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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: Kali on March 25, 2010, 06:27:55 PM
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I'm only partway through the rewrite of the major things I knew at the outset needed fixing. The rewrite won't be done anytime in the next couple of week or so, miracles aside. But I'd like to line up a couple of people now to read through this thing.
The original was just over 50k words, about 115 pages in MS Word. This version will be longer; though I'm not writing first for length, I do want to end somewhere over 80k. Fortunately for me, there are several scenes that need to be added. Sadly, there's one that needs to be taken out in its entirety since it's just bloody awful.
I do want people who can check my spelling and grammar. I'm good at both, so you'll have to be better.
I'll also want general opinions on the characters and the flow of the storyline. "I liked it!" will get you shot in the head. I want a real critique; what worked for you, what didn't. You should be able to tell me why you liked what you did and why you didn't like what you didn't.
Sorry if this comes across as too blunt, but I really want beta readers who can help me polish this thing for an agent's review. Oh, you'll also have to be pretty quick with the turnaround because I'll want to keep up my momentum. It's possible, if it'd be easier on everyone, that I could send it to you in pieces so you'll be reading the first fifty pages while I'm working on the final fifty and the stuff in the middle is waiting to be sent. I'm honestly not sure how most authors handle the beta process.
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If you're looking for readers sometime mid-April, you might run into a bit of competition, from Jim and the IRS both. :)
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What kind of book are you writing?
Is it just for fun or are you looking to publish?
You mention quick turn around, are you talking days or weeks?
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Well, mid-April I'll be busy reading myself. :D I honestly don't know how long it's going to take me to finish this rewrite so even mid-April might be optimistic.
It's an urban fantasy novel (with NO romantic sub-plot). I'm looking to send it to an agent for possible publishing, depending on how the rewrite goes. God knows this version isn't worth publishing, but there's some good stuff to unearth. The bones are there, it just remains to see how much of a story I can build with what I've already got.
The turn-around, I'm not sure about. I know I don't want to sit here on my hands doing nothing for weeks on end; that's just a handy-dandy prescription for death, right there. That's why I'm thinking I might send it out in bits and pieces, so I have stuff to work on while the readers are reading and commenting.
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Let me know if no one bites. I'm resisiting because I don't want to cross blend anything into mine by mistake.
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I would offer to help, but I my b/f's voice has taken up in my head and is saying "less readie, more writie." As well as "less readie other people's stuff and more writie on yours."
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after Changes Ill do it ;). Not much for grammar/spelling, but I can give detailed type critiques for the rest.
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Kali, I'm a blunt beta. Just how hard skinned are you? LOL
Actually I've four manuscripts to read prior to a workshop the end of April. But if you want to send it, do so. Wait...there is that little JB book that I have to make room for also. Ah heck send it anyway. Recepricate on equal number of pages?
meg_evonne@yahoo.com Also if you would prefer to go a yahoo group, feel free to set up that way. Then you can add beta's without sending out a bunch of copies. I use the same name to send invite if you go that route. Just let me know what name you're going to call the group. I'd return (or post on the group) comments inline at review points for title, first line, first paragraph, and first 250 pages, and then chapter by chapter. Doing it that way if you revise chapters before I get to them, you can let me know to download the new revisions. I sort of like the group idea so your work isn't floating out there in the ethernet...
I'm at a stopping point until after the workshop on the YA works in progress and my current thing I call Demon Porn is for fun only--so no chance you'll leak into my work! (My adult mind likes to come out of YA immersion once in awhile.)
Take care, best wishes on your mss. Meg
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Kali, I'm a blunt beta. Just how hard skinned are you? LOL
As long as you're right, I'm very thick-skinned. :D
Thanks for the replies, everyone. Like I said, this sucker won't be ready to beta any time in the immediate future. Right now, I'm thinking end of April. I'll post again as things get closer to make sure everyone's still interested!
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As long as you're right, I'm very thick-skinned. :D
Ah, but to steal a line...There is the rub. The author is always right. A beta is only right if others comment on the same thing or if you personally agree with the comment. The author is the ultimate authority.
