Finding and Being an Excellent Critique Partner… And Friend

Mémoires d’un critique (1896) by French writer Jules Levallois (1829-1903) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every time I come across a blog or forum with “critique partner classifieds”, I enter a description of my manuscript. Usually no one responds, but, even so, I’ve been blessed with a handful of short, helpful partnerships throughout the past three years. Recently, I entered an ad on Mary Cole’s blog Kidlit, hoping some magic might connect me with the long-term partner I’ve been seeking.

It didn’t.

A writer (who will remain Nameless) contacted me, saying something like: I”‘m writing a contemporary YA romance and would love to exchange query letters and first chapters.”

Even though romance isn’t my thing, I responded. I let her know that I haven’t yet written a query, but offered to exchange first chapters. I also gave her some background on myself (always a good idea when attempting to build any type of relationship out of thin air) and my first chapter. In the background, I gave her the basics… unpublished, unrepresented, big-picture critquer who is good with plot structure and character development… Plus, the personal… 28, interested in minority main characters and the church, high school English teacher, etc…

My expectation: I thought Nameless would probably write up an email about her background and her manuscript, letting me know what she wants feedback on, her vision for her current manuscript, and her writing experience. I thought she’d probably attach her first chapter, and take a week to look over what I sent her.

Reality: Nameless responded two hours later with her critique of my work. It was two paragraphs long. The first paragraph said that she thought I should show rather than tell. The second paragraph was a quote from Writer’s Digest. Then, she attached her query letter and the first three chapters of her manuscript.

Okay, so I get that there are writers out there who haven’t done the critique partner thing before, and they deserve some slack. It seemed like Nameless was one of those. However, what she did was INCREDIBLY rude for at least two reasons:

• She didn’t give me helpful feedback. EVERYONE who’s done ANY research on the craft of writing knows the phrase “show; don’t tell”. Everyone. Therefore, the point of having a critique partner is to help with that. She’s supposed to SHOW how to do it by pointing out specific sentences/passages in my writing where I should have done it, but didn’t. She’s supposed to offer her thoughts on individual words in my manuscript as well as an overall critique. She should also be asking questions, offering opinions, and editing my conventions. Instead, she spent a few minutes meeting an obligation so that we could move on to her.

• She sent me MUCH more work than I sent her. In the beginning of a partnership, there’s a balance that has to be achieved. It’s chapter for chapter, because neither of us has committed to the partnership or knows what the partnership will look like. She sent me AT LEAST three times as much work as she did for me, which left me with the unfortunate dilemma of how much feedback to give her. I knew I didn’t want to be her partner, but I didn’t want to be a critiquer like her. I wanted to be helpful and selfless in the relationship even if she wasn’t.

So… I took almost exactly a week to get back to her and began my email with the following:

“Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you. I was having a dilemma about how much feedback to give you. I’m used to inserting comments into the document, and giving specific feedback, but I decided to mirror your style as best I can.”

That was my polite way of pointing out her error. I figured she just didn’t know how things work and needed a gentle nudge,

Then, I wrote close to ten paragraphs of critique on her first chapter and query letter. Normally, I’d have written those paragraphs AND inserted my comments into the actual document, investing about 45 minutes per page she sent, and it killed me to only complete less than half of the job.

My expectation: I thought Nameless would see how much feedback I’d given her, and realize what this critique partner thing entails. I thought she might even go back and re-read my first chapter so she could make the trade a little more equal.

Reality: She responded with two different emails. In one, she wrote that my critiques were right in line with what she was hearing from agents (whoohoo!), but that she wasn’t sure what she should do to fix the problematic premise of her story. In her second email, she wrote about how she’d written an alternate version of her opening chapter and wanted me to look at it. As an afterthought, she suggested I send her more of my manuscript.

After that, I realized that my true annoyance didn’t have anything to do with her inexperience; it stemmed from my expectation that critique partnerships should be similar to friendships. I believe that being an excellent critique partner requires the same character qualities and skill set that friendship requires. In order to critique well, I have to put aside my thoughts about what I’m working on… and replace them with thoughts about what my partner is working on. I have to resist the urge to use her… and instead help her. And she has to do the same for me.

Sadly, I’m not 100% sure Nameless even read what I sent her. She was so focused on her story and her characters that she couldn’t even spare a week to think about mine. She was looking for a hired hand rather than a friend. She wanted someone to serve her, but she was unwilling to serve another oblivious to her call to service. Had she hired me as a freelance editor, I would have gladly worked on her project without any help for mine, and perhaps she would be better off taking that route, but a voluntary partnership shouldn’t be quite so one-sided.

