Hello,

You are writing about such a personal emotion that people will either connect with your work or find that it doesn't speak to them or reflect their feelings on the subject.

In terms of publication potential, that would be slim to non-existent with a traditional publisher. For a start, poetry is hard to sell in any form but also this more romantic style would not appeal to the major poetry publishers.

Best of luck though.

S view book

Hello,

A few quick pointers which you may find useful.

1. I would suggest rewriting your pitch. It is a bit long and laboured, something shorter and more exciting would help entice people to read the book. Look at the back of some published books and see how they are constructed.

2. You have a problem with apostrophes. Don't worry, lots of people do, but perhaps give your text to someone who can pick out the errors and help you clean them up.

3. There is a lot of description here, a lot of which is not required. Don't tell us everything, show us or let us work it out for ourselves.

Good luck.

S view book

Hello,

There is quite a bit of repetitive language here. In the first main paragraph of chapter one you use the word 'left' four times which feels a bit like overkill.

There is also A LOT of description, it feels like we are following the narrator's every move in real time, you may want to tone that down a bit to allow the plot to develop.

Overall the writing feels a bit loose and can be clumsy in places, it needs pruning and tightening up but then most books do!

Good luck.

S view book

Hello,

This is a classic case of over-writing. There may well be a good story in here but it will struggle to get noticed, buried as it is beneath so much description and redundant text.

Here's an example:

'A reassuring female voice replied through the ear piece in his ear.'

1. We already know it is reassuring because of the words spoken, you don't need to tell us.
2. Where else would the earpiece be apart from in his ear?

Once these sort of examples accumulate they can really get in the way of the story. I reckon you could lose a quarter of the text you have here without losing any of the meaning and what you would end up with is a leaner, more pacy narrative.

Do not be dismayed, this is the sort of thing I see all the time on authonomy and is easy to fix. Get your red pen out and edit this down, your story will be all the better for it.

Hope that helps.

S view book

Nikhil,

Having seen your enjoyable and enthusiastic thread on the forum I popped in to read some of your poems.

I will be honest, I think your style and subject matter make publication, in the UK at least, very unlikely. The poetry tradition over here is very different and I am not sure publishers would respond well to your poems. If you were to check out some of the more popular poets you would find their work vastly different to your own.

I found your work falls into neither the literary end of the market nor the more lyrical, nostalgic end. It is different, but not in a way that I think has any major appeal.

Sorry to be so negative but I feel an honest response is required here.

All best,

S view book

I thought the first chapter was very good with plenty of quite dark humour. I definitely wanted to read more.

The second chapter I did not like so much. The explanation of the Sesame Street comic felt like shoehorning in an 80s reference and even if that wasn't the intention it definitely detracts from the storytelling. The dialogue in this chapter also felt a bit forced and false, whereas it really rang true in the opening chapter.

Anyway, I shall read on but these are first impressions. view book

A great title and some strong passages - the wood/metal comparison is very good - but in general it is quite over-written. There is a lot of description of characters' appearances in the opening chapter and you can rein these back a bit, or be more subtle.

If you were to spend a couple of days removing a lot of the adjectives and adverbs you'd have a better story.

All best. view book

Hello.

A few brief observations.

I would suggest looking at your dialogue. Teenagers don't really talk like that to each other so it feels false.

The title is not great. Something a bit less obvious and preachy might help.

This pitch is pretty good, though. It reads like a professional book blurb.

All very best with it. view book

Just a quick tip: watch out for excessive use of adjectives and adverbs. You could prune a lot of these and create a better, more streamlined story.

Good luck with it. view book

Hello.

I haven't read the whole thing but here are a few quick pointers and suggestions:

1. Your pitch makes the book sound like it is going to be really hard going. Actually it is pretty hard going but you may want to put together a more friendly blurb to encourage people to at least give it a go.

2. I'd suggest a more simplified contents, perhaps losing it completely, as the authonomy formatting doesn't really lend itself to such a long contents page. I suspect many people will give up before they get to the main text.

3. And if they do get that far they will have to wade through some extremely long sentences indeed. I struggled with some of them.

This is an extremely specialist text which is, I fear, destined for a small readership. If you wanted to create a shorter, more simplified version then you might be able to entice more readers and thereby get your message across.

Hope that helps. view book

In my view, you are telling us far too much here. In the opening few paragraphs we have a potted recent life history which adds nothing at this stage. Why not let us learn about the narrator gradually as the book progresses? It feels very front-loaded at the moment.

There are some good moments, however. The opening line is great and every now and again we get to see glimpses of some original and funny writing. Elsewhere, you are trying a bit too hard, which is a common criticism from me.

What matters in this sort of book is character and plot. Your crowded writing style gets in the way of both.

Try to work out what your narrator would really think and say in these situations rather than forcing backstory and detail through her.

I hope these suggestions are useful.

S view book

OK, I will cut to the chase from a publisher's perspective.

There are two key problems here. The text is over-written. You are trying to hard and it is getting in the way of the story.

Also, there are too many cliches. No book can ever be cliche-free, to be fair, but you could go through this with a red pen and get rid of quite a few to help our story breathe a bit.

'I retreat deep into the recesses of my mind' is a good example. Fine for teen angst poetry but really not the sort of thing a publisher is looking for, in my experience.

My advice? If you are looking for publication then this needs to be pared right back.

I hope that is of some use.

