***CONGRATULATIONS TO NEBULA WINNER KEN LIU, CRITTER MEMBER EXTRAORDINAIRE!!***

Captain's Blog

Ahoy, Critterfolk!
New entry May 03

Critter Notices

[It's Freebie Friday in the Critters Store...]

New Book from a Critter Member

Awesome new book, HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SPECULATIVE FICTION OPENINGS, from a Critter member whose unearthed a shard of The Secret to becoming a pro writer. Really good piece of work. "...if you're at all concerned about story openings, you'd be nuts not to read what Qualkinbush has to say." —Wil McCarthy, author of BLOOM and THE COLLAPSIUM

Stayin' Alive

If you want to make a career of SF writing, STAYING ALIVE - A WRITER'S GUIDE by three-time SFWA President Norman Spinrad, published by your Critter Captain's ReAnimus Press, is an indispensable guide to the SF publishing industry by an expert.

How to Write SF

Hot off the presses from ReAnimus Press! The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells by Ben Bova, best-selling author and six-time Hugo Award winner for Best Editor. (This is one of the books your ol' Critter Captain learned from himself, and I highly recommend it.)

Book Recommendation

It's like discovering a new Heinlein book: POINT ULTIMATE by Star Trek writer Jerry Sohl.

Announcing ReAnimus Press

If you need help making ebooks from manuscripts or print copies—or finding great stuff to read—look no further! An ebook publisher started by your very own Critter Captain. (And with a 12% Affiliate program.) [More]

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MORE NEWS & NOTICES >>

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FEATURED BOOK

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CRITTERS STORE >>

Submit an Entry to the Critters Workshop

This page is for submitting an entry to the queue.

Note for text-based files: Before you go to all the trouble of filling in the form here, for text manuscripts, you might want to check the format of your document before you submit it, to make sure it conforms to Critique.org Standard Format.

Workshop: Critters - Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror
(If this is the wrong workshop, Click here to switch)

Your E-mail address (If this is wrong, you won't get any critiques!):

Your Name (Mixed caps & lower case, please, as in "John R. R. Tolkien"):

(Real Life name please, no pseudonyms)

Submission Title (Mixed caps, as in "The Return of the King, Chapters 1-5"):

Genre: Science Fiction    Fantasy    Horror   

Form: What you want critiqued is a ...
Short Story/Novelette (self-contained prose fiction under 20,000 words)
Novel/Novella (chapters or RFDR -- prose fiction over 20,000 words or part thereof)
Poetry
Script/Screenplay/Stageplay
Query letter/pitch/synopsis
Other

Length (approx.):
(use minutes for audio/video submissions, word count for text, or number of pages for a web site)

Is this a REsubmission (revision) of something CURRENTLY in the queue (but not already sent out in this week's batch to reviewers):

Yes-- This is a new file for an item already in the queue (or already submitted to Aburt to be added to the queue but for which you haven't yet received a confirmation from Aburt; i.e., no additional entry in the queue needs to be added, just use this file instead -- note that the submission title above must be exactly the same as it is currently in the queue (or as already submitted) or you will incur the wrath of Aburt.)

No-- 		This is a brand new submission neither currently in the queue nor recently sent in to be added to the queue; a new entry in the queue definitely needs to be added for it

NOTE: If the work has already been sent out for review in the current batch there's no way to replace it. (Can't pull email back, etc. If it has massively urgent problems that absolutely require fixing, you can email Aburt a plain text edition with a request to replace, but no guarantees.)

Is this a large work that you want marked as a Request For Dedicated Reviewers:

Yes-- This is for a large sized work I want marked as a Request For Dedicated Reviewers
No-- This is an ordinary short story, article, chapters of a book, short audio/video or small web site for which I don't want dedicated reviewers

If you're a pro member and want to use the jump-to-the-head-of-the-queue pro benefit, check here: (Only works if Aburt has you in the database as a pro; otherwise the minions will come and taunt you.)

Text submission (Plain text!) filename to send:
MSWord file - (try to) convert to text for me, please.

For text documents, this is your manuscript itself. For photo/comics/audio/video/etc., this should be a short text description of what you've got, to entice reviewers to check it out.

We use plain text files since they're 100% universal.

If you check the MSWord box it will try to make a plain text file out of your Word file — HOWEVER the software I have only works for MS Word "version 8" files (Word97 or later). And not always at that. Try it and see how it goes. :)

If you have trouble with .docx files from Word2007 or later, or other software, you can do a save-as into Word97 format and try it. Or see this Word2007 conversion site.)

For RFDRs only - and optional at that - URL to your whole manuscript:

For books you can use this URL as a purely optional part of an RFDR as a means to share your complete manuscript. (Note that you can't get a whole book critiqued in one week — people simply won't read that much. Don't even try, it won't work. It's even against the rules. Max of about 20k words in one weekly submission.) The RFDR program was designed for whole books. Only use this URL box for a book if you've marked this submission as an RFDR above. But you don't have to use this URL box, it's just for convenience. You can have people contact you via email to get the manuscript, which is the traditional way RFDRs work. You can do that and/or use this url idea. Your choice.

Creator notes to reviewers (will go at end of manuscript; this is where most notes belong):

URGENT reviewer notes (placed at top of manuscript; use to indicate e.g. mature content, British spellings, synopsis of prior chapters, or other URGENT things reviewers need to know before reviewing -- 99% of notes should go at the end, though, and not here [trust me!]. FYI, assume that reviewers understand things like _underlines mean italic_ or *stars means emphasis* etc. and don't bother mentioning those. Beware, I will relocate comments to the end that I don't feel are urgent!):

Any important comments to aburt (these will not be in the manuscript file):



(FYI, if you won an MPC and want to use it, go here after you submit your piece.)

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Sad minion   Sad minion — last donation was 5 days ago. A big Thank You! to Emily Smith, Camille Griep, Wenonah Lyon, and lots of other Critterfolk for their contributions!

Critters is entirely funded by donations from Critterfolk like you, so yours is most appreciated. Click here to make the minions happy. Every dollar helps. Thanks for your support!

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LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO READ?

(Or want to collect money for other people reading your stories?) Check out Aburt's ReAnimus Press.

CRITTERS DIPLOMACY

Fundamental to Critters' success is how people deliver criticisms. Start by reading Critiquing the Wild Writer: It's Not What You Say, But How You Say It. and The Diplomatic Critiquer.

NOVELS

Critters has a special program to get whole novels critiqued. Read about it here.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Please follow these guidelines for formatting and submitting manuscripts to Critters.

WHAT'S IN THE QUEUE

Critters keeps a queue of manuscripts out or to be sent. See the Queue.

WEEKLY MPC AWARD

Want to jump to the head of the Critters queue? The Most Productive Critter or MPC is Awarded weekly to encourage mo' better critting. How to win...

FAQ

Critters has an extensive FAQ to answer your every question.

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