Thanks again for your incredible patience in waiting for the final results for RLGL. We hope you have written or revised at least one major work while you were waiting for the pooch to get his head out of the refrigerator and work on your stuff.
We have two winners for the longer-work category! See below.
ALL RLGL WINNERS: I will be contacting you by email on Thursday to schedule a the phone consult you won, where you’ll get a chance to hear what the pooch  thought of your opening pages.
ALL Participants: We hope you’ve gained some new insights about your writing and the writing of others. Â And remember, this was just one pooch’s opinion. If it does not ring true to you, happily ignore the input and listen to your inner-writer. Publishing is definitely not a one-size-fits-all kind of business. However, if you get the same feedback from others or feel deep-down that perhaps there might be something to the opinion, keep an open mind and see if revision can take your manuscript to the next level.
Thanks again for playing! Also, if you have plans to reserve a paid critique slot, May is now full. June 5 is your next deadline for an end of June turn around.  To reserve a slot, make sure you are signed up for the correct list and email Cynthea  what you need.
Happy writing, everyone!
P.S. If you turned in your stuff prior to the Final Round deadline but do not see anything for your entry, please contact me at cynthea AT gmail dot com. We think we may have missed an email or two in our frenzy to get this finished.
| Format | Back | Next | Round 8 Notes | |
| 0 | MG | X* | Concerned that there isn’t enough in the plottting in chapter 1 to feel like this matters enough. Consider making the plot a bit more involving or unique and less every-dayish feeling (could happen to anyone, anywhere). | |
| 28 | PB | |||
| 38 | YA | Pg. 8 WINNER! | ||
| 40 | YA | X | Submitted over the 250 word count limit for successive pages 🙁 | |
| 45 | MG | X | Ultimately, this seemed so singly-focused on one thing in this many pages that the story lacked depth and the pacing feels off. Scale back on this topic and move the plotting forward. We’ve been in the main characters head for a looooong time ,too. | |
| 50 | PB | |||
| 63 | YA | |||
| 65 | MG | X* | Set the scene bettter when you change locations, especially if the location is new to the characters involved. | |
| 66 | MG | |||
| 77 | MG | |||
| 85 | MG | |||
| 92 | YA | |||
| 93 | YA | |||
| 96 | YA | |||
| 97 | MG | |||
| 107 | MG | |||
| 109 | PB | |||
| 125 | YA | X* | The pacing of this story is getting a bit slow. By this many pages in, we should have a stronger idea of the overall premise. | |
| 134 | MG | X | Page 8. WINNER! | |
| 147 | YA | |||
| 150 | MG | |||
| 151 | MG | |||
| 154 | MG | X* | The characterization here feels very forced. And focused on minutia. Doesn’t seem like this should take up most of a page in your book. Ease back. | |
| 172 | PB | |||
| 183 | MG | X | There’s nice writing here, but ultimately the story felt like it lacked depth. Why should the reader care? This is a very plot-oriented opening – let’s balance this out with a bit more character development at the same time so we feel more invested in the storyline | |
| 187 | MG | |||
| 190 | PB | |||
| 191 | YA | |||
| 205 | MG | |||
| 207 | MG | X | Ultimately, the context should have been presented much earlier. See previous comment. Not a hard thing to change though. | |
| 209 | MG | X | ||
| 210 | PB | |||
| 211 | ER | |||
| 212 | PB | |||
| 214 | MG | |||
| 219 | YA | |||
| 230 | ||||
| 234 | MG | X | ||
| 235 | CB | X | Kissy is having a hard time understanding what is at stake here for this story. Why should the pooch care? There’s potential in the writing but … we just can’t seem to get why any of this matters story-wise. Reconsider how this story begins. Establish better what the premise of this story might be. | |
| 238 | PB | |||
| 245 | MG | X* | This is well-written, but overall, now that we’ve seen this many pages, we wonder if the premise could be more relatable somehow or have more depth to draw us in more. Why is the MC so into what he’s into? Is that a way to get at the heart of his character better? | |
| 255 | PB | |||
| 265 | YA | |||
| 267 | PB | |||
| 271 | MG | X | ||
| 275 | PB | |||
| 276 | PB | |||
| 277 | YA | |||
| 282 | PB | |||
| 283 | YA | |||
| 289 | YA | X | This page was a bit disorienting. Where did that other character come from. Had he been there the whole time? Confused. Spend somet time setting up the scene a bit better, work on logistics so the reading is smoother and less disorienting. | |
