“Learn about the topic you’re writing about” is how I would word it, but it’s such a far cry from “write what you know” that it’s practically different advice.
Honestly I think the advice of "don't write your darling piece first, write something else" is bad because how is someone supposed to stay motivated while writing something they're not 100% inspired by? That comes later when you somehow make this a career (lol). It's most important to practice and cultivate a habit/method that works for you. Now, depending on where you're starting, you may need to shelve your novel and make major developmental edits once you have more experience, but that doesn't mean don't write it. The fastest way to become a writer is to write *shocked pikachu face*
The advice is good. I followed the advice and wrote a novella [25k Word count] about an event that takes place decades before the events in my main novel, currently completed second draft and doing revisions and it is very very hard to do. I learnt many things while writing it and if i started with my main novel then i would have given up trying to put in everything i have learnt in the revisions.
@destroyervtk3019 the thing is, you still wrote something in line with your story. The advice is usually "write something completely different". I would argue yours could be good practice for background (: but it may not be for everyone if their heart is set on writing their story now.
@@duncanosis6773 I agree. There are "shouted" or "whispered" but sometimes you can just put the feeling into that dialog, and reader can feel the "shouted" without saying it. + There was a research where someone checked Brandon Sandersons, first 100 pages of the books, and if I remember corretly it was around 70-85% said. I don't know exactly.
I've seen George RR Martin give the "start with short stories" advice. He said that what worked for him was to have a bunch of short stories published in magazines, which made it so that he had a body of known work to which he could refer publishers to when he pitched his novels. It sounds like he did that decades ago, though and I never see modern experts recommend this, so I wonder if that approach is dated.
It's probably dated considering a lot of publishers since 2008 have been allergic to "collections of short stories" - they want full blown novels straight up.
@@ravensthatflywiththenightm7319 There are plenty of publications that do short stories. This includes fairly famous ones like The New Yorker and Reader's Digest. Then there are more genre specific ones like Apex, Asimov's Science Fiction But, you'll probably find a few local publications as well. A great place to start is publications, especially if you're looking to get the right eyes on your work, because they will be read and reviewed by publication editors, and they have connections.
Omg I totally agree with your Marathon and sprint and Novel and Short Story analogy. I always felt guilty for not trying to write short stories. I tried in a writing group ( aware they didn't have to be any good) but for competition I just can't be bothered as I feel in my bones I just can't tell a story that short!
They told me to write short stories but I've been reading novels since elementary school. Reading short stories always seemed like a waste of energy because it takes effort to imagine a whole world in your head. So if I have to throw it away after a few pages, I felt drained. Shouldn't be a shocker to learn that writing a 1000-word story was actually incredibly difficult for me. Finally I did it in my 30s simply to learn how to trim the plot of unnecessary details. Gave me practice on how to trim subplots in my bigger stories.
Trying to be original is a very difficult thing to do because almost everything has been done within literature. Especially if you’re unintentionally reference your favorite books, movies, or video games. Back when I was writing a book of trilogy during the pandemic, I noticed that unintentionally reference the legendary bird trio from Pokémon. Sun eagle, frost falcon, thunderbird
A good example of bad writing advise shows up in ´David Ickes´ The Biggest Secret. The bad advise itself is somewhat hidden in the fine print. The reader is expected to simply tell the truth on his or her own terms, and publish it. There is nothing wrong with that. Its how the author executes the plot. The writer is told that he is part of a matrix and that the way out is to write, write, write or talk, talk talk about whatever the writer himself thinks, or presumes is the truth. Logic is rarely if ever mentioned, but there is a ton of common sense there. No one denies that. What makes this writer in particular so controversial is that he seems to advise people to think like Neo in the Matrix which does not work in reality, because that´s scizophrenia, because it shows up clearly in the scene where he thinks he can fly. Bottom of the line is, do not tell your reader to think he can fly. Thanks for your video man!!
