The Haunted Stepsister and Critique Partners

Today I'm over at the IWSG website talking about How to be a Good Critique Partner. I'd love to see you over there. But first, check out Medeia Sharif's exciting new book!

The Haunted Stepsister

by Medeia Sharif

Published by Leap Books, it is released today!!

Sixth grade isn’t easy for Jesenya Moradi, especially since her father’s recent remarriage and tension with her new stepsister, Kammy. After an incident at school that nearly destroyed Kammy's life, Jess has been desperate to get on Kammy’s good side. But a fateful trip to an allegedly haunted bathroom changes both girls’ lives forever.

The rumors about the bathroom are true, and now Jess is convinced a demon's possessing Kammy. Eerie things happen whenever she's around – flying objects, flickering lights, not to mention the fact that something, or someone, is making people into its puppets.

Worse, the demon seems fixated on making Jess confess her part in ruining Kammy's reputation. Sticking to her Muslim faith, Jess enlists the help of an imam to exorcise the demon from Kammy. But can they get rid of the demon before it destroys her new family?

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Goodreads

Madeia Sharif was born in New York City and she presently calls Miami her home. She received my master’s degree in psychology from Florida Atlantic University. After becoming a voracious reader in high school and a relentless writer dabbling in many genres in college, she found her niche writing for young people. Today she’s a MG and YA writer published through various presses. In addition to being a writer, she is a public school teacher. Her memberships include Mensa, ALAN, and SCBWI.

Writing Tips with Darlene Jones

Today I have Darlene Jones visiting with some great writing tips many writers should find helpful. 

You can find Darlene here: Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads

Take it away, Darlene.


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One of the best writing tips goes back to my novice days. An author I admire suggested that we read our work aloud when we got to the rewrite stage. I decided to try it.

“What’s that?” my husband asked.

“Nothing.”

“You said something.”

“Just reading to myself.”

“Well keep it down. I’m trying to watch TV.” Luckily for him, I knew he was joking.

Reading aloud showed me where my words weren’t natural or where sentences were too long and convoluted. Sometimes I’d cut out words as I read and realize that I didn’t need them. Other times I’d add a word or two when I read and realized I needed that word on paper to make for smoother, more natural expression.

I do much less reading aloud now that I’m more experienced, but it was a great tip for me as a beginner.

The second thing I think is crucial for writing success is to join a critiquing group. This must be comprised of fellow writers. They know what you are trying to accomplish and what to watch for in your writing.

I’ve used two approaches. With one group, we emailed our work to each other before the meeting. We printed and commented on paper and then discussed the piece at the meeting. We gave the copies with our notations to the writer at the end of the discussion.

The second approach was to come to the meeting, pass out copies to the members and then read the piece aloud. Members jotted notes and explained what they felt was missing or needed.

The critical key in both groups was the one rule that the writer not comment at all during the discussion as the goal wasn’t to defend his or her work, but to take the information and use what worked for them. This worked well as the members of both groups held the mindset of helping their fellow authors so the critiquing was never mean spirited.

There are two added benefits to the critiquing groups. One is that the discussion sparks ideas for all and the critiquing of one piece can help you with your own work as you learn what things to watch out for.

Here’s a simple example.

“I don’t think so,” he said. He shook his head.

One member commented that the natural reaction would be for the action to come before the spoken words.

Bill shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

I realized that was a mistake I made often and I liked the result when I went back and made those changes.

Good luck with your writing.

Amazon / Smashwords

What would be one of your top tips for writing?

How to Gain Quality Feedback from Your Critique Partners

In my last post, I covered How to Pick a Good Critique Partner. Today I will cover what to do next to gain quality feedback from that partner, communication being the key factor:

Be specific about the kind of feedback you want. State what you want and when you want it, and be as clear as possible. This is important because if you give your critique partners little-to-no direction, then their comments will likely reflect this. For example, if you’re uncertain about your dialogue, then ask them if your dialogue works. You could even ask something as vague as, ‘I know something isn’t working in this scene, but I don’t know what it might be’. Note: don’t ask for your partners to look for too many things. A giant list of questions about your work will only overwhelm them.