Last week, I let Nameless know that it wasn’t going to work out, but now, I’m wondering if I should tell her why. Should I just move on, or provide her with a bit more feedback? Does she need help understanding the etiquette of critiquing? Or am I an ass to even think about telling her how it should be done?

 

NaNoWriMo 2011

Image by evilnick via Flickr

For those of you who don’t know, November is National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known by insiders as NaNoWriMo or just Nano.

It’s pretty much the coolest thing since sliced bread. Writers, aspiring writers, and crazy college kids who hate sleep write entire novels in the month of November.

The goal: 50,000 words.

Yep. That’s an entire novel (depending on genre).

Last year, I wrote 7,000 words. It was my first nano, and I didn’t prepare much at all. I told my students about it, and several of them doubled my word count because they’re awesome – and they’re young and have more time than the rest of the people in this world.

This year, I’m prepared. I’ve outlined 10 chapters, created a character web, and even done an interview. Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll be writing 50,000 words this year, but I’m aiming for at least 25,000. I’m actually writing a book that I care about and that I plan to eventually seek publication of.

“But, Katie – what about that other novel you’ve been working on for two years?”

Let’s be honest, guys, my current WIP (work in progress) is decent, and it’s the first manuscript I’ve ever entirely completed, but it’s also my first manuscript. Some of you have been asking about MOSS MINE for more than a year, and I appreciate it, and plan to keep plugging away at it forever, until it’s shiny and ready for querying… but true writers WRITE. So that’s what I’m going to do.

And isn’t NaNoWriMo the absolute koolest of the kool opportunities to WRITE?

I’m actually even going to participate in those crazy write-ins they do, I’m going to read the pep talks, and I’m going to try. I even considered doing the mid-night kick-off event thing, but, sadly, it’s a school night and I have to work the next morning. I will, however, be writing in on Wednesday the 2nd at IHOP and Friday the 4th ALL NIGHT… okay, maybe just until I hit my word count goal, but still.

Now, dear readers, I think you should participate too!

Yep!

You should click here and sign up for NaNoWriMo.

Do it!

You know you want to!

After you sign up, leave me a comment or send me an email with your secret Nano codename and we can be writing buddies! Or you can find me and we can be writing buddies! My secret codename is kathrynleighaz.

Yay!

 

5 Things Writers Do For Free LONG Before They Get Published

The publishing industry seems pretty magical to most people, I think. Stay-at-home moms become overnight billionaires. Their books get made into movies with crazy-famous actors. Little kids want their autographs and action figures of their characters.

Right?

Occasionally.

More often than not, though, the publishing industry is pretty damned unmagical. Here are some of the unmagical things most writers do FOR FREE long before they get published.

1. Write

This one seems obvious to me, but I think people somehow imagine that manuscripts write themselves. For every writer, the process is different. HOWEVER, the unmagicalness of sitting in front of a computer screen for hours on a daily basis CANNOT be avoided. People who want to be writers. must. write. ALL THE TIME.

2. Read

This one seems pretty obvious too, but I think people again think that books get magically read. Writers do not get to become Good Will Hunting when they sit down to read their genres. They have to sit for hours. reading. Some of it is crazy fun, but a lot of it is studying trends in the genre, studying the market (what’s selling NOW – which means that the reading has to happen pretty quickly after books are released), and studying agent and editor preferences. If there’s an agent I’m after, I have to know her. If you look at the acknowledgements page at the back of most books, there’s often a line where the author thanks his/her agent. This is really cool, because it gives me an opportunity to learn what kinds of books/manuscripts the agent likes and will work for.

3. Study

Writers spend a lot of time studying any number of things. They study writing i.e. they read books and blogs about writing, talk about writing, attend writing events, etc… They study the industry (more on this later). They study their book’s content. For example, my second failed manuscript heavily featured an antique revolver. Therefore, I spent hours researching so I could pick out the perfect one. I don’t give a darn about guns. If I were to ever buy one, I’d probably try to find a cute pink one that’d fit in my purse. Still, I had to know guns to write about them (I’ve already forgotten everything I knew about them, so don’t ask… I’ll fail any quiz you give me). I’ve also studied word-counts (you don’t want to write a book that’s way too long for your audience). I studied methods of prewriting and revising. Writers carry little notebooks with them everywhere and take notes on random things. We study how people talk, walk, dress, smile, eat, etc… Writers have to study.

