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Monday, February 28, 2011

Thanks and a Vote!

Two things!

1. I want to thank those of you who took the time to critique the teen work on Write On! over the weekend. What a wonderful gift to give these young, aspiring authors! I'm proud of all nine of them.

2. We're going to do another in-house critique right here on MSFV. I'm feeling ambivalent this morning, though, so I thought it would be fun to open it to a house vote!  Which of the following would you like to do:


  • Talking Heads (focus on dialogue-rich excerpts)
  • Drop the Needle (excerpts that are NOT opening pages)
  • Are You Hooked? including loglines
Leave your vote (only one, please) in the comment box below.  Whichever one gets the most votes by 7:00 AM EST tomorrow is what we'll do!  

72 comments:

  1. Drop the Needle.

    First pages always get attention. The stuff that comes after is important, too.

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  2. I would definitely go with Talking heads this time.

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  3. Talking Heads is my vote!!

    It would be great to see fantastic dialogue.

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  4. I vote for Drop the Needle! :D

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  5. I vote for Talking Heads!

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  6. Oooh, they all sound fun! I'm happy with Talking Heads or Drop the Needle, but I'll give my vote to Needle.

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  7. I vote for Drop the Needle. Those poor not first pages need love too

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  8. I'm going Drop the Needle. Looks like you're going to get pretty even votes on that and talking heads, so either one works, but for my vote, I say needle.

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  9. I also like Talking Heads and Drop the Needle, but will go with Needle. If anything in my ms needs work, it's everything after the first page.

    Thanks for doing this!

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  10. I love reading and writing dialogue, so I'd love to see some of that!

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  11. Drop the needle. Although, I wouldn't mind another first kiss round either. :)

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  12. I vote for drop the needle.

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  13. It appears I'm in the minority, but I'd prefer Logline.

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  14. Talking Heads! Agents are always talking about the importance of seamless, realistic dialogue and its hard to get a lot of dialogue or good dialogue critique from a first page.

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  15. #3. Are you hooked, including logline

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  16. I'd say hooked/logline. Because I'm getting ready to pitch. :)

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  17. Definitely Drop the Needle. :D

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  18. I vote for Are You Hooked/Logline

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  19. Obviously, I'm not going to follow the instructions. :-P

    I vote for Are You Hooked but sans loglines. I LOVE loglines as much as anyone. Sometimes, I make myself a cup of tea and then just write random loglines all day long. The problem is that the loglines take away from the power of the first 250. A regular reader wouldn't use a logline to decide if they were hooked and I think some people were getting hooked on the logline, not the excerpt. If you want feedback on a concept's hookability (made that up...patent pending...Julia Roberts being considered for movie role), I'd suggest you do another logline crit. Or...a query crit. *gasp* **ducks**

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  20. Drop the needle. I love opening books up in the middle and reading a random page before I decide if I want to read the whole book.

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  21. I agree that first pages have taken too much attention away from the rest of the book and therefore drop the needle is much needed. But I am not sure how we can overcome the inherent problem of looking at pages that are in the middle: we don't know what has gone on before and our responses become limited. But hey, I'm sure a community of writers brainstorming can come up with good solutions.

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  22. Of those, I vote for Drop the Needle. But someone else mentioned your past "First Kiss" contest and it reminded me of Nathan B's "Chase" contest, and now my eyes are spinning like a slot machine at the various possibilities.

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  23. Drop the needle sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if my story can be read in the middle without confusion.

    I think I'll give my vote to "Are You Hooked?"

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  24. I'd say Drop the Needle. I'm with Yat Yee. What about a lead in paragraph (no more than 100 words) that tells the reader where the scene comes in the book and a one sentence synopsis of the story?

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  25. Hooked, but like Holly suggested, without the loglines. Loglines take away the impact of the first two-fiddy.

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  26. Drop the Needle gets my vote. :)

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  27. Not hard to decide ... Drop the Needle :)

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  28. I agree with Holly—Are You Hooked sans logline.

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  29. I also agree with Holly. Are you hooked without a logline.

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  30. Loglines. I have a doozy I want to show off!

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  31. Talking heads. I love to write dialogue.

    No matter how the vote goes, we win by having our work critiqued. Thanks so much for doing this.

    Violet

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  32. Drop the needle, please! :) (We should do one of those on WO!)

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  33. I like first pages, I'll go for Are You Hooked.

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  34. I like Holly's idea. I know the first pages always get lots of attention, but I find it really hard to critique something from the middle of a work, even if the author has written an explanatory sentence or paragraph.

    But I also like the idea of a query critique! I think we should have one of those too :-) Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact I'm currently querying...

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  35. I always love to read the Drop the Needle excerpts!

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  36. I vote for Drop the Needle (because those of you voting for talking heads can always drop the needle on a dialogue heavy scene).

    I agree there needs to be a lead in to avoid confusion.

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  37. Drop the needle! Although I would never know which section of my ms to choose

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  38. I agree with whoever said that all the choices are great- so thanks, as always, for the op.

    Now, like Holly I'm gonna be tricky (no offense, Holly). Can we do a Drop the Needle and those who want to can drop into a dialogue scene? That way almost everyone wins.

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  39. Everyone seems to be going for drop the needle, so I'll bite!

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  40. I also agree with Holly—Are You Hooked sans logline.

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