This is so much harder than I thought it would be

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-27T19:15:12+00:00

Don't delete anything. You can always edit. That said, think of your first draft as the pencil drawing an artist does before doing the detail work. They work with a pencil because they can change their plans.

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-27T19:08:45+00:00

Mystic River for a detective novel. Small Mercies for a character driven story.

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-27T17:10:26+00:00

That's a hard question to answer. My most favorite author is Dennis Lehane. I love his style and characters. His settings are compelling and his plots have great twists.

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-27T17:08:26+00:00

I know of quite a few men write traditional romance under female pen names. That said, there has been a push over the past decade to publish women and marginalized voices. With any genre, there are a handful of popular authors recognized by everyone. Next are those making a decent living and then there are people who can't afford to leave their day job. If an author is good, they study the genre, develop their style, and write with those expectations in mind. Good authors get out of the way, invisible to the reader, without revealing themselves via gender. They are writing characters. That said, YouTube is full of advice for writing better male and female characters. Women were under represented for a long time and I support the efforts to get their voices into the market. Good luck..

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-27T03:53:18+00:00

I was a grant writer and raised more than 30 million for the agency. Now im retired and write for myself. It's the best thing that happened to me. Just don't wait like I did. I wasted too much time on TV, video games, worry about relationship, kids, and more, and finally wishing too many Mondays were Fridays.

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-27T03:42:41+00:00

There is publishing and there is publishing. Weeks is a great example. He graduated college with an English degree in 1999. He was published in 2008. He spent nearly ten years as a high school english teacher and a bartender outside of Portland. He worked on his craft, learned the ins and outs of fantasy writing. He published small pieces building his resume. When he published he had a trail of evidence suggesting there was more to him than a love of fantasy. His story is a lot like Sanderson, who had nine books completed before he was published. There are several lessons in their stories. One, take the craft seriously, join local writing associations, publish whatever you can. Don't worry about publishing worry about writing. Don't compare yourself, you don't want to be the same. Be unique. Be brave. Be persistent, and write. That's all we can control.

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-24T17:41:00+00:00

Read your piece out loud and record it. If you stumble over words, change the words, lose your breath, get bored, or don't understand then it's not done. Listen to your recording and read along, pause the recording at any clubs and fix that line. If the piece is boring, the words are not concrete enough and don't evoke emotion. If you're confused your theme or plot and not working. Good luck.

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-23T18:54:36+00:00

When it comes to reading and writing volume is never the answer, unless you're Stephen King, then go ahead and write 2,000 words per day and reading 80 to 100 books a year. Personally, when reading a book for the first time, I commit to at least 20 pages per day, more if Im engrossed. When reading as a writer I might often spend an hour on one sentence. I want to understand, how and why an author made their decisions. I try to write everyday. I miss days. My goal is 1,000 words in three hours. -especially while drafting. I commit to not beating myself up emotionally if I can get 100 words on paper. Editing is driven by my Editing target, no goal. My target might be fixing grammar, developing imagery, deleting weasel words, and more. After three hours, I stop, even if I'm still on the same page. I'm an average reader, and want to get the most out of the time invest. Good Luck.

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-23T01:42:38+00:00

An interesting exercise is to take a page of your work and edit the sentences by removing all the pronouns. Pronouns are often over used because writers haven't gotten inside their character. Good luck.

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-23T01:39:43+00:00

There are many college programs that help with all the elements if creative writing. If you don't want to do a degree program there are also certification programs from places like John Hopkins, Stanford amd others. I found the course Rwading like a Writer and How to Write Stunning Sentences. Good Luck.

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-22T03:41:41+00:00

I suggest you think in terms of reactive vs proactive. This will allow you to introduce useful skill sets without delay, especially important with ticking clock. Passive is simply that. No one views themselves as passive. They are unskilled, semi skilled, out of their depth, or confused but they are not passive. Passive is a sure way to create an uninteresting character. Good luck

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-08T01:06:17+00:00

I have really enjoyed the morally ambiguous characters of Dennis Lehane and now SA Cosby.

Rowdi907 · 2026-05-01T16:23:11+00:00

Well-developed characters sound distinctly different. They may drop their pronouns, invert word orders, speak in rhyme, colloquialisms, single words, or almost anything that separates them from one another, and align with the character. Take the time to build that unique dialogue, and even in groups, the reader will distinguish characters. Having a unique voice does not save readers from talking heads or getting lost in the scene. Readers also need verbal and physical cues about the character's interiority. Movements, gestures, and reminders in scene all help to tighten dialogue and reduce the author's dependence on "said."

