Snap Judegement- Popups Lite

[Pamela Jo]

Apex magazine has a pretty strong reader base for fantasy and SF. They have their own Pop ups, not a patch on Litopia. But FYI.

Snap Judgment Episode 9 | Apex Books & Apex Magazine

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[CarolMS]

Apex magazine has a pretty strong reader base for fantasy and SF. They have their own Pop ups, not a patch on Litopia. But FYI.

Snap Judgment Episode 9 | Apex Books & Apex Magazine

Get more from Apex Books & Apex Magazine on Patreon

www.patreon.com

This was great. The three editors gave really solid feedback, much of it useful for genres beyond their focus. And Aly Grauer was outstanding as narrator. The first-page-only critiques moved quickly, not unlike the way editors and agents handle their slush piles--if they bother to read as far as 250 words (one standard page, U.S.).

The title "Snap Judgment" surprised me, since there is a long-established storytelling program (similar to The Moth) called Snap Judgment. I've been listening to that program on NPR (National Public Radio in the U.S.) for years. It's produced, I think, by the public radio station KQED in San Francisco. Not a writing critique show, but entertaining true stories. You might want to check it out at Snap Judgment Radio.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

The first page is a touchstone to trust.

 

[RK Wallis]

I'm binging this

 

[TimRees]

Okay, so I watched three submissions. The idea is for the editors/panel to put their hand up when they would stop reading. Interestingly no hands went up. 250 words is not a lot and their comments after the reading are not very helpful. I feel had they read on another 250 words many of their questions would have been answered, but the poor author is left saying: "But another hundred words and you would have seen this and that..."

I think it is important to remember the programme is designed to evoke discussion, thus the participants feel they need - have to say something... anything... Therein lies the problem for me.

As in Litopia Pop-Ups (700 words) the word count is simply not enough to get the story firing. The first 700 words is pretty much scene setting. It might begin with dialogue, but the reader/viewer still hasn't time for the character to grab them...

As an author I submitted to Pop-Ups three times and all I was really interested in was did the readers/participants want to read on. What I ended up with was a load of comments that really weren't helpful, which is why I stopped submitting and don't use the lab or post stuff up in the Huddles.

I am trying to come up with an idea where the readers/participants get much more of the story (first chapter at least) and it will still be entertaining for the viewer and valuable information for other authors...

The hand up when they stop reading is a good place to start, but I feel tghey need to keep reading until all the hands go up, maybe, if the hands still don't go up, then I would assume we would all keep reading...?

 

[Claire G]

As an author you submitted to Pop-Ups three times, all I was really interested in was did the readers/participants want to read on. What I ended up with was a load of comments that really weren't helpful, which is why I stopped submitting and don't rally use the lab or post stuff up in the Huddles.

I know what you're saying here, @TimRees . From my experience of posting on Pop Ups twice, in the Lab and in the Huddle, I found that it's good to get other perspectives. Sometimes we're too close to the story to be objective and can miss obvious things, or issues are raised that we hadn't even considered. Of course, we have to evaluate and use our judgment to determine which comments resonate, whether on a line or story level. I do find it useful personally but yes, there are limitations.

Claire xx

 

[TimRees]

I think with Discord it might be possible to get together with selected/invited individuals(s) where a chapter is read, but participants are told to put their hands up when they personally would stop reading. if all hands went up early, then the author will know where they have a real issue...

I'm going to continue thinking on. this idea....

 

[Pamela Jo]

I think most readers do have similar habits. I look at the cover, the blurb, the first paragraph then I leaf through and look at random bits in the body of the book. What I'm looking for is voice, I guess. But also pace-are they still talking about the same thing chapters later. Are there already 6 more characters. How much dialog or description.
After two hours in the Wexford Book Centre looking for something to take on this trip I narrowed it down to two. Babel and The Priory of the Orange Tree. Both fantasy because all of the murder/thrillers were same old, same old.
Since I would probably only have one book to get me through the boringly awful plane ride and 6 weeks with no other English books it was a crucial decision. And it did come back to the voice on the first page.
The priory sounded too much like one of those tropes where they just substitute women in positions of power in fantasy. Maybe it's not, but that's what I got. There's nothing new there. GOT but make all the women men and vica versa. So I went with Babel which promised a whole new concept and word etymology. I have not regretted my decision.

 

[RK Wallis]

I think with Discord it might be possible to get together with selected/invited individuals(s) where a chapter is read, but participants are told to put their hands up when they personally would stop reading. if all hands went up early, then the author will know where they have a real issue...