State the genre and the target market. Don’t let your critique partners go in blind when you hand over your manuscript. It’s important they know what genre and market you are aiming for. What may work for a crime novel, may not work for a fantasy. Likewise, what may work for adult fiction, may not work for young adult. Knowing these details about your story will help your critique partners focus their comments.

Be specific about when you want the feedback. Be sure to give your critique partners plenty of time to go through your manuscript without rushing. However, without setting a finish date, you could be waiting a long time.

Nurture open communication. This is so you can easily clarify any comments your critique partners make. A relationship between writer and critiquer is far stronger if both parties feel comfortable with each other. There’ll be a better chance of gaining truthful comments, not comments the critiquer thinks the writer wants to hear.

Use more than one critique partner. Three critique partners will give you a clearer overview of your work than just one. What one person doesn’t like in your manuscript, two others may love. When there is a conflict in the feedback, I tend to go with the majority.

Approach your feedback with an open mind. Sometimes writers won’t recognize fantastic feedback because deep down they don’t want to hear their baby needs more work. While critiques are simply opinions, if you’ve picked your partners well, then most of those opinions will be educated. It’s worth listening to them. This doesn’t mean you should treat those opinions or suggestions like the law. Weigh everything you hear and then decide for yourself whether you agree, but do it with an open mind.

Do you struggle to get helpful feedback?

J Taylor Publishing is giving away five copies of the Make Believe anthology. If you'd like to hop on over for a chance at a copy, then click HERE! But be quick because the offer ends on November 16, 2012 at 5:00 pm Eastern Time

How to Pick a Good Critique Partner

This post is not so much on how to find critique partners. Finding them is easy, but picking good ones is a lot harder. Finding a partner who can give you the kind of feedback you need for your manuscript is just as elusive as trying to find that perfect cup of coffee (or, in my case, that perfect hot chocolate). Everyone’s tastes are different, everyone’s needs are different. You have to find the one that suits you, which means you need to be mindful in the choosing process:

Pick someone who can give you the type of feedback you want. Firstly, this requires knowing what you want. If you want professional level feedback, then it’s best not to go to your family or friends—unless, of course, they have industry experience. If you want feedback that’s mostly encouragement, then it’s best not to go to a busy editor. You need to pick a partner with the appropriate skill level for your needs.

Pick someone with critiquing experience. Sure, everyone has an opinion on what they like and don’t like, but not everyone has the skill to be able to communicate that in a helpful way. For example, knowing what works in the manuscript is just as important as knowing what doesn’t work. This balanced feedback is the best kind.

Pick someone you can trust. If you can’t trust your critique partner, or you’re not comfortable talking openly and honestly about your work, then you’ve wasted everyone’s time, including your own. You’ll need to find someone whose feedback you can trust on a personal and professional level.

Pick someone who understands your genre. This doesn’t necessarily mean only pick writers who also write in the same genre. I’ve found writers of different genres often approach my manuscripts with a fresh eye. However, a certain level of understanding of your genre is necessary for quality feedback since every genre has certain expectations within them that should be met.

Pick someone who likes your genre. Not everyone likes all genres. If you find a critique partner who is a great critiquer but doesn’t enjoy reading your type of stories, then you’ll be less likely to get good feedback, and less likely to hold on to them for long. They may even terminate the job midway through.

Pick someone with good time management skills. Otherwise you could be waiting a long time for any feedback.

My next post will be How to Gain Quality Feedback from Your Critique Partners.

What are the qualities of your favourite critique partners? Without naming names, have you had any bad experiences with critique partners?

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Announcement:

A New Adult Urban Fantasy with a contemporary sci-fi twist, The Renaissance of Hetty Locklear is the first book in a new series written by M. Pax. And it’s now out!

Graduation from community college isn’t the magic elixir Hetty Locklear counts on for becoming an adult. Her parents, who work the Renaissance fair circuit, insist she spend part of the summer with them. Hetty doubts pretending to live in the Middle Ages will help her find her way.

To make it worse, an entity haunts her at her dead-end job, warning her of a dangerous man she doesn’t know. The ghost leads her to a lover who has a lot of secrets. He pulls her farther into peril and into a strange, hidden world of genetic experimentation.

