Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Polishing and a Request

Now that I've finished sewing up the plot holes, I'm working on the actual writing in my book. It's hard! I think the read aloud is helping with it some, and searching for words that end in -ly tends to cut down on adverbs (how I wish Word had a feature to search word types), but there's only so much one set of eyes can see. If you've been working on a project for nine months with few interruptions, you tend to lose your objectivity.

Does anyone out there enjoy dystopian/post-apocalyptic and feel like reading a semi-polished,unpublished novel? Because I've put off getting outside opinions long enough. It doesn't have to be a full crit or anything (although I could probably use a few of those, too) just an opinion on readability and coherence. And I'm always happy to return the favor, either now or at a later time. If you are interested, you can contact me via my profile (scroll down a bit and click on link under my pic).

And now, back to the read aloud...

8 comments:

  1. Woot, one step closer. :) Congrats on fixing up the plot. I know you'll finish the rest up in no time.

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  2. I used www.editminion.com, and that helped with adverbs, passive writing, weak words and preposition endings. It's just a guide though.

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  3. Congrats on where you're at so far! Writing a book isn't easy, and it's so time consuming. It's a test of endurance, but it sounds like you're enduring well!! (And I'm sending you an email.)

    Ann @ Long Journey Home

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  4. I really need to do the read aloud thing. And of course cutting adverbs.

    Try checking out Nathan Bransford's forum. There's a 'find a critique partner' board on there.

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  5. I can help you out - I'll lean on you for the same sometime - Whatever you want me to look for I can, mark the hell out of it and send that - sure, better wording, useless wording - these are my specialties.

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  6. If you want a crit partner - here I am. Send it to my email -you can get it by visiting my profile...it's there (just don't want the little spam bots picking up my email!;)

    ~Kim

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  7. I dearly love adverbs. I love how academic writing lets me get off scot-free for using them so liberally.

    I can't help now :'(, but come May I'm here for you!!

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  8. Argh, yes, it IS so difficult to be objective (or even sane) after reworking and revising for a long time. Good luck!--it sounds like you have a few offers here, and that's cool. What a friendly bunch the writerly community is! :)

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Please validate me.