critiquing

Title: Black Magic

Length, Draft and Language: 61k, 1st draft, English

Brief Summary (not more than 300 words)
At a faculty dinner, a prestigious professor chokes to death on a fish bone. Everyone thinks it's an accident, except for Christopher Krantz. He knows it's more than that, because his father foretold it in a small black book, which he stuck in the armoire before overdosing on sleeping pills and champagne. The death, according to the book, was an act of vengeance, of black magic, for a dark secret love that Chris didn't even know existed. But it doesn't stop there. Chris knows that his father left behind another curse -- one that Chris is determined to break at whatever cost.

Sub Genre & Keywords - literary fiction; death, grief, intergenerational conflicts, sexuality, homosexuality, AIDS, breaking up, music, opera, black magic, parallel storylines, metafiction, hangovers

Known Issues - Characterization and tonal qualities -- this is a first draft, I haven't managed to hone those. Also, I'm not sure if the overall structure works.

Critique Requested - All feedback is welcome, but grammar and mechanics are the least important. General reaction, character development, tone, pacing, and readability are higher on my list.

Critique Tolerance - Say whatever you like. :)

Experience & Goals - This is my first novel. I'm not bloodthirstily aimed at publishing, but I do plan to whore it out to publishers at some later date.

Method of Communication - diuscorvus@yahoo.com

Disclaimers: relatively graphic sex and language; no violence

Thanks so much!!

Length, Draft and Language: 55K words, 1st draft, English

Brief Summary (not more than 300 words)
Vylrath Xanathi, Demon Overlord is in trouble. He has unleashed a spirit not meant to be free. He willingly set her free when he felt her force draw him toward the Gates of Purgatory where he was trying to steal a soul to make up for a lost one. The Oracle is the so-called supreme ruler of their realm (Hell) and will find out about the rogue spirit and treason of the Overlord. The freed spirit has a new power attached to it and a strong will unlike any other in the spirit world. Everyone wants to possess it. Vylrath allows the spirit to possess a living being in the modern world who happens to be married to that spirits husband. Vylrath guarantees that the spirit can be reunited to her husband if she takes over the body completely- then he will extract that spirit to replace the stolen one. However, his plans don’t follow through as he would like.

Sub Genre & Keywords: Fiction, death, Hell, spirit, paranormal, demon, body possession.

Known issues: Sequence placement, tone quality, grammar and punctuation.

Critique requested: All feedback is needed. I plan to publish this book in the future. Mechanics are important to me.

Critique tolerance: All feedback welcome.

Experience and goals: I have written stories and poems in the past. This is my first attempt at a novel. I would like to see it published in the future.

Method of communication: Apryl_Willis@Yahoo.com

Disclaimers: Graphic sex and violence.

Thanks,
Apryl Solana

Title: And You Said Dropping the Soap Was Bad

Length, Draft and Language: 50k, 1st draft, English

Brief Summary (not more than 300 words)

Basically, it's a story about Chris and Marx. Chris goes to work at The Ice, a mall near their home, because Marx keeps on getting him fired from his job (Marx has flashes of anger sometimes, which causes him to punch whoever is closest to him when he is angry. He punched Chris's coworker by 'accident'). Chris finds that life there is rather chaotic. In this (unfinished) novel, there are interesting characters (to me, anyways) and interesting situations.

What? Stop looking at me like that. No one ever said that this had to be a really formal summary!

Sub Genre & Keywords - fiction; homosexuality, school-life, anime, humor, and probably more that I don't really know right now.

Known Issues - . Some parts of my story are a little dull. >X<

Critique Requested - General reaction, whether or not it makes sense. You know what? I don't really care if you at least say something about my work.

Critique Tolerance - Say anything you like. It's not like I can 'get' you over the internet anyways.

Experience & Goals - This is my first writing piece that is over eight thousand words. I'm a fanfiction writer over at fanfiction.net, so I have about a total of more than fifty thousand words under my belt (not including Nanowrimo & school work). Ultimate hope is to maybe get this published, but I don't think that that's very realistic right now.

Let's see how it goes, hm?

My goal is to make this as good as it can possibly be and be able to look at it every once in a while and smile happily.

Method of Communication - dominowriter@yahoo.com

Disclaimers: some curse words, an unfinished rape scene at the end that is totally unrealistic, and HOMOSEXUALITY!

