Tag Archives: Manuscript

250 Word Entry Submitted!

Posted on September 24, 2011 | 3 comments

Thanks to everyone who read and commented on my first 250 words. I just submitted, with 15 minutes to spare (my time — I could have taken two more hours with the time-zone thing)

The great thing about these contests is not the prizes, or winning or losing. It’s getting out there and reading other people’s work. It’s seeing what ELSE is in the pipeline.

Also, if you are lucky, you get people to read and critique your work who’ve never seen it before. That’s worth more than any prize they could give me.

A few people said they were confused, and didn’t get the flame reflection. Jenny didn’t even blink, because she’s read my novel like five times now. She just wanted me to expand.

This told me I needed to get a little more into that flame scene, because readers who don’t know what the flame represents need a little more of a push to “get” that there is something supernatural going on here. The trick is, to do that, and still get Magellan out the door within 250 words. In the original draft, I had him actually out the door, down the hall and stepping into the auditorium at 250. Now he is just stepping out the door.

The scene is richer though, and I think I’ve filled in the blanks that I needed to fill in. For me, that was the goal of the contest. It pushed me to really work on that ever so important first page, and I also got some brand new critiques.

I’ve already won.

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Lesson Five from the Gold Mine Manuscript Red Line: Let’s keep it in the past

Posted on September 20, 2011 | 8 comments

For an intro into where these tips are coming from, please see my post: A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?

I suppose this doesn’t work for those of you who are trying to write your novel in the present tense.  If you are, personally I have to ask you to stop.  Yes, okay, it is a style thing, but I just can’t get into it.  I’ve read a few passages in present tense, and I always end up feeling tense (as in irate).  To me, past tense is the way to go.  (Of course, maybe I just haven’t read a good one)  Anyway, for those of us writing in the conventional fashion…

This publisher noted that present tense words are okay in dialog only.  In narration, they should be cut.

Now, in the gold mine manuscript, the present tense word was “almost” used as narration.  It was “sort of” an inner thought.  The POV character looked at a big mess, and was thinking about cleaning it up, and the narration said “he’d have to tackle it today.”  Now, I think the problem is that it was set off as narration, not as a complete inner thought.  If it was in italics, like the POV character was actually saying it in his head, it may have been okay (again, this is my opinion here).   But since this writer’s style is to have most of the character’s inner thoughts as narration instead of italic thought, this publisher found the use of “present tense” words to be a problem.

So, in a nutshell… if the narration says:  He’d have to take care of things today.  This is no good.

However, if the same character says out loud, or as an inner thought: “I’ll have to take care of this today.”  That is fine.

That’s a pretty simple one, but it might be one many overlook if they have their inner thoughts as narration.  This can be overcome simply be making your inner though more concrete, and putting them in italics so it is very clear that this is an inner-thought, and not the narration.

Amendment:  Guess what?   I just found one of these in my own manuscript!  In the MC’s POV, the narration says:  – It isn’t cold, like it is here.— Now, this isn’t past tense, but the “here” sounds weird because it is in the narration.  I need to change this into an italic thought, or change the wording to be slightly more detached.  One or the other.  It is basically the same principle.

Happy editing!

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Lesson Four from the Gold Mine Manuscript Red Line: And Then there was a Conjunction, or Was There?

Posted on September 16, 2011 | 8 comments

For an intro into where these tips are coming from, please see my post: A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?

Originally, I was going to skip over this, because I thought it seemed a little obvious.  But then I thought, maybe not.

This publisher simply hated the idea of “and then”.  They said: “And then is not a proper conjunction.  And is a proper conjunction… use for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so which are considered “proper” conjunctions.”

I did a search in my own manuscript, and found 73 instances of “and then”.  Honestly, I was a little surprised to find so many in my story.  The more I thought about it, every instance is like a laundry list “tell sequence”.

Matt did this, and then he did that, and then he did that. (It was not quite so blatant, but you get the idea) If you think about it, it’s kind of funny.  I know when I was beta reading the manuscript for my BP, the “and then’s” did pop out here and there, but I just figured it was writing style.  I didn’t particularly like it, but I let it go.  I didn’t even realize I was doing it myself.  Now that I’m re-reading with these comments in mind, they are popping out and blaring:  No No No!

