My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

THE GREAT RESIGNATION, a first-person 66,000 word upmarket novel with a passionate adult love story, mixes the humor and vulnerability of Something To Live For by Richard Roper with the voicey style and narrative twists of a Jonathan Tropper novel. I always tell people to start with their hook - everyone has a title, a word count, and comp titles. Start with something no one else has - the hook for your book. Could just be me, but that's where I land.

Presaging today’s headlines, it’s 2009, If it's set in 2009, it can't really presage today's headlines, b/c we already have that knowledge. I realize that's a loose interpretation of the word, but it was my immediate thought upon reading it and Will and Clara quit their respective positions as lawyer and local newscaster to pursue risky dreams. Like what? We need to know what they are in order to believe that they are risky, or understand why this presages anything Spurring each other on, they become deeply involved. With what? Each other? These risky dreams? How do they spur each other on? Will persists down the low-status path of working as a children’s clown and musician, informed by his guilt over acquitting a client who went on to murder her child — an impossible debt to discharge. It's an interesting idea, however, why does he feel like this appraoch cleanses him? Will’s mother, brother, and colleague urge him to bear up and get back to work. His original career? Only Clara stands behind his career change — until she does an abrupt 360 and begs him to try her father’s battery case. What is Clara's arc? What was her risky dream? You already stated earlier that they spur each other on, so we don't need the restatement When Will refuses, Clara leaves him, claiming he is limited in his capacity to give, an assessment Will grudgingly accepts. Even so, he and Clara seem on the verge of reconciliation when she learns of his rebound one-night-stand with Alessia, the daughter of Clara’s ruthless new boss.New boss in what sector? Clara is totally lost in this narrative, even though it began seeming as if it was about both of them Now, without Clara’s support, Will must persevere in his new calling — strictly for himself. But wasn't he doing it for himself to begin with? There was no statemetn that made it seem like Clara is benefiting from his new career When a botched surgery takes Alessia’s life, Will offers his legal services to Clara’s boss to save her grandson from an abusive father. So he'll return to the career he hates for the son of his one night stnd, but not for his girlfriend's father? Why? As Will seeks to win the case, and Clara, he continues to explore whether he must change himself to fit the world. We need to know more about the motivation - why would he quit in the first place? How does he think the new career is going to save his soul, and what's the motivation for returning to it? What has changed that he would even consider it? This also needs to be reframed so that it doesn't open sounding as if it's going to be equally about Will and Clara - it's not.

This story is loosely based on my own journey from lawyer-to-clown-to-kids-musician as featured in my NY Times essay http://ow.ly/fuI030iK7TC which provoked 465 reader comments. From this experience, I learned to use my work not to gain prestige but as a means to craft a joyful life.