Important: This is a gay novel, so please don't read if you aren't into this kind of story.

Thanks!

- Huan

Title: The Sapphire Thief
Length, Draft and Language: 62k (the first 10K were written before Nano, but obviously not added into the total. I wanted to leave them out but I realized the story made no sense without them), 1st draft, English

Brief Summary (not more than 300 words)

In the high-stakes world of crime and greed, Dria has always come out on top. Despite her young age, she has earned recognition as The Sapphire Thief by stealing some of the greatest works of art ever known and selling them for profit. Although she considers herself a criminal, she stays away from the darker aspects of the criminal underworld. That is, until she is thrust, along with her brilliant but reckless best friend Mark, into the world of dark and twisted world Miles Freewater, a backstabbing childhood friend who left her for dead five years before who has since risen to power as a Chicago crime lord. But nothing is what it seems as the three of them become entangled in a conspiracy that will shake the foundation of the world they thought they lived in.

Sub Genre & Keywords - Fiction, crime, drama, character driven, heist, conspiracy, terrorists, secret weapons, area 51(no aliens, though. Sorry.), kidnapping, action, adventure.

Known Issues - Some parts are dragged out a little long. I'm not sure how much I like them. There tends to be a lot of chatting over coffee. Important chatting.

Critique Requested - I'm interested in overall reaction. Did you like it? Not? What characters did you like, why? Who not? Those kind of things.

Critique Tolerance - Nothing super harsh. A little critique is good, but just don't tear down the whole novel or anything that makes me say,"Great, I'm just going to have to write this one all over again."

Experience & Goals - I've been attempting to tell this story for...going on three years. It's become my heart and soul. This is my third time writing it, or attempting to, and finally finishing it. I really want to get this published sometime because I hope people will like my story as much as I do.

Method of Communication - cheesesushi@msn.com (yeah, weird address, I know. Ah, sixth grade me, you were quite an interesting person.)

Disclaimers: Lots of cursing, murder, kidnapping, plenty of blood, alcohol abuse

Thank you very much! If you're interested, feel free to email me, visit my DA page, which is linked in my profile to learn more about it.

Title: The Quest for the Pants
Length, Draft and Language: 50k, 1st draft, English
Brief Summary (not more than 300 words)

After a surprise goblin raid on his home village, Sam Steelstriker must set out into the wide world to destroy He Who Must Never Ever Be Named By Anyone Ever and his One Pants of Power. Helped by friends and delayed by battles, follow Sam into the dark corridors of the Temple of Decency, watch as he defends the dwarven city of Khezalad, and walk beside him through the endless plains of the Dead Lands. Will he succeed?

Sub Genre & Keywords - Fiction, fantasy, humor

Known Issues - Includes a rousing rendition of ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall, and a fairly long author's note at the end. Parts of it seem like they were tacked in from another, very similar, novel, because I restarted in week three and tried to fit as much of my first three weeks of work into the new novel as I could.

Critique Requested - I'd like to know if this story has any potential, or if I should just burn it at midnight by the light of a full moon.

Critique Tolerance - Try not to convince me to give up writing altogether.

Experience & Goals - This novel was created specifically for NaNoWriMo, with the silliest and most ridiculous plot I could think of based off of the line "Where the hell are my pants?", which came from a dare. I've never intended to publish this, and probably won't change my mind.

Method of Communication - Possumdude0@gdnmail.net. I don't check it as often as I should, and it gets a lot of spam, so if I don't respond it's because I didn't see your email.

Disclaimers: No words stronger than "freaking", no sex, partial nudity (it's a story where everyone's pants have been stolen, the main character runs around in boxer shorts!)

Title: Their Darkest Hours

Length, Draft and Language: 78k, 1st draft, English

Brief Summary (not more than 300 words)
In an asylum-turned-boarding school, Terrell Hyde, a misunderstood loner with a penchant for dolls and demons, performs dirty work deep within the forbidden passages of hallway I88. After a death in the halls some years prior, I88 and those associated with it have become the stuff of gossip and fear. But Tem Austrackus, a foul-mouthed artist, and his beautiful, mysterious muse, Bianca Petrov, are determined to uncover Terrell's dark motives within the shadowy depths of the labyrinth.The memories of the past resurface and the students find more then they meant to uncover in the hidden truths of years gone by.

