Before I post this first workshop submission, I want to say something about respect and trust. My blog readers are some of the smartest, handsomest, most awesome people on the Internet, obviously. I don’t want to offend their intelligence by stating the obvious, but I will:

Writing is an intensely personal thing that people do. Getting up the courage to send in your work and your writing is a huge struggle for most people. Reading the work of others involves a lot of trust and I take a writer’s willingness to share their work with me very seriously. Sure, sometimes the slush is funny. Sure, sometimes writing needs work. But snark is the lowest common denominator and it helps nobody, so I never resort to it. Not on this blog. Not about a person’s writing skill. Not for me, thanks. Sometimes I’ll use humor or a joke to illustrate a point, but I am never poking fun at a writer or at the writing itself. That’s an important distinction to make.

For this exercise, I specifically asked for writing samples that need work, in the writer’s opinion. I asked for writers who didn’t mind receiving constructive criticism and feedback on the blog. These writers are coming here to get a little tough love and a little workshopping. They are putting themselves out there and saying, “Help, please.”

It is a brave thing to stand in front of people with your writing exposed.

As a result, I am going to be watching comments very carefully. Any needless snark, criticism, or flaming will be removed. There was some disagreement about one of my contest winners last week, and that’s fine. But if someone takes it upon themselves to snark or insult or judge or be oh-so-clever, I will have no qualms about shutting them down. Don’t make these writers regret reaching out to share their work.

Again, I am dead serious about this. I’d hate to police people like they’re preschoolers but the Internet is full of trolls and other unpleasant types. If it turns into a problem, I will turn off comments and participation will be ruined for everyone. We’re here to help each other. We’re all on a journey. Writing is a craft that develops with time. Be humble, generous, and kind with these entries.

And that’s the end of that unpleasant rant!

Here’s my first selection, from Shawna Weeks’ CHASING FOREVER. The writer says:

My main concern is: would you keep reading? I want to know if it is enough to make you turn the page and start the first chapter?

And now for the sample:

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Preface

Ah, our first problem! Just kidding. Sort of. I think, in a lot of instances, a preface or a prologue is a crutch. It’s the author’s way of showing the reader something gripping in the hopes that the reader will then read through some less exciting backstory or chapters before eventually circling back to the exciting part. It gets the action started right away and then… after a flashy opening… the tension drops to comatose levels in 99% of cases. Ask yourself: are you just using your premise as a trick? A teaser? Try to construct a real beginning without using this technique. Is that harder? Nobody said writing a novel was easy, mind you. But I don’t want to make this an entry about prologues, so I’ll move on.

Glimpses of my life flashed before me as I awaited death. I could hear the sounds of my brother, Matthew and I as we splashed at our favorite swimming hole just the day before the car accident as if it were happening now.

The “life flashing before my eyes” thing is a cliche. I see it a lot. And since we don’t know the character or her brother, the swimming hole memory seems pretty generic, too. Also, swimming holes evoke early childhood to me… not really a great first image for what I’m assuming is an older YA paranormal romance, but that might just be my own connotation or bias about swimmin’ holes.

I saw myself with tears on my cheeks, clinging to my mother’s hand the first day of grade school, begging her to take me back home. I felt that moment when I realized my love for Jaxen was bigger than anything I had ever felt. All of these memories seemed unimportant, yet vital to my existence as I lay bleeding.

By giving us a lot of high emotions, the writer might hope that we, too, will emote and feel these things along with the character. Gripping the mother’s hand is the most specific image here, and wanting to go home is a powerful feeling, especially now. However, then we go back to vague again. We haven’t met Jaxen yet, so he’s meaningless to us. And “bigger than anything I had ever felt” is very vague. There’s a contradiction with “all of these memories seemed unimportant, yet vital to my existence” that’s annoying, because for all the words spent on it, this really does negate itself and end up saying nothing. All of these words — “vital” and “bigger than anything” especially — are vague. What’s “bigger than anything” or “vital” to one person isn’t the same to another. I haven’t learned anything about the character yet, either. She… has a family… and she loves someone. The same could be said about almost anyone.

