JNC Writing Support Group
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@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
How about this?
The 10yo talks to the junior maid about visiting her home. The junior maid does not take the girl seriously and essentially says she is welcome anytime. The 10yo then sneaks out in a plain clothes and shows up at a previously disclosed place outside the estate where the junior maid meets her uncle once a month to be escorted back home. The biggest obstacle is convincing them to bring her home. Again—this has to make sense for a 10yo—it is a little comical—but arguably plausible.You could add an inconvenience for them to bring back the girl and they essentially decide to take her with them to which they would consider it to be safer. Like they need to leave immediately or it could be dangerous or they are going to miss their mean of transportation.
If they go on foot, maybe make the girl disguise as commoner and ask them for help to arrive at the maid's area.
If they are on a carriage owned by the uncle she could hide between their things and be discovered in the middle or end of the journey and the reasons above to not bring her back immediately.Regarding not being discovered is hard because of the time constrain as the mansion's employees would certainly notice considering the meal's time like lunch or dinner. You could say that the Duke and her wife are out for business, maybe even a long trip, few days for example. Then you can make the staff look around discreetly after they discover. You could even make the junior maid a "Heroine" for bringing the Duke's daughter back safely without the family knowing. Depending on this you could even extend to an entire day absence. Of course this will result in some consequences.
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@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
Anyway, if you are up for talking about this more—I would love to hear it. Sorry, if it sounds like I am being inconsistent or holding important things back—I am really working through this in my head—(I am not trying to be difficult). This is incredibly helpful and additional thoughts are super-appreciated!
You're fine! You're not being difficult in the least :) Having more details means we can give better advice, and I'm definitely up for discussing this or other details as much as you like.
The way I wrote it is that since she is just ten, she doesn't have ladies in waiting—there is just a head maid (nanny) and junior maids who have no status. So the maid that she would be leaving with is a junior maid—and the “princess” would be pretending to be a junior maid-sculiry maid. (FWIW, she would not be a princess (duke’s daughter) until she is confirmed in the church at age 12). Other than distinctive looks—acting like a commoner won't be that hard (for reasons).
A lady-in-waiting is completely different from a lady's maid. Ladies-in-waiting are nobles who complete tasks like overseeing a princess/queen's wardrobe, handle correspondence, manage her schedule, etc. They wouldn't handle chores like cleaning or serving tea--those are jobs the maids would handle. Serving a duke's daughter requires a lot of skills that a maid who just washes dishes and runs petty errands wouldn't have. Even though both are commoners, there would be a clear gap in status and pay between the two.
The downside of option 2 is a loss of drama and tedious logistics—part of the fun of having the protagonist be a child is that she does not have an adult’s appreciation of risk—and would go into a shantytown only accompanied by a junior maid. In other words, ten-year-olds do stupid things—and I want to embrace that! I just need a plausible way to get her out of the estate for 8ish hours disguised as a lower level maid—she can even fail spectacularly once she gets to the shantytown.
Maybe you could have her come up with her own plan and then get caught by the guard and the junior maid, who decide that it's less risky to accompany her to shanty town than risk her sneaking out on her own over and over.
Even if she fakes an illness and the junior maid says she does not want to be disturbed in her room—is it plausible that she would not be caught for 8 hours? Maybe, I could have it discovered by the staff a few hours isn that she is gone but they are too terrified to do anything about it?
If she fakes an illness, they would definitely be checking on her frequently to see how she's doing. Perhaps you could have the staff react by discreetly searching for her, not wanting to advertise the fact that she's missing just yet for fear that seedy elements might start looking for her and find her first. You may be able to hide this from her parents by having them visiting another noble when the discovery is made. The servants/guards then decide to keep her escape a secret when she turns up safe and sound, because all of them would be punished for failing to keep her from sneaking out.
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@Alfaerin I think I figured it out—at least figured it out enough that it is worth writing up and see how it works— (hoping I can get y’all to read it fresh—so I am not going to spoil it). Thanks a bunch! (I don’t know about you guys, but I happy for any writing distractions, while we are waiting on the announcement).
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@jazzyjeoff said in JNC Writing Support Group:
(I don’t know about you guys, but I happy for any writing distractions, while we are waiting on the announcement).
I was able to stay calm for the most part, but now I find myself feeling restless and nervous, ahaha. I would definitely welcome a distraction right about now.
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@Alfaerin Yeah, I should be writing—especially since I have some new ideas that I am sort of excited about—but instead I have been bouncing between the forums, outlook and discord for any news on the contest—so sad!
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The results of round one are out. I hope everyone had good news.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XmRmqSbTkoZ46uYDZfDKdRhPXH-zweqy1pBvAiXZtcw
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@Damon-Cavalchini no good news for me I'm afraid. Worst part about it is not receiving any feedback either. Congratulations to all who passed, good luck further :)
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@LeeroyCGNA said in JNC Writing Support Group:
no good news for me I'm afraid.