Sub Genre & Keywords - fantacy, fiction, magic, demons, ghosts, boarding schools, teenagers, action

Known Issues - This is a rough draft! It's slightly edited but there are parts that need to be filled out more.

Critique Requested - All feedback is good feed back. I know there must be a ton of grammer issues but i'd really like to see if the pasing/characterization/plot is alright/what I may need to do to fix it.

Critique Tolerance - Although I really hope you don't *HATE* my novel, say what you want. Critique is good.

Experience & Goals - I've never written a full length novel before but I do want to polish it up and maybe publish it through create space or something. ^_^;

Method of Communication - raccoonkid230@yahoo.com

Disclaimers: some language, nothing worse than an f-bomb haha

Thanks so much!!
I would LOVE to swap novels if anyone would like to! :)

[URL=http://www.mybannermaker.com/link.php?nurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mybannermaker.com][IMG]http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/1605/mybanner491b50e79577eco6.png[/IMG][/URL]
~ Olivia and Caroline

Just so you know, I have no idea how to do this. It's my first year . . .

Title: Hunters: The Guardians
Length, draft, and language: 73, 692, first, English

Brief Summary: The Hunters have been around since the Fall of Man, commanded by the Angel Michael to protect the Humans from creatures like Demons, Vampires, Werewolves, Warlocks, Hellhounds and Spirits.
For nearly 3000 years they carried out their job well and without detection. That is until the wife of a Hunter was killed and her husband sought to kill all of the Humans, thinking that they were inferior and no more useful than animals. He was subtle at first, only wiping out a village or two a year with the Demons he summoned. But, now he's trying harder. He has created a Demonic virus that he is letting spread around the world. Every Human infected he has complete control over.
It looks like the Hunters might not be able to stop him.

Sub genre and keywords-romance, fiction, virus, demons, action, zombie-like people

Known Issues: Well, it's the first draft, some parts are a little weak.

Critique Requested: Did you like it? Did you not? What parts could use work? Did you like the characters?

Critique Tolerance: I don't care.

Experience and Goals: I have never done NaNo before nor have I published a book. This was for the sole purpose of writing, but it would be awesome if I could get it published . . .

Communication: disneygirl94a@aol.com--I check it a lot, and yes, sixth grade me with first email address.

Disclaimers: The occasional word, no sex, kind of gory in parts, torture, umm . . . yeah, that's it.

"Get out, Dusty! I'm going where you cannot follow!"
--Frozen Fire

Title: Not There Yet

Length, Draft and Language: 50k, 1st draft, English

Brief Summary (not more than 300 words)

Basically, it's a story about 4 guys that live together in a house near(or in campus) together. They all have different problem are wrapped in their on issues, but they want to reach out. They all have phobias and are scared to reach out. But through the 50ks they find a way to reach and to seek out each other and interesting romance. They face their fears and have fun together. There is also smut parts.

Really? Stop looking at me like that. I like happy endings so go waffles!!

Sub Genre & Keywords - fiction; homosexuality, college, TA, college reporter,rumors, blogs, romance and cooking.............a lot more that I don't really remember right now.

Known Issues - . Some parts of my story are a little dull. And there is a time wrap issue where I jump from one week to an other one and back. And the first person writing thing I have going on can get confusing(if you are not in my head)

Critique Requested - General reaction, whether or not it makes sense, I need help figuring out, so help?. I don't really care what you say as long as you say something about my work, and I that way help me:)

Critique Tolerance - Say anything you like. .

Experience & Goals - This is my first writing piece in over 6 years and I am very rusty. I'm a fiction reader and novel reviewer.

Maybe the ultimate hope in my slushy heart is to get this published, but I don't think that that's very realistic right now.

Give me a try, hm?

My goal is to make people smile and make myself squeal each time I remember I wrote it.

Method of Communication - jamiepblaze@gmail.com

Disclaimers: some curse words, the use of the lord name in vain and the end that is totally unrealistic Alice and the Wonderland, and Homosexuality in all my leading MC!

Important: This is a gay novel, so please don't read if you aren't into this kind of story.

