|
Exercise #184: Craft
Posted 11/3/06
Step four of our five-month journey! For those who missed the first three installments, we’re going to go from idea to submitting for publication with the same piece of work. Over these last two months (Craft exercises are the first Friday), we will polish our story and send it off for possible publication. Feel free to participate in whichever of these (none, some, all) you want. Exercise #171 was the beginning, picking our market and coming up with our story idea. Exercise #175 was the next step, creating a first rough draft. Exercise #180 followed, gathering critiques of our work so far. Since a large percentage of our group will be participating in NaNoWriMo, you may want to do this exercise on the first of December and the last one in January, for maximum feedback.
Guidelines for these Craft exercises:
* Use the same piece throughout. We may only be asking for a 500 word section when you post for critique, but your finished piece will not be limited to 500 words.
* Follow the instructions carefully. When we say “without proofreading” we mean it, and the word limit will vary.
* Expect to send your finished piece to your chosen market in December or January.
The map for our journey (the five Ps):
* August is Plotting (see below for details)
* September is Primary Draft
* October is Picky-Picky
* November is Polish (those of you expecting to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo may move this one and the next one into the following month)
* December is Publish (hopefully!)
We’re at Polish. Have you been continuing work on your story and implementing the feedback you’ve received? Good! If not, it’s not too late. Rewrite your draft. Edit it for spelling, grammar, and consistency. Utilize any remarks from your critiques which you think are applicable. Polish it up until it shines. Your piece should now be just about the best you can do.
For this exercise, post your entire piece. That’s right, all of it. For critiquers, again pretend you're an editor from the chosen market. Would you choose this for the anthology you're putting together? Does it hold your interest? Would you ask for more of this author’s work?
If possible, do a line-by-line critique, giving your “editor” thoughts after each line. Because we have no word limit, some of the pieces may be quite long, so here’s my deal with you. If you critique a SUB for Exercise #184, and make a comment after each and every line of it, I will consider your monthly stats filled for that month. Be sure to note “Credit my stats!” or something at either the beginning or end of your critique so I’ll be sure to catch it. Remember, a comment after every line is required for this deal. Try to pick a SUB that hasn’t yet been critiqued. If you need a list of uncritiqued #184s, just ask me.
Word limit: None
Please use the subject line
SUB: Exercise #184/yourname
|
