Feedback Guidelines

Your feedback should be sent to your cohorts by the deadline. It is a culmination of your editorial notes on their piece. You can write your feedback letters before or after the workshop, but they should not be sent until after the workshop.

Excerpt Feedback

Excerpt feedback is one of the most valuable parts of Futurescapes, but it can be intimidating if you don’t know what to expect. We have found that providing an editorial letter is best. If you haven’t written one, don’t fret! We’ve included a template; you’ll find it below.

These questions may be affected by whether the piece is a standalone short story or a section of a larger piece—for example, when it comes to character development and plot. A standalone piece must have a complete plot and fully rounded characters, whereas an excerpt will almost certainly not.

Naturally, you would not expect to give feedback on every single one of these questions every time. They are just a framework that you can use to prompt your analysis. Only focus on the areas you have the most constructive feedback to comment on.

Remember, be constructive but also kind. It’s not constructive if you only talk about the great things, but being aggressive isn’t going to help either. Try to provide a balance, pointing out the strengths as well as areas that could be improved.

Opening

• Does it have a strong opening?

• Is the first sentence snappy and intriguing, or does it ramble on?

• Do you get a sense of place and point of view within the first few paragraphs or do you feel lost and confused?

• Does it make you want to keep reading?

• Does the opening have a hook or story question?

Conflict

• Does the piece contain conflict?

• Is it physical conflict or mental conflict – in your opinion does it work?

Plot

• Does the piece progress the plot?

• Is the plot interesting?

• Could the plot development be improved by restructuring?

Setting

• How well is the setting described?

Characterization

• What did you think of the characters?

• Were they distinct or too similar?

• Were there too many characters, so it became confusing?

• Were the characters interesting?

• Were they plausible?

Dialogue

• What did you think of the dialogue?

• Did the dialogue feel realistic?

• Was the dialogue interesting?

• Did the characters have unique ways of speaking to distinguish them?

• Could you always tell who was speaking?

Point of View

• Did the piece stick to a single point of view?

• If there were multiple points of view, was it consistent and for a reason?

Show versus tell

• Did the piece do much telling instead of showing?

Format of the text

• Is the text formatted correctly for fiction?

Style

• Did the writing have a distinctive style?

• Did it remind you of any other authors you’ve read?

Additional Resources

These are for full manuscripts, but they are great resources should you ever wish to provide feedback on a full manuscript.

• If you’d like even more guiding questions, see this blog post: https://www.septembercfawkes.com/2020/02/100-questions-to-help-evaluate-your.html 

• Here is a post on the “how” of writing an edit letter: https://tracycgold.com/how-to-write-a-good-edit-letter-for-a-book-plus-a-template/.

• Here is  a sample editorial letter. Keep in mind that this letter is for an entire manuscript, so we do not expect your letter to be that long. A good rule of thumb is about 1-2 pages: https://freshinkbookediting.com/sample-editorial-letter. 

Final Thoughts

When providing feedback, it’s important to remember the following:

• Don’t forget the good! It can be easy to be swept up in what you feel needs to change, but the author would benefit from knowing what you liked as well.

• In-line comments are welcome, but not required. We find that inline comments about certain lines you love, questions that a scene raises, your reaction to a certain line/section, etc. work well.

• Don’t focus on grammar. Many of the pieces are in rough draft form, so don’t get hung up on the misspellings and missing periods.

• Providing feedback is a great way to grow as a writer. It’s also a great way to potentially find a critique partner. If you find someone’s feedback particularly helpful, let them know!

Query Feedback

In general a query letter should open with a hook, give a book description, and include a bio. There are thousands of resources available on how to put together a query letter, so we’re going to focus on how to critique a query letter for Futurescapes. Below are some things to consider when providing critiques:

• Details: Is there a title? Word count? Genre?

• Comps: Are there comp titles? Do the comps work? Are they relevant? Did you recognize them (you don’t necessarily need to, just a question you might ask yourself)?

• Conflict: Is the conflict clear? Are there stakes?

• Character: Is the main character introduced? Do you know what’s at stake? Is the MC’s why clear? Do you care about the character/want to follow them?

• Logistics: How long is the query? Is it too wordy? Are there any sentences that you tripped on when reading? Are there strong verbs present? Is there too much detail? Is there not enough detail?

• Delivery: Does the query letter match the excerpt?  You’ve read both, and it’s important to know if the first pages match what the query is selling. Sometimes, the query can sound like it’s pitching a completely different book.

• The driving question: Do you want to read the book? Why or why not.

Generally, query feedback is provided inline and with a little blurb at the end.

Synopsis Feedback

Most synopsis feedback will be during the session. Things to think about when providing feedback include if the synopsis flows, if it hits all the main beats necessary, anything that feels confusing or unclear, etc.