Drop the Needle

I so wasn't ready. My writing wasn't ready either.

I have been following Authoress on Miss Snarks First Victim Blog for a short time and love everything she has done over there. I just read the other day her Blog is less then a year old. She rocks!

She's the one who has gotten agents to agree to look at submissions (usually first 250 words of a completed manuscript) and then the same agent makes comments. Anonymously. Other readers can make comments too. Feedback. Isn't that what we, as writers, want and need?

Well, she also has contests she calls Drop the Needle - where she can pick anywhere in a book or WIP (doesn't have to be complete manuscript) and you submit your 250 words taken from whatever point she chooses. This time it was the last 250 words of any last page of any chapter. Cool concept.

I should have thought twice before submitting.

Actually I needed to hear that I used too many comma's, my punctuation in general was not so great. I should have given more "back story or introduction to the scene". But I didn't. Lesson learned. Not one of the commenter's said anything that was negative. And several we quite nice. I mean I know we are out there to get constructive criticism, but I have seen some crits that maybe just come off wrong. I'm glad that there wasn't anything to take out of context on the crits. They told it like they saw it. Exactly what I wanted right?

I was disappointed that some were confused with a characters speech. Had I given a decent intro into the story (Like Authoress gently requested) they would have understood the speech to be that of a developmentally disabled girl, not a robot or a hillbilly. I can giggle about it now, but reading those two comments made me cry at first, but I got over it real fast. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the comments. They told me how it came across to them, the reader.

Staring at the submission I tried to pretend that I have just dropped in and know nothing about the characters. I read it and I don't see robot or hillbilly. But who am I kidding? I can't fake it. I know the characters. I really know the characters. I couldn't put myself in the readers shoes, no matter how hard I tried.

There was one commenter who hit the nail on the head - they interpreted the speech to be that of a very young girl (toddler) or someone who was mentally challenged. Bingo! Developmentally Disabled. Had I introduced the character as such, the readers may not have been so lost. I also needed a better grip on my writing so the reader could see who the MC was and understand the POV. Needless to say I "head hopped" as a couple of commenter's put it.

Though no one stated it was the absolute finest writing they had ever seen, no one said they wouldn't read any further. That's good, right?

I still have to go back and read and comment on more. There are some good submissions. I wish mine had been one of them.

Do you ever cry unnecessarily?

Thanks for checking in.

Cass