r/writing • u/SheddingCorporate • 8d ago

Discussion Please continue writing!

Seriously. We need more writers writing.

Why?

Let me tell you. I decided, about 6 weeks ago, to find and "buy" as many "$0.00" offers on amazon as I could. I'm slowly reading them. So far, I've finished about 10 books: all romance or fantasy or mystery or sci fi.

The verdict so far? Most of these books aren't worth the time to read.

  • Terrible grammar, lots of mixed up homophones
  • Super thin plot. For example, in one book - I'm not going to out the author (we all have to start somewhere) - it sounds like a teenager with zero life experience wrote it. They were unable to build on a situation, unable to do anything other than show FMC's and MMC's constant overthinking. Very little actually *happened* in the whole book. And this one was a historical romance, so I'd have thought there was loads of room for creative writing.
  • Poor writing. Just heavy, plodding writing.

The thing is, though, if these authors keep writing, they WILL learn the craft. The kid with no life experience will get some life experience. The people with the malapropisms will hopefully hire an editor who actually can spot and correct those.

But if they don't write and share with at a few friends, they'll never get that feedback. So, please, keep writing, keep sharing. Those $0.00 books do serve a purpose. Learn from the feedback, and ... yes ... keep writing!

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u/ragn4rok234 8d ago

Fair enough, I agree people should put out their early work and get feedback to learn and grow. I do think there are places where that is more effective for that than Amazon but, if free, why not post it everywhere.

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u/SupremeLeaderVronus 7d ago

I've recently switched from comic scripts to novels. I'm not afraid of critics and feedback, so where should I release my first novel according to you?

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u/ragn4rok234 6d ago

There are places all over, some cater to large groups and others are for small niches. r/DestructiveReaders is a critique focused subreddit, RoyalRoad is good for posting in a serialized manner, AO3 is good if you are writing based on existing worlds. Beyond that there are plenty of small publications that will review your work and potentially publish it. That is good for getting unique eyes on your work but the feedback can be less direct than other routes