4. Learn the Industry

Unfortunately, the publishing industry is confusing. Here’s how I envision my book getting published:

Writer prewrites a manuscript. She drafts the manuscript. She revises the crap out of it. She finds beta readers/critique partners and has them revise the crap out of it. She revises some more. Then she makes a list of 50 or so agents who represent her kind of writing. She revises some more. She checks all of the agents on her list on sites like WriterBeware and others. She stalks those agents that pass as honorable to find out what their favorite colors are (Nathan Bransford’s is orange… if only he was agenting still) and she writes query letters to each agent including some ridiculous bit of individualization (see why she needs to know the agent’s favorite color? Sports teams are good too) and sends out a few queries each week. She starts a new manuscript. She receives some form rejections. She finishes the new manuscript. She receives more rejections and one request to see the full manuscript. She jumps up and down and sends the full. She revises the crap out of the second manuscript. She receives a nice letter of rejection from the agent who read the full. She goes back and revises the 1st manuscript again, taking the agent’s feedback into consideration. She rewrites her query letter and individualizes it for 50 new agents & sends it out. She goes back to the second manuscript and sends it to her beta readers. She receives some more rejections and a few more requests for fulls. She sends the fulls. She revises the crap out of the second manuscript. An agent offers to work with her on the manuscript if she’s willing to do some revisions. This is a chance to try out the partnership BEFORE signing with the agent. The agent sends some feedback with revisions. The writer cries because it hurts to have someone criticizing her baby. She revises. The agent finally decides to sign the writer. The agent makes lists of publishers and whatnot and tries to sell the book to an editor. If an editor likes it, he takes it back to the publishing house where he convinces other people that the book is awesome. The publisher buys the rights to the book. The editor sends the writer a bunch more revisions. She revises and sends it back. This happens a few more times. Everybody does a bunch of work and the thing finally gets published. Then the writer has to market the book on his/her blog, local bookstores, and anywhere else she has connections. She gets people to review the book. Everyone loves it and 6 years after she started writing the damn thing, they sell the movie rights and several years after that, she makes it big and can quit her day-job.

Now, that’s a basic run-down, but there’s all sorts of stuff in that chunk of text up there that require research. For example, and writer must know the proper query format, where to find agents, each agency’s query guidelines, what each agent represents and what he/she doesn’t, where to find good beta-readers, how to write a book proposal, the way advances work, etc…

5. Writers Network

Writers blog and Tweet. They do a million other things, most of which, I’m not doing yet, because I’m fully committed to blogging and nothing else. Writers read other peoples’ blogs and comment on them. They go to ComiCon and introduce themselves to Aprilynne Pike. They write emails to agents asking questions they already know the answers to… just to get noticed. They attend writer’s conferences. They talk to other writers who know how hard it is.They enter contests on other writers’ blogs and on agents’ blogs in the hopes of winning manuscript critiques. They email with their beta readers and have real relationships with them.

And just one reminder about this post… a writer won’t get paid until a publisher buys the rights to her book. Prior to that, she is working really hard for free, as is her agent. That’s why I’m so committed to my scheduled writing time. Because this is a job. I’m just not getting paid yet.

 

Go Ahead and Tell Me How Cute it is that I Write…

And then brace your face, because I’m about to break your nose.

I have a friend who is a musician.

When I try to understand what that means, I’m smart enough to know that I don’t have any clue. Sometimes, I think of my musician friend like this one peripheral character on the movie Three Men and a Baby. I’m pretty sure the character is named Yan and plays the cello in an orchestra. He has greasy hair and he’s all artistic and wonderful.

My musician friend doesn’t have greasy hair (because that’s only cool on guys’ heads), but she is all artistic and wonderful. And professional.

I DO NOT think about that one time in 6th grade when I got invited to attend an all-state band thing.

Because it would be ridiculous for me to think I’ve in any way experienced music the way that she has. Ever.

It’s pretty much the same thing with writing.

Now, granted, I’m not a published author.

I have, however, completed a 45,000 word middle grade fantasy that I’ll be seeking representation for this summer.

I have written two previous manuscripts that I put in a drawer because they aren’t good enough.

I prewrote my current WIP for about a year before drafting it, drafted it for 8 months before revising it, revised for about 8 months now before querying agents about it.

That entire time, I’ve been researching the publishing industry, compiling lists of agents, finding critique partners, stalking published authors, attending bookish and writerly events, reading, reading, reading more, writing, writing, writing more, blogging, blogging, blogging more, and pulling out my eyebrows in frustration every time someone says or acts like it’s cute that I write.

