YouWriteOn June Critiques - Random House, Orion & Pan Macmillian Reviews

YouWriteOn June Critiques - Random House, Orion & Pan Macmillian Reviews

Bloomsbury editors are now also providing critiques for youwriteon writers!

You are welcome to post a comment, including to the editors at the end of the critiques below .  Click on where it says the number of comments at the end of the blog below to post a comment.

Each month on YouWriteOn.com editors from Random House, Pan Macmillian and Orion, provide an indepth critique of up to three highly rated Top Ten novel openings from budding authors, and provide mini-reviews for the rest of the top ten youwriteon stories. Random House publish authors such as Dan Brown and Terry Pratchett. Pan Macmillian are also now providing critiques for youwriteon authors too. Pan Macmillian publish authors such as Emma Donoghue and Carol Ann Duffy. Orion are part of the Hatchette publishing group, whose authors include Stephen King, Stephenie Meyer and Ian Rankin.  Visit youwriteon.com to upload your opening chapters and participate. Random House, Orion and Pan also provide feedback on FeedARead.com, FeedARead enables free paperback publishing options.

The editor feedback aims to assist all budding authors in their story development by giving feedback as to what editors are looking for in novels and novel openings submitted to them.

Random House Editor Reviews          Click here to view the stories by YWOwriters below which are listed under June 2012

Bert…So Far by Jan Carr

Congratulations on being the top rated story on YouWriteOn this month! I really enjoyed the opening chapters of your book – I thought it was an entertaining read, bubbling with enthusiasm and energy and Bert made for a very charismatic, appealing narrator who I’m sure will appeal to children and adults alike.

Characterisation:

I wanted to start with your characterisation because I think that’s the real strength of your story. There is something wonderfully physical about Bert – I think you’ve captured the way children’s thoughts and feelings are expressed through their actions beautifully. When she first tries to shut out her mum’s voice, pressing her hands against her ears and then running away, it all feels very natural. You’ve successfully created a character that feels like a child, not a character that feels like an adult thinks a child should behave. The scene where Bert is found in her ‘Tardis’ is beautifully done; when she describes Barney wrapping her ‘rubbish invisibility cloak’ around her, we see how for Bert, the towel is simultaneously an old towel and an invisibility cloak in a way it never could be for adults.

This striking characterisation is evident in all of your characters; her father’s weary gesture when he lifts his hand on the beach before her mother takes her away to tell her what’s going on wonderfully captures the despair and resignation he must be feeling at that point. And I love Alistair’s first appearance, with his tie hoop la-ed around his head – I could picture him so clearly from just that one throwaway description.

The one person I felt could benefit from a little more work was her mother, as she does come across quite negatively in these first few chapters – she appears to be surprisingly selfish and inconsiderate of the obvious distress her daughter is in – but I do appreciate that we are viewing her through Bert’s eyes, and that she is very angry with her mum at this point.

I also felt Ryan Taylor was perhaps a little too obvious in his feelings about Bert, his line ‘Being called Bert makes you weird and I hate weird people’ just feel like he was telling us exactly what he thought, whereas before you’d allowed us to work out a character’s feelings and motivations for ourselves.

Quality of writing:

Your writing is full of energy; it really rattles along and invites you to keep reading. I think this will be very appealing to younger readers who respond well to a blend of action and emotion, rather than introspection and lengthy descriptive passages.

There are some lovely descriptions that work beautifully with your narrator’s young voice, her Dad looking ‘like all the fun in him has been punched out’ and the day feeling wrong ‘like the sky’s turned green.’

Unless it’s a local word, I think ‘pewky’ pink should probably be ‘pukey’.

Structure:

I think you’ve done a great job of showing us some key scenes and allowing us to imagine others, like her first day at school, for ourselves. The jump forward in time from Bert hearing that she has to move to her new life at her school is well done, encouraging younger readers to imagine for themselves what Bert must have experienced during those unhappy times. Children’ authors often feel they have to show us every scene and I was very pleased to see that you knew that readers like to fill in the blanks themselves.

