TOO MUCH INTROSPECTION?

When I was preparing to publish Already There, I had several people read it for feedback and encouragement. Of course, my mother said she loved it! But I did submit it blindly to two published authors who I thought would be honest in their assessments. I did this through a writing group I belong to and I did not know who the reviewers were and they did not know who I was. In their critiques, one of them said she thought I spent too much time on Julia's introspection. I took that to heart and went back and read the "Julia" chapters, looking for how I might tighten that up a bit. But after talking it through with my husband (bless his heart for listening to my obsessions about the book:), I determined that most of Julia's obsessive thinking or "introspection," if you want to call it that, was a major theme in the book. If I had lost a child in that way, I can't imagine the amount of obsessing I would do. The other author, by the way, was more positive and understanding about Julia's level of introspection. It made me wonder, then, if the author who was more critical had children. If not, I could understand her frustration with Julia going round and round in her head about the murder and the acquittal and the plan for revenge. Ultimately, I went with my gut and let Julia obsess because I wanted her to be real.