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I have been lurking here for a while and not posting, but taking in information and tips from everyone.
I do not currently have a book in progress and am still working on a concept. I would be happy to critique and proof your beta version. I can have it back rather quickly and with any notes that are needed.
Happy Writing!
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Kali, if you're still looking for someone by the time you're ready, drop me a PM. My current work load is, shall we say, very light and I'm a captive audience, so I can get you a turnaround of 3-5 days.
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Kali, I wouldn't mind reading for you. Especially if you want to send it in chunks. Life should settle out for me after April and especially come June when school is out here. The work load in the afternoon becomes very light.
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Kali -
I have written/edited technical literature before. If you still need betas, I can always use the reading material - since I travel for work frequently the hotel nights get really boring sometimes!
Please PM me and we can work out the details if you're still in need / interested.
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Woot! Thanks for all the replies. I'll come crawling when I'm closer to the end of this, probably about the time I've "finished" and am ready to give it a once-over myself. Then after I've gone through it and fixed the little things that bother me, I'll start sending it out in pieces. We'll see how I divvy it up when I see how long it is. Number of pages, or a few chapters at a time or something, probably.
Back to the salt mines! Time to write the scene of yet another of Rachel's phenomenal screw-ups in which she learns why legends talk about silver bullets but almost never enchanted baseball bats.
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That...sounds like fun.
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Ob. urban fantasy Harry Dresden reference!
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I chased a bit of scrambled egg around my plate, finally cornering it between my fork and my toast. "It's incredibly rare," I said, shoving the bite into my mouth before it could escape again.
Ethan backed me up, nodding. "There's a lot of magic in the world," he said. "Vodoun, shamanism, root work... Everything has its own area of specialization, but what Rachel and I do -- and evidently what Jilly does -- is different. Some practitioners accomplish what they do through the intercession of spirits or even of dieties, but we directly access energy, change it, manipulate it, and let it go as something else."
Father Christopher didn't look thrilled with the idea of Ethan espousing the existence of other gods, but he let it go. "How rare is rare?"
I glanced at Ethan; he was looking at me. I shrugged. "I only know of a couple others," I said. "Ethan's from New York. There's that woman who writes romance novels, and a guy in Chicago." I snorted. "Seriously, if you think the things I get up to are crazed, you should read the Chicago newspapers sometime."
"I also know of a kid up in Canada," Ethan volunteered.
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'Cause it's just not an urban fantasy if you don't give a nod to the masters in the field. :D
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I chased a bit of scrambled egg around my plate, finally cornering it between my fork and my toast. "It's incredibly rare," I said, shoving the bite into my mouth before it could escape again.
Ethan backed me up, nodding. "There's a lot of magic in the world," he said. "Vodoun, shamanism, root work... Everything has its own area of specialization, but what Rachel and I do -- and evidently what Jilly does -- is different. Some practitioners accomplish what they do through the intercession of spirits or even of deities, but we directly access energy, change it, manipulate it, and let it go as something else."
Father Christopher didn't look thrilled with the idea of Ethan espousing the existence of other gods, but he let it go. "How rare is rare?"
I glanced at Ethan; he was looking at me. I shrugged. "I only know of a couple others," I said. "Ethan's from New York. There's that woman who writes romance novels, and a guy in Chicago." I snorted. "Seriously, if you think the things I get up to are crazed, you should read the Chicago newspapers sometime."
"I also know of a kid up in Canada," Ethan volunteered.
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;)
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i'd be more inclined to have a character of mine reading about the adventures of the wizard in Chicago, fwiw.
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Ah, that's no fun! Besides, then I couldn't work in the other references.
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Reading back over this, you may want to be careful as to how far you reference other authors' characters and worlds. A casual reference like mentioned in the paragraph above would probably be fine, but if you start referencing either actual events or using that world to spin off your own book(s), that could be considered a breach of copyright (as well as from a reader's perspective, cause continuity/magic mechanics problems.) If you're talking about fanfic, again, that's one thing. If you're intending in any way to make money off of it though, may want to clear any references through JB and any other authors who you're referencing, just to keep yourself out of trouble.
