What style of critique is best for you?

(Remember to enter our Mockingjay contest all you have to do is leave a comment with your thoughts)

Critiques are a guide that can help you push your writing to the next level but they can be subjective and vary in complexity.  When working with a beta reader or critique partner, you’ll be able to get the most out of the experience if you can pinpoint what type of critique you want.  Be honest with yourself about what you are ready for so you don’t get overwhelmed.

Below, we’ve outlined the types we do.  If you submit to us, it helps if you let us know which of these you are interested in.

Fluffy – All positive, all the time!  This is a not a throwaway critique, don’t feel like ‘less’ of a writer if this is what you need.  It’s essential for you to find out what works so you know what to keep!  This is great for new writers, established writers in the draft stage, or when a writer’s block is discouraging you.

Overall –  General feedback related to the Big Basics:  plot, structure, character, etc.  We point out the positives but we’ll also note weaknesses so be prepared for your homework   This level is best for writers that have had some positive critiques and are ready for the next step, drafts that aren’t quite finals, and for writers who are new to the world of Marketability and Writing To Be Published.  We’ll include our thoughts on the trends and suggestions we’ve heard from agents.  We arrange this information in a summary so that you have concrete areas to work on that aren’t overwhelming.

Detail –  If you think you have a final draft, this may be the critique for you.  Make sure you’re ready for it because this line-by-line critique can make your page more red than black.  There will be more focus on nitty gritty issues like smooth sentence structure, verb chronology, and word choice in addition to an in-depth analysis of the Big Basics and market trends.

Hardcore -  A combination of the Overall and Detail critiques, we write down every thought that comes into our heads so be prepared for a LOT of reading, a LOT of rewriting, and a LOT of improvement (:

Should self-publishing be a dirty word?

The more I read about career writing, the more I hear about how hard it is to make ends meet.  And we’ve all had ‘blahblah economy’ drilled into our heads the last few years.  Still, it’s a reality and the publishing industry wasn’t booming to begin with.  Writers make something like $1/book sold which means selling about 18,000 books in a year just to make minimum wage.  Plus writers often end up with advertising costs in their lap unless they’re a household name because apparently I need to see giant cardboard Edwards to remind me that Twilight exists.  I try not to worry.  I’d actually like to work part-time and write part-time, do something physical so I’m not on my butt all day.  I’ve lived on minimum wage.

Still, it’d be nice to not to have to struggle, right?

The internet offers us an ever-growing plethora of options for both established and aspiring authors.  Crowdfunding is a word that encompasses many of these methods and we hope to soon bring you a guest blog from someone involved in the movement.  Many are similar to the methods that artists use–commission, subscription, merchandising, advertising.  There’s a lot of resistance to these in the writing community.  Self-publishing is not just frowned upon, but spat upon by some professionals in the field.  How dare anyone bypass the Gatekeepers.  That makes us newbies edgy…do we dare test our options and risk getting targeted with that same derision?  Do we dare have the ego to share our work without Official Approval?

And why should readers care?  The filter process is there for a reason.  There’s a LOT of crappy writing out there and the publishing industry makes sure we don’t have to wade through it.  But they’re not perfect.  I love Wake, but Lisa McMann wrote two trunk books before she was allowed through the gate.  What if she had given up?  We wouldn’t have this fantastic bestselling trilogy.  And what about those trunk books?  How much of that rejection was just a matter of taste?

That writing still belongs to her…she can do with it what she wants.  She could submit the novels to her publisher, but what if the publisher doesn’t want them?  That’s what happened to Scott Sigler.  He’s a breakthrough podcaster and bestselling author.  He wrote a new book called The Rookie and despite his excellent track record, his publisher didn’t want this particular story.  So he published it himself and he talks about his experience at a conference:  Who Needs Big Publishing? The answer is “We do, but…”

Catherynne M Valente is another published author who chose to use alternativ methods in her career.  She publishes her books traditionally but she also wrote a short spin-off called The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.  She didn’t think anyone would publish it so she released it online and asked people to pay what they thought it was worth.  Though common wisdom says that online published material loses marketability and all chances of being traditionally published, this story is now due out in stores in 2011 and it won the 2009 Nebula/Andrew Norton Award.  Catherynne also sells e-books of poetry–a notorious hard sell in the traditional publishing world but the self-publishing model ensures that there’s little financial risk, even selling a few copies would refund her the cost of setting up an e-store on her website.

