Do you want a pro to read and critique your story?
Do you need someone with a keen eye to tell you what works and what doesn't?
Do you want to submit a story to your writing group but would like it to be polished first?
Are you stuck and need another set of eyes to help you navigate out of your rut?
Do you want to sharpen your writing skills and master the craft?
I’m here to help.
As a published author with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing and 16 of journalism experience, I know how best to put words on the page – and will use that knowledge to critique your work and guide you in revising and refining your prose.
FOR A SAMPLE OF A TYPICAL CRITIQUE, SEE BELOW
ABOUT ME:
After getting a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing, I dove headfirst into journalism, and have been getting paid to write for the last 16 years. My book on the underground fight scene in New York (Raw Combat: The Underground World of Mixed Martial Arts, Citadel Press, 2011) received coverage from the New York Times and the New York Observer, and outlets like Gawker and ESPN called it a must-read. My agent is currently chewing on my latest novel.
I have helped countless fellow scribes polish their work, been a member of numerous writing groups, and even lectured on the topic of writing. There are no secrets to becoming a good writer, there are only things more experienced writers – like me – haven’t shown you yet.
WHAT I DO:
RATE: $35 per 5,000 words, rounding up. For example, a 6,000-word submission would be $70.
TURNAROUND TIME: Generally a week, but negotiable.
QUESTIONS? Shoot me an email - MFA4Hire at Yahoo dot com.
SAMPLE CRITIQUE #1:
Your piece works well at convincing the reader that there’s a story unfolding (i.e., there’s a sense of direction to it). I don’t know if that’s true, or if this is all you’ve mapped out, but either way, well done. Some things to consider to sharpen your submission:
• The vast majority of your storytelling is contained within the narrator’s mind, in both her thoughts and emotions. In other words, there are external actions with characters doing things, and then you zoom in so XXXX can tell us what she’s thinking and feeling – and she does a heck of a lot of thinking and feeling. There’s usually nothing wrong with stories like this, but here it’s a good bit of mental gymnastics, and you’re not quite pulling off all the moves.
An example would be the paragraph starting on Line 119 – “I just smirk and glance down at the pristine white of his shorts. Overwhelming satisfaction fills my chest, and I suppress my laugh. For as much as I despise him, I can’t blatantly laugh in his face, plus I still imagine what I look like to him. It’s not pretty.” Wow is that a lot of stuff that the reader must unpack, and it gets harder and harder to process the more you give us.
One problem with all that internal insight is that you suffocate all opportunities for subtext. By telling us everything going on in XXXX’s head and heart, you prevent us from piecing together what we read and coming to our own conclusions about what’s going on. And that’s not good. Even if your audience is young adults, you want to at least let readers realize things by themselves. The old mantra “Trust the reader” is apropos here, but there’s something else that ties into this that should be addressed, and that’s…
• …The narrative voice. You use “I” way more than you need to, and it negatively impacts the telling of the story. Since you’ve long since established that this is a first-person narrative, there is no need for the narrator to walk into a room and tell us “I see a dog on skateboard and I see a cat on a motorcycle.” You can just streamline your prose and say, “There’s a dog on a skateboard and a cat on a motorcycle.” We know all the stimulus being processed is through the lens of her perception. Reminding us every time only detracts from the storytelling. If you fix this aspect of the narrative voice, you will automatically fix a lot of the internal insight overload, so this is an instance of killing two birds with one stone.
Keep plugging away, XXXXX. There’s something worth polishing here.
SAMPLE CRITIQUE #2:
You lay out a pretty decent framework in terms of where the story is going. A couple things to consider to make it an easier ride for the reader.
• You’re telling the story of XXXX in a non-linear fashion, and while that in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, the narrative gets a bit muddled because of all the cuts back and forth through time.
You make the leap backward clear on Line 37 with the transition to a new section, and after some exposition you focus on a scene in XXXX’s past when he bought a pizza and everyone ate it. There’s more exposition, another clear transition of the narrative on Line 78, but then on Line 93 we’re given another flashback – this one of his father. Because you previously used the three asterisks to denote a shift in time, the reader has come to expect that that’s when the narrative shifts; you transitioning without it starts to sow the seeds of confusion.
