http://www.ideastap.com/people/5e7ff9ae ... e011858ca/
If any of you fancy reading a excerpt from my debut novel, and giving feedback.
All comments welcome. I hope to be published in the near future, so feel free to pass onto publishers. Surely there's a slot coming up for a new rags-to-riches story?...JK Rowling's is so last decade!
Critique 4 moi?
Re: Critique 4 moi?
I liked it 
read all 3 parts.
Have you written the rest yet, or is it a work in progress?
Have bookmarked your blog and will have a read when its not so klate and i'm not so tired.
read all 3 parts.Have you written the rest yet, or is it a work in progress?
Have bookmarked your blog and will have a read when its not so klate and i'm not so tired.
Re: Critique 4 moi?
when published, would you be willing to give a talk at a book group?
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sfhyouthforum
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Re: Critique 4 moi?
Yes, Leaf, the book is very nearly completed. I am at the moment looking for ways to publish it. I had a meeting with an agent who likes it alot but thought having it all in the present tense makes it uncomfortable to read. What do you think?
Also, JR, happy to talk about the book. Just say when!
Also, JR, happy to talk about the book. Just say when!
Re: Critique 4 moi?
Hi Melissa. I found it a bit difficult to work out who the characters were until later explained as the story went along. The first thing that struck me is whether the Bubble Gum and possibly the Rape Excerpt depending on the rest of that chapter could be converted into playlets? So the narrative would be turned into speech by one or other of the parties involved, with additional stage directions where necessary.
I assume that there will be a footnote or accompanying "moral of the story" or Q&A discussion points, e.g.: What did he/she do wrong? How could he/she have handled that better? If so, I suspect a play format (assuming enacted even in a smallish space) would have a good visual and memorable impact on the audience and hopefully would promote lively discussion afterwards.
On that basis, each chapter could be a once-a-month play, which would allow rehearsal time and subsequent feedback (hopefully) and discussion in the other weeks in the month as to whether people had noticed the behaviour of others, or sought and found information perhaps about various aspects as relevant to the chapter as might relate to them.
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As a novel I found it depressing reading. Granted what is shown are just excerpts, so hopefully at least some characters in each storyline will end up smiling or see a light at the end of the tunnel - people like happy endings rather than being sent away feeling glum.
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An aside really is that the punctuation, especially for the speech within sentences, is not top notch. Spelling words in vernacular (i.e. phonetically as might be heard) isn't a good example as people tend to remember what they've seen especially if they don't know beforehand the correct spelling for words. There are a couple of typos here and there.
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I hope you find the above constructive. The playlet idea was inspired by the suggestion that you could/would be happy to talk about your book to a group so it seemed a logical extension. I'm not sure if the target audience is older people for educational teaching inspiration or is intended to be read by younger people?
Regards
mosy
I assume that there will be a footnote or accompanying "moral of the story" or Q&A discussion points, e.g.: What did he/she do wrong? How could he/she have handled that better? If so, I suspect a play format (assuming enacted even in a smallish space) would have a good visual and memorable impact on the audience and hopefully would promote lively discussion afterwards.
On that basis, each chapter could be a once-a-month play, which would allow rehearsal time and subsequent feedback (hopefully) and discussion in the other weeks in the month as to whether people had noticed the behaviour of others, or sought and found information perhaps about various aspects as relevant to the chapter as might relate to them.
---
As a novel I found it depressing reading. Granted what is shown are just excerpts, so hopefully at least some characters in each storyline will end up smiling or see a light at the end of the tunnel - people like happy endings rather than being sent away feeling glum.
---
An aside really is that the punctuation, especially for the speech within sentences, is not top notch. Spelling words in vernacular (i.e. phonetically as might be heard) isn't a good example as people tend to remember what they've seen especially if they don't know beforehand the correct spelling for words. There are a couple of typos here and there.
---
I hope you find the above constructive. The playlet idea was inspired by the suggestion that you could/would be happy to talk about your book to a group so it seemed a logical extension. I'm not sure if the target audience is older people for educational teaching inspiration or is intended to be read by younger people?
Regards
mosy
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sfhyouthforum
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Re: Critique 4 moi?
Hi Mosy,
The novel is for adults who want to know a bit more about the hysteria behind youth. It is true, it does have some depressing bits in it but you'll have lots of heart warming moments too.
I think the idea of writing a play it a good one. I've not much experience writing plays so any tips or further reading would be great.
The novel is for adults who want to know a bit more about the hysteria behind youth. It is true, it does have some depressing bits in it but you'll have lots of heart warming moments too.
I think the idea of writing a play it a good one. I've not much experience writing plays so any tips or further reading would be great.
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sfhyouthforum
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Re: Critique 4 moi?
Also, some of the language is slang...do you still think it should be spelt correctly?
Re: Critique 4 moi?
@ sfhyouthforum: Thanks for reply.
The spelling of slang words probably has no easy reply. I wonder if it depends on which words? If the target audience is adults, I'm sure a lot would curl their lip that kids said "fink" instead of "think" as that wouldn't necessarily imbue a sense of "must improve education" as much as "they're not worth bothering with if don't even know how to pronounce think". Could it be a demeaning way to portray our youth? However, slang words like "gonna" instead of "going to" are so much in everyone's vocabulary that they are hardly even slang now. I don't understand why "gangstas" is spelled thus as it sounds no different from how it sounds if spelled correctly as "gangsters", so what's the point of misspelling it? (Edit: I understand gangsta by the way, as in gangsta rap; I'm not sure how many other adults do if book aimed at adults - I guess you'll know better than I if they do or not.).
By typos, I meant elsewhere incidentally, not in the slang-speak (I recall "breaths" and "breathes" being the wrong way round and a couple of other simple mistypes.
