First Chapter Readers Perspective

I didn't feel overly harassed by emails, but I did get quite a few. Some I had to pass on which wasn't fair because they were maybe better than some I chose to take time on. I felt when reading some of my comments that I was harsh or truthful, hard to decide for the writer to get that kind of news. I learned a lot in the way some entries were written, in a way that I could have the same feedback directed to my work.

I would say first person POV often turns me off in an entry that could go much deeper and more realistic, but I really enjoyed Shadowboxer. The number one rule to a novel is internal monologue, and I feel I have failed in the way of having that in my work, perhaps as much as some or less than others, and the first person POV usually bypasses that rule because it's easier to establish. There are certain no no's to first person that some writers here put in their work without knowing it.

Also, the one thing I noticed more in other entries than my own is a sort of clueing in on what's going to happen, or something more blatant.

I read everyone that I was asked to when emailed. I figured they were passionate enough to email then I should be courteous enough to read it. Just my opinion. Anyway the biggest things I saw were questionable POV...changing from 1st to 3rd and jumping all over the place after that...too many five dollar words, too much foreshadowing, if I can find out in the first paragraph what happens at the end of the book then why bother to read it. I probably have more so I will come back later.

Everyone worked very hard. Some people had to work harder than others. I think that everyone came in second.
I'm sorry I didn't have the time to read more entries.

Advice:
Build your story. You can't write a whole book in one chapter. Why would anyone bother to read the whole thing?
Beware of fillers. Don't get hung up on prose. Having a way with words doesn't necessarily mean that you're saying anything.
If you think that something isn't right, it probably isn't. Read it aloud.
Consider the comma. It can make for a smoother, softer flow than a dash or a semicolon or an ellipsis.
How did you get from one point to another? Does it makes sense? Is anything missing? Is there too much superfluous or unrelated information in between?

Turn-offs:
poor grammar
faulty sentence structure
poor punctuation
incorrect spelling
indifference
impatience
redundancy
smut for the sake of smut

Kitty Kastler

Looking at Kittys comment. I agree with alot of it. I dont know if people revised for this contest but I found many that tried to include the whole plot background and and everything in the first chapter.

I found myself telling people quite a bit to weave the background into the story

didnt get too worked up about the semi colons and things like that because frankly I dont know where they go half the time. I tried to look past a lot of the spelling errors and sentence structure to a point. I read all the time so I do see a lot of fragments in popular novels.

lots of emails asking for my comments - but overall they are a great read

I know kitty wouldn't have liked my book. Her turn offs list is what my book is made of. What is one to do? I was thinking I might need to take a class or two. Any ideas on what?

I'm going to try and be as vague as I can on this thread. I don't want to offend any entries in particular, but (notice how whenever someone says 'but' they mean 'you can ignore everything that comes before the 'but') so many of the submissions were NOT ready for this contest.

I'm not even talking punctuation, grammar, or spelling. Those things are important but a few errors can be overlooked. Heck, I'd even overlook a spelling error. What I'm referring to are POOR OPENINGS. I love stories. I love being told stories. I love reading stories. If, after 3 paragraphs, I'm yawning, thinking about cutting my fingernails, or wondering how well my maid is cleaning my condo, it's OVER.

Hey, we're all unpublished authors in this contest. We all have something to learn and we're all going to make mistakes. IF however, the main character in your opening is bored, annoyed, annoying, whiney, and/or self-absorbed. You do not have a story! I feel like 90% or more of the entries were people "writing themselves into the script," meaning they think that because their lives are interesting to them, the reader will find their characters or their character's situation inherently interesting. WRONG! Take me somewhere I've never been. Take me somewhere I never knew existed. Introduce me to someone different than anyone I've met. THAT is what an opening should do.

READ CLASSIC OPENINGS!!! Whatever genre you write in, you can examine and study the top authors. It doesn't matter which genre. Literary Fiction? Didn't the first 2 paragraphs in The Catcher in the Rye captivate you? How did he do that? Thrillers? Throw your reader into an unusual, tense, exciting situation...but make it unique...original...fresh!

No matter what the opening, use simple words to paint complex pictures....NOT the other way around. Read the opening of In Cold Blood - A Christmas Carol - Animal Farm, whatever.....simple words, complex story...not the other way around.

Oh, authors, one last thing? When getting advice, take what you like and leave the rest. That said, TAKE A LOT. Even if you think the reader is an idiot, that reader had perceptions, thoughts, feelings (or not) as they read your work. If they have the courtesy to actually share that experience with you....CHERISH IT. DO NOT ARGUE DEBATE OR TELL ME I'M WRONG AND YOU'RE RIGHT. When you really do get it right, you'll know it, you'll feel it, and almost everyone will make sure you know it. The funniest thing I've seen in this contest was 3 or 4 quality reviewers being told by the author (or worse the authors friends) that "they're wrong and just don't get it."

Well, this wasn't supposed to be a rant but I feel better having said all that.
:-)

Quick comment as I'm at the office and busy. Too much backstory/exposition in the first chapter - a first chapter that tried to do too much. I saw this in entries that otherwise wildly ranged in quality - really bad stuff to some otherwise good writing. I think it's a lack of familiarity with novel structure, overall.

Great questions. And I agree with just about everything Stephen P said. Now, for my own turnoffs:

- glaringly bad grammar and punctuation. I don't mind a misplaced semi-colon here and there or stuff that's obviously a typo. That can happen to the best of us. I mean sentences that run on for days, non-existent commas or commas thrown in with no idea of how they're supposed to be used. Or verbs which have never met the noun they're modifying. If your grammar is so bad that I have to read a sentence more than once to even understand what you're trying to say, I'm turned off.

- glaring problems in the first two paragraphs. The first five pages of most manuscripts are the best of the whole book. Why? Because they've been polished to death and gone over multiple times by people submitting a query and first five pages to agents. If you haven't gotten far enough to have cleaned your first five, your piece isn't ready for this competition and I stop reading.

- Hackneyed stuff. If your first page starts with a dream, a description of a sunset or a character looking in a mirror and describing herself...well, I'm done.

- Self-consciously literary style. If it sounds like you're trying too hard, you are. And I find it pretentious.

The biggest turn-off to me, bar none, is an author defending himself (or having a friend do it) in the comments section. I understand the temptation, really I do. But unless you're going to stand next to your book at Borders and explain all of that to every customer who picks up the book and puts it down, your defenses are pointless. Your book must speak for itself. Period. And in trying to defend it or in allowing your friends to attack those who point out errors, you look like an amateur. And yes, I know no one controls what their friends say. But if anyone, friend or stranger, posted an attack on a commenter in my entry, I would post immediately and tell them to lay off. Because I don't like looking like a yutz.

I'm putting these separately, because they are solely my own prejudices as a reader and have nothing to do with the marketability of a novel or its chances of winning here. But since the questions here go to our own personal reading style, here goes. If your entry starts with one of the following, I move on:
- graphic violence against women
- graphic violence against kids
- killing a family pet
Yes, I know that cuts a wide swath through the entries, but it's not what I enjoy reading. I wouldn't buy it in a bookstore, and I won't read it here. But I also won't rate it. I just go onto the next one.
More:
- Dragons, fairies, unicorns, elves etc. (not into fantasy)
- "Princess Cbmj from the kingdom of klpwq on the planet zxwql..." (beyond not being into SciFi, I need pronounceable words, even if they're in an imaginary language. It's all I can do sometimes not to leave a comment saying "I'd like to buy a vowel.")

One thing I wanted to find in this contest was some humor. And with a handful of notable exceptions, it was largely lacking. There was just so much sturm und drang. Individually, that's fine. But in 2,500 entries? Doesn't anyone just want to relax and have a laugh now and then?

Two trends which were at work earlier in the contest but which seemed to have passed (thank goodness) - works which began with graphic descriptions of vomit (honestly, for about two weeks there, every other chapter started with someone puking) and beautiful young women murdered, tortured, raped or about to be. On behalf of women readers everywhere...this gets old really quickly.

