Free Editing Services For Your Writing!

I know, it’s hard to believe right? A free and EFFECTIVE editing service! Fret no longer over looking at the fees for professional editors. Thousands of dollars to edit your novel? Trust me, I know.

If you’ve written the next great novel, epic, poem, short story, it doesn’t matter, this place will have you covered. However, there is a give and take.

The website is http://www.critiquecircle.com and let me break down how the site works.

You critique other people’s stories, usually no more than 1500 word submissions at a time. The site runs off of a point program.

You critique a submission and you’re critique is over 300 words (not a hard feat to accomplish) and you get 1 point. It costs 3 points to submit a piece. It’s not the easiest work but it IS effective.

I’ve submitted 2 different pieces, one was a section in the middle of a novel I was working on and another was the first two chapters of the same novel. I’ve gotten a total of 7 or so critiques and found 1 to be relatively irrelevant and poorly written. The rest of the critiques were very well thought out and helpful points that began to polish my writing to what it needs to be. The community on this site is very helpful and as for me – are better writers than I haha.

It does take up time, but in the meantime, the point system keeps people critiquing so that no work goes untouched. So check out the site and get in on the action.

For a little more info, here is an excerpt taken out of their FAQ page –

How does it all work…give me the basics
Members submit their stories to the story queue, and pay credits to do so. Only a certain number of stories will be displayed each week (more information on this can be found here), so you may have to wait a week or two for yours to come up, depending on how much queue activity there is. When a story comes up for critique, other members can read it and submit their critiques to the author, thus earning credits. Stories stay in the queue for a week, which runs Wednesday to Wednesday. To help with queue wait times, we created a custom Newbie Queue. Your first story must be submitted here and, if you wish, you can submit up to three in total before moving to the other queues. When you join the site, you get two free credits, and you can use these towards the cost of posting your first story. While your membership is still new you are also allowed the opportunity to upgrade to a Premium membership (details in the FAQ entry linked here) for an additional credit, which will allow you to submit your first chapter to the queues immediately. Stories in the Newbie Queue can receive up to six full critiques, while stories in the other queues can receive an unlimited number of critiques. Once your story in the newbie queue has received 6 crits of more than 150 words each it will be put into older submissions. When posting a story, authors have some choice in who can view their story. For example, some authors will specify that only people who have been members of this site for a month can read their story. That’s why you may not be able to view all the stories in the queue. So, those are the basics on how the system works…for more details, please continue reading the FAQs about Story Queue, Giving Critiques, Receiving Critiques, and Submitting a Story.

March 28, 2015March 28, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: editing, free, WritingTags: critique, critiquecircle, critiquing, editing, fiction, free editing, non fiction, novels, poems, poetry, short story, Writing 2 Comments

The Man Who Died Inside

This is a short story about a man who died inside.

The man pulled his hand closer to his mouth and sipped at the strong liquor. It was smooth at first but burned down his throat. He stared out of the window from the expensive red chair. Laced in gold thread the chair was more valuable than the gun in his hand.
He had the money to buy anything he wanted but felt worthless inside. So he bought only what he needed to carry out the next job.
He saw flashing lights in the distance coming for him. His eyes shifted from the window to the room before him. A dead body lay in front of him. The woman’s blood ran cold over the hard wood floor. He had no sympathy for her. It was the same night over and over. Another victim, another paycheck.
He never wanted any of it. He never wanted a life of money and murder. The man shook his head in ultimate disappointment of everything he was. With a sad trace of a memory, he thought back to when he was a child.
Always wanting to make his father proud, he fell far from his graces. At the age of twenty-three, he fell into a life that cursed his father’s gravestone. With every night and every victim he felt the dirt he piled on the grave.
His mind went back in time a few minutes; when he waited in the room for the woman to arrive. He had no idea who she was besides her first and last name. The only thing he knew was that her husband wanted her dead. He heard someone approach the door and slip a key into the tumblers. As the door opened and the woman walked in, he moved with quick movements. Hitting over the head with the butt of his gun, he pulled out his string from his pocket. Before he could get on top of her and wrap the string around her neck, she had already gained some form of consciousness. She screamed and moaned, alerting everyone in the vicinity of them.
Wrapping the string against her skin and pulling hard to silence her, the man felt the string dig in to her skin. Still, he pulled harder and beneath him he saw blood squirting onto the floor. It didn’t matter how quickly she had been silenced. The maids and housekeepers would have heard her.
Soon there was no struggle from the woman. The body lay lifeless. He was jealous of her.
He just sat in the chair, waiting for the police. In minutes he would be hauled off and life the rest of his days in a cell.
Or…
Or he could take his own life. Aim the gun at his temple and press the silencing trigger. The thought was an appealing one. Appealing enough that he pressed the gun against his head just to feel the muzzle of the gun.
But he knew the reality. He pulled the gun away from his head and cleaned up the mess he made. Any finger prints, hairs, anything to trace back to him.
As police marched up the stairs to the room, he disappeared out the window.
That night was like every other night.

January 8, 2015January 8, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: literature, Reflection, WritingTags: dark, short story, story, Writing Leave a comment