On the present tense question, I'd ask why exactly it makes it uncomfortable to read. The whole point of present tense is to put the reader in the here and now as an event happens, plus it gives an urgency to read on to see what happens. i would have thought that that was what your book was trying to achieve. Perhaps "uncomfortable to read" means that people would rather read what happened after the event in the past tense - very true, but rather misses the point of your book doesn't it?
My only problem with present tense is in the writing. It's very very hard to keep it correct and not wander to past and future along the way whilst keeping in the correct tense if writing in the present. (Past and future can be used from the present but it's a grammatical nightmare IMO, but would that matter?)
I'll have a think about writing plays. Clearly I've only seen extracts though as written they are already in scene settings, with speech already written. Just need to convert more of the narrative to speech methinks.
I know one can pay to have one's book published although what I gather is that you need to get an agent interested in selling it on. If you have an agent interested already, keep him/her interested I reckon.
The spelling of slang words probably has no easy reply. I wonder if it depends on which words? If the target audience is adults, I'm sure a lot would curl their lip that kids said "fink" instead of "think" as that wouldn't necessarily imbue a sense of "must improve education" as much as "they're not worth bothering with if don't even know how to pronounce think". Could it be a demeaning way to portray our youth? However, slang words like "gonna" instead of "going to" are so much in everyone's vocabulary that they are hardly even slang now. I don't understand why "gangstas" is spelled thus as it sounds no different from how it sounds if spelled correctly as "gangsters", so what's the point of misspelling it? (Edit: I understand gangsta by the way, as in gangsta rap; I'm not sure how many other adults do if book aimed at adults - I guess you'll know better than I if they do or not.).
By typos, I meant elsewhere incidentally, not in the slang-speak (I recall "breaths" and "breathes" being the wrong way round and a couple of other simple mistypes.
On the present tense question, I'd ask why exactly it makes it uncomfortable to read. The whole point of present tense is to put the reader in the here and now as an event happens, plus it gives an urgency to read on to see what happens. i would have thought that that was what your book was trying to achieve. Perhaps "uncomfortable to read" means that people would rather read what happened after the event in the past tense - very true, but rather misses the point of your book doesn't it?
My only problem with present tense is in the writing. It's very very hard to keep it correct and not wander to past and future along the way whilst keeping in the correct tense if writing in the present. (Past and future can be used from the present but it's a grammatical nightmare IMO, but would that matter?)
I'll have a think about writing plays. Clearly I've only seen extracts though as written they are already in scene settings, with speech already written. Just need to convert more of the narrative to speech methinks.
I know one can pay to have one's book published although what I gather is that you need to get an agent interested in selling it on. If you have an agent interested already, keep him/her interested I reckon.
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sfhyouthforum
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Re: Critique 4 moi?
thanks Mosy!
Re: Critique 4 moi?
I had a think about plays.
There's a high school production of Death of a Salesman (link below) in rather disjointed 10 min segments (about 2.5 hrs in total: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtA-BIQm ... re=related
I thought this was a good example of how little scenery and props were needed. The main character has a million words to say so highly unlikely to be suitable for younger actors (not forgetting that the link is a drama school production), but your scenes are written as one-liners (in the extracts). Plays, like debating, before an audience give confidence to speakers. Artistic or fashion-aware children could design/define backdrops and costumes. I could see a play as a worthy project to get the message across.
I guess if you need funding, it'd have to be a dead cert that the message was the right one - presumably decided by "committee" (probably unending discussions) and certainly a very thick Chinese Wall if you were likely to gain from publishing rights. That's putting the cart before the horse though as if put on as a play before being published it would probably be considered as not being an original work of course so could blow chances of publishing. I'm not an expert on copyright. I was thinking that your book could be Page 1&2 to tell a story. Then Page 3&4 "and here it is written as a play".
In terms of slang, it's always easier to see something than read it, e.g. Shakespeare, or consider Beckett or Behan written in Irish slang. I'm not suggesting that Shakespeare spoke slang of course but much is not understandable without interpretation - even for adults. A comment in one of the Death of a Salesman segments was that it's a lot easier to watch the play and follow it in the book than it is just to read the play.
Not sure if it helps as some things are a many pronged fork.
There's a high school production of Death of a Salesman (link below) in rather disjointed 10 min segments (about 2.5 hrs in total: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtA-BIQm ... re=related
I thought this was a good example of how little scenery and props were needed. The main character has a million words to say so highly unlikely to be suitable for younger actors (not forgetting that the link is a drama school production), but your scenes are written as one-liners (in the extracts). Plays, like debating, before an audience give confidence to speakers. Artistic or fashion-aware children could design/define backdrops and costumes. I could see a play as a worthy project to get the message across.
I guess if you need funding, it'd have to be a dead cert that the message was the right one - presumably decided by "committee" (probably unending discussions) and certainly a very thick Chinese Wall if you were likely to gain from publishing rights. That's putting the cart before the horse though as if put on as a play before being published it would probably be considered as not being an original work of course so could blow chances of publishing. I'm not an expert on copyright. I was thinking that your book could be Page 1&2 to tell a story. Then Page 3&4 "and here it is written as a play".
In terms of slang, it's always easier to see something than read it, e.g. Shakespeare, or consider Beckett or Behan written in Irish slang. I'm not suggesting that Shakespeare spoke slang of course but much is not understandable without interpretation - even for adults. A comment in one of the Death of a Salesman segments was that it's a lot easier to watch the play and follow it in the book than it is just to read the play.
Not sure if it helps as some things are a many pronged fork.
Re: Critique 4 moi?
PS I was trying to remember who the photo of you on your blogsite reminded me of... here is: http://www.poptower.com/amy-brenneman.htm