These authors have the professional clout to open doors for the rest of us.  I hope that their success can erode the box around Real Authors, blur the line and let us creators branch out to use both traditional and alternative compensation models.  I hope it heightens the value of highly creative work by offering readers/the audience a way to support projects that aren’t suited to traditional publishers.  Catherynne is running The Omikuji Project where she sends highly personalized creations to her subscribers through the mail.

Do you have a wild idea for a creative project that just wouldn’t fit what traditional publishers are looking for?

Do you think self-publishing options dilute the quality of content available?  Or do options like voting (youtube) let the high quality float to the top of the access pool?

Get Your Daily Dose of Creativity

Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Plot Zombie Protags

Ever read a book with a really bland main character?  I wrote one.  It’s not that I wanted to write a boring character, I started out Lightning Spliced with the idea of making a character who was “like Storm but more awesome.”  Somewhere along the way, Amy (now Analee) became a plot zombie.  She did what needed to be done so the plot could progress.  It took a lot of research and even more rewrites before I got her to the point where people now compliment me on her characterization in interviews!  Haha okay, so it was one interview but that’s not bad for an unpublished author and I love to pimp it (:

For a writer, a boring main character is a huge trap.  Readers will put up with plot holes and clichés galore if they have the chance to hang out with someone really awesome.  (Buffy, anyone?)  I’ve put together a few of the focus techniques that I used to fix up Analee, feel free to add your own!

First impressions – If I get a sleazy feeling from a character’s first line, I’ll spend the rest of the book suspicious of him.  What’s the very first thing your protag says and what does it show about him?  What about body language?  Environment, clothing, reactions to other people, reactions to his situation?

Motivations we can understand -  Great characters are ones we think about once the book is closed.

Admirable qualities – generosity, courage, selflessness, kindness to strangers/animals/babies, etc  You don’t want to overdo it and be sickening, but a little positivity goes a long way.  I found the kindness to animals quality to be a HUGE success.  I wrote Mayuri from The Deep Within to be a bitch and yet some of my critique partners found themselves liking her despite that, all because of her relationship with her dog, Bones.

Obstacles that challenge him – You’ll have people rolling their eyes if obstacles are too easy—or too hard—to overcome.

Humor! – I’ll even (especially!) love a villain with a good sense of humor!  Hades in Disney’s Hercules is my hero  But humor doesn’t mean your MC has to be a wisecracker, look for those giggle-worthy moments with bad-ass characters like Blade and Batman

Involvement –  Don’t let your MC be a plot zombie!  Make sure she reacts to what’s going on and make sure people react to her!

So what do you think makes a great character?  What are some of your favorite character traits?  I love the badass yet socially awkward girl and the trickster guy with the sensitive side.

Vote to name the Chimera!

Professor Rutebega

Professor Galahad

Sir Juniper

Congratulations to Salirian (Galahad) , Girl W1i (Rutabega), and Yvette (Juniper) for submitting these fabulous names!  At His Majesty’s request, we did spice them up with majestic titles.  You have two weeks to vote for your favorite name and remember, whoever submitted the winning name will receive these prizes.

Our poll software isn’t working so please vote for your favorite name by leaving a comment on this post.  We will accept votes until midnight June 16th.

Keep an eye out for our next contest–we want YOU to write the Chimera’s origin story that will be featured on his staff page.  There will be some kick-ass prizes (:

Merciless Storytellers

I’m thrilled (and kinda terrified) to say that I won round one, heat one in Merciless Storytellers.  Heat two is running right now and there are some awesome stories competing including “Handy Storm” from Laieanna, a regular on our forums.

Check out some fantastic audio fiction and vote for your favorites.  They are also taking submissions for future rounds so get writing!  The semifinalists get a critique from us Chimeras and there’s a budding prize pot for the winner.

Merciless Storytellers

I entered an awesome audio competition!  They’re taking all kinds of submissions–radio shows, short stories, songs, etc as long as the piece is under five minutes long.  In the next  round, you go against  another writer on a topic chosen by the audience.

There’s prize money (you can donate or just click an ad!) and the semifinalists win critiques from us Chimeras!

What are you waiting for?  Get over there and enter Merciless Storytellers!

What do you want to read?

When we met Lisa McMann in Atlanta, we also ran into some members from the Midnight Snack Book Club.  They’re a group of voracious YA readers and we’re pleased to share their guest blog with you.

As writers, we write about what we want to write but it’s readers who decide whether our books succeed in the marketplace so their opinion is pretty valuable! I thought a book club would be full of the perfect people to ask–what do you want to read?  Maybe their answers will inspire us to write a book we all love (:

Here’s what they had to say:

We at Midnight Night Snack Book Club have read a lot of Young Adult books. Although we are open to reading any kind of books, young adult books really are our favorites.