| 295 | YA | X | There needs to a be a bit more polish with technical aspects of the writing. But what really did I, is that by page 4, it’s a little too unclear what this book is about. | |
| 296 | MG | |||
| 297 | MG | X* | The chapter break feels very unnatural, especially since the next chapter is just a continuation of the same scene. This feels very forced. | |
| 305 | PB | |||
| 309 | PB | X | The humor is fun but overall, it distracts from the main point of the story. It seems a bit too complicated given the premise. Simplify and pare this down to its heart. What are readers supposed to walk away with when all is said and done? Can you do this in fewer words and keep the plot a bit more streamlined? | |
| 310 | PB | |||
| 311 | MG | |||
| 316 | PB | X* | This has a ton of potential. But we think it needs to not be gender specific to make this even more marketable, also some more attention could be paid to the story arc of this manuscript to make it even more unrejectable. | |
| 322 | PB | |||
| 324 | PB | X | Interesting concept, but the execution seems to falter quite a bit. It’s not clear what the story structure and theme is; also seems long for the format. | |
| 329 | PB | X | In the end, this didn’t pan out in a way that felt compelling enough. The sense of humor is nice but work on tightening up the plot, deliver a surpirse at the end, and work on that theme. Also shorten this in general. | |
| 334 | YA | X* | First scene doesn’t feel developed enough, go a little further before the scene change. | |
| 335 | MG | X | This is very disjointed between scene 1 and the flashback. Try not to rely so heavily on a flashback in the first opening graphs of your book. The sequence of time is a bit hard to follow as well, in the flashback itself. | |
| 336 | MG | X* | Slow down with your opening a bit so it’s not this difficult to understand the setup | |
| 337 | CB | X* | This seems a bit older for a chapter book at the moment. Too soon to tell though for sure. | |
| 339 | YA | X* | Not super fond of the shift in POV after such a short moment with the first character. Just as Kissy was about to settle down with the first character, the channel is changed so fast you wonder why we started watching the first channel. Give the pooch some time to settle in before flipping. | |
| 340 | PB | |||
| 341 | YA | X* | Abrupt transition between page 1 and 2. A bit odd not to stay in the first scene longer. |
Thanks so much for doing this! This was my first RLGL and I gained so much from it! As a newcomer to the publishing world, I appreciates the feedback from someone who knows the business well!
Um. I meant “appreciate”.
That moment when you mistype a word and your audience is composed of writers. Ahem.
Cynthia and Kissy, Thank you so much for your enormous donation of time. Your comments meant so much to me. Very good advice was given. I have already rewrote the first chapter to help solve the problems Kissy has mentioned. Thanks for the Kissytique. Bacon and scratches to you. Cynthia, I love your web page. Thank you for your awesome, helpful comments.
Cynthia and Kissy, Thank you so much for your monumental donation of time. Your comments meant so much to me. I have already rewrote my first chapter to help rectify the problems Kissy brought to my attention. Kissy, bacon and scratches to you. Cynthia, your web page is awesome and the comments were extremely valuable to me. Thank you for this fun and helpful service you provide.
This was a blast. Thanks for igniting my inner editor. I’m stoked on my first RLGL experience. Loads of bacon sent your way, Kissy#
Newbie here, too. I loved the experience! Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into this contest.
What a fun contest! Thanks for offering RLGL and all the time you put into it. This format really made me think of my manuscript page by page.
Cynthea and Kissy,
Thanks for your extremely helpful comments. I already rewrote my first chapter to help fix the problems in my Kissytique. The best part of RLGL is all the valuable input I recieved. Thank you for your donation of time. Bacon and ear scratches to you, Kissy and much appreciation to Cynthea.
This was my first RLGL. It was so much fun. Really. You made me look closely at each page in a way I’ve never done before. At any moment I could “get the paw!” Thanks for all your work on this. I learned a lot. And now, back to editing!
(Just an FYI: I tried to leave a comment a few days ago but it didn’t go through. I thought maybe it went to moderation, but is still not appearing.)