Life is like rough drafts.. very rough drafts. You think you have a master piece at hand only to realize there's a profuse amount of mistakes. Enough mistakes that what you wrote is naive and foolish. But that's why it's simply a draft. Revise. You can't necessarily revise what goes on in life, but you can shine a new perspective on it. See it from an outside source's point of view. Learn from the previous drafts so you improve your upcoming ones. I view life as a never ending story. A glorious book if you would; full of every genre imaginable. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Everything is included, everything has to be included. It's one of the absolute best things about a homo sapient. It's what makes them a person and not just an object who breathes our air and speaks our language. So personal, so invasive and intrusive. Vulnerable. Something that's not for everyone's eyes. You can only gain access to by the author.

While all the normal souls are sleeping

I am wide awake, alone

My mind is screaming when it should be dreaming

I am lost in this cyclone

My body fights against exhaustion

Stubbornly denying peace

Should I seek a deal with Faustian

& let my soul decay, decrease?

I am already fading

I am a walking shell

I am so tired of this crusading

I am over living in this hell

If i could, id sleep forever

& dream my way to perfect bliss

What a marvellous endeavour

To be free at last from this abyss

But while all the normal souls are sleeping

I am wide awake, alone

My body screaming when it should be dreaming

& I am lost in this cyclone

©CJ

You think you know me

Well think again

What you think you know

Is of your own creation

You think I'm fine

& that I'm alright

You see my smile

Not what's behind

But my smile is a lie

In its truest form

I smile for you

To hide my pain

This you should know

This i have said

Pain is my portrait

Painted in despair

Sometimes i wish

You would never forget

& sometimes i wish

You would never remember

Because if you forget

You lack sympathy

But if you remember

You sigh in frustration

I'm not like the others

I'm one of a kind

& I know it's not easy

To stay by my side

I wish i was stronger

So I could stand alone

But I need someone

& i wish it wasn't you

You deserve more

You deserve better

I wish you would go

But I want you to stay

Without you

There's nothing

Without you

I'd die

You're my one

My only one

& through this pain

I love you still

So that's why i lie

In its truest form

I smile for you

& pray you will stay

©CJ

The Simon & Schuster challenge was one of our greatest accomplishments, and one of our most difficult undertakings to date. It was our first time working with a big publisher and taking challenges to a larger scale. Given the number and quality of entries, determining the top 50 was extraordinarily difficult. Having never done something like this before, we had to really bootstrap our selection criteria. 

We spent weeks reading through every single one of the entries as a team. The first criterion we used was grammar. Repetitive grammatical mistakes, and a lack of respect for English syntax in general, were grounds for disqualification. The second criterion was creativity. We looked for storytelling excellence, moving characters, inventive plots. We looked for content that captivated us, that we thought would enthrall others as well. After narrowing the list of entries by these two criteria, 166 remained. 

For each of these 166 entries, each team member assigned a subjective "quality rating" from one to five. We considered likes to break ties when the average quality score was too close to call. We wanted to include some democratic element in determining the winners, rather than solely rely upon our own subjective judgment. When all was said and done, we had found our 50 entries.

In reflection, our process was imperfect and we intend to do a better job in the near future. Here are some of the ideas we are considering:

1) Limited Voting. When the challenge ends, everyone gets a limited number of votes, and cannot use these votes on their own entry. We would use these votes to distill the pool of potential winners more democratically.

2) Electoral College. A panel of judges is either elected deliberately or selected randomly to read through the entries and determine the winners.

3) Gauntlet Tournaments. We select a few factors, a combination of judging panel, spell check, democratic votes, and other creative criteria, to advance the best content round-by-round, tournament-style.

We would love to hear your suggestions and ideas for improving our challenges.

Once again, congratulations to the winners and entrants alike. 

We are working hard to bring you more publishing opportunities.

(Some rambling from me, you can ignore.)

So, critique, or mayhap we should call constructive criticism, or how about...

You suck, die!

Okay, not the last one, but it feels that way sometimes when you receive critique. Giving critique is hard as well, we often forget what it feels to receive it, and thus we can cut too deep.

Critique should be the first step your book takes before being offered up to the gods for sacrifice, err, for review by an editor. It plays an important role. A lot of bestselling authors use critique groups as they move their novel along, they call them beta readers. What they set out to do is help find plot issues, dialogue problems, and other such snags. All in the name of building up the book for publication. But there are rules!

Namely, duels are only one on one, no fighting on holy ground, and there can be only one.

Wait, no, um, the rules are of Critique:

1. Be positive.

2. Be specific.

3. Give suggestions.

These rules can be summed up thus, Don't be a Douche!

This holds whether you be the Critique giver or the receiver.

This is great...

The real goal should be growth and progress. Critique or constrictive criticism is just that, constructive. It is meant to build up, not tear down.