Vampire books have been really popular lately. The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer, House of Night Series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast , Blue Bloods Series by Melissa De La Cruz. There have been others but I consider these my favorites. But the Vampire thing has been driven into the ground. So many books on vampires are out now. It seems like once the Twilight books became really popular, anyone and everyone started writing about vampires.  Not to mention past books written by vampires were being pushed more.

Faery books are great reads.  I like the new take writers now have given them, they feel a lot more REAL. Wings by Aprilynne Pike, Wicked Lovely by Melissa Mar, and The Iron King by Julie Kagawa are three of my favorites.

Supernatural books are another favorite genre of mine. The Darkest Powers Series by Kelley Armstrong is one of the best Supernatural books out there. We highly recommend this book to our book club members, you will never get bored with her series.  Another series of Supernatural books are Fallen by Lauren Kate and Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick .  Both of these are amazing character pushers.  (Zellie:  Hey, we’ve been discussing these on the forum!)

I would like to see more authors write about brand new things, new races, new wonders. Or to put a new twist on existing themes.  I would definitely like to see more Supernatural themed books.

I’m sure there is a book out there for everyone regardless what genre it is. A book may be wonderful for one but fall short for someone else. Books give you an opportunity to get away from your reality for a while and step into worlds that will blow your mind away. A good book is sometimes hard to find but when you find it you will never put it down. How do you know when you find a good book? When you find yourself reading it over and over again.

—

Thanks for sharing guys!!

So what do you think…..what stories do you want to read?

I want to read about Mayan mythology that doesn’t have anything to do with 2012, I’m pining to work on an urban fantasy set in a Big Brother future with hoverboards, and I’d love to see a complex demon hierarchy kinda like Anne Bishop’s Hell.

Mary McDonald and Jennifer, and anyone who hasn’t gotten a response!

Unfortunately, we lost posts from March 16th onward.  Before the site went down, we were able to save the contest entries and website URLs left by entrants.  There are two people that we don’t have contact information for — Mary McDonald and Jennifer.

PLEASE let us know how to contact you or if you know either of these people please tell them that we need to be able to get in touch with them so we can keep them entered in the contest!!

If you have sent an email to __@chimeracritiques.com and have not received a response, please email zellieblake-at-gmail-dot-com  We respond to ALL emails.

Experience – The Spice in Inspiration

I’m not a writer who can hole up in an attic.  I used to do that, but not by choice.  I think to write vividly about life, I’ve got to get out there and live it.  I love walking the streets of Savannah, seeing the way cracks in pavement expose raw bricks like torn flesh.  If I didn’t live here, I wouldn’t know that.  I’d just write about cobblestones.

When we went on our trip to see Lisa McMann, we also visited the Georgia Aquarium.  I love this place!  We walked in and before we even saw any fish, Chance pointed to a ripple of light on the ceiling and said, “That’s in my book!”

He’s working on a novel called The Last Descendant and I’m on my second draft of The Deep Within.  The most bizarre creatures populate the ocean–perfect for generating creature ideas for our fantasy novels.

Not just creatures….but villains. Bwahahaa!

Like the spidercrab whose legspan can be the size of a car.

Or lionfish.  Holycrap, lionfish.  Don’t meet these guys in a dark alley.  Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about them:  ”The lionfish is one of the most venomous fish on the ocean floor. Lionfish have venomous dorsal spines that are used purely for defense. When threatened, the fish often faces its attacker in an upside down posture which brings its spines to bear.”

My personal favorite are the garden eels.  Pictures don’t do these guys justice.  They are fascinating to watch as they float out of their hole, then duck back inside at a hint of danger.  I can just see Bones terrorizing them!

Chance and I also talked about how cool it would be to take a creature like the ray but make it fly instead of swim.

And turtles are awesome.  Blame TMNT.

I’m especially psyched about Bones.  I adore this little dead dog and so does Kassidy.  She strapped him to her chest and made sure he got to see…..or explore…. every exhibit.  These are some of my favorite pictures and they’ve got me peculating on a Bones-of-the-Week picture series!

Chance said that the entrance to the River Expedition made him think of a canoe expedition for his characters with the rain forest  on either side. He also thought it would be really cool if the canoe went over the waterfall (which happens a lot in movies) but…instead of landing in water it landed in some kind spongy goo that sucks them all under into the dark water where they get attacked by a giant lion fish.