Precision Editing's LIVE CRITIQUING WORKSHOP
August 13, 2011
American Fork Library
64 South 100 East, American Fork, UT
Doors open: 10:00 a.m.
Workshop: 10:30 a.m. -- 3:30 p.m.
Includes one hour lunch break, lunch on your own
Registration deadline: August 1st
**Limited Space**
Payments to: www.paypal.com
Pay $35.00 to PayPal account: editor@precisioneditinggroup.com
**include "PEG Workshop" in the notes
**include your email address in the notes if different from your paypal address
(you don't need a PayPal account to do this)
Instructors include best-selling & award-winning authors:
Annette Lyon (Best of State winner, Whitney Award winner, author of historical fiction, women's fiction, romance, and a cookbook)
Josi S. Kilpack (Whitney Award winner, author of women's fiction, romance, suspense, culinary mysteries)
Lu Ann Staheli (Best of State winner in non-fiction, Best of State educator, author of celebrity memoirs)
Heather B. Moore (Best of State winner, Whitney Award winner, author of historical fiction and non-fiction)
Julie Wright (Whitney Award winner, author of middle grade science fiction, time-travel, contemporary young adult, and romance)
Bring:
15 pages of your manuscript, double-spaced, 12 point type
**Make 6 copies for your critique table
(We may not get through all 15 pages, but we should get through at least 10)
Questions: email editor@precisioneditinggroup.com
This information is also on our PEG WORKSHOPS page
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Power of Punctuation in Pacing
The pace of a novel essentially means the rate at which your story unfolds. For the reader, it's about how quickly the action builds in your story. For the writer, it's manipulating time so that you show and tell in the appropriate places and hold the reader's attention perfectly from one scene to another. A book that moves too slowly will lose reader interst, a book that moves to fast will overwhelm them.
Complex, compound, and complex-compound sentences slow down the pace of your writing and offers you the chance to develop your character, describe a scene, give sensory details, and allow your character (and reader) time to reflect, consider, plan, and prepare. Regardless of genre, some slower paced portions are necessary in every novel. Longer sentences give way to longer paragraphs, softer verb usage, and other things that keep things moving, but not so fast there there isn't time to contemplate.
Short, simple, punchier sentences, on the other hand, speed things up and keep the reader reading so fast that there isn't time to think so much. A fast pace is essential in action scenes and to create an emotional reaction from your reader. Shorter sentences give way to shorter paragraphs and crisp verbs that keep the impact high when you want to keep your reader glued to the page.
What pace is the right pace for your novel is determined by several factors: genre, market, character vs. plot driven, etc. How you manipulate the time, and subconsciously cue the reader as to how fast they should be reading, is often controlled by punctuation. Think of it in regard to driving, and how we are 'cued' by signs, signals, and other elements of the American roadways. Punctuation does the exact same thing for your reader:
Period = stop (full brake)
Comma = pause (slow brake before speeding back up)
Ellipsis . . . = pause during continuation (rubbernecking)
Semicolon = longer pause (rolling through a stop sign)
Exclamation point = stop (yelled stop from the passenger--think about how many of those you can take before you smack someone upside the head :-)
Question mark = pause + prod (sharp turn--not a stop because the need for an answer creates a continuum)
Em-dash = pause + aside (slowing down to read a billboard)
Understanding how a reader interprets these 'signals' allows you to better manipulate the time elements within your story and have it received the way you want it to be. For example:
Example #1:
The coldness of his body convinced her that he was dead and she waited to feel regret. Instead she only felt a long lost sense of freedom.
Vs.
He was dead. Cold. She was free
*Both versions say the same thing, but in a different way and at a different rate. Neither is wrong, just different. they make a different kind of impact.
Example #2:
He watched his mother go about her morning routine and wondered how she would react to what he knew he had to tell her. Would she freak out? Would she calmly think it through? Or would she ignore it and pretend it hadn't happened at all. She made the coffee and her toast, offering both to him, but he couldn't eat. Not yet. Not until he finally came clean and changed her life forever.
Vs.
"Do you want coffee?" Mom asked, looking over her shoulder with her eyebrows raised.
"No thanks," he said.
"Toast?" she continued.
"No," he said again. He didn't dare eat until this was over with.
"No," he said again. He didn't dare eat until this was over with.
Would she go through her usual routine tomorrow, he wondered? Or would she stay in bed, still trying to come to grips with everything. Would things ever be the same between them? It was impossible to know. He'd never had the power to hurt her this much.
"Mom?" he said.
"Yeah sweetie?"
"There's something I need to tell you."
*Again there is no right or wrong here, but dialogue naturally lends itself to a faster pace due to the short sentences and simple structures. Both examples still communicate pretty much the same thing, but the style is different and the punch is different. In the second one we feel a little more of an emotional reaction, in the first one we get a little more character development and longer processing time.
