Wednesday, June 2, 2010

A Special Tiny Treat For Other-Side-Of-Worlders and Night Owls

At precisely 9:00 pm EDT, submissions will open for a small, in-house crit of "almost anything goes."

I will only accept 10 entries. (Like I said. Tiny.)

Here are the submission guidelines:

  • Send a 250-word excerpt of your novel, including a small lead-in sentence or two.
  • This excerpt can be from ANYWHERE IN YOUR NOVEL
  • All genres except erotica are welcomed (children and adult)
  • Email your submission to authoress.submissions(at)gmail.com
  • ALL entries will receive an automated response. If you don't get one, check your spam box.
  • Format as follows:
SCREEN NAME: (type it here)
TITLE: (type it here)
GENRE: (type it here)

(type your brief lead-in here)

(type your excerpt here)

Please note: I am setting the word count at 280 to accommodate the lead-ins. You'll still have to choose your words carefully, though. (I'm SO mean...)

Entries will post early Thursday, ready for critique.

Pop your questions into the comment box!

20 comments:

  1. Can I send an entry from a novel I haven't finished writing yet?

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  2. Yes, you may. So long as it's carefully proofread. :D

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  3. Is the lead-in supposed to frame the excerpt, or should it be along the lines of a log-line/single-sentence pitch that cuts to the essence of the entire work?

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  4. It should frame the excerpt so the readers know what's going on before jumping into the scene.

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  5. Oh yay! I've been wondering where to try out my revised first chapter! Thank you!

    Which leads me to ask ... where do all you critters hang out for further critiques? I haven't found a critique group anywhere that is as awesome as this one.

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  6. Tempting, but as I'll be going out of town tomorrow, I should probably let those with more time to critique get the slots...

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  7. Authoress~ I'm having problems getting through. I keep getting rejected for not have my SCREEN NAME, etc. at the top of my submission. Everything has been there every time...I've tried copying it straight from a Word document and as plain text. Has anyone else had this problem before? My sincere apologies for probable incompetence on my part!

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  8. Yikes! I sent right on the nose of 9 and have the sent receipt of it, but no automated response from you. Sent a copy, but still no reply. Will not overload your box if you are receiving them, but am tres concerned.

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  9. folks--you may have to start stalking your favorite critters here. ;)

    Jess, I'm sorry I can't tell you what the problem is without my programmer here; I don't see anything but your original email (which I went over and looked it; in my gmail box, it looked fine.) So I don't know!

    You said you tried plain text, which usually fixes things.

    I'm sorry! If Michael were here he could check for you.

    Misty, I saw your email, too, but I don't know why you don't have a response. Did you check your spam box? Because the bot ALWAYS spits out a reply. If it's a rejection, it tells you the reason. If it's an acceptance, it give you a post number.

    Wish I could be more helpful, but I'm not the brainy geek behind the programming! :(

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  10. That's okay :) I was just a little disappointed since I thought my trigger finger was quick enough tonight. This website rocks--I tried to enter your last Secret Agent contest, but kept getting the same formatting rejection that I got tonight.

    Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to check on our submissions!

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  11. Thanks for checking, Authoress. I still don't see any responses- nothing in junk files either. Will recruit husband (technical genius here)for this job. Thanks for letting me know it got to you though.

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  12. Gah! Missed it! *Bangs head*

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  13. OOps! Usually you put submissions closed. Next time for sure!

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  14. Jess,

    If you have either of the original email submissions, please forward it to me at my facelesswords address, with a note stating the reason why you were rejected. I can forward it to my programmer for analysis. Something is definitely going wrong there.

    Shelley -- I can't do that if I'm asleep. :P That's one of the reasons I don't run contests at this time of the night!

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  15. folksinmt and others: There's an awesome crit group over at Backspace - you can post query letters or excerpts, and get thoughtful and detailed crits from some wonderful authors, among others. It costs $40 a year, but there's a free trial. You can also post questions to agents and others.

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  16. boo hoo. the pharmacist assistant was new and took so long i didn't get home until 8:10. missed the boat.

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  17. thanks for the tip Sara!

    Authoress ... are you giving me permission to stalk you? I don't even know where you live. :)

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