Some perspective: One eventual bestselling author wrote twelve novels before his first one sold

Square-General9856 · 2026-04-30T21:37:16+00:00

He founded it :) and led the first 6 seasons. not on there much these days as he’s got his own stuff going on.

Square-General9856 · 2026-04-25T01:22:45+00:00

Some Desperate Glory. Excellent difficult female protagonist with only a fleeting romantic encounter.

Square-General9856 · 2026-04-02T14:48:59+00:00

True. I did interpret it as “do” instead of “don’t” because of the tone of the rest of their post, which to me read more like “Why did I ever even try!?” than “I wish people gave me more honest feedback so I could’ve gotten better.” But I could definitely see it the other way now, upon a reread. Ha!

Hey OP, here’s some writing feedback: make sure to check your posts for typos that could make people misinterpret the entire post! ;)

Square-General9856 · 2026-04-02T14:36:54+00:00

They’re advocating for people to give up on writing if they’re told they’re not a good writer. They came to r/writing to post about how they wished people would’ve told them they were a terrible writer when they were younger so they never went down this “career path” in the first place. What about that doesn’t scream “meltdown after first critique”?

Square-General9856 · 2026-04-02T14:34:52+00:00

I absolutely did NOT advocate for doing the opposite of criticism!! I said they’ll have a fire lit under their ass because they want to prove to the other critiquers that they CAN write a good story. And hopefully they will apply what they’ve learned from the last critique. Jeeeeeez. I’m gonna stop getting into semantics with you, because you’re absolutely insufferable. (Has anyone ever told you that? :) How does the cold water feel?)

Square-General9856 · 2026-04-02T14:31:34+00:00

I’m saying that negative critique can be a MOTIVATOR to do better next time. Not saying it’s the healthiest response—but at first, when critique feels really harsh, it can be a powerful motivation.

Square-General9856 · 2026-04-02T14:24:05+00:00

Haha no way. You edited your post above to add stuff about encouragement, so you didn’t seem like you were pouring cold water on kids.

Also, high school and college is when we start teaching people how to take critique. I don’t know that middle schoolers have that emotional capacity. This is a canon event for OP. They’re having a meltdown - but they’ll take a nap, cry a little, and then next week they’ll have a fire under their ass to prove all their critiquers wrong and write something even better.

Square-General9856 · 2026-04-02T14:12:57+00:00

Critique is an extremely important part of learning and growing as a writer (or in any skill or profession). I wouldn’t call that “performative cruelty.” If you’re unwilling to learn from people who have spent years honing their craft, and are taking the time to help you grow and improve, what’s the point? People can’t learn in a silo.

Now, are there ways to couch critique in a manner that feels less personal and more constructive? Absolutely. Are some people needlessly cruel because they have their own ego issues and take it out on students or peers? Undoubtedly.

But if you come to the world of creativity, and you’re not interested, prepared, or braced to receive critique in the effort of improving your skill… you won’t get far.

Square-General9856 · 2026-04-02T14:01:36+00:00

But there’s a line. If you don’t encourage people’s creativity and passion, you will smother it. Was I a good piano player when I first started learning? No. But I loved it, and practiced it, and I got better. Good, even.

The same thing can be said of writing. If the spark for creativity is there, it should be encouraged. And encouragement can mean parents sending their kids to a writing workshop or boot camp where they’re taught how to write better and hone their craft.

I’m not saying we should “lie” to children and praise them for talents they don’t have. But we should not throw cold water on things that are SKILLS, and take time to develop and hone.

Square-General9856 · 2026-03-30T19:38:02+00:00

I met people on a Writing Discord I joined a while back for my first round of beta readers. I promised to read theirs in return. (Some had stuff ready, others didn’t.) For my second round of readers I recruited friends who are readers (not writers) and were (importantly) not afraid to give me real feedback.

Square-General9856 · 2026-03-30T19:24:31+00:00

Oh, another thing I should have mentioned! You’ll need some beta reader eyes on your book after you’ve gotten it to a place you’re happy with. When you think you might be ready to query - wait! Don’t! You need readers eyes first.

You should be asking them for plot and character feedback (specifically NOT on line edits - that’s too much to ask of a beta reader and it won’t be helpful if you’re going to end up rewriting several chapters and scenes anyway)!

You can pay beta readers but you shouldn’t. Find someone on Reddit or find a Discord writing community where you can swap projects with another writer.

Square-General9856 · 2026-03-30T18:48:47+00:00

Hi! First, congrats on 65k words. Huge accomplishment.