I understand that for the purposes of your plot the news about her parents splitting up, her mother’s new partner and their move, all needs to come as a big shock to Bert, but I was a little surprised that her mother would tell her so many distressing things all in one go, rather than letting her adjust to the news of their separation. Would her mother really tell her in the same breath that she had a new boyfriend and that she was pregnant by this man?

I wonder if it might be worth considering having Bert challenge her mother when she first tells her that she’s leaving her dad, and forcing her mother to admit that she is in a new relationship? I’m not sure if Ronnie actually needs to be there at that moment, but if he is then it would make sense for Bert to demand to know who he was. I do think it may feel more natural if all of this information came out in fragments, rather than three tidy sentences. And perhaps the revelation that her mother is pregnant could wait until they’ve moved house? Maybe her mother could tell Bert that she will be much happier at school once she has a new baby brother or sister to play with?

Bert says she didn’t get her name until she was six months old – this is a little bit of artistic license as babies have to be registered within forty two days of the birth but I’m assuming this might tie in with the revelation that Jake isn’t actually her father?

Conclusion:

This is a wonderful beginning to your story, I can easily see younger readers identifying with Bert, particularly those who have also experienced parental separation or struggled at school. There was something very refreshing about her exuberant nature; I liked seeing a young girl admitting that she was better at the physical side of things than she was at schoolwork as so often it seems that it’s always male characters who are assumed to be more into sports and girls who are good at schoolwork.

Congratulations on a great start and I hope you continue to write and develop your story.

Alison, Random House

Random House - Mini Reviews of YWOWriters this month:

A Village Called Faraway – Tessa Hunt.

I really enjoyed the opening of your story; it was very atmospheric, with a lovely setting that lends itself to some wonderful descriptive passages and a nicely intriguing sense of mystery over the death of Kyria Evangelia and her mysterious son. You beautifully captured the feel of a remote village, almost cut off from the modern world, and I’m fascinated to see how Elpida copes with her return to village life. I’m guessing that Elpida may end up teaming up with the priest to solve the mystery but there’s something almost Agatha Christie like about the set-up of a tiny village with a murder at the centre.

Do bear in mind that you don’t have to show us every little detail for us to get a strong sense of place or character. I don’t think, for example, that we need to be told that Kyria Angeliki walked to the fridge, took the bottle of beer, walked to the counter, picked up the glass and bottle opener, and then brought all three over to Nikos. I know you want to show us her frailty but we don’t need to see every step for you to convey that to us and there is a danger that if you include a lot of unnecessary detail, it may weigh down your narrative, and cause it to lose momentum.

Just as a general query, would someone claiming that someone poisoned their dog count as blaspheming? Surely it would only be blasphemous if they were insulting his religion?

Heaven Sent – Willow55

Congratulations on being one of the top rated stories this month with the opening of your YA book!

Evie has a nice, brittle sense of humour that I imagine many teenage readers will identify with – I liked her dry observation about her mother’s ‘rosé coloured spectacles’. You very quickly establish the family dynamic, showing us how eager Evie is for something special to happen to her, something other than two minute noodles and empty takeaway boxes, while the closing lines of these chapters injects an appealing sense of drama and menace which is sure to hook many readers.  Although we only have a brief glimpse of Evie’s relationship with Paige, I think you captured the dynamic between them well, establishing Paige as a character in her own right and not someone who is there solely to ask questions on behalf of the reader, although I wasn’t convinced that she would interrupt Evie when she was talking about Gabe to complain the bus was taking forever when she had shown such interest in him before.

I have to confess I was a little confused about the setting of your book. There are some phrasings/usages that made me think it was American – three hundred dollars, spectacles rather than glasses, ‘A-Mart’ – but other references seem to fit a UK setting, such as Years Eight and Eleven and the council.  Or perhaps it’s Australian? It would be great to have a little more detail about exactly where it was set to help your readers picture it for themselves, as my mental picture of Evie and her house kept flipping as I tried to work out where it was set.

