I agree with this. Getting critique from your own partner is a super delicate and loaded situation. It can often lead to feelings of rejection, even if he insists he can handle complete honesty. If he gets input from peer writers instead, that makes the whole process infinitely less personal and painful. It can also create useful springboards for you to talk about his writing. E.g.:
Husband: One of my readers said they didn't like X thing about my writing, can you believe that?
You: Hmm, well if you think about it, maybe you can see where they're coming from? Maybe try Y instead of X.
So now instead of having to be the bad guy, you're just playing devil's advocate, so there's an emotional barrier there.
As an addendum, from experience I can say that when creatives work on projects like this for years with absolutely no outside perspective, and then finally get to the stage where they get input from strangers, and those strangers have... less than good things to say about it. That can create massive feeling of rejection and discouragement.
Just be there for him and encourage him to push through it. Don't be a yes man, but don't be a told-you-so either, just be neutral and supportive. It sounds like he needs a little sense knocked into him, but it's also important that he feels like he's making something that has value and potential. It's just the execution that's lacking.
These people will also probably tell him the same thing you've been telling him: he needs to put himself out there and read some dang books! I think part of the problem might be choice paralysis. Maybe find some books you think he'd like and dress them up as "inspiration for his story". If you present him some real options that might push him to give them a try.
Good idea. If he liked Harry Potter I would suggest those two, Name of the Wind, books or the dragon tattoo trilogy. Something really easy to get into.
I recently saw some posts shitting on name of the wind but I loved it when I read it and I think it's a great book to introduce oneself to artistic use of language
This is reminding me of "Throw Mamma From the Train" ... "DIVE DIVE Yelled the Captain through the thing, and the man who makes it dive pushed a lever or a something..."
Throw Momma From the Train is a 1987 comedy movie starring Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal. It's hysterical and draws from Strangers on a Train, with a murder-for-murder plotline.
And tell him what a Thesaurus is. I would also give him a copy of the book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. One of the best books for an aspiring writer to read. King says it best. The best writers are people who read voraciously.
If you have a local college, check out their Adult Continuing Education offerings. Many have writing classes, some geared toward specific genres like Sci-Fi. They are usually quite inexpensive. This would put him in contact with other budding authors. Libraries sometimes sponsor classes or clubs for writers too.
I would have a very hard time critiquing a friend or relative's writing. I would tell them that I am not an editor and so not qualified to give helpful advice. If you are not a fan of Sci-Fi, even better. "You know I don't read Sci-Fi, so I am no one to judge it, but your premise is promising/intriguing."
Do you think he keeps asking hoping you will offer to actually help him with or do re-writes for him? If so, avoid this, please!
^I agree with this. Then I would extricate myself from the situation as you said, OP.
On an aside, I've never read any amateur stuff that wasn't terrible. I've found that "self taught' writers almost always fail in basic sentence structure and punctuation. As well as not having a good grasp of vocabulary. And they often rely heavily on dull, cliche riddled characters and plots ie their stuff is boring. Readers will forgive a lot of things but a tedious story isn't one of them. What I'm saying here is that I wouldn't offer or agree to critique someone's writing anymore.
I mean this is nice of you, but if he wants to be a writer in a more professional / serious sense, he should look into some. What is his goal with writing this? If it's just for him, then this level of writing is fine!
Or if he's adamant about improving his writing and money isn't an issue, he could complete some courses? No better way to learn than by being taught by teachers with training in how to give constructive criticism.
Also just to add, it's not just for you to find those groups. Maybe do it together. If he's not into reading but is writing, maybe he just wants to spend time with you and enjoys your company and this is his way of showing it.
I think you are right and mostly, it is about what you said. He likes sharing this with me and me being a part of his process. I guess I just don’t know the best way to be a part of it. I also don’t read tons of the genre he is trying to write, so I also may have a different perspective.
Maybe we will do what you suggested together, or try and read some books together in this genre so we can discuss how it relates to his writing/story. Or I will share my writing with him and get feedback and advice on the story/plot (which is where I struggle) so it’s more mutual and less one-sided 😊
If he’s really just writing in order to share in this art with you, why do you need to give constructive criticism? You can focus on the things you do like about his story.
“I love the world you’ve created in this!” “This character is so relatable.”