Just to clarify the "you shouldn't write certain things until you're ready" advice: I would say, yes you should write often, even if you're not very good at it, but NO you should not publish a book you were not ready to write. This is usually where I see this advice given, not necessarily "don't write because you're bad at it." It's more like "don't publish or query a manuscript until your writing is better." Practice is the most important thing a writer can do. Publishing those practice manuscripts for money is probably one of the worst things a writer can do. (unless or course the idea was sound, and the writer greatly improved before going back to rewrite and polish the manuscript later). As far as "you're bad and you shouldn't write," this is definitely just trolling and not really advice at all.
I interpret "write what you know" as "don't write things that will expose your ignorance". If I wrote about the life onboard a submarine, it would be cringeworthy to real submariners.
I'd add a caveat to the short story advice. If someone says you "have" to start with short stories, then that's bad advice. But if you struggle to finish a novel, short stories are a great tool to improve your craft without being so overwhelming. I have half a dozen unfinished novels and five completed short stories. I've learned much more from finishing something shorter than I have from getting halfway through something without finishing it. Whatever advice that keeps you writing is the best advice.
Consider that "write what you know" is more about leveraging your personal experiences and the emotions you've felt through your life by injecting them into your story.
Thanks, I enjoy your channel. The "don't start doing until you are ready" advice refers to one thing I actually agree with: sometimes we need to acquire a specific vocabulary, develop and mature certain conceptual aspect of the story, or do a specific type of reseach on the ground before actually sitting down and write consistently. We can always take notes or keep a journal alongside the aforementioned, however, quite often, starting to write prematurely will only put you at a risk of wearing yourself out on false attempts, creating a sense of frustration and of going nowhere. So there is some logic in doing our homework before we start, or am I misrepresenting what you said?
@@fragwagon a false attempt would be a dead end street, it cannot be improved, or it can but at a much higher cost than starting from square one. A rough draft, in contrast, already puts you in the right direction, I'd say, does this make any sense to you?
Hm, I agree with you that some prep work/research is sometimes needed, but I would call that part of the writing process (and a big part in certain genres). I think "don't start until you're ready", most of the time, is used as more of a gatekeeping technique - as in "what could you possibly have to say about family relationships, you're too young/too uneducated/don't have an MFA/whatever". And yes, they *might* in fact be better served by waiting a couple of years, but they also might not. There's just no way of knowing, except to write the story and find out.
I'm in two minds about the short story advice. If you take it as it's often presented, i.e. "write a short story every week," it's fairly useless. You can learn a lot from writing short stories, but you won't learn how to write a novel. And as a victim of that trap, it left me a chronic underwriter. On the other hand, if somebody out of nowhere decided to run a marathon, they wouldn't immediately start going on 25 mile runs to train. They'd run 3 miles. Then maybe work up to 5 miles. Eventually 10, etc. I think there's something to be said of approaching writing longer works the same way. The longest thing I've managed to write start to finish and be cohesive was about 20k. Still struggling with the 50k. A lot of unfinished 50ks. I was about to sit down to outline another attempt, but I think I'll aim for 30k this time instead.
A decent summary. On the note of research, You can never do enough of it. I need to share this example 😂 I once read a book where this author wrote her character to live from poisoned alien animal meat - which is not quite the most brilliant idea considering that such consumption implies the *deadly* poison's transfer into the character's body... It should necessarily kill the character. She didn't as much as get a bad stomach. She also FED an unconscious person when he couldn't swallow because... Well... Unconscious xD Suffice to say I DNFed the novel. That level of bad due to having done no research is unacceptable.
Keep writing is good advice...but only if you are willing to listen to constructive feedback and use that to learn how to get better - and learn to generate that feedback loop internally.
AMEN The only good writing advice is Just write Shut the fuck up and write Stop agonizing over how to, what do, why to, when to, just do An athlete plays their sport for fun before worrying about olympic performance. They clock thousands of hours without keeping count. They just do. And learn as they go. Do the same.
