Blog o' Tiggs

 

LOL, waiting.

 

Peace
Mark

I'm glad you aren't giving up on writing books and are keeping at it, Tiggs.

It might not be as bad as you think. When people you know read something they know you wrote, they are looking at it from the POV of a critic, not just someone reading a book. Problem is they are not a book critic, and may have looked at it from a totally different perspective had they thought it was a book by an already published writer. I had mixed reviews from the people I knew about the book I wrote.

So I just gave out a couple chapters to some other people I know and told them It was by a published author. Hands down they loved it. Then I got to tell them the truth.

Keep plugging!!! 

7 hours ago, preacherman76 said:

It might not be as bad as you think. When people you know read something they know you wrote, they are looking at it from the POV of a critic, not just someone reading a book. Problem is they are not a book critic, and may have looked at it from a totally different perspective had they thought it was a book by an already published writer. I had mixed reviews from the people I knew about the book I wrote.

So I just gave out a couple chapters to some other people I know and told them It was by a published author. Hands down they loved it. Then I got to tell them the truth.

It is difficult to get unbiased feedback from people you know.

That said -- this is a conclusion I've reached by myself. Aside from the opening scene, no-one else has read the second one.

I'm at this strange place, where there's still a large gap between what I'm able to write, and what I think good writing is.

It's getting smaller, though. This one was better then the first one, and hopefully the next will be better than that.

I have a few friends that published stuff.  Not going to lie, they didn't do well or sell much.  But they wrote about what they liked and knew.  Not everyone is born a word smith, but with practice you really do get better.  I think they are happy that they just got their works out there.

I often have interesting plots and stories that I wish I could put into a novel, myself.  The hard part for me is the interesting dialogue to further the story along that plot, the motivation to put it in writing, and weird as it seems I create the stories for myself and could care less if anyone else ever saw it.  I'll sit there and replay the same scene over and over in my head until I get a version that I like and then move to the next.  But I guess I am just blathering.

Do you have a specific target audience and are you basing your self criticism on that targets view point?  Good writing is writing that is applicable to your target group.  Not to bash people in general, but the average audience in most fiction stories don't require a super advanced writing style or logic. 

1 hour ago, Gromdor said:

Do you have a specific target audience and are you basing your self criticism on that targets view point? 

Not particularly. First was aimed at adults, second at teens.

In all honesty, though -- my target audience is probably an agent.

I could go the self-publishing route, but I guess the thing that's really stopping me is the thought that I'm going to publish something that'll embarrass me, for years.

If I can write something able to get an agent's interest-- then that's a pretty solid indication it's worth reading.

And right now -- I don't have anything I believe would be worth an agent's time.

Sometimes one can be ones own harshest critic.

But fair play to you for trying and sticking at it. That's already much much further than millions of other 'budding authors'.

ETA. I read a lot of books on Amazon that  are self published. One sticks in my mind - I came across a self publishers first book - it was a real page turner. He explained how he had written the book and got a handful of copies printed which he left on his desk at work for  anyone to pick up and give feed back. The results both encouraged and educated him.

Anyway the  book I read was the first in a series and was very well received by amazon readers. Five books into the series he, gets himself an editor, and proof reader and all that, and becomes more professional about writing. The upshot, in my opinion was that the series then became 'flat', the stories less engrossing. But perhaps that was just me. 

 

Edited February 26 by RAyMO

Quote

Writing is easy.
You only need to stare at a blank piece of paper until your forehead bleeds.

- Douglas Adams