Episode 58: Smarter Artist Summit

Episode Description

Alyssa & Leslie share their experiences and takeaways from attending the 2016 Smarter Artist Summit. Panelists included: Mark LeFebvre, Joanna Penn, Nick Stephenson, Julia Kent, J.A. Huss, Andre Chaperon, and James Tonn in addition to Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant, and David Wright.

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Show Notes

“Writing is something you do alone. It’s a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don’t want to make eye contact while doing it.”
— John Green

Episode 57: The Man on the Motorcycle

Episode Description

Leslie & Alyssa critique "The Man on the Motorcycle," a short story by Sean Seebach. They discuss point of view, character and plot arc, and genre considerations.

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Show Notes

“Think of your story’s reader as a little person who rides inside the head of one of your characters. When inside a given head, the reader can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste everything that particular character is experiencing, and he or she can also read the thoughts of that one character. But it takes effort for the little person to move out of one head and into another. Not only that — it’s disorienting.”
— Robert J. Sawyer

 

Inline Critique

Episode 56: Mystery at Blackstone's Stables: Historical Mystery Critique

Episode Description

Alyssa & Leslie critique the opening of Saralee Etter’s Mystery at Blackstone’s Stables, and discuss deft character descriptions, bridging tension, and setting.

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Show Notes

“I’m diving into revisions with gusto. … Quite honestly, I love this part because pretty much everything I do will make the book better. There’s lots of positive energy behind that instead of the flailing doubt that typically affects writers, and some time away from the manuscript provides a certain clarity about what needs to be done.”
— Kevin Hearne

Inline Critique

Episode 55: Underneath: Science Fiction Critique

Episode Description

Leslie & Alyssa critique the opening of M.N. Arzu’s Underneath, and discuss foreshadowing, verb choice, repetitive sentence structure, and genre considerations.

 

 

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Show Notes

“I am hard at work on the second draft ... Second draft is really a misnomer as there are a gazillion revisions, large and small, that go into the writing of a book. ”
— Libba Bray

Keep reading Underneath - A Merfolk Tale.

Find out more about M.N. Arzu here.

 

Inline Critique

Episode 54: Raven's Peak: Paranormal Critique

Episode Description

Alyssa & Leslie critique the opening of Lincoln Cole’s Raven’s Peak, and discuss tone, using secondary character reactions to develop your reader’s understanding of the protagonist, restraint in delivery, and a few finer points of comma & colon usage. 

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Show Notes

“Writing is rewriting. Even after you’ve gotten an agent and an editor, you’ll have to rewrite. If you fall in love with the vision you want of your work and not your words, the rewriting will become easier.”
— Nora DeLoach

You can find more about the six questions we posed in today's editorial mission here.

Check out Muse Fuel and 101 Creative Writing Prompts for Memoir Writers, now available in print and ebook from Amazon.

Alyssa and Leslie were guests on the Authority Self-Publishing Podcast. 

Inline Critique

Episode 53: Martha's Dream: Literary Fiction Critique

Episode Description

Leslie & Alyssa critique the opening of Genya’s literary fiction novel, Martha’s Dream. They discuss sentence and paragraph length, poetic language, and reconciling adult-like observations with the protagonist (a child). 

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Show Notes

“The most subtle way to influence your pacing is through your structuring of sentences. The length of words, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs all contribute to how the pacing is conveyed to the reader. Again, long=slow, short=fast. When it’s time to write the intense scenes, cut back on the beautiful, long-winded passages and give it to your reader straight. Short sentences and snappy nouns and verbs convey urgency, whereas long, measured sentences offer moments of introspection and build-up.”
— K.M. Weiland

Read about the rules and art of paragraphing.

And here's an article about varying sentence length.

Inline Critique

Episode 52: Hard Reboot: Dystopian YA Critique

Episode Description

Alyssa & Leslie critique the prologue and opening of chapter one from JF Erikson’s Hard Reboot. They discuss worldbuilding, advanced dialogue punctuation, maintaining tension, and stage direction.

