I have already written about my circular email I send out, with chapters of novel for people to discuss. You say you give things to people and they flip through the first twenty pages and give up. Is this because you have circulated it to the wrong type of people, not enough people, or it doesn't grab these particular readers' attentions.
It takes a lot of courage to send out work, especially to people I know are going to be critical. Some of them I  barely know but at some point  have shown an interest. Many never make a comment and I suspect never even open the email attachment or envelope. I do get good results from some readers. The number of comments gives me a feel for how readable it was and since a lot of the people in my list are `just' readers, I get very useful overall comments; this character does not add up, this is too slow, I don't understand this chapter, I couldn't read this chapter it made no sense, this sentence is way too long.
I also think it needs to be made clear what the readers are expected to do. I know people that give critique sheets to their audience. Although many people might not like a novel, unless you prompt them they may not say why. Was it because the characters were terrible, the plot was a mess or they simply didn't understand the words.

In conclusion: You may find it useful to find a large(r) circle of readers. And/or find people who say `I like reading books but I couldn't proof read'. They often gloss over typos and bloopers without noticing but they will be quick to tell you if something is weak or does not add up.

Benjamin F Jones
[ Parent ]

That's an interesting position to take regarding paying for training as a novelist. Though I personally have no experience as a novelist (other than being in the midst of making my first stab at writing a novel), what you say about needing contacts and the fact that novels these days are probably not read unsolicited makes sense and jives with what I have read as well. But I don't think that going to a particular school or having taken some specific course is necessary.

A few generations back, trade schools existed alongside the more traditional mode of learning of apprenticeship. An apprentice received on the job training, starting off small and moving on to do more and more of what we would probably call "real world" tasks until they were trained to journeyman or master status and could hold their own position as a shopowner. In many cases, it was a trade passed down in the family, almost like an intangible heirloom, no less valuable for its intangibility.

Today, specialization is such that periods of intense study are useful and for many careers, advanced study simply requires a more formal approach. Also it is seen as an advantage that a person be able to choose their career path and pursue the training necessary to reach it. But none of that has really changed. What has changed, in my opinion, is the nature of some of the jobs. As schools catering to medicine and law continued to sprout up, careers seeking the same level of expertise also added their curriculum to existing schools or new schools came into being that offered coursework in that field. Now it is becoming assumed that in order to function in most any position requires access to formal schooling.

Unlike engineering, which has branches that simply did not exist several generations ago, or medicine, which has become more refined over time as biology and chemistry have been further explored and we have learned more about our world, writing has remained fundamentally the same. True, there has been a refinement over time of technique and style, and genres exist now that did not exist before, but the basics of writing remain the same. We have better ways of doing things today because of advances in engineering. We lose fewer patients today because we know more about what affects the human body. But the classics are classics because they adhere to the fundamental principles about communicating in writing that have not changed over time. Some could argue that the classics ought to have suffered greatly due to outmoded language or modes of thought, but they still remain popular in spite of this.

As a result, with a well attended high school education that includes English skills in addition to practice writing, I don't think a person necessarily loses out on the ability to be professionally published. Might you lose out on opportunities to explore ideas and concepts from experienced professionals in an academic setting? Yes, absolutely. But one could also argue that a budding writer could visit their library to read what those professionals produced and learn from that. That same writer might also visit forums like this one to exchange ideas with others and thus increase their knowledge. Is it the same? No. Is it as beneficial? I think so. Is a formal schooling necessary?

Not in my opinion.

[ Parent ]

...to have enough self-confidence to let other people read your fiction, that is.

I have quite literally been writing since before I can remember (my mother tells me my first story was a run-on sentence two lines long which I very slowly typed out on her typewriter - I was probably 6 at the time) but I'm still uncomfortable letting people see my fiction. On those rare occasions that I actually let somebody read it, I have to fight myself to avoid asking for it back.

Oddly enough, my non-fiction I'm ok with (as you may have guessed from all the articles I've written on this site). I've also written a few things for a student newspaper, my website, and right now I'm working as a technical writer. I suppose fiction is more personal - enough so that I can't let it go.

People keep telling me that my writing is good, and I keep not believing them.

I desperately want to have somebody, some writer, tell me that my fiction isn't complete shit, but I'm terrified at the same time, no matter what they say. Either way, I don't know if my ego would survive :-/

--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]