What the Judge Had To Say…

~ Meg

I received the judge’s feedback from my first place win in mainstream fiction in The 2017 Writer’s Digest E-book Awards. There is a rating system 0-5 with 5 being outstanding and 1 meaning it needs work. Three Empty Frames scored 4 in five of the categories and 3 in the remaining category. And I think this commentary from the judge is really positive!

THREE EMPTY FRAMES by Meg Sorick presented a great plot, dialogue, and tone. A young lady, Jennifer, tries to find out the mystery of her mother’s past by only the events to go on from mom’s journal. I was highly interested in this story and loved the twists and turns. The plot points were in the right place to keep me turning the page. I loved the romantic aspect to the novel between Jenny and Tommy—a nice contrast to Jenny’s mom’s background. Although the plot and characterization were nicely done, I wanted to see more: setting and emotion that would connect me even closer to the main characters. There were a lot of characters, but good attention was focused on the main characters enough to create nice character arcs by the end of the novel. Small mention about the formatting of texting back and forth: it could have been formatted a little differently because it was a little confusing who was talking (after the first person’s text came through). Spacing between story and the texts were done well. I just wasn’t sure who was talking some of the time and had to re-read parts. Overall, the author incorporated the mystery, romance, and energy of the story very well, and I enjoyed reading this book. –Judge, 5th Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards.

Published by Meg

Easily amused, never bored and constantly distracted. My creative pursuits include writing, drawing, painting and photography.

39 thoughts on “What the Judge Had To Say…”

      2. Absolutely! I think the judge is referring to the times I switched to ‘texting’ between the characters and not being able to distinguish who’s talking. Or it could be the shift between the points of view I use. Sometimes Jen is speaking in first person, and others I switch to 3rd person narration when scenes without Jen are happening. Not sure…

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      4. This paragraph was the word-for-word commentary. The other stuff they sent was the scoring in the various categories which doesn’t really tell you much. I have a feeling the ‘3’ which was for ‘voice and writing style’ was the lowest because of the switching of points of view. I know the ‘experts’ say you shouldn’t do that but then I read all sorts of very successful writers who do that very thing!

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      5. That’s pretty vague. If you’re going to critique a writers work, it seems they’d get a bit more specific. Do you feel what he said helps you at all? To know what you should change next time?

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      6. I get the part about the text messaging format – I should have written it with names denoting who’s texting. Overall I can’t complain! And I will keep reading about the craft with my free subscription! LOL!

        Liked by 1 person

  9. Sounds like a great review. I read if somebody gives a critique of a book, and they just got some rotten news, they can take their anger and channel it into your critique. Take a bow, Meg.

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    Reply

    1. Thank you! I’m really glad to get such nice feedback from professionals! Hopefully the next book will catch the eye of an agent. *runs off to the keyboard, clickety, clack* 😀

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