What do I wish all authors here knew? That grammar, punctuation and spelling are your problem, not your editor's. No one's going to magically clean it all up for you. When it's 98% perfect and your plot is pure gold, then sure, an editor will take you the other 2% of the way. But if you're not at 98%, no editor will take you on.

Finally, dialogue is your friend. Use it. You're in a roomful of people. How do you get to know them? Who they are, what they want, what drives them? Do you stand in silence and look at what they're wearing or the color of the couch they're sitting on? Or do you listen to them talk? What they're saying, how they're saying it, what reaction they're getting. Dialogue will move you along. Use it.

Bad grammar, excessive repetition, silly inconsistencies, meandering sentences - those were the things that turned me off. Sometimes though, it seemed like writers had polished their first few sentences till they fell apart, while the rest of the story was fine. Other times of course, the writers seemed not to have read their own writing and that was annoying.

Too much backstory and too much story in one chapter seemed to be common problems, probably because of the format of the competition. I couldn't finish reading some entries simply because they were too long. At the same time, it seems like I didn't put enough backstory into my entry, so I'll have to think about where the balance should be.

Lots of point of view issues - I felt like that was something I often commented on. And quite a lot of identity issues - who's speaking, how many names does the character have, how often do we need to be told the name, etc. I guess it's another balancing trick.

Authors emailing me was fine - I was free to respond or not as I wished, and it was kind of flattering to be asked.

The one thing that turned me off completely was authors who berated their critics.

Part One

Okay, Dale. You mean tell all those things I've thought but not said aloud?

Incorrect grammar, punctuation, spelling and word usage get my attention every time. Everyone misses sometimes but when it happens throughout the chapter, I doubt the writer's ability to craft a story. These are the most easily fixed mistakes but if they're still in at this stage, for a national competition, I doubt story development and characterization will be any stronger.

Prologues as long as a chapter make me wonder why they're called a prologue.
Literary references or quotes at the beginning of a chapter never apply to the chapter.
Telling rather than showing pulls me right out of a story. And many submissions suffered from telling. The thing is, until a writer gets this, he doesn't get it. I know many thought they were showing with descriptive phrases, but they don't let their characters act and react in real time. They just described what happened.
An abundance of clichés lets me know a writer is probably a reader, but hasn't developed his/her own voice yet. Clichés are good stand-ins for more creative phrases when we write a first or second draft, but they need to come out on an edit or rewrite.
A story that drops me not into a present drama but the past or the future disappoints. I asked several authors, "Why have you dropped us into this place and time? What do you want us to see? Give us a reason for being part of this. Especially in your opening."

Bouncing POV and excessive passive voice are no-nos.

Hedging. If I mentioned this once I mentioned it to half the authors I reviewed. It seemed, a bit, a little, almost, somewhat, perhaps, kind of, etc. These are all hedging words. We use these in speech so we don't hurt someone's feelings or if we're unsure and don't want to commit. But in creating fiction we get to put strong, honest emotions and words into our characters mouths and give them absolutes. I wanted to say, "Commit. Don't hedge. Make the sky a storm-tossed blue, not sort of gray-blue. Don't tell us someone looked a little bit like Carmen Miranda. Tell us her hats put Carmen Miranda's to shame."

Writers defending their work in the comment thread bothered me. Let it stand. Email the reviewer if you have questions.

That there were contestants who drummed up support for themselves but didn't read, review, and encourage other writers bothered me. Some stories got 3 or 4 comments. Shameful when the group has over 7,200 members. Find something good to say for 10 or 15 others. How hard would that be?

I got many email requests and not one was an imposition. I did like the personal ones more than the mass-generated requests. I forgot to get back to one author before his story was taken down and had to apologize. I wished he had bugged me for the review. I also emailed a couple of authors instead of commenting on their threads. I thought they would be better served with private comments.

I tended to look for 3 levels in the chapters I read. The basics—punctuation, grammar, and spelling; story line—including plot, characterization, sentence structure and word usage; and the extras that make a story complete—rhythm, tone, layers of meaning. I found very few that drew from this third level. And I only read 2 other reviewers who even mentioned something about rhythm. These are the qualities of a story that satisfy the reader and we should encourage them in every writer.

I felt that negative comments without examples served no one, but they were abundant. Give the writer an example or two so he knows what you're talking about. This will help us all become better writers.

And the just plain mean comments had me steaming. The one that struck me hardest was for a man who wrote a scene about lesbian seduction that subsequently turned into an attack. Perhaps not a topic for most of us, but he only had 4 comments when I saw his submission on his next-to-last day. One comment said, "You are a nasty, nasty man." That's it. How is that supposed to help? The thing was, the man could write. I hope he continues working at his craft.

Someone else mentioned the names, places, and words in fantasy works. The same holds true for sci-fi and any story that incorporates make-believe lands or peoples. Names should mean something. Draw upon your study and knowledge of foreign language when creating names.

Part Two

I did not read enough of the entries to say with conviction that most stories fell into the average range, but of the ones I did read, that's where I would put the majority. A great plot doesn't work without great writing, and technically proficient writing can't hide lack of plot or help a story told all in flashback.

A few stories, with attendant groupies, made me think of American Idol. I never really believed those singers didn't know they couldn't sing. Now I believe it. Friends shining on their friends did them no favors. I can only imagine how embarrassed the writers will be in a year or two if they continue to develop their craft.

There were some great stories, some near great with potential, and some good writers who perhaps picked a subject that didn't work for them. I truly enjoyed the stories that engaged me from start to finish without triggering my internal editor. Unfortunately, there were fewer than I had expected.

I missed the first month of stories. I'm sorry I didn't get to see what else was out there. And I regret that I couldn't read more. Some of my reviews took up to 1 ½ to 2 hours from the first read to the posting of comments.

What should would-be authors know? That it's not as easy as it looks. And even when you've finished a book, it's not as good as you think. And when you start re-writing, it's not as bad as it feels.

I would tell everyone to keep working on their craft. Don't let reviews discourage but use them to spur yourself on. Read more for pleasure if you don't read enough. Study a couple of grammar or punctuation books if that's where your weakness is. Join a critique group. Start a new project if the one you presented here didn't work. Or, go back and gut the sucker if it needs it and rewrite. And remember that not one of us is perfect. Even if we were to get it all right, I can just imagine a printer or typesetter messing up, leaving us looking like fools. Doing our best with the tools we have now is as good as we can do. And that's quite good enough.

My turn-offs:

1) Cliches, cliches, cliches. Cliches demonstrate lazy writing. Here's the test if you're not sure a phrase is a cliche: if you think you've heard the phrase before, drop it and go deep and think of something original.

2) Lack of a conflict, curiousity, or change in the status quo in the beginning paragraphs. Conflict, wackiness, or change in the opening paragraphs brings the reader in. We start asking questions and want to read more.

3) Stiff or generic authorial voices.

4) Sterotypes/caricatures.

5) Implausible dialogue.

6) Serious grammatical problems. My biggest pet peeve: pluralizing a noun with an apostrophe.

7) Clunky descriptions of scenery.

Some chapters had a few of these problems, though the chapter managed not to sink. Some chapters had these issues in tiny doses, and some had them in much larger quantities.

It'll be interesting to see the editor's picks. The popularity portion turns me off. I'm most aroused? when I'm reading quality. The one I thought was excellent was "Some Lovely Parting Gifts." However, Outlaw Children, Shadowboxer, and Dear Your Honor should also proceed. I've still got work to do on mine, but if they liked it, I'd be happy to go forward in the contest. If not, I'm here to stay. Great feedback will come from Gather even after the contest. And I'd like to think they'd comprehend the work as much as I do, given what's there so far.

