Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Critiquing Pet Peeves


It's been a couple of weeks since I have posted on my blog.   I really have no excuse except that I am currently in between YA contemporary projects and haven’t pulled the trigger on my next idea yet.  So to purposefully distract myself, I have been doing a lot of critiquing – some long standing writing friends, most new first-three-chapters type of beta reads.  So at the risk of sounding brash and a bit snarky, let me tell you a bit about my critiquing pet peeves.

            ~Please, please, PLEASE I beg you to give you manuscripts a quick read before you send it off to your critique partners, especially new ones that haven’t read for you before. There is nothing like a myriad of spelling, punctuation, and formatting errors to pull me right out of the story and irritate the crap out of me.

            ~Think creatively.  There are a thousand and one better ways to emotionally tag dialogue then a simple “he said.”  Now don’t get me wrong, the simplistic nature of that tag is highly appreciated, just not twenty seven times on the same page.

            ~Make sure the person you ask to critique actually reads your genre. You send me the first three chapters of your erotica story, and I will read it, correct your grammar and formatting, even toss in a comment or two.  But because I am not familiar with nor do I ever read that genre for fun, my comments, thoughts, and opinions probably aren’t worth much.  

            ~Lastly, (and I am throwing this one in for you Lindsay)  Description!  I love it when it pertains to word building and drives the story forward.  Wield it too heavily or inappropriately and I get peeved. For example “I sat down on my mother’s pink and green floral pattern couch, the small flower buds hanging delicately off the green vines.”  Okay, unless those flowers are going to come alive and strangle me then I don’t give a crap if the couch is floral, paisley or just plain butt-ass ugly.  I don’t need that bit of description.  I know what a couch is, no need to describe it.  

So that is it, my usually snarky self is back to blogging.  But before you go, I would love to hear some of your critiquing pet peeves.

Monday, January 2, 2012

How Revising is Like a Dyson

I got this new vacuum for Christmas.  And before you ask, no my husband did not buy it for me.  I bought it for myself.  He made the mistake of buying me a cleaning apparatus for me once. Suffice it to say, he will NEVER do that again.

 I crack open the box, assemble it (which for those of you who have one -- am I supposed to have spare parts?) and I start cleaning. Enthralled doesn't even begin to explain my reaction.  The fact that I can actually see the dirt in the canister is like instant gratification to me.  I empty it and start again.  That was on Christmas.  I have vacuumed my house literally three times a day, every day since then -- still enthralled, still amazed at the physical reminder of my accomplishment. (aka dirt in the canister)

My husband makes some snide comment about how I should "put that much enthusiasm and effort into everything I do."  I tell him he's a genius. He scowls, probably unsure of why he got a kiss instead of  a tongue lashing worthy of an R rating.  But he is right, the physical evidence of my progress is what I am obsessed with.  It is like a drug. 

So I run to my computer and hit the print button on the WIP I have been revising, re-revising, stalling on submitting for what . . . like three weeks now.  I am a constant reviser, always trying to make my WIP's better, the characters stronger.  But I always do it electronically.  Track changes are my best friend.  I read aloud, re-arrange scenes, grammar sweep, but all on my computer.  And although I know the exact word count of my WIP, the chapter layout, and the rise and fall of events, it is hard to visualize your revision progress without something to look at.

So now I have a freshly printed copy of my manuscript divided into two piles -- pages completed and those I  have yet to get to.  I can see the progress, watch the completed pile increase by ten, twenty, fifty pages a day until boom -- I am done.  Not a page overlooked, not a comma misplaced. 

So thank you Dyson, for getting my rugs clean and my revising back on track.