By far, my lowest scores came in the setting and sensory data departments. The judge who scored me lower gave me a 1 in setting and a 3 in sensory detail.
Specifically, the score sheet says:
Does sensory detail (sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste) enhance each scene?
Does the setting support the story? Is the story well-grounded in the setting?
I had some sensory detail, like shoes crunching on gravel, a bell pealing against glass as someone entered a door, but I had no smell, no touch, and no taste...and I even had my characters things that absolutely succulent-smelling! Yikes! So I went back and added in sensory data to really draw the reader into the scene more.
As for my setting, lower-scoring-judge indicated that I needed more descriptions to help ground the reader. After looking at the entry, I realized I had precious little descriptions. My hero's apartment had a chair and kitchen counter. My heroine's had a scene at a desk. Who knows what the heck that looks like or where it's situated or anything.
So I added this all in and reread it. 10x better. Another little clue I picked up that enabled me to take my barely-15-almost-16 pages entry and add even more to it and still keep it within the 15-page guidelines was to do the 25 lines per page thing. It gave me at least another page's worth to add, which was nice when judges were telling me I needed more descriptions.
So there you go. My comments from the judges were extremely helpful. I hope everyone finds something they can improve when you get your scores back....and be nice and let everyone else know and benefit, too!
11 comments:
So glad you found some helpful tips, Jeannie. I'm still trying to sift through some of the conflicting things, but I was able to make some changes. One judge mentioned making the age of a character more clear. I worked that in. It was a great point.
~ Wendy
That's great, Jeannie. I'm glad you were able to take some wonderful positive comments and better your manuscript!
Congrats! Sorry I missed the big announcement.
Lynnette Labelle
http://lynnettelabelle.blogspot.com
Congratulations! What wonderful info to help you move forward. I'm excited for you:)
Very cool, thanks for sharing! And congrats. :-)
I haven't had a chance to go back through and really process my comments. But this reminds me that I need to do that. And I probably should blog about it, as well. :-) It's good for me to remember what I worked on.
I just had such a short turn-around to get the ms done... my computer fried and I actually had to use one of the manuscripts they sent me back to start making changes. It was a freaky moment. But now that the whirlwind is over, I do need to take the judges' comments into consideration on my larger manuscript.
And hopefully recover all my data. :-)
Great post!
Congratulations, and thanks for sharing! :-)
What fabulous feedback to get...and when I read it, I was nodding my head, because I just got very similar feedback from a professional crit myself. So you're not the only one who's light on those two things.
Best of luck going forward!
Congratulations! I am glad you found your judges' comments helpful. I, did, too...lots of food for thought. Contest judges have a tough job and it's a blessing to receive constructive, thoughful feedback.
Its always good to receive feedback. Ihad a lady contact me recently because she didn't like I left the protagonist stranded at the end of the story. She even posted this in her review on Amazon.
So I sent her the first few chapters of the next book so she would know the good guy would be okay.
Stephen Tremp
First off - Congrat's! WOW!
Those little things - they skip by us quite easily.
Their comments definitely help.
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