A critter crisis...

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Ok, well, it's not that bad. I'm pretty decent at self-editing and only getting better workshop by workshop. But we all hit that point where our manuscripts need fresh sets of eyes and minds.

A critique group is a great thing. It’s a fantastic way to get outside eyes on your manuscript and help you polish your work. You can find areas of weakness and mistakes you might not have seen on your own. You learn how to better critique others’ work. You have a ready-made support group to identify with the trials you go through as a writer.

Despite the benefits, I’ve decided to opt out. If I’d found a good for me group, I might feel different. I’ve tried several, giving each plenty of time and taking my feedback with a grain of salt. Still I choose to opt out. I didn’t get bad feedback (mostly—someone did tell me not to use fragments in dialogue and another said no contractions in writing ever). No one offended me. The fact is when I submitted, I received a virtually clean copy back. I got a few suggestions, some of it positive feedback. While that’s great for my ego, it does nothing to polish my writing.

I ran into two basic problems. First, I was at a different writing level than most members. Second, the other writers didn’t write or read my genre. So what now? The image of the solitary writer makes me laugh. IMHO, it takes a village to produce a great book.

I tried out Writer’s Digest Community, but ran into problematic feedback from writers outside of the romance genre. Plus not enough writers use the site so the crits are few. I registered for Critique Circle but haven’t used it yet. Anyone tried it? If so, how was it? Pros? Cons? I dabbled with Book Country, but I have to admit it made me nervous. You don’t have to be a registered user to view large portions of an author’s posted work. Would a publisher have a problem with so much of your unedited manuscript openly displayed to the public? And if you had some pretty original concepts, aren’t you then wide-open to giving them to other writers?

I have a few beta readers who aren’t writers but read romance, and aren't afraid to tell me when something's jacked up. For my first manuscript, I had one fantastic critter, Sondrae Bennett, who was amazing at helping me shape up my writing skills. If I had two or three critters as skilled, I’d be set.

Where have you found your outside eyes? Tried any critique sites? Have a critique group story, good, bad or ugly? How do you feel about publishers building their own critique sites, like Book Country? Who else is game to try it out?

Minus the Bitchassedness...

I’ve traveled an incredibly long learning curve over the past few months, and what’s helped me the most along the way has been—hands down—the bloggers I follow.  It doesn’t matter to me if they’re unpublished or have no agent yet or already have books out or deals made.  Even teachers can still be students and vice versa.

This business of getting published is pretty darn tough so to me being unpublished alone says nothing about the writing, although I love to see writers I follow get their agent or their book deal.  What counts to me most though is the step up you offer freely to your fellow writers with no signs of backstabby bitchassedness to be found (in public anyway, lol).  I’ve improved my writing incredibly because of what you guys give.

What I’ve personally improved on the most:

 Deeper POV.  I now remove the fat from my sentences to make the action more immediate.  For example:

Okay: She saw him walk through the door.

Better: He walked through the door.

Fewer tags.  I’ve combed through my WIPs to remove all dialogue tags that weren’t necessary.  If it was obvious who was talking, I removed it.  If I thought I needed a tag to identify the speaker, I looked for other ways to ID who it was without using a tag.  I also simplified as much as possible the tags I did need to keep in.  I wanted nothing to distract from the story.

Raise the stakes.  I figured out the plot was too shallow in my first WIP, so I’ve raised the stakes and built a better character arc for my MCs.  If the plot’s too simple, too easy, it leaves to much space for more fat (aka, scenes that don’t advance the plot) in the book.  PS—this takes a lot of work, whew!

 Be careful with the adjectives/adverbs. They certainly aren’t off-limits, but they do need to be used sparingly.  I railed against this at first, but then I figured it out.  If you use a lot, it could be an indication that you’re telling rather than showing, and showing is another way to make action/description more immediate.  For example:

Okay: He walked angrily through the door.

Better: He stormed in, slamming the door on his way.

Don’t navel-gaze.  This can apply to the writing, but I don’t usually have too big a problem with that.  I did learn not to navel-gaze too much when it comes to blogging.  I’m not just blogging for myself.  I like blogging as a way to interact with other writers.  So I try not to be all about my book, my book, my book.

