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We all love to turn to inspirational advice when we feel like we just cannot go on down our chosen path.  One of the most common such pieces of advice is that quitters never win, and winners never quit.  It sounds real great!  It pumps you up!  It gives you the motivation to plow ahead!

The truth is that inspirational phrases like this are half truths.  Yes, quitters  never win because they give up before they do so.  And yes, winners never have quit because they have won.  But there is an important caveat to this old saying that is missing.  That caveat is that by not quitting doesn’t mean you will win. Read more…

Just recently, a new member came into our author’s group. She is a nice enough girl with a lot of great ideas and good critiques on other people’s work. After getting through the trial period she was allowed to beginning getting critiques on her own material.  “You’re gonna love this story I wrote,” she beamed once submitting the book she has been working on. “Everyone else has,” added.

She was not so chipper after the critique of her first five chapters came back. No one was mean, but they were honest. The new girl’s face turned red with a cross between rage and embarrassment as reviews were given.

The critique centered around:
– lots of misused words that were not synonyms for what she wanted to say
– the fact that in the first five chapters (two scenes each) there were 10 different POV characters
– there appeared to be eight different plots happening with none standing out as the main one
– run-on sentences galore Read more…