1000 Follower Specialganza: Improving my Writing · 4:29pm Jul 18th, 2021
I recently crossed the threshold of one thousand followers. Who’da thunk? That’s a grand amount of people who think I’m something special. I guess I’m supposed to have a milestone celebration, right? So here it is: critique me!
No, seriously. I like writing and I want to be better at it. But I’m my own worst critic; if I could easily see the parts of writing I’m bad at, I would’ve fixed them already. (Except for character voice. How can I be so bad at character voice while being aware that I’m bad at character voice?) So, since you all have decided I’m worth keeping an eye on, I want you to critique my style, if you can. What do I need to improve on? What isn’t bad, but could be better? What shouldn’t be touched? Not specific stories, my style itself. Prose, characters, whatever. If you think I could do better at it, tell me. I’m open to suggestions. To quote Walt Williams, “Writers who cannot take feedback are not writers; they are children playing make-believe. All they want to do is bang on a keyboard, hear that fun clickity-clack sound, and be told how special they are.”
I know this is kind of a weird thing to ask — style usually isn’t something you think about unless it’s very good or very bad and I’m putting you on the spot — but honestly, I think this is the best least bad way to go about it. What do I have to lose, right? I promise I’ll do my best to be thick-skinned and not shoot whatever you have to say down.
Your favorite cute pictures of ponies and pony-adjacents are also acceptable.
Congratulations on 1,000 followers! Also, I love that quote in your bio
!
Wait, nobody's actually tried criticizing you yet? I don't think I'm totally qualified, but you did ask. If there was one area as an author you could probably stand to improve on the most, it would be writing romance. Part of that is probably a lack of practice, but either way it's your weakest genre, IMO, despite being good at other types of character interaction. Being able to add romantic elements successfully to other stories can trigger more emotional reactions from readers, especially in conjunction with adventure or horror.
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I usually purposefully avoid romance since I've encountered a lot of romantic subplots that were extraneous, poorly-written, or both (one fic on here I read had a "romance" subplot that added absolutely nothing and was pretty much 90% one pony attempting to guilt-trip another into sex, even if the latter had just had the worst day of his life). Of course, that's an excellent excuse and a terrible reason: "I shouldn't write in this genre since it's been done badly before." And a well-written romance is pretty much sweet, sweet character development all the way through, so...
Conclusion: I should get my butt in gear and do some REAL work on that romance idea that's taking up space in my head.
Awesome, friend! Feels great, I'm sure.
Maybe we can be 1k buds! 🤓🤓
I need to look at your stories first, than I can critique. But I am looking forward the Tantabus series. It intrigued me. ^^
Stylistic critique? Let me try. Your descriptions for surreal things are great. The way you combine common phrases to form an unusual meaning has its unique charm. However, there might be too much descriptive words around certain concept(may I say "too much
ramble"?) . Trim some of them off may help your work achieve a certain state of conciseness. That's my opinion.