Old People Writing for Teens, IV

Sage · May 16, 2012

Yay, I did it.

Hope you get motivated too, JSS!

Also, I wish I was motivated to do my blog. It's been a week. I just am so reluctant all the time.

Smiley0501 · May 16, 2012

I'm in a blogfest for Mondays-Fridays of May, which means I am stuck blogging every day of the week. though I have been skipping a few days...whoops....

And I'm so glad you did it, Sage. Now, JSS, get your revisions on gear, lady! :tongue

I just finished The F@ult in 0ur $tars. I gave it 4 stars on GoodReads. I had some frustrations/issues with it, which I generally don't have with a JGreen book ('cept WG, WG - I couldn't get into that one at all).

JKRowley · May 16, 2012

You are so not lazy, Sage. Good job working that sticky part.

JSSchley, I took a look at your blog. Time well spent, I think. That is purdy.

Smiley, I loved J. Green when he did the vlog brothers 2.0. I had a huge crush on him. A friend bought me "An @bund@nce of K@therines" for Christmas and it was a disappointment. I may have to try out this F@ult book.

I am in rewrites for a middle grade novel I should have finished a long time ago. I wish I had Sage's work ethic. I am doing a lot of chopping and moving things around, and only working a chapter a night at best.

Why does the new idea (first draft) always sound more enticing during rewrites? I am dying to dig into a companion YA novel to Divided Moon, and I haven't done my research yet, which is the best part.

Smiley0501 · May 16, 2012

I have to admit, my favorite of his is L00k!ng f0r @l@ska. I love his other books, but for me LFA is tops.

Definitely give F@ults a try.

Ah, shiny idea syndrome. *hugs Jill* I'm sorry. Shiny ideas are always more fascinating than anything else............ :tongue

especially when writing something else. :tongue

Alright, back to writing this review...

JSSchley · May 16, 2012

I also gave F@ult a 4 out of 5; a 3.5, really. It felt very forced to me. But I wasn't sorry I bought it in hardcover before reading, for what it's worth. I'll re-read it someday.

And thank you for the compliment, JKR! It's fun...web tweaking messes with a whole different part of my brain.

Dorothy · May 17, 2012

justbishop said:
I'm old (33), so I suppose this is where I belong, huh?

Hello all

Welcome, justbishop! :hi:

Dorothy · May 17, 2012

Heads up! I'll be holding an agent-judged pitch contest on my blog next month. You have three weeks to get ready. Just saying.

I'll give more details once everything is worked out.

justbishop · May 17, 2012

Thanks Dorothy

As for the shiny idea syndrome...I actually have the opposite problem! I'd love to be able to get going on my new idea, but I can't seem to leave my ms in editing/revision alone!

Smiley0501 · May 17, 2012

Thanks for the heads up, Dorothy. Now, only if I wasn't still hardcore revising....

Sage · May 17, 2012

I don't think I can be ready with TM in three weeks, unless I send to betas, they speed read, and there are no major problems they find. Not at all likely.

'Course, if you don't need a polished ms for the contest (like some agents say, "if you win, send it to me when it's ready" and others are like, "only finished mss please"), I could potentially be able to pitch in 3 weeks.

I'm reluctant to pitch H/V in public (the query holds a major spoiler) and my guess is that the agent is looking for YA.

Smiley0501 · May 17, 2012

I just read THE TH!NG$ A BR0TH3R KN0W$. Oh my gosh...

What a beautiful book. So, so good.

parumpdragon · May 17, 2012

I don;t read while I am writing - it changes the voice of my characters.

Smiley0501 · May 17, 2012

That's so interesting. I generally don't read books that are similar to mine in plot when I am writing, but I can read at the same time.

parumpdragon · May 17, 2012

I generally don't read at all. Save for magazines. I don't find a lot of books interesting much anymore.

I liked Sh!ver, and M@tched, and some others. But most just don't pull me in :/

JKRowley · May 17, 2012

I am always reading a book or two. Maybe that is why my writing progresses so slowly.

What is the difference between beta readers and a critique group? Do you send the entire manuscript to beta readers all at once? I use a critique group that sees the novels pieces at a time.

Smiley0501 · May 17, 2012

Oi, speaking of reading...I read like 5 books this week alone. It's ridiculous. The week after I end classes I am always like this :tongue

Hmmm... From my understanding, a critique group is a group of people you give your work to and they critique it, and a beta reader is one person who looks over your piece and critiques it. The critique group generally critiques each other's stuff where beta readers don't always have to crit each other. That's what I always understood it as... :Shrug:

JKRowley · May 17, 2012

Yeah, my critique group has a schedule to review each other's work, and we see a lot of work in development. Sometimes that leads to discussions, which usually involve problems that need solving in someone's work: tension, POV, etc....

Beta readers is a newer term. I first heard it a year or two ago in writer forums. Maybe I am just out of the loop. I would think you need several to get a grasp on what is working and what is not, and they have to be generous readers if they get nothing in return.

Sage · May 18, 2012

A lot of people here do beta reading. Some will ask for a read in return, but most who've been here a while do not expect it. Four seems to be the magic beta number.

