This post is about working on a novel, and attempting to determine if you are any good at writing.
Just keep in mind, I write because I want an audience to read it. I also write because I enjoy the story I am telling.
There are so many things to deal with when it comes to writing fiction, more so than the whim of just wanting to have a creative outlet, that it seems easy to get lost in a maze of critical feedback, bad advice and unclear "writing rules" ...
TLDR; (Sorry, I'm a verbose person)
I've seen a lot of "writing advice" videos like Alyssa Matesic and Jerry Jenkins among many others (you know how the YouTube algorithm works) and i'm subscribed to various newsletters like Greg R. Buchanan and my wife bought me "Save the Cat" and "On Writing" by Stephen King.
I've had three friends beta-read a book, and one subreddit owner, and the only person who seems to care about this book is myself. As an aspiring author, I have a bank of stories I want to develop within a single science fiction universe, but I keep getting advice that makes me second guess all of my decisions.
I started a science fiction book about two years ago and decided to pause it halfway through to write a prequel because I realized I was too far ahead in the story without a key character having his own section or back story.
I see a lot of writerly advice videos that spew axioms like "show don't tell", "adverbs are for amateurs", "9 things you shoud NEVER do" etc. And I have to admit, maybe I write the way I do because that's what soothes me, and apparently me alone.
Here are my sins:
- I use passive statements with and without knowing
- I tend to infodump because I think it's appropriate, but probably too often, which is apparently even 1 time (I don't think I could ever follow this rule :()
- I think I'm showing when i'm telling, I guess, it's hard for me to know. I'll say something like "Jack walked across campus" and people find fault with it.
- My manuscript is 45,000 words and I use "only" 60 times and "really" 19 times and I'm fine with that. ChatGPT says I use too many adverbs. Really????? In 45000 words I only used adverbs 582 times
- I say "was hung" when I should say "hung" when the item was not being hung right away (passivity)
- My characters are probably at most 2 dimensional at the start.
- I describe people in an info dump when they first show up. "She was a girl with long hair, glitter-flecked eyebrows, and a face like tapioca pudding" because I have no idea how to write this as action
- I like to list the things in a room, but I try to be creative about it -- "Jack busted open the first crate. Eventually, they'd bust them all open. The crates contained six medkits, a trauma kit and five folding reflectors."
- I wonder if I should switch to screenwriting and give up the novel part of the craft, since most of my descriptions, actions and dialog come out of my head as scenes in a television show, but find screenwriting difficult because you don't describe things with enough detail in my opinion
- Since I'm always imagining things as an action film, I end up describing most situations this way. "Vicente leaned over and peered down the side corridor, but couldn't make out any movement in the dark."
- If nearly every rule comes with the caveat that "but it depends, it's up to the writer and the situation" how can anyone really follow this rule as though its written in stone? yeah yeah sure its not written in stone, but obviously people are going to call it out in the next beta read...
I can tell you why I do some of the things I do but apparently no one cares why.
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The long version:
My spouse has been very encouraging, and some of my friends have expressed interest in reading it. This was a departure from a fantasy book that I stopped writing because I felt I wasn't really in the mood to write it. I had paid people to read this book on Fiverr and I got a variety of different "qualities" of advice, and some encouragement, but I found myself uninterested in revisiting the world for now and put it "on the backburner" ...
In my current book, I enjoy the characters and I'm proud of myself for driving the plot so far as 180 pages in Google Docs. I'm in "Draft 4", but it's really the first full draft of the first half of the book.
I have two friends I asked to provide edits.
Friend #1 helped edit a nonfiction book I published decades ago, which got exactly 3 negative reviews and 3 on-demand copies at Lulu. I realized after publishing the one error in the book was on the first page. He's been reading the first six chapters, but he has written exactly 6 comments and the last one was "Great setup, let's see what happens next" ... which I read to be: he's not really interested in it, and is going through the motions "just to be nice"
Friend #2 was a formerly close friend of mine, who moved far away, and was very actively beta reading it until a few weeks back. He moved far away, but I was happy he was encouraging me to continue writing while doing reads on each chapter. He kept asking for the next one. As we got to a later chapter, though, I ran out of material. So I started writing each chapter and sending it. Then, he sort of dipped out on a family trip, and when he came back to beta read the next section, he told me he felt my book was practice on writing books, and began giving me advice on "whatever my next book is" ... he said I should give up on third person and write a first person book "like Andy Weir" and that I should read "Project Hail Mary" and I told him I specifically don't like reading the latest books just because people are reading them because I do not want to inadvertently copy a trend.
