Why *Not* to Submit Your Novel Right Now

"If your heroine is by herself in the garden, who is there to admire how her hair shimmers in the morning light?"

Halfway through my first novel, my sole experience with critiquing of any sort was with the Writer's Digest Novel Writing Workshop. This was before the Internet was widespread, and I corresponded by regular mail with the instructor. I submitted sections of my novel-in-progress, and she sent back long, detailed notes. Her first critique crushed me. She was right, I needed to learn about Point-of-View. How could I have any talent at all if my teacher needed to make so many suggestions and corrections? Well, she later explained that she thought I had "real potential" so she was "hard on me."

One-on-one critiquing with an established author eventually paid off, as I sold that novel, but it was also expensive. After all, classes and workshops cost money. I knew there must be other ways to give and receive helpful writing feedback, I just had to find them. And so began my career-long journey of seeking critiquing. Meeting in Person I have tried several types of critique groups in which we met in person, in a member's home. There are a variety of ways to conduct these meetings; including exchanging pages ahead of time for review, passing a certain number of pages around the group for comments at the meeting, and reading your pages aloud to the group. The benefit here is actual live conversation with other writers, plus the ongoing-review as opposed to a one-time read.

The first event I attended with a local writing group was a trademark for the group, an afternoon high tea. I was excited and ready to mingle with other writers, and happy to meet a writer who invited me to join her critique group. She promised I'd meet writers in a variety of genres and several multi-published authors. I was thrilled. So armed with a chapter from my novel, minus the phantom observer of my heroine in the garden, I attended my first Sunday critique group. Lunch was lovely, exchanging writing and market news was fun, and then we each read aloud from our works. The more nervous writers, including myself, tended to read very fast and made it impossible for the others to make notes and comments. After a few more meetings, I realized I was neither giving nor receiving enough usable feedback to justify giving up an entire Sunday.

Another in-person group I joined met on weekdays, and we ordered a pizza and passed our chapters around in a circle, each writer making notes in a different colored ink. We found this method much better for getting feedback, but the drawback was seeing one chapter, once a month. There is no way to evaluate the flow or the continuity of a novel reading small chunks at a time. Having just one partner whom you meet in person is another choice, though it can be difficult to find the right partner in your driving area.

Classes and Workshops Whether in person or online, as I learned with Writer's Digest, obtaining critiques from instructors can become costly. I took a class in fiction writing from the University of Iowa by mail, and got wonderful input on a novella I was writing. As a learning experience, taking the class was worthwhile, but not something a writer can use as an ongoing critique source. The same is true of most courses-they are valuable as a resource and possibly the review of a work- in-progress, but after the course is over you are on your own again. Local writing organizations host workshops and conferences, many offering critique services along with the tract classes. Although this doesn't earn you an ongoing relationship, the big benefit at a conference is meeting with editors and agents. Also, you may meet more writers in your writing area, where in your local groups you are more likely to be reading a variety of genres.

Online Groups Meeting online opens up a whole new array of critiquing techniques. Members can e-mail a chapter, page or entire book at one time, either ahead of the online meeting or during it. A bulletin board discussion area can post ongoing excerpts, or it can strictly be conducted through e-mail. Most word processing programs allow you to make comments and corrections in a different font or color, making it easier on the author to review the critique and put the feedback into action. You can also have just one partner online. Conversing by e-mail allows you to choose a partner anywhere in the world, someone in your genre you can relate to. My preferred method is to exchange entire manuscripts upon completion, instead of a chapter at a time. It's much easier to remember that the hero had a patch over his right eye in chapter one if you just read that section yesterday, instead of several months ago. There are as many options for critique groups as there are writing genres, it's up to you to experiment with a few of them and decide what's best for you. When you join a group or secure a partner, agree ahead of time that anyone may leave the relationship at any time with no questions asked, and no hard feelings. If there are many new to critiquing in your group, suggest you all take an online course in critique etiquette and procedures. Then perhaps when you do submit your manuscript to an editor, your heroine will have another character in the garden with her to admire her hair.