I'll second what Ian just said. I'm going to hang around here too. This site is cool. I can see now that my story was overflowing with weak points. It is hard to see the forest for the trees when you're writing. But with one exception all the criticism was fair and well meant. One person, I think, didn't like my character for who she was, which in my opinion, was rather beside the point. What I wanted to know about was my writing. And by far that is what everyone commented upon.
As far as other works: A lot of really bad writing, some really first rate material, and a lot more that was inbetween the two.
Mostly, I saw a lot of what I was guilty of myself. Too wordy, not enough direction. All in all though, a fascinating experience.

Ahh, the reader. That's really where it all starts. Good writing is first all about doing lots of reading, developing a taste for particular types of work, exploring and eventually trying it yourself.

It was actually a fascinating process to step back and read through a first chapter. I heard lots of complaints about not being able to find out the genre or a glimpse of plot, but frankly, it's all got to be in the words themselves. The work which really grabbed me as a reader was where a story emerged, the characters were clearly drawn and there was something intriguing about the point of view, the plot or the setting.

Turnoffs?

- Spelling and grammar are the basics. They really must be there, otherwise they simply distract and wear down the reader. For those writers who got hit for this, sit down and read, or re-read "The Elements of Style" or one of the other many good books on writing. Simplicity and clarity usually (but not always) is better.

- Confusing point of view: It is hard enough to keep a narrative going with a single point of view. Shifting them around can easily confuse the reader, so this is to be done with great care. Try reading someone like Ursula LeGuin, who is a master at this.

Tell the story: part of the thing that draws me in as a reader is to tell the story at a pace which brings the reader in. It is OK to challenge the reader, to make us work a bit and to let the back story emerge only as it needs to.

As a reader / contestant, this process has actually been both fun and very instructive. We have all been honing our critical reading skills and this can only help our future writing projects.

Dale, it is a good idea for us to put on our reader's hats and talk about the process. Thanks for kicking it off.

Lotsa bad, lotsa average. Then I'd go to "interesting but flawed," and "professionally done."

There weren't a lot of entries that had much going on beneath the surface, if that makes any sense. I like things with levels, that hint, that are playing with ideas below the overt story. By that I'm not talking about wild meta-fiction or post-modernism or anything like that - just writing where the craft elevates it to something beyond the story that's being told. I realize that's a terrible metaphoric hash, with things below the surface and elevating at the same time, but whatever. I'm tired. I'll try to think of some examples that illustrate this better than I explain it.

Most of the stories, even the very good ones, were pretty straightforward in their storytelling. That's okay a lot of the time - like I said, there were entries I enjoyed a lot that I thought were of professional caliber, and I'd rather read something like that than some "literary" drek that doesn't go anywhere.

Okay, two entries that had more subtlety to them, something extra in their craft, I thought, were DISPOSABLE and THEODORE'S CHOOSING. These ran early on so a lot of you probably didn't see them. Oh, and HOMELAND. I'm sure there were more.

Hi, guys,

Just a few more hours, and I'll return to the land of the sane and unobsessed.

For the person above who wanted more humor, there's a terrific entry called Calypso's Cross.

It's meant for a YA audience, but is good enough for the rest of us, too. I loved this piece. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. I think it's got about the same amount of time left as mine ( The Raider's Wife - sorry for the shameless plug, I'm desperate), so it'll go down sometime tomorrow.

Cathy

I can say that both Calypso's Cross and the Raider's Wife were very enjoyable.

My turn.

I've been here since the beginning of the competition and I've read (as much as I could) of every single entry. I made (and kept) a personal commitment not to downrate anyone. When asked for my opinion I gave it honestly. When I wasn't asked I held my peace.

As a reader I was seeking stories that started at the beginning, engaged me with a compelling situation and drew me in so I wanted to learn more about what was going on.

This is the challenge. From the very first word you want the reader to be interested in what you have to show them. If it's not interesting to you it won't be interesting to them.

This challenge persists from your opening line right up until you type 'the end' (your parting sentence.) You have to give the reader a reason to keep on reading!

I can not emphasize enough the importance of building tension into the story! The key to building tension is to use exposition sparingly.

That's important enough to repeat as both words are important 'Use' and 'Sparingly'.

Exposition is a tool, not background information or filler. Learn to use this tool and you will learn to master tension. If you learn to master tension everything you write will be compelling!

Characterization. Every character you create shoud be based on the personality of someone you know so that character will come alive and feel 'authentic'. Every good writer uses this tool and you should too.

Sequence of events. Attention paid to this tool will help you control how the story 'flows', linearity is key to not breaking that delicate thing we call 'suspension of disbelief'.

POV. Concentration is another delicate state to keep in mind. It's important not to overtax the reader's concentration by having too many things going on at once.

Your job (besides not writing anything that doesn't move the story forward) is to decide what is important for the reader to focus on while leaving some things to the reader's imagination.

With that said, the rest is 'art'.

My work is done here.

My biggest problem as a reader was finding the readable chapters among the entries. I found maybe five to ten entries where I would honestly pay to see the rest of the novel. I found about an equal number where the writing was quite good, but I saw flaws in the mechanics or plotting that made me wonder how good the rest of the novel would be. The rest were either really not my type of writing or just weren't very good.

I'm sure I didn't find anywhere near all of the good first chapters that were out there. I tried to use the highest rated sort to find the good stuff, but all that really told me is which contestants brought the most friends. Good entries didn't stay in the highest rated category on merit alone, because the drive-bys quickly pushed them back into the pack. That's not to say that there was never anything good among the top-rated chapters. It's just that in order to stay up there an author had to bring a lot of friends.

I found that the most commented sort was actually a better indicator of quality than the highest rated. It wasn't perfect, because a lot of pieces were there because of fluff two-liners from all of their friends.

I actually started scanning the comments for certain names because I discovered that if they took time to comment on a piece, especially at length, the piece was usually worth reading.

I have to admit that I read the first full paragraph and last full paragraph of probably forty percent of the pieces I came across and then just went on to the next entry without rating or commenting. I felt bad about doing that because every one of these entries represents a big chunk of someone's life. At the same time, if there were serious grammar errors in the first and last paragraphs I didn't want to spend my time limited reading time on the chapter. If I could already tell where the novel was going and I didn't want to go there I walked away too.

I'll be interested in seeing how the next round goes. In the first round, the key was finding a way to stand out among all of the other entries. That won't be an issue next round with only twenty entries to choose from.

I'm guessing that a few of the people in that next round will lose simply because they alienated too many people in order to get there. I'm sure we can all think of a person or two where we would have trouble voting for their entry no matter how good it is.

I had the inverse of what most had and that's people claiming to be retired editors sign up just to blast my entry. They zeroed in on a particular political inference so I remodeled that too. But I also had good feedback and employed most of the changes which were: a bit of telling backstory, and stilted dialogue, so I clipped it as directed. Instead of narrating the context I revealed it in dialogue. No hook at chapter's end. There has to be a curtain call for the next entry. Many didn't have enough terrible trouble or worse rewarded their protagonists at the end. Break out the party hats isn't what readers are looking for.

Way too many first person narrations. Novels generally aren't memoirs most most of these first person accounts clearly were.

Thanks for the invitation to come and put in my five cents worth, but most of my points have already been listed.
I did get tired of authorial intrusion in the comments section. As said above, if you have to explain something to me about your story, then you have failed to convey it in your story. Also, authors saying "well yeah, my grammar/punction/mechanics are bad but that doesn't matter as some poor lackey editor will fix my brilliant story for me." The rules of language exist to ease communication between human beings. If you know your mechanics stink, get someone to edit your piece BEFORE you submit it to a competition. Good luck getting out of the slush pile in a publisher/agent's office past those poor editorial "lackeys." Be aware that even the major publishing houses don't employ anywhere near the number of editorial assistants they used to in the good old days.

I read very few chapters where I didn't have to fight my way past the opening paragraph. Not a very good idea when most books bought in the bookstore will be judged after a quick perusal of your first page. I don't care how "fascinating" your book jacket blurb would be (another common authorial instrusion in comments as authors decided it was OK to share a synopsis of their story with us), if your first page doesn't grab me your book will go straight back on the shelf.

