shatteredsmooth

I'd like to submit more of my middle grade story on Monday if that is okay.

I'll definitely work on tightening up the focus around the supernatural stuff. The one haunted doll is almost as important as the mannequin, but mannequins as a whole are more significant than dolls, but I can see how with the way I have it set up, they come across as equal. I'll work on it. That makes sense. I'm happy to hear this! Thanks for reading and for the feedback. :-)

I am very happy to hear this!! I'm doing a happy dance. I very rarely get buy in from you with my characters, so this means a lot. :-) I just skimmed back through the submission. I guess you didn't know this. I cut a few lines about the game from the opening paragraph, intending to put it elsewhere, but I never put it back. The mom doesn't think it's real. It's actually based on a game I used to play with Mom, and sometimes my cousin, when I was a kid. My mom always made up these scary games when I was little and didn't realize how I sort of struggled separating them from reality. Her intentions were good. She was trying to keep me entertained. She underestimated my imagination. By 12 I knew most of the games or stories weren't real, but I did believe in ghosts and still wouldn't look mannequins in the eyes. This is what I was trying to capture. Good points. I'll think about what I can do to fix this. I always have a hard time getting the first couple chapters right. Yup. Good catch. Good question. I'm grappling with how much gender discussion to include and how subtle or obvious to make it. This is something I'm going to keep eye out for as I resume my middle grade reading spree. Not just with gender, but with how other issues are handled for that age. So far I've noticed middle grade tends to less subtle than adult or YA, but it's possible I'm being too heavy handed still. I need to read more. @Mandamon and @kais Thank you very much for reading and critiquing! :-)

I was very engaged with this chapter, and love the changes you made regarding Z. I really felt like I was in her head, seeing through her eyes, experiencing the world like she was as opposed to being told what she struggled with. I felt like understood her a lot more. The tension was great, and I loved the details around the festival. Some notes I made while reading: "She bent her head at the waist and popped her head around R's torso...."I thought I heard wrong the first time..." "Is this really the right time?"...."Yes, Sir." I was a bit lost in this exchange. I could not figure out what they were talking about. It took me a few reads to figure out that this was all about M trying to distract the adults by making fun of Z's nickname. "She hit the word normal hard, and the hurt in..." This, and the exchange before it, was fantastic! I also like the "normal" related conversation that followed later, though I was thinking maybe it could be trimmed a tiny bit in the middle because it is bordering on being didactic. "...awkward with her personal space being invaded so...because she knew P needed it..." I'm not on the autism spectrum, but I do have sensory issues, and this paragraph, the idea of being uncomfortable with hugs while understanding their necessity, really resonated me. "...didn't like their children play with..." I think there is a word missing somewhere in this sentence. "And it felt good." I loved this entire section with the Gloom and the screaming. Sometimes as a person with mental illness, I love using words like "crazy" and "insane" for certain things, but based on internet discussions, I suspect a majority of other feel otherwise. Personally, as long as you are not using it in a way that links insanity or craziness to violence, I think it is fine, but I think I may be an outlier in the discussion. I had trouble with this too. I also thought the recording, from a being who claimed he used to be the God King, might have somehow made them question the current God king and their religion in general.

This is probably my favorite chapter so far. J's voice is very strong, the emotion is vivid, and the tension never flags. J's idea to hire a man hunter seemed out of nowhere to me. In the scene leading up to it, I was very invested in her emotion reaction to the attack, but until this point, I hadn't been sure how much the frontiers people even knew about manhunters. Granted, the conversation with the mayor implies J actually might not know much about them at all, which makes her enthusiasm a little frustrating to me even if in some ways, it is actually a good thing. If your intention was to get the readers a little frustrated with a character they liked, because she was making a questionable decision, then it is working. The frustration I'm feeling with it is something I often feel while reading published novels or watching moves (most recently, Spiderman: Far From Home). My only other issue was this was the end of the chapter. I loved the scene with J persuading A to let her use the phone, but after, the last line didn't pack the punch I was hoping for. I'd say either end off with the meet me at midnight or try to beef up the second guessing so it packed more a punch. Here are some notes I made as I read: "The W...V... of New Athens" I thought it was her. :-) "...barest perceptible moment, shame flickered...." Interesting. "...had received down the V's whip across the face..." The wording here is confusing. "...phones were too expensive for Frontier folk to buy." Good bit of world building! It clarifies that the tech divide between the Frontier and bigger cities is economic in nature. "...she'd never smiled once in her whole life, because she looked awfully young..." This might just be me, but I've always thought of frowning making people look old, not smiling. "...she found herself withering in her seat..." I'm not sure I understand why she reacts this way. Her bravado vanishes very quickly and the mayor hasn't done anything. Later, she doesn't seem so cowed by this woman. I can't wait to read the next chapter! I was thinking this was because R/WV didn't want to actually do too much damage to innocent people, but I could be wrong. That seen did have a trope feel, but I wasn't seeing J as rational in that seen. I kept thinking J was being an naive and was going to get everyone killed. Though maybe that actually is part of the idiot plot you mention. If I venture into making predictions, I'm thinking calling the MH is going to be a big mistake, and that J and R/WV are going to end up working together somehow.

