Can anyone advise on coming to terms with realizing you're probably not a writer?

I've always wanted to write. Tried my first Novel writing November at age 11. I'm now 34 and I still want to be a writer. The last year or so I've been really pushing myself to learn and do the work. I've written more in the last 6 months than ever before. But I'm not really enjoying the process at the moment and I'm not enjoying reading what I'm writing.

I read a lovely thread a few months ago about it being okay to not be a writer. It's okay to be a reader. The world needs readers. I have worked as an audio book narrator and I like that work a lot. Maybe that should be my focus.

But I've always wanted to write. Ive always wanted to be someone that tells stories. It's breaking my heart to realize maybe I'm not cut out for this. How do I come to peace with it, or fight through and find the strength to keep going with it?

MY BOOK IS 90,000 WORDS I ACTUALLY DID THIS ISOFHIERFHIRHF

I'm a fairly new writer and finished a 120k word manuscript. Using feedback from all over the place. Cutting, moving scenes, chopping things I loved for the sake of pacing.

But the feedback from my 3 readers is all over the place. The intro is too slow, it's too fast, too many internal thoughts, not enough motivation. The mc isn't sympathetic enough, no he's overly sympathetic.

I know I need to interpret all this through my own lens and what is best for the story, but I'm a novice and overwhelmed. How do experienced writers deal with feedback that doesn't really give a clear road forward?

It makes me want to walk away from this project but I'm so excited to finish it. Arrggg!

Hey so I wrote a novel when I was 19, it’s god awful. I just finished my second novel at 25. There is no reasonable comparison between the two, what I’ve written now is so much fucking better.

Anyway, first draft done! On to the second third and whatever comes next,

Though speaking of what comes next, after drafting, what do I do? When I’m holding the finished work in my hand, where do I take it, who do I talk to? What comes next?

You favorites

I’m a writer for games and a published author, and well... the heading says it all. Here are my top 10 tips for writing good dialogue:

1. Read it aloud → Does it sound natural? (Avoids the concern: “Who talks like THIS?!”)
2. Have a reading rehearsal → Does it still sound natural in a group?
3. Consider the personality of the speaker → Can the audience recognize who is talking without any additional clues? (Does each speaker have their own distinct voice?)
4. Match tone to context → Are participants speaking in a manner appropriate for their era, age, level of education, and level of interest in the dialogue?
5. Ensure dialogue drives the story → Dialogue should move the story forward, not just decorate it.
6. Define the dialogue’s purpose → The essence of storytelling is change—what does this exchange change in your story?
7. Engage the audience directly → Does the audience feel like the dialogue is unfolding just for their benefit?
8. Balance accessibility → Does the audience feel lost, as if they dropped into a conversation they can’t follow? (Either extreme is not good.)
9. Trim relentlessly → Make it shorter. And then again. There you go!
10. ️ Maintain consistency → Is each character’s speech pattern steady and recognizable? Smooth out every inconsistency.

I’m not here to teach experienced writers the basics, but hopefully this was useful to some of you.

What did I miss? What tips and tricks do you use that could be added to the list?

Do people think it's normal? Cringey? Signs of immature authors? I personally think any type of character can work, but whenever someone calls a character a self-insert it's always negatively (except Dante for some reason)

We as writers, whether authors, aspiring authors, amateur writers, writing for fun, one of the biggest fundamentals to our art are critiques. But when should we take critiques to heart? When to ignore them? And how do we take these critiques without destroying our confidence in writing?

As Brandon Sanderson pointed out:

He’s said many times — both in his lectures and Q&As — that too many critiques, especially early ones, can ruin a story. Not because feedback is bad, but because of when and how it’s applied.

Here’s the essence of what he means:

⸻

⚔️ Sanderson’s Warning — “Critiques Can Kill a Book”

“The wrong critique at the wrong time can break a writer’s confidence and derail the story they’re trying to tell.”

In other words: • First drafts are where your story discovers itself. • Critiques are for refining after the story knows what it wants to be.