As I said, there are many things that influence pacing, punctuation is simply one of those tools. Play with it. Experiment. Create.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Monday Mania--Query Letter
One of our readers has submitted a query letter for critique. Please offer only constructive comments.
Critique Archive #44
Dear Ms.****,
It was 2003 and I was living in Haiti and working for a volunteer medical organization when there was a coup to remove Jean Bertrand Aristide as the president of Haiti.
While experiencing the sounds and smells of war—the extreme isolation, the hovering military helicopters, the gunfire—I was also experiencing a fear of my best Haitian friend and a journey of extreme mental decline. This is when I began writing The Faces of Haiti, Belief or Truth—a scrapbook of memories about a single voluntary commitment which drastically changed the life of a woman who was confident, responsible, well educated, and respected, to a woman who suffered from extreme fear, serious mental decline and loss of the lifelong ability to make good decisions. Here is the story of a woman who could no longer define who was friend, lover, or foe—a woman, who, when looking in the mirror, no longer physically resembled herself.
The commitment and work required to aid a medical doctor and close friend, with the building of a physical rehabilitation program in Port au Prince, Haiti, began not only the growth of the well respected Non Governmental Organization which prospers today, but was also the catalyst in a personal endeavor that approached the precipice of insanity.
The organization, Healing Hands for Haiti, has provided care and limbs for the disabled, and the education in rehabilitation care for orphanages, hospitals, and many young Haitians. The organization is where I met my best friend; and then began a downhill slide into fear, insecurity, and paranoia. Yet that same organization gave me a chance many people never have to examine my life and the lives of others.
Hopefully I have conveyed that I have had the good fortune to separate my beliefs from truth. Learning that acceptance means an honest, non-judgmental examination of the truths and beliefs of all parties involved—including my own—and separating those beliefs from the customs of a country steeped in mystical traditions. Only then could I begin my uphill battle to regain the woman I once was.
I have been a medical social worker for twenty years, twelve years directly in Physical Rehabilitation Social Work. I began my yearly volunteer work with Healing Hands for Haiti by helping create the organization in 1998, and I moved to Haiti permanently to aid in building a new clinic in early 2004. I later moved into the community of Carrefour, Haiti to heal my mental health and begin to know Haiti and its people in an intimate and honest manner. It was in Carrefour where I experienced a new level of love and friendship.
I have attached the Table of Contents and sample chapters of my book The Faces of Haiti, Belief or Truth and hope you will find in them a desire to read more. Thank you for your consideration.
Critique Archive #44
Dear Ms.****,
It was 2003 and I was living in Haiti and working for a volunteer medical organization when there was a coup to remove Jean Bertrand Aristide as the president of Haiti.
While experiencing the sounds and smells of war—the extreme isolation, the hovering military helicopters, the gunfire—I was also experiencing a fear of my best Haitian friend and a journey of extreme mental decline. This is when I began writing The Faces of Haiti, Belief or Truth—a scrapbook of memories about a single voluntary commitment which drastically changed the life of a woman who was confident, responsible, well educated, and respected, to a woman who suffered from extreme fear, serious mental decline and loss of the lifelong ability to make good decisions. Here is the story of a woman who could no longer define who was friend, lover, or foe—a woman, who, when looking in the mirror, no longer physically resembled herself.
The commitment and work required to aid a medical doctor and close friend, with the building of a physical rehabilitation program in Port au Prince, Haiti, began not only the growth of the well respected Non Governmental Organization which prospers today, but was also the catalyst in a personal endeavor that approached the precipice of insanity.
The organization, Healing Hands for Haiti, has provided care and limbs for the disabled, and the education in rehabilitation care for orphanages, hospitals, and many young Haitians. The organization is where I met my best friend; and then began a downhill slide into fear, insecurity, and paranoia. Yet that same organization gave me a chance many people never have to examine my life and the lives of others.
Hopefully I have conveyed that I have had the good fortune to separate my beliefs from truth. Learning that acceptance means an honest, non-judgmental examination of the truths and beliefs of all parties involved—including my own—and separating those beliefs from the customs of a country steeped in mystical traditions. Only then could I begin my uphill battle to regain the woman I once was.
I have been a medical social worker for twenty years, twelve years directly in Physical Rehabilitation Social Work. I began my yearly volunteer work with Healing Hands for Haiti by helping create the organization in 1998, and I moved to Haiti permanently to aid in building a new clinic in early 2004. I later moved into the community of Carrefour, Haiti to heal my mental health and begin to know Haiti and its people in an intimate and honest manner. It was in Carrefour where I experienced a new level of love and friendship.
I have attached the Table of Contents and sample chapters of my book The Faces of Haiti, Belief or Truth and hope you will find in them a desire to read more. Thank you for your consideration.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Dear Good Luck Elsewhere . . .
By Julie Wright
Dear Good Luck Elsewhere . . .
