Long Tail Writing

I recently am trying out an idea where I get as much feedback as possible as quick as possible. The idea is to test my novel ideas before I get too far into the weeds (technical details or in this case, too many chapters in). The hope is to build a book that is not only interesting, but works for the most people possible. However, I’ve recently discovered that more feedback is not always better. Here are a few reasons why: Reason #1: Feedback comes in so many flavors Taking a step back from the purely subjective nature of feedback, there are many types of feedback. The truth is that there are multiple types of edits that can occur. Developmental feedback can help with big picture feedback. That’s really what I was hoping for in this early stage of writing. I would even enjoy structural feedback, which tells me how to take the picture I have and make it clearer. That being said, part of the feedback I got was spelling, grammar, and word usage. That’s not very helpful an...

I have read a lot of articles online and taken a number of video courses. I am far from an accomplished expert, but I have spent a lot of time looking into what process works for me. I think that this can be broken down, for me, into a number of areas. In addition, this process is just at its start. I hope to continue to tweak and perfect what I’ve learned, which is exciting to me. Let’s dig into this 5 stage process. Stage 1: Build Something Horrible I think this is the stage that is potentially the hardest in some ways. People don’t want to be horrible at something they’ve worked really hard at. In addition, it is really troubling to start the process knowing you’re going to be horrible. However, there is a topic that I find absolutely fascinating in this stage. For the first time ever, you get to hear your voice. When I say voice, I don’t mean your actual throat voice. What I mean is your literary voice. When you write a book, you write it in a uni...