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Woot! Thanks for all the replies. I'll come crawling when I'm closer to the end of this, probably about the time I've "finished" and am ready to give it a once-over myself. Then after I've gone through it and fixed the little things that bother me, I'll start sending it out in pieces. We'll see how I divvy it up when I see how long it is. Number of pages, or a few chapters at a time or something, probably.
Back to the salt mines! Time to write the scene of yet another of Rachel's phenomenal screw-ups in which she learns why legends talk about silver bullets but almost never enchanted baseball bats.
I can't make any promises (my schedule tends to be crazy), but if you're still looking when you're finished I might be able to help you out. I will hopefully be finishing up my own sometime in the near future, so I could very well be looking for Beta readers myself in the near future. Seems like it'd be good karma for me to volunteer, so let me know.
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RISE FROM THE DEAD!!
I'm resurrecting this post 'cause I want to give people who responded before a little reminder that they did, in fact, respond before. And to open the door to anyone else. Check the first post for what I'm looking for in beta readers, and let me know if you want to read! It is right now 82,632 words long, according to MS Word, and is broken up into two unevenly sized documents because Word started freaking out when the first one got too long. There *are* a few empty space breaks, but I have NOT put chapters in yet. That'll probably be done after betaing, when I'm sure I'm done all the editing and can make the breaks appropriately.
I have no idea how long authors generally give beta readers to get through something this length. Naturally I don't want to wait forever. If nothing else, I do NOT want to be sending my query to agents anytime near Christmas.
I will say that this is done now. 100% done, as long as I can keep my fidgety little fingers out of it. What I might do, what I'm thinking about doing, is making a questionnaire of sorts to send to people. What I'm thinking is you'd read it, send me your comments, and then I'd send you the questions I want specific feedback on. And it would be very specific. Things like, "Did ____ plot point seem contrived, or did it the explanations given satisfy you?" or "Did the conversation where _____ happened work, or was it too much an "As you know, Bob" scene?"
<evilWillow>Questions? Comments?</evilWillow>
Edit to add: After a comment (thanks Meg), I thought I'd say I'm willing to send you a hard copy if you'd rather have that than an electronic copy. And I'm not looking for more than 5 or 6 people. Of course the more opinions the better, but the more people who have it the longer it's going to take and... Ok, I suck, I'm impatient.
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I'll help if you don't mind honest brutality or unswerving fandom i can go either way depending on the book and story PM me the basics and ill help.
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I'll throw my hat into the ring as well.
And when you say If nothing else, I do NOT want to be sending my query to agents anytime near Christmas.
I'm assuming you mean you want it done well before then, am I correct in assuming so?
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Yes, I would like it well before Christmas. I'd like it no later than the middle of October, though honestly I don't know what the "normal" timeframe is for getting critiques back from beta readers.
And er... Yeah, actually, I do mind honest brutality. I need constructive comments, not brutal ones. "This sucks" is brutal, but not helpful. "The character of Ethan is too overpowered for my tastes. I couldn't like him enough to get into his part of the story" is honest and a little more constructive.
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I was just trying to sound like all the good critics. Sorry, i can be constructive and get it back to you within a week or so.
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If you want me to go over your spelling and grammar with a fine tooth comb a month is pushing it imo. But for everything else it seems doable to me.
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I can do a beta read - I've got lots of free time on my hands. Not to mention I've been looking for a new UF to read. :D
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I'm resurrecting this post 'cause I want to give people who responded before a little reminder that they did, in fact, respond before. And to open the door to anyone else. Check the first post for what I'm looking for in beta readers, and let me know if you want to read! It is right now 82,632 words long, according to MS Word, and is broken up into two unevenly sized documents because Word started freaking out when the first one got too long.
What machine are you working on? I've handled novels twice that long in Word and not had any problems.
I will say that this is done now. 100% done, as long as I can keep my fidgety little fingers out of it. What I might do, what I'm thinking about doing, is making a questionnaire of sorts to send to people. What I'm thinking is you'd read it, send me your comments, and then I'd send you the questions I want specific feedback on. And it would be very specific. Things like, "Did ____ plot point seem contrived, or did it the explanations given satisfy you?" or "Did the conversation where _____ happened work, or was it too much an "As you know, Bob" scene?"