I was also a little surprised that the police wouldn’t have been called when Gabe drove through Evie’s bedroom wall; even if Dan wouldn’t have wanted the police involved I would have assumed that a neighbour could easily have called the police when they heard the crash. It might be worth making this absolutely clear in your story so that it doesn’t feel too much like a plot contrivance to not have the police involved. The YA adult market is incredibly competitive now, as there are so many authors writing for this audience, so it’s crucial that everything in your book is plausible and/or logical. Teenagers are some of the harshest critics around, so don’t give them any opportunity to doubt the veracity of your writing or plotting.

Creating 2054 Melissa Kay

Congratulations on being one of the top rated stories this month! Creating 2054 has an intriguing set-up with an unusual, almost omniscient narrator and a clever title with a double meaning that only becomes clear when you read about the abolition of creativity.

As you mentioned that there is a brief prologue which isn’t included, I am not sure whether you intend your book to open with the timeline but, if so, I would recommend that instead you let these details seep out through your writing. If this is the first thing your readers see, it may appear a little off-putting. What might make for a more immediately intriguing opening would be to just label the first chapter Thirty-eight years after Nuclear War or Twenty-eights years after the abolition of Creativity as this instantly raises questions in the mind of your reader.

Don’t worry about having to set up your new world too quickly; readers generally enjoy piecing details together slowly, and working things out for themselves, so don’t be concerned that people will be turned off if they don’t immediately know what the Decade of Disease was or why creativity was banned in the first place. Occasionally I felt your narrator was being too intrusive, and explaining too much, so try and resist explaining everything as soon as it happens. I would also try and keep her tone a little more serious, interjections like ‘Hmmm, trying hard not to end up on another tangent here!’ or ‘hey, I can’t talk, I had a counsellor to help me deal with mine!’ do add some humour but again, they were sometimes distracting and in the early stages of the book you want to concentrate on setting up the story.

Good luck with your writing!

Alison, Random House


 Bloomsbury Editor Critique for youwriteon

Boomerang Sample Chapters – Editorial Critique

Dear Author

Congratulations on being selected for a professional critique. I was intrigued to read your sample chapters, which provide a short, sharp, shocking opening and an interesting taste, I think, of what could become a really dramatic and exciting novel – the synopsis that you provide indicates that you have planned an intricate narrative structure and have a good grasp of the direction that Boomerang is going to take. Overall, the opening chapters seem in good shape. However, in this critique I hope to provide a few ideas that you might bear in mind as you continue to write, as well as some (hopefully) useful pointers on how you can hone and develop the existing chapters, and what you need to pay particular attention to as the story progresses.

Structure

The short, punchy chapters make for an attention-grabbing opening, and I like the dramatic tension that -is created by the introduction of a split timeframe, and the fact that, in between the chapters set in Australia, Alec's back story is filled in – this will eventually explain to the reader what he is doing in a stranger's truck in the middle of nowhere. I understand that you might not know this yet, but will the dual timeframe continue throughout the novel? If so, I wonder if more intrigue might be allowed to build up if each chapter was longer – as it is, there is barely enough time for the reader to focus on what is going on before the narrative switches again. I also found the inclusion of dates slightly confusing – is the fact that the story is set in the 1980s important? If not, might you be able to weave this into the narrative (perhaps with the inclusion of some period detail?) and start the second chapter with 'Two Years Earlier' (or similar)?

Tone

The style in which you write has a dialogue-heavy immediacy that makes the sample chapters feel almost like a screenplay. I could imagine the claustrophobia of the opening scene on the screen, and enjoyed how the tension builds as the enigmatic trucker who has picked up Alec at the side of the road is revealed to be increasingly sinister. The writing is spare and gritty, which suits the subject matter, and the dialogue is believable.   

