Do critiques have to be cruel?

Beta readers, writing partners, and family give us feedback and,

– supportive, positive and useful feedback is possible.

In 1986 twenty-five newbie writers survived a writing course and started a writers’ group for the support and education of writers. Among us were a few who had suffered cruelty at the hands of a particular published author. As an instructor, she’d shredded her students writing. It didn’t take the group long to figure out we needed a way to help writers give positive but useful feedback.

We didn’t want to end up with the Aunt Martha approach. ‘This is lovely, dear. You’re a good writer.” The comment might or might not be true. Either way, it’s not useful.

Writers, like most people, react badly to harsh comments. That was our starting point. Comments such as ‘this sucks’ were banned. However, without feedback, we don’t grow as writers. What to do? A few of us sat down with a bottle of wine and did what writers do, we brainstormed what we’d want in a critique and how’d we do ‘unto others’ the same.

Thirty-one years later, that manifesto is still given to new group members. The method we devised provides support, validation, and tips to do better. It is also simple to use. It is, I believe, one of the reasons our group is flourishing after 31 years and holds the reputation as the best group in the area for learning writing craft.

This is what we use.

1)      Process:

·         State what you like about the story or the character and a particularly lovely phrasing.

·         Put in what you liked about the main characters. You might mark a bit of dialogue as ‘for me, this seemed out of character for Ms. Smith. Is there a reason she broke character? If so the reader needs to know.’

·         Please avoid negative statements like—this doesn’t work. Your character is a wimp.

·         State what emotion or image you experienced when reading the whole book or specific scenes.

·         Identify any place where you were confused or found inconsistencies.

·         Underline passive verb structures, non-specific word use, overuse of adverbs, adjective + noun structures where stronger “showing” verbs would be better, and negative structures that could be positive.

2) Tone and attitude:

Structure critique comments as questions or suggestions.

2)      Sample Comments

1.      This is a strong verb – I can see action here.

2.      Colorful description-I like it.

3.      Evocative turn of phrase, it made me think.

4.      This made me cry/laugh/giggle/get angry…Is that what you intended?

5.      Never thought of it like that.

6.      Oh, oh - had to read this 3 times – maybe change order/add/delete/use different words for clarity.

7.      Lost me here. Not sure what you are trying to say.

8.      I understand this to mean XYZ – is that what you intended?

9.      From what you said earlier in the story, I thought she had blue eyes?

10.  I underline issues and structures I’m sure you’re going to address in your re-write.

Here’s a comment I received. “Your world and people are slick. There’s a lot of sliding between the trees, slipping around a corner, sliding onto a bench, slipping through the doorway. Is there an atmosphere you are trying to portrait? If not, you might want to check on the frequency of these words.”

It made me laugh and it was easy for me to accept the comment and fix the word use.

Beta Readers or editors, devise a system that is both supportive and educational. Use our method if you like. Writers offer this list with your manuscript when you ask for feedback from volunteers. It will help your readers to give you the information you need without worrying about upsetting you. You are more likely to get an honest and helpful critique.

Writers helping writers—be kind to one another.

The Royal Escape from Brighton by Rosemary Morris

For more information about Rosemary's books please click on the cover above.


The Royal Escape from Brighton

The town in which my next Classical Regency Romance, Saturday’s Child is set

Today, visitors flock to Brighton to visit George IV’s Royal Pavilion, to shop in The Lanes as well as enjoying everything else the vibrant seaside town has to offer. Less well known are the events which took place there during the English Civil War when family loyalties either to the Crown or Commonwealth split them apart.

Bodiam Castle was damaged by Commonwealth soldiers who also destroyed Arundel Castle. Without any prominent Royalists in the area it seems most landlubbers, fishermen and their families favoured the Commonwealth. Nevertheless, some landowners and well-to-do traders supported Charles II.