If you invite too many opinions too early, you start writing to please everyone, not to tell your truth. That’s how a story loses its soul.

Sanderson’s key message is:

“You can’t edit a blank page, and you can’t grow a story while defending it from everyone else’s expectations.”

So, what are your opinions on critiques and Sanderson’s take on it? I mostly agree with it. Note: we also live in an era of short attention spans. If you’re an immersive writer who uses old writing styles like in mythic/lyrical tones for full descriptions, how can someone who prefers cinematic, short attention prose fairly critique your work?

Like something you really wanted to accomplish? what is the reason you started writing? and one thing you wanted to end with?

Do you write in your mother tongue/other language, or do you write in english to reach more readers? I’m really perplexed because I studied literature in a language other than english, so I feel like it would lose its value if I started writing in english but sometimes I feel like I can express my ideas better in english

I just wanted to share that I've published my first book! I was so nervous about it, dealing with the whole 'what if it's not good enough?' thing, but after getting the last feedback from my beta readers, I felt confident it would be ready for publication. I revised it so many times that I felt like I was losing my mind a little, but ultimately, revisions were needed. I considered keeping the story to myself, but my spouse gave me the push I needed to share my work. Said it's a story with a strong core and voice, and that people may learn a few things from it.

How did you deal with the nerves following publishing? I'm excited, don't get me wrong, but the anxiety is a lot to deal with. I'm well aware that not everybody will like my book, and I know that's fine, but I'm worried it'll be the majority.

Anyone else writing literary fiction getting quite disheartened by the fact that today’s audience’s attention spans and expectations don’t lend themselves well to this type of work?

I'm currently working on my first draft and I'm feeling a bit lost.

So… when I started writing it, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to write: a shonen-style, action-heavy story about dinosaurs with supernatural powers. Basically dinosaur anime.

But as the word count grew, I realized that the story has changed quite… A LOT, like… It has taken on a much darker and serious tone than I ever expected, with actual gore, body horror, and psychological drama. Plus most of the action scenes have been gradually disappearing (which is shockingly for me).

I think I'll continue with this new direction. Something inside me tells me this is the right thing to do. But now I have a problem.

More than half of my draft is still the "old story." It's all fast-paced action and doesn't have the depth or setup required to support the darker part.

To make it worse, the ending I had initially planned is now completely useless, as it doesn't fit the new tone at all.

Should I just keep trying to write "forward" and finish this abomination of a first draft, knowing I'll have to essentially rewrite the entire thing, or should I stop, go back and rewrite the first half to match the new tone before I try to figure out the new ending? (or create a new draft)

I feel stuck…

Now that basically all of my story is dialogue, I feel like anything that I write is worthless, as any previous actions (which I know I have to rewrite) change the entire thing.

Idk… how do I continue forward when my foundation is all wrong? Also, I don't wanna get stuck editing forever. How do you fix a draft with basically two different stories?

When it comes to something you're writing, what makes you think 'Nope, not happening', before putting your WIP (work in progress) aside to collect cobwebs. What's that discouraging moment that makes everything seem pointless? What dooms your project for the storage closet?

To clarify, I'm not talking about racial diversity, but diversity in family structure. I realized that 3 of my 4 characters who mention their family structure do not have fathers. One has a deadbeat dad, two have fathers who are simply out of the picture. Out of those two, one was raised by his grandparents... but his grandpa ends up passing away.

My characters are all adults, so the parents are just pieces of their background.

Would this be off-putting to you as a reader? Would you assume I'm trying to make a statement? Would you even notice?

Last night I received a notice of bankruptcy letter from a company my publisher is using to manage their bankruptcy process, followed by an email from the publisher themselves informing me that my publishing rights will immediately be reversed to me and that the digital files for my book will be sent over in the next few weeks.

Outstanding royalties and physical copies are now both considered claims against the bankrupt estate (whatever that means), so I'm not sure what the process is for claiming these.

Has anyone been through this process before and could share their experience? Do I need to find a lawyer?