There was such a mixed reaction to this that I haven't been sure how to respond to the comments. I really want to keep this around 500 words, 600 tops. I was pretty happy with this piece and had actually sent it two markets, but the second rejection came with a comment about the reader not quite being sure he understood the piece. I thought maybe the two people who had previously critiqued it had been too nice to tell me what the problem really was, so I sent to you all, which I probably should've done in the first place. Thank you for reading it. You've definitely given me a lot to think about. It's something that takes practice. I used to write flash every week, and a lot of it was crap, but I did have some good pieces. But like any skill, it gets rusty when I stop practicing, and I am out of practice. Your comments are very helpful. Thank you! Yay! Good point. I have the answer to this somewhere in my head. I'll try to work it into the next draft. Interesting. In my last draft, the middle was the begining. Parts 1 and 3 were just part 2. One person I got feedback from suggested either cutting part two or splitting it so it framed part 1. I was kind of stumped about what the end note would be, so I went with their frame suggestion. I think I agree with you about flash and twists, but that doesn't stop me from putting twists in my flash. Thank you! Threadbare is what I was going for. I've read pieces more threadbare than this. But I think there is something important missing from this and I'll take your feedback into consideration. Even if I don't add everything you've asked for more of, considering what to add or not add will help me hone the piece. Thank you! What you describe is exactly what I was hoping the story would be! I'm blushing right now. If the others had reacted the same way you did, I would take you up on this offer, but I think there may be some piece missing that will tighten up how it comes together, and until I am certain about what that is, I'll hold off on the red pen slashing. Thank you for offering. Thank you again! This is random, but for some reason your comments made me think about two things: why I like flash fiction so much, and how I wasn't actually able to finish my first novel until after I started writing flash. I was forever starting to write novels and not finishing them until one of my colleagues introduced me to drabbles (100-word stories). I worked my way up from finishing a drabble to finishing a novel I had been on and off writing for years. Speaking of missing pieces... At least on the surface, I was going for something along the lines of "kid thinks mother is just trying to scare them into behaving and it turns out the scary story is true" type of thing, but I think I need a deeper arc to be clearer too. Thank you for your comments! You all certainly gave me a lot to think about! Thank you so much for reading and commenting.

Hi All, Attached are the first two chapters of my middle grade novel. I'm calling it Junk Junction until I come up with a better title. As far as genre goes, I'm not sure whether to call his horror or paranormal. I put "G" as a content warning because there is a slightly gory description of a ghost in chapter 2. I have a complete first draft of the whole novel, but it is a little too short, probably because I rushed the end. I've revised these first two chapters a few times already after getting feedback from a couple CPs. Now I'm ready to see what you think of them. I don't have any specific questions. I'm open to whatever kind of feedback you have to offer. Thanks! P.S. I read this whole thing out loud this afternoon, and I did catch quite a few errors. However, I kept adding and changing things. I did go back and reread those sections, but I don't always see errors until I haven't looked at the writing for a few days. I'm sorry if I made new errors and didn't catch them. If this section is grammatically horrible, then next week, I'll proof read with a pen and paper in addition to proof reading on the computer. Reading a hard copy, especially if I read from the end to the begining, usually helps me see more mistakes, but I hate wasting paper...