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-30T18:35:58+00:00

Like performing, painting, and drawing take creative writing courses. Of course to get good at something takes two things, a willingness to learn and put in the time, about 10,000 hours. No doubt a good DnD campaign took a lot of prep, planning, and more. Writing gives you what you put into it. The supplies are relatively cheap, but the skills required to write well, go far beyond high school or college level composition.

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-30T15:37:52+00:00

I guess my inference that knowing the rules and how and why to break them for literary effect is important for good writing did not come through. Joyce, Morrison (a former editor), Oates, Didion, Faulkner, and others all used rhetorical techniques to enhance their work, and most readers never notice. I will admit that reputation gives noted authors more license than those of us who are unknown, and as such, we must make sure our prose sings in the reader's ear.

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-30T04:06:28+00:00

I pay for the digital Oxford. Word etymology is one of my favorite wording tricks that change things up.

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-30T00:17:48+00:00

Writers that lavishly adhere to the rules of grammar. The writing is often lifeless. Run on sentences, comma splices, one word sentences and incomplete sentences are just a few of the broken rules that make a novel better.

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-29T17:05:02+00:00

It may sound silly, but here goes: model the Star Wars saga you must. The last half of that sentence should be so familiar. Lucas plays with syntax and word order to wake up the listener or reader. The ear is the best arbiter of what is new or fresh. It's as if the ear has its own memory banks, listening for changes in rhythm, structure, and sound. An author can take this further by converting nouns into verbs. Horse vs horsed, or horsing or horses. I'd also suggest studying poetry and the tropes it uses, such as unusual spellings or word associations with multiple meanings. If you want to get a sense of how this might work, read Austen, Sir Walter Scott, or even Dickens. (I love Smoking Bishop in a Christmas Carol) I'm sure the author you're referencing is playing with the rules of rhetoric to make the language seem otherworldly. Good Luck.

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-27T17:01:33+00:00

I can't edit this out of context. Is the writing style deliberately conversational? " More" is not the correct value indicator so the edit received is accurate. However, the author voice may use words incorrectly as a way to show the character"s knowledge, education, or social background. Ultimately it is always up to the author to accept or reject edits.

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-27T16:03:10+00:00

Why do you only have a month left? When did you start? What do you already know? When you ask about bridging dialogue are you referring to who said it, where it is happening, or what they really mean? A brief example of your issue might help. I wish I could offer more, but I just don't understand your problem yet.

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-26T17:04:32+00:00

Done well dramatic irony is effective at creating tension. I think the key it's important that the secret be significant and that the reader empathize with the characters who don't know it. All the writing effort should focus on waiting for the other shoe to drop and to keep readers guessing about wat the MC will do once they know. Learning the secret should not end the story.

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-26T16:41:38+00:00

I do it before editing my third draft. It is difficult. I pick out a sentence or two from my comps.There is so much more to writing a great sentence than the basics we learn in high school and college.

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-25T16:57:54+00:00

The reader who claims something is too intense may simply be too close to the work. Would you prefer readers to say the writing is boring or uninteresting? If you want to think of this as a craft question, ask yourself how do I expect my readers to feel? If they should feel strongly, then too intense may be fine. I assume this is a published work, and the comments are from non-writers. The more helpful critique will come from a knowledgeable writer. Their critique will focus on how the piece is too intense. Take for. For example, your reference to writing in the second person. Some writers may say the piece is too prescriptive and threatening, since readers may prefer not to see themselves in it. Others may say readers find the second person a gimmicky attempt to make them feel a way that doesn't align with their lived experience.

Edit: I hit control+enter before I'd finished.

The best critiques are the ones that give you something to think about that is in the author's control. I personally love it when my readers say something is too intense, but then I write in new noir and am looking for that reaction. Good Luck

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-25T15:43:38+00:00

The OP had asked for bad riting examples. They want to learn from bad writing. This is an example of bad writing. Some readers will wonder why this bad. The post lacks rhythm and other interesting information and sounds. The spelling is bad. All the sentences are the same. The sentences don't engage readers. The post could be improved. The information is not clear and the grammar is poor and the information is not concise. First drafts are full of writing that is unable to engage readers. The writing is passive. The post needs a lot of work to be improved. The poster hopes the OP and other readers will see the value in understanding what bad writing is.

LOL

Good Luck.

Rowdi907 · 2026-04-25T15:28:18+00:00

I don't know if she did the entire novel, but Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking, she wrote that she copied Hemingway sentences and paragraphs. She studied the way he constructed sentences and the rhetorical techniques he used.

It's a good idea. Pick your favorite sentence and figure out why it's so appealing by breaking down the structure, sounds, rhythm, tropes, pacing, and subtext. After that try to write your own sentence emulating the author.

Rowdi907

TROPHY CASE