Since I read so many books last quarter, I decided to pick a novel to critique on Critters. These usually take longer to read than a normal novel, but A) you improve your own writing by seeing what others do and B) it’s fun to cut other people down help others. But I thought the experience was interesting because I got a glimpse of what editors see. There were ten novels on the Critters queue at the time I was looking. They were all crappy (as first novels should be) so I needed some criteria on which to judge them. First, which ones were actually smart enough to click the…
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Remember: The Critiquer is not your friend
Some writers can be douchebags. I am one of them. Some writers are civil – nary a unkind word passes their lips. I am one of them. I’m basically however you treat me, however you regard me, however you respect me. And I don’t mean solely in direct communication – this is in anything you do. If you treat me like a king, but shit on your friends, you will earn my ire. If you slack off in your work, or behave like a Nazi, then I will treat you like the lazy-ass or holier-than-thou moron you are. And if you write terrible prose, and act like you’re the shit,…
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Apology Accepted
Well the guy who wrote me the 4,000 scathing critique did apologize. It was very considerate, and I admitted some errors on my end, because that’s what you do when you’re being friendly. Hack number two is still e-mailing me, despite saying its a waste of his time, and that I should stop bugging him. I fully expect our flame war to stretch into months. Idiot number three hasn’t said a word. No problem with that. So 1/3 of snarky authors are respectful, and know when they’ve made a mistake. 1/3 cut and run. And 1/3 have egos so huge they can’t let anyone even think of indicating that they…
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The Reign of Copyright Paranoia
When it rains, it pours. For some strange reason, I’ve had two critques back-to-back that were trying to tell me something about copyright uses that was wrong. Two different issues too. One said I can’t say “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and the other said I can’t say someone looks like Lando Calrissian. The first one is obviously wrong, as you can’t copyright a title. The second one is wrong because I’m not using Lando Calrissian the character, I’m using him as a reference. And that should be covered under fair use. This worries me, when writers are ignorant about what copyright covers and doesn’t cover. It’s an important issue when writing,…
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The Submissions Keep Rolling
Horrible story I had to critique for Critters today. 50% exposition, cliche story, dull characters. And everybody talks in midievil (I gotta learn how to spell that. That and suspicious are my two words I never seem to get) speak. “Yes, Mother. Tell the young man that he should not wait any longer.” No one important uses contractions. That’s for the masses. Goddammit, write how people talk. I had a good run of luck with some decent stories, but this one broke my streak. You know it doesn’t look good when I’m looking at a half page of comments in raw form alone. I wonder what gets in some people’s…
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Why Doesn’t Anyone Like Me (my novel)?
I guess I can give up on the hopes that I can get my novel critqued. On Critters I only got three total for the week it was up. The guidelines said I could expect 15-20. The next unit won’t be up until Mar. 21. At this rate, the novel won’t be completely critiqued until September 2009. Even paying a professional is too expensive. I wouldn’t pay any more than $50, which is about the maximum price of a novel. Most of the services I’m looking at, I’d have to pay $500 for my 153,000 word baby. I was willing to pay for it after I saw how little I…
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The First Critiques
I’ve gotten my first critiques back for the week, can’t say I expect to get more. Just like I thought, they found the things that I never expected to come under fire blazing. And things I didn’t think mattered to shine out (in a bad way), like the prologue sequence. It’s more of a prologue that exemplifies the theme of the novel, but it seemed like people didn’t like it or didn’t get it. I frankly never thought about it that much (which might be an indication it doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things), because that’s a part I wrote years and years ago, and never needed…