I ask my friends...
If you like this proposal of my book please passes it on.
If you do not like it... tell me why... I'm working hard to take my writings to a new level to better my writing skills.
Thank You Carolyn Laxton/ lilbitcraze
Copyrighted by Carolyn Laxton 2007
[1] "People say and do things that are not always the correct or proper way or even live the life of the ordinary person. [2] “Who is the ordinary person?” [3] I once read the story of” Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy”. [4] Her story is amazing in it’s self of all she has had to endower over her lifetime, as well as my heroin Ms. Maya Angelou. [5] These two women truly in their words keep me in good sprits when things around me seem to fall around myself. [6] Still, do you ever live or ask yourself the question “Why Me?” [7] This is my story. [8] The story of a white girl’s life tainted and imbrued by parents with violence, sex, and drugs. [9] That found a sense of direction, love and home by drug dealers in the black community. [10] Drug dealers have such a bad rap in the media but they are people too. [11] I have come across some real ruthless ones, however; the few I’ve come across have been a positive role model for me, taught me a lot, and has got me to where I’m at today. [12] I’m grateful for those who touch my life with encouragement to be the best I can be. [13] I often come in conflict with being the white girl image and being who I am. [14]A white female raised by black males that happened to be drug dealers. [15] So, the question “Who am I” is answered easily for me, I’m not a person of color nor do I fit the white girl image simply I am who I am “Carolyn”. [16] All my trials, disappointments, horrors, and my travels across the country side are exposed in my book all very true and some cases horribly graphic."
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Lilbit, you asked that we tell you why we may not like your book proposal. Instead of an analysis of your post, you received, instead, a debate on half a dozen other things and, in some cases, rants by ignorant bigots just using this board to anonymously publish their opinions, which have nothing to do with writing. So now, after due time and consideration, I would like to offer one assessment of why your proposal would likely not be effective.1: Your first sentence does not really grab the interest of the reader. It drags through, not saying much and ends on a yawn.
2: "
Who is the ordinary person?" by this time we already don't care!
3: Misplaced quotation marks. First of all, you have an opening quote after story of" and not before Rose. Secondly, it is not necessary to put quotes around a person's name.
4: Incorrect usage. "
Her story is amazing in it's self…" should be
itself. Several misspellings - "
endower" should be "
endure"; "
heroin" should be "
heroine" (the first is a drug, the second is a person one admires for their courage and strength.)
5: Spelling error "
sprits" instead of "
spirits".
6: Improper sentence structure. "
Do you ever live or ask yourself…" 7: This is the punch of the story and it's buried in the garbage.
8: This should be part of the previous sentence.
8a: Spelling error "
imbrued" should be "
imbued"
9: Sentence fragment, and I'm not sure what it's trying to say were it a complete sentence.
10: Without meaning to sound sarcastic, the fact that "Drug
dealers are people, too," is not news. And the prevailing truth is that drug dealers and bad rap are oxymoronic. They are a contradiction in terms. If you managed to carry a publisher through the rest of the issues you present, you would lose them at the thought that you were trying to cast drug dealing in a positive light.
11: "
I have come across some real ruthless ones, however; the few I’ve come across have been a positive role model for me, taught me a lot, and has got me to where I’m at today." This sentence is rife with contradictions and grammatical errors. First you say you have 'come across some real ruthless ones' and then you say these very people have been positive role models for you and have taught you a lot. About all a publisher will see of this is that ruthless drug dealers taught you how to use and deal drugs. Not a good selling point.
Poor grammatical structure, subject/verb agreement in "
and has got me to where I'm at today." Should be
'have' not
'has' and the rest of the statement just needs to be rebuilt. Where ARE you today?
12: Finally a sentence with nothing wrong with it. Except that, by this time, you have already lost your audience.
13: This sentence rambles and is poorly constructed.
14: Sentence fragment
15: (
So, the question “Who am I” is answered easily for me, I’m not a person of color nor do I fit the white girl image simply I am who I am “Carolyn”. )
This is a run-on sentence and should be broken into two independently standing sentences.
16: All my trials, disappointments, horrors, and my travels across the country side are exposed in my book all very true and some cases horribly graphic." You are summarizing horrors but have not given even a glimpse into what those horrors might be.
Lilbit, I, myself, am no stranger to the dark streets. I have answered a knock at my door at noon to find myself looking into the barrel of a .44. I've answered a knock at my door at midnight to have a neighbor force his way in, run to a bathroom and hide in the shower only to be followed by ugly, vicious, hateful policemen with dogs who sniffed out the guy in the bathtub. I listened in horror as the police sicced those dogs on their victim time and time again all the while able to do nothing but listen to the screams.
But there was also the time when I had no place to live and was given a place to stay by, not merely a drug dealer, but a self-taught chemist who cooked up crystal meth in his kitchen. I've watched businessmen take off their neckties and wrap them around their arms to tie off and shoot up heroin in my bathroom and then overdose and turn blue and leave somebody else to save their sorry asterisks and get them to a hospital so they can live to die again another day.
The dark underworld of drugs is a scary, hard-hitting, blood pumping, heart-stopping place and not many who venture there stay long ans live to tell about it. You apparently have done just that, ventured from depression and despair and into the jaws of hell and came back to tell others about your journey. I'm not an absolute proponent of the 'show don't tell' philosophy of writing but, in this instance, that's all you've got. When you put a proposal in front of an agent or publisher, your words on the page represent you. The only thing they know about your writing is what they see in front of them. You need to put the essence of every heart-pounding, frightening, horrifying moment of that part of your life on the pages of your proposal. So far, I have not seen it.
If you want to sell the story of the good-hearted, misunderstood dealer, then focus on that. But if you want to sell the story of you, then screw the poor misunderstood dealer and find a way to creaete a hard-hitting proposal about YOU.
Write the story that only you can tell. Then, before you show your work to anyone for review, make sure it is as close to sending to publishers and agents as it can possibly be. Otherwise, you can expect to get shot down like a clay pigeon on the shooting range.