Characterisation

Alec is a likeable character, but I would have appreciated the chance to get more of an idea of what he is like as a person. The reader immediately roots for him because of the precarious situation that we find him in in as the novel begins – perhaps you could consider using the chapters set in 1983 to include some more expositionary detail about his background. What's he doing in Swansea – is he a student? Why does he end up living in the flat rather than with real friends? Conversely, the less we know about the trucker at this stage, the better – you effectively build tension by revealing nothing about him or his motivation. As I mention in further detail below, I felt that the characters of Minto and Sindy (and their relationship) could be worked on slightly, given how important they are going to be to the development of the plot.  

Setting

My attention was captured by the claustrophobic opening scene, the heat of the Australian outback and the desperation of Alec's situation; subsequent chapters set here only feel more and more tense. The chapters that are set in 1983, two years previously, allow some very welcome relief, and a nicely contrasting setting. As suggested previously, unless the 1980s setting is going to be integral to the plot, mentioning it seems slightly unnecessary.

Plot

From reading the synopsis I know that Boomerang will be tightly–plotted. That said, there are a few things that I think you could pay attention to in the first few chapters that might make what happens later easier for the reader to follow. I understand from reading the synopsis that Alec's mother's mental fragility is to become critical to the plot later – perhaps you could foreshadow this strand by including more details about his parents' lives when they appear here?

I was slightly confused by the character of Minto, and think his motivations could be fleshed out somewhat – has he always been so abusive and dysfunctional (and possibly psychotic?) and, if so, why have Alec and the other flatmates put up with him in a flatshare where, in Alec's opinion, they get on pretty well? If his relationships are usually with older women, why has he started a relationship with a pre-pubescent girl like Sindy? How did he meet her and why was he attracted to her? If, as you reveal in the synopsis, Sindy's father (Alec's truck-driving nemesis), will turn out to have been an accomplice of Minto, could you do more to hint at this apparent network of abuse at an earlier point?

Alec's relationship with Sindy is undoubtedly touching; this friendship needs to be completely believable in order for the plot to hold the readers' attention – after all, it is his protection of her that will cause his flight to Australia and put him in such jeopardy. You should make sure that subsequent chapters flesh out Sindy's character – while Alec gets to know her and understand quite how damaged she is, the reader must feel sufficiently sympathetic towards her to understand why Alec goes on the run to protect her. The revelation at the end of the sample chapters that the unnamed truck driver is somehow linked to Sindy, is a sickening revelation for both Alec and the reader.

Genre/Market

Boomerang is a commercial crime–thriller with few literary pretensions. From reading the sample and the synopsis I can tell that while the book aims to appeal to a mainly male readership, it will also be enjoyed by women who enjoy fast–paced, plot–driven thrillers. Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson seems like a useful comparable title. Bearing that in mind, you might pay some attention to the novel's title; while Boomerang hints at the novel's Australian setting, it doesn't, for me, suit the novel's gritty content or difficult moral dilemmas that our hero Alec is going to have to face. 

Conclusion 

I really enjoyed the opportunity to read a sample of Boomerang. I was deftly taken between two vivid settings and felt an increasing sense of tension as the very genuine danger of Alec's predicament became clear. The synopsis indicated that you have an ambitious and exciting plot in mind for the rest of the novel – I wish you luck in bringing it to the page.

Nick, Bloomsbury

 

The Holy Drinker sample chapters – editorial critique

After reading the intriguing synopsis of your book I was particularly keen to read your sample chapters as I thought the whole concept of your novel stood out – a fable steeped in the tradition of oral storytelling. It’s a refreshing change from so many contemporary novels and an ambitious undertaking, and the confidence of the accomplished opening chapters suggests that you’re more than capable of pulling it off. I hope this critique provides useful encouragement for the strong qualities of your writing and suggestions for where you could possibly hone and develop your writing further as the novel unfolds.

