on the first two chapters of my novel-in-progress, The Do Over. Actually, I've received critique on every scene written so far (which means pretty much the entire book), but now I'm getting critique on those scenes that have been strung together to make the first couple chapters.

Alas, with critique comes the decision of what changes to make. Since the purpose of critique it to find out what readers think about what they've read, my job is to determine if they're thinking what I'd hoped they'd think, and how/whether I should change what I've written in order to better achieve my desired effect.

Anyway, I'm currently faced with a few interesting decisions. 1) Should I change the opening of the novel. 2) Should I move up the time that the first "act" of the story takes place, so that it is closer to the events (temporally) in Act II. 3) Should I change my main character's name?

1) There is a growing consensus that I need to provide more information about Brian's first life at the opening of the story, rather than doling it out over time. One way to do this quickly would be to have an opening scene (probably a prologue) that takes place in Brian's adult life just before he wakes up in his childhood. This is one possible solution to the problem. I decided to create a poll to see what y'all think. Naturally, I'm not writing the book according to the poll results... I simply think it's interesting to see what kind of thoughts y'all have on the subject.

2) I'm still hoping to avoid restructuring the chronology of events in Act I and Act II. Changing the opening setting and time of the novel was a lot of work... and that involved shifting events by one week. To shift the events of the first act by two years would be heartbreaking.

But, more to the point, I'd do it if it made the story more solid, but I don't think it will improve the story. There are good reasons to have Brian involved in events in the eighth grade which become relevant when he is involved later in events in high school. To force the events to happen in a shorter time frame would be dishonest.

3) I was unaware that there is an MSNBC broadcaster named Brian Williams, and he is the heir apparent for Dan Rather. I may have to change my character's name just to avert confusion. After all, it would be silly to have the major character of my novel to be named "Dan Rather." Too much baggage associated with the name. I'm thinking of renaming him... Paul Reubens? No. Bill Banner? No. Uh... Grucious McLavender? No.

Actually, I'm thinking that I'll just change his last name to Reynolds. A nice, generic name. Oh, wait. Frank Reynolds was an ABC News anchor. Rats.

Anyway, here I am on Chapter 5, and already I need to reconsider Chapters one and two. Bleh.

:-(