Tuesday, November 26, 2013

"Under the Influence" Blind Critique Round Submission Window Open!!

*SUBMISSION WINDOW HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL DECEMBER 4 at 8 AM EST.  ENTRIES GO LIVE DECEMBER 4 AT 10 AM AND THE CRITIQUE TIME FRAME ENDS AT 8 PM EST DECEMBER 9.*


First I must apologize for this being late; Not ten minutes after posting my birthday blog entry, I got news that my beloved Nana has been diagnosed with end stage cancer.  As I've said countless times, 2013 has been horrible, and receiving this news on top of everything else I've been through is crushing, to say the least.  She is one of the most important people in my life, and this news is sudden and devastating.  But, because she would want me to continue doing what I do, I'm keeping positive and appreciating the time I have left with her.  Which will, understandably, cause me some more distractions and time away from the site, so please continue to be patient with me.  

My nana has taught me so much, especially in the strength and courage department, so as much as this is trying to destroy me, I won't let it.  She wouldn't want it to, especially after all the progress I've made to get back on track.  So for her, I will continue move forward, to honor her and her wishes for my success and happiness.

This month's critique round will be called "Under the Influence".  This particular round is especially for those of you who entered Baker's Dozen 2013, but didn’t receive the response you’d hoped for or maybe don’t understand why yours wasn’t chosen.  The anticipation is over, and now it's time to get back to work.  Here is your opportunity to see what might have gone wrong and to help others with the same.  I'll accept up to 50 full entries (logline and first page).  Hopefully, the feedback you'll receive here will give you what's needed to get your work chosen for the next contest or auction (Secret Agent is right around the corner!).

The catch?  This round's critiques will be BLIND.  A quote from my last blog post: "I've often wondered how much influence the first critique has on the ones that follow.  Not saying everyone is following suit, but just like movie reviews, sometimes our opinions can be swayed, even if only a little, by what the first person who saw/read it said.  So, when I post the entries, there will be a critique window.  All critiques must be submitted during this time frame.  But the catch is, no one but me will see the critiques until the time frame closes.  When it does, I'll release the critiques from the queue for all to read.  I think it will be really interesting to watch unfold!!"

So there you have it!  Once the entries go live on Sunday, you will have until Wednesday December 4 at 10 PM EST to leave your comments.  At that time, I will open the flood gates, releasing them for all to see.

This round I will accept all genres and it is one entry per person, per genre (So you can submit 1 adult, 1 NA and/or 1 YA/MG).

Starting now, please send submissions to ktcritiques [AT] gmail.com by 10 PM EST Saturday night, November 30.  I will post them Sunday, December 1 at KTCROWLEY.COM for critiquing.

In the subject, please state “DEC BLIND ENTRY”.

Please list the TITLE, GENRE and your SCREEN NAME (I will not include screen names in the critique posts, these are for my purposes only. Your screen name is the name you'll use to critique others in the comments.) above your logline and 250 words (format it the way you normally would). Please do not stop in the middle of a sentence. If it goes over the 250 limit by a couple of words, that's fine. If you stop at say, 235 words, that's fine, too.  As for the logline word limit, I'll make the cut 75 words, but please note, most loglines should only be a max 50-55 words, so keep in mind that less is more.

So your submission should look like this:


SCREEN NAME: Your Screen Name Here
TITLE: Your Title Here
GENRE: Your Genre Here

LOGLINE: (Logline here)

FIRST 250: (First 250 here).

A confirmation email will be sent, but it may not be right away. Only resend if you don't get one by the last hour of the submission window. Should I receive 50 entries, an email will be sent to notify you if you didn't make the cut and I will update this post to reflect an early closure, so get yours in quickly!

Please check your submission(s) carefully for typos, grammatical errors, etc. before submitting. Once the submission is confirmed by email, it is set to automatically post. Double checking it first will ensure your writing is critiqued appropriately. Also, please leave out "chapter one," chapter "titles", etc. Otherwise, I may count them toward your 250 and you could lose some of your first page entry.

If you enter, please critique five other entries, so that it's fair for everyone (if you enter multiple times, please critique 5 others for each one of your entries).  And spread the word; the more critiques, the merrier! Let's help everyone involved get as much feedback as possible.

 Good luck, everyone! I'm looking forward to seeing all the great writing and supportive critiques.  Got questions?  Post them in the comments or shoot me an email.

P.S. If you're not a follower of my blog, I'd love it if you'd follow my journey and join the fun! There are several ways via the right-hand side of the screen. I try to offer open critique rounds monthly to help writers like you perfect your work. Our already amazing writing community only gets better when we help each other. :)

2 comments:

  1. making it a blind critique is a GENIUS idea! I've also wondered the same thing about crits. I always try to write my critiques before I read the comments just for that reason alone

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    1. Thank you!! I'm really excited to see the results--I think it may be refreshing!

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