If Winning Isn't Everything, What Is?

Hi Shilo,

I think there is definitely promise here. One of my main concerns is that clearly, from your synopsis and some of the later material, this is about more than just sports. It’s about Britta growing and learning what’s important in life, and it’s a teen high school book and probably a romance as well! However, the beginning of the book is very much sports-oriented, which makes me wonder whether people who aren’t that into sports will be put off. Maybe it would be better to open with something slightly different and then bring in the track practice scene a little later when they’re already engaged with the characters. Just a thought.

I also think there is maybe a bit too much detail in places. For instance, in the first line, rather than say ‘I joked with one of my best friends, Leigha Graves …’ you could just say ‘I joked with Leigha …’ Let the fact that she’s Britta’s best friend come out through the dialogue, or through your later line ‘Leigha and my other best friend Jordan’. Likewise, maybe we don’t need to know how old Britta’s twin sisters are in the flashback. Stuff like that.

You also don’t need a ‘said’ (or substitute) every time anyone says anything. Your words will have a smoother flow without it.

Generally the story felt quite slow-moving. I wonder whether there are scenes here and there you could cut out to give it a snappier pace? Your chapters are long, so maybe shortening them up a little would be more appropriate to your intended market.

Hope this helps and good luck with your writing.

Dear SDG,

Everything that I say is subjective comment from an unpublished writer.

This is promising, but the execution is not yet good enough. Your first para is a little muddled and uses repetition. An editor would stop there. You use too many "I said, she agreed" etc etc. They hold up the narrative and take pace off it. A lot of the punctuation needs attention, too. I suggest you go through your first chapter with a fine tooth comb, ie a thorough manual edit taking about a week, and cut as much out of it as possible, to make it taut and spare.

Do some nonsense writing exercises before you d that edit. Write a couple of pages of another story, mixing description with dialog. Treat it like Matthew says they should treat the first 3 days of the track season - as a warm-up, a limbering-up, a getting into shape. Then start the edit, and do it nice and slow so you don't miss anything. And do it in a couple or three passes, the first focussing on the unnecessary speech said, explaineds etc; the second to look at unnecessary -ing verbs, the third to look at punctuation, and the fourth to go through it all over again.

You've got promise, and I'm hoping to encourage that by being constructive.

Good luck.

R

Hi Shilo,
Your book has eventually made its way to the top of my WL.
Notes on Chapter 1:
- The opening paragraph is the most important in the book, and you need to make a clean start. You've used the words 'track practice' twice in the first sentence. Repitition like this stands out like a sore thumb and it would be best to change one of them
- for me, you hammer the point of the 'rain' home too much. one or two references at most are enough
- i think you have a 'time' issue; you say that the Britta's throw was the first one and she was ahead for most of the competition, then Shannon's throw beat it ('where mone had landed only a few minutes earlier')
- i'm not sure you need all the spech tags; 'Jordan asked', 'I asked sarcastically'. if only two people are in the dialogue we should know pretty much from the way each of them 'speak' to determine who is who. the odd tag will keep the reader up to date
- like 'track practice' earlier you repeat 'long distance'; three times
- '... liked's heart' - not sure about that. would '... the heart of a girl they liked' be better?
- you mention the rain quite a lot, and how heavy it is when the ticket is being given, then you say the driveway outside the house is dusty. that makes no sense.

I was confused as to the age which you're aiming this book at. you've tagged it as children and YA. would children want to know about late teens? not sure. the language you've used in the dialogue is, forgive me, a little easy - a little too ABC. where this may be ok for children i think the YA market would find it too cheesy.
It's quite a long first chapter but, and again i aplogise, nothing really happens. there's some emotional confrontation about Britta's felings toward Jordan and the car race, but that's it. where's the hook? where's the catch which will make a reader want to carry on? the blurb taks about the discus championship, and that's kind of where it starts, but even in that nothing happens.
if Britta's relationship with Jordan is a central theme in the story, why not make more use of that. it's clear that he doesn't like the new coach because Britta fancies him. i think you need to make a punchier, shorter first chapter.
i hope that you take what i've written here as being constructive - you obviously like to write (167k words kind of makes that clear) but i think you need to tighten it up and lose a lot of un-needed words.
Best of luck,
Regards,
Andy

I like tales of endeavour and success. Britta is a good heroine, impulsive and ambitious and a truly scary driver. The story is a promising one, and as a Londoner, the setting and culture was entertainingly different from what I am used to.

I’m going to shelve this to encourage it the next time I change my shelf (and I’ll let you know when I do) but I think you could easily improve the way you tell the story – see notes below.

[There are lots of words you could trim, some of them repetitions, and this would leave you with smoother prose and a better pace. For instance, right at the start, you have a repetition of ‘track practice’. If you said ‘as I walked out to the discus field’ you’d avoid that. Then there are eight ‘rain’ or ‘raining’ in the second paragraph. (I notice this as I struggle with word echoes myself.)

‘“Yeah” I agreed with him’ – here you show her agreeing – “Yeah” – then you tell us that’s what she did – ‘I agreed with him’. Trust the reader! Readers are bright. Ditto ‘I explained’. Not necessary to have a speech tag at all. Use as few as you can get away with, without confusion. ‘I defended myself’ – you get the idea, I won’t quote any more, but it’s there all the time with your dialogue, and truly, you don’t need it. It’s just slowing the story down.

Imagine, if you were talking to someone, and a third person interrupted with, ‘she’s admitting…now she’s explaining…oh, she’s trying to lie’ – you’d say to her, ‘Excuse me, I can work out what she’s getting at for myself, thank you.’ Same in a novel.

Stick to ‘he said’ most of the time. ‘She reminded me’ is visible, where ‘she said’ is not.

Avoid ‘she began to’ and similar expressions. ‘She announced’ is fine on its own.]

Hi Shilo. well I've had a look at the first couple of chapters - thinking about it I should have dipped in further on as well but you can't change chapters mid comment or you lose what you've written. I think Britta is very believable. and you've picked an unusual subject.
I think the challenge here is going to be to maintain the interest for people who aren't that interested in sport or haven't a clue about throwing discus. there seemed to be lots of books about girls riding ponies and winning rosettes when I was a kid but I think they worked on a different level - like the relationship between the girl and the pony and the fact you were quite privileged if you had riding lessons. ballet worked as well - probably because of the obsession with tutus. I think you're going to have to work at playing up other aspects of this girl's life that more people can identify with. if the reader sympathises with her for more personal things I think they're more likely to root for her in the sport. you will probably also have to watch out for repeats of words like locker and field and track etc. great potential if you can pull this off. I'll give it a quick turn on my shelf to give it a boost. Ali.

Dear SDG,

Have watchlisted you on the strength of your forum post and the fact that you don't like people spamming you.

R

Hmm, sounds interesting. Discus champs aren't exactly the most written about people, so I'm intrigued. I'm watchlisting this because it sounds interesting. Hopefully I'll be able to get round to reading soon :)