The Importance of Feedback

Something I have learned from my pretty much constant seven-month jump into the world of fanfic is that I cannot write in a vacuum. I'm my own worst critic, after all, and what I think is absolutely terrible may not be half bad, and what I think is nothing special may very well in fact be something special. (Seriously. "Can You Help Me" is at, of this writing, 86 favorites. I am completely confounded as to why.)

So I am once again offering something up for constructive criticism. Below is my rewritten prologue for The Witch of November. I wrote it in about forty-five minutes, so it's not polished and pretty but it's not worth taking the time to polish it up if it's not accomplishing what I need it to do. Does it grab you? Does the dialogue sound like you imagine two young women from the late 1870s would sound? Does it make you want to know what these two women have to do with the Witch in the title? Basically, does it do what a prologue should do?

Please help me out here. I want to get working on this sucker again, but it's so hard to do that when you think what you have is terrible and not working.

And Another Batch of Concrit

Okay, one more time. I think I may have gotten myself a little more on track here, but, as we all know, I tend to think it's brilliant the day I write it and then hate it the following day.

So. This is the new opening to Chapter One. It takes us to the same point where I left off in the previous post, but I think this is a lot less exposition-y and a lot more character-y. Also, keep in mind that I've written this over the course of like, 45 minutes and have not gone back and made things pretty. I'm looking for a general idea, here, because there's no sense in making things pretty if I'm not keeping it.

Previous offering still stands: virtual cookies and my undying gratitude!

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Concrit Please!

And here we go again. Admittedly, this plea for concrit is a touch more important than the previous one. The prologue is meant to reel the reader in, give them just enough background to make them interested but not enough that you give away the entire story. Below, however, is the first page or so (Works page ... I have no idea how many book pages it is) of my first chapter. And this is where I'm having the most trouble.

As I've mentioned before, I'm having issues getting the tone right. The characters here are eleven, and my normal style is more along the lines of what you saw in the prologue. However, the proper, reserved tone that works well for adults in 1877 does not work as well for children in the present day. So I'm trying to adapt a little, make the tone a little more conversational and a little less proper.

What I've come up with so far is below the jump. Please, please give me concrit. I don't have much to offer in the way of rewards, but the offer of virtual cookies and my undying gratitude still stands.  (Also, I realize that Charlie comes across as really annoying here ... he doesn't stay that way. But we're in Allie's head and she's annoyed with him, so ... yeah).

Attention! Concrit Welcome!

(I attempted to do this as a Note on Facebook, however Facebook's paragraph formatting leaves a lot to be desired. Actually, there is a distinct lack of paragraph formatting (at least a lack of paragraph formatting that I can make work ... I try Shift+Enter and I get a line break, not a paragraph break), leading to a giant block of text that makes my eyes swim. So I'm doing it here because Blogger will allow formatting like a normal website. *pets Blogger*)

Anywho, I am about to do something I hardly ever do: offer up my prologue for concrit. Basically, I've been having issues with tone and voice for a long while now, so long that I feel like I can't properly judge the quality of my own writing anymore. (I am indeed my harshest critic ... I tend to think it all sucks. ;)) So! If anyone could read this and offer some concrit, you will get virtual cookies and my undying gratitude.

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