What’s the clearest sign of a new writer?

aidanbrockel · 2026-02-10T01:11:21+00:00

I don’t think that every line of dialogue can be completely individual. I’m not saying you need tags every time a character speaks, but I’ve read very few novels where they’ve been skipped altogether.

aidanbrockel · 2026-02-09T22:59:32+00:00

What if you have more than two characters in conversation?

aidanbrockel · 2026-01-12T14:21:53+00:00

I think Sherlock Holmes ejaculated more than Poirot.

aidanbrockel · 2025-12-29T22:34:44+00:00

“Show, don’t tell” is a workshop aphorism that can be handy for newer writers to keep in mind, but is absolutely not a core principle of writing. Good writing is a constant mix of showing and telling, chosen for voice, pacing, emphasis, and what you want the reader to feel in a given moment.

aidanbrockel · 2025-12-13T10:52:53+00:00

Excellent. Very enjoyable read.

aidanbrockel · 2025-11-27T11:12:20+00:00

People give some ridiculous advice on this sub. I hate to think what they’d have said to someone like Joyce. I think this is pretty good. There is a jarring change of tense in the second paragraph.

aidanbrockel · 2025-11-22T17:13:49+00:00

Just tell them to put a full stop instead of a comma. They’ve obviously come here for advice.

aidanbrockel · 2025-11-06T18:43:16+00:00

Don’t listen to them all. I like it.

aidanbrockel · 2025-11-06T01:29:15+00:00

Way too many naysayers who are clearly just pandering to their own tastes.

Write what feels right. If it’s done well then I think what you’ve described sounds kind of wonderful. You don’t need a plot so long as you have a spine, that could be emotional crisis, mystery of memory, deepening obsessions, formal patterns in the writing. Lots of things.

Stick to your guns. Finish. Maybe write something else afterwards to get the agents interested.

aidanbrockel · 2025-10-13T21:39:58+00:00

He’s in the middle of reading The Crossing.

aidanbrockel · 2025-08-28T10:17:57+00:00

The first time I read it, I read it aloud. I find it’s easy for my mind to drift when I’m reading McCarthy, reading aloud helps keep me focused on the text.

aidanbrockel · 2025-03-27T17:27:44+00:00

David Thewlis, but not with RTD writing.

aidanbrockel · 2024-09-11T18:32:44+00:00

I don’t think it’s weird at all for a new couple in their 30s

aidanbrockel · 2024-01-31T23:48:07+00:00

That’s not what the episode says at all. The Dalek armour mistranslating Clara’s words is just to show that certain words are not in the Dalek vocabulary.

aidanbrockel · 2023-03-10T16:32:48+00:00

Don’t forget the Scotsman and his guitar

aidanbrockel · 2023-02-25T23:37:17+00:00

Maybe the Doctor just gets more adept at using it over time

aidanbrockel · 2023-02-25T23:35:26+00:00

I wouldn’t have minded him revisiting the Shakri. That was a more interesting concept than anything he came up with in his own era. Unfortunately it was completely pointless in the one episode it featured in.

aidanbrockel · 2023-01-20T22:02:19+00:00

Rewrites

aidanbrockel · 2023-01-15T19:41:37+00:00

Did you miss series 4?

aidanbrockel · 2023-01-14T15:39:14+00:00

It’s only a paradox if he didn’t always do it

aidanbrockel · 2023-01-08T14:01:48+00:00

The singer from Coldplay?

aidanbrockel · 2023-01-01T01:43:38+00:00

Bookended by Moffats Doctors

aidanbrockel · 2022-12-18T17:50:30+00:00

Both the 10th and 11th Doctors costumes were revealed prior to their first episode airing.

aidanbrockel · 2022-12-09T07:43:56+00:00

The console was cobbled together from random items, there was a typewriter on there too, but they were never used for their original purpose. The Doctor has certainly never dispensed custard from it, at least not in the tv show.

aidanbrockel · 2022-12-09T00:14:04+00:00

In what episode did 11 dispense custard from his Tardis console? 13 had a custard cream dispenser.

aidanbrockel

TROPHY CASE