Critique partners and Beta-readers

October 7, 2015 by Roland Clarke

This post arose because I have just given my first critique for a fellow writer in the Insecure Writers Support Group’s Critique Circle on Facebook. And it is the first Wednesday of October, so this is my IWSG monthly post.

I felt that it was the perfect time to look at what the experts had to say about the critique process. So where better than starting with a useful post at IWSG on what to look for in a critique partner:

“The manuscript is polished – huzzah! Time for another set of eyes to look at it.

Beta readers/test readers are often those who are just readers of our genre. They’re great for spotting flaws in the story. But we also need skilled writers to go over the manuscript and examine the plot, the character arc, the grammar, the structure, etc. Enter–critique partners.

What should we look for in a good critique partner?”

So what should we be asking our critique partners? Well there various questions, and here are the ones that K.M Weiland suggests:

“1. Is anything confusing?

2. Are any scenes boring or repetitious?

3. Do you spot any general tics (repeated words, etc.)?

4. Do you spot any confusing plot points (let me know when and where I lose you and what needs to be clarified)?

5. Does the opening grab you?

6. Is there an appropriate balance of action with the other subplots?”

These are just the ones that she asks before the crit. partner reads the manuscript, but she has others.

There is an overlap in what one expects from beta readers and crit. partners, and Margaret Yang gives in an insight into her experiences at Jade Varden’s instructive website.

Of course we have to remember to treat our readers with respect. As Michael Kinn points out at Janice Hardy’s Fiction Workshop, there is etiquette involved:

“As beta readers we can all do with some critiquette to guide our feedback to the (hopefully) well-polished drafts writers send us. The seasoned beta reader will find out what type of critique the writer is looking for, shun infeasible turn-around promises and warn the writer of any delays. Of course, beta readers should always offer candid feedback and treat the writer with respect. These are sound rules for critiquing. But in guiding my own critiques, I try to let one piece of advice rule them all…”

‘How to Serve and Swallow Criticism’ is an art in itself, which Kristan Hoffman describes at Writers Unboxed. However, there may be reasons to ignore some of the advice from our critique groups, as Anne R. Allen explains, but with qualifications.

Those are some of the expert opinions, though not all by a long way. I have my own experiences, but, although I did belong to a writers group, I’m still near the beginning of my critique path. I tend to mix the praise with the constructive criticism. I also aim to not sit on manuscripts for ages, but realise that there are some busy readers out there.

UPDATE: Good guide to “How to Critique Fiction” by Victory Crayne at: http://www.crayne.com/howcrit.html

What is your advice?

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

***

Some of you might have noticed that I missed yesterday’s post. Or you think this has combined the two posts? Well, I did think that I could count this one twice. Dang, I could have posted it yesterday, then tweaked it for today. What a missed opportunity. Would anyone have noticed?

In fact, there will be another post this week as I will be posting about the launch of One Stop For Writers, which launches tomorrow October 7^th

***

The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. We post our thoughts on our own blogs. We talk about our doubts and the fears we have conquered. We discuss our struggles and triumphs. We offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling.

Please visit others in the group and connect with other writers – aim for a dozen new people each time.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

Our Twitter hashtag is #IWSG

And be sure to check out our Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/IWSG13/

We also have a t-shirt now! You can purchase it here – http://www.neatoshop.com/product/IWSG

The awesome co-hosts for the October 7 posting of the IWSG are TB Markinson,Tamara Narayan, Shannon Lawrence, Stephanie Faris, and Eva E. Solar!

Would YOU miss me?

September 29, 2015 by Roland Clarke

From DeviantArt. For if one link in nature’s chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal.

Or rather would you miss my weekly blog posts? I was trying to think of something worthwhile to blog about, but kept rejecting the crass ideas.

Who wants to read about “A World without Shakespeare”?

Why pose the question “What sort of heroine rules your mind?” in any genre?

What is the point of musing about “Autumn Fruitfulness” if it’s not the “Colours of Fall”?

My inspirational “The Difference between Critique and Beta Readers” will be next Wednesday’s IWSG monthly post.

So I reached the conclusion that I wouldn’t write anything, and then see whether anyone noticed. Shtako! I’ve written something after all.

But what next?

What lines set you alight?

September 22, 2015 by Roland Clarke

I was going to blog about ‘A world without William Shakespeare’ but the prospect was too horrendous – even if Christopher Marlowe hadn’t been killed so young.

Did that line grab you, or turn you livid with anger?

How important to you is the first line of a book? I admit there have been some great ones. My favourites, and I read these decades ago, are:

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. — C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. – George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

But such lists are open to debate, and trying to pick favorites can be a challenge.

Getting that opening right, finding the right words, choosing the moment to start that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer – that’s wrong, although as writers we can suffer.

At the moment, my mind is on openings, partly as I have taken on some beta reading, but also as I am struggling with my own opening line:

“Their eyes stared at Twyla without emotion and followed every move that she made up or down the stairs.”