I have to praise the uber-phenomenal Elana J., who was the first blogger I ever followed, before I ever moved to Blogspot to begin with.  She inspired me to completely change my blog, and through her, I found Bethany Wiggins, Suzette Saxton, and LiLa.  These people got me right on the good track with where I should head with my blog.  I’m still really working on it, but I’m getting there.

I haven’t even begun to talk about what I’ve learned about agents, querying, publishing, synopses, pitching, etc., but I’m out of space for now.  What's been most valuable to you?  Does a blogger's advice carry more weight if they're published or agented or does it depend on what the advice is?  How do you feel about offering writerly advice yourself?

Got to Get the Ball Rolling

And this is where I run into problems. Perhaps it’s because I write garbage (though my garbage isn’t too bad either) until I warm up, but I have the worst time with the beginning, just the first few pages. This is, of course, the WORST time to have a worst time. The first pages are where the hook must be. If it’s just not there, the reader will put the book down and not buy it. Likewise, the agent won’t request your full.

Here’s the prob: I have three versions (at least) of my first chapter. I keep changing it based on reader feedback. Well, now I’m getting feedback contradicting previous feedback (i.e., descriptions, history, exposition, name changes, etc). Yes, I’m tearing my hair out! My first page was posted on Dear Author on Saturday, and the critique was a little brutal, but honest. Much of the feedback there wanted me to put back stuff I’d already edited out on previous versions. Grrrrr! *frustration level rising*

My plan now? I’ll probably edit again, but this time I’ll just do what I want. I think I’ll just take the feedback I’m comfortable with. So how do you deal with conflicting advice? Do you get a lot of it to begin with? Where do you have the toughest time in your story? Any suggestions for first pages???

PS—I apologize in advance if I can’t get around to your blogs this week. I’ll try as best I can, but I’m out to sea and our bandwidth is teensy weensy on the satellite. It’s about a third the speed of dial-up, if that, and I usually can’t get the pages to load.

Found Me Some Peeps

...and I'm not talking Easter Peeps! Where do you go to find a crew that will have your back? I was struggling with this question for several days and tried a couple of options. In particular, I needed to find writing buddies.
I joined some online discussion groups. This didn't seem like such a bad idea at first, and some blogs recommended finding critique groups this way. Uh-uh. This isn't for me I figured out quickly. A critique does no good if it's coming from writers who aren't on your level or readers who don't give specific enough feedback.

Blogs will give you some really fantastic advice, but they won't read your writing, slap you when it's bad, encourage you when it's good, motivate you when you slump, and guide you when you're lost.
When I finally found a group, it was where I should've looked first. I've been using a site for the last two years with phenomenal success,  a social networking site that specializes in face-to-face contact. I finally searched for writers on Meetup and found a group that sounded right for me. Jackpot!

My first meeting was more than I could have hoped for. The group reviewed each other's work, offered specific and constructive feedback, offered encouragement, and had no problem covering any genre, including poetry and screenwriting. I got nothing but warm fuzzies about all the group members. Yes, I'm pretty sure I found me some peeps. I'm excited now to submit some of my own work to see what I can do to improve.

I wish everyone luck with finding their own peeps. Maybe you'll have a better experience with online groups, but the face time suits me well. What have you done to find your own support and encouragement?

PS, we met at All American Grill in San Diego, and I had the Salinas salad – Yum!  Highly recommended.

Just Fun For Now

Ah, the sting of rejection riding on the coattails of hope!  So far, my first query resulted in a form rejection, second query resulted in request for partial followed by a form rejection, and queries three through five are still out to sea with the agents.  Well, that’s okay.  I’m bracing myself, doing my research, and settling in for the long haul.

I could get dejected, but I’m not.  I have a job, a family, a life, and a love of writing.  So I’ll keep writing.  I started in the first place because my friends wanted the story and now I’ll continue because they want more and so do I.  I love that feeling of a story unfolding where there wasn’t one before.  I can do this just for fun, for the love of it.

In the meantime, I’m working on the next project, while still working on ways to make the first one better.  Along these lines, I’m having difficulty getting useful feedback on my manuscript.  My friends are great, and they help me gauge whether I’ve got a great story, but they’re not writers.  My husband’s a writer, but doesn’t read or write in my genre, although he’s encouraged me and helped me considerably with it.  I considered joining associations or attending conferences and workshops, but I don’t really have the resources to invest.

Any writers out there have any suggestions?  Where have you turned to get input on your manuscript?