Guardian Article - Creative writing professor Hanif Kureishi says such courses are 'a waste of time'
Want to win a Pulitzer?
/Start by reading the FAQ here: http://www.pulitzer.org/faq
Want to publish your book? Read our submission guidelines :)
Samuel Delany
/The difference between good writing and talented writing
Spoiler alert. Fiction takes talent.
Common Feedback
/Criticol is about feedback. You send us a submission, we'll read it and tell you what we think. It might take longer than we like, but we'll get to it. On this blog we're going to start to post some of the more common feedback so you can consider it even before you send your manuscript to us, or anyone else for that matter.
- It seems that the writer assumes the reader
knows things that are not written. The writer knows what they mean, but the reader is at a disadvantage because they can
only read the words that are on the page. Readers cannot be inside the writer’s head. The magic is using all the words required to
bring them there.
- Sometimes words have meanings. If you don't know what a word means, look it up or don't use it. If you're using Word, all you have to do is right-click. Homophile errors (using the wrong version of a word that sounds the same but means something else) are very common.
- The book is rife with pronoun confusion. Every pronoun needs to be scrutinized. As the chapters flip from one to another, they start with a pronoun. I suspect this was on purpose to add mystery. It isn’t mysterious, it is annoying to the reader. If the reader is wondering “what the hell are they talking about?” in reference to the author, it isn’t a fun read - and they'll start skimming and you won't get them back. Set the stage on chapter changes.
- Rushing the good parts. Writers have a tendency to get excited when they reach the part that they have been working toward for so long and as a result they end up rushing it. Others rush the build up to get to the good part. Those writers tend to rush the whole thing. A good editor knows when you're cheating and need to spend more time.
- Repeating the same word over and over like repeating was the key to winning some repeating prize awarded to people who can repeat the same word without noticing that they might have a propensity to repeat repeatedly. This is often character names, or phrases in dialogue that writers find cool or think they add realism. They don't, they add monotony.
- Poor research. Nothing bugs a reader more than knowing there is a factual error in a book, or even if something just doesn't seem right. (Hey that model of gun only holds 5 bullets not 6. Why don't they just use the teleporter again and get out of trouble? Why fly all the way down that dangerous trench to drop the torpedo when dipping in at the last moment would do?) Sure, it's fiction, but if it's set in a familiar environment, or if characters behave contrary to their motivations, your readers' unintended anxiety might be due to a failure of research on your part. Depending on your genre, readers can be very sophiticated in their knowledge of the topic and environment. They say write what you know. The fact is, there isn't much preventing you from getting to know more.
- Overuse of dialogue tags. Novice writers tend to overuse the he said, she said, he argued, she suggested, he shrugged. If it's obvious who's speaking, try going without. Your reader will enjoy the liberation from the monotony.
- Telling when you should be showing. Often writers will work themselves into an interesting corner and then cheat by resolving it by saying it is resolved in narrative rather than writing the scene. It's a good way to skip the interesting parts of your story, and readers notice.
Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling
/Their list can be found here. It didn't really resonate with me, it seemed a little too much about the writer than the story.
Children's Books
/When you get the writer's guidelines for many publishers, they aren't interested in seeing children's books. At Criticol we like novels and other books with lots of words, so we don't really do Children's books. Here's an answer I wrote when someone asked me for advice on behalf of her husband who'd written a children's book and got it printed himself and sold 200 books:
Me: Cool. As he probably has discovered, it is very difficult for an author to get attention from a publisher without an agent and it's worse trying to get attention from an agent unless you've published a number of popular and profitable works. Probably one of worst segments for a writer to try to get published is children's books. Part of that is because of the format, they're written in a way that anyone who doesn't know better thinks they can do. It's like modern art, everyone thinks they can splash some paint and be famous. The problem is, it takes real talent. So, lots of people without talent write in small sentences with small words and call it a children's book. Then they mail it to a publisher. So, publishers in self defense say, "we are not accepting children's books" (actually, for all the same reasons many publishers aren't accepting anything anymore, but are publishing the same popular authors over and over. Who can blame them?)
Selling 200 independently seems like he is either talented or persevering, or both. If he hasn't, he should send it to publishers who do kids books (find out which by going to a book store and looking at kids books). I say send a manuscript with the art, but not the book you paid to print (save that for paying customers). Even if they say on their website that they aren't accepting, they look at everything, they can't help themselves. They just won't write back unless they're in love.
We aren't going to do kid's books because we don't know enough about it, so we can't really help. Tell him (and all your friends) that if they have a novel, 100 pages of short stories, or they want to contribute art for books we're making, please let us know.
If publishers don't get back to him, tell him to keep on writing and making and selling books. Someone will notice that. By the time they do, he might not care, because he's already got a good children's book publisher. Him.
Suggestions for writer's block
/I have an 11 year old daughter who is working on her first novel (she's on page 6). I gave her an old laptop of mine that she can use to write whenever the mood strikes her. She said to me the other day that she had writer's block. I asked her, "Is it just that you don't feel like writing, or you don't know what to write? If it's the first one, do something else. If it's the second one, just keep writing. What is your character doing? They can't be doing 'nothing' when they wait for you to keep writing, so write about what they do while they wait for you. Write about them walking around in a circle or something." Did my advice work? I don't know; but she went away so I could work on my novel.