Critiquing With Confidence

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

I’m part of an all female writing group, called The Mermaids. But, from what I now know about writing groups this is in fact, a critique group. We submit our work via e mail and then meet up once a month to give critiques. This months meeting is on the 14th and I have a whole folder of stuff I have to read and use the red pen on lol

I read a post a couple of weeks ago over at 4am Writer entitled The Power of a Critique which has prompted this post 🙂

I use to hate critiquing…..all I ever use to write on my fellow writers work was “really liked this well done” lol. Probably because (a) I didn’t want to upset them, put them off writing or come across as, oh, what’s the word? Superior? Especially when (IMO) my writing was probably worse. And (b) because really, I didn’t know how to critique.

That all changed when I started attending classes at The Write Place where Elaine gave us slips of paper to use when we critique. The slips contained a list of questions to apply to the work we were critiquing and now, I use this set of questions all the time. I hope they’re helpful to any of you who struggle (as I did) when asked to critique a fellow writers work 🙂

(1) Did the title grab you?
(2) How about the opening paragraphs?
(3) Characters: Were they believable?
(4) Was there a strong plot?
(5) How about the ending, was it satisfying?
(6) Does it suit the market that the writer is aiming for?

I’d also like to add my own one that’s not on Elaine’s list……
(7) Did the dialogue work?

We use these questions in class to critique short stories, so I’m not sure how they would relate to a novel, or one chapter of a novel.

How do you feel about critiquing? Love it? Hate it? Muddle through? 😉

As a side note…..yesterday I read on Clarbojahn’s Blog about the OREO method of critiquing. Some good advice *nods in agreement* 🙂

Notebooks – Finding What Works For You

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Firstly, thank you so much, everyone, for your suggestions yesterday on how to get myself motivated, I really appreciate it 🙂 One thing I realised (along with many others!) is that I need to be more organised lol…..so I’m hoping this will help 🙂

I usually skim read The Writers Forum magazine when it thuds onto the doormat…..stick it in my pile of TBR magazines and then forget about it for 3 months. But this month, an article by Simon Whaley caught my eye so I just had to read it 🙂

In Notebook Know How, Simon explains how he has different notebooks for different things. Now, I’ve always been the one notebook for everything kinda gal. But reading Simons article made me realise that yep, he’s right, I can never find anything lol. I’m now on my 13th notebook, and though I can mostly remember what was in a previous book, I haven’t got a clue what was in say, book 4 lol

So as from the beginning of May I started working with 7 notebooks, all at the same time. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, 7 is a bit excessive, but, I can’t seem to cut it down to any less than that (Simon himself says that he has 6). Here are the books I’ll be working with:

Ideas Book – Where I’ll put ideas for stories, titles, articles I’m interested in, name ideas for characters, blog ideas and useful web site addys.
Prompts Book – Where I do my daily prompts.
Characters Book – As you know, I do a lot of characters, so a notebook dedicated to them will make it a lot easier when I’m trying to find one.
Goals/To Do List Book – I’ve decided to start each week with a set of goals, so a notebook dedicated to them would make sense.
Novel Notebook – A notebook dedicated to my current WIP novel, anything and everything that relates to it.
Dumping Book – The book that I take to my writing class and take out and about with me for free writing sessions.
Nano 2012- I’ve prepared a notebook for my A-Z characters, so I can add stuff that I come across which might be useful.

Simon says (i lovethat!) he uses his dumping book and then at the end of every day transfers the information into the categorised books. He says the transfer process also gives him an opportunity to develop the ideas further. Yeah, I can see that, extra work yes, but good to go over stuff I think.

How many notebooks do you work with and why?

I’ll let you know whether it was a good idea or a bad one in a couple of months LMAO 🙂

Insecure Writers Day, Or Help, Somebody Kick Me

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Today is Insecure Writers day (see the tab at the top for more info). A day where members spill their guts on their writing fears, concerns, worries, and hopefully receive sympathy from the other members.

So how am I feeling about my writing at the moment? Pretty shit to be honest lol. I’m really struggling with motivation and I don’t know why lol. I need a boost 😉

My out there’s have dropped considerably (down to about 10 now) and although I was Long Listed in the Flash500 Competition (my entry was titled “Ashes”) it wasn’t really enough to give me that kick up the arse I seem to need right now. So what will it take?

I need to be more organised, I know that, and I’m fed up writing at my dining room table. The room is so cluttered now, I can’t get to my books, can’t easily access my notebooks and have to keep moving my piles when we have dinner *deep sigh* I know, logically, there’s nothing I can do about it, but I feel pretty sulky and low about the whole situation *pouts*

I’m not suffering from writers block, far from it! I have ideas coming out of my ears, what I don’t have is the motivation to sit down and write….I potter, tidy up, sort the washing, shop for food, cook (occasionally lol), blog, check e mails and FaceBook and then watch a film lol.

I know I am so lucky to have the time to write, that I don’t really have any commitments, and that my husband is very supportive, so what’s my problem right?

Am I in a writing slump? anyone have any suggestions on how to fire me up? 😉

Blog Schedule

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Now that the April A-Z Challenge is finished (which I’m so chuffed at completing by the way lol, but you already knew that didn’t you lol) it’s about time I became a bit more organised lol.

I didn’t realise how much people would enjoy my characters, and although I will kinda miss creating so many, I’ll still get my fix, because I do them in my notebook on a regular basis. So from now on, I’ll share one, once a week 🙂

I’ve been trying to find my feet since I started this blog, so now I’m ready to work to a routine, so I’ve been thinking about all the things I want to include…..

A Characterisation – Along the lines of what I did for the challenge.
WIP – I don’t often talk about my work(s) in progress, but I’m ready to share 😉
A Film Review – From a writers perspective of course lol. You can learn so much from films IMO, and I watch loads.
Silent Day – That’s gunna be hard, as I can chat for England! But I need a day off. Sooooo, as I’m doing a 365 photo project, I’ll post a pic that i think may give you a story idea.
A Book Review – Again, from a writers perspective. There will be a lot of talk about Writing Books, as I’m an addict! 😉
Free Writing Day – I really enjoyed my “Place” experiment last month. So I intend to do a Freewriting session every week from now on.
Ideas & Notes – I’m always coming across ideas, stuff to improve my writing and most of it gets scribbled down in my Note Book….so I’ll share stuff I think we could all do with knowing, or being reminded about 😉 Will probably include links to other blogs that I think are useful.
Weekly Goals List – I spend most of my week procrastinating, and not really achieving much. Perhaps, if I write my goals down each week I’ll have more chance of actually getting something done lol
Prompt Talk – I do a prompt a day, but I don’t go into much detail about them do I lol

Ok, so perhaps a pattern will emerge, a set day for each type of post? I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers do that. so what do you think? I want my blog to have purpose, at the moment (pre A-Z Challenge) it just seems to amble along without any form of direction lol. I need to focus on a single topic with each post, not ramble away like I normally do lol.

So pull up a chair, grab a coffee and I’ll begin…..