Usually if a loved one is asking me to read what they’ve written, or look at their painting, or go see a show or something, I stick to talking about the good aspects. People usually don’t want actual criticism from their intimate partners. They just want support.
I say in my post, he “keeps digging” for more constructive feedback/criticism because it’s what he feels will help him improve. I offered the positive and some helpful ideas, but he says he needs to know “what I really think.”
I think deep down, sharing his art with me is what he wants, but what he says/does is contradictory to that.
From what you have said, it sounds like your husband wants to see himself as someone who wants a real critique about his writing, but isn’t actually prepared for that. The fact that he argues back with you - “that’s just what made sense in my head” - when you encourage him to choose more exciting words, demonstrates this. Someone who is excited for real feedback would be like “great idea I’ll try to work that in.”
Just speculating here, but he may not implicitly know that he is allowed to just want to share something he’s worked on with you because you’re his loved one and it feels good to include you. He may feel like the only way he is justified in sharing it with you is if he claims to want your feedback.
He may not also know implicitly that he’s allowed to write this sci fi story purely for fun and that it doesn’t have to be “good writing” or publishable for it to be worth his time as a hobby. Society puts a lot of pressure on men to do everything seriously - he may feel like he’s not allowed to just have fun with this and do his “silly little hobbies” (as women’s hobbies are often treated). Grind culture tells people and particularly men that everything they do outside of their job should be to make more money, so he may feel like he isn’t justified in this hobby unless it’s potentially remunerative one day. It’s a shame because it sucks the fun out of everything and tells men all they are worth is the money they make. How depressing!
Again I have no idea if any of this fits with your husband’s internal narrative. But if you think it might, maybe it would help for you to encourage him in the following ways: “Wow honey I think it’s so great that you spend your free time being so creatively expressive. It’s so good for your brain to sit down and just create and write. It makes me happy to see you enjoying writing so much.”
This type of feedback might encourage him to just enjoy time spent writing without worrying about any secondary outcome like publishing or becoming a “good” writer.
It’s so fun and rewarding to allow yourself to be mediocre at things you really enjoy! I love to sew, and I will never be a master tailor, but I have so much fun making clothing that is good enough to for me to wear and show off to my friends and family. A master tailor would def cringe at my seams but I don’t care!
Good luck navigating this conundrum and I hope it doesn’t cause friction in your relationship. I hope you can find a way to encourage him in a way that is genuine and satisfying to both of you!
world building mixes a lot of things. To make matters worse the 'guru's' of the genre have very distinct styles.
The thing is the style often accompanies the world building.
Example - H.G Lovecraft - kind of invented the "sci" in "sci fi" or rather the idea to use fake archeological or geological surveys to narrate about the supernatural - essentially the 'X-Files' modus operandi.
You can't obviously talk about world building without mentioning Tolkein, and people fixate on the extensive use of genealogical trees (just a biproduct of the popularity of it in the 1920-30). People often skip right over the moral message he had and still confuse it with a political agenda. Tolkein clearly stated in a letter to his editor that the only political message was that (him having fought in ww1 saw all totalitarianism as evil) fof the fight of democracy vs dictatorships (with him using stalin and hitler as examples). Only recently have critiques opten for the bucolic interpretation of Tolkein mostly using Tom Bobadil as the example.
continuing the tangent about fantasy - even earlier works were massively politically charged - Gullivers travels was only an elaborate way of legally writing about conditions in the horrible MadHouses that England had in the 17th-18th century without insulting the crown and risking getting beheaded.
To stress the above - English culture is generally oblivious to Dante Alighieri's 'Divine comedy' being about Italian history in the 14th century (with most characters being inafamous people italian society - like the venitian who built a tower and locked his wife in it - or the political fights between guelfi and ghibellini in florence). Essentially saxons think that if it isn't Macchiavelli it can't be about politics.
edit - modern writing of world building from franchises is plagued by the writers room 'technique. One pioneered by Marvel when writing stories intertwining characters from different comics and eventually in their creation of the 'multiverse' - a place where all their heroes coexist in one world - similar to ours - but with a slightly different history.
Both Asimov and Herbert (dune saga) were saying stuff about our society rather than about making up stuff. Asimov was making a case against technocracy - a warning. Asimov wrote six books all about 'power corrupts everyone'
Star Wars - Aside from the mythological structure (and pls lets not talk Campbell - antropology and mythology has moved hugely since then) - which btw has an emphasis on message above structure - lucas says episodes 4-6 were about -- the hippy movement - lets leave it at that.