Hmmm I was going to wait until next week to start sending my middle grade novel through, but maybe since there are only two people this week, I'll send part of it tomorrow.

I am way way behind, so I'm sorry about the lateness. On a sentence level, I liked the writing. The sensory details and description worked form me. However, I'm not sure I "got" the piece even though some of the commentary was a little bit over the top. I felt like I was being lectured during the conversation between CM and K. I'm not quite sure what was at stake for CM when it came to resisting. What was he trying to hold onto? Who was this girl? Why was she significant? Would I know if I knew more about Sesame Street? Part of my problem might be that I watched very little of that show when I was a kid and I think this might be relying on the reader having a certain amount of knowledge about the show and characters.

I did like the world building in this section. It gave me a clear picture of what the war with the demons is like, at least to a certain extent. It introduces shadows and mage corps. Having this before the rest would give me a sense of what was happening on the front. I like it the length it is, but I am thinking maybe you could add a little bit. Is this the battle where the "demon" (I know it isn't actually a demon) Z finds comes through a rift at? If so, it might be good to continue this long enough to show that. Then it would have a clear connection to Z's chapters. Overall, I was engaged throughout the whole thing and didn't make any line by line notes. At first I was a little reluctant because there have been a lot of POVs, but taking into account this actually comes before most or all of what I've read, and that there won't be so many POVs all at once, I liked it, and thought it could work as a prologue.

I was thrown by how long this takes place after J's other chapter. If her first one is a prologue, I'm wondering if it would be better to have this follow right after the prologue. That would give readers more time to invest in J as a character and get to know a portion of the world. On the other hand, part of me was wondering if J's prolouge actually needs to be there at all... One thing this chapter doesn't do, but could or should do, is finally give readers a sense of how the Greek influence came to be in this world. The scene in the temple is the perfect place to do that, but at the end of it all, I still don't understand how the Greek stuff came to be in this world. "The strength of approach her friends again..." Should this be "the strength to approach?" Speaking of friends, I was very confused by this whole thread. Had the friends stopped talking to her because of the her injuries? Because she looked maimed? I don't get it. The line "...who'd been keen to forget her after...That Evening was what she referred that awful day to, and turned away." If so, they are pretty bad friends and I really don't want her to get them back. Or did something else happen? Does this thread about the bad friends need to be there? I found it a little distracting. The wording in that sentence I just quoted is also a little confusing. "..with barrels for arms and a dried..." So when i first read this, I thought you meant he literally had barrels instead of arms, like he lost his arms and the prosthetics were some kind of barrels. But the dried prune part kind of indicated the whole thing was a metaphor. Still, consider rewording. "...pride for avenging her uncle's murder. But the sight had unnerved her friends." Two things about this line. 1. When she hears about the black night sighting, she starts thinking about revenge, but here it says she already killed the person who killed her uncle. So she already got her revenge. 2. This does confirm why the friends stopped talking to her, and it just makes me hate the friends. Me hating the friends distracts me from figuring out what the actual plot is going to be. The chapter seems to pick up more when the strangers get to the saloon, and the end of the chapters works well for me. I mostly agree with this, but I would still keep the part in the temple and try to use it as a way to shore up the world building.

Overall, I liked this better than the first time around. The whole arc of the chapter is clearer, and the set up makes sense. I liked that the fight was trimmed. It made the interaction with the knight easier to follow. Here is one point where I got confused "Like I said, White V..., just some old timer..." Something about way this was phrased made me not realize WV was R's nickname. So for a few lines of the following conversation, I was confused until I started reading again. I also don't have the best understanding of the world, but it's only the second chapter, so I'm willing to wait it out a little since it seems like something very complicated. One other thing I am wondering is why the people on the frontier don't have the tech. Is it an economic thing? A choice? Did the societies evolve differently? How hard or easy is it for people to move between the two places? I liked that part too.

Of course I'll stick around. Plus, POV thing wouldn't be enough for me to drop the book if it were something I picked up on my own. I'm looking forward to reading more of this!

I was thinking this too and forgot to mention it in my notes. I share this confusion.

