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An novella opportunity.

SevenWritz says:

"I don't think professionals would be wasting their time on a forum, but hey, I'm just a kid."
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Well, it's true many of them are busy. But here's a surprise I found out a short time ago: Bookstore managers cruise writing forums and book forums all the time, although few of them join the forum.

Earlier in this thread I may have been a bit hard on manuscriptx. Deep down I always hope a writer will break through and become the next Stephen King or Michael Crichton or whoever...

Around here we have a little joke. We say: "We're always trying to find the next Jules Verne or Arthur C. Clarke."
Fat chance, I know. :)
 
SevenWritez said:
I don't think professionals would be wasting their time on a forum, but hey, I'm just a kid.
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Well, Valkyrie exaggerates a teensy bit... :eek:

Nonetheless I think a forum is a real gift to any writer, published or otherwise. It's just another place where people and readers hang out, and people feel free to express themselves without constraint. Some, it has to be said, more than others.

I will say this for manuscriptx. When he left, last time, the writing forum almost died a death. Like the serpent in Eden, he makes life more interesting.
 
Relent

I said before I appreciate the concept of editing. I'm just not sold, and I doubt I'll ever be completely sold on seperate people doing the work I know I can do myself.

All I and anyone would ask for is reasonable-ness. I think everyone knows the difference between honest critique and editing, and someone engaging in an all out chop fest.

I kind of liken it to if it were harsh movie critics being given the opportunity to chop up the movies they love to hate.

Not saying that's the case in every situation, but like directors a production crew, they don't want to see all their hard work essentially mixed, mashed and gleefully flushed down a proverbial editing toilet before going onto the marketplace to bomb out as anyone would expect.
 
No editor would agree to publish your book if he or she hated it. The idea of an editor hacking up a manuscript out of hate is silly. It would be like buying a coat and then immediately taking it apart at the seams. Why spend the money?

If they buy the book, they are committing to your work.
If you have some other arrangement, like paying to publish and paying an editor, you are working from a model that I do not recommend.
 
Myself : Novella 2007

In the way I'm writing the story, I'm not only my own character, but I'm also narrating the story, but for those who read it won't know it in any familiar form.

____________________________________________________________

As for someone else who talked about editing. Let's put some things
in perspective, the editor is not an indespensible occupation. I was
watching John Hughes high school classic " Ferris Bueller's Day Off "

AMC network broadcasted it in a special DVD format with underlying
information about the movie and it was said that a writer's strike had
John Hughes himself writing the story if it was ever going to see
production given the industry uncertainty at that time ( supposedly ).


So I think that runs quite contrary in the sense that they should be
given no more, no less weight than any job in the arts of movies and literature.

Who can reel off the last five academy award winners for best editing?

( Since I'm not an avid viewer of that show, I do not know if there's even such a category )
 
Come on, Manuscriptx...that is TOO easy!

Hughes Winborne for 'Crash'
Thelma Schoonmaker for 'The Aviator'
James Selkirk for 'Lord of the Rings - Return of the King'
Martin Walsh for 'Chicago'
Pietro Scalini for 'Black Hawk Down'.

That is for film editing. There is a sound editing category, too.
I'm just kidding you here, of course. You could find this same info on Google in a heartbeat.:cool:

I wanted to quote a previous post you made:

"I'm just not sold, and I doubt I'll ever be completely sold on seperate people doing the work I know I can do myself."
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Yes...but the author editing his own work is a problem. The author is too close to the work to be subjective. A second eye is always good. Good news, though. Most editors don't hack a book to shreds. What they do is send it back to YOU...with detailed instructions on how YOU will hack it to shreds before they will accept it for publication. (lol)
 
RobertM said:
Most editors don't hack a book to shreds. What they do is send it back to YOU...with detailed instructions on how YOU will hack it to shreds before they will accept it for publication. (lol)
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And often not even that detailed. They may simply say, "I think you could bring this theme out more," or "I think the viewpoint may need changing here," or even "make it 10% shorter, I don't care how." Or they may saying genuinely helpful things like, "you've made her eyes blue here and brown on page 147" which sort of thing happens embarrassingly often...
 
Let James Frey be your guide.

If anyone is familiar with the James Frey situation, ( A Million Little Pieces ) he almost makes himself out to be a victim of circumstance. He says agents and publishers essentially told him a certain number of things as if to convey a point.
____________________________________________________________
" Look, you're going to have to re-write this because isn't much, it's bland, uninteresting, or in some way we feel it's just not marketable. "
_____________________________________________________________

Now how do you square that with what some of you have been saying?


I never saw or cared to see both his interviews with Oprah Winfrey, but his is the best and only on-point example of my apprehension about the whole industry process. Granted I've said before, I'm prepared to bend but not break over some issues, but unlike James Frey, the minute I feel something's not write with work they won't accept as is, or with some reasonable changes they think I need to make, - I will pull the plug.

James Frey accepted the concequences of being labeled a plagiarist because he liked the money/fame and other potentials it brought, I feel much more invested in what I want to do, so in a small way I thank him and others for being so simple-minded over virtue rather than substance

- I can have a healthy wearyness.

Wether you think that's a distorted understanding or not makes no difference.
 
Three Chapters

I've decided on three chapters only. The more bulky of the three of course will be later chapters two and three.
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Amour

Fracture

Serenity

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The synopsis? Why bother. If your a reader like me, it's better to enter what promises to be a good story story cold and go from there.
 
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