Available as an ebook at Amazon / Amazon UK / Smashwords / iTunes / Kobo
Visit www.mpaxauthor.com for more links.

M. Pax is celebrating her latest release with a jousting tournament and contest at www.mpaxauthor.com. Cheer for the knights to help them win the grand prize, and you’ll be put in a drawing to win an ebook copy of The Renaissance of Hetty Locklear. Five will be given away. Huzzah!

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Kyra Lennon's Blindsided is also now available on kindle at Amazon. Her exciting blog tour for this book will be November 26th to December 7th.

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6 Steps to Building a Strong Team for your Writing Career

Turning a good story into a great one requires team work. That's right: team work. As writers we need the help of critique partners, beta readers and editors. For those of us who want to go the traditional publishing route, we also need agents and publishers.

As the authors of our work, we are the leaders of our team. We are the ones who have to make the final decisions on where we want our stories to go. For this reason we need a strong team around us to help us make the right decisions.

Steps for building a cohesive team:
1. Don't be a loner. While the process of writing is a solitary one, this doesn't mean we should isolate ourselves. It's better for our writing (and our mental health) to join writing communities, to seek encouragement and support from like-minded people. This will help us find the best matches when seeking critique partners and editors.

2. Do your research. If you pick for your team the first person who shows an interest in your work, without doing the research to find out whether or not you'd work well together, then you may not find the best match. It's worth spending the time to find the people who have a similar vision for your work.

3. Nurture the relationships. Every relationship benefits from open communication and nurturing. The better you know your teammates, the more able you'll be to understand where their suggestions are coming from.

4. Trust your team. You've done your research, found a good team and got to know them well. Now it's time to trust them. This team of people want excellence for your stories. Trust they will offer their best opinions and experience to improve those stories.

5. Trust yourself. While trusting your teams is important, it's just as important to trust yourself. Sometimes you may get so many editorial changes that you'll be in danger of losing your voice to the tune of another. Sometimes you may need to make a stand.

6. Be professional at all times. No one likes a foot-stamper and pouting went out years ago with Mae West. If you don't agree with certain changes, then come up with valid reasons why you think those changes shouldn't be implemented. Understand that professionalism includes flexibility so you'll also need to learn to pick your battles.

Can you think of other steps towards building a strong team around you? Which steps do you find the hardest and which are the easiest?

The Right Time to Query

The big question for every writer who is serious about getting published is this: When is the right time to query? Unfortunately this is not something that we can be told. Each of us has to decide. However, there are some key points that might help.

For example, it's probably not a good idea to start querying after you've finished your first draft. The manuscript will be as rough as a porcupine pillow. I know of no writer who has a quality manuscript after the first draft, no matter how long it took them to write it.

It's also probably not a good idea to start sending out your manuscript to agents and publishers if no one else has read it. Critique partners and beta readers are essential, even for seasoned writers. No matter how talented you might be, you will miss mistakes trusted readers will be able to catch.

Many of us are the impatient sort and we want to start querying the day we declare our manuscripts finished. It's probably a better idea to wait two weeks, read through it again and then send it. I've heard agents say to wait two months before sending.

Of course, there have been exceptions to the rule. I know of an author who sent only the first three chapters of an unfinished book and scored a contract based on that alone. But remember, that's the exception.

The publishing game is a slow one. There is no need to hurry when it comes to our first books. As Jennifer Hillier said in an interview with herself found here, 'Write the best book you can. DON'T RUSH – enjoy the fact that with your first novel, you don't have a deadline and can take your time. When it's ready, and not a day before, start querying. And never, ever give up.'

How do you know if you are ready to query? 

Guest Post: Cultivating Your Inner Critic

Benoit Lelievre blogs at Dead End Follies, where he likes to talk about writing, reading, movies and pop culture in general. He lives in Montreal, Canada. Thanks, Ben, for writing today’s post:

Let me guess. You follow a hundred, maybe two hundred blogs on your Google Reads and most of them are about writing? You’ve read the books Donald Maass, Ray Bradbury and Lawrence Block wrote on the subject. You have critique partners and attend several workshops. You have faith that you can write a book, but every day, somebody makes you doubt your decision and makes you feel like starting over again.