Or even better – I love those people who act like blogging is in some way comparable to posting a status update on Facebook.

Really?

In order to have a growing blog, I live my life differently than most people do. Because blogging takes an impressive amount of time. Time that I’m more than willing to give. Even on those mornings when it’d be really nice just to play 5 hours worth of Assassin’s Creed or hang out with friends, go for a run, clean the house, etc… There are days when I’d much rather clean the house than blog. And I hate cleaning.

But I blog.

Because it’s a tiny step to achieving my dream.

“Having a dream isn’t stupid, Norm. It’s not having a dream that’s stupid.”

Cliff Clavin – Cheers

Writing is my dream, and therefore isn’t stupid or cute.

So quit mocking the blog, and

for real, quit mocking the dream.

My musician friend and I do things that are really difficult.

I work a full-time job, serve/volunteer at my church, hang out with friends and family, and do all of the normal things that everyone does…

Then, I spend 5 more hours before bed chasing the dream.

And I do it with the world laughing in my face. I do it with my friends laughing. and complaining. and mocking. and trivializing.

So here’s the deal: it’s okay for my friends not to understand it. It would take 45,000 words, 2 years, and countless hours of research for my friends to understand the dream. But what if everyone just stopped assuming they understand musicians because we’ve all gone to 6th grade all-state band competitions?

You guys remember that planet in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where anytime a person has a thought, he’s smacked in the face with a shovel? I think it just might be poetic justice for me to start carrying a shovel around with me for those moments when people think about how cute it is that I write.

Because what better punishment is there for insulting my literary pursuits than a literary allusion to the face.

Brace your face, mocker… because I’m about to break your nose.

 

The Ten Minute Thing Again

Ha!

I’m incapable of putting together a decent post nowadays, so we return to my favorite fallback plan: the ten minute post. I’m going to write for ten minutes and give you whatever comes of it.

There is a gnat flying around my face right now, trying to land on one of my eyeballs.

I’m currently listening to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along-blog “My Eyes” on my bed with a nice black cherry candle burning and the windows open to the dark night.

I got to Season 4 of The Guild finally, but I’m finding that Wil Wheaton has ruined the show. I liked it better before he came along.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been trying to put together a playlist of songs that go along with my manuscript, which is really fun and challenging. Ba-da-ba-BA-ba I’m lovin’ it.

Uh-oh. It’s only been three minutes of writing, and I’m out of things to write about.

Fail.

On Thursday night, I’m going on a night hike with a couple of friends, which is one of the awesome things of the week that I’m really looking forward to. Last week, Friend Shasta and I went with just the two of us. I got to wear my jeggings and headlamp, and we saw a crazy centipede-like creature and two skunks.

I finished reading a book about writing this morning. I think when I finish this post, I’ll probably start re-reading Stephen King’s On Writing because I haven’t read it since I got all serious about authoring and whatnot. Also, it’s pretty much the best book about writing that I’ve ever read.

I met Neighbor Joe today, which was fantastic. We’ve lived next to him for more than a year now, so it was cool to meet him officially. Usually, we just say hi to each other in the mornings on my way out to work. He’s pretty much the best neighbor ever – although Virginia is pretty cool too. When I was little, I lived in Flagstaff, and our neighbor was this wonderful cat lady named Barbara. She had lots of cats, and let me and my sister come over for tea like we were all growed up. Pretty much any day we were bored, we’d wander over to her yard and hang out with her.

School is ending soon, which I’m pretty jazzed about. I’m thinking about taking a class over the summer. Possibly Biology because I should have taken it about a decade ago. I don’t know that I want to pay for it, but that’s probably the only way I’ll take it seriously.

The moment after I sent off my most recent revisions on my manuscript, I figured out the one thing that would have made those chapters exponentially more engaging.

I need to exercise more. Warrior Dash is this Sunday. Lori and I are running it, which I’m really looking forward to. We’re supposed to get a cool warrior helmet! Cool, huh? It only I’d trained.

One minute left to go.

I started reading Speak last night, and it’s taking me longer to get into it than I’d like. I’m not great at reading novels written entirely like journals. I like dialogue. And I like to know more about the setting than people who journal are apt to write about.

Speaking of journals, I’m almost finished with one! This is mostly exciting because the next one I’m going to write in is a Beetles Yellow Submarine thing. Everyone probably needs to come over and watch the animated Yellow Submarine film with me. PLEASE.

Time’s up.

Peace.