Doing some heavy rewriting. I thought I'd already done that and even did some final polishing, but beta reader input (bless their hearts) made me realize it needed a LOT more. I ended up cutting most of chapters 5 and 6. While I disagree with some of what the BRs said, I think they're right that it drags in places, and that I tend to over-explain and over-describe. That old info-dump demon keeps rearing its ugly head. I'm trying to tell the story from the point of view of the characters and not some invisible narrator. This is SO much harder when you're writing science fiction. I need to learn how to fit exposition of my world into what's happening instead of standing back and explaining a setting or event.

My critique partner says yeah, writing from a limited narrator's perspective can be tricky sometimes. It comes down to what the characters know about their given time and place.

He tends to stick with one character's POV throughout instead of jumping around to different ones, so a lot of the time, he says, his protagonist is in the dark and the info comes to her in some way, which gives him an excuse to babble about some important world facts.

So I'm working on rewriting this tiresome narrator voice I've got and recasting the scene from the more immediate viewpoint of my main character (MC). I also have a few scenes from secondary character POVs. I feel this helps provide interest and variety. Although I'm not using super-tight third person limited, I'm trying to be very careful about shifting out of the head of the person I'm on, so I was surprised that one of my BRs thought I was writing in third omni and shifting POVs. Maybe he meant all those terrible narrator interjections, which I am in the process of fixing now.

With any critical input on your book, however, you have to measure everything against your own convictions. Readers tend to disagree and contradict each other, so you can't follow every bit of advice. At some point, you have to go with what you feel deep inside is right.

Happy writing!