The real question is – what makes you read on? The opening line or paragraph? The cover and blurb? Reviews?

I can remember days past when I went into a bricks & mortar bookshop and flicked through real books. Aah that smell. I started with the cover and blurb, then sampled the opening, and even flicked further on. Harder of course with e-books, but sampling is an option so I read as far as I can. To me a novel is more than a memorable first line.

Do we stop at “Who’s there?” or tarry longer with the Groundlings?

So what hooks you? What is your favourite opening? Can you envisage no Shakespeare?

Midnight Hamlet at The Globe by TheFella on Flickr

Why the Delays? Is it the weather?

September 2, 2015 by Roland Clarke

I should put this off given the title of this post. But as the date is September 2^nd and the first Wednesday of the month, it’s officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day.

August has been a month of delays, but I can’t blame snow on the tracks, or leaves. But the weather or at least the distractions of summer might have played a part.

I admit that I didn’t give my beta readers a deadline for when their comments on “Storms Compass” were needed. And I forgot that the summer is filled with distractions, from holidays, tasty BBQs, and back-to-back horse shows. So a week ago I gave my readers until September 17^th, and even told those that I knew were tied up, the option of asking for longer. Now I just wait a few more weeks.

Not sure whether my brother has an excuse for moving the deadline over agreeing to help with my bridging loan to get to the USA. But that decision is being delayed as well, even though I now have the go-ahead for the next stage – the medical.

Any more delays?

Well I have to stick up my hand and admit the character profiles for “Fates Maelstrom” are delayed while I distract myself in some future world.

But isn’t that the fault of summer? Do you blame me?

BBQ at http://hobbyturmix.com/konyha-a-kertben/

Please visit others in the group and connect with other writers – aim for a dozen new people each time.

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

Our Twitter hashtag is #IWSG

And be sure to check out our Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/IWSG13/

We also have a t-shirt now! You can purchase it here – http://www.neatoshop.com/product/IWSG

The awesome co-hosts for the September 2 posting of the IWSG are Julie Flanders,Murees Dupé, Dolorah at Book Lover, Christine Rains, and Heather Gardner!

End of an Era: Closing a Chapter in My Life

September 1, 2015 by Roland Clarke

With my mother Nidia Clarke at Borde Hill Horse Trials – by Tony Warr

As I prepare to embark on a life in the US, I realise that 2015 is witnessing the closing pages of some chapters in my life: my involvement with the sport of eventing.

On April 4^th, I lost my close friend and organiser-mentor Bill Allen, and I attempted to say in my tribute what Bill meant to me and to the sport. Not long afterwards, on April 29^th, The Hon. Daphne Lakin, organiser of Iping Horse Trials, died and with her more memories of a special person. At the beginning of June, Bill’s co-organiser at Purston Manor Horse Trials, Dr Peter Lamont, and another guiding light, sadly passed on. Despite the courage of Bill and Peter’s widows, Ann and Jill, there were not enough entries to stop the final running of Purston being cancelled.

Bill Allen at Borde Hill Horse Trials- by Tony Warr

I felt these sad departures heralded the end of an era, but they are underscored by another departure. On May 22^nd the final issue of Eventing magazine was published, the June 2015 edition. I wrote on Facebook, “As others have said, Eventing got many of us started in journalism – or in my case re-started after a false start. Made so many friends this way from journalists like Jane Perry, Julie Harding, Ellie Crosbie, photographers like Nick Perry, Stephen Sparkes, David Miller, and riders, owners, organisers, grooms. So many memories and a sad end of an era.”

Although Kate Green was the editor that gave me my first reporting job for them in 1993, her assistant and successor, Julie Harding kept me writing. To my post Julie replied, “Agree Roland. So many wonderful people met along the way and friends made. Delighted to have helped some launch their careers too. Eventing was so many things to so many people – hence why there is much sadness surrounding its demise.”

In her own post she said, “Sadly the end of Eventing after 30 years… Janet and Brian Hill, its founders, could never have believed when they started it that it would go on to have such a long and illustrious history. A lot of people will miss you Eventing.”

That was reflected in both the comments about Eventing Magazine’s departure, and in the tragic loss of three great organisers. They will all be missed, and the sport is poorer for them leaving us.

The Seahorse Achievement Award

Although I didn’t start writing about the sport regularly until 1993, and didn’t co-found the South East Eventers League until 1995, my own involvement with eventing actually preceded the magazine’s launch by over twenty years.

In 1973, when I was twenty, my journalism career started as a sub-editor for The Field. Then one day the assistant editor, Derek Bingham, took me with him to Tidworth Three-Day-Event, which was the British Junior team trial. Once they saw my amateurish photos, those Juniors even persuaded me to take photos at their final trial. So began a sporadic flirtation that took me all over the UK taking photos, briefly to Toronto, and to events on the continent – Netherlands and Germany. Basically I was hooked.

