The Willamette Writers Conference offered The Big Critique for the first time last year and scheduled it for the final afternoon of this year’s conference. Participants submit the first page of a writing project ahead of the conference. Conference staff make copies and writers gather in small groups with an editor or agent to read the pages and share constructive comments.
I made heavy edits to the opening page of “Ma’rama, Daimyo’s Daughter” so it would make more sense (I hoped) and sent it in. During the Big Critique participants were assigned to tables, but only two of us out of the 5-6 in our group showed up. We two lonely orphans were sent to other tables, and the afternoon progressed.
Benjamin Gorman, co-publisher of Not a Pipe Publishing, was the industry expert at the table where I landed. He is a regular at the conference who has published the books of Willamette Writers members.
Lesson One: Fresh eyes reading our pages pointed out we authors didn’t make things as clear as we thought we had. What seems obvious to the writer isn’t necessarily that clear to the reader.
Lesson Two: We all had good stories in us. The viewpoints were as varied as a Vietnam vet to a techie Gen Z. All the first pages we read that afternoon piqued our interest.
“I want to read this,” Ben Gorman said about my first page.
😆
OMG! He liked my YA fantasy because it wasn’t the usual medieval European setting.
I got Ben’s business card and spent the next couple of weeks revising the first ten pages of the novel in accordance with comments made during the Big Critique. I also drafted and polished a query letter. Per the publisher’s query guidelines, I emailed both with a reminder that the submittal came out of the conference.
I’m now revising “Ma’rama, Daimyo’s Daughter” once again. It’s way too long per the usual YA parameters. So far, I’m not having much success downsizing the behemoth.
Ben may decide he’s not interested in my novel. That’s okay. Rejection is part of the writing life. But if one publisher wanted to see more, perhaps there is someone else out there who will like it.
Meanwhile, I’ll make my revisions and revisit the notes I made for the second book in the duology.
Mary S. Potter 