After Commonwealth troops defeated the royalist army at the Battle of Worcester on the third of September 1651, except for Lord Wilmot, Charles II dismissed his followers. The distinctive two yards tall, dark complexioned king was hunted but always managed to escape. Once he hid high up in an oak tree while soldiers search for him beneath it. Elsewhere the king was sometimes recognised but not betrayed. If he had been caught, he would have become a pawn or, maybe, like his father Charles I, have been beheaded.

On the thirteenth of October the king set out for Brighthelmstone, Brighton’s previous name, where Wilmot had been in contact with Colonel Gunter, the king’s loyal supporter. On the fourteenth his majesty was accommodated in the George Inn, and Gunter paid a merchant sixty pieces of silver to transport two illegal duellists, aka the king and Wilmot, across the English Channel to France. However, when Tattersall, the captain of the brig, met the king he recognised him but remained silent until they were alone, when he knelt and kissed the royal hand.

On the brink of departure from Shoreham, the king spent the night at Bramber a small village. There, after six weeks during which he hid in priest’s holes, slept on pallets on the floor and endured danger and discomfort, he almost encountered Commonwealth soldiers.

I can only imagine Charles II’s profound relief when he reached Shoreham harbour in time to board the brig and at 4 a.m. on the fifteenth of October and departed. Almost ten years later he returned to England where he succeeded to the throne.

Classical Historical Fiction by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels: Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels False Pretences.

Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books One to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child and Friday’s Child.

(The novels in the series are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are referred to and characters reappear.)

Mediaeval Novel Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

Mysterious Green Children by Katherine Pym

 

Buy Here, A Story for All Ages

 ~*~*~*~

Sign outside of Woolpit, Sussex

I once saw a BBC production where a village nurse found several children—brothers and sisters—alone in a house located at the edge of town. Their parents were nowhere to be seen. They were desperate and hungry, and all of them had orange skin. This stumped the nurse, until she realized they ate carrots for sustenance.

Recently, I ran across an account of a 12^th century mystery yet to be resolved. A young brother and sister appeared without explanation or reason in the hamlet of Woolpit in East Anglia, during the reign of King Stephen. They wore clothing of unknown origin and spoke a foreign language. The most peculiar difference: their skin was green.

No one knows where they truly came from. It is all very ‘unearthly’. 

Two chroniclers tell the tale: 

William of Newburgh, 12^th century, who enjoyed chronicling the kings of England. While writing of King Stephen, he threw in a paragraph or two of green children.

From his manuscript, ‘…four or five miles from the noble monastery of the blessed king and martyr, Edmund; near this place are seen some very ancient cavities, called “Wolfpittes,” that is, in English, “Pits for wolves,”’ (Hence Woolpit). …‘During harvest, while the reapers were employed in gathering in the produce of the fields, two children, a boy and a girl, completely green in their persons, and clad in garments of a strange color, and unknown materials, emerged from these excavations.’ (wolf pits)

The story goes on to say the harvesters took the children to the village, but they would not eat anything put before them, until at one point beans were brought in from the field. The children, who were starving, grabbed the stalks, but there were no beans. The villagers handed the children bean pods and they ate ravenously. They refused all other foods until months later, they tried bread. As the children became accustomed to other foods, their green color diminished. They learned English, and were baptized.

Asked where they had come from, they replied, ‘”We are inhabitants of the land of St. Martin, who is regarded with peculiar veneration in the country which gave us birth.” Being further asked where that land was, and how they came thence hither, they answered, “We are ignorant of both those circumstances; we only remember this, that on a certain day, when we were feeding our father’s flocks in the fields, we heard a great sound,”’ which they likened to the chimes of bells. They had become entranced and somehow found themselves in the Woolpit fields.

Lost Children

The children were asked if people of their land believed in Christ, and were there churches. They replied, ‘”The sun does not rise upon our countrymen; our land is little cheered by its beams; we are contented with that twilight, which among you, precedes the sunrise, or follows the sunset. Moreover, a certain luminous country is seen, not far distant from ours, and divided from it by a very considerable river.”’