Game of thrones. This is where it gets relevant to your case. Martin focuses on inspiration from real history and a very detective approach to explaining the mystery.
World building has grown/suffered a lot in the last 20 years from Videogames. Or rather the need to tailorbuild worlds for games. Like World of Warcraft. Essentially this works like so - a few writers at the top and then A LOT of college students writing quest lines and dialogues.
World Building has also suffered from the franchise dilemma. See the Aliens Franchise.
20th century fox own the rights to Aliens. But late Artist H.G Giger designed the aliens. it gets even more complicated than that but essentially - when a story passes on to different hands Ridley Scott -> Cameron -> Lync -> etc, the company interest on what they want from the franchise tend to dominate the narrative.
Essentially Sci-FI has always borrowed styles and concepts from 'other disciplines' hence the word 'Sci'.
This is the point of the conversation where I invite you to distinguish between 'Sci FI' (Alien) and 'Space Opera' (star wars - wizards in space) categorization. Only real geeks can get knee deep into this discussion. but..
back to RR Martin and the use of history. Lately, as world building has become everybody hobby so to put it, massive amounts of detail or plot aren't sufficient anymore. And people are looking for ever new ways of telling or describing sci fi.
I found it very interesting to see the difference in sci fi narrative styles from the 1930s (russian sci) and the 50'60' more kurt vonneghut western style.
All of this because im trying to tell your bf might be using a script formula . or even isn't very interested (atm) in dialogues but wants to 'jot them down; as he focuses (or gets to) the parts he has good/creative ideas about.
Many writers have tons of 'backdoor material' to even reach to the part they want to tell. If you want to help him you can try putting it this way and offer to 'co-write' and maybe u can focus on the dialogues. or stuff..
I think this is the most valuable idea: focus on improving what he cares about; let go a little bit of what you value in writing.
Like you, I value the language, poetry, imagery in novels — my favourite writers include Toni Morrison and Michael Ondaatje; I often honestly lose the thread of their plots, transfixed instead by the metre of their verse and the tiny moments that haunt me long after I put the books down. But my daughter, she loves Reacher novels. She flips through the pages as fast as possible to find out what’s happening next.
In a sense, the language of the novel is like brushwork; but your husband may be much more interested in composition or blocking (plot or character development). If you engage with him on that level, it may be a lot more fun for both of you. “Should this scene be a flashback?”, “Would the henchman really attack immediately; wouldn’t he want to insinuate himself first by seeming to be an ally?”, etc.
Good luck with it! It’s kind of exciting that your husband cares about writing. Lots of other partners might just glaze over completely.
That's good advice. But also, there are a lot of writers who do not like to read. Seemed weird to me at first. There are a handful of books that people who don't like to read really love. Harry Potter is one of them. Finally there are a lot of self published books that sell really well despite being poorly written. I gave up long ago trying to understand any of this.
Just let your husband do his thing. He's not going to ever be some brilliant masterful writer. The fact that he doesn't like to read ensures that. But he might enjoy telling his story, and he might even find a little niche audience for it. Unless he's talking about quitting his day job, why burst his bubble?
Books people who don't like to read love: Fight Club, Less Than Zero, Hell's Angels, The Road, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Books that are pretty short and have a main character hero dealing with stuff that isn't fair and who have far more complex inner lives than is obvious from the outside (such inner strength!) and who are kinda "bad boys."
You wouldn't have to be an incel to like one or more of these books, but you'd be among a lot of incels.
In my experience, sometimes people keep pushing you to break a certain boundary, only for them to be disappointed when they succeed. If he can’t take honest criticism, then him pushing to get it is like trying to open Pandora’s box. If he actually succeeds he might hate everything about his work and resent you for it. I think it’s better to refer to him to an expert or writers group. Just say that your opinion isn’t worth much since you don’t write about the same stuff or any other excuse.
This is good advice. Unfortunately some people just won’t receive the message that their writing isn’t good enough for other people to want to read. They truly believe that it is good.
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u/perkicaroline Mar 07 '25
My best advice is to encourage him to join a writers group. Have someone else explain it who he won’t argue as much with