Thanks!
(brings out the virual cookies)
If anyone wants to swapp?
Also there is on my blog...id cards and iformation of my charactors jamiepblaze.blogspot.com
Look me up, even if you don't want to read my mess;)

JamiePBlaze
...I'm a reader not a writer....

Title: The Adonians

Length, Draft and Language: 50k, 1st draft, English

Brief Summary (not more than 300 words)

Two regency spies have a blackmail plot to foil and a romance to start. Involves a gay gentleman's club, a marriage of convenience, and a broken nose.

Sub Genre & Keywords - fiction; homosexuality, regency, romance, spying, does contain violence but no sex

Known Issues - . Starts a bit slowly, the middle of the plot is somewhat improbable (more so than the rest of it which is saying something) , there are problems with staying 'in period' and in character during conversations, and it's not possible to travel from chester to london in a day in 1801.

Critique Requested - Whatever your willing to give.
Critique Tolerance - I really don't mind - you're unlikely to be harsher than i am when i'm feeling pessimistic.

Experience & Goals - First novel - would like to get it to a point where it seems ok.

Method of Communication - emma261082@hotmail.com

Disclaimers: violence, and homosexuality

Thank you - will happily critique anything in return :-)

Also posted at http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3144409.

Title
Flesh and Spirit

Length, Draft and Language
50k, 1st draft, English

Brief Summary
[Very quick world-building background:] All people have magic within them, but they must Sacrifice their bodies to become spirits capable of wielding the magic. A spirit requires donations of psychic energy from "flesh" (regular, non-spirit, people) to continue existing and using magic. If too much energy is taken, the drained person becomes a Shadow -- an empty husk of a person.

While training as a priestess, Izelle investigates the cause of why Shadows have been increasing recently. She uncovers a plot to take over the High Council and rule the territory. She also discovers that she is a forbidden half-spirit, able to control magic while still corporeal. Should she be found out, she will be executed.

She must keep her abilities secret while trying to disrupt the plot (of the antagonist, not my writing! hrmph).

Sub Genre & Keywords
fantasy, magic, power struggle

Known Issues
The major issues: Characterization and descriptive prose are almost non-existent. It reads more like a 50k-word outline, as some key scenes are rendered as "[INSERT SCENE]" notes. :( Later, I plan to spend significant some time building out much more detailed character bios, maps of the city, national history, etc, to seriously flesh things out and bring them to life in ways that are quite lacking now.

A minor point: I started out in 3rd person limited following the two MCs, but ended up 3rd person omniscient.

Critique Requested
I like my overall plot; what do you think? What could be made stronger about the plot? Which subplots should be expanded vs cut? Are there ways to integrate characters' storylines that I overlooked? What plot holes have I totally overlooked? :)

What POV works best? I switched to omniscient because there were scenes I wanted to describe that neither MC could know about.

I could definitely use suggestions for better fantasy terms for things like "energy" (which is the source of magic), etc.

Don't worry about grammar; I can edit mechanics myself. You can probably ignore tone too, since that could drastically change once I address the known weaknesses of characterization and description.

Critique Tolerance
I know that my writing is weak in many ways. Even so, I would appreciate gentle criticism. I'm thinking my NaNo story is "unengagingly written but has potential." If you think there's nothing at all to salvage, please be very gentle in bursting my bubble. :(

If you think it at least has potential, though, then do share what needs fixing before it can actually be readable by non-Wrimos. :)

Experience & Goals
This is my first novel. Worse, I haven't written fiction since ~6 years ago; turns out, my fiction-writing muscles have atrophied! :( That said, I do want to improve my fiction-writing skills again. I will be reading all the writing books in the bookstore that I didn't have time to read during November. Publishing is probably just a pipe dream, but maybe it could readable by friends and family with enough polish & fixing...

Method of Communication
I like email; I'm open to other methods, if you prefer. I'm using Google Docs for my story, so you can make comments directly into the document. (If you would prefer a different format for reading or making notes, though, let me know. I'm flexible!)

Anything else?
The writing is PG-13, maybe even PG; nothing's graphic. Although when I add in the romance subplot that failed to write itself during November, it won't be PG anymore. :P

I have no deadlines, so turnaround time is flexible.