I’m sorry if this breaks your heart, but none of these people care about your novel. In fact, nobody does. Nobody but you. Until your book is out and published, you’re your biggest fan. I’m not looking to discourage you here. Just to make you realize something. Writing advice will only get you so far. Writing your guts off will make you go the extra mile and reach publication.

Making distance between you, advisors and critics is vital. These are a necessary part of the process, but they don’t control your work. If you feel that something works, despite what the others think, keep it. Take novelist Josh Stallings, for example. The bad guys in his novel BEAUTIFUL, NAKED & DEAD are somewhat cardboardish. They don’t have a strong identity. It’s a big no-no in the writing playbook, but in Stallings’ novel, it works. Because his novel is driven by his famous character, Moses McGuire. It’s about him, his inner demons and his journey to a better life that forever eludes him.

You have to cultivate your inner critic. You will know in your gut if what’s on the page works or not. It’s your story after all. Be your own editor. If you care to make your prose tight and your storytelling fluid, people will start enjoying your stories. Editors will notice you, because you make their lives easier. Let go of the playbook. You’ve read it over and over again. Reading it another time will make you fall into the hell of second guessing. Step up and take responsibility for your work. Until it’s under press, you’re the only one who cares.

Do you find it easy or difficult to trust your own judgement when it comes to your writing? How do you decide who to listen to?

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Thanks again, Ben, for a wonderful post on a topic that’s close to my heart.

If anyone would like a guest post spot here, please send me an email.

Also, Jamie at Mithril Wisdom is having a brilliant giveaway. Click here to check it out.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Seeking Public Opinion

Bonnie Rae at Just Words recently asked about online forums and communities where she could find critique partners. I have answered this question in a previous post about How to Find a Good Critique Partner. The comments are also helpful. I would like to also add that the online writing conference, WriteOnCon, will be held August 16-18.  She also asked if it might be too risky finding a critique partner this way and that’s what I’d like to focus on in this post.

The Drawbacks:
1. Demoralising Criticism. The moment any of your work goes online it becomes open to criticism. I’m not talking helpful critiquing, constructive help, but harsh criticism from anonymous readers. To cope with these kinds of comments you’ll need tough skin.

2. Property Theft. A writer’s greatest fear is intellectual property theft—well, it’s actually losing an entire manuscript to a computer virus and having no backup copies, but we won’t go there.

If you put anything in electronic format then assume you’ve lost control of it. People will take your property for different reasons:
1. They will take it for profit
2. Because they can
3. Because they oppose digital protection
4. Because they simply liked what you wrote and want to keep it.

If you can live with that, then put it out there.

3. Rights Issues. Once you put your work online it is considered published. You can no longer offer first rights. For this reason, be careful how much you choose to share with the public before you get contracted.

The Benefits:
1. Getting Noticed. I know a few authors who have gained a publishing contract because they shared a portion of their work online. Of course, once contracted, their agent and/or publisher requested the author remove all instances of their work from the web.

2. Learning. If an author is able to sift through the often conflicting comments, they can gain valuable help for their work. Many commenters will take the time to carefully think about your work in the hope that you will do the same for them. You could learn a great deal.

Can you think of other benefits and drawbacks to putting your work online? 

3 Ways to Avoid the Waffle in Writing

What I mean by the waffle is not a Belgium dessert, but prose that meanders along unrelated tangents that fail to add anything to the story. As writers we want to avoid the waffle. Like the dessert, it can add unwanted fat to the story and weigh down the pace and tension. Never give your readers a reason to put down your book.

Below are some tips we can use to help us stay on track:

Slash and burn. One major question to ask often is, does this scene, character, paragraph, sentence add anything to the story? We grow attached to moments of writerly genius. We hold onto our little treasures and often fail to see they can take the shine from the story if their only purpose is to dazzle. Anything that doesn’t add to the story, reveal something relevant about a character, or push the plot forward, has to go.

