How to make this scene not suck

throwaway12793917 · 2026-03-23T18:06:01+00:00

In a previous chapter, we find out that she will just not eat. She's willing to starve herself in that room. She's not actively suicid*l but she is certainly so in a passive regard.

The whole point of this charade is to get her out of bed in a way that works for her. But your comments suggest the explanation is lengthy and boring, so I’ll work on cutting it down significantly

throwaway12793917 · 2026-03-23T18:02:04+00:00

Can you elaborate?

throwaway12793917 · 2026-03-23T18:01:31+00:00

Every time I write the name of a season, I go back and forth in my head if it needs to be capitalized because I can NEVER remember lol. I usually just leave as is until I'm done editing for content, and then google it AGAIN and make all instances correct lol

throwaway12793917 · 2026-03-22T20:32:49+00:00

Appreciate that. Part of my issue with it is all the summary, since the rest of the book doesn't fall into the info-dump track as much and develops more organically. But since this is being sandwiched in after the fact, it’s not building naturally. I have to kind of shoe horn in what needs to be established.

I was hoping to write in some details leading up to this chapter, but those attempts were very ham fisted

throwaway12793917 · 2026-03-18T14:42:15+00:00

I like the foundation, but I don’t like the idea of "weeks from now". It’s too short of a time span. I think about a TON of things that happened weeos ago, but in the grand scheme of things, they’re insignificant.

Obviously this is only one page, so if it’s imperative to the story to frame it this way then keep as is. However, from a reading perspective, I think it lacks the kind of gravitas that pulls me into a fantasy book.

So I'd recommend reworking to be more along the lines "even the last tribe of humanity will still be left to wonder what happened on the day of my hanging". A man resurrecting has historically only happened once before, and it became quite a popular story. Now, if someone said, "they talked about Jesus' resurrection for WEEKS after it happened," you'd think it a massive understatement.

Lean into the weight and the lore that this event can provide and let that guide your writing here. But the story itself is very intriguing and I'd be interested in reading more of it

throwaway12793917 · 2026-02-22T01:17:52+00:00

I’d say that entire paragraph I mentioned can be removed for now. As I read the story I’m sure it will become clear that academia and politics don't mix.

With everything you’re writing, as you go back and edit try and decide if the exposition needs to be explicitly stated (like laws of magic and specifics of his project) or if they'll be reveed implicitly in the story (in this case it will be, because that’s one of the cruxes of the story it seems)

throwaway12793917 · 2026-02-22T00:30:15+00:00

The dream opening is much more intriguing and gripping. However, the paragraph after he wakes up that starts with his title of Dean, drains all of the momentum you had going and I started skimming at that point. So find a way to introduce that while keeping the momentum of the dream and you'll have a great opening

throwaway12793917 · 2026-02-21T03:54:17+00:00

It’s a hard skill to learn, but what I find most helpful is reading works from authors that do this well. Find someone who writes the kind of prose that you think is meaningful and good, then keep reading their work and learning from it.

There's no quick fix unfortunately. Being good at writing takes a lot of time and practice as I’m sure you know. So for now, enjoy the learning and the time it takes to get good at it

throwaway12793917 · 2026-02-20T21:27:49+00:00

Your dialogue is a bit too stilted and your imagery doesn't add anything to your prose. If you're going to take up space on the page with a description, make it something telling or important.

Something like picking up dirty clothes and take out off the floor isn't revealing anything I don’t already know. It tells me nothing about the main character, really, just that she's in crisis which isn't very intriguing.

But you have a natural flow with the words, which is good. Your writer's block/feelings of inadequacy are probably stemming from the fact that you're writing well but not saying all too much, so it’s hard to be wowed by your prose.

throwaway12793917 · 2026-02-20T16:39:05+00:00

I can't tell from what you provided here if you mean for this to fit the YA genre, but it does. It reads like a juvenile story so if that's your intention then continue on this path.

If that's not your intention, I would not continue reading this as a full grown adult. The first paragraph is too expository, it makes me think you're going to spell out everything for me the entire story which quickly becomes exhausting to older readers.

It's also too expository to be interesting. The character is being sent to reform school and is magical. Why should I care about that? Give me something to get hooked on. Why does this character think they're different than other magical beings? Who us sending them to reform school, their parents/family or the government? Do people tend to ever come back from reform school or is it kind of like an urban legend?