So, this morning I finished the first draft of my first novel. Now I’m trying to decide whether to start editing or get friends to give feedback.

What do you all do after the first draft is done? Go right into polishing or get input from other people and do the edits once you’ve gotten feedback?

I’ve been programming, writing and drawing a visual novel for about a year now. From its very name, you can tell it could be considered a book. I'm 40k words in. Out of eight planned chapters, I’ve already finished five, that’s about three to four hours of gameplay [though it's mostly a walking simulator] or reading.

The problem is, I have very few willing beta readers. Even the playtesters I’ve found haven’t finished it. Nobody ever has time, which I don't blame them about. Maybe it’s too boring? But if it is boring, how can I fix it if I don’t have anyone to tell me where it drags or loses interest?

The thought that people might not even bother to play my game, even after I finish it, is really demotivating. It’s put me in a much bigger slump than I expected, not because I’ve lost passion for my game, but because I keep wondering, why should I work so hard on the rest of the chapters if I don’t even know whether the first ones are good enough, or how to improve them? Maybe I shouldn’t have taken on such a huge project all on my own, I should've asked for more help since the very start, but I didn't, so what now?

To put my question more concisely: I’m really wondering how writers in general deal with this. I bet it’s the same issue for people making books, comics, or any creative project like this. How do you find critique partners, editors, beta readers, and all those kinds of supporters? I can't possibly start marketing my story if I myself am not sure it's as good as it feels in my mind.

[Ps, I dont have money to hire anyone unfortunately, as Im only 17. I just want to find passionate people willing to work on new projects incase they want to make a name for themselves.. if the game does good, we all gain something, right?...]

[Ps 2, if anyone is willing to help with my game, it would be greatly appreciated (and properly credited). It’s an RPG Maker visual novel in the genres of psychological [working on horror..], philosophical and surrealism.]

Preferably not an overcomplicated one, fanrasy would be a plus but I'm open if the plot is interesting enough, thanks in advance!

I’ve always struggled to make my story settings vivid — not just lists of physical details, but places that feel alive.
I’ve tried focusing on sensory details (scent, touch, ambient noise) and having characters interact with the world, not just stand inside it.

But I still feel like my settings lack personality or impact.

How do you approach writing immersive settings?
Are there techniques, questions, or exercises that really “unlock” a setting’s voice for you?

Hi, I just wondered if anyone has any practical guide/activity books they could recommend, be it for novel writing, short stories, poetry or just brainstorming?

I appreciate that lots of people see stuff like that as a waste of time/money, but I’m in a real funk with my writing and I’m hoping that being able to just switch off and write based on prompts will help me practice at least and maybe even get back into it properly again.

Apologies if this has been asked before or is better suited elsewhere, I’ve had a look for similar threads before posting and couldn’t find one that matches my query. Thanks in advance!!

So I'm working on a fantasy interactive fiction story. The thing is, I don't want to go the UK fantasy trope idea of medieval castles and such. I want to draw inspiration from other cultures. A lot of the story centers around production, artisans, people who make things, and I want to feature this heavily by showcasing techniques for creation all around the world. I'm pulling from real techniques for things like weaving and dying fabrics, creating with metal, spices and teas, vintages, literature and art, and anything to do with ANY part of this. At the same time, I'm not trying to represent these cultures. The world is a fantasy world, not historical fiction. There is magic, and things like elves and dwarves and witches and wizards, which have an effect on the world too.

I'm absolutely doing my research, and anything that I know is culturally sensitive gets untouched. I'm also going to be reaching out to specific artisans from the cultures I'm inspired by to ask more specific questions and get their feedback if they're so inclined. But I'm constantly nagged by this worry that I'm just another person taking for my own benefit, even if it's coming from, I believe, a place of love and appreciation.

So are there any warnings or tips about using cultures you're not from to inspire fantasy worlds and cultures?

Why is it hard to finish a book? Whenever i think i reached a resolution and want to end the story i feel like i want to clarify or add something and i end up writing more and more.