Hi, I'm Pala, I'm twenty-two years old and I'm TOTALLY brand new at writing. I don't know whether to congratulate you or tell you how sorry I am for you. I have written what I believe would be a great horror novel if published Probably not. Initial goal should be getting your book published, then you worry about it being great. BUT, I know the grammar, and punctuation is bad. And for that you put on a new hat. It's called the editor's hat. Writing the story is the easy part. Now you have lots and lots of editing to do. Buy Elements of Style. Read it and then read it again. Go through your novel, line by line. Check everything, then when you think you've got it, sit on it for a bit and do it again. James MacDonald has a thread on writing. Lots of valuable suggestions. Also I'm not sure if the manuscript is formatted right, There's another thread of formatting, but it really isn't a big deal. You have read at least a couple of books on how to get published? If you haven't, you should. also I do not know a thing about writing a query or synopsis for my manuscript. There's a share your work section for query letters, but you're a long way from that. Andrew Jameson has a sticky there on how to write a query letter. Now I'm not sure if a beta reader helps with all that, but I hope one can. No, you deal with it. This is what separates the men from the boys. If you can get your novel to being in good grammatical shape, you've beaten about 80 to 90% of the slush pile. I DESPERATELY want this novel published....someone please help me. Are you desperate enough to do the hard work that's ahead of you? Learn grammar. Learn what a novel needs to have to work. Edit, edit, and edit some more. Thanks. You can email me if you want.
