Critique services worth it?

I've worked in the video game industry, as a stage designer in the theatre, and as a muralists/trompe-l'oeil artist. I've made my living doing those things, know what it takes to become a professional and will bring to bear those experiences to become a published writer. What is money anyhow? Not a penny of it will you take into the next life.

 

Money is food and rent and electricity. It's things that I need to survive. I can only spend it once and I have to make good decisions with what I spend it on.

 

Just two questions.

1)When you send them your sample, do they do any work on it to let you know what kind of thing they'll be doing to the rest of it? (Not that that would be a requirement, but it would be nice.)

2) And do they send you ongoing chapter critiques, or is it the whole book or nothing? In other words, if their critique of the first couple of chapters isn't helpful, can you pull out of the deal and only pay them for the work they've done?

If those two answers are satisfactory, I'd say this is an excellent recommendation. I'll go check them out.

..............

So far so good. Here's The Guardian article about them, from two years ago. Sounds promising. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/18/rootsy-self-publishing-professional-edge-emmanuel-nataf

 

To be clear though; the article is talking about Reedsy as a self-publishing aid. And I dare say it's good at that; I'm sure people offer fine services and for independent writers they are absolutely critical because there is no publisher to pay for editing and cover design. If that's what you want then by all means go nuts. But it doesn't speak to the value of professional editing for trad publishing.

 

That is one of the most breathtakingly privileged statements I have read on this forum. I physically recoiled from my computer screen.

 

It might help though, if you're not sure of your writing skills and would like feedback that's more likely to reflect the industry's expectations than feedback from betas.

I am more concerned about whether these folk on Reedsy are reliable and experienced professionals. (So far so good.) Whether you want to use a freelance editor before you submit your work to an agent is entirely up to you. It's not the issue I was trying to address.

I do hear about people who have paid a small fortune to 'editors' who turn out to be chancers who are only too happy to take money from would-be authors and give them poor value for it. I'm concerned about people getting ripped off.

 

In which case enjoy yourself

 

Yoiks. Well, they better bloody well be good!

 

I actually have no intention of paying a pro to edit my stuff. I feel pretty competent to get it to a stage that pleases me and most of my betas, and I'm not looking to start a career as a writer. I'm retired, 68 years old. I just want my book out there for whoever wants to buy it.

However, I am interested in the issue. I hate seeing people get ripped off. And at the same time, I'm aware that if you want a good editor you need to be willing to pay them for their time AND expertise. Of course if you'd rather submit to agents and pursue traditional publication, it's true that IF you get taken on and the agent manages to sell your book, the professional editing will be part of the publication package.

However—what if you spend several years punting your novel around, and nobody takes it on? Then what? Would you be willing to pay for a professional opinion as to why it's not been successful? And maybe get some realistic suggestions as to how it could be improved? Some people would and some wouldn't. But it might be an idea not to reject the notion out of hand—if you can afford it.

It's the folk who struggle to afford it that I worry about. They're the ones who get targetted by substandard 'editors' who don't actually charge much, but also do a crappy job. I just wish there was a foolproof way to sniff them out.

 

@BayView -- I agree with you that being an expert does mean you need good publications, large readership and I guess I would agree with the commercial success if we're talking about money because that matters. What about all the writers with MFAs and PhDs? Those are not easy programs to get into since a lot of them are fully funded and offer stipends to at least some of the candidates. And the programs aren't easy and I do believe if you go through something like that for writing you do become an expert. The MFA is considered a terminal degree (highest in the field). The PhD in creative writing is newer, but I do have some friends pursuing it, and I know it really is a lot of work. I'm not sure about these programs in the UK. Things might be different there. I like to complain a lot about rejection on here because misery loves company and what not, but I have sold stories for a lot of money. And don't fellowships and grants go to experts? And writing residency programs... who gets into those? Am I really an expert? Probably not, but I fake it pretty well, and I know writing better than I know anything else, but I get the feeling it would take a real lot to prove to you that anyone's an expert. I'm careful not to judge people I don't know too much, but I do think you can tell very quickly someone's level of writing expertise very quickly. Like in a paragraph or two at most. But, honestly, I've got nothing to prove here. Trying to prove I've got what it takes where it really counts.

 

@big soft moose, send me alink when you launch, I'll buy!

 

The difficulty is that the ability to DO something is not necessarily the same as the ability to teach, to critique, or improve something that someone else has done. I remember reading, and I don't remember where, that in writing, those skills don't all that often come together.

 

And what do you think those people who spend six years or whatever studying creative writing? You guys can hold out all you want waiting for your idea of what an expert is. I like to surround myself with people I consider writing experts and friends.

 

@big soft moose, send me a PM with your e-mail, and I will send some FB templates, hints and kinks

 

Well, there are thousands of graduates of MFA programs each year, right? The vast majority of them don't go on to have impressive careers in writing, so it doesn't seem, to me, that an MFA alone is enough to make someone an expert.

