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Desperate to improve with little to go on. Please help?

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Soliloquill

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Hello, all:

I'm looking for critiques on my fantasy writing. I have several to choose from (listed below), any of which I will gladly share and in turn, offer my own critiques on similar subject matter (I don't do well with that romance stuff). After having fallen off the planet for a time, I'm now trying to get my head back into writing. I've faced nothing but rejections (dejection) over the years with little advice as to how to improve, so I'm left frustrated and unsure as to which direction to focus my reconstruction in. Any insight, constructive criticism, advice, etc, would be greatly appreciated and returned in kind.

I have to offer:

By Starlight Speak - 94K word count. Learn to talk to the stars or fall with them. Sona must find her voice if she wants to protect what little her stalker hasn’t taken.

The Heart of the Dragon - 17K word count. After an arrogant, teen-aged mistake costs Ralian his family, he battles demons self-made and real at a magic arts school his parents had always nagged him about.

Only Heroes Get Names - 2K word count. Battered and nearly broken, Aliana finds her fight with the help of a dragon.

A Different Kind of Gem - 1K word count. A fun, dragon-based short.
 
Bufty

Bufty

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Hi, Soliloquill,

Have you considered posting say the first 1200 words of Starlight Speak in the appropriate Share Your Work sub-Forum. That could net you a considerable response. By all means ask folk to be gentle if you wish.

The first few pages are important to catch and hold the reader's interest, and any flaws that folk perceive in the first 1,000 words or so are pretty much likely to reappear throughout the manuscript.

Worth thinking about and you have the qualifying number of posts to open a thread there.

Incidentally, there's no quicker way of learning how to find possible flaws in one's own work than by critiquing the submissions of others in the SYW forum.

Good luck.
 
CathleenT

CathleenT

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I'll take a look at the shorter two if you like. But be advised--I'm very thorough. I'm going to throw everything I have at making your story better. It's up to you to decide what's actually helpful. And I'll make an effort to say some positive things, too, but critting is essentially negative--I point out things as they bug me.

But if you're really up for something besides, "Don't change a thing--I love it," then you can PM me and we can switch emails. :)

And if it matters, I write dragon stories, too. They even get mostly good reviews.

ETA: I learned to edit in Share Your Work.
 
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KBooks

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Second the advice about posting your work in SYW. You'll get a bunch of different pairs of eyes on it and get an idea of what is working for people and what isn't.
 
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