Great video as always… Only thing I disagree with was your comment about short stories. I agree they aren’t easier and the skillset is slightly different. Nevertheless, the overlap is huge and short stories have a much quicker turnaround. I can write one and get feedback and improve much more quickly than I can with my novel. Starting to write short stories in parallel to my novel has been a game changer for me and it helps a lot. To use your analogy… Marathon runners often practice sprints as well. Whilst this is not their main training, it helps them get better for those parts of the marathon where they need to pull forward. Once again, thank you for a nice video
Thanks, I agree that they are a tool for improving your writing (Just as sprints help marathon runners). What I was refuting (or trying to refute here) was more this idea that short stories are the best place for beginner novel writers to start
"Write what you know" hangs on the same hinges as plagiarized tropes. Nobody knows anything. Try to defend why you like or dislike cilantro: you have no clue. But you're sure to jump on some cilantro bandwagon given the opportunity.
Novels and short stories are only completely different if you are into padded writing. Didn't you talk about writing being fractals in another video? Short stories allow you to figure out how all the pieces of a story work together rather quickly. If you don't have a month to write a few short stories before you tackle the novel, you do not have time to write. Many short stories are expanded to novels or series. Short stories are a great place to work out the back story and could be used to help promote the final novel.
I disagree with you about the short stories. Short stories are what allowed me to be able to sit down and write out 6-10k a day to meet deadlines, just like running a quarter of a mile every other day eventually let me run a full mile in one go (and that's not a metaphor, I literally was training for a 5k marathon back in the day, and you DO have to start small to build up to the full length.) The points you state (the plot structures, et ctr) are mitigated if you write a *series* of short stories with episodic content and an ultimate goal that can be achieved after a certain amount of stories. One might even say short stories could be... chapers! In order to write a novel you NEED to break down the structure in smaller bits. Scenes, chapters, sections and book long and for some, series long structures exist. Some very famous authors started out in short stories or became known through short stories. The Kethry and Tarma series by Lackey come to mind, and there's also Sherlock Holmes. Both authors wrote novels, both started series in short story anthrologies. It is really not as distinct as you're making it out to be, not even the skillset. The major problems with manuscripts that get fixed in editing aren't going to be dialogue, grammar, et ctr, it's going to be story structure and plot in the first place. "You just need to go and do the thing" isn't going to actually TEACH a beginner how to write a manuscript, it's going to just teach them to get words on a page, which is what short stories can do just as well while they can also see better plot structures. A good editor and feedback is going to make the difference whether you start out with short stories or not. Lackey's full length novel, Arrows of the Queen, was 81k and was very tight writing with a good structure, her later novels could be anywhere between 120-130k, and after her editors changed (and depending on if her husband Dixon was on the project), structural issues started appearing in her Valdemar novels post-Exile's Valor to the point the Collegium Chronicles are dragged out over five books when it could have been three, and some of the most recent ones have blatant inconsistencies from one page to another. Those are PUBLISHED and a well known, famous author is writing them. Short stories also have the ability to allow beginners, especially younger beginners, to feel accomplished when novels seem almost insurmountably long and it's very encouraging. "You just need to go and do the thing" doesn't help when someone is 40k deep into a novel and feel overwhelmed and stops writing. The important thing is to learn how to finish and get over the muddy middle. There's more to short stories than just the structure, they are helping beginners write faster, develop muscle memory, learn to research, and just help you develop the habits you need to develop for longer projects. Sure, you can do that with a first novel, but just like writing essays its important to start more simply. When you start writing in school they don't have you do full length academic essays, they give you the basic structure and a page limit. Eventually you can write a whole thesis.
I agree. Short stories are a good and low-pressure practice environment for both writing skills, storytelling, and learning to structure that make for a nice stepping stone towards a novel.