With betas, you usually send a finished (polished, please!) draft. A crit group will find a lot of the things that betas usually do and before you're even finished, so you're ahead of the game, but betas will give it fresh eyes and, for the most part, won't know the process you went through to get to the finished product, so they'll be less biased in their opinions on it. Betas read it, for the most part, like an informed reader would, only you get their reviews personally instead of reading status updates on Goodreads

. Some will give you in-document comments and some will give you general impressions, and some will critique line-by-line.

Dorothy · May 18, 2012

Sage said:
I don't think I can be ready with TM in three weeks, unless I send to betas, they speed read, and there are no major problems they find. Not at all likely.

'Course, if you don't need a polished ms for the contest (like some agents say, "if you win, send it to me when it's ready" and others are like, "only finished mss please"), I could potentially be able to pitch in 3 weeks.

Yes, true. Plus, the agent might take a week before winners are announced, so there's another week. And industry standards give you another week before most agents expect the request to land in their inbox, so there's another week. So that's a total of five weeks. Enough time?

Dorothy · May 18, 2012

JKRowley said:
Yeah, my critique group has a schedule to review each other's work, and we see a lot of work in development. Sometimes that leads to discussions, which usually involve problems that need solving in someone's work: tension, POV, etc....

Beta readers is a newer term. I first heard it a year or two ago in writer forums. Maybe I am just out of the loop. I would think you need several to get a grasp on what is working and what is not, and they have to be generous readers if they get nothing in return.

I have (actually I run) a critique group where we exchange chapters every two weeks. It's worked really well. I also have a friend who majored in English Lit who beta reads for me outside of the crit group. And then there's my teenage daughter, who believe it or not is great at catching mistakes and plot holes. Plus she tells me if something is "lame" - lol.

Stiger05 · May 18, 2012

Sage said:
A crit group will find a lot of the things that betas usually do and before you're even finished, so you're ahead of the game, but betas will give it fresh eyes and, for the most part, won't know the process you went through to get to the finished product, so they'll be less biased in their opinions on it.

Betas are great for this purpose. I'm in a fantastic crit group, and they give great feedback, but sometimes I feel like they're holding back so they don't hurt my feelings and want to keep a relationship. The great thing about betas is you don't actually know them, so they can be 100% honest if you want. If it hurts your feelings, you don't have a personal relationship with them and don't have to use them again. Or, if they're great, you've got someone you can consistently go to and becomes more like a critique partner.

JSSchley · May 18, 2012

Stiger05 said:
Betas are great for this purpose. I'm in a fantastic crit group, and they give great feedback, but sometimes I feel like they're holding back so they don't hurt my feelings and want to keep a relationship. The great thing about betas is you don't actually know them, so they can be 100% honest if you want. If it hurts your feelings, you don't have a personal relationship with them and don't have to use them again. Or, if they're great, you've got someone you can consistently go to and becomes more like a critique partner.

Maybe I'm a bad crit partner.

I tend to tell my crit partners that I operate under the assumption that the very best thing I can do for you as a friend, and the best way I can show you that I care deeply about your work and your success, is to not hold back.

The last two novels I critted, I told one partner she needed to drop almost 40,000 words and start the novel much later; the other, I asked the partner to slice 25,000 words and remove what she thought was her central plot. (It wasn't; she wrote a great, funny contemporary romance that she buried within a very odd plot.)

I'm more hesitant betaing for strangers, actually--in part because I don't have that supportive net of knowing that they know I'm being critical because I really care about them and their work.

(And, being ripped to shreds is exactly the kind of critique I expect from people in return. I take as good as I give.)

Sage · May 18, 2012

If people are asking to be beta'd, they *should* be ready to receive criticism. If they have multiple betas, they'll see whether your crits resonate with the others. If they don't think it makes sense or it doesn't match the rest, they might not use it.

I think the trick with betaing is knowing the difference between saying, "this is what I see is wrong," and "this is how to fix it." I do sometimes give examples of how things could be fixed (how I would fix it, but with major disclaimers), but in the end, it's the author's place to fix it. Sometimes, "OMG, I hate your love interest" comes down to one piece of dialogue or a character quirk that can be easily changed or cut, for example (this has happened to me). "You need more conflict" can be more helpful sometimes than, "add this and you'll have more conflict" because if the writer doesn't agree with the "this," they'll reject the whole critique instead of focusing on the important info that they need more conflict. As examples.

When I get critiques I don't like, I kick and scream and cry in private for a few days, then eventually go, "Oh, no, I know what I can do about that" and revise. "Eventually" used to take longer, but it's much shorter now.

Stiger05 · May 18, 2012

I think everyone has their own style. The crit group that I was referring to earlier is a live, in person group. We meet once a month and have a social time for a while first and then dive into our WIPs. It's run by a small, local publisher and I'm the only member of the group she hasn't published, so everyone has a different relationship with each other.

I give honest feedback always but I'm more nit-picky with my online betas. I try to warn people up front that's my style. Sometimes people like it, and sometimes not. If not, then unlike my real life crit group, I don't have to worry about running into them on the street and having awkward conversation, you know?

I prefer a critique that rips my work to shreds. I'd rather a story be torn completely down and built up properly than to build a whole building and realize it's shaky after I've already shown it off.

parumpdragon · May 18, 2012

I am the odd man out then, because I have never been in or had - a crit group on a project.

And only 10 pages of 2 MS have ever been beta-ed. *shrug*

I am paranoid when it comes to my work - what can I say

Old People Writing for Teens, IV

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