Sunday, September 10, 2006

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

(With thanks to Bono for the post title)

I received a package today. Husband found it in the outside toilet. It was my manuscript returned from the Romantic Novelists' Association assessment service.

I said I'd look at it later; husband said not to put it off. 'It will only be hanging over you. Even if they don't think it's good enough, they'll have lots of helpful advice to improve it.'

So I opened it.

In three full pages of critique, the closest thing to a positive comment was this: 'You obviously intended this to be a humorous story and some of your scenarios are amusing.'

According to the expert, my heroine is slovenly (she has dirty cupboards), and it's unrealistic to imagine that someone who has catered for Christmas for 20 years would forget to order a turkey. She knows that she should diet but, shock horror, does absolutely nothing to rectify the matter. Welcome to my world.

Oh, yes, and surely my heroine should be less concerned about her pre-menopausal hot flushes and more worried that she might lose her sex drive, find sex painful or experience heavy periods.

And I misuse punctuation marks.

I want to retaliate, to scream and shout at this unnamed expert that she has missed the whole point of my novel, but to do that would be acting against what I have always put argued in critiquing situations: that if a reader has missed the point of what you've written, it's your fault not the reader's.

So now what I must do is put this report to one side for a while, consider what is said and decide what to do about it.

Okay, that's long enough; does anyone have a tall building I can jump off?

The postman obviously knew what he was doing when he left the package in the toilet. Down the toilet seems to be the only place for it. And my hopes. (No, I'm joking. I wouldn't waste all that paper. It'll go for recycling.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds to me as if the RNA inhabit a more rarified and perfect world than the rest of us mere mortals Liz.

You will doubtless take the best of their comments and rework the m/s to accommodate them - and ignore the worst!

Chris said...

I haven't read your novel, Liz, so can't give an opinion on the story but the critiques sound very peculiar to me.

1.If the expert wants to know the true meaning of 'slovenly' he/she should visit my abode AND those of several of my friends.
2. I'VE been doing Christmas for 40 odd years now and usually forget something. One year it was to defrost the turkey, which is just as bad as forgetting it altogether.
3. I don't understand the comment about dieting. ALL women know when they should diet but most don't. Just look around.
4. Pre-menopausal hot flushes are MUCH more worrying than sex matters. You don't think about, or worry about, them until they happen, which is usually pos-menopause.

Please, please, please tell me this was written by a man because it's the only explanation I can come up with

Shirley said...

Sounds like it didn't fit the 'formula' for Mills and Boon and Hallelujah for that!

I haven't read you manuscript (but I really would like to) but I say Fiddle de dee to them and carry on writing!