I would love to see a video on getting your work critiqued. I have recently started posting my work on Scribophile and Critique Circle and it has been rather confusing! 🫤 🤪 I have had both positive and constructive feedback, although I have to say it hasn’t been that helpful. Mainly because people say completely different things. ‘I don’t like this character’ or ‘Tom is flat’ or ‘I love Tom’ ‘all your characters feel real’ or ‘this character doesn’t feel authentic’ or ‘you are writing this in the wrong tense’ or ‘love present tense, makes your story feel immediate’ I’m sure you get the picture! Yesterday someone said my writing is impressive, then an hour later, another person came along and said my writing is flat and needs to be more dynamic! So which is it???? Do you have any advice on this subject? Another great video by the way 🌟
Yeah critiquing is a complex process, especially interpreting other people's critiques. Its actually something I'm planning to cover in a video at some point.
My hot take: most people are terrible at giving critique, it's a very rare skillset. They think it means stating your opinion/preference, which tends to be of limited use for the writer. If you find someone who 1) understands what you're trying to do and 2) is able to verbalize when and especially why it fails in a somewhat objective way, hold on to them for dear life and bribe them regularly with small treats. Or send them my way
Write what you know should be rephrased to “know what you write” tbh.
“Learn about the topic you’re writing about” is how I would word it, but it’s such a far cry from “write what you know” that it’s practically different advice.
Write what you wanna know.
@@milestrombley1466 I like that 👍
That means exactly the same thing, just switcheroonied to appear somewhat writerly and wise.
Honestly I think the advice of "don't write your darling piece first, write something else" is bad because how is someone supposed to stay motivated while writing something they're not 100% inspired by? That comes later when you somehow make this a career (lol). It's most important to practice and cultivate a habit/method that works for you.
Now, depending on where you're starting, you may need to shelve your novel and make major developmental edits once you have more experience, but that doesn't mean don't write it. The fastest way to become a writer is to write *shocked pikachu face*
yeah, plus, what if your “darling first piece” changes?
You should always spend a few hours writing any good idea you have. The consider how it fits into your schedule.
The advice is good. I followed the advice and wrote a novella [25k Word count] about an event that takes place decades before the events in my main novel, currently completed second draft and doing revisions and it is very very hard to do. I learnt many things while writing it and if i started with my main novel then i would have given up trying to put in everything i have learnt in the revisions.
@destroyervtk3019 the thing is, you still wrote something in line with your story. The advice is usually "write something completely different". I would argue yours could be good practice for background (: but it may not be for everyone if their heart is set on writing their story now.
One of the worst advise I've heard is "Never use said". If you want to debate this, I can, prove my point, but I'm too lazy to write it down :D
I've heard last year "Always use said" 😅 . I don't agree with either of these "rules".
I think "always" use said is a bit extreme, but I definitely agree with "mostly" using said.
@@duncanosis6773 I agree. There are "shouted" or "whispered" but sometimes you can just put the feeling into that dialog, and reader can feel the "shouted" without saying it.
+ There was a research where someone checked Brandon Sandersons, first 100 pages of the books, and if I remember corretly it was around 70-85% said. I don't know exactly.
Yes! Said and adverbs are demonized.
"Short stories are shorter."- Carl.
This is the kind of top tier writing advice I'm on board for.
I always provide unmatched insight
I've seen George RR Martin give the "start with short stories" advice. He said that what worked for him was to have a bunch of short stories published in magazines, which made it so that he had a body of known work to which he could refer publishers to when he pitched his novels. It sounds like he did that decades ago, though and I never see modern experts recommend this, so I wonder if that approach is dated.
It's probably dated considering a lot of publishers since 2008 have been allergic to "collections of short stories" - they want full blown novels straight up.
@@ravensthatflywiththenightm7319 There are plenty of publications that do short stories. This includes fairly famous ones like The New Yorker and Reader's Digest. Then there are more genre specific ones like Apex, Asimov's Science Fiction But, you'll probably find a few local publications as well. A great place to start is publications, especially if you're looking to get the right eyes on your work, because they will be read and reviewed by publication editors, and they have connections.