So quite possibly we're defining expert differently. In the old apprentice-journeyman-master system, I'd say that an expert would be at the "master" level. It sounds to me like you're thinking an expert is more at the "journeyman" level? Like, the person has developed some reasonable skills and is ready to go off and start experimenting and learning on his/her own? But hasn't necessarily built up a body of work, hasn't really perfected things, hasn't totally hit his/her stride?

In a way, I think I'm being complimentary by saying that I don't think anyone on this site is an expert/master, because to me, once that level is achieved, future improvements will probably be fairly slight and hard-won. If someone is already an expert and is still not exactly setting the writing world on fire, then that person is not likely ever going to have a lot of success. Sure, maybe there will some miraculous "discovery", but I honestly think those are pretty rare.

So I'm saying that I think most of the people on this site aren't setting the world on fire, but that's okay, because they're still learning. There's lots of room for them to improve and find more success. If people here are already experts...then there isn't a whole lot of room for us to do better than we currently are, which would be kind of discouraging, to me.

 

Yep, if the editor is interested in working with you and takes you up on the offer they'll send you a quick edit on the chapter you've submitted. And if it's like mine, with plenty of red ink and comments as to what might be done to improve the prose. To your second question... I would have you do what my writing partner and I did; submit the first part of your story and go from there. I think the best way to approach things is to first get a feel for the process, with let's say, the first four or five chapters of your story.

The editor we're working with went way beyond line-level editing; the first line of the first chapter of our story describes a 12 year old girl reading a book by lamplight. The book we mention by name, Zoonomia, by Erasmus Darwin is a real book written by a real person. Our editor did some quick research and found out (what I already knew), that the book was published two years after the date in which our story begins, November 13, 1792... and that it should be rectified. I told her that would be troublesome, as two of the real life characters we're using had already lost their heads by 1794.

When the time came to do things for real, and we submitted the first four chapters, and said problem hadn't been rectified... she was much more adamant that we reference another book. Well, I spent two days researching archaic literature and finally found something amazing... tucked away in Seneca's, Natural Questions was a paragraph recounting an expedition Emperor Nero had sent to find the source of the White Nile. In this passage, that is no more than a few hundred words, he interviews two Roman Officers who describe things that could only have been a waterfall that is very near to Lake Victoria. There has since been some historical evidence that in fact this small Roman Legion very nearly made it to the source of the Nile... several hundreds of years before Europeans would find their way there. This so perfectly fit our story that upon reading the account given by Seneca, that I jumped out of my chair! Our editor called us out on bad form, we were using the book, Zoonomia as a metaphorical prop, and nothing more than that. She said that if a reader was to likewise research the book only to find that it couldn't have existed at the time of our story, would I care that they might be disappointed? I would care.

A good editor does so much more than correct poor grammar and spelling errors. Good luck!

 

I kinda agree. There's some cracking writers here (including me, obvs ) but I don't think there's anyone here who believes that they don't have more to learn and isn't actively trying to improve their craft. We're all striving to be better, in various different ways. Some people are trying to improve their actual prose, some are working on characters and plots, others are working on making more commercially available ideas while others are trying to be more literary.

To be honest, it's hard to imagine anyone at all that you could really call a master of writing generally. Maybe a master of horror or romance; I can reasonably imagine there being writers out there in well defined genres who really could make any story amazing within their sphere. I can see someone saying Stephen King is a master of horror, for example, but you'd never call him a master of writing. I doubt that he'd know what to do with a light hearted romantic adventure.

And this is analogous to other trades; you might see a master jeweller or a master blacksmith but not a master of metal who can build anything from a filigree gold tiara up to a sky scraped.

Writing isn't something that you can just generally master. There's just so many aspects of it as a discipline, including both on the page and off. To be a master writer would imply that you know how to write every genre to an exceptional level, how to write every different kind of narrative and character style as well as knowing the audiences, marketing and publishing figures for all of this. There's just not enough time in the day to have all of that.

You might, if you're very lucky, be able to find a genuine master of your niche. Someone who can take your idea and turn it into something that will definitely sell in a way that you could never have done by yourself. But almost all writers, even successful full time writers, are not masters even of their genre.

You can learn from someone who's a better writer than you, absolutely. But I agree with you that experts is a bit misleading, especially when they are apparently an expert at doing something that they don't do as a day job.

And as it turns out you can learn plenty from another journeyman. Trading experience and opinions between non-masters works just fine, you can learn a lot from someone even if they aren't a better writer than you because they are better at something specific you are weak at.

 

An MFA is at the master level. To earn that degree you have to be a master and present and defend a thesis which is a body of work that is expected to be at a professional and publishable level. The whole point of getting that degree is to become a master. And sure not everyone with an MFA is successful, but plenty are. I don't think you have to be the most famous writer in the world to be a master, or even be setting the publishing world on fire. You can be a master and not even publish, but that would probably be from lack of trying. And it is totally possible to break in at the top, though, it could likely take years of trying. But masters do it all the time. I don't know how many people on here have MFAs. That's not something that comes up too much. Probably because most people around here write genre and novels. Still, I would bet there are at least a few masters lurking around here.

 

In the erotica section