I also was more than a little irked by people attempting to stuff their resume down my throat "I (almost) won the competition for novel most likely to..." "A famous author said my typing was immaculate..." I'm sure you saw similar things. This was supposed to be a contest between first chapters. Anything thing else smacked of an attempt to unfairly influence the vote to me.

I wasn't prepared for the political element of this competition either. I saw very bland, if well-written, stories garner a lot of attention because of campaigning worthy of a presidential race. Often the nature of the work got lost in the process. I received three e-mails from one author alone asking me to change my opinion/ remove my comment because I obviously was not capable of understanding how brilliant her story was. I've seen flagrant vote manipulation, so flagrant that I've reported it to the authorities. I've never been a tattle-tale before one day in my entire life, but they pushed me to it. I saw fine stories like "Archie Cleebo" trounced by drive-by 1ers, while Bill R. behaved with such dignity in response and I couldn't stop myself from taking a stand.

A flagrant example still posted is "Jaybean Treat and the Stone of Qadar." Highly derivitive with "spontaneous unbiased support" from voters who just came to life in the couple of minutes after you posted any comment that might be interpreted as negative. Under "Rebecca Tree" there are two comments from a "Daniela R" from New York, practically the same short comment, and apparently supposed to be two separate people with, one can only assume, two separate 10 votes to offer. As I've written elsewhere -- at least show me you're creative enough as a writer to invent a different name for your imaginary friends.

Most of the e-mail invitations I received came from people who were not attempting to manipulate the vote. I don't know if that would have been a different experience for people who seemed from their comments to like everything they read. I obviously didn't like everything I read.

To the valiant who came here to enter into competition with their peers, I wish you all the luck in the world.

To those of you who clearly showed your lack of faith in your own work by working so hard to cheat and defraud the system answer me this... If you don't believe in the merit of your work, then why the hell should we?

*SNORT*!

For me, I didn't mind getting personal email invitations - from people who actually noticed that I spent a lot of time commenting and was, I hope, generally thoughtful and supportive in my comments. The mass mailings did irk me because with one exception, the perpetrators had not bothered to participate in the contest prior to their submission. One in fact told me that he only rated "anonymously" because he didn't think as a contestant that his making public comments was "fair." Somebody please parse that logic for me!

Given the abuses of the ratings system, I am curious how Gather will even determine the 15 "most popular" entries. If they have any sense they will be flexible in how they interpret "popularity." I think there are some good books here - I don't have a sense of how many because as diligent as I was, I couldn't possibly look at all 2500 of them! It would be a shame if better entries are passed over in favor of cheaters with cheerleaders.

Callie - You actually had an author email you to try to get you to change your comment? Oh my word. That may win the prize for Unmitigated Gall.
I'd have been tempted to cut and post the email into a comment on their piece.

The answer to all the first four questions is the same. I felt most writers were deficient in plotting. Too often the back story was laid out before we were interested in the protagonist or the story question. There did not seem to be a realization that the first chapter had to hook the reader into the book.
I have four books I am planning on buying next month and I also need to write 12000 words for the sequel to the novel I posted here. If I pick up and glance through a novel in a store, it has to hook me hard enough to derail those plans.
As to e-mail requests--I had no problems with them. I know how to say no. I wish I had known it was possible to request critiques last February. I did not comply with them all, but I got the majority.
The overall quality was what I expected. A large majority of the entries needed exposure to critique groups or writing classes. But there were, sadly, a good number of them that I felt were better than mine.

"Somebody please parse that logic for me!"

Selfishness.

I do agree that there were some authorial intrusions in the comments section. Too many synopses given. In a way, putting synopses in the messages or even in the private messages when soliciting comments, is cheating. It's not a synopsis contest; it's a first chapters contest.

However, I did respond to everyone who commented, mostly thanking them for reading and for their support. But if a reader didn't think my chapter was her thing, I didn't try to convince her of my chapter's merits. If a commenter missed something literal in the chapter, I pointed it out--e.g. thinking a character was popular when he wasn't, unsure about the use of language in third person limited omniscient POV. I tried to keep my clarifications strictly about techinical issues, not matters of taste, which I didn't think it appropriate to argue. I mean if someone doesn't like creme brulee, don't force her to like it. But I felt it necessary to point out where a reviewer missed a literal aspect of the story so that other readers won't blindly assume that reader was correct.

Well, it looks like it is over. There are a few stray chapters still up for some reason, but the vast majority are down. I spent about three hours when I should have been doing something else trying to get through as many of the last set of entries as I could, looking for overlooked gems.

I decided to approach the entries like I imagine an overworked editor trying to go through a slushpile would. I knew I didn't have time to read and comment on everything, but I did at least read the first and last couple of paragraphs of probably 60 to 70 entries, regardless of their current rating. Unless something stood out about the writing in those first or last paragraph I went on without commenting or rating. If I was in doubt, I skimmed through a few sections, looking for something that grabbed me.

From what I've heard, that's about the process a real editor (or more probably some intern acting as a 'first reader') would use. They have an ever growing pile of manuscript, and their job is to filter that pile. They can't possibly read all of those manuscripts, and it doesn't make economic sense to do so. They know form previous experience that 90-95% of the manuscripts that don't hook you in the first couple of paragraphs won't be worth reading. They end up doing some variation of what I did.

I stayed long enough to read and comment on probably half a dozen entries out of 60 or 70. If I was a publisher, I don't think I would have bought any of the manuscripts I did read out of that batch. It's not that they were universally awful. Some looked like the start of enjoyable stories. It's just that none stood out to the extent I would expect someone to pay $15.95 or even $6.95 for them.

Almost everything I read was in a narrow rating range: between about 5.5 and 6.5. I found that if the ratings were below 5.9 the chapter generally wasn't very good. Within the 5.9 to 6.5 range, nothing about the rating or the number of times rated indicated anything meaningful about the quality of the story. I could see no correlation whatsoever.

I agree with Lisa that it will be hard for Gather to figure out who the top 15 really are. It seemed to me that the ratings went up toward the end of the contest, but I did not see a corresponding increase in overall quality; as usual, some were very good, some had obvious weaknesses, but the ratings ebbed and flowed. Then, trying to take into account the driveby ones or other ratings manipulations is a real challenge.

Perhaps they'll do it the way the golf handcappers do, by throwing out the scores that just don't seem to belong and then seeing where it ends up. Now, that will be a difficult task for someone or some team in gatheradmin land.

So would an entry with an overall 400 votes and a rating of 6.9, for example, beat a 7.5 with 250 votes--or not? What logarithms are used in determining the winner????

Again, for anyone who may have missed it before, I am a reader only, not a writer. I am the end consumer of your product, so I figure that gives me a right to comment. I've been here since January, and tried to provide thoughtful feedback. Some of you think I have. One or two of you have probably burned me in effigy. I've probably commented on close to a hundred of these chapters, and read many more without commenting.

For those concerned about the 'punctuation police', too bad. As far as I'm concerned, a writer who doesn't have a good grasp of punctuation and grammar is like a carpenter without a good grasp of hammer and nails. They are the tools of your trade. If you can't use them correctly, you're in the wrong business. I don't care how good your story is, how brilliant your prose, if you can't convey that story to me in a readable format, you may as well give it up. A few typos, ok. A few (and I emphasize few) misplaced commas, forgiveable. Egregious misplacement of punctuation, and I'm not wasting my time. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. When a reader reads your story, we 'hear' it in our heads. How we hear it, the rythm and tone of it, is based on large part on the punctuation. You, the writer, are supposed to use punctuation as guideposts for the reader, so we 'hear' the story you are 'telling'. Notice how the words I'm using all relate to sound. As I've said before, no one ever says a story "looks" good, we say it "sounds" good. Your punctuation is our only guide to that sound.

