James Carmack
March 22nd, 2007, 07:52 PM
I've been offering to workshop a lot of people's stuff lately and I thought it'd be a good idea to lay out my terms. If nothing else, I can direct people to this thread when I make my offers.
"Who are you and why should I care?"
My handle and my name are one and the same. Makes it pretty easy, don't you think? I'm just a simple author who likes to help his fellow wordsmiths. Whether you want my help or not is up to you.
What I'm offering is intensive workshopping. That means I'll be going through your work line-by-line, doing my darnedest to catch errors syntactical, grammatical and typographical. I'll also be checking continuity, weeding out non sequiturs and doing what I can to ensure your narrative and dialog are both naturalistic and consistent.
The "profit" in the thread's title is a touch misleading. I'm not so venal that I'd charge for lending a helping hand. The profit will be on your end. Even the best writer needs a good second set of eyes to comb through his work. No matter how good you are, there's always something you miss.
If you want me to workshop your piece, all you need to do is ask. I do have a full-time job and projects of my own, but I'll try to get the job done as soon as possible.
The first step is to ask for my help. I'm not likely to turn you down, no matter how green you are or how much your manuscript might make my eyes bleed.
The second step is to submit your manuscript to me in RTF (that'd be Rich Text Format) at james@palidormedia.com.
The third step is to consider my edits and suggestions once you get the manuscript back and vigorously defend anything you disagree with or think I'm misunderstanding.
When I workshop a manuscript, I used a color-coded system to make things go smoother. Blue text is additions I've made. These include punctuation marks you've missed, capitalizations, suggested replacements, etc. Red text is deletions. This means unnecessary words, extra spaces, what have you. Green text is for highlights. Sometimes it's to comment on awkwardness. Other times I'll simply be singling out a piece for commendation or humor. (Yes, I'll crack jokes here and there. Keeps you sane [somewhat].) Purple text is my notes, various commentaries, pointers and so on.
Repeated issues will refer back to the first citation. For instance, if you use four periods for ellipses on Page 5 and I see you do it again on Page 12, you'll see the note on Page 12 say "Page 5."
I grant a fair degree of poetic license, but I'll usually make a note of conventions for your benefit. In all likelihood, you'll be facing a more conventional viewpoint when you start courting agents and publishers. At very least, you'll have some idea what to expect.
I'm doing this free of charge and expecting nothing in return. Consider it an act of good will. It's up to you whether you take advantage of my perspective or not. Operators are standing by.
"Who are you and why should I care?"
My handle and my name are one and the same. Makes it pretty easy, don't you think? I'm just a simple author who likes to help his fellow wordsmiths. Whether you want my help or not is up to you.
What I'm offering is intensive workshopping. That means I'll be going through your work line-by-line, doing my darnedest to catch errors syntactical, grammatical and typographical. I'll also be checking continuity, weeding out non sequiturs and doing what I can to ensure your narrative and dialog are both naturalistic and consistent.
The "profit" in the thread's title is a touch misleading. I'm not so venal that I'd charge for lending a helping hand. The profit will be on your end. Even the best writer needs a good second set of eyes to comb through his work. No matter how good you are, there's always something you miss.
If you want me to workshop your piece, all you need to do is ask. I do have a full-time job and projects of my own, but I'll try to get the job done as soon as possible.
The first step is to ask for my help. I'm not likely to turn you down, no matter how green you are or how much your manuscript might make my eyes bleed.
The second step is to submit your manuscript to me in RTF (that'd be Rich Text Format) at james@palidormedia.com.
The third step is to consider my edits and suggestions once you get the manuscript back and vigorously defend anything you disagree with or think I'm misunderstanding.
When I workshop a manuscript, I used a color-coded system to make things go smoother. Blue text is additions I've made. These include punctuation marks you've missed, capitalizations, suggested replacements, etc. Red text is deletions. This means unnecessary words, extra spaces, what have you. Green text is for highlights. Sometimes it's to comment on awkwardness. Other times I'll simply be singling out a piece for commendation or humor. (Yes, I'll crack jokes here and there. Keeps you sane [somewhat].) Purple text is my notes, various commentaries, pointers and so on.
Repeated issues will refer back to the first citation. For instance, if you use four periods for ellipses on Page 5 and I see you do it again on Page 12, you'll see the note on Page 12 say "Page 5."
I grant a fair degree of poetic license, but I'll usually make a note of conventions for your benefit. In all likelihood, you'll be facing a more conventional viewpoint when you start courting agents and publishers. At very least, you'll have some idea what to expect.
I'm doing this free of charge and expecting nothing in return. Consider it an act of good will. It's up to you whether you take advantage of my perspective or not. Operators are standing by.