UNDER THE SAME SKY

Dear Genevieve

Congratulations on being selected for a professional critique by your writing peers at YouWriteOn. I really enjoyed reading your sample pages of UNDER THE SAME SKY (wonderful title, by the way). I was impressed by the confidence of your writing and I thought that these early pages represented a very promising start. What I hope these editorial notes will do is provide you with is some useful pointers as to how you can hone and develop the existing chapters, and what to pay attention to as the novel progresses.

Structure:

The structure of these early pages seems solid yet simple, but it is clear from the synopsis that Andrew’s storyline will begin to take greater precedence as the story progresses. I wonder if it might work better if the novel was structured as a split narrative, so there are alternating chapters/scenes shown from both Maggie’s and Andrew’s perspectives. Otherwise I worry that just as the reader is fully immersed and invested in Maggie’s story, they will be pulled out of it and dropped into Andrew’s, which might be quite jarring for the reader. A split narrative can also help with tightening up the structure of a novel so that it feels more focused and streamlined, and also up the pace, as the reader will (hopefully) be invested in both stories, and as each character segment ends on a dramatic note or cliffhanger, they’ll be rushing to get to the next scene to find out what happens. Of course, this is only a suggestion.

This is a minor point, but there seems to be some confusion over time period. On page 3, Maggie tells of how she dreams of her father’s death on her seventeenth birthday. And on page 7, Maggie says how ‘for nearly two years I spent my days looking forward to falling asleep’. Yet further down the page, she says ‘Then something changed... Nightmares invaded my sleep the summer after I turned seventeen’. But wouldn’t she be nineteen now, if two years had passed? Make sure that you are consistent on areas such as time-frame, otherwise it can become confusing for the reader whether that section of the narrative is supposed to be present tense or a flashback.

Plot:

I thought the opening scene was strong and intriguing, and the subsequent pages were equally captivating. You balance the narrative between slow-paced, vivid descriptions of Maggie’s life with dramatic, tense and unexpected events that suddenly take the story in a whole new direction. The drama of these early pages is never less than involving, and even when very little is happening, thanks to the strength of your writing and characterisation, the narrative is always compelling.

The scene where Maggie dreams of her father’s death was fantastic. Although the reader has already been told he will die, you can’t help but hope against hope that he survives as the reader tensely races through the pages. It is so vivid, it is almost cinematic in quality. And the scene where the men arrive to take the girls was almost heartbreaking and taut with tension. I gasped out loud in surprise and shock when their mother is shot.

As I have mentioned above, I think it would work better if Andrew’s storyline is introduced earlier. Both he and Maggie are the novel’s protagonists, and so each of their narrative strands should take equal precedence. So far, the only times we have glimpsed Andrew is in Maggie’s dreams, but as the synopsis details, his own storyline will feature more heavily as the novel progresses, and this should open up the story (given that it is set in a vastly different setting and peopled by very different characters), which should give it more drama and more scope.



Characterisation:

I was impressed with your characterisation but felt that this was an area where there was room for further development. While plot-driven, the novel is also heavily character-led. Your characters are extremely well-drawn, and you are brilliant at economically portraying characters, doing so in a succinct and concise way, and bringing their back-stories to life.

Maggie is a wonderfully realised character: strong yet vulnerable. While her gift is a great one, it is also a burden, and you poignantly reveal how this is a burden that she has to bear alone. I liked how it was revealed that other female ancestors from Maggie’s family have also inherited the ‘gift’ but have paid the ultimate sacrifice for it with their life, when one was burned at the stake as a witch. This really heightens the sense of Maggie’s otherness, and how this is a huge part of her personality that has to remain hidden. I loved the flashback involving her and her mother when she was a baby, and her mother used to hide things for Maggie to find. Maggie’s interactions and relationships with her family is an area that can provide great insight into her as a character. Obviously it is mentioned that her mother is aware of Maggie’s gift, but is her father? And if so, what is his reaction to it? And how about her sisters – do they know, or is this a secret that has been closely guarded by her parents? If her siblings do know, how do they feel? Envious? Scared? I think it’s important to really explore the dynamics of the family and their relationship to Maggie in these early pages, especially before both her mother and father die. I think if there is a keener sense of Maggie’s connection and relationship to each of her parents, their deaths will be that much more dramatic and poignant when viewed through Maggie’s eyes. I also felt that her sisters weren’t given much narrative presence in these early pages, but again, by exploring Maggie’s relationship with them, their own characters will be brought into sharper focus. After all, we have to feel for them as much as Maggie when they are abducted from their home.