So, my advice is, do what I did:  Do a search/replace on your manuscript just for starters.  Search for “and then” and replace with “and then” (just make sure you spell it correctly)  It won’t change anything, it will just give you a count of how many times you did it.  If it’s a lot, search again and start editing!

This is an easy fix.   I’m not saying this will bother every publisher, but if it’s a pet peeve of one publisher, it will probably bother another one, or two, or three.  Personally, I’m not willing to take a chance and let them go now that I realize what I’ve done.

Happy editing!

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Lesson One from the Gold Mine Manuscript Mark-Up: Write Without Looking

Posted on September 7, 2011 | 5 comments

For an intro into where these tips are coming from, please see my post: A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?

How many times do your characters look at something?  Mine do.  All the time.  I never thought it was a problem.  I feel really bad now, because I am the
“Show Vs. Tell Barracuda”, and I absolutely missed this…

If you say your character looks at something, you are telling the reader that they “look”.  Show the reader instead.

Example:  The wind blew cold, and Magellan looked up into the trees.  The branches bent and shook over his head.

Now, I honestly would not think this was telly, because I showed you what he was seeing right afterward.  My writing partner did the same thing in her manuscript.  The publisher highlighted the “looked” and said “rather than telling us what he is doing, show us what he sees instead.”

Suggested rewrite:  The wind blew cold, and Magellan pulled his jacket closer.  The branches bent and shook over his head.

Here, I took out the offensive “looked” kept the characterization by giving Magellan something to do (pulling his jacket closer), which gives me a place to mention his name.  (In case it’s needed)   I left the “what he saw” exactly the way it was originally written.  You can assume he looked up.  The whole scene actually flows better, and all I did was take a moment to pull out the word “look”.

Even better for you word count barracudas out there… count ‘em… there is one less word in the corrected example.  Yea for me!

Here’s another easy one:  He ran down the hall and looked at the dark stone walls.  The sconces were still lit and the light danced across the ceiling.

Easy fix:  He ran down the dark stone hallway.  The sconces were still lit and their light danced across the ceiling.

Now, I’ll be honest… This is not always this easy.  I’ve growled a little over some of these.  But I am going to try my best to take all of the “looks” out of my novel, unless they are in a personal thought… but I will be looking at those pretty closely as well.

Honestly, I emailed my friend yesterday on this, and she said she’s only taken out “most” of the looks.  Once in a while, your characters will have to “look”.  I am finding the same thing.  But I am finding that a lot of them can be removed easily like the ones above.  (We also discussed that we’ve read published novels that have “looks” in them.  yes, we know they exist… I’m just letting you know there is a publisher out there that redlined it and asked for a revision.)

I am finding I am taking out all of the “looking” that is being done by a POV character, and leaving some of the looks that are not from the POV character.
For instance, if another character in the room (not the POV character)
looks over at the door, you are not going to tell what they see, because you are not in their POV.  Therefore, it might to be okay to leave that look in there.
However, I do not let the POV character look up and see that the other character is looking at the door.  Does that make sense?

This, by the way, is just my opinion.  If I submit, and get slapped for these “looks” I will let you know ASAP.

If you can, get rid of any and all looking, because this publisher emphatically flagged it.  Only look as a last resort.

Hope you found this helpful!

Related Articles:http://kristinastanley.net/2011/09/01/listening-to-your-novel/

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A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?

Posted on September 3, 2011 | 39 comments

I’m sitting here, staring at a rejection letter one of my writing partners received. “Not quite ready for publication at this time.”   Bummer.

Rejection letters stink, but this one comes with an offer to resubmit through alternate channels if she decides to revise. Hmmmm. Sounds positive.

I open up the PDF file of the full manuscript, and find it redlined to heck and back. HOLY COW!   Wait a minute, one thing they said is never use capital letters. Excuse me… quick correction… Holy Cow!   Wow, it even looks better.

So, yes, this is a rejection, but I cannot help but be extremely positive.   It took me three hours to read and take notes on all their comments. Did you get that? THREE HOURS Oops… Three hours!   I can’t help but think, “Wow… if they put that much work into it, they must have thought it was worth something.”

