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shalannaNOTE: American LJ Idol entry is the previous entry. My intro is still here--scroll down. This entry is contest whining.
I'm still in the running at the Gather.com First Chapters Contest. If you'd like to go rate my chapter *ahem*, it's up at the Little Rituals chapter page. But when you try to click on a star or put in a comment, if you're not a Gather member, they'll take you to a registration page. I have not had any spam or mail from them since I joined, so that shouldn't be a problem, but it is a consideration (sometimes you just don't want to give out your e-mail address.) Some people have gotten sixty votes or more! However, please don't feel pressured. They told us to go pimp publicize the contest and get people to vote on/rank our chapters, so that's what I'm doing.
_Abigail's Dragon_, by our colleague![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
highway_west, is still hanging in there with a fairly good score. (See, I'm being fair in hyping that chapter as well as mine.) I also liked a couple of the other higher-rated stories on the site. However, a few of the highly ranked stories have flaws that I believe would keep them from being pulled out of the slush at most literary agencies. The biggest flaw that seems to fly right past most readers, though, is the problem of starting too much "in medias res." We as readers need to identify with the main character before we can sympathize or care much about what happens, so when the first line is, "Hurry! Run for your life!" and is about someone being pursued, that can work against you. After all, you are supposed to ramp up tension and anticipation across the book, and after this kind of opener, tension is necessarily going to drop. If you kill off that first character immediately, it's going to be the "Mars Attacks" effect--some readers (me) will throw the book against the wall in frustration. It's a high-wire tightrope act. However, many online readers seem to like those kinds of openings.
It's kind of neat the way I keep getting comments from people I don't know and didn't contact. I hope they are hitting the star for a rating of "10," though, because I need it to pull that average up. They're only taking the top 15 entries on to the next round. *gloom*
*sunlight shafts through clouds* Although I did get cool comments from most everyone. Okay, y'all already know/suspect that Dennis is a little in love with me* my long-time friend and critique partner, and might have been a LITTLE biased because he was already an advocate for LR to begin with, and I begged Jack R. to go over there from Writing2 (a mailing list I've always been on) and rate it, but he also e-mailed me with a long list of questions and things that I can use to improve the next book--basically, he talks about a plot engine to drive a story rather than character quirks, and since he's on the staff at a Canadian TV show, he should be listened to. It was really cool that he went over to vote! But most of the commenters are people who ran across the chapter on Gather, apparently. They cared enough to post, so that's cool.
* [Only kidding.]
I have to stop checking my ranking. I mean, if my chapter doesn't make the cut, it's not the end of the world. (That's a song by Skeeter Davis that was covered by Herman's Hermits, and is still one of my favorite wallow-in-misery songs--has been since junior high. I inherited the Peter Noone crush from my older cousin, who donated her records. I'm not THAT old.)
I'm still in the running at the Gather.com First Chapters Contest. If you'd like to go rate my chapter *ahem*, it's up at the Little Rituals chapter page. But when you try to click on a star or put in a comment, if you're not a Gather member, they'll take you to a registration page. I have not had any spam or mail from them since I joined, so that shouldn't be a problem, but it is a consideration (sometimes you just don't want to give out your e-mail address.) Some people have gotten sixty votes or more! However, please don't feel pressured. They told us to go pimp publicize the contest and get people to vote on/rank our chapters, so that's what I'm doing.
_Abigail's Dragon_, by our colleague
highway_west, is still hanging in there with a fairly good score. (See, I'm being fair in hyping that chapter as well as mine.) I also liked a couple of the other higher-rated stories on the site. However, a few of the highly ranked stories have flaws that I believe would keep them from being pulled out of the slush at most literary agencies. The biggest flaw that seems to fly right past most readers, though, is the problem of starting too much "in medias res." We as readers need to identify with the main character before we can sympathize or care much about what happens, so when the first line is, "Hurry! Run for your life!" and is about someone being pursued, that can work against you. After all, you are supposed to ramp up tension and anticipation across the book, and after this kind of opener, tension is necessarily going to drop. If you kill off that first character immediately, it's going to be the "Mars Attacks" effect--some readers (me) will throw the book against the wall in frustration. It's a high-wire tightrope act. However, many online readers seem to like those kinds of openings.It's kind of neat the way I keep getting comments from people I don't know and didn't contact. I hope they are hitting the star for a rating of "10," though, because I need it to pull that average up. They're only taking the top 15 entries on to the next round. *gloom*
*sunlight shafts through clouds* Although I did get cool comments from most everyone. Okay, y'all already know/suspect that Dennis is a little in love with me* my long-time friend and critique partner, and might have been a LITTLE biased because he was already an advocate for LR to begin with, and I begged Jack R. to go over there from Writing2 (a mailing list I've always been on) and rate it, but he also e-mailed me with a long list of questions and things that I can use to improve the next book--basically, he talks about a plot engine to drive a story rather than character quirks, and since he's on the staff at a Canadian TV show, he should be listened to. It was really cool that he went over to vote! But most of the commenters are people who ran across the chapter on Gather, apparently. They cared enough to post, so that's cool.
* [Only kidding.]
I have to stop checking my ranking. I mean, if my chapter doesn't make the cut, it's not the end of the world. (That's a song by Skeeter Davis that was covered by Herman's Hermits, and is still one of my favorite wallow-in-misery songs--has been since junior high. I inherited the Peter Noone crush from my older cousin, who donated her records. I'm not THAT old.)
