Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A How do I evaluate an unwritten plot/story?

Find a good beta reader or a good editor. I ran into this problem myself: I had a plot which was solid and detailed but left room for expansion, I had characters I absolutely loved, I spent months...

posted 11y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:19Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9364
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:11:03Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9364
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T03:11:03Z (almost 5 years ago)
Find a good beta reader or a good editor.

I ran into this problem myself: I had a plot which was solid and detailed but left room for expansion, I had characters I absolutely loved, I spent months in world-building, wrote 125+ pages, and then showed it to a few trusted, intelligent people to get some early feedback.

What I learned: One of my main characters was a complete idiot (and was not supposed to be), the system of government too clearly showed how I'd cobbled it together from other writers, and I could never quite boil the story down to an elevator pitch.

What I _should_ have done was shared it with the readers _before_ writing the 125+ pages, so that I could have made the decision either to fix the problems or abandon the project without having spent another year on it.

So _yes_, without question, get feedback before plunging in. I am of the strong opinion that you cannot create a novel in a vacuum. I'm not a pantser either, and I think the best work comes from getting a vigorous shakedown from good critics.

A good critic is someone who constructively, kindly, thoroughly goes through your work and not just points out the problems but can suggest some solutions and alternatives. This is what I try to do when I'm editing someone else's book.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2013-11-12T21:32:04Z (about 11 years ago)
Original score: 5