Beta Reading Reblog from JM McDowell

One of my favorite fellow bloggers, JM McDowell but together a fantastic series of posts on beta reading manuscripts. I’m still sinking under tech issues this week so I figured it was the perfect time to reblog her insightful post. Seriously, any writer who needs beta readers and any one who is a beta reader or planning to be one should check this out. She gives a terrific list of beta and writer do’s and dont’s.

How I Critique Other People’s Writing

Today’s post was inspired by 4amWriter’s brilliant post on The Power of A Critique.

She got me thinking about my critiquing process, which has evolved out of my self-editing techniques with a heaping of tact.

Before I critique someone’s writing, I always ask what type of critique they want. A general big picture for flow, or nitty-gritty editing of sentence structure and word choices. Then I ask if there are any specific concerns the writer has like the voice/character development/tension/pacing etc. I want to make sure we are on the same page in terms of what they are looking for in a critique partner.

When I get pages from my critique partner, I print them out.

I take my red pen and try to read through all the pages in a couple sittings.

As I read, I make notes on anything that stops me or jars me as a reader. ANYTHING. Sometimes, I’m not sure what wasn’t working but I make a note that something wasn’t adding to my reading experience. I also note what worked in the story (strong opening sentences, great character development, strong voice, great imagery, etc)

On this first read, I try to employ the principles from Margie Lawson’s Deep Editing packet. She provides an actual checklist of everything you should be evaluating as you read.

Then I put the pages aside. In the back of my head, I’m thinking about everything–pacing, character development, flow, etc. But I don’t write anything down. For a day.

Then I come back to the pages the next day and add more notes and try to better articulate my concerns and possible changes to address those issues.

I do this until I have all the pages done.

Then I wait a day.

I open up the Word document and I begin typing in my comments in track changes.

I avoid words like “should.” I try to employ weaker language like “might.”

I do my best to state my concern and then suggest a couple possible fixes. Sometimes I don’t know how to solve my concern. Then I just state the concern and mention I’m not sure how best to address it.

I also make sure I’ve highlighted what is working well.

It can take me 6 hours to type in all my comments because I am re-reading the manuscript as I type in the comments.

The next day, I come back to my comments. I pretend they are about my own manuscript. Then I re-read only the comments. And I try to find anything that could possibly hurt the writer’s feelings and re-word it.

Lastly, I try to write a couple paragraph cover letter to summarize the major points of my feedback. I always use the sandwich method–positive comments, areas of improvement, positive comments.

How do you critique other people’s writing? Do you have a benchmark? A tried and true methodology? Do you give them your initial responses?

Feedback is a Grieving Process

I’ve read that there are five stages to grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

I think these apply to the many forms of death we encounter in life. Not just the physical, but the emotional and psychological deaths.  The death of one’s hopes, one’s beliefs, one’s dreams.

But today, I want to talk about the death of one’s perceptions. Specifically as they relate to a novel.

We are all told once we finish and polish our manuscript we should put it through critique groups and get feedback on it.

But most of us are not ready yet. And even when we are ready, it’s a painful process.

We think this manuscript is perfect. We’ve improved it as much as we can, so in our eyes it is.

Then the feedback comes. People telling us what is wrong, not working, confusing, what needs to be better developed, what should be cut.

And that is when the grieving process kicks in.

It’s the death of our initial perception of our work. Our belief that the book is ready to be published.

Every time I get feedback, I go through these stages. Even when I know the book is a draft and needs work. It’s still my best draft.

Denial: This is where I decide the other person’s opinion doesn’t matter. That they are wrong. This usually lasts 3-24 hours.

Anger: This is where I look at the feedback again and feel like they are picking on me. This is usually 4-12 hours.

Bargaining: This is where I think maybe this feedback has some validity. Okay, I’ll try some of these changes, but I still think half of them are dead wrong. 10-24 hours.

Depression: This is where I realize  many of the comments are valid and I see how much work is in front of me. This can last a day to a week.

Acceptance: This is where I remind myself I want to write the best book I can. And this feedback will get me there. I start making the changes and I see how much they help. And I accept the death of my belief that the manuscript was good as I work to make it better.

