Ode to My Crit Buddy

Just a little ditty I made up tonight to honor my crit buddy. We are so like-minded, yet so different...only God could have brought us together. :) Here's to you.

“Cut this,” she writes. “Stronger without this,” she types.
My novel whittles down.
“Cliché,” she comments. “Purple prose,” she remarks.
My novel tightens up.

“I was riveted.”
I become more confident as a writer.
“Love this analogy! Great imagery!”
I work harder to think of another one.

“Consistency alert! Consistency alert!”
My novel makes more sense.
“Add a beat; lose the passive voice.”
My novel becomes more readable.

“SO much tension! SO good!”
I look for where I can add more.
“THIS IS AWESOME! More awesomeness!”
I smile and feel proud.

“Author/narrator intrusion!”
My novel becomes more about my characters than me.
“Trust the reader. They’ll remember.”
My novel becomes more respectful.

“Love their exchanges!”
I look forward to writing the next one.
“I’ll be your biggest influencer when you’re published.”
I think my dream will become reality.

Free Critique Response

I already received my Inspiration for Writers Critique back from editor and author Rhonda Browning White. Talk about punctual! Below are a few of the things I learned from this critique that I want to pass on:

1) Most publishers prefer the first line of each chapter be flush with the margin (so no indent). This goes for prologues, forwards, epilogues, everything.

2) To edit passive voice in your story, just to a search on words like were, was, there are, there were and because. Sentences with any of these words in it will either be passive or tend towards passive voice. We want active sentences - they are stronger and more powerful.

3) There are a few words that we often use in American English writing that are only appropriate in British English writing. (This was totally news to me!) Rhonda changed every backwards, forwards and towards to backward, forward and toward. There is no "s" on these words in American English...something I'd never thought about.

4) Whenever you make some sort of phonetic sound in dialogue, you use what Rhonda called the "Rule of Three." "Eeek!" or "Oooh." Three letters in repetition to get the sound across.

On really positive note, Rhonda liked my writing a lot! Below are some things she had to say that just blessed my heart to read:

"The prologue to your novel reads very well: it’s short, succinct and grabs my attention—all crucial factors to attracting an agent and publisher."

"Your writing is of high caliber...."

So yay! Rhonda also said that romantic suspense is in demand these days, and that my book would have a better-than-average chance of getting published once it's ready for submission.

Mary DeMuth critique

Author Mary DeMuth does a free critique per week on her blog, So You Want To Be Published. This week, she critiqued the synopsis of my current WIP. You can read the post here.

I was almost embarrassed at how much better the re-write sounded! But, that's why Mary DeMuth is published, and I am not. :) Unfortunately for me, after I sent her the synopsis, I got a fabulous crit partner through ACFW who really helped me become more aware of my cliches. I really had a tendency to write using them. I find that the cliche sticks out in my head now, though, and I search for a more unique way to express what the cliche expresses. This can take several minutes for me!

Anyway...but thanks to Mary for pointing out a much better way to describe the plot of my book. Less passive voice and less cliches (and less run-on sentences, which was the result of my run-in with the Snowflake Method that indicated I should have a synopsis in about 5 sentences...see post here).

Critiques

I've been getting back some fabulous comments from my critique group members! One ran spell check on me and said I was 30% passive voice. 10% is about all you want (even less is preferable). I had NO idea! So thanks, crit buddies!

I've been re-writing some scenes from my chick-lit/romantic suspense novel so that they are from the hero's POV. I'm liking what I'm coming up with so far! So maybe I'll forgo the traditional "chick lit" genre and do more with the hero. But when I write the heroine's POV, I'll use 1st person, so as to really involve my reader and make her identify (hopefully) with my main character (like in a chick lit book). So maybe the best of both worlds? Stay tuned, and we'll see.