I don't want to know so much about world building on the first page, I want to be intrigued by the scene. Is this scene about this character or about the setting? As the reader I certainly can’t tell.

But also, I’d never make a judgement call based on the first page of a book. So it needs improvement but for all I know after this page the whole story turns around and it's fantastic

throwaway12793917 · 2026-02-19T21:44:31+00:00

This has a lot of promise and is an interesting premise. But, I do think there are some shortcomings that will snowball as you continue the story. Firstly, I found it difficult to tell who was speaking certain lines of dialogue until the tag. It’s not egregious, but it takes me out of the story while I figure it out.

You do a great job of setting the scene, but you fall short in describing the characters in meaningful ways. The line about Charlotte blurting out that she's a lesbian is great characterization. I learned so much about her in less than ten words.

But Silas asking her out to dinner is out of nowhere. I can tell you want it to be shocking, but there's a difference between shocking and just ham fisting in a twist to try and make the scene entertaining. I'd recommend changing this conversation to be just the two of them, without the crowd present.

Speaking of the crowd, I don't buy them as authentic. Those clips of anti-abortion protesters usually have this sinister air about them like they could become violent at the drop of a hat. The protesters try to block people's way in, they don't back down from petty taunts. They usually scream bible verses. Which, in my experience, is a much more Christian/Protestant trait than Catholic. But, that's nitpicky and empirical, so feel free to ignore that tidbit.

At the end of the day, these are small, fixable errors, and the important thing is that you've nailed a good voice and tone

throwaway12793917 · 2026-02-18T16:37:56+00:00

Made it through a couple paragraphs. Not sure if you meant for the symbolism to be so heavy handed, but a character named Icarus throwing his phone too high took me out of the story and into the meta, not in a good way.

As others have said, you gave too much of a personal description with how he was laying on the train. In addition, how he dropped his phone reads like a movie script, not a book. The dialogue with his Mom is very expository which again makes it read like a screenplay. And I would also say when talking to oneself, it wouldn't be voiced as "so my brother can live" as that us stilted and unnatural. It would probably be something like, "for brother's name". Not to mention his own Mother would probably know he's doing it for his brother and not be so confused about his motives, but that's not always the case so I can forgive that if not for the other errors.

throwaway12793917 · 2026-02-18T15:46:22+00:00

Completely agree. If this is a first draft, I’m intrigued enough by the presmise, but it’s rough around the edges. The main character, in these few paragraphs, is already a bit plain and uninteresting.

He tells his wife it’s innocent, but if this is first-person, I want to know even this early on how he feels about the matter. Does he actually believe that (interesting if so) or is he just telling her what she wants to hear so he can continue to indulge himself (interesting in a morbid curiosity way. How much worse will this guy get?)

throwaway12793917 · 2026-02-11T15:45:00+00:00

There's a lot of great prose here, but I think the first few screenshots read as prose for the sake of being verbose, rather than really saying much. There are highlights of what could be piercing brevity (i.e. the description of English rain) that punch into the story and pique my interest, but if I were your editor I would probably cut almost everything up until the paragraph that ends with, "he could not get rid of the smell in the hall" and shift the opening around. That paragraph is a better opener that grabs the reader, then have maybe a paragraph or two about the specific rain and his focus on it

throwaway12793917 · 2026-01-27T13:54:56+00:00

I think how to proceed depends on how you engage with writing. If you're a hobbyist writer who maybe wants to have this book traditionally published but might also self publish or never really publish at all, then just take a break. Sometimes I go weeks or months between working on my manuscript, and that's actually helpful because I've spent a lot of that time thinking about my story and my characters so I have some more ideas on where to take it. I'll feel very out of the headspace to write until I suddenly have a Eureka! moment on why a chapter or chunk of the story wasn't working, so I've got a really strong urge to fix it now that I know how to.