Yes, they are gently suggesting a few pretty major changes, but most of them are minor, and they are really dumb mistakes that I realized my own manuscript is riddled with.  Funny thing is, I didn’t even realize that these things were mistakes.  I looked at my own pages, found three of the same mistakes in a single chapter I was editing, and fixed them with about ten seconds thought.  It was so simple, and it flows so much better now.

So, was this just another rejection? Nope! No Way! This is a stinking gold mine!

I have my writing partner’s permission (keeping it anonymous) to post what I’m learning from this experience here on my blog.  As I really digest everything, one topic at a time, I will send up a blurb about it.  At the end, I think I will post all of the entries up as a permanent page.

This is stuff every writer should know, because it came right from a publisher.  I know I’ve heard some of these things from other writers, but didn’t really understand the concepts completely, or just blew them off, but here is a manuscript (that I personally thought was awesome) that was rejected because of it.

I’ll be shooting up a new topic every few days, so stop by to be baffled by the simplicity of the mistakes that we are all making.

For now go back and look for capitalization in your manuscript. Yes, some pretty major published authors are out there getting away with it, but we don’t have the clout to argue yet, do we?

I hope you get as much out of this as I have!

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Free Professional Writing and Query Help from Real Agents!

Posted on August 16, 2011 | 1 comment

WriteOnCon 2011 starts today and goes through Thursday.  If you haven’t heard about it, it’s a really great place to get gads of information all in one place.  It’s great stuff presented by industry professionals that writers normally would have to know someone or have to jump through hoops to try to get.

Here is a link to this year’s offerings.  http://writeoncon.com/2011/08/gearing-up-for-writeoncon-2011-%E2%80%93-the-full-schedule/

There are question and answer sessions with agents, chances to submit your pitches, queries, and parts of your manuscripts for agents to look at and give feedback on.  (And if you are one of the lucky ones, they might ask you to submit something to them off-line)

There are also general topics of discussion.  I can’t wait to see the one on writing the perfect opening line.  I am so darn tired of writing my first page I can’t stand it!

What’s great about this, is if you are like me, and you can’t get off from work to participate in the live offerings during the day, the posts will still be there when you get home.  So, even if you are not participating, you can still learn from the agents that are on-line.  It’s a really great opportunity.

So, what are you still doing here reading this blog?  Get on over there and learn a few things from some agents and GOOD LUCK with your querying!

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YATopia Micro-Synopsis Writing Contest

Posted on August 9, 2011 | Comments Off on YATopia Micro-Synopsis Writing Contest

There’s a Micro-Synopsis contest going on over at YATopia

Here’s the Scoop From the Yatopia Blog Site:

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A Micro Synopsis competition is no small feat – it’s HUGE! And a real test of a writer’s ability to use economy of words.

So YA agent John Cusick from S©ott Treimel NY (can check out his tweets here and an interview with him here), wants you to woo him with not a one page synopsis, but a THREE SENTENCE synopsis that covers the set-up, story and ending (you don’t have to give away a twist/ending – but a taste of it to spark interest).

Your name
Your email
Promo link (blog post preferred,

Genre
Age Group (open to MG, 8 – 12, & YA, 13 – 18, only)
Word Count

The manuscript must be complete and ready for querying. John is open to nearly any genre, but says High Fantasy (dragons, dwarfs and elves) and Vampires are a hard sell at the moment, so you probably won’t get a request if you enter a MS in one of those areas.

There’s no limit on the number of entries (yes you can enter multiple times if you have more than one MS), but you MUST be a follower of the blog.

The all important prizes! The winner will get a full MS request and two runners up will get a request for the first 30 pages of their MS.

Remember this is NOT a pitch contest, so don’t just condense your query. The contest will be open until midnight 11 August. So start shrinking your synopsis!

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A 35 word pitch for the past one was hard enough.  I’ll see what I can do with a three-sentence synopsis.  Who knows?  Gotta chew on this one a bit.

Get your groove on and Good Luck!

UPDATE:  Okay… Here’s what I am going with…

Overwhelmed by the power given to him by the Great Goddess, Magellan Talbot kills hundreds of people before he erases his memory in hopes of saving the galaxy from suffering a similar fate.  Undaunted, the Goddess surrounds her champion with friends who will unknowingly protect him as she maneuvers him toward the threat he was created to thwart. Without his memory, though, Magellan is vulnerable, and the Goddess must protect him from unknown enemies seeking to smother him.

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