If you’ve finished a draft and are struggling with the revision process, you may benefit from a critique, a beta read, or participation in an actual writers’ workshop, which combines teaching with writing practice and feedback.
Writers’ Workshop: In each session of the Club Ed for Writers Writers’ Workshop, we’ll discuss storytelling techniques and how to identify common problems in your own story. (Forthcoming.) To learn about when the Workshop will launch, please sign up for the Club Ed for Writers newsletter.
Each two-month workshop will include several lessons (which you can read at your convenience) on the topic for the workshop and a forum for discussion of the concepts and the manuscripts participants are currently working on.
The focus will be on diagnosing your own work and applying your own solutions, but each session will also include the instructor’s feedback on up to 2,500 words of your current manuscript (about ten double-spaced pages).
The workshop can be used to help guide a novel you’re just beginning, a work-in-progress, or a manuscript that has been completely drafted. The scene or chapter you would like instructor feedback on can be submitted up until the end of the session, with feedback offered within two weeks.
Beta Reads: Our partner site, Club Ed, has editors who are interested in practicing their skills by beta reading for authors. In some cases, writers who are also editors are seeking critique partners who will exchange manuscripts for critique. To get on this list, email jennifer@jenniferlawler.com. Use the subject heading “seeking beta reader” and provide a few details about your project: word count, genre, any concerns you want the reader to pay attention to.
Manuscript critique is a paid manuscript evaluation by an experienced editor giving an overview of the big-picture issues in your manuscript. This is less intensive than a full developmental edit and is typically less expensive. For more about this offering, click here.
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