I'm going to continue thinking on. this idea....

I love this idea. Very much like Snap Judgement (every one I've watched so far, they raise their hands, and I love their commenting), but we have someone read until ALL hands are raised, and readers/listeners comment why they'd stop reading there. I love that idea, Tim! Quite informal. Have a Discord channel where when you're ready, you ask for interested readers/listeners, much like in Litopia, and then arrange a mutually convenient time.

The priory sounded too much like one of those tropes where they just substitute women in positions of power in fantasy

You made the right choice. I started listening and only got to Chapter 6 before I stopped.

 

[Ed Simnett]

#oneperonsexperience If I think about how I pick books, they are either bought for me (serious Book Forum type reccos), or I get an idea and then read the first few pages using the A****n sample feature. I can usually sense if I am going to vibe with author's voice/overall quality of writing in less than a page, but have sometimes gotten to the end of the sample and gone, meh, I don't care. But that 10+ page sample feels hard to share or consume in any format other than book club?

On Pop-Ups – the one time my work was featured I think I was in a non-genre specific week iirc, which made things like titles a bit of a crapshoot (Lee Child and his blues music come to mind, never mind Cooking with Fernet Branca, which is either a contemporary satire, or a cookbook, depending where you find it in the store/site) and it was interesting to get negative feedback on a very deliberate piece of writing.
<read on if interested / show don't tell moan>
Interrupted machine guns fire in a hard to mimic way, and so I went with "syncopated staccato", which was apparently hard to read... which was exactly the point, it was how the machine gun was firing. This is perhaps an example where Show Don't Tell doesn't really work [i.e. everyone knows the moon sparkles on the ice, but not everyone knows how a gun fires, or what it means when you leave chopsticks in rice, or whether the number 14 is unlucky etc etc]?

 

[Pamela Jo]

Tim I think you are onto something. When I was studying stand up comics I envied that they got immediate feedback on their "voice". They practiced their material on live audiences before they went mainstream. For me that is what is missing for writers today. Laptops make the process easier, but there very few avenues to your audience. No wonder agents are pissed at their slush pile.

Because I feel/see the idea in my head I am never sure how much of that I've gotten down on paper for a reader. I'm rewriting a story now for a contest. Back in Nov. I submitted it to a magazine. Two months later I'm cringing. It's not bad, but it lacks that final polish of just the right verb or adjective that makes a scene live. That marks the professionals from the amateurs. That you get from editors when you access trad publishing. HOW can we recreate that in self-publishing?!

 

[PCFrontier]

Hi Pamela Jo,
Thanks for posting this website and the snap judgement podcasts. You are a helpful font of knowledge on useful websites.

Stating the obvious, listening to the first 250 words, you can only judge - the first 250 words. That is not even one page of text. Many people, including myself, decide on whether to buy or read a book based on the title, cover, blurb and the first page of text. The first 250 words are important.
I had better go back and check my first 250 words!

 

[Ed Simnett]

Hi Pamela Jo,
Thanks for posting this website and the snap judgement podcasts. You are a helpful font of knowledge on useful websites.

Stating the obvious, listening to the first 250 words, you can only judge - the first 250 words. That is not even one page of text. Many people, including myself, decide on whether to buy or read a book based on the title, cover, blurb and the first page of text. The first 250 words are important.
I had better go back and check my first 250 words!

It is agonizingly easy to over-wite the first 1000 words, and in doing so lose any distinctive voice. That said any tropes or non-standard flourishes can / will be seen as "mistakes" in that initial section, and anything even hinting at "set up" or prologue is also problematic [HPandthePS is a disaster in this respect]. I had two people who supposedly read the whole of a manuscript in a competition complain about something technical on the first page, which never happened again. I suppose one (ballsy) way of dealing with that is to make the "mistake" so blatant that people read on out of some morbid fascination to see if it is all like that. I wonder how many books break the fourth wall on the first page never to do it again.

Of course it's hard these days to do something both semi coherent and consistently wrong that won't have people saying you are copying x or y or z, but hey, that's the gig...

e.g. instead of gentle headhopping

Henry squared off, he knew that Roger was a tough customer but as a lefty he would have the element of surprise. Roger saw the southpaw stance and looked around for a weapon.

Just comma splice and completely lose track of who is the subject of the sentence. It's supposed to be a confused fight, so confuse people...

Henry squared off, Roger backed away, he knew this southpaw stance was a problem, Henry swung thinking he catch Roger off guard.