That confusion grows when you then use the three asterisks on Line 102, and is compounded when you reference in the flashback another flashback (Line 105, “…XXXX had said once.”) By the time we’re in the scene where XXXX commits manslaughter/negligent homicide, you have even more flashbacks within the flashback (Lines 133-136, XXXX catching his parents in flagrante delicto).
This playing fast and loose with time is ambitious, and provides a good payoff when done well, but you need to rein it in lest the reader get hopelessly lost. How you should do that ties into the next point…
• Throughout your submission you use a ton of adjectives and include a ton of details that you don’t need. Clearly, you have a story to tell in your head, and you’re trying hard to convey that story to the reader using as many words as possible. But you shouldn’t. As Billy Shakespeare once said, “Brevity is the soul of whit” – and in your case, a strong dose of brevity will go a long way toward making your piece concise and easier to digest (and it should have the added effect of tightening up the narrative as well).
Just as an example, on the micro-level, Line 18 – you describe the guard as “large”, but in the next sentence you also describe him as a “fat black man”. You already told us he was large, and we already know he’s a man because you used the pronoun “he” (“…he poked his head around…”). See how you over-wrote that part? There’s a lot of that stuff throughout. I recommend you take the piece as it is now (3,920 words) and cut it down to exactly 3,000. Then cut it down to 2,500. Then cut it down to 2,000. Remember: less is more, and you’re dealing with subject matter that inherently has some emotional weight to it. You can make us feel more by writing less.
Keep plugging away. You have something here worth polishing.
Do you want to submit a story to your writing group but would like it to be polished first?
Are you stuck and need another set of eyes to help you navigate out of your rut?
Do you want to sharpen your writing skills and master the craft?
I’m here to help.
As a published author with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing and 16 of journalism experience, I know how best to put words on the page – and will use that knowledge to critique your work and guide you in revising and refining your prose.
FOR A SAMPLE OF A TYPICAL CRITIQUE, SEE BELOW
ABOUT ME:
After getting a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing, I dove headfirst into journalism, and have been getting paid to write for the last 16 years. My book on the underground fight scene in New York (Raw Combat: The Underground World of Mixed Martial Arts, Citadel Press, 2011) received coverage from the New York Times and the New York Observer, and outlets like Gawker and ESPN called it a must-read. My agent is currently chewing on my latest novel.
I have helped countless fellow scribes polish their work, been a member of numerous writing groups, and even lectured on the topic of writing. There are no secrets to becoming a good writer, there are only things more experienced writers – like me – haven’t shown you yet.
WHAT I DO:
- Read and analyze your submission for style, structure and cohesiveness.
- Examine your plot, dialogue, characters and arc.
- Point out what works and what doesn’t.
- Acknowledge what you do well and what you need to work on.
- Recommend how best to improve your piece.
- Be nice.
- Proofreading or copyediting – fixing spelling and grammar takes more time, and that’s wasted time if you’re still molding and shaping the piece.
- Revise or rewrite for you – I’m here to teach you how to fish, not catch the fish for you.
- Fact-checking, or provide a legal review.
- Plays, screenplays, academic papers or poems. And please, no erotica.
- Be mean.
- You have a short story, novel or novella ready for critiquing.
- You email me at MFA4Hire at Yahoo dot com.
- We talk over the phone to discuss your writing background, your goals, the piece you want to submit and your expectations (including turnaround time for the critique).
- If we’re a good fit...
- ...Then you email me your submission and pay the fee (via PayPal). Upon completion of your critique, I will email you the document I’ve created for you, and we can discuss it over the phone or via email if you have any questions.
RATE: $35 per 5,000 words, rounding up. For example, a 6,000-word submission would be $70.
TURNAROUND TIME: Generally a week, but negotiable.
QUESTIONS? Shoot me an email - MFA4Hire at Yahoo dot com.
