Novelist reacts to your first pages! // critiquing & line editing my viewers' writing
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- čas přidán 6. 07. 2024
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Viewers sent in the first page of their books...if they dared! And you guys did dare. You're very brave! I discuss overall thoughts on where these pages succeed and where I think they could be stronger, and suggestions for tightening & improving prose.
Patreon/Discord: patreon.com/user/about?u=34222724
Substack: lidiyafoxglove.substack.com/
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(also available on Apple, Google, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and other retailers and libraries) - Zábava
This was super interesting and instructive to watch! I thought your critiques were delivered in a kind way, and I enjoyed the wide range of stories that you covered. Much respect to the brave authors who submitted their samples for a public critique!
Phew! I'm glad it came across that way. As many times as I've given critique, it's still a little nerve-wracking to hope I don't go too soft OR too hard...
REALLY ENJOYED THIS. not sorry about caps lock. please do it again. :) very helpful. I'm heading to my story now and fixing a couple things.
Please do more of these videos. They’re extremely insightful.
Thank you (and all the people who submitted) for this video. It helped seeing different types of stories an how the line editing affected the flow. Gonna bookmark this to reference latter since I saw a lot of writing habits that I tend to do in here!
Yeah, I still do some of these myself and after this many books, there's no hope of shaking that habit! But that's why line editing is so powerful!
"Not Today, Truck-kun" is going to live rent-free in my head, I can tell.
Now that you mention it...man, we could yell that line out a lot 😂
I'm not on Patreon, so I'll just chip in here. I'm so glad you actually looked at my story and kinda dug it. Mine was the last one, the stoner urban fantasy adventure. I'm glad it wasn't too awful and I'm happy you thought the story was unique.
And just an FYI, the hardest part about writing a stoner urban fantasy was, of course, doing my research 😉
But yeah, tense in fiction is something I struggle with. I just find it hard to be in the "immediate" while maintaining the correct tense. I need to work on that more.
Thanks again!
Not awful at all! You juggled the elements of the story that I mentioned in the video quite well. You're definitely not the only one who struggles with tense. It seemed to be the most common grammatical error.
And thank you SO so much! That was so kind of you!
@@lidiyafoxgloveauthor hey considering the things you said in this vid and the books in ur background, I think you'll love this book I'm writing. Can you review it when I'm done?
I LOVE these kinds of videos!
I didn't submit anything, but this was fun! I certainly feel like I've learned a thing or two.
This was really educational, especially watching you go through different books in different genres and noting the tone/word choices.
Whoever wrote "Not Today, Truck Kun" - please let me know when it comes out. I want to read that book!!
I pasted the link in a reply, but I think that might violate the rules, so that comment disappeared. Hopefully, it's OK to say the title is "Reincarnated As a Clicker Dungeon." If not, sorry, I'm not trying to break the rules.
Did indeed enjoy this. I am writing a fantasy and "vividness was not something I had in mind at all really. Very useful.
I can't remember if I mentioned it in the video or not, but I have a book just on writing descriptions called "Word Painting" that I found helpful.
31:16 thank you SO much for your amazing advice❤ i really appreciate you taking the time to critique my work! I needed someone who wasn’t a friend to put their eyes on it since my art does give away a lot about the characters which means people go in with a backlog (something we can’t rely on as authors). I desperately needed advice on my technical writing exactly as you did, not really character, plot, twists etc.
You gave AMAZING critique!💖💖💖💖Im both taking and leaving advice, I can’t express my gratitude in a single comment!
Yes, I totally understand that problem with your friends having too much context, and probably already some affection, for your characters and story that makes it hard to get an objective critique! I'm so glad this was helpful!!
I'm so excited to see other's people's writing and especially to see you critique it this is so fun
I really hope you make this an ongoing series!
This was the perfect mix of educational and fun! Great job to everyone that submitted their pages, TFS, so we can all learn🤩💜
I really hope this is an on-going series. I would love one of these a month at least. I feel like I learned so much from this video.
I'm not even a writer but this was super interesting! Feels like learning in a classroom. I hope you do more of these videos :D
As soon as you introduced it, i knew it was going to be mine 😂 and thank you so much for going though it! I think I made a lot of my problems by moving too many things around and adding paragraphs in. I think i will completely rewrite it tbh because theres only like two images i was happy with 😂🤦🏻♀️
Oh yeah, I have been there with the moving around too many parts!!
There's a really important lesson here for everyone whose first pages were being critiqued today (and in fact anyone who wishes to be a writer in general), and that is: you can always fix it later. I feel like so many writers get hung up on the quality of their work that they fail to actually write in the first place, but if you have words on the page they can be adjusted, they can be deleted, they can be made better. The important thing is to just write.
I found your channel a couple of weeks ago and have been enjoying watching your videos. I normally don't watch much "authortube" content (I'm not really looking for writing advice) but there's something about your videos that works really well for me. It's a bit like sitting down for a chat with an old, like-minded friend, and I guess I'm hooked now. You seem like a really interesting person and it's been fun to get a glimpse at your process in general.
I just wanted to drop a comment to say that this was a really fun video and I hope it performs well so that I can watch more of them. I love editing and especially line editing; nearly everything you criticized was something I would have changed as well (though, of course, not always in exactly the same way). The fact that you have to line edit some of these same issues out of your own writing was important to mention because that's true for me, too. Sometimes it feels silly (I shouldn't still be making these kinds of mistakes), but really, at the end of the day, it all goes back to Just Write It. It's far more important to get the words on the page than it is to stall eternally on a sentence or paragraph or even scene that just isn't turning out the way you wanted it to.
