It's one of those days

I'm reading through subs while at work. I've gotten caught up with all of my "work" work, so I've decided that I'll just get through all my subs today and tomorrow. I'm saving a couple of them because with what I usually see with those authors, I'll be wanting to offer a contract on them. =)

But the other ones I'm reading... They're not bad, they're just not good enough. There's something that's missing, something that's not drawing me in enough. The written is good, but the stories are just falling a little flat for me. I hate it when that happens. It's really hard to tell an author, "Hey, it's good, it's just not good enough, dude. Maybe someone else will like it." And don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like them, it's just that they don't grab me. If I'm going to have to read through a book ten times, literally sometimes, I have to be able to enjoy reading it every single time, even though I'll always know what is coming in every scene. With a good book, it doesn't matter how many times you read it, because it's good every time. =)

When you're done writing your manuscript and you hand it over to your crit partner (if you have one), be sure you're handing it over to someone who will be brutally honest with you. I know it sucks to have your baby critiqued and have negative things said about it, but if you want to get published (by a good publisher) you need that feedback. Even if you don't have a crit partner, you need someone else to read it for you. Again, someone brutally honest. They don't have to be another writer or know the ins and outs of grammar, dialogue tags, showing versus telling, etc.

You just need someone who is going to tell you if it's a good read. If it's something they would by. You need to know if they were compelled to turn the page, to keep reading way beyond the length of time they intended to read for. I cannot stress how important that is. If I can get distracted easily while reading your book, and I'm not drawn into it, and I need to take a bunch of breaks before continuing on, chances are, I'm not going to be offering you a contract. But if I'm so into it that I HAVE to read on so I know what happens next and how it ends, then you stand a pretty good chance. Sometimes the grammar and various stuff isn't the most important thing. I can offer a revise and resubmit to fix that...but I can't tell you how to fix it if it's not an engaging story.