The other chronicler, Ralph of Coggeshall, wrote of the green children in the 13^th century. His account seems to be separate from Newburgh’s, and came from the man who looked after the children. According to Coggeshall, the children were lost chasing their father’s cattle. They sought refuge in a cave, but hearing the sound of bells, followed the chimes to Woolpit.

The boy died not long after their baptism, but the girl grew to adulthood where one source says she married a man from King’s Lynn in Norfolk, and another that she married an ambassador of King Henry II. Some said the girl, whom they called Agnes, never acted like the ladies of the area. She was always different.

How the children came to Woolpit is a mystery. If they had come from the sea, how did they find the village, which is 18.6 miles from Ipswich, 37.2 miles from Aldeburgh, and 38.2 miles from Dunwich. That’s a good ways on foot, even today. These children were very young. How could they have traveled this far alone?

Imagine Little Green Girl

The girl mentioned a river, but there is no river in the direct vicinity of Woolpit. One source says there is/was a river not far from Bury St. Edmunds. There is a River Lark near Fornham St. Martin. Are there caves nearby? Where would the children have come from where there is no direct sunlight, and everyone’s skin is green?

Explanations:

One is that the children suffered from arsenic poisoning. Another, hypochromic anemia (chlorosis), which is an iron deficiency, and would have made their skin green. Yet another theory postulates they were the children of Flemish immigrants who were persecuted and killed—possibly in the battle at Fornham in 1173. But how did the children escape a battle? Why would they even be allowed near a battle?

Why was their skin green? Did they wander the fields, eating beans until found?

I do not know. It is a mystery, not so much that the children ate beans to survive, but that the land they had come from was always in a dull murk. Where would that place be?

~*~*~*~

Thanks to:

William of Newburgh, The History of English Affairs or Historia rerum Anglicarum, A history of England from 1066 to 1198, The Great Library Collection by R.P. Pryne, Philadelphia, PA, 2015 & a reprint from original publication of AD 1220.

Who were the Green Children of Woolpit? https://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-Green-Children-of-Woolpit-2/answer/Spencer-Alexander-McDaniel

https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/green-children-woolpit-12th-century-legend-visitors-another-world-002347

http://mentalfloss.com/article/62878/mystery-green-children-woolpit

Life Is Good

 

Of course everyone knows that  life is a constant change. We age, lose our job, or quit, or finally retire Ah, retirement - the Golden Years.  Our children are raised, married, and on their own. Maybe we have grandchildren - and maybe, as in my case, you've been blessed with great grandchildren.

You finally have time for yourself, to travel, to enjoy life. At least that's the plan.
Sometimes life doesn't go as planned. Sometimes health issues arise and you have to set plans aside.
Recently the doctor put my husband on oxygen at night. He has COPD - emphysema to be exact. Comes from years of smoking. He was doing pretty well, or so we thought. He's gone through three pulmonary doctors - they keep leaving the practice and moving on to better things I guess. The first two kept telling him the longer he could stay off oxygen the better.
The first visit with the third doctor, he asked if hubby used oxygen at night.  He seemed quite surprised when we said no. So he scheduled a test that would monitor his blood oxygen level while he slept.
Next thing I knew, Medical Supplier called to set up a time to drop off the oxygen. It would

have been nice if the doctor's office would have called and told him that. He had an appointment later that month to learn the results. Seems to me the results were obvious and I almost cancelled the appointment. Glad I didn't. After several nights using the oxygen, hubby started snoring - he hasn't snored in like forever - and he became very restless. I swore if he hit me in the back one more time I was going to take the oxygen tube and wrap it around his neck. No, I really wouldn't have done it, but it was tempting.
 Thing is, I have enough trouble sleeping without someone punching me in the back and waking me . Needless to say, I spent many sleepless nights. Sleeping on the couch wasn't an option - it's only a love seat, and there aren't any other beds in the house. I was stuck with him. You'd think with a queen-size bed he'd have enough room to stay on his own side. But, no, he'd lay on his back and fling his arm out and bam, right in the middle of my back.
Turns out when they brought the oxygen they neglected to hook up the water bottle for humidity.  Of course the doctor immediately wanted to do a sleep study, as he wrote out the prescription for the water bottle. We declined. Hubby doesn't have sleep apena. They brought the water that afternoon and walla, he's been sleeping peacefully ever since.