I also thought it was funny that you mentioned L.M Montgomery at one point, and then later in the video, made a suggestion for a sentence that sounded a little bit like her writing to me: “Crumbling stone walls, whispering of an earlier era of grandeur, hemmed in the vast acreage.” But I really love the way LM Montgomery writes about Place so maybe I'm the only one who noticed that, haha. Thanks again for the fun break from my own projects and have a wonderful week!
Yes, so true. You can absolutely fix it later and when I write, I just write. A lot of these mistakes I no longer make out of sheer experience, but then a lot I DO still make and at this point, will clearly ALWAYS make... I also line edit three times--I go back over the last thing I wrote and tweak it before I do the next day's work, then I read it all aloud on paper and mark it up, and then I do one more detailed line editing pass that takes days. And yet...I could probably always keep going.
I have definitely absorbed some L. M. Montgomery style into my brain, haha. Of course, I probably would continue line editing that line, if it was my novel, but...my main point is not to lose your chance to make descriptions do a little more heavy lifting! Of course, style is also a consideration and I made that line a little more flowery because the book had a rather eloquent style. Probably would have done something different for Truck-Kun!
Well done to everyone for submitting their work and being brave, and well done to Lydia for providing constructive feedback and delivering it in such kind and encouraging way.
Line editing is something a lot of us get bogged down with, usually prematurely. But its also a crucial step in making the story as good as it can be.
Lots of fun to watch, please do more!
Yes, I can't say it enough--LINE EDIT AT THE END. I do some line editing on the prior day's work before I dig into the next day's writing, but I don't think about line editing as I draft. And the deepest line editing pass is still at the end.
But based on what I've read of indie writing, a lot of people are not line editing much or at all, so...I would certainly love to spread the love for the art of line editing! That polish at the end really helps it shine!
This was fascinating. I love hearing about what other people are writing as much as I enjoy your insightful critiques. Thank you so much.
This was extremely useful, so many great notes, wow. Thank you so much, Lydia! I'm really hoping my first page will come up in one of the future videos, but even now I feel I got lots of great advice.
I loved this! I’m finishing up my first series of edits and am going to move into line editing next (after a week or two away to let my brain reset). This helped give me some ideas of things to watch for in my work so thanks. Also - great job everyone who submitted! I love seeing bits of other people’s stories. So fun.
Yes, it was SO fun to see the wide range of things viewers are working on!
Lidiya, this was an exciting video! Thank you for the super helpful advice on my cozy mystery (38:40). I plan to make the edits you suggested. I had not thought about those things before, but once you mentioned them, they totally make sense.🎉
I'm so glad it was helpful!!
Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! Mine was the girl in the seaside town one :) she disguises herself as a boy and sneaks onto a ship on page 2 but maybe I need to make that happen on page 1? I've already implemented all your feedback and will try to carry it throughout the rest of the story - you really are great at line edits, and have such a good eye for appropriate beats! Thank you again!! 💖
I think yours could just use SOMETHING on page one, and there are a number of ways you can take it. (If it's not done, I wouldn't worry about it yet.) It could just be punching up the setting or the main character a little further still with some specific details that hint at intrigue to come, or it could be moving up the action.
Mostly you just don't want your first page to feel like food without enough salt. It's pretty common with first pages that like...you can tell it IS a good dish, but you just want a little sprinkle of salt to bring out the flavors.
Really enjoyed this video. It inspired me to do some line editing on my own story. I feel like you were able to balance being kind and being critical to each of the pages you reacted to (And that's no easy feat!) It's also so fun to see what other people are writing. Keep it up, writers!
Please do more.
Thank you for this video! I learned some useful things from all of the selections, not just my own. As for the Pulitzer, I have hopes of reading something that good in a litRPG someday, but I haven't seen it yet, and that's OK. As you said, it really is a genre that's all about the ride. :)
My submission wasn't in this but some of the tips are definitely things I can apply to my stuff :3 quick question, if you do this again will you be opening submissions again or just pick from the ones you've already gotten?
I will be opening it up again, since if I only worked on the ones I already have, it will take me 6 months...but everyone is free to resubmit! Plus, this way everyone has a chance to tweak their stuff based on this video if any advice jumped out!
My daughter has a rule for how many minutes she’ll watch a movie before she gives up on it. So I can see why this is also important for books and your video made me think that when I’m browsing for a new book I should read page one. (Not just the back cover summary).
Oh yes, I always read the first page! I love a good first page but then a book gets 50 pages to REALLY hook me.
This video was great. I learned a lot. I hope you do more of these.
Thank you for your advice! I wrote the thriller about Clara. Loved your edits, and I feel more confident now. I'm definitely going to focus on the action and less on telling her backstory.
I'm glad you left this comment, it gave me an idea that maybe I should also do some videos looking at the first chapters of classic and popular books so along with critiquing people I can also show examples of like, when backstory, descriptions, slower openings, and all sorts of other things DO work. It can be really hard sometimes to explain when and why it DOES work sometimes and not other times!
I’m sorry I missed this. Please do it again someday. 🦋🦋🦋
I will definitely do it again.
love this!
It was really interesting and I'm sure very helpful for those authors. I felt your critique of the line editing was useful as its something I can look at when reading a certain authors' work. Very difficult to be objective when you are related to said person 😅🌷😅
Love the video
This was fun, thanks.
Omg this is very useful, thank you sm
18:27 Omniscient POV