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Show Notes

“I would write a book, or a short story, at least three times—once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say. Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.”
— Bernard Malamud

Want to keep reading? JF Erikson is posting the series on his site, which you can find here. 

Read Leslie's guest post about the power of writing prompts. 

Check out Muse Fuel!

Inline Critique

Episode 51: The Humanarium: SF/Action/Adventure Critique

Episode Description

Leslie & Alyssa critique the prologue of Chris Tick’s The Humanarium, a science fiction novel. They discuss classic scene structure, grounding the reader, worldbuilding, and characterization. 

 

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Show Notes

“Scenes are battles built on conflict. Stories are wars that take values to the end of the line or, at the very least, approach the end of the line.”
— Shawn Coyne, The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know

Learn more about the Story Grid.

Inline Critique

Episode 50: Feather the Painter: Fantasy Critique

Episode Description

Alyssa & Leslie critique the opening of Mary Pat Lynch’s Feather the Painter, a fantasy novel. They discuss repetitive sentence structure, tension, sensory detail, dialect, and getting to know setting through your character’s point of view. For deeper exploration, check out the inline critique, below.

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Show Notes

Join us at the Smarter Artist Summit March 30-31, 2016 in Austin, Texas.

“Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar-room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.”
— Raymond Chandler
“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”
— Gary Provost

Inline Critique

Episode 49: Awakened: Superhuman Thriller Critique

Episode Description

Leslie & Alyssa critique the opening of CS Manley’s Awakened. They discuss the opening device (amnesia), tension, setting, and the high polishing techniques that will make your writing lean.

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Show Notes

“The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun because you can do anything. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying, because I feel that everything I do is making the book a little better. When I’ve finished, I enjoy the feeling that I’ve paid the rent for a couple more years. ”
— Ken Follett

Ready for the rest of the book? Read Awakened now.

Check out C.S. Manley's website.

Inline Critique

Episode 48: Generation Havoc: YA SF Critique

Episode Description

Alyssa & Leslie critique the opening of J.H. Lucas’s Generation Havoc. They discuss panoramic vs. intimate openings, developing tension, tone, diction, and worldbuilding. 

 

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Show Notes

“The best advice on writing was given to me by my first editor, Michael Korda, of Simon and Schuster, while writing my first book. ‘Finish your first draft and then we’ll talk,’ he said. It took me a long time to realize how good the advice was. Even if you write it wrong, write and finish your first draft. Only then, when you have a flawed whole, do you know what you have to fix.”
— Dominick Dunne

Read the rest of the story here.

 

Inline Critique

Episode 47: The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time: Fantasy/Science Fiction Critique

Episode Description

Leslie & Alyssa critique the opening of Luke Kondor’s The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time, a science fiction/fantasy novel. They mention echoes and strengthening your verbs. They discuss how the author builds sympathy by getting in the moment, and they debate which tense might be the best choice for this piece.

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Show Notes

“It’s one of the apparently simple, but huge, decisions you have to make, right at the beginning: will your main narrative be in past tense, or present tense? It is always possible to change your mind later, but it can be anything between a nuisance and a nightmare. ”
— Emma Darwin

Visit the author's website.

Visit Leslie Writes.

Think more about past tense versus present and how it affects your story.

Inline Critique

Episode 46: The Bite of Rust Fantasy Critique

Episode Description

Alyssa & Leslie critique the opening of Simon Cantan’s The Bite of Rust, a fantasy novel. They discuss unusual protagonists, characters’ emotional reactions, and effective hooks and world building.

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Show Notes

“It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. ”
— Robert Southey

Ready to read on? Check out The Bite of Rust on Amazon and Simon Cantan's website for more!