But... on a lighter note, life isn't always bad. My son recently got engaged and one of my granddaughters whose been trying to have a child is now getting one to adopt . The baby is due Nov.10th.  Of course everyone is excited and my daughter had a shower for her in October.
A new baby girl is expected soon. And...we found out earlier this year, my grandson is expecting his second child Dec. 16th.  Another girl. How exciting is all that?
So, life is good. Our church got a new pastor in September, we've been without one for two years. We had him, his wife, mother, and son for dinner a couple weeks ago.
They're from Colorado and never heard of perogi. I was more than happy to make some for them.  We enjoyed the evening and they said they enjoyed the perogi, especially their little boy.  In fact,  we had them over again for cabbage and noodle and the little guy asked if I made perogi again. I said no and he said, "make them next time we come over, okay."  Well of course i said yes. Next plan is chicken paprikash. Yes, I'm making them traditional Slovak dishes. Pastor's wife is Indonesian, but she seems to enjoy the food.
So, all in all, life is good.

Priscilla Brown reflects on imagination

The two main characters in this contemporary romance are artisans.

Each has a huge capacity for imagination,

not only with their crafts but with each other and their lifestyles.

https://bookswelove/net/authors/brown-priscilla-romance 

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." Albert Einstein.

At a recent textile workshop, the tutor introduced us to this quotation; knowledge of how to do something is of course necessary and formal instructions may be available. (Though when attempting to assemble furniture that comes in a flat pack with diagrammed instructions largely unclear to me, some imagination helps to picture which bit could go where.)

So what to do with knowledge can entail imagination. In this felt-making workshop, where we all knew the basics of making the felt from pre-dyed sheep fleece, we were encouraged to give our imagination free rein to broaden our craft.Thick or thin? Put this colour with that? One or two dimensional? Change shape? A functional item or an art piece? We played with options, and supported each other with ideas and inspiration.

During the lunch break, we discussed imagination. We concluded that we all had lots of it as if we didn't, a) we wouldn't be attending this workshop, and b) we wouldn't be discussing it. We thought perhaps everyone has it innately to some degree, but not all develop or nurture it. A five-year-old boy of my acquaintance loves building Lego, and was busy following instructions from the manual. Then his grandfather hid the book, and to encourage the child to use his imagination asked him to build something by himself. At first he was a little puzzled, but an hour later he'd constructed a fairly complicated tower. "I didn't know I could to that," he smiled. "But I found out I could." Imagination nurtured.

 I asked a group of five friends if they considered they had imagination, and at the same time, if they pictured the story in their heads as they read. One firmly declared no to imagination and no to pictures. After a moment's thought, she added that may be why she has no sense of direction - in a new area she has trouble visualising from a map which way to go; she prefers to read historical non-fiction rather than historical or any fiction, because in non-fiction she can believe the words. (Rather a sweeping statement?) Agreeing with this, another said he reads only non-fiction because it did not require imagination. These non-fiction readers (I have work to do on them!) shocked the others and led to a discussion on how, when reading fiction, we can suspend disbelief - if the plot, the characters are convincing, we follow their journey as if they were real people.

One friend was intrigued by my question. "Of course I see the story happening in my head. How else am I going to believe in the characters and their lifestyles?" In other words, she was suspending disbelief. A friend who on his two-hour train commute to work reads crime novels said he enjoys these because the plots and settings are so far removed from his experience that he exercises imagination to picture the story, sometimes mentally placing a scene in one of the suburbs he passes every day. One friend who can no longer travel likes to read fiction set in foreign countries which she has either visited, or can visualise the location and imagine with pleasure being there. So the three who read fiction use imagination and see the story in their heads. A very small sample, but still interesting.