For Maggie, she is close to her mother and sisters yet always at a distance, solitary in her knowledge that something ominous will happen. Yet while she figures as narrator and observer, and it is through her eyes and from her perspective that we are privy to, I felt that you never quite get under her skin, and consequently the reader doesn’t get a real sense of her as a distinct and individual character. Maggie observes and reacts, rather than acts, and so it never really feels like she is steering the narrative or guiding the reader. I think you need to work on warming her up as a character and making her more accessible to the reader. She is an unusual and extraordinary character, and we need to see that as the novel progresses. Her distinctive voice has really got to emanate from the page. The reader needs to emotionally engage with her if they are to invest in her story from beginning to end.


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Editor Critique - LICKETY SPLIT

Dear D Moody

Congratulations on being selected for a professional critique by your writing peers at YouWriteOn. I enjoyed reading your sample pages of LICKETY SPLIT and I thought that these early pages represented a promising start. But there were certain areas that I felt needed serious attention. What I hope these editorial notes will do is provide you with some useful pointers as to how you can hone and develop the existing chapters, and what to pay attention to as the novel progresses.

Structure:

Structure is the backbone of any novel, providing the necessary shape and direction of your narrative. I think one your novel’s biggest weaknesses is that the narrative is let down by its structure, or rather lack of one. While I liked that you had chosen to switch between the various points of view of different characters, these scenes didn’t interlink particularly well, but felt disjointed and at times the transitions were quite awkward. There is no solid structure to the plot; it is meandering and directionless, and so your story can feel shapeless and languid at times. Even your synopsis seems very muddled and unstructured, which is an obvious indication that there are fundamental weaknesses in the structure and in the overall plot. For example, there’s no sense of passage in time between scenes. Is this the same day, the same week, even the same month? There needs to be some indication of time-frame. Otherwise how is the reader supposed to know if Colin has suddenly gotten over Susan’s loss, or if in fact this has taken him weeks?

I would suggest that you dedicate some serious time to pinning down the structure (and plot) of the novel, and use this as the building block for your story. It very much feels like you’ve started writing with no real idea of where the story is headed or just what the novel is about. With a more streamlined, sound structure, your story will have purpose and drive – something that it is clearly lacking at present. Your prose reflects your structure in that in can feel very meandering. There is no linking between sentences; it is almost like a stream of consciousness, filled with random, disconnected thoughts that don’t always seem to have any bearing on the wider narrative. It can feel very bitty and disjointed in places, which is perhaps a reflection of Colin’s fractured state of mind, but then this isn’t just the case in Colin’s scenes, but in Raffo’s too. And this is something that needs consideration when you come to re-writes.

Plot:

I thought the opening was very strong: intriguing, dark and it immediately hooks the reader. I liked that Colin is addressing the ‘murder victim’ rather than the reader. It makes the reader feel like they are strangely privy to Colin’s innermost thoughts, without Colin being aware that someone is listening in, as this is meant as a confession to Susan, and Susan alone. You set up the central mystery nicely: is Susan actually dead; if Colin didn’t kill her, who did and why; and how will Colin prove his innocence? And I loved the closing line on that segment: ‘this isn’t even my machete’, which instantly makes the reader doubt Colin, as why would he have a machete?! I liked how you played with preconceptions here, and that is something that I would have liked to see carried on, especially as you class this novel as a comedy.

But after that extremely strong opening, the plot seems to lose its way. It feels like the narrative is going off on a tangent with no real direction. The scene that sees Colin leaning over the fence to talk to Raffo about what portion of the brain a human uses doesn’t really add anything to the narrative, as it doesn’t build on plot or character. After such a strong beginning, in comparison this feels very undramatic and even a little tired. After hooking the reader so effectively in those first couple of pages, it’s crucial that you keep them engaged and entertained. And unfortunately the succeeding pages sometimes felt quite lifeless and unfocused. The plot can feel shapeless, and there is no sense of narrative drive or page-turning quality after those strong opening pages.

It seems that Susan may have been murdered, but there is no mention of this again after the first few pages. Are we to believe that this hasn’t happened yet and is just building up to this point? Otherwise, why aren’t the police involved? And there is no real insight into what Colin is feeling. After all, he’d feel very different over whether he thought Susan had been murdered or if she’d just been cheating on him and had left. And he mentions that there are bags of her possessions in the hallway – are these what she has packed, or is Colin throwing her out? Does she ever come to collect them? There are a host of unanswered questions, and this might prove confusing and frustrating for the reader as they struggle to decide just what is going on. They need to be aligned with Colin, and he needs to be their guide through these pages.

