I've finally finished my book . It is based on a true story with an erotic twist. Besides asking friends to read it I don't know who else to go to. I can't really afford to pay editors or any pro. I also heard that self publishing an ebook is cheaper but I still don't want to publish if my book isn't good material. Any suggestions would be of great help.
1. If you believe your book is finished, start submitting it to publishers. Acceptance is a pretty decent quality metric. 2. If you don't think it is up to par yet, continue editing it until you are confident of its quality. 3. If you don;t know how to approach #2, practice critique on other people's writing, then your own.
This. It's something Cogito and I say often, to which we usually receive eyes that roll so hard you can hear them. But there is great merit in the idea and the task. The highs and lows of another work are much easier to acknowledge than in your own because there is no emotional investment. You've also not been looking at it for the past X # of years. It's a great way to gain a little perspective of what does and doesn't work, be it here in the forum or picking up any novel off of your own shelf and reading it as an editor, red pen in hand, not as a reader.
If you do ask friends, make sure it's the kind of friends who are readers, who will tell you the truth, and who will base their opinion more than something subjective. If you read it over and over for quite a while and find nothing that you think needs to change or has to change than odds are you are good to go. If you haven't yet, I recommend setting the book aside for a week or so and don't think about it. Whenever I do, I usually spot things that I missed a dozen times because I saw what I wanted. And, I agree with everyone else as to critiquing others works. I've done it countless times in the past and, I like to think, helped me in my own writing if nothing more than a mere confidence boost in knowing what other authors feel about their own drafts. It's easier finding something to change/fix in someone's work than your own. It can easily help you with small things such as word placement, simple grammar, or broader things like dialogue.
You could post something of yours in the workshop. A little something that is perhaps characteristic of your writing. Issues that others pick up there might also apply to your finished work.
ditto all of the good advice above... if you want a private assessment of your writing quality, i'll be happy to take a look and give you feedback on what needs work, if anything... love and hugs, maia maia3maia@hotmail.com
thanks Art, I've been busy lately but I'll post some of it in a few days and see what you all think. I'll also email mammamaia very soon. thanks guys
Based on your last statement, let me ask you why you think it might be "good material?" I don't mean the plot, and I'm not denigrating your writing. But this is your first novel, and it sounds as if you, like most writers (myself included) did little to prepare yourself to write professional other than reading and appreciating a lot of fiction. And if you're like I was, you believe that you read for the plot, and that the thing shat sets us apart from al the people who have our general education and background is a great plot idea and (hopfully) a bit of natural writing talent. But readers aren't reading the plot or even thinking about it as they read. They're with you for the minute-to-minute entertainment. No plot meaningful has occurred on the first few pages, so the reader is with us after page one because of the writing, not the plot. So far as the writing: are you informing and explaining or entertaining? Thst matters, because the single greatest cause of rejection is failure to engage the reader, emotionally. Most submissions by new writers either list a series of events, in the form of, "This happened...then that happened...this person said this...and then..." Or, are a transcription of the author telling the story aloud. Informative, perhaps, but also dispassionate. As for the "true story" aspect, it matters not at all. It either survives on its ability to emotionally involve the reader or it's rejected. And though no one wants to hear me say it, the statistics say that the average writer creates, edits and puts aside between a half million and a million words before they make a sale. Since you've worked so hard on it, and want to know how well you're doing, I suggest you invest a few dollars in Debra Dixon's GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It's a warm easy read, very complete, and a gentle introduction to the structure and technique of creating scenes and stories that sing to the reader. It won't make a pro of you. Only you can do that. But it can give you the proverbial "leg up," by providing the knowledge and tools you'll need. We can't use the tool we don't own, and we'll never miss the tool we don't know exists. That matters because the more tools you own the more options you have, whuch gives your talent wings.
JayG you've mentioned good points there. Even though I finished putting it in writing to the best of my ability, I know it is in need of polishing. That's the reason why I asked for advice on how to get people to read it so that I may have their honest opinion and advice.
