I get asked all the time if I will read my readers' unfinished manuscripts (the answer is no, I can't, not legally) or if I have suggestions on how to find critique partners, and how I found mine. I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again, because I've worked up a solution, I think.

Back when I was first looking for critique partners, I went through a stunning number of inappropriate matches. At first I didn't realize what an inappropriate critique partner was -- I thought I just didn't like critique, or I thought I was too egotistical to recognize their suggestions as valid, or I thought I was just getting annoyed for stupid reasons, like when someone moved a comma instead of commenting on stilted dialog.

But then I signed a deal with my first editor, Yoda, and his revisions were exciting, challenging. Plus, they felt like they had come directly out of my head. For the first time, I didn't feel like the edits were trying to make my book into something else. I felt like they were trying to make my book into a better version of MY book. It was like me, except objective, working on my own book.

I knew there had to be other people like him. People that critiqued in a language that I spoke. And what makes one critique partner editing gold to one writer can make them an anathema to another -- it's as subjective as writing and reading. So I set out on a critique partner dating process. On my blog, I put out an open call: I would read and critique the first 50 pages of anyone's manuscript if they would do the same for mine. We would exchange critiques, and if for any reason we weren't meshing, we could walk away, no questions asked, no feelings hurt.

I went through about a dozen before I found my two critique partners, Brenna Yovanoff & Tessa Gratton. They're absolutely right for me: we read similar things, we all like a no-holds barred critique, we don't line-edit, only edit globally. We were also very much at the same place in our writing careers and learning curves. (PLEASE note that this does not mean agented or published -- though I was both at the time -- as both were unagented and uncontracted at the time of our meeting, a fact which has since changed. It means at the same level of writing and the same general awareness of the biz, whether or not agents have happened yet).

Anyway, I've done a Critique Partner love connection here on the blog, but it was a bit cumbersome, plus it fell off the page eventually and was hard to find once it did. Then, brilliance hit me as I was driving through the countryside at a slightly illegal pace. What I needed was a permanent place to lodge critique requests.

I've asked the folks over at MaggieStiefvaterFans.com if they would let me set up a permanent critique partner connection forum there, and they said yes! So I've set up a subforum there for finding crit partners and beta readers, just like I did. I recommend posting your info there, contacting interesting sounding writers, and swapping the first 50 pages for a no-obligation-trial-offer-then-buy-it-if-you-like-whoooo! period.

So you can go over and sign up; you don't have to be a fan, just an aspiring writer (I will neither know the difference nor care, I promise). Hope this helps! I promise you, a good crit partner makes all the difference in the world. I have two editors and an agent, and still, my crit partners see absolutely everything before they do.