Ditto on the run on sentences. If it's two thoughts, put it in two sentences. 'And' was used endlessly to string together multiple actions. I've seen whole paragraphs that consist of one long sentence, strung together with lots of 'ands'. I've seen other long sentences with a million commas sprinkled like jimmies on an ice cream cone. Match the length of your sentence to the story. If it's an action/drama/thriller, use shorter sentences. If its dreamy and langorous, then longer sentences are more acceptable.

I agree with the person above who said that too many of these read like memoirs, or near memoirs. For heaven's sake, can the character's job *please* be something other than writer/editor/publisher/journalist/poet? They all started to sound too self-centered. Also, if you're going to write about a profession different than your own, do the research and get the details right. The characters that did have jobs other than the ones mentioned above often failed on the plausibility factor.

I've also got a personal dislike for the first person present tense narrative. It's claustophibic. I suppose this may be popular in some circles, but I can't stand it. Draw me into a story as an observer. Don't force me into taking every breath with the protagonist. That style makes me feel like I'm being forced into someone else's skin, and it's a tight fit.

I hated the author popping in on every other comment to comment on the comments. If I saw that happening, I bypassed the chapter. As a reader, the BUYER of your product, I'm not going where I'm going to be attacked. On the other hand, with one exception, I read every chapter I was invited to read. The exception arrived too late, and I simply ran out of time.

I've been frankly startled to receive thanks on some of my comments, especially when I hadn't been particularly kind. I had one person email me, who called my remarks on other chapters 'initimidating', but wanted me to look at her work anyway. That's a writer who really wants to be a better writer. I had another who actually rewrote his chapter and emailed me the rewrite. My heart just swelled. There's another who's taken oblique shots at me elsewhere. Okay, so I need to grow a skin as thick as yours. Mostly though, you have been courteous and thoughtful. Either your mothers raised you to be exceptionally gracious, polite people, or you have remarkably thick skins. Hats off to you either way. You have no idea how often you made my day.

In every case, I tried to avoid allowing the story subject influence my rating. I read a lot of stuff that I would never in a million years buy. Thank you to the reviewer above who commented on the graphic violence and attacks on women. It got to be a bit much. I was amused by the writers who discovered I like sci/fi fantasy. I was bombarded by these authors, who felt that, at last, they had found a reviewer who 'got' them. The same thing happened with the chick-lit writers. And the thriller writers, et. al. Fact is, I like most everything, as long as the story is told well. In my 'top six' picks, there are two sci/fi and/or fantasy chapters, one in the 'Dan Brown' mold, one hilarious chick-lit, one adventure, and one character drama.

Here's what I've been curious about, and this seems the place to finally ask. Did any of us readers really help? You all seem obsessesed (naturally) with your own chapter's rating, but you seem to forget that there's also a stipend being offered to reviewers. I know you *all* know the name Mike C. Noble Collins was in there providing tons of input, as was Tom Hunter and Rita R. In the early days of the contest, David Rochester provided some terrific insight. Another reviewer's drive-by cut-and-paste reviews made me crazy. We all have a few favorite chapters. Do you also have favorite readers? Since we don't get those pretty gold stars, we have no way of knowing if we've been of any use. Or should the readers go away, and leave this site to the writers only?

Did the readers help? Yes, they helped a lot.

I've been in a critique group for 13 years; but last November, for several reasons, I took a leave from the group. You have no idea how good it was to get here and have people look at my stuff with fresh eyes. I realize now that at least part of the reason I began to feel constricted by my group was that I wasn't getting serious critiques anymore. Our meetings had degenerated to cheerleading sessions. It was such a relief to get honest reactions. (Even if they were sometimes contradictory. My favorite was the name I chose for the dog in my story - one person said, Can't you come up with anything better than that? A couple of comments later, someone said, Love the dog's name!)

As to the contest itself - it was an education. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. It was fascinating to read the other chapters. A lot of them weren't ready for prime time, but there were some gems. I wish I'd been here earlier; I understand I missed some great stuff.

I have no idea how the Gather staff is going to choose the final 20. Some of the highest-traffic, highest-rated chapters were mediocre. Of course, once a chapter got enough traffic to land on the 'highest rated' or 'most discussed' pages, the rating became self-perpetuating. It wasn't just inconvenient to get to the other chapters, it was downright hard, especially if you had limited time. Even if they go back and recalculate the ratings without the drive-by 1s, they can't repair the damage a submission suffered by having been relegated to the fourth page or beyond.

Of course, winning this was always a crap-shoot, just as getting published is a crap-shoot. You have to be an awfully squeaky wheel to get noticed. If you aren't the squeaky type, you might as well pin your hopes on winning the lottery. Or settle for passing out manuscripts to your friends, so they'll ooh and aah over you. (But enough about me...)

Things that turned me off:

Poor grammar, punctuation, and spelling - those are deal breakers, right off the bat.

Telling too much of the backstory up front. That's the hardest thing a writer has to learn - how to dole it out a tidbit at a time.

Telling feelings instead of showing feelings; or telling feelings after showing them perfectly competently. "I hate you!" she said angrily. Gah.

Too many $2 words when a few carefully selected nickel varieties would be more effective. 'His eyes hungrily drank in the radiant beauty of her porcelain skin.' You can get just as much mileage out of: 'He stared.'

Wandering POV. I really don't like that. If you want to show the scene from two POVs, write it twice. The latter can be really, really intriguing; the former just feels amateurish.

Cliches. Adverbs. Dueling dialogue tags - he screamed, she shrieked, he laughed, she shouted. Couldn't they just SAY it?

I could go on for hours, but I'm getting tired of my own gas-bagging. Somebody else gets the floor now. I have thank-yous to write.

Cathy

Chandra, how could I forget him? He's been down here in the pits slogging away with the rest of us, since the beginning. It's been interesting to watch the reviewers, and their perspectives, change over the months. You, here in March, are a distinctly different group than was here in January. Back then, it was dog-eat-dog. Now, it's more "can't we all get along?". It's been an interesting evolution. I can't wait to see how many of the final 20 come from the earlier entries, and how many come from the later entries. Really, it's a very different flavor.

Does anyone have a guess as to how many serious readers were out there at a given time? I noticed maybe twenty to thirty names on a large enough percentage of the entries I looked at that I remembered the name.

On the 'grammar police' issue: I think quite a few contestants think that they don't have to worry about grammar because the story is so compelling that the editor will love it in spite of the poor grammar. Editors these days are not in the business of cleaning up 'diamonds in the rough'. They don't have to be. They are flooded with manuscripts where the author took the time to get the grammar right or at least tried hard to do so.

Dale, I think your guess of 20 to 30 'core' readers is probably a good one. I noticed that most readers tended also to be writers, and when their chapter went down, they drifted away. Most of the reviewers I'm seeing now are not the same ones that were here in January.

The ratings in this latter group are, overall, higher than in the earlier group. In January, a 5.8 was a really good rating. Now, anything less than a 6.5 causes tears and angst. Raters in the earlier group tended to start out with a 5 as their base rate (an average grade of C, using a bell curve), and went up or down from there, based on their opinion of the chapter. Now, it looks like readers start out with a base number of 10, and won't rate anything less than a 6. I consider a 2 to be a D-. If I give anyone a 2 now, I'm treated like I've stabbed somebody's baby in the heart.

I think too many 10's are given for 'feel good' reasons, rather than as an objective, thoughtful critique of actual work. A couple of you have said you give 10's as recognition of a writer's efforts and hard work, regardless of the result. My boss doesn't pay me for my efforts, he pays me for the actual work product. If I turn out a shabby product, he doesn't care that I've put in 60 hour weeks, and worked nights and weekends on it. He pays me based on the actual value of the end product. In the end, writing is work, like any other job. You are going to get paid (or rated) based on your end product. Out of all the work I read here, I only gave 2 tens, and one 9. I don't know whether it took the writer 2 months or 2 years to produce that work. I only know what I see from the end product. And that's what I based my rating on. That's the same criteria a publisher is going to use.

