tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15617001.post113292842376472989..comments2024-03-20T02:26:46.482-04:00Comments on Joanna Bourne: Bit DownJo Bournehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13457862962618886252noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15617001.post-1133239285263607382005-11-28T23:41:00.000-05:002005-11-28T23:41:00.000-05:00Hi Jo,Thanks for offering to look at a chapter. I ...Hi Jo,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for offering to look at a chapter. I may just take you up on it at some near future time. I don't want to cut into your writing time, knowing first hand how precious this time is. <BR/><BR/>I had to cut back my already limited visits to the forum because I'm trying to get a website up and running. Though I'm not published, I'll have some excerpts of my novels there.<BR/><BR/>You're bound to hear good news soon. (Maybe I will, too!)<BR/><BR/>Cat (foolishly at times, confident)Cat Dubiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16468996085840675920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15617001.post-1133019725873177932005-11-26T10:42:00.000-05:002005-11-26T10:42:00.000-05:00Hi Cat -Get a chapter of your WIP to me --- either...Hi Cat -<BR/><BR/>Get a chapter of your WIP to me --- either in the Forum or sending it p-mail -- and I will give it a look and see if there's anything I can come up with that would be the slightest use to you.<BR/><BR/>I wouldn't count on my being able to give any useful advice.<BR/><BR/>It's pretty basic technical stuff I talk about, as a rule. <BR/>(CAN the writer spell; use correct grammar; recognize a sentence fragment; write marginally human dialog; come up with motivation that doesn't come from the land of the zombies; learn not to load backstory in the first three pages; keep hold of POV; put a lid on her participial phrases?) <BR/><BR/>These are all predictable. All early-stage writer stuff. All curable if the writer sticks with it. <BR/><BR/>I'm one of many giving advice on this stuff. Good advice, if I may say so, abounds in the Forum.<BR/><BR/>You (cough) don't need this.<BR/><BR/><BR/>The more advanced stuff ... <BR/>(CAN the writer use focus to bring the reader into the scene; suit cadence to pace, emphasis and meaning; control intimacy or 'distance' in POV; write a character not wearily, drearily familiar to us?)<BR/><BR/>This advanced technique is hard to talk about. I'm figuring it out as I go along. Lotsa times I'm a shade off on how to do this stuff, or just plain wrong. <BR/><BR/>So I don't know how much I'd be able to help you with any problems you may have.<BR/><BR/>My own WIPs ...<BR/>Often I have worked out what's wrong with bits of my writing. I KNOW that I don't keep my pacing tripping along at a fast clip. I could tighten a lot of the prose. In ANNEKA I lay the dialect on too think in a lotta places. I get my action plotline all tangled up and incomprehensible. <BR/><BR/>I have some notion how to work with these faults. I don't always do a good job fixing stuff, but I'm not totally clueless what I NEED to do.<BR/><BR/>But there's stuff I can't SEE myself screwing up <BR/>because I just don't know enough. Stuff I could do better if somebody pointed it out to me. Stuff I'm clueless about. Sigh.Jo Bournehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13457862962618886252noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15617001.post-1132993357504760952005-11-26T03:22:00.000-05:002005-11-26T03:22:00.000-05:00Jo, you are the master of crits at Compuserve! I w...Jo, you are the master of crits at Compuserve! I would pay you $400 if I had it for a crit of my novel-that-keeps-getting-rejected.<BR/>You have an agent who loves your book. She'll find you a publisher, I'm sure.<BR/><BR/>CatCat Dubiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16468996085840675920noreply@blogger.com