Me neither.
Worst part about it is not receiving any feedback either.
In the world of publishing, a rejection slip is a rejection slip, I guess. Still, an indication of whether a novel was rejected because it was no good or because it wasn't the sort of novel they were looking for would have been useful.
Congratulations to all who passed, good luck further :)
I'll drink to that!
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Hi there,
I’m sorry you both didn’t get through but as I’ve said before the very act of submitting was a win (think how many billions didn’t).
I’ve entered plenty of competitions where I have gone nowhere.
If everyone is happy, we could do a list of who here did progress so we can know who to cheer on for the next round (which has another large cut).
I think they said 83 or 84 novels got through out of 464 which is a huge filter process.
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Oh well, not the news I was hoping to wake up for, specially that I was quite confident to pass at least the first phase. Guess I will make some revisions I had already planned and publish somewhere for feedback.
Congratulations to those who passed and let's hope you guys make it till the end. -
Congratulations to those who passed! Unfortunately, my work wasn't one of them. I really wish I knew why...
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Damn, there go the 90,000 words I squeezed out while working full time...
Given the amount of works submitted and the amount passed, I'm just going to assume for my sake that they were strict with their grading for efficiency. Which is definitely understandable, I wrote for my self first and foremost while knowing that my target audience was small. The next book I'm planning is definitely more immediately attractive, but I can't wondering what to do with my poor Anya?
More than winning I just wanted to pass the first round and see what someone from a publisher thought of her first steps.
Oh, well better luck next time. Congratulations and good luck to everyone who passed!
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@Damon-Cavalchini said in JNC Writing Support Group:
Hi there,
I’m sorry you both didn’t get through but as I’ve said before the very act of submitting was a win (think how many billions didn’t).
I’ve entered plenty of competitions where I have gone nowhere.
If everyone is happy, we could do a list of who here did progress so we can know who to cheer on for the next round (which has another large cut).
I think they said 83 or 84 novels got through out of 464 which is a huge filter process.
I passed but I don't know why.
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Fell asleep with my glasses on. They fell down somewhere and I can’t find them. I can barely see. I found the list —I am not on it. Very bummed. Does not look like I received the flush email—if there was one. Anyway, need to find my glasses.
And congrats on those who passed!
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Found my spare glasses and the email (in the junk folder—Ha!). I think I will go back to my story, make some edits and probably post here. I can think of all sorts of reasons why it didn’t make it (beyond my writing ability—but there is only so much I can do about that). I hope that with more time and feedback, I can make it a better story.
I still like the story and the characters. -
@Alfaerin - There should be an email address in the notification email where you can request feedback. It isn’t guaranteed and is up to the judge who read it but several people over on Discord have had some responses.
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@Damon-Cavalchini I don't see anything in my email other than the address it came from.
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@Angelus said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@Damon-Cavalchini I don't see anything in my email other than the address it came from.
No, no, this wasn't what Damon meant. On discord, someone asked Sam:
Am I able to ask about an specifics about the rejection, maybe something I can avoid in future?
In response, he said:
In an email, you can ask, sure.
I'll not post any feedback publicly about specific works anyway
It's possible we have feedback from other judges I can share, but not guarranteed.So it's not so much that you'll only get feedback if you make it to the first round -- it's that feedback is guaranteed for those who make it to the first round. You can try sending an reply email to see if there's any feedback on why your entry might not have made it to the first round. It's worth a shot for peace of mind, and if that doesn't work, I'd be happy to take a look at some people's entries when I have more sleep/time.
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Congratulations to all those that passed.
@Hylebos I just sent them an email, so hopefully I'll get some feedback.
What honestly surprised me though about some of the passing works is that a few of them had "Vol 1" in their titles. I honestly hope me not putting a "Vol 1" in the title of one of my entries was one of the reasons it failed, though I did try my best to make it a complete story in of itself with room for a sequel. -
@AuthorMN said in JNC Writing Support Group:
@Hylebos I just sent them an email, so hopefully I'll get some feedback.
What honestly surprised me though about some of the passing works is that a few of them had "Vol 1" in their titles. I honestly hope me not putting a "Vol 1" in the title of one of my entries was one of the reasons it failed, though I did try my best to make it a complete story in of itself with room for a sequel.I can't imagine that the Vol 1 thing would be a factor for your pass or failure. Even if you intentionally set out to write a one shot that definitively ended the story—like, the protagonist is both married (and dead), world on fire, populace slaughtered, etc.—if a judge really liked your submission, I'm sure they would be thinking in their mind, "How can I convince this author to rework their one shot into a longer running series?"
