As of this month, I have decided to offer professional critiquing services for novelists interested in honest, insightful feedback. As many of you know, I’ve been teaching workshops for the Muse and Savvy Authors for years, but you may not know what I enjoy most about them: I love reading a promising piece of work, identifying underlying issues, and helping the author take their work to the next level. There are times when I even make this connection — to the story or the author — and there’s an Aha! moment. Those moments make my day, and I want to experience more of them.
I did some research on the going rate for critiquing services, and it is justifiably high. Reading a novel takes many hours — reading it with a keen eye takes more. I also know from experience that I can usually find underlying weaknesses in a story early on. I’ve read whole novels where I had to stop myself from noting, chapter after chapter, “And I STILL don’t understand why….” If the foundation isn’t strong, it shows throughout the entire book.
For these two reasons, I decided to offer initial critiques of the first 2k-5k words, plus a short summary. I actually put together three different packages, estimated how long I thought each would take, and put together a price list. (I won’t post them here because I can’t promise they won’t change. You can find them here.)
If you decide you’re interested, then once I send my detailed analysis of the beginning, we can decide if further critique would be useful. I don’t want to speculate publicly about what might make me decide to offer further critique, although I will say that as much as I’d like the extra money, that won’t be my only (or even primary) concern. I have to feel that I can help in some way.