Blog Chain - People I Couldn't Write Without

This topic was chosen by the lovely Sarah who wanted to know:

Do you work with critique partners? How did you find your crit pals, and what influence have they had on your work?

Oh yes. I have crit partners. Probably too many LOL but I've met so many awesome writers over the years and we pretty much all exchange manuscripts at least once in a while.

My very first group I found by googling. I met some great people on there, learned a TON. I was a very VERY newbie writer. Had finished one book, paid an editor to go through it, gotten a few good suggestions from him, but it wasn't until this group (and one awesome lady in particular, Jeannie Ruesch) got a hold of it that I actually started pulling that poor manuscript together.

I can't believe how much she taught me. Stuff I'd never heard before. The adverb rule, POV tricks/rules/no-nos, ways to show different sides to my character - for all those who have read Treasured Lies, the pea scene was suggested by Jeannie. If she hadn't taken me under her wing, I don't know where I would be right now. I think I've mentioned before that I once wrote a scene where I had FOUR povs going on in ONE paragraph. Yeah...Jeannie was the one who explained why that was bad LOL

My other critters I met through QueryTracker. Toni Wilson (we are often called the eTwins by our QT friends) - I send everything to her. I mean literally everything. She often crits my emails before I send them LOL

Kristal Shaff and Cole Gibsen - again, these amazing women read pretty much everything I write. And I've learned so much from each of them. They are all awesome with things like plot flow, word choice, motivations, plot holes (and Kristal and Toni in particular are great at pointing out when I'm going overboard on the romance LOL). These women ready all my stuff and they are so incredibly sweet about reading my pages over and over again. I think they know my stories more than I do sometimes LOL

I met Elana Johnson through QT and joined a crit group with her and the absolutely wonderful Christine Fonseca. Elana is amazing - she will tell you how it is and she doesn't let you get away with anything. I usually get my pages back thinking "yeah, I knew she'd mark that." :D I'm slowly learning to just remove it before she has to mark it up LOL

Christine is amazing with emotions - I can go way overboard with them sometimes...and sometimes I don't have enough. She keeps me on track with my plot and characters and their motivations and personalities. She is also a fellow Non-fiction writer and is my main critter for all things NF (though Toni reads some of that stuff for me as well) :) It's so wonderful to have someone I can send those pages too. I don't know what I'd do without her.

And I also have my amazing Operation Awesome gals. I joined their group not too long ago (actually...I think it's been a year or so now!) It's been wonderful having a fresh group of eyes and learning from each of them - both from their crits of my work and from my crits of their work. They are an incredible group of women and I am so lucky to be a part of their group.

When I lived in Utah I was very privileged to be part of a live group with Bethany Wiggins and Bonny Anderson. I still send them pages and am always thrilled to read theirs, though I miss seeing them face-to-face :)

I have several other friends and readers that I send my pages too. They are all priceless to me. I would never be able to make it down this road without them.

Who are your critters and how did you meet them?

Be sure to see who PK shreds paper with and stop by Tere's tomorrow to find out about her crit pals :)

Blog Chain: Heaven Bless My Critters

This week Mary brings us back to some writing basics. Carolyn shared her experiences before me and Sandra will tackle the question next. Mary would like to know:

Are you in a critique group? If so, at what point do you send chapters to the members of your group? How detailed are the critiques you receive and give? Do all members in you group write the same genre?

I am in a critique group, although I haven’t been very active lately. I didn’t have anything to post for the longest time (major writing slump) and in the meantime, several of the people in my group and I started sending each other stuff privately. So instead of a formal group, I ended up with several incredible critique partners. And seriously, I would be completely lost without them.

I used to post (or send) chapters as I wrote them (after a few rounds of my own proofreading - I only rarely send out first draft stuff and only in small chunks, never for line edits, just for general "do you like where this is going?" type comments. I have found that brainstorming certain scenes and plotlines this way can be really helpful if I'm stuck on a problem. It is fun and amazingly helpful to be able to send a page or two to a crit buddy and see what they think and then to hash out ideas until you get that scene. Brainstorming help is just another perk of having a great group of crit partners).

Wow, that was a long "aside." Anyhow, I figured if I had chapters critiqued as I wrote them, by the time I was done with the book, I’d already have edits waiting and everything would go much quicker. What I discovered though, is that I started revising those chapters as soon as I got critiques…so I wasn’t writing any new chapters. I ended up with three fairly clean chapters (for two different books) and was already so burned out on those books I didn’t want to write any new chapters. So now, I save it up until my book is completely done. Then I usually send a chapter at a time, though I will combine smaller chapters.

And of course, this all goes out the window if I happen to query and get requests before things are totally finalized or if I have done revisions that need looking over. Then I send out the full novel with profuse amounts of bribes, begging, and flattery so my crit mates will take pity and crit my whole novel so I can send it out to the agent. But I try not to do this too often :)

How detailed are my crits? Well, most of the time I don’t think my crits help all that much, but I do try to point out everything that confuses me, makes me stumble, anything at all I think might need work. I nitpick as much as possible and point out every teeny, tiny thing that might need fixin'. I tend to be better with the technical stuff; grammar, punctuation, awkward sentence wording, that kind of thing. Which is why it is a very good idea to have more than one crit mate. Because everyone will catch different things…and the things everyone catches are things you know for sure need work.

As for the crits I receive…I am extremely, ridiculously lucky with the people I send my stuff to. I get really detailed crits – again, usually different stuff from different people. One person might catch all my dumb technical errors, another will give great suggestions for improving plot flow, another will find all those plot holes I thought no one would notice :D I really get excellent crits from my partners.

And no, my crit partners do not all write the same genre. Which makes it really fun to crit. I get to read so many wonderful books. Most of us do use similar elements though. I think we all write with at least some elements of romance, and many of us write YA. But the books are all so diverse, from romantic fantasy, to YA urban fantasy, to middle grade novels, to women's fiction, to straight YA fantasy, to historical romances…so many really incredible books to read. And I have one fabulous friend (the always incredible Carolyn) who also writes non-fiction. I am very much looking forward to reading her book (I've read a little already) and hope she will return the favor should I ever finish my non-fiction :)

The genre thing is tricky. It is a very good idea to have at least one person who is familiar with your genre critting your book…because all genres have little quirks that are unique to that genre and it helps if your partners know what to look for, what needs to be added, and what needs to be left alone.

At the same time, I’ve found it helpful and encouraging to have people who are not familiar with my genre read for me. Because it feels wonderful to have someone say, “I never read historical romances, I usually don’t like them, but I couldn’t put yours down!” If you can keep the interest of someone who doesn’t usually go for what you write, then your chances of keeping the attention of someone who IS interested in that genre are so much greater.

My crit partners have been an absolute Godsend for me…I wouldn’t be where I am without them, and I certainly won’t get where I want to go without their help. I love each and every one of them, love to celebrate their successes with them and comfort them when things don’t go just right…and knowing that they are there for me as well, for all my ups and downs, is a gift I will never be able to thank them enough for.