Comments on: The Wog Manual-feedback appreciated

By: perlissima

perlissima — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:08:00 +0000

Hi Amra

I think you are very brave to have people read and make suggestions. I am sending you my comments to your email addy.

Good Luck. I'm coming to your book launch remember?

By: Amra Pajalic

Amra Pajalic — Fri, 26 May 2006 01:05:00 +0000

Thanks Renee. I think I need to expand on the end more and explain the actual turning point and give an indication of where the build up is going, as well as those other things.

By: Amra Pajalic

Amra Pajalic — Fri, 26 May 2006 01:02:00 +0000

I received comments from Stephanie Bose (http://stephaniebose.blogspot.com/) via email and she had some really useful points to make about clarifying the action in my synopsis.

1. Why does the university professor threaten their respectablity?
2. If Brian is gay why is Sabiha attracted to him?
3. Clarifying Edo’s age?

She’s also given me a line edit of both extracts (thank you so much). And she’s made me think about the suitability in marketing this as a young adult novel. There’s a lot of adult content (swearing, talking about sex, a sex scene) and by putting that tag on it I’m setting out a certain reader expectation so I’m going to remove that tag.

While in Australia young adult fiction is much more open this still might be crossing the line. Ultimately if it was published a publisher would decide but for now I have to give myself the best chance possible to achieve that goal.

By: Renée Robinson

Renée Robinson — Thu, 25 May 2006 13:03:00 +0000

The first page is fantastic, Amra. It definitely makes me want to read more, and I can see the humour and depth already. Well done.
I agree with Mas about her mum’s engagement and his family that supposedly died in the war. Expand and tell us why it threatens her respectability. From what I understand, editors say don’t keep secrets in the synopsis, reveal the important characters, the turning points of your main character, and the conclusion. Hope that helps and best of luck! I really mean it.

By: Amra Pajalic

Amra Pajalic — Thu, 25 May 2006 11:43:00 +0000

Thanks Stacy. I'll be doing that.

A friend also sent a comment via email about the sentence "Bosnians in the war ground rice when they didn’t have coffee beans," as it's past tense. This paragraph was bothering me and she hit the nail on the head as to why.

By: Stacy Dawn

Stacy Dawn — Thu, 25 May 2006 11:08:00 +0000

Yes, I agree with mas. I do like your first page. The synopsis needs to be tighter though I think. You might be able to combine paragraphs 4 and 5. A thing that helps me for some grammatical proplems is to read it out loud or into a microphone. You will hear where you naturally should pause for a comma or if your sentences run on until you are out of breath. It makes them easier to find and easier to fix.

Good luck!

By: Amra Pajalic

Amra Pajalic — Thu, 25 May 2006 08:04:00 +0000

Hubby read my comments and pointed out my arch enemy the apostrophy has struck again. Sigh. Even though I know it’s my weakness it just keeps happening.

By: Amra Pajalic

Amra Pajalic — Thu, 25 May 2006 04:45:00 +0000

Thanks Mas. That’s a really good point and something I’ll expand on. Now you’ve got me all paranoid. I can see typos and grammar up to a point and then I go blind. What is it about that? I know I’ve got a few run on sentences I have to add comma’s in, but is there any other really bad boo’s?

By: Mas

Mas — Thu, 25 May 2006 04:08:00 +0000

This is not an informed opinion (beyond being that of a voracious reader always on the look out for good stuff), but your first page has me wanting to read more. Well done!
In the synopsis, I didn’t get how/why her mum’s engagement threatened their respectability.
I won’t get into typos and grammar stuff. In my thesis t’other day I realised I’d typed munity instead of mutiny and had left it, unchanged and unnoticed, for days. Oh well.

By: Amra Pajalic

Amra Pajalic — Thu, 25 May 2006 03:08:00 +0000

Hey Sandra-Sunday night is the deadline as I have to post it Monday. Cheers.