Yorth
Swordman
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2019
- Messages
- 244
- Points
- 133
In my years in this writing community, I have received lots of advice. I met a lot of wonderful people who, without them, I would have never reached where I'm at today. On the same breath, I have given lots of advice to newbie writers. I would tell them which parts of their novels sucked, how they could improve them, and what opportunities they missed. And throughout those years, I learned that shutting up and saying nothing sometimes can be the best advice you could give. You see, anyone who spent 30 minutes reading writing blogs can go on and on about how this novel sucks and how it can be improved, etc... However, that is not going to help the one receiving the advice. In fact, the only purpose that has is to satisfy the "experienced writer"s own vanity. It's to validate themselves and bragging about their breadth and depth of knowledge.
That's why I no longer give specific feedback to new writers. I give them resources, but I never criticize their work. There is just too much to criticize. Letting them write, write and write is much more valuable than bogging them down with specifics. Letting them experiment, understand what works and what doesn't, will help them much more later on.
So, if you're a new writer, experiment to your heart content. Don't seek out criticism just yet. Just keep thinking of cool ways to write your story. Cool events, cool characters, interesting prose, all of that is going to be invaluable to you later on. Of course, when you decide to actually publish, you should seek criticism and edit your work. However, by that point, you would have already widened the breadth of your knowledge and all the criticism you'll receive will be much more useful. You would have specific things that you need to work on and improve. That is, my friend, much easier than just being told that every letter in your manuscript suck and that you should follow these thousand rules you have never heard about before.
That's why I no longer give specific feedback to new writers. I give them resources, but I never criticize their work. There is just too much to criticize. Letting them write, write and write is much more valuable than bogging them down with specifics. Letting them experiment, understand what works and what doesn't, will help them much more later on.
So, if you're a new writer, experiment to your heart content. Don't seek out criticism just yet. Just keep thinking of cool ways to write your story. Cool events, cool characters, interesting prose, all of that is going to be invaluable to you later on. Of course, when you decide to actually publish, you should seek criticism and edit your work. However, by that point, you would have already widened the breadth of your knowledge and all the criticism you'll receive will be much more useful. You would have specific things that you need to work on and improve. That is, my friend, much easier than just being told that every letter in your manuscript suck and that you should follow these thousand rules you have never heard about before.