As I’ve grown through the years as a writer and gone on to complete over a dozen books, I’ve glanced back at some of my rejection letters. Some of them are priceless—hilarity on a sheet of paper, some of them are painful, like walking ten miles on shattered glass on your hands and knees. Some are insightful and helped mold me into a better writer.
I was doing a school visit with author Jessica Day George, and we both shared horror stories of our rejection letter woes with the kids. It's a surreal moment when you sit up and pay attention to another person's story because it sounds so familiar--so much like your own.
Jessica talked about her first rejection letter, how she received the envelope and thought it was awfully skinny and small to be holding her huge advance check and the contract that would name her the most brilliant authoress ever born. And so it was with horror that she realized the itty bitty slip of paper that looked oddly like a sales receipt was really a rejection letter. Several rejection letters later she got a one that was a couple of pages of personal notation by the editor. usually if the editor sends a personal note, it means they saw some sort of spark they want to fan. They usually only take time out of their busy lives to give personal messages to writers with potential, but this particular message wasn't sent with thoughts of helping this young author improve. Jessica describes it as being like a scene from Mulan, "Dishonor on your house! Dishonor on your family! Dishonor on your cow! Dishonor, dishonor, dishonor . . ."
My first rejection letter said something like, "Dear Conrtibutor, We're sorry but your submission does not meet our publishing needs at this time." That was all that was written on the quarter sheet of paper. I wasn't even worth a whole sheet and the use of my name.
The worst letter I ever received during all the years of submitting was the one where the editor told me they hoped my main character would DIE of a drug overdose because she was THAT unlikeable.
That one letter sent me into a miserable pitiable absurd state of existance for about a year.
That book was later published by a different publisher and to this day, I still receive fan mail for it. I guess not everyone wants her to die of an overdose . . .
The letters are part of the business. They are a horrible part of the business, but a part none-the-less. If you keep at it, you'll find success. Elana Johnson who has her amazing debut book "Possession" releasing on June 7th received many such letters, the kinds where they call you dear author, or dear contributor, or they fail to address you by any such dignifying title at all. Her absolute success came because she refused to give up. Jessica Day George is the same way. They are amazing women. They've done amazing things, and it shows that they are strong and capable when they refused to let the letters that send a visceral ache through them get the better of them.
It is a part of what we do but sometimes you can laugh at the silliness of it. (Yes Marion Jensen . . . I just pulled out the silly word).
So . . . what's the worst/funniest/craziest letter YOU'VE ever received?
Dear Good Luck Elsewhere . . .
As I’ve grown through the years as a writer and gone on to complete over a dozen books, I’ve glanced back at some of my rejection letters. Some of them are priceless—hilarity on a sheet of paper, some of them are painful, like walking ten miles on shattered glass on your hands and knees. Some are insightful and helped mold me into a better writer.
I was doing a school visit with author Jessica Day George, and we both shared horror stories of our rejection letter woes with the kids. It's a surreal moment when you sit up and pay attention to another person's story because it sounds so familiar--so much like your own.
Jessica talked about her first rejection letter, how she received the envelope and thought it was awfully skinny and small to be holding her huge advance check and the contract that would name her the most brilliant authoress ever born. And so it was with horror that she realized the itty bitty slip of paper that looked oddly like a sales receipt was really a rejection letter. Several rejection letters later she got a one that was a couple of pages of personal notation by the editor. usually if the editor sends a personal note, it means they saw some sort of spark they want to fan. They usually only take time out of their busy lives to give personal messages to writers with potential, but this particular message wasn't sent with thoughts of helping this young author improve. Jessica describes it as being like a scene from Mulan, "Dishonor on your house! Dishonor on your family! Dishonor on your cow! Dishonor, dishonor, dishonor . . ."
My first rejection letter said something like, "Dear Conrtibutor, We're sorry but your submission does not meet our publishing needs at this time." That was all that was written on the quarter sheet of paper. I wasn't even worth a whole sheet and the use of my name.
The worst letter I ever received during all the years of submitting was the one where the editor told me they hoped my main character would DIE of a drug overdose because she was THAT unlikeable.
That one letter sent me into a miserable pitiable absurd state of existance for about a year.
That book was later published by a different publisher and to this day, I still receive fan mail for it. I guess not everyone wants her to die of an overdose . . .
The letters are part of the business. They are a horrible part of the business, but a part none-the-less. If you keep at it, you'll find success. Elana Johnson who has her amazing debut book "Possession" releasing on June 7th received many such letters, the kinds where they call you dear author, or dear contributor, or they fail to address you by any such dignifying title at all. Her absolute success came because she refused to give up. Jessica Day George is the same way. They are amazing women. They've done amazing things, and it shows that they are strong and capable when they refused to let the letters that send a visceral ache through them get the better of them.
It is a part of what we do but sometimes you can laugh at the silliness of it. (Yes Marion Jensen . . . I just pulled out the silly word).
So . . . what's the worst/funniest/craziest letter YOU'VE ever received?
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