Structure

The opening scene with the locals drinking in the tavern is reminiscent of a Greek chorus, and I think it’s a clever way of setting up the fable-like structure of the novel with the narrative spotlight moving from person to person. The progression from Maximov’s story to his housekeeper’s is seamless and feels like a completely natural progression. The opening introduction to Maximov’s story is also well done, though I felt it arrived a little bit too soon, but only because I enjoyed the scene of the tussle between Pilnyak, Igor and Babitsky so much that it felt like it was over too quickly. Perhaps consider expanding this opening scene just a little bit more (a few more paragraphs?), as I think it’s very effective and doesn’t need to be too rushed. Do you also intend to revisit this scene periodically throughout the novel, to see how they react to this strange and wonderful tale being told to them by the blind old man? It might be worth considering it as a framing, linking device for all the stories of the individuals involved, and would help shape the overall structure.

Tone

You establish the tone of the book brilliantly from the very first line. In that first line, you convey a sense of a group narrator (‘us lads’) and a gruff, regional dialect that sets the tone for the bawdy tale of excess that follows. The dialect also gives a natural rhythm to the prose that suits the setting well and helps bring this mythical world to life. Your writing manages to be very descriptive without ever being excessive, which is no easy thing to do. There are also some really lovely, clever turns of phrase that help the tone convey the magical realism of the story. For example, when Maximov wakes up, you describe him thus: ‘the tired old man he was today fell out of his dream vision and crashed back down onto the settee’. Sentences like this are beautifully done.

My only small query with the tone is the repetition of the refrain, ‘The dream vision deepened’ – you might want to find a slightly different way of rephrasing it as the novel progresses as it could become a too repetitive.

Setting

You conjure a sense of place vividly (the dingy, dark taverns, the bitingly cold outdoors). The ‘village of N.’ is a fictional setting that feels at once familiar and strange. The strongest passage that describes the setting is at the beginning of Chapter Two: the picture you paint of the market square bristles with life and captures all aspects of this fictional society.

Characterisation

Maximov is well done – I particularly liked the description of him after two drinks: ‘irrepressible, garrulous, his face red and his eyes alive’. I also liked the characterisation of poor, beleaguered Peter and hope that he is given the opportunity to develop further – I think there’s potential for him to be an interesting character. Marfa’s story is also touching and it’s a tribute to your characterisation skills that you can move a reader to pity in such a short space of time.

One of your strengths is also how you capture characters’ reactions convincingly without having to spell it out: for example, when Maximov asks Glinka to send a serving-girl to lie beside him, ‘Glinka’s face creased’. Just a simple facial expression conveys all the hesitation and disapproval that Glinka feels. Keep doing this as you continue to write the rest of the novel, as it’s such an effective way of showing your characters’ emotions without having to explain them crudely.

I did find it slightly confusing that some characters (including Maximov) seem to have two names – when Maximov is spoken to he is called Anatoly Vasilevich, though the boys in the square call him Maximov. And similarly, the local landowner Kondratiev is addressed by Maximov as ‘Ivan Denisovich’. If it’s just a case of nicknames and formal names, it might be a good idea to make it a little bit clearer to avoid confusion. I also wasn’t quite sure why some characters, including Maximov, are always addressed by their full name, but perhaps this is a hierarchical thing in this society? It did strike me that a list of characters would be helpful at the front of the book, as there are so many different characters that it would help to keep track of the important ones.

Plot

It’s difficult to critique the plot from a few chapters, but it does feel that the way you’ve set up the structure will help the plot develop fluidly. Because of the atmosphere and the setting you create in the build-up to the moment of Maximov’s transformation, the magical realism feels convincing and plausible. As you develop the story further, think about (though I’m sure you have already!) what you will use to link the individual stories to make the plot cohesive – from your synopsis, it looks like the local priest and Chernov will be the key characters that recur throughout and that seems like a good way of connecting the tales.

Conclusion

There’s much to admire in these opening chapters and I hope this critique has been of some use in providing some points to think about. The concept is strong and your writing is accomplished and assured. I wish you all the best with finishing your novel. 

Tram, Editor, Bloomsbury