Marise’s Comments (group member since Jul 24, 2009)

Marise’s comments from the I'm Trying to Get a Book Published! group.

Just my opinion; again, I lack experience with this type of thing:

“Kami has learned to accept that the violence will never end. Still, she remains confident that she and the Protectors will one day be victorious” This seems like a contradiction to me. Either she thinks the violence will never end or she believes they will be victorious. Frankly, the phrasing implies a bit of a cliché. Just try to describe a world accustomed to the habit of war. What details of the culture show that this is a War culture? Frankly, I think details like that throughout your synopsis might help slow things down a bit so that it’s less confusing. Tell us about specific motions, dialog, settings… things to make the piece come alive.

Hope I helped
Marise

Brigid,

Let me preface by saying that I have yet to understand writing query letters myself and have only recently begun to comb through sites looking for advice. More often then not, I’ve read that you shouldn’t compare your work to others unless the agent or publisher specifically asks for it. That said, I love ‘the outsiders’ and I thought the comparison added intrigue to the earlier description. Perhaps, it would help if you explained how your book compares.

As for your age helping you stand out, I suspect that many writers today are relatively young; more-so than used to be the case a few years ago.

Based on what I’ve read online you might want to consider adding a little information about your writing experience. I think even mentioning writers groups and the like is beneficial; I could be wrong.

You may want to break up at least one of these sentences to vary the pace: “When Jack and Kami learn the disturbing story that connects their past lives, they find out that a demonic spirit, Ravi, is raging inside of Jack. Seeking revenge, Ravi threatens to take over Jack’s mind and, through him, conquer the immortal world. Although Jack struggles against Ravi, Kami knows that he is slowly succumbing to his evil self. If Kami wants to save herself and the other immortals, she will have to kill Jack.”

Final note: “She’s falling in love with him.” Perhaps this is my old creative writing teacher talking, but the word ‘love’ is so overused that it grates on my nerves almost every time I read it. Perhaps ‘She’s falling for him”? Or better yet, something with imagery like “She’d rather kiss him.”

Hope I helped.

Marise

Thanks Kevis,
It's always good to hear from you. Though I recommend holding off a few more days before reading my work. I've tried something new today with chapters 2 and 3 and I want to see what the response to it is on youwriteon before I post the change here on goodreads.

Fair enough. However, this site does require you to log-on and you don't post your whole work if it's a full novel; only the first three chapters. I doubt this site reaches enough people that it would put publishers off since it's only frequented by other authors.

That said, everyone knows what's right for their work. I do warn that the critiques on the site, while very helpful, can be somewhat harsh.

Hi everyone; I'm Marise, 22. I'm trying to publish a young adult fantasy/science fiction, "History of the Timelaws." It's time-traveltastic! Lol.

Sample chapters are available on my page if anyone's interested.

It seems, and for good reason, that the authors in this group are eager to have their work reviewed and are happy to review other peoples work. Here's heads up for anyone who's interested: I'm a member of this free site called youwriteon. Authors of short stories or books post up sample chapters or the whole short story for reviews by other authors. The cool thing is that if you review someone's work then you're guaranteed to have your work reviewed by someone else. The link is: www.youwriteon.com

I understand that something similar is happening in this group as well, which is wonderful! Still, it never hurts to post your work as much as possible.

Hope this helps.

Marise