Good morning! It’s May, and guess what that means.

It’s time for the annual Brenda Novak Auction for Diabetes. Every May, author Brenda Novak, whose son was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of five, runs a fundraiser to raise money to combat this disease. Authors, editors, agents, and other publishing professionals and individuals donate auction items that anyone can bid on, and this year, the Magic and Mayhem Writers are donating a partial critique of an urban fantasy or paranormal romance manuscript. You can read the details of what we’re offering here, but basically, it’s a 4-for-1 deal. If you win our auction, you’ll receive a total of four crits, one from each of us. It’s an awesome deal if I can say so myself.

To give you and any potential bidders an idea of our critiquing styles, this week, me, Amanda, Shawntelle, and Nadia are going to talk about how we typically crit a manuscript. I’m up first, so if you win our 4-for-1 deal, this is what you can expect from me.

Prior to beginning a critique, I always explain that I’m a pour-my-thoughts-out-on-the-page kind of critter. I make comments when I have a question, when something makes me laugh out loud, when something confuses me or a character does something that’s TSTL (too stupid to live). Basically, I try to give the writer an idea of what’s going on in his or her reader’s minds as they read. I also look for big picture issues. Is the dialogue working? Are there scenes that are slow or perhaps unnecessary? Are characters doing things the hard way when there’s an obviously easier alternative path to take? That kind of thing.

But, because I know a manuscript with margins full of comments can be intimidating, I always make sure beforehand if this type of crit is okay with the writer. I’ll ask what they want me to look for, and if they say they’re only concerned about one thing, say, if the pacing works or whatever, I’ll tailor my comments to focus just on that issue.

Overall, my goal is to be helpful. I like to receive pour-one’s-thoughts-out-on-the-page crits myself, so that’s what I default to unless a writer lets me know they want something different or can’t handle too many comments. I always point out things that work: a beautiful description, a great snippet of dialogue, surprises that really surprised me, etc. And I always end with letting the writer know they can contact me if they need my comments clarified or if they want to run an idea by me.

So, how about you guys? Is this the type of crit you’d like to receive? If not, what do you want from a critter?

And one more time, the link to our 4-for-1 auction is here. You can see the complete list of auction items here. There’s honestly something there for everyone. We hope you’ll stop by and help us raise money for the Brenda Novak Auction for Diabetes.