Hmmm There were a lot of POVs in this chapter, and in the begining, they switched before I could engage with any of them. However, I got the impression you weren't really trying to make me engage with those characters, just show snippets of things that are happening that will probably affect Q's case. It wasn't until the later part of the chapter, where it finally seemed to zoom in on E, that I felt like I was supposed to actually care about anyone. Still, I'm wondering if you need all the POVs you showed. There were some gems in G's section, but I also didn't get the sense that it added a whole lot. We find out about the relationship with E in E's POV. We know from a previous POV that some sneaky and probably violent covert operation is going down to the influence the election. I did like G much better than the first section. Of course, if you cut what came before it and started with G, then it would be adding new information. The first section was the one I found least engaging. How much does G know about why she is getting the call she got? Could she think something that would reveal what the first section reveals? I felt like the one between G and E also overlapped with information given in other sections. Would it be at all possible if it was just G and E? If not, I understand. Other readers might not mind all the POVs. I haven't read what the other's said yet. And since I haven't read the whole book, I don't know that there isn't some crucial piece of information in one of the sections I have suggesting cutting. When I got to E's section, I finally felt like my brain was able to settle into the chapter. She is an interesting character for sure. One I could imagine being a good rival or enemy for Q. As I read: "Increasingly, the human mind was a haven..." I loved G's reflections on tech and it's influences on privacy. "were just a deadly." should this be "as deadly" ? "...cope with names that didn't sound like their own..." the names thing felt like it was going on a little too long Terj... who is this? "She wondered if T did, but knew never to ask again" I was getting confused in this section. I felt like I was missing too much to make sense of it. I am guessing the that one of these monsters is going to get out, and that is going to be the thing the politician is going to have to save the people from.

I feel the same was about this. While the first chapter had plenty to hold my attention, I had a harder time engaging with this one. Deciding on the case felt drawn out and I wasn't quite understanding why Q picked the one he did. As someone who didn't read book 1, I appreciated getting filled on the details of how Q and M came together, but it almost felt like too much all at once, especially since it was in such a quiet chapter. There seemed to be a lot of writing dedicated to the local politics. I got bored with it, but if it is something important that comes up later, I understand its necessity. I enjoyed Q's voice and interactions with M, but there was a lack of tension in this chapter.

Hi All, Attached is a pice of flash fiction I'd love feedback on. I tried my best to edit and catch grammatical errors / typos, but I did add a few sentences today. If there are any typos, I'm guessing they will be in those newer sentences. I'd like to know how I did catching my errors. Any other you have on the story will be much appreciated. Thanks! Sara P.S. I can't think of any specific content tags. There's no swearing, violence, or sexuality. Blood is mentioned but not shown. However, one person is being controlled by another in parts of the story.

This makes sense. Since this was my first time reading, I wasn't sure how widely known his face was. I almost wasn't going to mention it al all, but then I added it at the last minute. So if the others didn't comment on it, then it's fine as is.

If there is space on Monday, I have piece of flash fiction I'd like some feedback on. It's less than 500 words. However, if people with ongoing projects want to submit, I'll let them have the space.

Sometimes your work is hard to critique because it is so good! I loved M's voice, swearing, and appreciation of guns. I love her spunk. I was amused by Q focusing on the quality of the furniture while getting shot at. Was M actually a convent girl at one time? Or was this just pure sarcasm? I assume I'd know if I had read book 1. On the last page, the last time you say Q's name, you spelled it as "Quick." The last line made laugh out loud. Oh, and I hit post, then realized I forgot something. I was a little doubtful about Q thinking he wouldn't recognized if he is as well known as the art dealer implies. A mustache really isn't much of a disguise. But the others didn't comment on this, so I might have just misunderstood something.