That said, I hope the winning 'readers' are people whose input I respect, as much as the winning writers. I wish there was a way for writers to rate readers too.

I valued all the critiques given to my entry "Wife Seeking Wife," the number one reason being that none of them were from people I knew. I never invited my family or anyone I knew outside of Gather to read/rate my entry because I knew they would shower it with 10 stars and glowing praise because they love me and want me to win (duh!). What I truly wanted was an honest critique from people I didn't know so that even if I didn't win this contest (which is very likely), I came away with feedback that I can incorporate into my work for future submissions to other venues.

For that, I am eternally grateful to Gather for this priceless opportunity to have a glimpse of my work put on display and to all who were kind enough to take time out of their busy lives to stop by my entry and leave behind such constructive criticism.

I've belonged to many online read-and-rate communities for several years, and as a result of my experience, I've never placed much stock in the ratings...there are drive-bys in every single one of those communities, a fact of life that does not bother me at all because it's a reflection of who THEY are, not who YOU are.

This invaluable feedback helps me to grow as a writer. In the end, that's all that matters to me. Like Isaac Asimov once said: "I write for the same reason I breathe—because if I didn't, I would die."

"I think too many 10's are given for 'feel good' reasons, rather than as an objective, thoughtful critique of actual work."

Boy howdy. My ratings, and unlike some in the contest I rated all the way through, ranged from 2 to 7. All of the leaders were artificially inflated. As has been said some of the most blatant violators rarely rated others work and even claimed to do so anonymously. Right.

I jumped on to the bandwagon of First Chapters Readers a couple of weeks late. Thereafter too I could not devote as much time to them as I would have wished because of my other preoccupations. I read about eighty entries and a lot of reviews by readers. Overall, I found it an enjoyable as well as a learning experience.

The way the story is told matters most to me. A good story poorly told cannot hold my interest for long. Because of the flood of contest entrees I have been quite choosy about the chapters to read; and most of the chapters that I read were, to my consideration, above average. I found the entries of most of those who emailed me direct were really good and which I would otherwise have missed. I do not have any pre-determined set of rules, genres, likings or dislikings to weigh any entry. When a good story is told well it is able to transport me to the world of dreams that it contains. It means that the writer has worked hard to give a good finish to the story and the language in order to win the reader's credibility and attention. It was then that I was able to tell that a particular entry had merit and my reflections as comments followed naturally.

However, several entries could have been better structured story-wise and better finished language-wise, which shows that those authors weren't ready for publication yet but did not want to lose the excellent opportunity that the contest provided.

Let's see...I think I would qualify as a "core reader." I disappeared for two weeks because I was out of the country. I still read towards the end but dropped off some because I am on dialup at home, and Gather on dialup is Not Pretty.

But I'll admit I was really, really fried after a period of intensive reading. Too many chapters started out the same (the aforementioned dead women, discursive philosophical meanderings, elves n' dwarves, etc.). The chapters with cheerleaders really got to me as well - I had to really stop myself from making nasty comments in response.

As a writer, did the comments help me? Yes and no. I'd already worked with a small writer's group and felt that the chapter I had up was pretty polished and did what I wanted it to do. At least, I couldn't think of any other big improvements. I had some extremely astute readers who found a few things, and that was helpful. Mostly what they did for me was give me the sense that I had actually connected with some people, that what I wrote created the picture that I'd wanted to create.

Not everybody was positive, of course. I felt like most of the negative comments I got were of the "well, this just isn't my thing" variety. Pat S., you probably wouldn't have liked it because I did use the present tense first person (first time I ever have; for some reason it just fit for me). That's fine too, but it raises issues for reviewing.

I read one entry that was a gothic romance. A lot of reviewers didn't like the genre and said kind of nasty things because of that. To me this is totally out of line. I am not a big romance fan either, but IMO the chapter was well-written and professionally executed. A lot of stuff to which reviewers objected are conventions of the genre.

Anyway it seems to me that some reviewers took their dislike of a particular genre and downrated to an absurd extent ("well, I don't like romance, so I'm giving this a 3"), rather than looking at the piece on its own merits or just not rating/reviewing if it's something not to your taste.

I'm guessing that Pat S. was a fair reviewer, from the quality of her critique.

Luckily I felt there was a direct correlation between stuff I found repugnant (sexual violence against women with no real justification) and bad writing, so that made my job easier in those cases. I remember several entries that hit my personal Repulsive Trifecta: sexual violence against women with no real justification, poor writing, and cheerleaders in the comments. Those got my lowest ratings of the contest (3s and 4s).

Thank you Lisa. Sounds like we had similar criteria. The 'trifecta' you mentioned was big with me too. Since one of the criterion for judging was commercial potential, I downgraded for the trifecta as well, since those entries did not seem to have broad audience appeal, other than to their cheerleaders.

Oh, I thought you were saying there was a chapter about cheerleaders and I'd missed it. I so bummed. (grin)

There probably was a chapter somewhere here about cheerleaders. There were chapters about everything else!

No. no. That's on tv: Save the cheerleader, save the world.

:-)

Cathy

For me, the main distractions were horrendous grammar, pathetic spelling and sloppy (or nonexistent) punctuation. I found these rampant among the entries... and, too often, among the comments, as well. I can't tell you how many time I've wanted to correct the spelling, grammar and punctuation in the readers' comments!

Additionally, authors who felt the need to "defend" themselves or their characters, plots or stories in the comments section ticked me off, no end. As I began each story, the rating always stood at a 5; it was up to the author to sway me up or down. Often, I skimmed through the comments first. If I saw "rebuttal" comments from an author -- or anything hinting at subsequent plot or character development, that knocked the rating down to a 1 immediately and only terrific writing, dialogue and technicals (spelling, grammar, punctuation) would get it back to a 5.

Okay, maybe I'm too picky; but it's my prerogative to go by whatever criteria I feel necessary to judge entries. As another commenter here said, the author won't be standing beside his/her display of books at Borders, explaining every subtle nuance of the characters' personalities to people who pick up the book and read the jacket description. What makes them think they could expect to be allowed to do basically that here?

When I received email requests to review an entry, I always honored them; what's more, I put considerable effort into reading and commenting on those chapters -- often an hour or more, between reading and commenting.

No matter how much I may have found wrong with a chapter, I would always try to begin with some positive comment -- even if the best I managed to come up with was commending the author for his/her courage and determination in submitting a novel for consideration.

There were several times when I hastily typed scathing comments and then, on further (and wiser) consideration, rewrote the entire horrid thing, reflecting on what was right with the story and then -- as gently as possible (and occasionally with a bit of humor) -- point out the things that needed work. After all, I would have been crushed if I'd gotten a comment as vicious as what I'd initially typed, so why would I subject someone else to that kind of nastiness?

There were several chapters I definitely felt need to advance to the second round: "The Chocolatier's Wife," "Inside Out," "Some Lovely Parting Gifts," "The Funniest Woman in New York," "Char" and "Dream War," to name a few. There were others and I apologize, but my competition-addled brain is too mushy to retain names of what they were. I recall a legal drama, too, whose title escapes me.

Thanks, Dale, for starting this thread.

Rita :o)

Did Gather delete the thread that started with Submission Period Ended? I can't seem to find that.

On another note, I must defend typos in the comment sections. I see mine above where I omitted a word. Really, most of my comments were made well after midnight and I request a presidential pardon for typos in the comments due to the fact that reading so many bad chapters represents cruel and unusual punishment.

And no spell checker available in the "post" section puts we spelling challenged individuals at a major disadvantage and probably is a violation of Federal Law under the Americans With Disabilites Act.

And one more thing. Now that we've saved the cheerleader, how come the world is still at risk? And I wonder if she can be cloned.

I'll repeat what I said in another thread about grammar:

Grammar is very, very important to me. It's essential. My mom was an English teacher's English teacher, and because of her, I know that knowledge of English grammar is the way to understand what you read. If you've got dangling or misplaced modifiers, it can be confusing; you don't know what the hell the writer means. An example:

Running through the fields, the flowers seemed to dance above the long grass.

