Services

Critiquing and Coaching

“Oh, I like it.”

“It’s really good.”

“You’re going to be a famous author one day.”

Family and friends mean well. They look toward the bright sunny future, and that’s where they see you and your work. They don’t want to stomp on your dreams or in any way dissuade you from becoming the best you can be. I feel the same way about you. So why would you pay for a critique when your family and friends give you so much praise?

Because I’m not afraid to give you the ass-kicking you need. Without stomping on your dreams. While encouraging your growth and advancement in the literary arts, but with a no-holds-barred approach to pointing out mistakes, weak spots, strong spots, logical error, grammatical wizardry, or plain ol’ passive voice.

The difference is that when I tell you something’s good. I mean it’s good right now, not good ten years from now once you’ve learned more. When I tell you something needs work, I can tell you what kinds of work would actually fix it.

And I will never overlook things just to keep you happy. Writing is tough. It’s filled with a billion rules which all work together to make inked scratches on a piece of pulverized wood mean something to someone, evoke feelings and memories out of someone.  The rules are the magic.

And I can help you with them.

My fees are more than reasonable at $50/1000 words. Why is it so reasoable? Because I think everyone should have at least 1000 words critiqued thoroughly by someone who’s serious about the craft of writing. If you choose to have more than 1000 words critiqued, good on you. If you choose coaching for the 1000 words, awesome. If you throw the critique away and do nothing with it: that’s your choice. But throw it somewhere you can find it when you’re feeling tougher, feeling more determined to get published.

Hesitant? I’ll critique 250 words for free. And yes, I can change the way you write in 250 words. Try me.

As for coaching, that’s done over Skype, IM, in FB. However you and I can connect. The wonderful bit about technology is that we’re bound by nothing. Coaching is a flat fee, $35/25 minutes or $60/50 minutes, whether we get through 10 words of your manuscript or 5000. I use PayPal. I’ll accept payments and I’ll work with you if you’re in a tough financial spot, but I gotta eat, too.

Sometimes people ask me, “why coaching? Why can’t you just make the changes and—presto!—manuscript?”

Well, because if we did it that way, you’d never get any better. If you don’t know why something doesn’t work, you’re doomed to repeat doing it. Obviously it was natural for you to do, and by definition, unnatural for you to do something else. But I can make corrections make sense for you. And when they make sense for you, they’ll stick. The light bulb goes on, the angels sing from the clouds, and all is right with the world.

I got to know this stuff because I write prolifically, I belong to several writer’s groups, and I take classes all the time. I am always learning new things, and that means you are always learning new things, too. Not just from books, but from real experience, real acceptances and rejections, and real novelists. Revolutionize your writing today: contact me.

Reviews:

Critique n’ Freaks reviews independent ebooks. We select ebooks to review for free, but you can also pay to be reviewed by us. Once you enter into an agreement with us, though, there’s no going back. However, you can use your review at Critique n’ Freak as a low-cost critique, and choose not to have the results published on our website. If we find your book because of a coaching relationship, your review is automatically free. Reviews are $99 otherwise. We accept Paypal. Contact me for details.

Advertising:

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