How do you feel about feedback? How do you process it?

 

My Excerpt from the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest

Amazon worked tirelessly last week and this weekend and has fixed the major glitches (missing emdashes, weird characters replacing quotation marks and italics, and missing apostrophes) in the quarterfinalists excerpts from the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Contest!!!

There are still paragraphing and page break issues in the excerpt, but it is now quite readable.

My product description does not have my original paragraphing and the spacing is wrong in a spot or two, but other than that it is ready to be read.

So drumroll please….

To read my ABNA excerpt from The Six Train to Wisconsin, you click on the link and it will take you to my Amazon page. You have to download the excerpt to your Kindle. It says you click to buy it, but it’s $0.00 dollars.

Then you can read it on your Kindle. The product description on the Amazon page is my original pitch that got me through the first round of the contest. It’s the one I worked on at the Backspace Agent-Author Seminar in November and used at the WDC Pitch Slam in January.

This is the first time my writing is in a public forum. I’ve bitten my nails to nubs. Nerve-wracking and exciting. I never ever thought I would reach this point when I entered back in January. I’d really love to hear your thoughts.  If you have time, please stop over to check out my excerpt. You can rate it and leave reviews on my Amazon page too.

There are 250 talented ABNA Quarterfinalists across many genres of adult fiction. I’m competing against 249 of them.   There is a separate contest for YA fiction with another 250 amazing ABNA Quarterfinalists too.  You can read their excerpts by clicking on the link and selecting which genre you want to look at along the top of the page.

If you don’t have a Kindle or a Kindle app, you can still check out my first five pages of The Six Train to Wisconsin on my website.

Books are not Babies

1) Would you sell your child?

2) Would you hand your child over to complete strangers?

3) Would you re-vision your child?

4) Would you put your child in a drawer and decide it was never worth seeing the light of day?

I’m really hoping you said no to every one of these questions.

My point is a book is not a baby. It is not a living miniature person with a soul. It is a piece of artwork that came from your soul and mind.

It is a creative endeavor that you are attempting to make a marketable product.

It may have felt like excruciating labor pains to bring it into this world, but it is not a sentient being.

A book is not a baby. Your book is not your child.

Saying, “My Book is Not a Baby” is the first step to being able to objectively edit and revise your work. To listening to and accepting feedback. To putting your ego aside and creating the best artistic endeavor you possibly can.

(Blog Note: I have a hard deadline to finish revisions on my YA to submit to editors. I will be posting and responding to all comments, but for the next week or so, I have to curtail my blog reading and social networking. I will miss reading everyone’s blogs, but I have to have the hard copies ready to send out on March 20th.)

Guest Post by Martine Helene Svanevik on The Big Fear: Rejection

Today, I am turning my blog over to the fabulous and talented Martine Helene Svanevik, a fiction writer from Montreal.

I absolutely adore her blog about writing and training over on nascentnovelist.wordpress.com. You should definitely check it out. She tells me she can often be found wasting time on Twitter too.

Martine spends her days editing text for computer games, her evenings powerlifting and crossfitting, and her nights writing twisted stories set in a darker world than our own. She graciously agreed to come on my blog today and talk about the Big Fear writers face…

The Big Fear

I started my writing career in academia with a five year History program at the University of Oslo. Academia is all about harsh critiques. There’s no mollycoddling or pulling punches. You learn to step up and get knocked down. This form of continuous trial by fire makes you handle feedback without taking it personally. And that makes you a better researcher.

After developing a skin so thick it could be elephant hide, I embarked on my journey as a fiction writer,  sure that I’d be equally cavalier about any feedback I got on my stories. How wrong I was. You see, writing academic papers is all about doing the research, working the problem and then phrasing your arguments in a way nobody has thought of before. It’s a job with goals and measuring sticks.

Writing fiction, on the other hand, is like taking a little piece of your soul, moulding it into something you’re proud of, and then being brave enough to open your hands just enough to show that inner part of you to someone else. Having that critiqued is a whole ‘nother world of pain.

