#makingmybookbetter

I”m re-re-re-re (add a hundred or so re’s here) writing my novel Elder Youth: a guardians of Isedale novel, trying to make it good so I can self publish it and let people start buying it but when doing that, my reader friends brought up a few issues with the changes and I need other people’s opinions!! Some of these may end up being a little long winded, so please just bare with me.

1: What are your thoughts on switching perspective every now and then not for long chapters but for a page and a half long chapters at the very most?

This next question needs an explanation so bare with me...

2: I”m trying to make it obvious to anyone reading this book that the first world seen is completely different from the one the main character is taken to. The version before this one started out with the main character meeting the love interest right before she’s told to marry him by the Council which rules over her town, has to break up with her boyfriend, and then goes on a first date with him (on the first date, the love interest tells her, “Ever since I came back, the women have been acting like idiots, thinking they have the right to do whatever they want.” The society I made wouldn’t allow the women to act like that, so I changed it to make it feel colder. The main character texts her boyfriend when she gets the summons and he breaks up with her over text. She has to push her feelings down as she goes to the meeting to find out who she’s going to marry or if she’s just going to be turned into a breeder. She meets the love interest before being told she has to marry him and then has her friends come over to help her feel better about everything that’s happened in less than a day before she goes on a date with the love interest at all. My question is, should I make the world colder or leave it alone? (I’d like opinions on which one sounds better at the moment). 

3: My friends are trying to tell me to describe the characters more in the second version because it isn’t as detailed as the first one. I’ve always been taught to only give the details that affect the plot in some way, otherwise let the reader fill the rest in on their own. Do you guys think I should add more detail or let the reader fill in the rest?

4: I actually feel really proud of this new version I did, which is why I don’t understand how my friends can hate it so much. Should I stick to my guts as a writer or should I listen to them and change it back to the version I feel is absolutely horrible?