Hi everyone
I've just joined and hoping to find some real help, much needed.  New to writing and published my first effort on Amazon Kindle but desperately need some good solid feedback and proper critique if you like.  Would anyone like to read my book and help?  Grammar, Punctuation general writing style etc. the usual suspects.

I welcome every bit of feedback good, bad, indifferent as I'm a keen student and would like to work continually on the art of writing.  After many edits and re writes I'm still unsure so if you're interested let me know how this can be done.

If you have a Amazon kindle account even better I can email it to that address and give you chance to read on the usual mobile devices as normal and away you go.

Please be frank I genuinely welcome honest feedback - but what I'm looking for is the 'why' it might be whatever your opinion is on the 'technical' elements..   Only way I can learn and adapt my game to improve as best as possible.

No worries if this is not the done thing I'm new here so maybe someone can point me in the right direction.  Thanks all - Cameron

Hi Cameron
If you joined one of the groups which fitted your book's genre, then you could upload it chapter by chapter and get it critiqued as you go along.  That's how I started.  I think there is a whole book swap group on here too - why not try posting there as well.  Good luck!

Hi Cameron, and welcome to WriteWords.

Fantastic that you've got that far with a whole book. As Funnyvalentine says, most of the critiquing on WriteWords goes on in the groups - either in instalments, or in the whole bookswap group, where you and another WWer swap and do a full read.

But in my experience you don't need to have the whole thing critiqued to learn vast amounts, because most of what a writer does, they do consistently, both well and less well. (For example, when I do manuscript appraisals, the first fifty pages of a novel show me about 90% of what I'll be saying...)

You also learn vast amounts - perhaps even more, paradoxical as it might sound - by critting other people's work. It's much easier to start reading "like a writer", sensing what works and what doesn't, and starting to work out the whys and hows, on someone else's writing, because you don't already know what it's trying to do. You come to it, as it were, as an innocent reader. For that, obviously, the groups are the most useful, as you'll get to read a range of writers' work, and be involved in the discussion threads.

Good luck!
Emma
Edited by EmmaD at 08:57:00 on 27 October 2014

Hi FunnyValentine / EmmaD

thanks so much for your replies and advise I will go and post on the other threads

Cheers
Cameron

Cameron,

I've had a quick look at the first few pages of your Kindle book. It looks like you have a good story to tell but it's obscured by a lack of writing skills, principally the ability to bring the reader into the story rather than into the author's thoughts about the story (a sometimes subtle but crucial difference).

Most of us who decide to become writers go through the uncomfortable stage of realising that there is all sorts of stuff to learn in what we thought was a fairly automatic process (perhaps because we all tell stories to our friends/family/pets and we all write things). What determines how you succeed is firstly your thirst to learn and secondly your decision about what kind of writer you want to be (since different forms require different approaches, once the basic skills are under your belt).

The problem is you've already published two books! This perhaps is the danger of Kindle - that you can put something out there before you've learned the ropes. Old farts like me were lucky in that the only way to publish back then was via publishers and while you might have argued that they were more than capable of putting out crap, at least it was informed crap.

Not that I'm saying your book is crap. Not at all. As said, it shows promise. The question is, how much do you want to learn and towards what end?

Good luck!

Terry

 

Hi Terry Thanks for taking the time to look at the first few pages of the book (first apologies if typos here but am on my mobile!). Firstly I have emmence thirst to be a writer, it is the one thing that gives me desire and hunger to fulfil. Next is to ask where I can get the sort of help and advice to improve my writing skills? I can quite easily take my kindle books down and improve them for future publication. I have been searching for good solid advice and guidance, hence finding this site as my ambition is to become an established writer/author. Thanks Cameron

Hi Cameron,

I'm about to send you a WWmail. This is a vast subject! Happy to discuss by phone.

Terry