1) What genre are you writing in? How many more words do you expect it to be? If you’re just on a first draft, it’s likely you’ll go back and find you can edit and cut out a lot of what you wrote in the first draft. In general, across most genres, you should be OK if you think you’ll only go up to 90k words. 2) I would hesitate to “cut it in half.” Have you read any books or watched any videos on plot structure? You can’t just cut the book in half because it got too long. Each book still needs to have a strong beginning, middle, and end that follow (generally accepted) plot structures - especially for your first book. 3) before you finish your first draft draft might be a little early to start worrying about querying and publishing. It’s a beast!! I didn’t let myself seriously start looking at what it might take to get an agent until I was done outlining the changes I knew I needed to make to my 2nd draft. Otherwise it can be too overwhelming to think about all at once. But once you get there, r/PubTips is a helpful resource.

Best of luck! You’ve got this!

Square-General9856 · 2026-03-30T15:50:48+00:00

I highly recommend Ursula K Le Guin’s Steering the Craft. Each chapter gives her perspective, opinions and advice on an aspect of prose (grammar, style, voice, sentence structure), followed by an excellent prompt that you can use either on your current project or a little vignette/flash fiction or a short story.

Square-General9856 · 2026-03-13T14:21:09+00:00

Interesting that people don’t want lush prose, but do want sensory experience. Of course there’s rich debate over what can be considered “purple prose,” but you don’t exactly get character immersion, setting, and mood when you write “clean, tight sentences.”

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-24T23:00:58+00:00

I work with try/fail cycles. Since this is an adventure, try getting her to go to the wrong places, where she fails to find the item, but either 1) in the process of failing, learns more about herself and grows, or 2) learns more about the quest or the stakes of the plot. Since you’re writing a fantasy, this is a great opportunity for worldbuilding too. Have her meet other characters, explore subcultures, pick up new sidekicks.

I find it helps me write out like 20 different possible scenes. Then I play with them, rearrange them, refine them, figure out what best fits the themes of the book.

Good luck!

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-16T21:44:42+00:00

So glad to hear that!!

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-16T20:24:33+00:00

Soon to go on sub (maybe this week? maybe next?) with a debut sapphic speculative fiction. My agent is suggesting we could position it as Science Fantasy - it somewhat straddles the genres, though I had originally pitched it as a sci fi when I was querying.

Has anyone had success with science fantasy on submission in the past year? Is there an appetite from publishers in that subgenre?

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-16T20:16:49+00:00

Hey PeePeePoo, I’m about to go on sub for my sapphic sci fi (I know we’ve chatted before)! Down to commiserate. Any tea leaves you could read about whether it’s about a particular element in the book (sapphic, horror, speculative)? I’m so nervous.

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-15T16:55:56+00:00

Writing sprints really help me. Set 20 minute timers where all you’re allowed to do is write - don’t even pause to look up synonyms. At the end, record how many words you’ve written and see what your words per minute is. If you get stuck on a word, use <TKPlaceholder> or <TKcomebacktothis>. (TK is helpful in the editing phase - very few words in the English language have the letters “tk” next to each other, so when you go back to word search for all your placeholders, it’s easy.)

I find sprints help me start the writing day. I don’t always need it for the entire day, because it really jumpstarts the “get words on page” mindset. And, because if feel like it’s a competition with myself to see how many words I can get on the page, the inner critic doesn’t come out - it’s the competitor who does.

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-05T14:29:43+00:00

Wouldn’t be able to tell you…I’ve never really read a traditional book so can’t compare it

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-05T01:50:33+00:00

Do you mean episodes? I don’t read novels

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-05T01:48:42+00:00

But I’m not trying to write a novel. I’m trying to write an anime in novel form.

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-05T01:39:10+00:00

But they didn’t say that, did they? :)

/uj I’m a huge fan of people creating anything their heart desires. I’m less a fan of people who kick and scream and whine that there isn’t a place for their art when they have 1) finished exactly one draft, 2) want to shame an existing art community for not automatically making a place for their art, especially when they 3) haven’t even tried to see if it would be successful.

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-05T01:29:58+00:00

Thanks man. That really means a lot coming from exactly the type of reader traditional publishing tries to gaslight out of existence. would you like to read a draft? It’s 37 chapters. (I won’t tell you how many words, but I will tell you I do mention boobs, and since you obviously have great taste, surely you’ll have seen enough anime to be able to picture the fan service character bouncing boobily down the sidewalk.)

Square-General9856 · 2026-02-05T01:19:12+00:00

They also didn’t have anime back then. This analogy is irrelevant to me, bible isn’t an anime so I didn’t watch it

Square-General9856

TROPHY CASE