After my first writing class, I was crushed. I felt like I’d shown someone my baby and they’d told me it was ugly and that I should never show it to anyone again. I despaired. If even a group of other struggling writers could make me drown my sorrows in pitchers of Rickard’s Red, how was I supposed to send anything out to a publisher?

I went home and I polished and polished, and pushed the date to send my story out by a week, a month, three months, and so forth. The longer I waited, the more comfortable I got not showing my work to publishers. It’s not ready yet, I thought. It needs more work.

Lucky for me, I found a competition that fit my genre so well that I couldn’t let fear get in the way of participation. No entry fee, 50K prize money and a publishing deal. So I polished my manuscript one more time, sought solace with Uncle Whisky, and pressed the send button on my email.

And do you know what? It didn’t hurt a bit. It was exhilarating. As soon as the story was out of my hands, I had room in my head for new ones. Better ones. Of course, I didn’t win the big publishing deal, but I learned that receiving that sad note that says “Thank you for your contribution. Unfortunately…” was not as crushing as I thought it would be.

Did I overcome my fear of rejection? Not at all. I still hold my breath every time I send a piece of my soul out to be weighed and measured, and I still feel like someone stomps it into the ground when I get those rejections back. But I also know that if I want to get published, I need to dare take that leap. And maybe, just maybe, a publisher will measure the piece of my soul that I put in their hands, and find it compelling.

Policy Without Procedures Is Meaningless

A long time ago, a lovely gal worked at a place that shall not be named. That place had policies but no procedures.

So the firm would put in writing that it would enforce it’s dresscode, but not actually explain how it defined dresscode or give examples of what was deemed appropriate and inappropriate.

The firm would state we will not violate laws. But not explain to the employees what the laws were, how they applied to the firm, and what the employees needed to do to make sure they followed the laws.

Policy without procedures is meaningless.

The same applies to writing.

We say show don’t tell. Great policy. But if we haven’t taken the time to explain what showing is and teach the person to identify what telling is, how in the world can anyone follow that policy?

They can’t.

What’s my point here?

Thanks for asking. Three things actually.

In order to teach self-editing, you have to pass on the procedures to writers. I’ve read books on self-editing that didn’t tell me how to replicate the process in my own work. Not very useful.

In order to be a great editor, you have to have not just understand policy but understand and execute procedures.

In order to give great feedback, you have to explain why the edit makes sense (mention the policy then explain the procedure behind the edit)

SCBWI Writer’s Roundtable

The SCBWI Winter Conference gave me serious insight into the job of an agent and editor. During the writer’s roundtable, 8 writers sat at a table with an editor or an agent.

Each writer had 12 minutes to circulate their 1.5 pages of writing, have everyone read it and give feedback.

Sounds cool, right? Except I’ve never processed 1.5 pages of writing in one quick read and articulated feedback instantly. My usual critique groups allow several days to read, mull, and give feedback.

The editors and agents had no problem instantly identifying issues and raising questions about each manuscript. They articulated in a way I never could under such time constraints.

That’s an incredible skill to have.

I had the opportunity to hear feedback from an incredible editor and from an insightful agent during the two rounds of critiquing. I also got 16 opinions from my fellow writers.

That’s pretty cool feedback. I met the amazing Kat Bender who is going to swap some pages with me since we both have a passion for YA, Victorian times and fantasy. Her writing reminded me of The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry. Which you might remember as one of my favorite reads last year.

We spent two hours in our first roundtable, broke for a quick lunch and then did our second round of critiques. Again, I heard some great writing and some curiosity sparkling writing. After insta-critiquing another 8 people’s work, I was brain fritzed.

Couldn’t form sentences the rest of the night. My poor cousin thought I was drunk or heading toward a breakdown. My mind simply couldn’t do anymore.

I had to watch Friends and go to bed.

So agents and editors, I salute you. You do something that turned my brain to oatmeal. And you do it extremely well. Everyday. Thanks so much for helping this writer along on her path to publication.

What I Learned From the Two Pages Critiques at Backspace

This is G’s adorable dog, Burger, in his halloween costume–a hot dog suit.