Find clarity. Another important question to ask is, what am I trying to communicate? Often we wander around our stories or scenes because we aren’t entirely sure of what we want to say. We may not be sure of our characters, we may have too many characters, we may not have a clear idea of where we want the plot to go.

Get a second opinion. Or a third and fourth. Often we get too close to our manuscripts and we lose the ability to discern the weak areas. Find someone you trust, preferably someone with some knowledge of story structure, and get their opinion. Ask them if there are parts that slow down the story. Ask them if they feel there are any unnecessary scenes.

Can you think of other ways of avoiding the waffle? What do you do to keep your stories tight?


Pic: A huge thanks to Dezmond for the use of the picture of these Rum Bombs. Neither of us had waffle pics but I thought this one was brilliant. His cakes are truly amazing. Check them out on his Facebook album: Dezz in the Kitchen. He will also soon open Dezmond Dish Delish culinary site. Sounds exciting!

O is for Office: a Place to Write

One of the joys of writing is the freedom we’re blessed with while we work. We don’t have to wear a dress code, we can keep our own hours, and we can write anywhere we desire. The problem with freedom is it can lull us into a false sense of ease which in turn can open us to distractions and laziness.

In a semi-recent post, Clarissa Draper wrote about the importance of getting dressed for work to write, rather than staying in our comfy pyjamas. By getting dressed, we tell ourselves it’s time to write.

I’d like to take it a step further and suggest it’s also important to find a special place to write—a place we can shut the door to cut out distractions, a place we can spread out and call our own, a place we can stick up pictures and notes to inspire. This not only helps us focus, it also helps the mind-frame of our families. When we are in our writing space, they will know not to disturb us.

Do you have such a space? Where is your favourite place to write?


Note: This post is part of the A-Z Challenge. To learn more about the challenge click the image on my sidebar.

A special thanks to Rachna at Rachna’s Scriptorium for the Sunshine and sisterhood awards. Also to Kiernan at Fire in Mine Ears for the Versatile Blogger Award. Please visit their blogs.

Chris Kelworth at Kelworth Files is also starting up a 'Critiquing Crusaders' program, where writers can find other writers to exchange critiques with or form critiquing circles. Check it out here.

VOTE for Me: As some of you already know I’ve been nominated for the Sydney Writer’s Centre Best Australian Blogs 2011. I’ve also entered into the bonus People’s Choice Award. Please click here to vote. My blog is listed under W.I.P It: A Writer’s Journey -- Lynda Young.

Is Near Enough Good Enough?

Have you ever grown so frustrated or bored of the revision stage you’ve thought, ‘That will do’? I know I have – and then I sent it to someone to read and they came back with comments on sections I knew deep down I should have fixed.

Have you ever caught yourself asking, ‘Why bother with all this work when an editor will change it anyway’? It’s true an editor will likely change your text for the better, but what if they don’t? And worse: what if you don’t even make it to the editing stage at a publishing house because your manuscript didn’t shine with a glossy polish? I’ve seen it happen all too often.

Leave out an essential ingredient from a cake and the cake will fall flat. The same goes with writing. One essential ingredient of writing a good book is the sweat of hard work. We can’t expect a first draft to be the last draft. We have to work hard to order our thoughts so our readers don’t have to order them for us.

Let’s strive to do our best. Let’s always work towards improvement. Let’s sign up for those workshops and conferences. Let’s find quality critique partners and helpful beta readers. Let’s not give up, but keep going until we get it right.

Would you pay a professional editor to go over your work before you started querying?

Those Second Draft Blues

Ever get stuck on favourite words and phrases? They become our security blanket and we repeat them through our manuscript. We tell ourselves it doesn’t matter for our first draft. They keep us ploughing through the story with bulldog determination.

Then we finish our first draft and we stare down the barrel of some nasty revisions. All the looks and verys and gasps bury their heads in the text and hope to escape notice. And they do escape notice because over the month, three months, six months it took to write that first draft, we’ve fallen into bad habits.

Our inner editors have gone to sleep, our polish-mode button has rusted over, and we’ve forgotten how to be chief editors of our own work. Other stories begin to distract us. We start to hear the call of novel #2 or 3 or 4. Our current WIP begins to wallow.