This is a good thing to do for getting feedback from betas, definitely; but don;t show them before, however tempting.
Edit to add: After a comment (thanks Meg), I thought I'd say I'm willing to send you a hard copy if you'd rather have that than an electronic copy.
A few hundred pages of manuscript are non-trivial either to post or to afford the ink cartridge for your printer, I'd have thought.
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What machine are you working on? I've handled novels twice that long in Word and not had any problems.
This is a good thing to do for getting feedback from betas, definitely; but don;t show them before, however tempting.
A few hundred pages of manuscript are non-trivial either to post or to afford the ink cartridge for your printer, I'd have thought.
Actually, the biggest temptation I'm fighting now is to query anyway. I like my synopsis and my query letter, and the first five pages are, I feel, polished enough to send. I know I want comments on some parts, though, and I have this terrible feeling that if I query now, the results will be nightmarish. I'll get the "We like it, send us the whole thing" and be completely elated only to have my heart crushed when they decline the manuscript because it wasn't polished enough. *shudder* Nightmarish, I say.
The machine's a laptop meant for gaming, with 4 gigs of RAM and a Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Word's flakiness isn't always evident, but it does things like... Like if I just open the document and close it again without typing anything, Word asks me if I want to save my changes. I got paranoid. I have, in fact, combined it into one document and the Earth is still rotating so it wasn't as dangerous as I'd feared, but I did back it up in three different ways. Paranoia.
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And, in an abrupt change of direction, I've decided to go a different direction with this. Thank you, thank you VERY much, to those who offered to give up their time to help me make this into something I could sell. The people here on the Butcher board are some of the nicest anywhere, and I've traveled my share of the internet.
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Actually, the biggest temptation I'm fighting now is to query anyway. I like my synopsis and my query letter, and the first five pages are, I feel, polished enough to send. I know I want comments on some parts, though, and I have this terrible feeling that if I query now, the results will be nightmarish. I'll get the "We like it, send us the whole thing" and be completely elated only to have my heart crushed when they decline the manuscript because it wasn't polished enough. *shudder* Nightmarish, I say.
Definitely worth avoiding that if only for your blood pressure's sake.
I have, in fact, combined it into one document and the Earth is still rotating so it wasn't as dangerous as I'd feared, but I did back it up in three different ways. Paranoia.
Three backups on two different sites is a minimum degree of safe backup IMO; I tend to have one copy on my writing laptop, one on my household's DVD-watching desktop, and one at a dedicated gmail account that exists for offsite backup purposes.
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And, in an abrupt change of direction, I've decided to go a different direction with this. Thank you, thank you VERY much, to those who offered to give up their time to help me make this into something I could sell. The people here on the Butcher board are some of the nicest anywhere, and I've traveled my share of the internet.
Howe3ver you decide to do it keep us posted on how its working for you. Because we're all pulling for you.
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If that different direction still includes "getting more readers" as a waypoint, let me know.
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Whatever you choose, I wish you the best of luck~!
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Aye, good luck. At the same time, you can often find writer's groups and critique groups in your local area.
My sig has the link to my local group's online presence. Take a look at how we do it if you like.
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Hi Kali! I would encourage you to wait on the query until you are sure that your manuscript is as perfect as you can manage. Have you chosen to work with an editor? If so, be cautious. The quality is varied, as well as the price. I'd suggest a few pages to test the waters first. The best will actually 'vet' your work first before accepting.
I've had mixed reviews from many sources on local crit groups. Make sure you are getting equal crit back for crit provided, before you dig in too deeply and your time gets waylaid. Also the local groups tend to have a wide range of skill and craft level. Again, be cautious. Ideally seek out a group that is above your skill level.
Either way, I can tell you are happy with whatever decision you've decided on.
One more thing? Go the intermediate step on the query if you like. Query a few agents that aren't anywhere near the top of our preferred list. If you get an offer, then you sweat--or maybe celebrate? Cross that bridge when it happens.