For sure! I don't have nearly as much to say about this chapter as I did the first few you submitted. Having an adult character after a few chapters of younger characters did take me a few minutes to warm up to, but once I did, I enjoyed the chapters. I liked the tension in it, the details it revealed about the world and the plot, and how it linked up with one of the other POVs. When the POV switched again, I was a little reluctant to move to a new character already when I had just started liking the one I was reading, but after a page or two, I once again warmed up to that character. One thing that annoyed me a little was that in both chapters, there was a lot of focus on POV mouthing off to superiors. I liked it more with the first one. With the second, even though it was a different character, it still felt redundant even if the the consequences for one were more severe than the other. I was a little confused as to whether or not Y was actually a slave or just felt like one. One grammatical edit: "a trait shared true rift chasers" I think there is a word missing. I would be on board with a story just being told from Z's POV, but I don't mind the other younger character either. I think this is L? She is a teen, right? One thing that is nagging at me about the age differences is that I feel like each POV is kind of aimed at a difference audience. The adult characters feel written for adults. Z feels somewhere on the border of YA and middle grade. L feels like YA. I'm thinking the story might be better without the adults. If you are just writing for you, or even to self publish, you can probably get away without picking an age category, but if you plan to query agents, it probably should fit in one age box or the other. I was bothered by this in his POV. @JWerner make a good point here. I also agree with @kais and @Robinski's comments on this topic. I noticed this too.

So I just finished the first draft of my 7th novel and am starting on my 8th. However, I've never sent a full novel through this forum, so I'm not 100% sure how that will influence my process for future novels. The one I started sending through is shelved for now, but I think I will eventually come back to it. I also have one novel that I've started but not finished. My process evolved a little with each novel, but 4 and 6 more or less followed the same process, and I've been offered contracts from small publishers for those two, so I think I'm getting closer to a process that works. My long term goal is to get an agent and be published by a larger publisher. Here is my process: 1. Start making up bits and pieces of the story while I'm driving or walking. 2. Start writing the first draft. Here, I write as much as I can as quickly as I can. If the plot comes to me quicker than I can write the book, then I make a very rough outline of what I know. Sometimes I follow that outline, sometimes I don't. Usually it's a fluid thing that changes as I get to know the characters better. Sometimes I doesn't exist much at all. Novel 4 had a fairly detailed outline during this stage that I stuck to. 6 had some outlining, but I really didn't follow much of it. The one I just finished had almost no outlining (but it was middle grade, so it was a lot shorter than my YA and adult manuscripts). This phase usually takes between four and eight weeks, but the end product can be a big mess. 3. After letting the draft rest for a week or two, I print it out and read it. I mark it up with colored pens. This involves making notes like I would if I were critiquing someone else's story, crossing out pages of text and rewriting them between the lines and in the margins, and sometimes doodling maps, rooms, weapons or characters. I also make a chapter by chapter outline of the story as I read. When I'm done, I write a letter of overall comments I had on the story like I would if I were beta reading someone else's novel, and then I make a list of revisions I need to make. (Note: With novel #5, I did not do my usual step 3. Instead, I'd edit a couple chapters, submit them to this group, edit them more, clean up the next ones, send those and so forth. I got very bogged down and overwhelmed with all the feedback and ended up setting that book aside. 4. After letting it rest for about a week I go through and make all the necessary revisions, rewrites, edits, and additions in the computer. I don't retype the whole thing. I just save as a new file name. 5. I get feedback. This is the part that varies. Sometimes at this stage I send the whole book out to beta readers (though some people might call them alpha readers) and I don't allow myself to look at the ms while they are reading it. Other times I've worked with a cp, swapping a set amount of pages each week. If someone is reading the whole book, then I don't look at the manuscript at all while they read. At some stage, I need to let it rest for at least a month or two. Unless I am working with a CP, then happens here. 6. I read and annotate my feedback before making a list of revisions to make. 7. I make the revisions on my list. 8. At this point, if I am confident with the content, I let it rest for a couple weeks then put the draft on my kindle, make the font really big, and read it out loud, highlighting errors and commenting on sentence level things. As soon as I finish, I make my changes in the document. If I am not confident with the content, I repeat 6 and 7 until I am, and then I do the editing phase. With novel #4, went through 6 and 7 three times. With novel #6, which was a sequel to my published novel, I only had one round of feedback, though I did have a lot of false starts with that book. I found I couldn't really finish the first draft until book 1 had gotten through two rounds of editing with my publisher and was out with their copy editor. Now, I find I can go from a first draft to a polished manuscript in a year. However, it took me almost ten years to do that with Power Surge, which was the first novel I started with any seriousness and the second I finished. I'd start it, ramble off into plots that made no sense, back track, and sometimes leave it alone for years at a time. I did have quite a few false starts for the sequel, which was novel #, but with one exception, those false starts were only ever a couple chapters long. I found I couldn't really dive into it until Power Surge was with it's publisher's copy editor.