Wow. Can flowers dance???? So, being mindful of grammar is not necessarily a snobby thing; it's a matter of being *clear*. If I were to read a sentence like that (which I had in the contest), the vision that the writer is putting in my head jumps like a damaged film reel. And that's not good.

Okay, sorry to be posting so much but I found the submission period ended article. It's hidden away, I guess because it's been flagged as "hate speech." Now isn't that wierd?

steve

In order to differentiate me from all of the other Stevens at Gather I've added a photo of me escaping. Also that way I won't be accused of being one of those nameless drivebys. But gosh, I didn't realize it would go back insert it all over the place. Hmm, maybe I should have put up a photo of a cheerleader instead.

By the way, in case anyone cares, that's a Great Black Backed Gull, the only true predator in the Gujll family.

Rita, being picky is one thing, and knocking down entries a point or whatever because of argumentative comments is another, but really, giving them a 1? That seems excessive to me. I feel strongly that ultimately we should be judging people on their writing, not whether they are obnoxious or not.

I'm not sure if this really belongs in this thread, but I belatedly did some research into our prospective publisher and its imprints. Here is a concise listing of the imprints and what they do:

http://www.simonsays.com/content/feature.cfm?feature_id=1636&tab=1

Well I mean S&S is one of the biggest houses in the world. It's not like it's some fringe independent or vanity press.

Judging by the comments and author participation is a red herring and has nothing to do with the wriitng. While Rita's criteria are harsh, others is noexistent so? I pity anyone who wrote "alot" in their manuscripts.

For Rita R., way up there, I think the legal drama you were thinking of may have been Perjury. That's the one where everyone in the comments went ballistic over the attorney showing the witness a note that said "Liar". Yeah, I liked that one too.

I also defend the typos and misspellings in the comments. Like a reviewer above, many were written way past midnight, I was in hour 5 of reading and commenting, and there's no d****d spellchecker. Just because I'm a punctuation freak doesn't mean I know how to type.

Lisa F,

Please don't misunderstand me. I didn't necessarily leave ratings at the level of 1 for authors who dropped hints about future plot or character development in the comments section; what I said (see below) was that their rating dropped to 1 and it was up to the quality of the writing to convince me to raise it.

"If I saw "rebuttal" comments from an author -- or anything hinting at subsequent plot or character development, that knocked the rating down to a 1 immediately and only terrific writing, dialogue and technicals (spelling, grammar, punctuation) would get it back to a 5."

I didn't apply this to authors who merely replied to commenters with something akin to, "Thanks so much for your feedback! I'm glad you liked my chapter," etc. etc. etc. While I personally don't feel it was appropriate for authors to engage their readers in discussion, such innocuous utterances didn't send up any proverbial "red flags" in my mind.

But, again, we all had our own criteria by which we assessed entries. Some of you didn't mind misspellings or bad punctuation and grammar; I found them deplorable and always marked down for them. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Same with this: Some of you may see nothing wrong; I consider it a first cousin to cheating. Again, we can agree to disagree.

Rita R :o)

Here, here! You know, I've written, I dunno, how many comments? If I took the time to polish my prose I woudn't have gotten half as many reviewed. Let's be reasonable here.

the chapters are a little different - that first chapter had better have been your best effort. That doesn't mean people don't miss things, no matter how many times they review and rewrite. I'm not going to penalize somebody for a few inconsequencial errors.

I don't want to get into a protracted argument over this. It's just my opinion; it's no more or less valid than anyone else's.

Of course, "a few errors" in a chapter is one thing (however, I wouldn't necessarily dismiss them as "inconsequential"; after all, in business, I go by "The Persnickety Proofreader"); but error after error in spelling, grammar or punctuation throughout a piece just screams, "Amateur!"

I don't care how good a story it is, if the author doesn't care enough about his/her manuscript to have it spell checked and proofed, he/she shouldn't be submitting a so-called "completed" manuscript to a competition such as this.

On another note (and again, I don't want to cause any ruckus here, so I apologize in advance if anyone takes umbrage at what I'm about to say), if I'm taking the time to write comments, I always read through them before hitting "Post," to ensure I've spelled everything correctly and I haven't omitted any words; it also gives me a last opportunity to ensure I've said what I intended to say -- and my meaning isn't likely to be misconstrued. It doesn't take a lot of time to do (as compared to the time I've spent composing and editing the comment in the first place); and, to me, it's worth it.

Just my 2¢,

Rita R :o)

I'll tell you where it disturbs me finding a few errors, Rita, and that's in a published book - and I see them all the time! Makes you wonder how much time and $ publishing houses put into proofing any more.

I guess in this contest I tend to give it a pass if I think it's just an oversight. I feel a little differently when it's bad grammar/syntax. That's more of a matter of craft than an "oopsie."

Though you probably can't tell it from my comments (which usually are written in a hurry), I am very anal and fussy when it comes to my writing. I read it over and over again, and I do have others proof for me. And I still find mistakes after all of that.

I missed two line end commas in mind and everyone went ballistic over it. All I could is yeah they should be there and I missed them.

Steven B: Sometimes the system is sluggish, and you need to wait a couple of minutes for the comments to appear, especially when there are 200 of them. BTW, we're disappointed with your new icon. A bird? We want to see a picture of you!

The great black-backed gull is better looking than I am.

It's funny, I was reading The Unvanquished, by Faulkner a couple of weeks ago, and all I could think was: wow- these run-on sentences just keep on running! I think I spent too much time reading First Chapters there for a while. And when you pick up a bible and think about beginning sentences with And, you know it's time for a break.

THere were many terrific entries, the majority mediocre, and some that were just so painfully bad that I couldn't get through, and I didn't usually comment or rate on those because I didn't normally rate without commenting. I'm thinking now that I should have, because it might have helped some of the really fine entries that weren't so much under-rated as they were under-read.

I can usually tolerate grammatical, and even some structural problems if the WRITING is good and the STORY is one I care about. No- it may not be as polished as a finished MS ought to be, but if there was real potential I was generous.

I don't mind alot of expo- I tend to like narrative, especially when it's in the interest of character development, but this is just personal taste. Most published, commercial novels I've read tend to jump in pretty quickly with some action, or at least some dialogue, and I am aware of the conventions there and usually did say so in my comments- in other words, I liked it, but you need to tighten this up and get to the story.

Grammar isn't such an issue when it's in dialogue, or written in first person, unless it's so bad as to be unintelligible. I also have a peeve about the writing out of foreign or regional accents when it's overdone. Several of the entries did it a few times, to give us a feel for the character's voice and then allowed us to do it on our own, which most readers are more than capable of in my opinion.

What annoyed me were the sort of mistakes that were quite plainly due to carelessness. Authors who had clearly failed to do even some basic googling type of research. Writers who contradicted themselves were another peeve. If you make a change in the direction you're taking your story, you need to go back and make sure that what you've already written is consistent with the new information. I saw more than one entry where it wasn't, and I suspect that there was a bit if a rush to press.

I also wonder if some of these subs weren't edited with the contest in mind- trying to cram a truly dizzying amount of info into that one chapter. I can understand the temptation there. You only get one chance, with that one chapter. THere were several that I think suffered from that- chapters that would have been much better otherwise.

I gave the benefit of the doubt wherever I could, generally speaking.

I didn't have an entry, but I read a lot more in the beginning, got burned out, and then came back toward the end.

I actually asked some of the harsher reviewers to look at the pieces I'm working on when they had the time, even though mine weren't in the contest, because I was really floundering with one and I got some very useful input out of it. I don't need to be congratulated for the mere act of having written something. I want to make it better. I want to make it publishable, and at the moment I don't feel that some of what I've written is quite there. Since most of these first chapters won't go on, and only one will win, those comments could be the most valuable thing an author gets out of this contest. Speaking of which- is there any way those could be made available to them? I've seen several articles and posts where this was mentioned.

