Tuesday, February 21, 2012

I'm a Real Writer! I Have Critique Partners!

Thanks to Rachael Harrie's Beta-Match, I now have my first two CPs! Thank you Rachael. This isn't the first time Rachael has performed this wonderful service, but the last time she offered it, I didn't feel like I was ready to submit my name. After all, my first WIP, the one I'm using to develop my writing skills, is fan-fiction and I wasn't sure how people might respond to that. They might wonder just how serious I am about this business of writing.

But my biggest reason for not signing up before was that my chapters were nowhere close to being something I would show to another human being. Even my cat hacked up a hairball on one of my early chapters. I'm not saying my chapters are finished now or anything, but they're close enough that I won't have to tell prospective CPs that it'll be six months before I send them anything.

So I'm devoting the next couple of weeks to cleaning up my first five or six chapters. Because I don't want to make my new CP's eyes bleed -- as that would seem rather rude.

The two items I need to concentrate on most are:

1. Choosing which of the two (or more) versions of the same sentence (or paragraph) I'm going to keep. The fact that I have so much trouble choosing between them probably means none of them are any good.

2. Giving some of my characters names instead of calling them something like "Potions Master" all the time. (But that's a topic for another post)


P.S. If anyone else is looking for another CP and you're into fantasy, be sure to send me a line.

5 comments:

  1. Congrats CK! Wish you all the best with the critiquing.

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  2. Congratulations! You will really benefit from your new critique partners. My three rock and and I don't know what I'd do without them now.

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  3. Oh man. I learned stuff before CPs, but the learning curve increases exponentially after you get them. Congrats!

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  4. This is brilliant news Ken. I'll be emailing you soon btw, when I'm all caught up (so about July?) :-)

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  5. Love the heading photo.

    Good critique partners are worth their weight in gold. And then some. As well, critiquing other writers' work is a great way to learn how to write.

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