As I have mentioned above, tied in with the structure is the plot. The narrative seems very meandering and at times quite rudderless. There are many different character strands introduced in these opening pages, but they don’t particularly interlink or connect. The transition should seem seamless, and each new strand should bring the plot into sharper focus and hopefully imbue it with greater meaning. For example, the scene where Colin is waiting for the bus to work, and a young mother and her daughter are involved in an altercation is interesting enough, but it’s not integrated into the story and doesn’t seem to have any significance or meaning for the rest of the narrative. You don’t even offer Colin’s perspective or thoughts on it, which would have incorporated the scene into the narrative better. There are numerous scenes like this that feel like they are going to go somewhere, and then are suddenly curtailed with no mention again. Each scene in the novel has to have purpose and significance, otherwise it shouldn’t be in there.

I liked the flashbacks involving Colin and Susan, but again, these felt abrupt and weren’t seamlessly brought into the narrative, or even reflected upon by Colin. Flashbacks can be a good device to build upon back-story, provide deeper character insight, and also give more texture and depth to the make-up of the narrative. And I don’t think their potential has been capitalised upon in these early pages. Seeing Colin in his heyday offers the potential for comedy, poignancy (as he reflects on what he has lost) and making him a more rounded and engaging character.

Other characters are introduced in these opening chapters, with the narrative shown from their point of view, such as Debbie and Curtis. But there is no mention of them in the synopsis. Does this mean that they will not feature in a significant way later in the narrative? If so, why introduce them at all? I like the idea of the narrative being refracted through various characters eyes, characters who are all connected in some way, however tenuously. But this will only work if each character has relevance and significance to the wider story, otherwise these scenes will feel anchorless and, ultimately, pointless.

There was a great deal of use of onomatopoeias in these pages, and I felt that they were over-used to the extent that it felt like it was out of a children’s novel, rather than adult fiction. We know a phone can ring with a shrill, what a bow and arrow sounds like, and what a bulb sounds like when it blows. I would suggest cutting these repeated references, as they detract from the narrative, rather than add to it.

From reading your synopsis, I’m concerned about how the novel will progress. To be honest, it all sounds quite muddled and far-fetched, and even a little ludicrous. A certain amount of suspension of disbelief will be required on the reader’s behalf, but your story still needs to feel credible and ground in reality if you are to keep the reader engaged and invested in the story. I like the idea of the unexpected twist ending where Susan saves Colin, only to kill him. But I worry that reader’s who have followed his story through to the end might feel that this is a disappointing or anti-climactic ending unless handled in the right way.

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Professional mini critique for Kingsor’s First Summer by N A Randall

Congratulations on being well-rated by your peers at YouWriteOn. I enjoyed reading your short story, and was impressed by the confidence of your writing. Inevitably, the tone of the story is very dark. Rather than looking back on this formative summer with bittersweet nostalgia, it’s clear that this is still a period of his life that traumatises the unnamed protagonist, something that perhaps he’s never had the nerve to tell anyone before. One criticism would be that there’s no huge insight into the protagonist or real sense of his character, and consequently readers might not engage with his story as much as they would if he had a stronger and more distinctive narrative presence.


Professional mini critique for Catch the Sun by Ian Roberts

Congratulations on being well-rated by your peers at YouWriteOn. I enjoyed reading the opening chapters of your novel. I thought it was well-written, and you ably capture the chaos and terror of war, dropping the reader into the midst of it from the very first page. While these battle scenes are pacy and tense, they also felt a little muddled, as so much is happening that it can be hard to visualise just what is going on. I think sometimes that less is more, otherwise readers may feel overloaded with information in these early pages. My other concern was the reader’s emotional engagement with Jan Willem. While the reader will feel pity for him, you need to align them with him for them to be truly invested in his story.


Professional mini critique for A Bed of Thorns by Claire Ferdinando

Congratulations on being well-rated by your peers at YouWriteOn. I enjoyed reading the opening chapters of your novel. The first chapter gripped me from page one and was incredibly pacy. My one concern is that Charlie isn’t a particularly likeable character. Not only has he just shot a man in cold blood, but he’s portrayed as arrogant, smug and a somewhat superficial man who likes fast cars and young girls. I think you need to work on making him a more appealing and distinctive character if the reader is to follow his story through to the end. Similarly, Rose feels like quite an underdrawn character in her first scene. She is portrayed as quite naïve and even infantile. Like Charlie, I think she would benefit from further development so she is a more engaging character, and she intrigues the reader from the very beginning.


Professional mini critique for The Nebraska Gambler by Warren Washburn

Congratulations on being well-rated by your peers at YouWriteOn. I enjoyed reading the opening chapters of your novel. I thought they were well-written and was impressed by your characterisation. The father in particular really leaps off the page. But despite the many strengths of these opening pages, the story is compromised by a real lack of pace and sense of drama. The narrative feels very small in scope, and while the characters are well-drawn, their portrayals aren’t enough to elevate the story. These pages also felt a little unstructured, which is something that needs consideration when you come to rewriting the novel. With a tighter, stronger structure, and a pacier, more involving narrative, readers are more likely to remain engaged from beginning to end.