All best,

S view book

A concern from a publishing viewpoint would be that the movie Devil shares the basic plot - people trapped in an elevator, one of them is the devil - and I suspect that would put people off the idea of publishing it commercially.

Always a pain when someone else comes up with the same idea, and apologies if this comment is a bit of a downer, but I fear that the high profile of the other version would make this a very hard sell indeed. view book

I have only dipped into the opening couple of chapters but here are a few initial observations:

There is a hell of a lot of description, too much so if you ask me. Setting the scene is great, and important, but you don't have to outline every last detail.

Take chapter two, for example. Read through the opening third or so and make a note every time you mention the colour of something. I suspect you'll feel, like me, that there are a few too many mentions there.

The same with the word sword in the opening chapter. It is everywhere to start with.

Overall, I think this needs some pruning and cutting back. A few dodgy sentences could be cut without harming the story. Sentences like: His ripped trousers... made their agreement not to wear armour very satisfying. That is quite clunky and sets the wrong tone very early on.

I suspect there is a good story here somewhere, but I felt it was hidden beneath too much description. Cut it back and let the tale breathe.

Hope that is of some help. view book

Some thoughts, I hope they are helpful.

You don't need to introduce your characters using their full names in the opening paragraph. Allow the reader to meet them and discover them during the subsequent conversation.

If they had decided it was the perfect day for a walk along the beach, why does one of them complain about it from the outset?

You don't need the paragraph of description for each character as they first appear. Introduce them gradually, the reader doesn't need to know what they all look like from chapter one.

The dialogue doesn't really sounds like teenagers in conversation. It sounds like an older writer trying to sound like teenagers, a very different thing. Try studying the tone, rhythm and cadence of teenagers in conversation and I think you'll find it is very different.

It would be worth going through your text on a bit of a cliche hunt. Rather than using a phrase such as 'in the blink of an eye' which has been used countless times before, try something else, something different.

Overall I think think needs quite a lot of work. It needs to loosen up a bit and feel more honest and direct.

Best of luck with it if you decide to rework it. view book

A great concept and the pace is good - this is an exciting read.

One small thing to say upfront, and this can apply to the majority of authonomy manuscripts I read, the first paragraph feels over-written and a bit clunky. It is as if you are trying too hard. Actually, that first sentence sets the wrong tone. It tells me that I am going to read something a bit clunky and laboured, which would be unfair.

All genre fiction has its own cliches and tell-tale traits,and the opening chapters do show some of these, not always in a good way. You have a tendency to offer too much information at moments when less is more. One sentence that stood out in this way was:

A sharp tug on Phil's shoulder-length blonde hair insured his compliance as the man jerked his one-hundred-fifty-five pound frame out easily.

You've slipped details of your main character's hair and weight in what should be quite an exciting, thrilling sentence. You slow the action down with detail we don't really need to know at this stage. The opening of the book is all about the set-up and the action.

A phrase like 'insured his compliance' feels a bit clunky to me. By which I mean that it doesn't sound natural, the way people usually speak. It sounds more like the formal language police officers use in statements.

So, you have a strong premise and can handle pace very well but I would recommend going through the current version with a red pen and taking out anything which slows the reader down. Lose some of the baggage and you will have a tighter, tauter story.

Best of luck, I think you are potentially on the way to having a very good book on your hands. view book

This is definitely an interesting story - a brave and bold decision for any parents to take - and it is the tale itself that provides the entertainment. The writing style is fine but I think you try a little too hard, rendering the prose a little bit formal. Relax a bit, lighten up, make it more conversational in tone and I suspect you'd find people would engage more with it.

Check out a book called Are We Nearly There Yet? by Ben Hatch. He also took his family on a long road trip and the book he wrote as a result is very funny and has been a bestseller. Compare and contrast the style. I am not suggesting you copy him but you will find a lighter, less fussy tone which I think pulls you in. It is warmer.

Anyway, I applaud your ambition and bravery to embark on such a trip. view book

I think the idea of a collection of short tales or modern parables to highlight or explain elements of Christian teaching is a good one - it worked quite well for Jesus if I remember correctly. However, if I am honest, I found this to me more about the author recounting a series of good deeds which, though admirable in many ways, did feel a bit like a self-promotional message than anything else. Sorry, but this didn't work for me. A great advert for this particular ministry - look at what we do! - but I cannot see this having wider appeal. view book

Hugely politically incorrect but great fun. I fear the New York angle makes it less attractive to a global publisher but if it was reworked in a more general way I think you could be on to something! view book

I think the idea of this story and found the general tone quite entertaining and appealing, but it does need quite a bit of editorial work.

Some examples:

There is a lot of repetition. You often say the same thing twice in as many sentences (which is sort of what I have done there!) In the intro you say 'For some unknown reason at the end of every ninth year...' and in the next line you say 'No one knows why these gigantic suns were attracted there or for what reason.' That is pretty much the same statement told in two different ways. The same thing happens again in the next chapter, 'four unpleasant districts' is followed by 'four unappealing quarters'. It would be a good idea to go through the whole manuscript with a red pen and delete one option every time this occurs. Your book will be more streamlined and less baggy as a result.

Personally, the similes felt wrong. They jarred somewhat. I am not sure what a 'jagged tablecloth' is, and some of the others - oil on water, compass etc. - are somewhat cliched. Again, I would tone these down a bit and consider alternatives.

The core of what you have here is pretty good but I think it is somewhat over-written and this gets in the way of the story. Bring the story to the fore and worry about linguistic prowess later.

Best of luck. view book