May you follow fictional characters with enjoyment. Priscilla.


https://bwlpublishing.ca

https://priscillabrownauthor.com

 

Poop Detail

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http://julietwaldron.com/books.htm

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"Women's work is never done" goes the old saying. Women's work also, seems to me, to be heavily oriented toward cleaning up stuff that comes out of other people (or pets) in one form or another. Tina Faye told Jerry Seinfeld on a recent "coffee date" that at her house "I am in charge of feces." 

I burst out laughing when I heard that, as it's all too familiar to me, and, I'm sure, to women everywhere. At least, familiar to the kind of ordinary women who don't have servants.

Back in baby days, I was the caregiver--as the task is now called. Husband at work, Mom at home, that's the way it was for some years. I cooked, cleaned, washed dishes and clothes and wiped away spit-up and freshened adorable baby butts--which become far less adorable when they are covered in you know what and need a good wash and dry before you can begin to contemplate putting a diaper back on. In the meantime, the boys might also send a high pressure jet across the room, a hazard I (an infant care novice) learned about the hard way.

These days it's just the usual housework--babies and their cute butts are long gone from my life--but that doesn't mean my woman's work poop detail has ended. There are still bathrooms and more particularly toilets that require not-that-pleasant close up work. As I scrub, I often remember working as a waitress long ago in a little restaurant where we had to clean the bathrooms after closing. The ladies who didn't sit could make quite a mess. The gentlemen's room, though, could be extra special sometimes, despite a sign over the hopper which admonished: "We aim to please. YOU AIM TOO PLEASE." 

Long ago

Besides human clean up, there's cat clean up too, at our house. We have three cats, all indoor these days, for their safety and for the safety of the local chipmunks, squirrels, moles and birds. There are other outside cats around here devouring everything in sight, but at least my three are no longer part of the general extermination. Our newest, Tony, is a small healthy young cat, but, I swear, this guy counts as at least two cats when it comes to his box filling abilities. I may miss days at the gym, but as long as I have to lug kitty litter into the house and then back out again on a daily basis, I think I'm nevertheless keeping up with my weight lifting.

Whenever I'm inclined to feel sorry for myself, I tell myself to imagine what the "good old days" must have been like for women. Today, most of us have hot and cold running water in good supply; we have washers and dryers and laundry products galore. But in the 18th Century this was not the case. A diaper change is the kind of day-in-a-life task a middle class woman might have to regularly undertake.

So here's a little slice of A Master Passion, where Elizabeth Schuyler tends the newest Hamilton baby, James. It's already a busy day when her sister Peggy visits unexpectedly.

The whining from the next room suddenly grew to a wail. James, when his first grumbling summons hadn’t been answered, was angry now. With a sweep of skirts, Betsy marched into the room, scooped her howling son from his cradle and plumped herself down in a comfortable wing chair. Her mother would never have undertaken such a task in the good parlor. After all, with a new baby, the risks of spills from one end and leaks from the other were high, but Betsy couldn’t bring herself to walk another step. As a piece of insurance, however, she snatched up his flannel wrap.

Unbuttoning her dress, she got bellowing Jamie in place, experienced the sharp tug and the answering flesh gone-to-sleep prickle of the let-down. Then, one end of the cloth pressed to stem the flow from the neglected breast and the rest tucked strategically around James, she watched her newest son’s jaw work as he mastered the initial tide. He was round and fair, even balder than Angelica had been, but a similar halo of red fluff had begun to rise upon his pink skull. As different in some ways as the children were, there was a certain sameness in the general outline: gray eyes, long heads, a kiss of red in their hair.

Betsy leaned back, relaxing into the comforts of nursing, when she heard a knock at the door.

“Davie!” When she called out, James startled. “Una! Gussie! The door!”

In stretching for the bell on the end table, she dislodged James. He promptly set up a renewed cry at this sudden, rude interruption of his dinner.

