CONTEST IS CLOSED. SEE YOU NEXT MONTH 🙂
It’s time for our monthly critique contest, and the wonderful Marissa Graff is back to provide feedback for two lucky winners!
If you’re game to enter this month’s contest, here’s the amazing person you could be working with:
Marissa has been a freelance editor and reader for literary agent Sarah Davies at Greenhouse Literary Agency for five years. In conjunction with Angelella Editorial, she offers developmental editing, author coaching, and more. She specializes in middle-grade and young-adult fiction, but also works with adult fiction. Marissa feels if she’s done her job well, a client should probably never need her help again because she’s given them a crash-course MFA via deep editorial support and/or coaching.
CONTEST GUIDELINES
This month’s contest will be a little different because Marissa is offering up a critique on the FIRST FIVE PAGES of TWO WINNERS‘ stories!
If you’re working on a story opening (anything except erotica, nonfiction, or picture books) and would like some objective feedback, please leave a comment. Any comment :). As long as the email address associated with your WordPress account/comment profile is up-to-date, Marissa will be able to contact you if you win. Just please know that if she’s unable to get in touch with you through that address, you’ll have to forfeit your win.
Please be sure your story opening is ready to go so she can critique it before next month’s contest rolls around. If it needs some work and you won’t be able to get it to her right away, let me ask that you plan on entering the next contest once any necessary tweaking has been taken care of.
Two commenters’ names will be randomly drawn and posted here tomorrow. If you win, Marissa will be in contact to get your pages and offer her feedback.
Best of luck!
One More Thing…
It’s One Stop for Writers’ 5th Birthday this month, and we have a special discount code for you.
To find out the details, and to discover why One Stop for Writers should be in your writing toolkit, just head over here to our birthday post.
Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.
Yeah! Thank you so much!
Yay! Congrats to the winners, and thank you all for entering. And a huge thanks to Angela and Becca for having me 🙂
OK! The lucky winners are Janet Smart and Richard Graham. Marissa will be in touch with you both.
Thanks to everyone for entering. We’ll see you next month 🙂
Might be too late, but I’d love to enter the contest. Thanks for this great opportunity.
Oh what an amazing opportunity!
I’d love to have eyes on my novel! Thanks for the opportunity.
I feel I’m ready to start querying, but I want to make sure my first 5 are in good shape first.
I don’t open my current sci-fi novel with my main character. I am trying to fakeout the reader by posing the man we meet as the main character, but he’s actually the villain. And fakeouts can be very dangerous…
Thanks for the opportunity!
I’m still struggling with my beginning chapter after working on the same manuscript for 11 years, so I’d be very grateful for this opportunity.
Hi Marissa. I’m working on a MG thriller set in London and involving a feminist genie! Would love your input. Many thanks, Rich
I’d love to win a critique from a REAL editor.
I’d love to enter this contest! The MS I’m getting ready to query is a YA Dystopian Science Fiction novel. Thank you for your consideration!
Thanks so much for making these opportunities available.
Yes, please. Filled with self-doubt.
Thank you for your helpful posts. I would love an opportunity to work with Marissa on my MG novel, Cage Free. It’s complete but I want to change direction a bit on revision. I could use some guidance.
What a wonderful opportunity, thank you!
I’d love an opportunity to work with Marissa
Hi Marissa, I would love input on my second draft of my near-future ghost-girl in a fishing town YA novel. Please add me to the contest, and thank you for offering your expertise.
Thank you – this would be SO helpful! :0)
Thank you for this wonderful opportunity.
This would be amazing!
Tank you for offering such a great opportunity.
It would be amazing for Marissa Graff to critique my first five pages! I’ve been working on this story for 3 years and am in the midst of my second full draft. Fingers crossed I get chosen!
Thanks for the opportunity. 🙂
Thank you for offering this! 😊
Elijah–remember the Tishbite?–would so approve if you pick this biographer, as would his brother, his wife, and his seven sons. Especially the twins, Feivel and Gabriel.
This 5-page critique would be so amazing as I have been reworking my opening chapter for the past couple of months!
Wow! Good morning, this is such a generous opportunity. I would love to have my first five pages critiqued by Marissa Graff. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. BTW, last nights webinar on One Stop’s character builder tool was fantastic. Thanks!
Finally, I’m ready for one of these critiques! And Marissa specialises in YA, bonus 🙂 Keeping fingers tightly crossed.
I have four published books, two with a small press and two indie. Since some readers have commented that the books started slow, I worked especially hard on the newest manuscript to try to really hook the reader from the first sentence and move fast through the first chapter. However, I took some risks to do that, and I don’t know how well it worked. I would love some feedback! Hope I win.
This is a great idea! Thank you for the opportunity and the great blog.
I’m in!