Sunlight filtered through the web of branches above me, blinding me momentarily. Wind rustled through the trees, blowing the odious scent of the creature across my face and I gagged.

Beginnings should ground the reader in the when and where. I had no idea they were in woods or in daylight, frankly. I want to know why she’s bleeding, but the “creature” mention totally seems to come out of left field. We’re talking about her family at one moment, then there’s a smelly creature. “Sunlight filtered” is also a tranquil image, while “web of branches” and “blinding me” aren’t. “Wind rustled” is tranquil again, but “I gagged” isn’t. That kind of vacillation in the imagery is jarring to read. Finally, “odious scent” seems like a very specific and elevated way of speaking…. not really what a teenager might be thinking or saying, unless they’re using it for comic effect. That strikes me as a bit off in terms of voice.

I shouldn’t have followed Jaxen, but I couldn’t let him go without me. This was definintely not how I would have planned my death, but does anyone really plan for that?

Good interiority on “I shouldn’t have followed Jaxen,” now we finally know what she was doing. Then this slips into implied second person direct address (where you seem to be talking to the reader or “breaking the fourth wall” of the narrative without using the word “you”) and we seem to be pausing for a moment to contemplate the nature of death and dying. Why? Lots of characters do this and it never works. Don’t have your characters sit around musing… especially if they also happen to be bleeding! (Also, it’s “definitely.” Proofreading is very important and typos or spelling errors are almost impossible to catch. I copied and pasted this, so it’s not a typo on my end.)

I didn’t like that look in his black eyes when I found him that morning by the barn. I struggled not to run into his open arms, but the fear on his face held me back. “I love you, Sophie,” Jaxen said and I froze. “I have to go.” That was it. He was gone.

Notice how we haven’t really gotten a clear foothold in the present moment. We have trees, a swimming hole (I know the writer did this to try and give us some backstory and to make the character sympathetic), death, blood, a creature, wind, Jaxon… a lot going on. And before we’re fully grounded in what’s going on in the present moment of her lying there and smelling a creature, we’re swept away to that morning. There’s a barn now? And he’s afraid? This also makes it sound like some time has passed. If he left “this morning” and she followed him… when are we? How long has she been in the woods (if there even are woods?) since then? Etc.

Without a word I let him walk away. I watched until his tall form became nothing but heat waves on the horizon. My heart shattered with each step he took. I wanted to scream, beg him to come back to me…but I let him go.

Writing is such a specific art. If you look at the last sentence of the previous paragraph, it’s “He was gone.” And now, we jump the chronology yet again, to the moment of him walking away… even though the writer already said he was gone (which has a feeling of finality to it). So we’re in the present moment (bleeding), then we go back to that morning (saying goodbye), then we go to him already having disappeared (“He was gone”), to the moment of him leaving (“I let him walk away. I watched his tall form…”). But we do get our most specific image yet: “His tall form became nothing but heat waves on the horizon.” I like that. But I don’t feel her heartache yet because I don’t know these people, either of them.

That’s why prologues don’t work for me most of the time. I’m thrown into the MOST DRAMATIC MOMENT EVER, a MOMENT OF DRAMA AND HIGH EMOTION, between two people who I have no idea about. It really is like watching a foreign-language soap opera 99% of the time… I don’t get what’s going on, who the people are or why they’re all so upset.

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Does this seem nitpicky? Yes. It is. Extremely nitpicky.

But there are a lot of elements in play here. I’d say my overall assessment is that there’s too much going on. Focus in on ONE moment and really work to connect us to the main character instead of scrambling us around. Once we know her, we can connect her to another person — Jaxon? Her family? — and then center ourselves in some action. I’d try some more linear storytelling, also, and try it without the quick cuts.