SAMPLE CRITIQUE #1:
Your piece works well at convincing the reader that there’s a story unfolding (i.e., there’s a sense of direction to it). I don’t know if that’s true, or if this is all you’ve mapped out, but either way, well done. Some things to consider to sharpen your submission:
• The vast majority of your storytelling is contained within the narrator’s mind, in both her thoughts and emotions. In other words, there are external actions with characters doing things, and then you zoom in so XXXX can tell us what she’s thinking and feeling – and she does a heck of a lot of thinking and feeling. There’s usually nothing wrong with stories like this, but here it’s a good bit of mental gymnastics, and you’re not quite pulling off all the moves.
An example would be the paragraph starting on Line 119 – “I just smirk and glance down at the pristine white of his shorts. Overwhelming satisfaction fills my chest, and I suppress my laugh. For as much as I despise him, I can’t blatantly laugh in his face, plus I still imagine what I look like to him. It’s not pretty.” Wow is that a lot of stuff that the reader must unpack, and it gets harder and harder to process the more you give us.
One problem with all that internal insight is that you suffocate all opportunities for subtext. By telling us everything going on in XXXX’s head and heart, you prevent us from piecing together what we read and coming to our own conclusions about what’s going on. And that’s not good. Even if your audience is young adults, you want to at least let readers realize things by themselves. The old mantra “Trust the reader” is apropos here, but there’s something else that ties into this that should be addressed, and that’s…
• …The narrative voice. You use “I” way more than you need to, and it negatively impacts the telling of the story. Since you’ve long since established that this is a first-person narrative, there is no need for the narrator to walk into a room and tell us “I see a dog on skateboard and I see a cat on a motorcycle.” You can just streamline your prose and say, “There’s a dog on a skateboard and a cat on a motorcycle.” We know all the stimulus being processed is through the lens of her perception. Reminding us every time only detracts from the storytelling. If you fix this aspect of the narrative voice, you will automatically fix a lot of the internal insight overload, so this is an instance of killing two birds with one stone.
Keep plugging away, XXXXX. There’s something worth polishing here.
SAMPLE CRITIQUE #2:
You lay out a pretty decent framework in terms of where the story is going. A couple things to consider to make it an easier ride for the reader.
• You’re telling the story of XXXX in a non-linear fashion, and while that in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, the narrative gets a bit muddled because of all the cuts back and forth through time.
You make the leap backward clear on Line 37 with the transition to a new section, and after some exposition you focus on a scene in XXXX’s past when he bought a pizza and everyone ate it. There’s more exposition, another clear transition of the narrative on Line 78, but then on Line 93 we’re given another flashback – this one of his father. Because you previously used the three asterisks to denote a shift in time, the reader has come to expect that that’s when the narrative shifts; you transitioning without it starts to sow the seeds of confusion.
That confusion grows when you then use the three asterisks on Line 102, and is compounded when you reference in the flashback another flashback (Line 105, “…XXXX had said once.”) By the time we’re in the scene where XXXX commits manslaughter/negligent homicide, you have even more flashbacks within the flashback (Lines 133-136, XXXX catching his parents in flagrante delicto).
This playing fast and loose with time is ambitious, and provides a good payoff when done well, but you need to rein it in lest the reader get hopelessly lost. How you should do that ties into the next point…
• Throughout your submission you use a ton of adjectives and include a ton of details that you don’t need. Clearly, you have a story to tell in your head, and you’re trying hard to convey that story to the reader using as many words as possible. But you shouldn’t. As Billy Shakespeare once said, “Brevity is the soul of whit” – and in your case, a strong dose of brevity will go a long way toward making your piece concise and easier to digest (and it should have the added effect of tightening up the narrative as well).
Just as an example, on the micro-level, Line 18 – you describe the guard as “large”, but in the next sentence you also describe him as a “fat black man”. You already told us he was large, and we already know he’s a man because you used the pronoun “he” (“…he poked his head around…”). See how you over-wrote that part? There’s a lot of that stuff throughout. I recommend you take the piece as it is now (3,920 words) and cut it down to exactly 3,000. Then cut it down to 2,500. Then cut it down to 2,000. Remember: less is more, and you’re dealing with subject matter that inherently has some emotional weight to it. You can make us feel more by writing less.
Keep plugging away. You have something here worth polishing.
Comments
Post a Comment