I experienced some high-points, although the pinnacle came from carriage driving – as a passenger in the ‘suicide seat’ of a marathon carriage. But I remember cheering friends to victory at three-day-events, which is echoed in my novel “Spiral of Hooves”.

Penny Sangster on Greenbank Harlequin by Roland Clarke

And there were terrible low points, mainly when riders were killed, or horses. I’ll never forget standing by the main arena at Badminton in 1976 when Lucinda Prior-Palmer (now Green) won on Miss V Phillips’ Wide Awake, but then he died of a heart attack on his victory lap.

I regret losing a photo I took of Mr C Cyzer’s Killaire in his stable, a photo that looked like a painting. It was taken a few years before Lucinda won Badminton on Killaire in 1979.

When it launched in 1985 The Guardian described Eventing as “a tough workhorse aimed at the serious trials riders and budding Lucinda Greens.” But that workhorse has now retired, and so has this one.

But we’re not going to retire gracefully, are we? NO WAY.

I’ll keep writing about horses, even if they are fictional. Okay, “Tortuous Terrain”, the sequel to “Spiral of Hooves”, is based in Idaho, and the sport is more western – endurance riding and barrel racing. But easier to research, I hope.

And then comes “Suicide Seat”.

Dick Lane and his team of Lipizzaners – by Roland Clarke

The Candle

August 10, 2015 by Roland Clarke

A sundae and candle at http://ri.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrB8qHVM8dVYxkA256WnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTBxNG1oMmE2BHNlYwNmcC1hdHRyaWIEc2xrA3J1cmwEaXQD/RV=2/RE=1439147094/RO=11/RU=http%3a%2f%2fcityhomekitchenstore.com%2fchocolate-ice-cream-sundae-scent-home-fragrance-candle/RK=0/RS=VGdOYtBON2viK00lZmzhumz9jow-

http://www.cityhomekitchenstore.com

There was a single twinkling candle on my chocolate fudge sundae. One candle for another year older, if not a year healthier. Friday August 7^th 2015 was a turning point – well it felt that way for my stomach.

It churned and squirmed along with my head as we drove through the lush green Welsh scenery, across the mountains between Harlech and Bodnant. I hadn’t felt so car sick since I was a child – not physically sick, just feeling rotten. Is this because I’m into my second childhood?

But the journey was worthwhile as the food was delicious at the Bodnant Welsh Food Centre, which is “set in the heart of the Conwy Valley and surrounded by the stunning scenery of Snowdonia”. Best part was browsing their farm shop, and being tempted to buy some tasty treats from chili chocolate to locally sourced beef sausages. What happened to the vegetarian? Disgraceful – or not?

I did get to glimpse odd bits of the scenery on the way home. I needed to, as the fictional setting for “Fates Maelstrom” is in this locality, about 10 miles south-west of Bodnant and on the edge of Snowdonia. Through the mists of car sickness, I caught sight of some crags like the one above Crag-o-Niwl, my fictional Welsh village.

There’s a crag in there somewhere! Craig Bwlch y Moch poking up out of a dense forest of rampant vegetation above Tremadog. Photo: Al Leary ~ http://www.groundupclimbing.com/newsitem.asp?nsid=185

So overall it was a good birthday, despite the childhood throwback, and a day that I won’t forget.

What next then? Well other than a birthday in Idaho on August 7^th 2016. That depends on the emigration process to the USA, which entails many hurdles.

That candle also threw a light on one aspect of my writing future: where this Blog goes from here.

At the moment, I manage to blog once a month, in the IWSG monthly post on the first Wednesday. However, I feel that the posts should be more regular, for instance once a week – possibly on Monday or Tuesday.

If I go to that new schedule, then I need a new theme, as my intermittent ramblings don’t come up to scratch or muster.

There are three possibilities:

Inspiring writers – a weekly blog about authors that have inspired me with their writing. The post would include my favourite books by those writers. I envisage choosing a crime/mystery writer one week, such as Dick Francis or Linwood Barclay. Then a SF/Fantasy writer the next. Like Charles de Lint or Roger Zelazny. I could intersperse these posts with interviews with published writers that I am online friends with. This is the simplest option, and more akin to the A to Z Challenge, but much more laid back.

Boise Skyline ~ Copyright: http://www.visitidaho.org/photos/

Moving to the USA – a weekly blog about the process that my wife and I are going through in trying to get to Idaho, USA. It could address the hurdles as well as the breakthroughs, and the prospects that await us. This would be more of a diary with a few suggestion for others undertaking the same expedition. I’m not sure that this would work as a weekly post, but with so many hurdles it could.

Living with Multiple Sclerosis – a weekly blog that is a chance for me to explain the condition, vent about the MonSter, and perhaps help others. Much more seat-of-the-pants than the other two, and also the disability gives me good days and bad days. Of course, I can’t help mentioning the MonSter in other posts, especially the American ones. Of course, my health is a key reason behind the move.