Sound familiar? These are the second draft blues.

Ways to change the hue and finish that novel:

Take a break. Don’t make it an endless break. Decide on a return date and stick to it.

Get your work critiqued. It doesn’t have to be close to perfect before you send it out to a trusted critiquer. Sometimes this is the boost we need.

Critique someone’s work. It’s amazing how much easier it is to see someone else’s repeated phrases and passive sentences. This will also wake up the editor that lurks inside us.

Read a how-to book on writing/ attend a workshop. We are forgetful creatures so we often need to relearn the basics, no matter where we are in our career.

Make a list of those favourite words. The beauty of Word is the find feature. I can search through my document and find the multiple gasps, see how I’ve peppered my text with them, and wipe them out where appropriate.

Decide on a writing schedule and stick to it. This will help push distractions aside.

Extend yourself. The revision drafts is where the real work begins. The challenge is always to find new ways of saying something. This requires us to push our thinking and not settle for a that-will-do attitude.

What are some of your favourite words or phrases you have to fix during revisions?

Sentences that Jar with the Sound of Failure.

The other day I wrote a clanger of a sentence. It started with this: Even though she knew she assumed that…

What?

It even stayed in my text for three days before I noticed.

/facepalm

Take a deep breath, Lyn. That’s why I edit and harass my critique partners. Not everything has to be perfect in the beginning. Even the worst sentences can be fixed.

Have you ever written some whoppers that make you question your skills as a writer? Please share and make me feel better.

How to Find a Good Critique Partner

Due to many of your comments from last post about why we all need a good critique partner (CP), I thought I’d write a follow up post to help those who don’t currently have one. To find a good partner, we need to ask ourselves some key questions:

1. What do I want? It’s helpful to work out what it is we want in a CP. Many of us are after different things. Many of us are at different stages in our projects. Sometimes all we need is to find someone who can comment on the basic story structure. Other times we might be after someone who can do picky line edits.

2. What are my weaknesses? We all have weak spots in our writing, so it helps to know what they are so we can find a partner who is strong in that area.

3. What can I offer in return? CPs share a two-way relationship. They will critique each other’s work. So it’s helpful to figure out early where our strong points lie and offer those skills in return.

Now that you’ve equipped yourself with these answers, you’re ready to find a match. There are a number of ways of finding a CP. The blogsphere is full of potential partners.

Denise at L’Aussie Writing has been compiling an email list for anyone interested in finding a CP. You’ll need to email her soon with your details if you wish to be included.

Nathan Bransford offers on his forums a thread designed to help writers connect with critique partners.

Natascha at The Las Vegas Writer is offering free critiques in the month of February.

Finally, you could always email your favourite bloggers. It can’t hurt to ask.

If you know of anywhere else a writer could go to find a critique partner, then feel free to leave a link in the comments.

What are you looking for in a critique partner? How did you find your critique partner?

7 Reasons We Need a Critique Partner

1. A critique partner, as opposed to a regular family member, should ideally have some knowledge of the industry, grammar, punctuation, and so forth. They will be better equipped to express what might be technically wrong with our manuscript (ms). Family members and close friends may just tell us things we want to hear.

2. Writers often suffer from blindness when it comes to their own ms. I can go through my work a billion times and still not catch basic mistakes. A critique partner will zero in on these mistakes.

3. What goes on in my brain isn’t always what I’ve put down on paper. A critique partner will often point out the holes in my story. They will help us find clarity in our meaning.

4. It’s not uncommon to repeat words and phrases. A critique partner can point out our favourite catch phrases, words and descriptions. In my previous project I didn’t realise everyone scowled all the time. In my current project, now everyone gasps.

5. My experience of critique partners is they are supportive and helpful. I’ve learned so much, not only from gaining critiques, but also giving critiques.

6. Critique partners push us to do better.

7. Critique partners teach us to grow a thick skin. The more we put our work out there for judgement, the easier it gets to hear criticism, and the faster we will learn and improve.

Can you think of any other benefits from having a critique partner? What’s the best tip you’ve gained from your critique partner?