Caroline Deacon
Journalist and author based in Scotland, UK

Creative writing

Submitting your work

Writing can be a very lonely experience, and it is hard to know how well you are doing without feedback. Friends and relatives will generally give you blanket praise, but this is not as helpful as it might be. I can offer you constructive criticism; I will give you an honest appraisal of your work, tell you how you could improve, and suggest what you would need to do to get your work into print. The best way for me to do this is to spend some time reading through what you have written. I am particularly able to give feedback in the following areas:

• getting into print,
• writing non-fiction articles or books,
• writing fiction.

I am not able to offer help with poetry.

What I will look at is how you write and what is holding you back from getting your work published. For work up to 10,000 words, my fee is £35, whereas it is £70 for 25,000 word or £125 for work up to 50,000 words.

For this fee I will read through your work thoroughly and annotate it where appropriate with specific comments, as well as more general comments on aspects such as saleability and possible markets, how to write more concisely, how to improve your grammar and punctuation, how to present your work. For fictional work, I might comment on plot, viewpoint, dialogue and characterisation.

To submit your work:

1. When your work is ready to submit, do a word count on the document so that you know which price band to use. Most word processors have a facility to perform a word count. It usually under Tools.
2. Email your work as an attachment to caroline@carolinedeacon.com
3. Include in your email address, your name and contact details including phone number.
4. Use the correct Paypal button below to pay for the appraisal.

up to 10,000 words	£35
up to 25,000 words	£70
up to 50,000 words	£125