Thread by @Official_GDL, I gotta get something off my chest.When I entered UNO as a [...]

I gotta get something off my chest.

When I entered UNO as a bright-eyed, fresh-faced, utterly clueless freshman, I placed directly into ENGL 1159, Honors Freshman Composition. On the first day, we all had to write an in-class essay. I got the highest grade in the class.

That grade was a D-. See, for every instance of a spelling error, bad punctuation, or improper grammar, the professor dinged your paper by a whole letter grade. The reason I didn& #39;t get an F was because I fought him-- my handwritten "--"s looked the way they do in print, and I

had used a hyphenated word in the essay, so I was able to clearly point out the difference. It was still nonstandard usage, though. Here& #39;s where I& #39;m going with this: We need to talk about your indie-published book. And we need to do this BEFORE you publish it.

I have been a very supportive friend and friend-of-friend/relative because that& #39;s what I would want people to do for me in that situation. I have spent more time and money over the years supporting such ventures than I care to admit at this point. Here& #39;s the thing: with ONE

exception, none of those books would& #39;ve gotten as high as a D- in that class. In some cases, not even one chapter would have. The one exception to that rule had such story problems that I stopped reading it out of disgust-- at that point, I could not have cared less about what

the so-called "protagonists" were going to do. There& #39;s just some shit I will not accept from the people I& #39;m supposed to be rooting for.

And even that book had its share of cliched tropes. The beginning was basically The Karate Kid, and not a very fresh take on that movie.

So here& #39;s the thing: I& #39;m not reading another one. By that, I mean I& #39;m not reading it for free, or after it& #39;s been published. I know there are good indie books out there, and even that trash second draft of a Twilight fanfic sold exceptionally well. Those of us amused by words

have already noted the first nine letters of "exceptionally."

Here& #39;s the thing: even if you are as fluent as anyone in speaking the English language, writing expertise is a different thing entirely. If you haven& #39;t read more than a few books about writing, the odds are good that

you are not ready to publish. If you haven& #39;t read a single book about writing, then you DEFINITELY ARE NOT READY. (I& #39;m talking solely about fiction here.) If you don& #39;t have at least one person willing to offer you a brutal critique, and you don& #39;t have the ability to NOT take

such a critique personally, then you are not ready. Do you know what& #39;s worse for your ego than a brutal critique? Having your book launch met with silence and apathy-- that& #39;s worse. I would additionally advise you to never read any reviews. That& #39;s good advice regardless, but

publishing a subpar book and reading what readers-- not critics-- think of it will result in a very bad day for you.

I& #39;ve hesitated so long in saying anything because frankly, the last time I agreed to critique a book for free, it wound up being about 200,000 unpolished words--

and while I was as nice as I could have been, the fact that the book bored me and I began to dislike the heroine the more of her I read was not something I could have withheld in good conscience. To my knowledge, that author has not written another book, and that was 2010.

So, yes: you& #39;re going to have to pay me. My rates are reasonable and you can DM me for them. If you can& #39;t afford me, that& #39;s fine. In any case, grab yourself a copy of Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain. This book was originally published in 1965, and hoo boy

does it read that way. You might wonder why I& #39;m recommending this book to you, if you plan to bypass the gatekeepers. It& #39;s because it has good writing advice. For instance, the idea that your hero should demonstrate that they *deserve* to win. (The book with the best grammar.

spelling, and punctuation did the opposite of that.) To me, the book focuses entirely too much on the scene/sequel format, and can make a book written today seem a bit paint-by-numbers. But this is why you read more than one book on writing. You take the bits from each of them

that work best for you, and before you know it, you& #39;ll have a much better idea of why what works does indeed work, and how to go about replicating that for yourself.

Final bit of advice: when submitting work for critique, get it as good as you can possibly get it. DO NOT

inflict a first draft on anybody for fuck& #39;s sake. Get it so good that any changes you can think of will only make the book different, not better. Even if you pay someone for their expertise, you& #39;re still also asking them to spend time, and you want them to enjoy it. If you& #39;re

the type of person who says, "I& #39;m a writer, not an editor," well, you have a bad understanding of what an editor does, because you& #39;re confusing them with a proofreader, and you& #39;ve basically announced that you are too lazy to proofread your own work. You get an F- for that.

I have nothing more to add save that this thread was brought to you by years of running up to the football like Charlie Brown and hoping that maybe, just this once, Lucy won& #39;t do what Lucy& #39;s always done. If I hold shit in, eventually it& #39;s all going to come out. Happy Monday!

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