1 Editor

I would like to thank Meredith Efken for her amazing job editing my novel. I learned a lot from this experience.

Here's a list of criticism I got back specific to my book:

Get the narrator out of the way; the POV is too authorial, slips into omniscient
Sometimes switches POV btwn characters
Don't introduce the characters by their full name
Don't tell motivation. Internalize in narration, action, and dialogue.
Allude to back story until it's crucial, and then tell it
Watch filters
Emotion=visceral response of emotions
No direct thoughts in italics
Descriptions of other characters are filtered through MC's opinion of them
Don't give away motives until the reader asks what the motives are
Feed setting description into the scene
Don't need every detail of the person
Fix scene structure
In action scenes, give each action its own space
Short, verb-focused sentences for action scenes
Watch redundant speech tags
Avoid Now and Then qualifiers
Is Elroy's plot point necessary?
Characters not propelled by own motivation--forced
Too many coincidences
Johns's motivation?
Go back to the love conquers all ending
Janek, Seth, and Essie are unbelievable characters
Don't give away the plot
Ending a scene with question or disaster: be specific
Relationship btwn Leonard and Matthew progressed too quickly
Story structure needs fixing
Mythic structure?
Characters didn't play a role in grand scheme of things
Emotions are not authentic
Promisus shouldn't be explained only by other characters

A couple things she liked:

The quiet humor of Heaven
Metafiction
Tree souls
The beginning