Thanks!
Arthaey

Title:
The Otherworldly Adventures of Francis Henry Lusk (subject to change)

Length, Draft and Language:
A little over 50k, very first draft, English

Brief Summary:
Henry, a freshman at WWU, is abducted by a mad scientist from a parallel universe, and he goes on adventures in various other parallel universes...

Sub Genre & Keywords:
science fiction, parallel universes, humour

Known Issues:
besides being implausible and rediculous, consistency is an issue, along with character's reactions to things. And the 'science' is completely fictional - I just used some good sciency-sounding words.

Critique Requested:
Consistency and character development, and POVs, grammer and punctuation if you see any major problems. Also, is it funny?

Critique Tolerance:
I would like as much feedback as you're willing to give me, constructive critisism is great, just don't discourage me from ever writing again.

Experience & Goals:
First time writing any sort of fiction. I read twilight, and was like "Jeez, I could have written this." Highly unlikely that I will publish this.

Method of Communication:
email: meghan.m08@gmail.com (guess where I got my username.)

Anything else?:
some swearing

Title: Ex Nihilo

Length, Draft and Language- 52K, 1st Draft (slightly looked over), English

Brief Summary- (I'm having a lot of trouble summarizing this one, see "Known Issues")
The final chapter of a game played since the beginning of time. The players have been chosen, the pieces set, and turns are beginning. But Puzzle doesn't know the rules. As she scours the country for the other Players, she can only wonder, "Who am I?" And with each player she meets she only finds more questions. "Why are we here?" "What is our purpose?" And as the world begins to fall down around her ears, the most important question of all echoes in her mind, "In a world where everything is transient, what does it mean to be Eternal?"

Sub Genre & Keywords - Existentialism, Philosophy, Superhero, Immortality, Divinity

Known Issues - I have next to no idea what genre it is and my first Beta reader has told me the MC is hard to connect with, something I think I agree with her about. I have no idea how to summarize this piece without making it sound really lame or vague. My grammar and spelling are (in my opinion) not even remotely bad, but it was written in just about 24 days so please keep that in mind.

Critique Requested - I could really use any and all advice at this point. Specifically, I'm looking for plot structure advice, but character development and continuity help would also be great.

Critique Tolerance - I would not like my reader to get overly caught up in semantics and I really don't like unhelpful statements like "this is good/bad" without explanation. I also don't want you to feel like you need to pad anything you feel like I should hear. In a nutshell, I am looking for honest, constructive advice.

Experience & Goals - This is my second novel and, although I'm not sure it is quite good enough to do so, I am very interested in at least casually pursuing publishing. However, I would like to wait until I have gotten feedback from several people and had time to do a complete overhaul based on it.

Method of Communication - I strongly prefer email (I have Gmail and Gchat) but I could also work with PMs and I would be willing to discuss other means of communication if somebody has a good reason.

Anything else? - I am more than happy to swap with somebody else and I can promise to edit well and on a fairly regular basis.

Disclaimers - Ex Nihilo contains brief strong language (mostly for comedic effect), brutal superhero violence, brief and completely PG homosexuality, and mild occult references.

Title: Child of the Enemy

Length, Draft and Language: 61,725 words. 1st draft (mild editing). English

Brief Summary: A childhood enemy's return. Two children taken by force. Two opposing organizations on the brink of war. A family who will stop at nothing to bring their kids home. And a God who will never leave them.

Sub Genre & Keywords - Christian, Young Adult, fiction, fantasy, terrorism, sci-fi

Known Issues - Grammar (apparently I was asleep during some parts of English class. I abuse the comma and tend to be very wordy)

Critique Requested - Give me your feel of the story. Were you drawn in? Bored? Grammar issues need to be addressed, since I can't find them myself. (You can point different things out once, and I'll find the others like it) Please point out any plot holes or logic leaps you detect.

Critique Tolerance - constructive criticism, please! You can be harsh and honest, but I want good feedback, too.

Experience & Goals - This is book 6 in a series. I'm actively trying to get book 1 published, but so far no one has been knocking down my door.

Method of Communication - PM me for my email

Anything else? Elements of Christianity are strongly present. Check out my excerpt if you're unsure whether or not you can deal with it. But please know there are at least five chapters of adventure for every chapter dealing with faith.

There is also some very mild violence, and issues such as suicide and abortion are referenced.

*bumps to first page*