The fact that, months into this relationship, and after writing almost 40 chapters, he would suddenly claim I'm "practicing" was rather annoying. It's sort of like being halfway through a painting that someone has been encouraging you to paint, only to find out they were just assuming you'd never picked up a brush before and needed practice. So, yesterday while I was talking broadly about fiction, he started texting me "SHUT UP" and it ended with them basically telling me they found all of my characters boring, and me telling them to stop abusing me. I had to end it there, I couldn't work with them anymore. Something wasn't being communicated. Perhaps they are busy, but this behavior couldn't be tolerated any further. No bridges burned, but I made myself clear by restricting access. I don't expect any more help from him, but he could have simply communicated his lack of interest. He never once told me he was sick of doing it.
One thing he did though was start rewriting every single paragraph in comments. He would change key details (or at least details I thought were important) and finally I would mark those comments as "noted" but would take no action on them. I felt bad that he could see these notes, because I could tell he was getting frustrated (he would argue the point, as I would, sometimes), so I just backed off and told him to keep telling me his honest opinion, that that's what really mattered. But I needed to keep his comments at arm's length -- like I would a beta reader I didn't know very well.
Well, with him gone, no one was providing feedback. I wrote a few more chapters, then wondered where I could drum up some interest in beta reading.
Today I joined r/writeradvice and shared my work, and was torn a new one by the founder of the Discord, in a channel they said it was OK to vent in, who then immediately banned me when I mocked them by saying "Thanks so much for creating such a safe space", and I assume is now parading my work around on their "#graveyard - channel that shows off the worst" because I saw them show up in Google Docs after they banned me, while I was securing the document. Within seconds they accused me of being stereotypical, attacking my main character as though it was myself, revealed that they are an Asian woman who poses as a White Male on the Internet (odd), and took offense to my use of a female half-Asian half-Irish character. Maybe they were right about some things, but that's what getting feedback is all about? My problem was, they delivered it in such an aggressive and mocking way, and treated everything I said with disdain, deflecting or misinterpreting everything I said with accusations. I could sum up the writing advice I received as a woman screaming "Infodump! Passive! Horrible! Amateur! Racist! Stereotypical! Chauvinist! Boring!" So, word of warning.
But, I'm left with a sinking feeling that I shouldn't write fiction anymore because I keep hearing the same advice and I don't really agree with it, and I don't follow it. I want to improve, but I think of a novel similar to the way a sculpture is made. First you have a rough version, then you refine it. But people are tearing into my rough draft like it's the final draft, and their criticisms are becoming pointed and discouraging.
I know, boo hoo, get over it, but I don't understand why writing fiction has to be a full contact sport.
So I ask ChatGPT-5 for help #notsponsored #notashareholder #fackai
Out of the 3,012 sentences in your manuscript, about 225 look like they use passive constructions (roughly 7.5% of the text).
Here are a few examples flagged:
- “The accelerated master’s program was just a sidecar to his longer-term pursuit of a law degree, but he was excited to turn his thinking away from legal procedure.”
- “She was wicked smart but, like many engineers, a bit awkward and heavily focused on her work.”
- “The landscape was dotted with lakes, and the cabin was uphill from the water with a view of a rocky, rolling terrain and a sky that seemed to go on for miles.”
Not all of these are bad — sometimes “was” is fine, especially in description — but many can be made sharper by shifting the focus to action or by reordering details.
👉 Do you want me to make a list of the top 20 “weakest” passive sentences (where the passivity really hurts pacing/immersion) and propose rewrites, or would you prefer a method/guide you can apply across the full manuscript?
> Yes
(redacted) ...
#20 Original:
“His face was restored, as supple and clean-shaven as he was as a babe.”
Rewrite:
“His face looked restored—supple and clean-shaven, like a newborn’s.”
In the above example I really see no reason to make the rewrite other than to appease people who yell "OMG PASSIVE WRITING!!"
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So, are there any other people out there who have opinions about "writing advice" and when it is useful and when it is not?