Another great video! And as of right now 2.6k views u are gathering a following. Well done.
Omg I totally agree with your Marathon and sprint and Novel and Short Story analogy.
I always felt guilty for not trying to write short stories. I tried in a writing group ( aware they didn't have to be any good) but for competition I just can't be bothered as I feel in my bones I just can't tell a story that short!
They told me to write short stories but I've been reading novels since elementary school. Reading short stories always seemed like a waste of energy because it takes effort to imagine a whole world in your head. So if I have to throw it away after a few pages, I felt drained.
Shouldn't be a shocker to learn that writing a 1000-word story was actually incredibly difficult for me. Finally I did it in my 30s simply to learn how to trim the plot of unnecessary details. Gave me practice on how to trim subplots in my bigger stories.
Is it really that hard to just tell a small personal story of a single scene or mood?
Trying to be original is a very difficult thing to do because almost everything has been done within literature. Especially if you’re unintentionally reference your favorite books, movies, or video games. Back when I was writing a book of trilogy during the pandemic, I noticed that unintentionally reference the legendary bird trio from Pokémon. Sun eagle, frost falcon, thunderbird
dude, you make a lot of meaningful videos. Keep goin. You´re absolutely inspiring
A good example of bad writing advise shows up in ´David Ickes´ The Biggest Secret. The bad advise itself is somewhat hidden in the fine print. The reader is expected to simply tell the truth on his or her own terms, and publish it. There is nothing wrong with that. Its how the author executes the plot. The writer is told that he is part of a matrix and that the way out is to write, write, write or talk, talk talk about whatever the writer himself thinks, or presumes is the truth. Logic is rarely if ever mentioned, but there is a ton of common sense there. No one denies that. What makes this writer in particular so controversial is that he seems to advise people to think like Neo in the Matrix which does not work in reality, because that´s scizophrenia, because it shows up clearly in the scene where he thinks he can fly. Bottom of the line is, do not tell your reader to think he can fly. Thanks for your video man!!
Just to clarify the "you shouldn't write certain things until you're ready" advice: I would say, yes you should write often, even if you're not very good at it, but NO you should not publish a book you were not ready to write. This is usually where I see this advice given, not necessarily "don't write because you're bad at it." It's more like "don't publish or query a manuscript until your writing is better."
Practice is the most important thing a writer can do. Publishing those practice manuscripts for money is probably one of the worst things a writer can do. (unless or course the idea was sound, and the writer greatly improved before going back to rewrite and polish the manuscript later).
As far as "you're bad and you shouldn't write," this is definitely just trolling and not really advice at all.
Even before 5:51 confirmed it, I *knew* you were Canadian!
I was guessing Wisconsin. Our accent is similar. 😂
I interpret "write what you know" as "don't write things that will expose your ignorance". If I wrote about the life onboard a submarine, it would be cringeworthy to real submariners.
I'd add a caveat to the short story advice. If someone says you "have" to start with short stories, then that's bad advice. But if you struggle to finish a novel, short stories are a great tool to improve your craft without being so overwhelming. I have half a dozen unfinished novels and five completed short stories. I've learned much more from finishing something shorter than I have from getting halfway through something without finishing it. Whatever advice that keeps you writing is the best advice.
Consider that "write what you know" is more about leveraging your personal experiences and the emotions you've felt through your life by injecting them into your story.
"write what you know"
bye bye the entire genre of fantasy!
People are more likely to read a book similar to what they like. The originality advice is ignorant to this fact at best.
Thanks, I enjoy your channel. The "don't start doing until you are ready" advice refers to one thing I actually agree with: sometimes we need to acquire a specific vocabulary, develop and mature certain conceptual aspect of the story, or do a specific type of reseach on the ground before actually sitting down and write consistently. We can always take notes or keep a journal alongside the aforementioned, however, quite often, starting to write prematurely will only put you at a risk of wearing yourself out on false attempts, creating a sense of frustration and of going nowhere. So there is some logic in doing our homework before we start, or am I misrepresenting what you said?