I have mixed feelings about this. All the POV switching was satisfying in the sense that it allowed me to feel like I had a complete sense of how everyone was coming together. It was bring everyone's threads together all at once and the little bits of overlap transitioned well. On the other hand, it felt like it moved to quick and the constant jumping was making it hard to engage on the level I would want to be for the last chapter. I'm not 100% sure if this would've happened had I read it from begining to end over the course of a day or two like I do with novels. I know this is going to sound vague, but I feel like I am missing something from the end and I really am not sure what it is or how to ask a more specific question to find out what it is. I think this might be part of what I am missing. The characters were all scattered, and they came together. Some of them grew and changed, and maybe a few threads resolved, like the E I S trio is back together and each member is a little evolved, but I feel like those were more subplots for individual POVs and not an arc for the whole book. If the rescue mission was supposed to be the big thing, then I feel like it kind of got lost in everything else that was going on. I just have this sense of things come together in a rushed manner, introducing something new and end abruptly without me knowing what was really resolved, if anything. It really didn't feel like an ending. Also, the voice coming back was a little jarring. I'd almost forgotten about it even though it was mentioned a couple times. And what about the Dissolution? That wasn't mentioned in this last chapter or in the epilogue and I thought stopping that was one of the main goals these characters had. Edited to add: I do want to reiterate that I love that everyone is together in the one place for this and the general concept of it could work with better set up and some tightening. Slightly prescriptive and very ignorable comments / questions: Is there anyway to have a chapter where things feel resolved? A moment where everyone thinks they are more or less okay, and then this thing comes when they are all in one place already? Like as soon as they think they're safe and resolved, boom! They actually aren't. More prescriptiveness: What if it initially seemed like nothing came through the void? What if Sam felt something first, then the others arrived in the Eff's room thinking they've gotten away from the LC...then the LC shows up with this thing or pursued by it? I feel like I'm not being super helpful, but the ending didn't quite work how I hoped even though I love these characters and this world. This wouldn't stop me from reading book 3, but I'd be grumbling about for a while.

At first I thought this was a different book. The voice was completely different -- more what I expect from YA. The level of technology also seemed drastically different than what I thought this world had based on the previous chapter. I was for more engaged in this one too. I also didn't have any problems with the blend of the weird west / ancient Greece stuff. I think it is partially because of the voice, but also because this character offers readers a more complete picture of the world where the other seemed to only know a little of it. During the fight scene, I got a little lost, both in the action and in the dialogue. By the end of it, I felt like I was missing some important piece that would let me string the whole thing together and see the whole picture. This is a great suggestion! Also, I'm guessing the dead hyrdra in this section is the one the other girl killed in the first one? I think that the hydra does work as a connector between the two chapters, and maybe could be used more so. I'm curious to see where this goes next!

I really didn't make many notes on this one. I was very engaged from start to finish. I loved the way the relationship's between the kids are developing and the details unfolding about the world and the demons are fantastic. The one thing that threw was the part where Z starts thinking about social cues. Throughout the other chapters, I didn't notice Z missing any social cues or struggling to read them, so even though the narration was telling me this was an issue, I didn't believe it. I don't know if I am forgetting something, or if I missed something because I miss a lot of cues, or if it actually wasn't there to see, but to me, it felt like it just came out of nowhere. I wasn't super happy with the way the issue was talked about or labeled afterwards, but @kais did a fantastic job explaining that and making suggestions about how to correct it. This. If you are writing Z as autistic, it needs to be shown more. It needs to be more part of her voice and how she sees the world, and right now, I don't think it is, otherwise, I wouldn't have been so surprised when the narrative all of a sudden started coding her that way. Can you show her feeling inept then instead of telling us? That word is promoting a stigma, but even if it wasn't, I still feel like the narrative voice is telling me something about the character I haven't seen enough to believe. You can do this without using ableist language if you listen to what @kais and @industrialistDragon are suggesting. And showing the character struggling and being insecure without using words that are strongly connected to ablism would be a more compelling way to develop Z's arc. As it is, that feeling of being "inept" isn't really coming across in any meaningful way. It doesn't feel like Z feeling inept or struggling. It feels like the author thinking Z is inept.