Meg
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I'm sending out one query first, to my first-choice agent. I want this agent, so I'm giving them a first shot at it. Not that I think there'll be a bidding war or anything, and I should be so lucky as to have two or more agents interested, but I figured giving them the first look was polite.
I'm treating it like applying to college. :) You have your dream schools, then the ones you like, then the backup schools. You never let on to anyone but the dream schools where they are in your list, of course, but you have a list anyway! I have a list. My list does not include "everyone who ever agented an urban fantasy book ever". I feel badly for people who just mass mail every agent in the book. There are some who have handled books very like mine, and that's who I'm targeting. If they all pass, they all pass. I'll drop this world and its characters (except for fun), and will move on to another idea that's in my head.
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On queries:
Wow, I have to say I would never send a query out first to a 'low on my list' agent. While you are not obligated to go with them, if they do say 'ok', then you have set up a difficult situation. Do you now say 'nevermind' and not only turn your back on a professional in the field (it is a close-knit community), but perhaps (you don't know yet) the only person who wants the book? Or do you go with them and never get a chance to try your first choice?
Otherwise, yes wait on the query. You need to be ready, and I seem to recall you mentioning that the first five pages were polished. If your query comes back positive, they may ask for the whole thing or they may ask only for the first 2-5 chapters, but they are unlikely to only ask for a few pages.
On critique groups:
Yeah, critique groups are tough. There are many more bad writers out there than not. That said, if you take a look at the writing the other folks in the group are doing, you can get a good idea of whether it is worth investing your time. I know I was on writerscafe.org for a bit, and just decided that I wasn't getting many useful critiques. I was also reading so much really bad work it was ridiculous, and I felt like to do myself justice I had to give a good critique - but bad writing is a lot of work to do that with. I just gave it up.
As mentioned, groups can be of wide ranges - not just in skill and craft but also in life experience, age, etc. But you don't know anything at all about your local groups until you try. (Or until you set one up yourself. From what I've heard, Barnes & Noble is very receptive to hosting and advertising local writer's groups.)
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The reason I mentioned the first five was because this agent wants queries that contain the query letter and blurb, the synopsis, and the first five pages. There's another agent in my list who wants the letter, the synopsis, and the first ten, so that's what I'll be sending to them when it's time. And I'll probably rewrite the query letter a little, targeted to their particular likes and dislikes.
Some agents, for example, want the basic info first. "The Book is an urban fantasy novel complete at 80,000 words..." All that stuff. Then the blurb. Some agents want to dive right into the blurb and they'll get to the other stuff later. So that, if nothing else, requires personalization and knowing your audience.
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Good luck
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I'm sending out one query first, to my first-choice agent. I want this agent, so I'm giving them a first shot at it.
Make sure the agent knows that you are giving them exclusive first look. I think they would appreciate your interest in them specifically. However, initially this was what I thought as well, however those first-choice agents are often highly sought after with many, many queries in their queue each morning. If you query is not exclusive, you have this option. This seems really backward and frankly rude, BUT I was told by someone that I trust a great deal who said. "Get the request for pages." Once you have it, send out your query to your favs. Then if you get THE CALL, then send notes to your favs. "I've forwarded query to you, and I have been offered representation. I'm hoping that you will pull my work out and let me know what you think before I reply?" Or something similar.
You don't say 'yes' right away when the call comes, or you shouldn't. (How the heck would I know, but I'm a business woman and it makes sense to take these things slowly.) On the other hand, the person offered and wants to represent your work. That COUNTS for a lot! It seemed--well, crass, but you can see the logic here. I remember also seeing an agent's literary blog that said, if you have been offered, please tell us immediately.
On the initial query. Recommendations say to send a few, wait for results. If you get all passes, then modify the query and hit more agents, etc until successful. That way you hit your fav agents with something that is top notch, not just good.
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Hi Kali! I would encourage you to wait on the query until you are sure that your manuscript is as perfect as you can manage.
This does need to be balanced against the risk of never sending out anything at all, though. I mean, I can usually see how to improve things I wrote a few years ago, which can make it hard to send out something I know is less than perfect in the hope that in five years' time I'll see how to fix it.