What's the difference between a false attempt and a very rough draft?
@@fragwagon a false attempt would be a dead end street, it cannot be improved, or it can but at a much higher cost than starting from square one. A rough draft, in contrast, already puts you in the right direction, I'd say, does this make any sense to you?
Hm, I agree with you that some prep work/research is sometimes needed, but I would call that part of the writing process (and a big part in certain genres). I think "don't start until you're ready", most of the time, is used as more of a gatekeeping technique - as in "what could you possibly have to say about family relationships, you're too young/too uneducated/don't have an MFA/whatever". And yes, they *might* in fact be better served by waiting a couple of years, but they also might not. There's just no way of knowing, except to write the story and find out.
@@zprouk3091 i ger your point, thanks a lot
@andresbucio3819 that does make sense. I hope you didn't think I was asking in a dishonest tone.
I'm in two minds about the short story advice. If you take it as it's often presented, i.e. "write a short story every week," it's fairly useless. You can learn a lot from writing short stories, but you won't learn how to write a novel. And as a victim of that trap, it left me a chronic underwriter.
On the other hand, if somebody out of nowhere decided to run a marathon, they wouldn't immediately start going on 25 mile runs to train. They'd run 3 miles. Then maybe work up to 5 miles. Eventually 10, etc. I think there's something to be said of approaching writing longer works the same way. The longest thing I've managed to write start to finish and be cohesive was about 20k. Still struggling with the 50k. A lot of unfinished 50ks. I was about to sit down to outline another attempt, but I think I'll aim for 30k this time instead.
A decent summary. On the note of research, You can never do enough of it.
I need to share this example 😂
I once read a book where this author wrote her character to live from poisoned alien animal meat - which is not quite the most brilliant idea considering that such consumption implies the *deadly* poison's transfer into the character's body... It should necessarily kill the character. She didn't as much as get a bad stomach.
She also FED an unconscious person when he couldn't swallow because... Well... Unconscious xD
Suffice to say I DNFed the novel. That level of bad due to having done no research is unacceptable.
The best selling authors maybe dont want competition thus recommend being an accomplished worsmith before writing a novel 😂
Such a great vid! Subscribed
Thanks!
Keep writing is good advice...but only if you are willing to listen to constructive feedback and use that to learn how to get better - and learn to generate that feedback loop internally.
AMEN
The only good writing advice is
Just write
Shut the fuck up and write
Stop agonizing over how to, what do, why to, when to, just do
An athlete plays their sport for fun before worrying about olympic performance. They clock thousands of hours without keeping count. They just do. And learn as they go.
Do the same.
Anyone who says that writing short stories is easier because of their length has never tried to write flash fiction.
Show and tell. Show the action, tell the exposition.
Great video as always…
Only thing I disagree with was your comment about short stories. I agree they aren’t easier and the skillset is slightly different. Nevertheless, the overlap is huge and short stories have a much quicker turnaround.
I can write one and get feedback and improve much more quickly than I can with my novel. Starting to write short stories in parallel to my novel has been a game changer for me and it helps a lot.
To use your analogy… Marathon runners often practice sprints as well. Whilst this is not their main training, it helps them get better for those parts of the marathon where they need to pull forward.
Once again, thank you for a nice video
Thanks, I agree that they are a tool for improving your writing (Just as sprints help marathon runners). What I was refuting (or trying to refute here) was more this idea that short stories are the best place for beginner novel writers to start
@@duncanosis6773 looking forward to your videos and thanks for replying
"Write what you know" hangs on the same hinges as plagiarized tropes. Nobody knows anything. Try to defend why you like or dislike cilantro: you have no clue. But you're sure to jump on some cilantro bandwagon given the opportunity.