Inline Critique

Episode 45: "The Quirky Old Couple" Fantasy Short Story Critique

Episode Description

Leslie & Alyssa critique Alysia Seymour’s “The Quirky Old Couple,” a fantasy short story. They discuss tension, action, and conflict, repetitive sentence structure, and earning back story.

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Show Notes

“Your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, How to Use the Power of the Printed Word

Get the edited version of this short story here for free when you sign up to Alysia's newsletter.

 

Inline Critique



Episode 44: Society: Urban Fantasy/Thriller

Episode Description

Explicit.

Alyssa & Leslie critique the first five pages of Kindar Ra Harashal’s Society, an urban fantasy/thriller novel. They discuss grounding the reader in a fantasy world, nailing your genre and audience, and different aspects of problematic dialogue.

Show Notes

“Write when drunk. Edit when sober. Market it with the persistence of a drug peddler.”
— Ashwin Sanghi

Inline Critique

Episode 43: The Book of Fawla: Fantasy Critique

Episode Description

Leslie and Alyssa critique the first chapter of Edward Antrobus’s The Book of Fawla, a fantasy serial. They discuss telling detail for characterization, setting, and props, amping up your verbs, paying attention to diction, and how to take a story that’s working to the next level.

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Show Notes

“Editing fiction is like using your fingers to untangle the hair of someone you love.”
— Stephanie Roberts

You can find out what happens to Kate on Edward's serial site.

Inline Critique

Episode 42: Untitled Adam Park Thriller Critique

Episode Description

Alyssa & Leslie critique the opening pages of an as-yet-untitled Adam Park thriller by A.D. Davies. They discuss the genre and maintaining tension, and get into some granular detail on verb tense and dialogue tags. Put your grammar hat on for this one!

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Show Notes

“The gruesome, the grotesque and the generally shocking are always present in a good thriller. There are reasons people seek escape in books and one of those reasons is that the boundary of what can happen is beyond what we do — or would want to see in real life.

Ultimately, a great thriller is a roller coaster ride. I like to think that’s a promise I have never failed to keep, and one that I’d say has served my books well.
”
— James Patterson

Check out the first Adam Park thriller, The Dead and the Missing by A.D. Davies. You can find out more about A.D.'s books on his website.

Here's a link to the Self-Publishing Podcast featuring our own Leslie Watts.

Inline Critique

Episode 41: The Flagstone in Ms. Leech's Garden: MG Horror Critique

Episode Description

Leslie & Alyssa critique Todd Gerring’s short middle grade horror story, "The Flagstone in Ms. Leech's Garden." They discuss considerations when writing horror for this audience, 3rd person distant POV, building sympathy for your characters, and tips for copyediting and proofreading.

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Show Notes

“Rewriting ripens what you’ve written.”
— Duane Alan Hahn

Inline Critique

Episode 40: Pleasure Point: Romance Critique

Episode Description

Alyssa & Leslie critique the opening of Jennifer Evans Kochalka’s novel, Pleasure Point. They discuss the romance genre, character reactions, and get into the nitty gritty of compound words, spaces after punctuation, brand names in fiction, and extraneous detail.

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Show Notes

“For readers worldwide, the attraction of romance novels seems to be that they provide hope, strength, and the assurance that happy endings are possible. Romance makes the promise that no matter how bleak things sometimes look, in the end everything will turn out right and true love will triumph — and in an uncertain world, that’s very comforting.”
— Leigh Michaels

Here's an article about using brand names in fiction.

Read the full, edited version of this story here.

 

Inline Critique

Episode 39: Guest of Honor: Suspense Critique

episode Description

Leslie & Alyssa critique the opening of Mark S.R. Peterson’s novelette, Guest of Honor. They discuss the suspense genre, prepositions, present tense, tension, characterization, and point of view.

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Show Notes

“You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you, and we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.”
— Arthur Plotnik

Want to find out what happens to Megan? Read on.

Ready to tackle our editorial mission? Here's a list of prepositions for you to search for.

inline Critique