“Temper, temper!” Betsy rubbed his open mouth—and the yell—against the nipple. She noticed, with amusement, that his bald head instantly went scarlet with rage.

She decided to ignore whoever it was. If they wanted in badly enough, they’d go around to the kitchen. Then she heard rapid footsteps in the hallway, the sound of Davie running, followed by voices. Soon, the parlor door opened and Peggy poked her head in.

“May I?”

“Of course, Peg. Heavens! I didn’t know you were in town.”

“It was spur-of-the-moment. Stephen is having trouble with Mr. Beekman and decided to come down and straighten it out face to face. I thought I’d come too and see what’s in the shops. The first of the London fashions are arriving.”

During this speech, her younger sister settled on the facing sofa. She was very much the lady of leisure, in a gown of peach satin layered over an ivory petticoat upon which hundreds of tiny birds in flight had been painted. As she removed the long pins which held her broad-brimmed straw hat, she revealed a wealth of chestnut hair.

“Davie says I just missed Colonel Hamilton.”

“Yes. Not half an hour since he rode off with John Jay and Cousin Bob Livingston. I confess I’m worried about what will happen in the legislature. There are only nineteen men who are for the new Constitution.”

“I am concerned, too, though I’ve never really understood politics. Still, we’ve all had an education in the science of government. Papa, for one, is absolutely relentless on the subject.”

“Yes, that’s all Alexander ever talks about, too, either to me or anyone else.”

“Well, thank heaven there are women to keep the day to day world going ’round.”

Peggy moved closer to get a good look at the new baby. He was now happily gulping again.

“What a big strong fellow! I swear, Sis, you’re as good at this as Mama ever was.”

Although their eighth anniversary wouldn’t come until Christmas, James made the fourth little Hamilton. Peggy, on the other hand, had carried only one, Stephen, the precious son and heir to the ancient line of van Rensselaer. There had been nothing afterward but a sad string of miscarriages.

The very elegant Angelica Schuyler Church, maid and baby

Mindful of her sister’s feelings, Betsy simply said, “Thank you, Sis.” She sat Jamie up and patted his back. As he slumped into her hand, his big eyes goggled.

“That one is going to take after Mr. Hamilton for sure. Look at those blue eyes.”

“Well, perhaps. But our babies seem to come fair and then darken up, all except for our Angelica.”

“Are she and Phil upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“Well, in a minute send one of your girls to bring the darlings down to their adoring aunt.”

Tea came in, with Una’s thoughtful addition of some fine English sweet biscuits that had recently arrived from London, sent by Angelica Church.

“Shall I take James, Missus?”

“No, he’s quiet and you’ve got enough going on. Where is Alex?”

“He be watchin’ Gussie scrub.”

“I’ll take care of Jamie,” Betsy instructed, “but if you hear Fanny squawk, let me know.”

Peggy poured tea while Betsy laid the flannel upon the upholstered sofa and then proceeded to quickly change James atop it.

“You are a lucky girl, you know.”

Betsy looked up from wiping a pasty yellow smear from Jamie’s cherub’s bottom.

Peggy giggled. “Why, I mean Alexander the Great, of course. He’s a kind of knight of the round table in our benighted modern age. Papa is quite tiresome on the subject.”

“True, but being the wife of Alexander the Great isn’t easy. I mean, look.” Betsy gestured at the little parlor with its few furnishings.

“Money isn’t everything.”

“Only to those who have enough.” Betsy wrapped the diaper up carefully before setting it on the floor. “And I don’t think I shall ever get used to living in this city. There are times when I do so envy you. Your husband is with you almost all the time instead of riding off on crusades. Even when Hamilton is at home, half the time he’s tied up in knots and might as well not be here at all. Day and night are the same to him when he’s working. This whole winter and spring it’s been nothing but those Federalist Papers..."

~~Juliet Waldron

See all my historical novels @

http://julietwaldron.com/books.htm

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