Novels and short stories are only completely different if you are into padded writing. Didn't you talk about writing being fractals in another video? Short stories allow you to figure out how all the pieces of a story work together rather quickly. If you don't have a month to write a few short stories before you tackle the novel, you do not have time to write. Many short stories are expanded to novels or series. Short stories are a great place to work out the back story and could be used to help promote the final novel.
I disagree with you about the short stories. Short stories are what allowed me to be able to sit down and write out 6-10k a day to meet deadlines, just like running a quarter of a mile every other day eventually let me run a full mile in one go (and that's not a metaphor, I literally was training for a 5k marathon back in the day, and you DO have to start small to build up to the full length.)
The points you state (the plot structures, et ctr) are mitigated if you write a *series* of short stories with episodic content and an ultimate goal that can be achieved after a certain amount of stories. One might even say short stories could be... chapers! In order to write a novel you NEED to break down the structure in smaller bits. Scenes, chapters, sections and book long and for some, series long structures exist. Some very famous authors started out in short stories or became known through short stories. The Kethry and Tarma series by Lackey come to mind, and there's also Sherlock Holmes. Both authors wrote novels, both started series in short story anthrologies. It is really not as distinct as you're making it out to be, not even the skillset.
The major problems with manuscripts that get fixed in editing aren't going to be dialogue, grammar, et ctr, it's going to be story structure and plot in the first place. "You just need to go and do the thing" isn't going to actually TEACH a beginner how to write a manuscript, it's going to just teach them to get words on a page, which is what short stories can do just as well while they can also see better plot structures. A good editor and feedback is going to make the difference whether you start out with short stories or not. Lackey's full length novel, Arrows of the Queen, was 81k and was very tight writing with a good structure, her later novels could be anywhere between 120-130k, and after her editors changed (and depending on if her husband Dixon was on the project), structural issues started appearing in her Valdemar novels post-Exile's Valor to the point the Collegium Chronicles are dragged out over five books when it could have been three, and some of the most recent ones have blatant inconsistencies from one page to another. Those are PUBLISHED and a well known, famous author is writing them.
Short stories also have the ability to allow beginners, especially younger beginners, to feel accomplished when novels seem almost insurmountably long and it's very encouraging. "You just need to go and do the thing" doesn't help when someone is 40k deep into a novel and feel overwhelmed and stops writing. The important thing is to learn how to finish and get over the muddy middle. There's more to short stories than just the structure, they are helping beginners write faster, develop muscle memory, learn to research, and just help you develop the habits you need to develop for longer projects. Sure, you can do that with a first novel, but just like writing essays its important to start more simply. When you start writing in school they don't have you do full length academic essays, they give you the basic structure and a page limit. Eventually you can write a whole thesis.
I agree.
Short stories are a good and low-pressure practice environment for both writing skills, storytelling, and learning to structure that make for a nice stepping stone towards a novel.
I would love to see a video on getting your work critiqued. I have recently started posting my work on Scribophile and Critique Circle and it has been rather confusing! 🫤 🤪 I have had both positive and constructive feedback, although I have to say it hasn’t been that helpful. Mainly because people say completely different things. ‘I don’t like this character’ or ‘Tom is flat’ or ‘I love Tom’ ‘all your characters feel real’ or ‘this character doesn’t feel authentic’ or ‘you are writing this in the wrong tense’ or ‘love present tense, makes your story feel immediate’ I’m sure you get the picture! Yesterday someone said my writing is impressive, then an hour later, another person came along and said my writing is flat and needs to be more dynamic! So which is it???? Do you have any advice on this subject? Another great video by the way 🌟
Yeah critiquing is a complex process, especially interpreting other people's critiques. Its actually something I'm planning to cover in a video at some point.
My hot take: most people are terrible at giving critique, it's a very rare skillset. They think it means stating your opinion/preference, which tends to be of limited use for the writer. If you find someone who 1) understands what you're trying to do and 2) is able to verbalize when and especially why it fails in a somewhat objective way, hold on to them for dear life and bribe them regularly with small treats. Or send them my way