The following is an actual critique done for a young adult novel. The title and plot details have been changed.

Hello,

Thank you very much for entrusting me with your book. I had a wonderful time reading it, and I think this is a lovely story that could be a great success with young boys. It is a strong story overall, but I do think a rewrite, or at least a comprehensive edit, would help. The main issue I found was the writing style, so I'll tackle that first.

The writing style employed in the book often sounds too purposeful and unnatural. There are times when it seems as if things were being written with the constant use of a thesaurus. This is more prevalent at the beginning of the book, but sneaks its way in throughout. A story always reads better when the writing seems effortless. Remember, good writing isn't about using big words; it's about using the right words. Using the right words means keeping your prose appropriate for your audience. When writing for young adults, you don't want to scare them away with SAT words. I'm certainly not saying you should talk down to your audience, but you don't want a kid to pick up a book and think it reads too much like homework. You want it to be enjoyable for them to read.

The sentence structures used at times also make comprehension difficult. You tend to insert a number of fragments into your sentences, complicating the structure and the meaning. Some of the sentences are needlessly verbose and could be easily simplified by breaking them into a few different sentences. I've pointed out specific examples of this in the manuscript. I also found that you tend to write in the inverse of how people would normally talk, placing the verb first in the sentence, before the noun, which also can confuse the meaning of the sentence. Again, it is more frequent at the beginning of the book, but there are instances of it throughout. I found that I often had to reread sentences a few times to make sure I got the full meaning, as the meaning would get lost among all the descriptive fragments. When the reader has to reread a sentence to understand it, it takes them out of the moment. They go from being completely immersed in the story to being pulled back out to reality.

It's important to understand that writing style is different than storytelling and plot. Think of the words you use to tell a story as your medium, and the story you tell as your message. As with any form of communication, you have to choose a medium that best conveys the message. Complex sentence structures and esoteric synonyms for common words aren't really appropriate for the story you're telling. This is a problem that is very easily fixed.

I'd like you to indulge me for a few minutes and try an exercise that I believe will help with making the writing style seem more natural. Sit down with a tape recorder and start telling the story. Don't summarize, try and tell the story as if you were writing it scene by scene, but don't look at the manuscript while you're doing it. If you don't have a tape recorder, you can call your voicemail or answering machine a few times and leave yourself messages that you'll be able to playback later. Listen to how you told the story. The point is to see what words you use when you don't have the manuscript in front of you, and to see how you tell the story. Chances are there will be variations from the manuscript, and it will sound more natural, since people tend to use more colloquial terms when they're talking as opposed to writing.

One other thing I noticed is that there were an incredible number of missing quotation marks throughout the book. I saw this every few pages. There would be opening quotes without closing ones and vice versa, or a complete absence of quotation marks when someone would be talking. This isn't an issue of writing style, it's just a matter of proofreading.

Now I'll discuss plot issues. I'll start with general stuff and move into more specific points.

When I finished reading The Golden Bat , I sat there asking myself “What is the lesson?” Yes, Frank learns not to be a spoiled brat and to appreciate his family. But he gets everything he wants by using magical help, and he never learns to do things on his own. After he has his accident and loses the game, I thought for sure that he would abandon the bat and take the opportunity to finally learn to play on his own, without help. I was very confused by your choice to have him use the bat again. I know that he did all the training himself, but clearly he had help that the others did not. It wouldn't be hard for a critic or parent to read this and equate it to steroid use. Sure, athletes on steroids still practice and go to the gym, but they have an unfair advantage, and so did Frank. So what is the lesson of the book…if you can find an easier way to the top, take it? Whatever lessons Frank learned in the book are cancelled out by him using the bat again. Rejecting the magic of the bat in favor of honing his own abilities would teach him about hard work and finding himself. It also seemed like after Frank's accident, his attitude didn't really reform until he got the bat back. If you want Frank to be likeable again and be forgiven by the reader, his redemption needs to come without the help of the bat. It would have made sense if, while he was in the hospital, he realized how valuable his family is. When they offer to take him back home, he should have the realization “I've been so horrible to them, yet they still want to take care of me.” Instead he's still cold and standoffish until they find the bat for him.

The Golden Bat has magical elements, but it's not really a fantasy book. It falls more into the realm of magical realism. You have to be careful when you introduce fantasy elements into a story that is so set in reality, because the magic still has to be plausible within the context of the story. For example, a book like Harry Potter can have any amount of crazy magic because it's set in a world where magic exists and everyone knows it. Characters like Superman work because they exist in worlds where superheroes are a reality. Your book, however, is not set in a magical world. I felt that the appearance of the ghosts and Frank's trip through time just weren't very plausible within the story. The magic of the bat, the mystery of the baseball cards… those are much more subtle forms of fantasy that worked well in the context. But time traveling ghosts lack the subtlety that would allow them to be weaved into the reality of the story. It changed the tone of the book to take Frank out of his environment and back through time, and it didn't really add much to the story. The origins of the bat could easily be discovered through the cards, or through Frank's father, or in a number of other ways. I also thought it was a little harsh to have them threaten him with death if he misused the bat, and that the lesson would be better off as an implication rather than being so bluntly stated. Then Frank could figure out on his own that the bat could lead to trouble, but it would be unclear whether the consequence is madness, death, or something else.

In the first half of the book, the mystery of the bat is forgotten for a while as Frank adjusts to his new team. Since the bat is the main source of suspense in the book, it's important to keep that storyline alive throughout. It's nice to see Frank on a new team, but at that point, there's not much there to keep the reader hooked. It would also help to cut back and forth to other characters or scenes, instead of just following Frank. This is done well in the second half of the book, but is missing in the first half.

Showing Frank fail at tryouts twice reinforces the idea that he's incapable of playing without the bat, and I don't think that's a good message to send. You don't want the reader to think of Frank as a cheater, and this relates back to what I said earlier about the lesson of the book.

It might be helpful to have more interaction between John and Frank before the rest of the team is introduced. John is going to be Frank's best friend, and their bond should be strongest, yet the reader feels the strongest bond with Sam. Creating a stronger interaction with John will make it much more intense later when he's mad at Frank.

Before Frank leaves his team, they have a big game that gains them a press clipping. It would be a good idea to actually show this game so the reader can get one last happy, bonding moment before Frank leaves. It would also help establish more of a sense of time. It feels as if Frank has barely been with the team when he leaves. The reader isn't given much time to establish a connection with the team.

That's it! As I said earlier, I believe this to be a very marketable story that could be a great success with a little work. If you have any questions about any of my notes, feel free to contact me at TheReadLine@aol.com , and I'd be happy to discuss things with you. If you require further editing assistance in the future, we could certainly work that out.

Take care,

Joanne Starer