The Critique On My Writing

The critique came out today. :)  It wasn't the blog author, like I hoped, but still, it's great to get a review from an editor. :)  The only reason I hoped for the blog author is because I've read some of her books, they have helped me A LOT, and we've emailed back and for a few times.  She's really nice and helpful.

I liked getting the feedback.  Most of the edits I really liked, and will be correcting them in my draft.  There were just a few sentences that she suggested I reword that I actually didn't like how she reworked them, so I'll have to think on those, but the rest I liked.  She talks about needing to know where they are, I describe the setting a few paragraphs before what I shared.  And needing to know what they are wearing, in the middle of this scene in my actual draft, I share what the guy is wearing, and the very next line after what I submitted I describe what she is wearing.  With only being able to submit 250 words, I couldn't fit all she suggested into it and keep it that short, so I cut parts out to submit. :) I mostly wanted feedback on their interaction.  She also mentioned that any man would notice the sex toys, but in the draft I've done, she's lied to him a few times already, and he calls her out on them, so her talking about three billion men has to do with how observant he is to her lies, not the sex toys, which in my novel is actually spanking implements. :P  I didn't think saying spanking implements would go over well on a normal blog. lol

Anyway, here is the link.  It's actually three pieces of a scene that I cut out and pieced together to fit the word limit, so more is going on in the actual book I'm writing.  If I could have submitted a thousand words, I could have got it all in, but that's okay.  :)  Either way I am very grateful for the review, the time she took to look it over, and will be making several corrections according to her suggestions. :)

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2019/01/real-life-diagnostics-can-you-feel-any.html

In this scene, the heroine is moving, and the hero is helping.  It's a first meet, he was brought to help by one of her friends who is inside the house in this scene.  She forgot about her box of implements, and tries to move them to her car without getting caught.  But she trips, and the box rolls down the stairs, popping it's lid, and dumping all the items to the ground, and this guy sees them.

The editor says the question before is important, but I didn't share it in the submission.  I didn't know how else to reword "You liked being spanked?" to make it work for sex toys instead of implements without it sounding graphic. lol

So now I have her notes on what to edit, and hopefully it will help me with the rest of my book. :)

The blog author, not the one who did the review, is Janice Hardy.  If you're looking to learn about writing your own book, her book "Understanding Show, Don't Tell" is AMAZING.  So many examples, and she breaks everything down so that even I, who just couldn't seem to get the difference between showing and telling, understood it in the end.  It was the first time I wrote her, to thank her for making me finally understand. :)  I looked at several books and blogs about show vs tell, this is the absolute best one by far.  The others don't come close, at all.  Her "Understanding Conflict" book is great too.  Was harder for me to get through, because she packs in so much useful information.  My brain was fried by the end. lol  In a good way. :)  Ended up with 40 pages of notes, there just was so much useful information.