Steven B: We know you're overly modest. You're afraid you'll be chased by a bunch of infatuated groupies.

As Janet pointed out in the other thread, story structure was the most damning element for many of the entries. No trouble; no further complication and no curtain call.

never too late

I was thinking about why I didn't comment on some of the chapters I didn't like. I did slam a few of them- the trifecta mentioned above usually inspired some ire from me too. But you know what? At least disgust and repulsion are actually feelings. Most of the chapters I left alone were just sort of blah. I didn't feel anything when I got done reading them- the ones where I got done. They didn't make me think about anything. I would have had to re-read them to quote so much as a single line. I felt like I'd read an instruction manual, and I didn't quite have the heart to say "Formulaic and boring," in a comment. I would have had to elaborate, and to explain what was wrong and it's not an easy thing to explain, and there were too many of them for me to spend the required amount of time to do it. Usually if I said something negative it was about grammar or structure or spelling or stilited dialogue (wow there was a lot of that), or something the author could fix.
When an entire first chapter doesn't say anything, how do you fix that?

And to anyone who sent me emails that I didn't respond to- some of them I honestly just didn't get to. Please don't assume I mean you!

And yes- East of Eden took a while to grab me, while Grapes of Wrath got me right away. Anything by Hemingway takes me a while. The Scarlet Letter, The Decameron (but wow was that one ever worth it!), The thing is that with these books I kept on because I figured I was just missing something, or else I HAD to read it for a lit class. Not the case in first chapters.

I think most of my peeve's have been covered. Would you guysand gals read and rate again? I owe Chandra an apology I thought he was a she...it is very hard to tell from the picture and the name....so Chandra if you are listening....very sorry.

I would certainly read and rate again. It was enjoyable when I found the good ones, or the ones where just a couple of the right comments could possibly take the author a long ways toward having a publishable book.

I've got to admit that I got punchy a few times on the comments. I don't regret any of my ratings, but looking back I hope I didn't offend anyone with the 'straight from my mind to the keyboard' portion of some of my comments. I really was writing exactly what I was thinking as I read a passage.

And not to sound pissy but there were women that reviewed too. When you mention reviews it if always the men folk....well us women folk werent baking pies while you guys were reading.....so give us some credit.....I know Dale ..Mike C...Noble Collins....Chandra...Ian..Pat you all did good but what about Lisa F..Cynthia Wilson...Jenna....Rita. and the rest of the lovely women.

Um, if you're talking about Pat S., you should know that I'm a she-type person. Or, as my boss refers to me, a female-dog-like-person, but that's another story. Funny to think I 'read' like a man...Maybe I should get an icon one of these days. Maybe a butterfly or posie of some sort?

You too Pat. Lets hear it for the women. Sorry Pat

Duane,
I agree with you about East of Eden. I'm 3/4 of the way through it, and it is worth it once you read about thirty pages. (It's my father's favorite novel, and it's been interesting for that reason as well.) I think Mr. Steinbeck wouldn't have fared well with his first chapter in this contest, nor would Thomas Mann with Chapter 1 of Buddenbrooks, but both books are among my favorites.

Yeah, I think I've reviewed as many as Mike C.!

Pat S. mentions rhythm up above, and that's something near and dear to my heart as well. Cutting and pasting myself from another thread: I have to say, that's one of the most important things to me, maybe because I used to write songs. I think that's part of what I look for that isn't just about story-telling or the ability to put words together in a competent way - that the writing has some music to it.

I think that's one of the things I meant when I was struggling above, mixing up my "depth" and "elevating" - writing that has real rhythmn and musicality.

I love East of Eden, especially the part where they go to get the frogs. Faulkner, though. Oh, lordy. He just makes me want to slit my wrists. So grim and depressing.

Cathy

I hated The Sound and the Fury when I first read it, and then I loved it the second time. But, you're right. Faulkner is grim, but so achingly real.

I posted this on the Submission Ended page, but I thought I'd post my thoughts here too. And that is that I'd bet that more than just the one grand prize winner is either picked up by another publisher or at least is offered representation by a literary agency.

Think about it. We've just culled a slush pile of 2500 manuscripts down to 20. There ought to be more than one nugget in the pile of 20 rocks.

Yeah, if gather.com has good enough IT people they should be able to figure out a lot about the good entries. This can be viewed as a marketing dry run for every one of the entries. Which ones actually stuck in readers' minds? Which authors were able to self-promote? Which ones haven't learned how to play nice with the other kids? What kinds of readers does the chapter appeal to? If someone likes this story, will they like this other one? Which authors are jerks? Which ones are cheaters? That's all valuable information for a publisher to have. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. This contest produced a goldmine of information for gather.com and the publisher. They just have to be smart enough to use it.

I think the real goldmine is going to be down the pile a ways. I guess we'll know for sure when we see the winners - but I think the genius promoters/cheaters will have crowded out some of the quality entries. I can't see how this process will have actually culled that slush pile down to its gems.

And remember - these are first chapters. I'd figure that most people who entered really polished up their first three chapters - it's when you get further into the book where things tend to fall apart. Way back in the never-ending thread in the article I posted about the contest, Harry F. made a great comment about this. I'd go find it but I am still on stupid dial-up, and you know how long it takes 200 plus comments to load?

I'll reiterate what others have already mentioned - novel structure isn't short story structure. You aren't supposed to tell the whole story/backstory in the first chapter. You work out all this stuff over the length of an entire book. I feel confident that I could reject a lot of the entries after the first chapters (were I working on that slush pile), but that would be based on bad writing/story-telling. There are some well-written chapters where it's impossible to know from the first three chapters if they are good books or not.

I keep harping on this, but I bet there are some very good books here. I doubt we'll be seeing most of them.

That's very true. I looked at some of the well-written first chapters and enjoyed them, but I really wondered how well they would wear over several hundred pages. The gather people could know that for their 5 choices. If we see stories where the first two chapter don't seem too strong but they keep advancing it may be that those are stories with strong plotting and great stuff later on. If the First Chapters people aren't looking at that for their entries they should be.

I don't think Char has a bad first two chapters, but I think that if it is still in the competition by chapter 3 it will be hard to beat. Of course that's the very biased opinion of the writer. It's also not something I expect to actually see tested..

FYI to anyone that is listening. Chandra is too a woman. I got this info from a very reliable source.

Dale, though I liked my first three chapters and think they are necessary to the book's structure more or less as is, I felt like Chapt. 4 was where it really takes off.

But you know, I'm not one of these people who has to have everything front-loaded and hook-a-riffic. I remember reading Doris Lessing's GOLDEN NOTEBOOK. It took me a while to get through the first, I think, 40 pages. Then all of the sudden the book kicked in like a hallucinagen, and I couldn't put it down (though the ending didn't quite hold up, as I recalled).

I complained about this elsewhere, but as a reader, I feel like, hey I'm a market too! I read books! I buy books! Not everything has to be written like a roller-coaster ride.

Lisa F.: That is one of the problems with this kind of contest. I've read quite a few books where the author did an excellent up until the last 20 or even 10 pages. If the ending stinks, the book leaves a bad taste in a reader's mouth. How can we know that in this kind of a contest.

I read two or three entries where the first chapter really held my interest, but I just couldn't see any way that the author could make the plot or the writing style work for an entire novel.

There is a major difference between reading these entries and reading published books by established authors. With an established author, especially one you know, you have a pretty good chance that there will be at least some payoff if you sit through a slow start. With First Chapter entries, chances are better than eighty percent that if you sit through a slow start the payoff will be more of the same.

As to books that didn't live up to their promise: The Horse Whisperer (excuse me? You set up the main character's choice throughout the whole book, and then remove one of her two options at the end? And you got HOW big an advance? Nuh-uh. You owe me.) Also The Notebook (what? You spend most of the book setting up a confontation, then skip the confrontation and go to what happened afterwards? You owe me, too.)

Cathy