It’s important to make sure your novel does not do this. Don’t make your readers think they are getting a hot dog, when it’s really a burger in a hot dog suit.

And now, onto what I learned from the Two Page Critiques at the Backspace Agent-Author seminar:

• You’re first two pages have to do so much to keep the reader reading
• If they begin slow, you may be telling the moment before the story actually begins–consider starting with where the story actually starts
• Be concise and tighten your writing. Don’t ramble or say the same thing two or three different ways
• Give a sense of whether the book is humorous or serious
• Make sure the title fits the book
• Make sure reader understands what is at risk (the stakes)
• Opening with dialogue is tricky because it pulls reader right into the action. It is better to take a few beats and let the reader know the protagonist and what is at stake. Then the dialogue will have meaning to the reader
• Mind your metaphors. If every sentence is a cryptic metaphor you have beautiful prose but nothing to ground the reader in the plot
• Make sure to set the scene–protagonist, location/setting, situation/stakes
• Mind your repetition. Readers don’t appreciate being walloped over and over again with the same thing said 4 different ways
• Give a clear sense of characters
• If you write genre fiction, make sure you are well read in that genre and understand the rubric of it
• Make sure your voice comes through
• Keep the backstory and tangents to a minimum. Get the reader to invest in the character and they will want to learn more. Inundate them in first two pages and there is nothing left to learn. Save your reveals for where they get the best payoff
• Pacing should move book and reader forward
• Flow draws reader in and orientates reader
• Believability is important in setting up the premise of your story and character motivations
• Don’t get bogged down in setting, especially if you love writing setting
• Make characters come to life
• Don’t write a laundry list of what the character did that day
• Character must be doing something–action or tension must be in these pages
• Don’t show and tell. It’s redundant. Generally, showing is more powerful so cut the telling
• Be careful with passive voice (is/was/has)
• Make sure the setting anchors the reader in terms of time and place
• Most important characters in book should be in first two pages, lesser characters shouldn’t occupy much space here
• Tag dialogue so reader knows who is speaking, especially if multiple speakers
• Stay in one tense (don’t switch from past to present tense within a scene)
• When framing a story, make sure the reader is properly oriented
• Paragraphing creates white space and is necessary to readers
• Stay in main character POV in scene
• Multiple POV in one scene is very hard to pull off. Unless you are a master of the craft
• Set up coming conflict
• Orientate us to characters age and looks
• Set up type of story. Is it a mystery or a romance or a paranormal? Put some sort of clue in beginning
• Agents sometimes want to re-write premise/concept. It’s important to listen to what they want to change because that is what isn’t working for them. It’s up to you to decide if their changes are necessary or if you can find a way to work out their concern within the story you wrote.

Mentoring Question

Recently, a teacher from an online course offered to help me revise my draft of my second novel.

I asked what that entailed and he told me it would be me sending him 10,000 word packets of my novel for him to review and give feedback on. We exchanged a few emails on the topic, determining the date we would start this mentoring relationship.

I was super excited to have someone take an interest in my work.

Then I sent the first packet and received an email saying that there had been some confusion and we had not discussed the “mentoring fee.”

I was perplexed. I’ve never heard of a mentoring relationship conducted for monetary gain.

Mentoring, as far as I understand it, is usually a symbiotic relationship where the mentor passes on knowledge and gives guidance to the mentee and the mentee usually provides support to the mentor in his career endeavors. But there is no exchange of money.

In these rough economic times, I can  understand someone charging a critique fee, but not a mentoring fee. I think this should all be done upfront. From the first interaction, it should be clear it isn’t a mentor relationship but a paid critique services interaction.

I opted to not pay the fee, which would have amounted to over $1000 for my novel.

He did apologize for not mentioning the fee earlier. I truly hope it was an oversight.

But it left me wondering if this happened to other people or if I did not properly understand what mentoring entailed.

From now on when a writer offers to look at my novel, should I ask how much? I wanted to pose the question to all of you because this was such an outlier in my experiences with the writing community.

Has anyone else had someone try to charge a fee for mentoring?