However, being nothing but positive is dangerous, it doesn't not allow for growth. Being told you are awesome and amazing may be true about some of your work, but hearing nothing but that can cause an inflated sense of skill and worth. In time, you could blunder badly, and in way that sears into the minds of your readers in a way that is irreversible. Star Wars Prequels anyone?

There will be problems, accept it. We are human and prone to issue of translating words within the brain to paper. They can get screwed up in their travel. Often that translation, ever so slightly off, will still make sense to you, but others don't use your brain and won't get it.

Their will be typos.

This is great, but...

When people say, "but" they aren't eviscerating your work, or shouldn't be. This is the point of critique, you are asking for help to find problems, don't be surprised when they exhume and expose issues.

So, besides catching typos and helping with simple editing, the far reaching goal should be helping you shape your story. Your character might not be moving along in the story the way you think, he could even be unlikable, unless you want that. Your dialogue could be stilted or monotone. Your sentences might just run along to much and use to many unnecessary words that are redundant with their expressed thoughts or improper references to weirdness with a strange flow of verbs that convey improper emotions of the protagonists and his underlining motivations... okay, running dry here, I hope the point is taken.

The goal of critique is to aid you in rounding the edges and deburring the sharp bits. All in an effort to prepare your manuscript for an editor, or the 6th draft.

Bestselling authors use critique groups for a reason, they work.

This looks off to me...

While I am not an editor, I can help catch missing words, typos, repeated words, and sentences that are wonky.

I do think you should be specific in your critique; however, it should be in the form of suggestions, not "rewrite the sentence exactly like this." This is a problem I see this too often with critique, people will out right rewrite whole swaths of another's work, and expect them to follow their rewrite in the guise of aiding them stop their bad writing. But that is not critique, that is editing, they want critique. Helping with the small stuff is fine, repeated word or phrases, excessive passive, weirdly worded sentences, repeated word or phrases, these can be distracting to the flow. Excise them. Fix them. Nudge them into proper prose befitting your style. Critique should help with that.

Try this...

I suck, I use too much passive voice, it grinds into my work. I try to beat it out. Rehash and rework sentences, poke and prod the words. But I still leave some passive behind in the wake of editing. I like passive, I don't like too much active voice. The short clip sentences can feel mechanical to me. They seem to lack flow and flair.

That is me, that is how I feel. I want to write like me-- you should write like you.

So when I give critique I try to let this guide me. I try to do my best to give suggestions on sentences; I may just put the sentence in (your words here) and put "rework" after. I may also give a quick reason for my issues, but I leave it to you to decide. I want it to stay in your own words and let you fix the issues.

Because I look at them as suggestions I therefore accept that you may disregard what I have said, and you have every right to.

Many years ago I was part of a writing group and after reading one of my stories I was giving this advice about my two main characters who are brothers. "One should be way dumber than the other."

Bad suggestion, maybe, maybe not. But for me it was, I threw it in the trash. I didn't argue with the person, or attack the suggestion. Okay, I am kind of doing that now, I just didn't go on the defense and disregard it immediately. I understood why the suggestion was made; she wanted a clear cut distinction between my characters because she felt they were too much alike. I decided that the suggestion didn't work for my story. The understanding helps guide me, dumber, no, though I could make some differences with them clearer.

Don’t be a douche…

This is the most important, for all parties involved. Sound critique given kindly, will help, but if you attack the critique or the one who gave it, you may find yourself unable to find helpful critique later. If you as the one giving the critique attack or disembowel the author, then why should they listen? Remember, rewriting sentences the way you would write them, or how you like to see them written is attacking their work. You are taking their voice. Give suggestions on how they could fix them, but don’t insist they change them out right.

They are asking for critique not editing.

We are doing creative writing here, there is a lot of leeway when it comes to what rules are followed. Most of us are not writing a scientific paper being published for peer review or an essay for school in the MLA format. A good number of "proper" English rules can be thrown out. 

Creative writing allows for imagination, individualism, and most importantly, creativity. It is right there in the name.

Final thought... 

I tend to give my critique on Prose in private messages. I am not saying everyone should do so, but I feel in doesn’t put a public spotlight on problems. Plus, it is easier to ignore me if you wish.

So here is my suggestion.

1. Don’t be a douche canoe. 

The Potter's wheel is turning, He has something in his hand

Clay somebody's discarded, it's Just a throwaway man

Just a piece of flesh and bone, that never seemed to win

Broken in so many places, overwhelmed by his sin

The Potter's hands are bleeding, as he gently works the clay

But sharp and broken pieces, cut him anyway

What does he see, in that wasted clay,

That we would have all thrown away

If you had the eyes of the Potter, you would also see

There's no such thing as a throwaway man, in the eyes of eternity

Wait do, you see how it's yielding, to the touch of the Potter's hand

Do my eyes believe what they're seeing, it looks like a brand new man

If you had the eyes of the Potter, you would also see

There's no such thing as a throwaway man, in the eyes of eternity

What does he see, in that wasted clay,

That we would have all thrown away