Random House & Orion Fiction Editor Critiques

Each month on YouWriteOn.com fiction editors from Random House, publisher of writers such as John Grisham & Bill Bryson, and Orion, publisher of writers such as Ian Rankin, read and feedback on the highest rated stories on the YouWriteOn Top Ten chart.


The three highest rated novel openings in the YouWriteOn Top Ten at the start of each month receive an indepth critique from Random House or Orion if they haven't previously received a longer indepth critique. For stories that have received an indepth critique previously, they can upload their story again six months after they get a indepth critique if they wish to try and qualify again for another indepth critique. This gives further opportunity for professional feedback after development, while giving other talented new writers fresh opportunities to get professional feedback.

The other stories in the top ten at the start of each month, including novel openings and short stories, receive a mini-review from fiction editors at Random House or Orion. They can qualify for two of these, or one indepth critique and one mini-review, if the same story upload should feature in the top ten again on the 1st day of a subsequent month.


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Title : Soul to Soul

Author : Pink Rose

Genre : Literary Fiction, Novel, Womens Fiction, General Fiction

Read Sample Chapters

Synopsis
Soul to Soul is about a grandmother whose spirit is sent back from heaven to make amends with her family. Elizabeth Sommers owns a house in Dublin worth millions. She dies, and in her will favours her granddaughter, Sylvie, over her daughter Margaret. This causes havoc in the family and she returns to make amends.


Random House Professional Critique


Congratulations on being selected for the professional critique. I liked what I read and think you’ve made a good start. Having read the synopsis, I don’t think these opening few chapters give much away as to what is to come. I think your characterisation in the main is good and you certainly give the reader quite an insight into Elizabeth’s character, her world and her imagination. I think it’s interesting to see things from her perspective because she’s very much shut up in her own world, but living through others, her imagination and memories.


Structure

Broadly speaking I think the structure works so far, I’d be interested to see how you bring in the return of Elizabeth’s spirit and how you deal with the ending. I like the idea of Elizabeth’s memories and also her imaginings, but felt that sometimes these perhaps were a little too long and slightly distracted from the moment in hand. I think if you cut these back a bit, they would add more to the story.


I think these first few chapters, whilst setting the scene well and introducing the reader to the central characters, felt quite long and they don’t contain very much immediate action. I wonder if you could look at tightening them up a little and cutting anything which doesn’t really add to the story. Otherwise you perhaps risk losing your reader before anything big has happened - because we see things through Elizabeth’s eyes the only big event so far has been her imagining Charlie’s fall and then it actually happening.


Tone

Having read the synopsis I think the tone of the piece changes as the story progresses. The first few chapters feel quite negative, Elizabeth is ill and in a nursing home, she doesn’t like her daughter and although she dotes on her some-what wayward granddaughter, she doesn’t seem to like Sylvie’s boyfriend either. She’s also critical of Charlie and seems to want to die. She doesn’t appear enjoy life at all and this really seems to set the tone for these opening chapters. From the synopsis it sounds like there’s a turning point after Elizabeth’s death and from then onwards things improve for all of the main characters. I have to say I didn’t particularly warm to Elizabeth’s character at the moment and whilst I felt sorry for her being poorly and trapped unable to talk, she isn’t really likeable. I think it might be an idea to slightly temper Elizabeth’s more vindictive and unpleasant thoughts, particularly about Margaret, with a little more justification. So far we know that Margaret was a difficult child, but now she does visit her mother and bring her flowers etc., it would maybe be an idea for the reader to see some lighter moments where Elizabeth isn’t being quite so critical of Margaret or alternatively to see more justification for Elizabeth’s dislike of Margaret.


Characterisation

I think by and large your characterisation is good – it’s clear that Elizabeth is a grumpy older lady. From the outset the reader sees the tension between Elizabeth and Margaret and as the chapters progress we see that Elizabeth really doesn’t like her daughter at all. However, as I mentioned above I found her justification – that she’d been a difficult child – a little dissatisfying. Margaret now visits her everyday as her as well as having her own family, she visits her in the home and feeds her.


There is a paragraph where Elizabeth says she tried to look back on her relationship with Marcus to see if that was affecting Margaret adversely, but she couldn’t see that there was anything wrong in their relationship. However, the paragraph above this says she was disgruntled when Marcus assumed it was her fault they were having trouble conceiving. These two things don’t seem to quite tally and did suggest to me certainly that there was some tension in the marriage which might have affected Margaret. There’s also a paragraph later in which Elizabeth says she never allowed Margaret to take up art but made her study cookery and things which would be useful. It seems odd that she now thinks its fine for Sylvie to pursue those sorts of interests and can’t see why Margaret might feel slightly resentful towards her. It may be that you’ve done both things deliberately to show how cantankerous and self-absorbed Elizabeth is, which is fine, but it endears her even less to the reader.


Sylvie is an easy character to envisage as is Charlie. I’d like to see more of their characters as the story progresses. The synopsis says that Sylvie doubts her artistic ability and feels frustrated that Enda won’t sleep with her. At the moment she just seems quite flighty so it would be nice to see that perhaps she gives up on interests quickly because she worries that she isn’t very good at them. Elizabeth is very much the main character at the moment, which stands to reason as she’s currently the narrator, it would be nice for the other central characters to have more of a role and for the reader to get more of an insight into their thoughts and feelings as the book progresses.


Setting


I’m not quite sure when this is set. I imagine it’s fairly contemporary – now or a few years ago? I’m a little confused about where this is set geographically, because Sylvie talks of going on a course in Clare, by this I presume you mean in County Clare, Ireland? If that’s so and this is set in Ireland I think you really need to bring that out in the way the characters speak and also in some of their cultural references. At the moment it sounds like they are in Ireland from the casual way Sylvie says she went to a course in Clare and also because Enda sounds like an Irish name perhaps, but otherwise it could be anywhere in the UK. I think this is something you need to decide on and then alter the script accordingly, at the moment it’s slightly confusing for the reader.


Plot


It’s quite difficult to judge this when we have so little of the novel so far. As I mentioned above I’d be interested to see how you deal with Elizabeth’s spirit being sent back to earth and also how you depict God forgiving Sylvie. At the moment I don’t think the section where Elizabeth imagines Charlie’s accident and then it comes true quite works in perhaps the way you want it to. As the reader I immediately just thought that’s a coincidence, her imagination’s run away with her. I didn’t think at all that it was some sort of sign that she could see things. At the moment there seems to be an assumption at the start of the chapter that follows, that this must be true – I think you call it ‘Mind travel’. I didn’t buy into this and I’m not convinced other readers will either. I think you need to have a number of coincidences before Elizabeth can maybe begin to think she can ‘Mind travel’ to make it more convincing. I’m also not totally sure about what’s happening when Elizabeth hears a voice which says ‘Margaret needs you’ – where is this voice coming from? Is the reader meant to think that perhaps Margaret is suffering from some sort of dementia? I think perhaps you need to re-think these sections as I imagine, from the synopsis, introducing this ‘Mind-travel’ is crucial to the rest of the book’s plot and structure.


Genre/Market

It’s always important to have the reader in mind when you write and I think it would perhaps be worth thinking about your target audience and where you see this in the market. I think to broaden it’s appeal it would be a good idea to develop some of the more likeable characters further and also perhaps allow the reader to see things from others perspectives slightly earlier on in the story. Elizabeth’s perspective is an interesting one because of the situation she’s in, but she’s quite a grumpy and unappealing figure at the moment.

I do hope these notes have been helpful.


Clare, Random House