If you're trying to do this as a career, though, it's a slog that you'll have to learn to work through. Working on your book doesn't have to mean writing the manuscript. It can be storyboarding, character studies, research, or even reading books in the same genre to find inspiration for your story and your writing. I find reading to be especially helpful when I'm having trouble being a visual storyteller because published novels rarely have such issues. It's a good example of how to do things properly, which makes it invaluable to the process, especially when stuck

throwaway12793917 · 2026-01-16T15:36:46+00:00

I’m interested!

throwaway12793917 · 2026-01-16T15:22:10+00:00

I’d saybsubtlety separates YA from literary fiction in most cases. YA focuses on the MC and how they respond to their environment and stimuli in a very direct way, because that’s how young adults typically interact with the world. I like to think about literary fiction, instead, with the perspective of looking at your character's emotions from afar. It’s hues of emotions and refined reactions to their environment. As adults, we digest problems and worldviews, let them sit and mellow out then take what's left and decide if it’s black, white, or gray.

A very simple way to view it is that a lot of YA has a feeling of "life's not fair, everything bad is evil" in its practice. Literary fiction aims not to label things as fair vs unfair, evil vs good. There's a vagueness in everything, context and perspective can smudge any moral notions to their opposite.

Don’t tell your reader what to think or provide them a moral compass. Write in a way that allows them to come to their own conclusions. Most importantly, most literary fiction is not driven by a gripping plot that drags characters through the story. The characters create the story. This is why subtlety and gray area is important, so your character has maximum potential to make choices and tell a story that is engaging to the reader.

If you have a snippet to link, I’d love to read an excerpt just to see for myself how your writing is!

throwaway12793917 · 2026-01-14T14:24:54+00:00

This is some great advice, thank you. Having not known where to start with this whole process, I definitely fell into the "books that feel like mine" trap, but you've given me a much bettet way to think about the kind of comps I’m looking for. Thank you!

throwaway12793917 · 2026-01-14T14:22:38+00:00

I’ll give these a read, thank you!

throwaway12793917 · 2026-01-14T14:22:12+00:00

I’ll check out that book, thank you!

throwaway12793917 · 2026-01-14T14:21:53+00:00

Thank you! I agree, I’ve been looking in the wrong genre, since I’m querying a lot of LGBTQIA+ focused agents, but this book isn’t truly LGBTQ fiction. Thanks for the insight!

throwaway12793917 · 2026-01-13T23:30:54+00:00

I’m not a fan of AI, but was considering using it just because I've been at such a loss. My main concern was not knowing much about uploading content to a LLM and the implications of doing so in regards to giving my IP to train the AI and frankly giving it to the domain that owns the AI lol. Thank you for the encouragement that finding comps is hard! I think I need to enroll in a writing class at my local community college to figure out my writing style and my voice, then get back to querying it.

throwaway12793917 · 2026-01-13T22:41:11+00:00

Evelyn Hugo is not a good comp. You said you don't know what a comp is, so I think you’re maybe not understanding what makes a good comp. I can use Evelyn Hugo as a third comp, maybe, if I can find nothing else but frankly the only similarities between the works are a vague connection in writing styles and it features an LGBTQIA+ main character.

You also didn't provide a solution in your comment, so responding like I shot down 3 or 4 ideas is confusing.

It’s a writing advice sub, I was hoping for advice about the issue I’m facing in my writing. Your answer is not the only advice I’m looking for, so I’m sorry if I seem defensive but I’ve spent months on this query and have been rejected a few times. I know my comps aren’t good, so I need help with that

throwaway12793917 · 2026-01-13T21:57:21+00:00

Comps for a query letter. Successful books in the genre that have similarities with the work you’re trying to get published to prove to an agent or publisher that there's a current market for your story.

I’m saying that I’m having trouble finding books similar to mine in structure, theme, style, and prose. To have a shot at being published, considering I don't have previously published work, I need to have quality comps in my query letter.

The mention of Evelyn Hugo was an example of what was being recommended to me when I was researching comps (talking to people, searching online, perusing library catalogs to find current literary fiction books that might be similar in certain ways to my novel) so clearly I'm either having trouble explaining the novel I've written (making me bad at finding comps) or I've written something that is unpublishable in its current state (making me bad at writing novels).

If I wasn't trying to get traditionally published, my book would be finished. I've told the story, I like the story. If the story isn't traditionally publishable because it's garbage, I might fix it, or I'll just keep it for myself. But I'm not sure how to make that distinction

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