What's Broken: Another Round!

It was a great success earlier this month, so I'm opening submissions for another round of What's Broken? today.


This is a crit round for manuscripts in distress. In other words, you've got a COMPLETED story, you've done a lot of revising, but you've got a scene or a section or an opening or a transition or SOMETHING that just isn't working.

I will take 5 submissions of 500 words of whatever's broken.

And then, hopefully, you'll receive enough critique to help you fix it.

PLEASE NOTE: This is the honor system. If your manuscript IS NOT FINISHED, or if you honestly don't have something that isn't working for you no matter how hard you've worked on it, please don't submit.

I want to target folks who are really wringing their hands over something.

Submission guidelines:

• Submissions will open at 8 pm EDT today.
• Submit an excerpt of up to 500 words of your COMPLETED MANUSCRIPT.
• Include a few sentences to set up the scene, so we understand what's going on. (Yes, the 500 words includes the set-up, so BE BRIEF!)
• Send your submission to authoress.submissions(at)gmail.com
• Only 5 will be accepted. Please do not submit if you know you do not qualify.
• I will accept 1 alternate in case one of the 5 for some reason does not qualify.
• Same format as always:

SCREEN NAME: type it here
TITLE: type it here
GENRE: type it here

Type your brief lead-in here.

Type your excerpt here.

The excerpts will post on THURSDAY MORNING.

A short note:  Last time, some of the entrants did not include a brief lead-in.  If the excerpt is the opening of your novel, that's fine. But if it's not, it REALLY helps to give us an idea of what's going on before you drop us into the scene.

Questions below!

Friday Fricassee

So you all know I'm a pantser.  Well, a panster-who-likes-some-semblance-of-a-plan, at any rate.  I actually prefer to call myself an organic writer, which has nothing to do with my penchant for whole foods and hippie patchwork pants.  Organic, as in, I write the story as it unfolds in my brain, albeit within the basic framework of plot points and where I'm headed (I usually know, roughly, how my story will end).

I am proudly Outline Free.  Outlines give me hives.

Anyway, something amazing happened yesterday.  But it'll only seem amazing if a) you are a writer, and b) you understand my pantserness.

It all started during my Morning Wake-up Chat with Jodi Meadows.  (That sounds all official or something.   Actually, we always say good morning and share our coffee.  It's like working in the same office with her.  Or sitting amongst ferrets together.)  (Well, not really.)  I was lamenting to Jodi that I had begun planning Book Two of my new project, and that I had jotted down two questions for which I had no answers:

• What is my main character's goal?
• What is her main conflict

I know, I know.  It's not rocket science.  But I can't TELL you how it makes my brain hurt to think about these things.  So I IMed the questions to Jodi, and she immediately responded with -- an answer.

For each question.

And the answers made sense.

And weren't convoluted or esoteric or stupid.

*pause to marvel at Jodi's genius*

At any rate, Jodi's input was just what I needed to propel me forward.  And--here comes the amazing part--yesterday afternoon, while plotting with a pen (yeah, one of those hand-held things) in my yellow, spiral-bound notebook, I CAME UP WITH THE ENDING FOR BOOK 3.

Did you catch that?  Not the ending for book 2.  THE ENDING FOR BOOK 3.  In short, I now know EXACTLY HOW THE ENTIRE TRILOGY ENDS.  Which means I can now fashion the story arc over the next two books because I know what is going to happen.

And it's an ending that makes me very, very happy.  Because, prior to yesterday, I had no idea how I was going to accomplish what I wanted to.

Guys!  This is new ground.  And though I've got lots of brain-pinching thought ahead of me (you know I hate staring, but I'm admittedly getting good at it), I'm no longer intimidated by the disorganized possibilities that lie ahead.  I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO MY BELOVED HEROINE.

(Dork moment.  I love my characters as much as you love yours.  No, I love mine more.  For today, anyway.)

There you have it.  I am positively GLEEFUL about this!

What about you?  Do endings come to you first?  Or do they develop as you go?  (The latter has generally been the case for me, though I always have an idea where I'm going.)  Have you ever completely changed an ending after you actually arrived there?

ISN'T WRITING FUN?  

So I'm set for the weekend.  I plan on having an in-house crit next week (I welcome your suggestions/requests below), and then the blog will be going dark for three weeks.  BECAUSE I WILL BE ON VACATION.  And while I will definitely be writing (part of vacation time is Parent Visit time, so that means plotting/writing time), I am giving myself a break from the world o'blog.

(What? You'd like to make a donation toward my gas fund? Awesome! Jodi Meadows will thank you, since I'm stopping to visit her on my way to Mom-and-Dad-of-Authoress's house.)

More on that next week.  For now -- have an awesome weekend!

Celebration

Just because I'm all sorts of excited on behalf of my irreplaceable agent, I want to share the good news that Josh has left Russell and Volkening and, along with three of his colleagues, has opened the Hannigan Salky Getzler Agency.  (I was finally able to type that without looking.)

Read about the agency's opening day here.

And if you're planning on querying one of them? Give them a couple weeks. Because, yanno. Lost staplers and all that.

Aaaaand Winners

In Mr. Richman's own words:

There were a lot a strong samples among these entries, and I’m happy to see so many writers willing to work on their craft and provide feedback to others. Some of my decisions were based purely on personal taste, so please don’t be too discouraged if you weren’t selected.

But, since this is a contest, there had to be winners. Two samples intrigued me enough to garner honorable mention honors.

Honorable Mentions: #19, Violet Ray and the Magnetic Pole Reversal, and #21, Superheroes Don’t Eat Veggie Burgers. Each of these authors can may email me their pitches and the first twenty pages of their stories.

The winner: #22, Seagull Rising. I was really impressed by the level of the writing in this sample! The author may email me his or her complete manuscript.

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Congratulations all!  Winners, please email me at facelesswords(at)gmail.com for specific submission instructions.

Secret Agent Unveiled: Chris Richman

A round of applause for the helpful and straight-shooting Chris Richman of Upstart Crow Literary for being our Secret Agent this month!

Chris's Bio:

Chris Richman is an agent working with Upstart Crow Literary, where he handles middle grade and young adult novels. Among his clients are Jacqueline West, author of the bestselling BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE series (Dial) and Matt Myklusch, author of the JACK BLANK books with Simon and Schuster.

Chris is particularly interested in novels with a timeless feel, novels with appeal to boy readers, and stories with commercial appeal and high concept ideas.

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Winners on the horizon!