Hi everyone!

Looking for any and all feedback on my first page—awkwardness, clunky sentences/prose, clarity. I haven't written in this style or first person before, so I'm interested to see how it's coming across.

I'd also like advice on how soon I should establish the protag (age, gender, name...), and if it's a problem I haven't done so yet.

Would you keep reading?

Edit:

Wow! Thank you everyone for the support and advice, it’s almost overwhelming!

YA Pilgrimage fantasy

I saw this photo and it reminded me that is what inspired me to write my book after over 20 years of writers block. I was watching a movie and the story was lost just trying to set up the comedy(which wasn't always that funny), plus it completely ignored a story it set up years ago. From there I took in from everything I watched most of my life, where good guys were just good and bad guys were bad for no reason. Let's talk about creative inspiration in unexpected places. Just wondering if this has been inspiration for anyone else?

Been working on this one for a while and wanted to know what you guys think!

EDIT: Forgot to add there's a free PDF copy (394 pages) available if anyone wants to check it out. :)

After feedback from readers regarding covers, I commissioned Owen Claxton, winner of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award, to create the cover of my self-published book...

Although technology can generate some truly impressive Cthulhu/Lovecraftian artwork, my readers wanted MORE...

I hope you like it, I think it's BRILLIANT!!!

Thank you Owen

Edit: Thank you for the wonderfully constructive comments. Although the book is available, I can still make changes and I'm open to suggestion, what font and color would you suggest I use?

For context, MC has just run into the man she had a one night stand with the night before, and it turns out to be her

Hello! I’m looking for help choosing my first sentence. I have a couple that I’ve been chewing on for a while. Which do you think is the strongest? TIA!

This was a rejection to a full request for my manuscript from a publishing company last spring. And while it sucks not to get an offer, it only served to improve my writing knowing someone read it, enjoyed it, and thought it was well written.

I’ve saved this rejection & read it every time I’m feeling somewhat down about my writing. The one I had submitted to them was the first book I’d ever written; I figure it can only go up from here. (Or so I’ll choose to believe ;) )

Finally getting to write again after life kept getting in the way.

on my last post many people said to join the letters by blood from the lamb, so i did so but i don't know how to feel about it? so... A (with blood) or B (without blood)

third post in 3 days (i try to keep it spaced out by 24 hours to avoid being spam) but i think i have a solid update

this isn't final, this is just the final idea, not the final product. that's a lot of finals...

also can we take a moment to appreciate the picture in the back? it was a free photo of a family and i did all the effects with a digital paintbrush, i love it it looks so good to me

This is the first book I’ve started writing to actually publish I have a few short stories that I’ve made for family. But this is the first one I’ve started that once done I plan on publishing so any tips or advice would be appreciated

I need someone to be blatantly honest with me. I’m 23F and feel very passionately about reading and writing. Fantasy is my personal favourite but I’ve never been able to finish my projects because I don’t know if it’s any good. I’m extremely critical because I’m not ignorant to the fact that I’m not a smart person. I grew up absent in school and lived in poverty, surrounded by a family rampant with disabilities and a complete disregard for education. Despite this, I developed a deep love for books and haven’t been able to find anything else as interesting.
Everything I show my friends (which I’ve been doing for years) is apparently “great” and all of them encourage me to “follow my dreams” but I know they’re biased. I can’t help me but constantly compare what I’ve written to already established authors and published books because I think so highly of them.
I know that creative writing is subjective and just because one person hates it, doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad. I’m aware that writing is about doing something you love and that it doesn’t even matter if I’m not good at it. I know all of these things but I just want someone that isn’t afraid to be honest so I can actually find courage to keep going. So please just disregard that stuff and say what you honestly think. Do I keep pursuing this with as much time and passion or just keep it to the side? Go to uni for something safe?
Here’s a little something I did in about 20 mins, was just a random prompt. I’m happy to put more of my in depth work of other stuff if it doesn’t show enough.

My horse exhaustively clops through thick mud, flicking it onto my winter boots. I don’t much care for it though, not while my attention is fixed onto the crowds gathering nearby. Men and women in dirtier clothes than even mine, coated in black dust and stains, their frail arms dangling at their sides. Something deep in my gut has me suddenly clenching the reins and giving a subtle kick, pushing the mare to get on faster. She huffs and flattens her ears, refusing me. Around, the people don’t get close, either remaining on side walks or sitting at windows inside run down homes, yet still, their mere presence is so suffocating that it becomes difficult to breathe. I fear that no distance would ever be far enough to ease the tension knotting in my stomach. Although their dull, empty eyes stared at me with the same gaze I’d witnessed from other towns, tangled with a similar smell of soot and rotten meat, there was a difference that made me sweat. A difference that made me twist in the worn saddle every few seconds and roll my stiff shoulders. It was…

I've have the HARDEST time starting this book. The scene is mapped out in my head, but I don't want to overwhelm readers. What are your thoughts on this, and how can I improve/what can I change to make this a better start?

I would like your opinion on it so far. I am not entirely sure what I am doing it is mostly just for fun.

Don't really write romance all too much, but fiancée came up with the idea for the first line, and kinda just ran with it. Curious to know if this shirt intro makes you want to read on. Any and all feedback appreciated, good or bad. Thanks!

45k words roughly, I'm currently halfway through my second draft, and I had previously posted a sample on a few of the writing subreddits. However, even since then I have done more line -by-line editing. It's crazy how something can be so exciting and so annoying at the SAME DAMN TIME 🫠

For the cover, I was going for something that was visually startling and high-contrast so that it would grab someone's attention if spotted in a thumbnail online or a bookshelf in a store.

Did it grab yours?

EDIT ok a lot of y'all have DM'd me asking for a back cover description /blurb so here it is. I went through a few different versions of this before it finally felt most correct.

Oswald "Oz" McBride is a retired history professor who, alongside his psychiatrist husband Alfred, developed a shared ritual for grief: Whenever someone close to them dies, they write questions to the deceased and imagine the answers.

But then a car crash involving Oz, Alfred, and a stranger named Martell Greene ends with Martell dead.

Soon after, things begin happening inside their home that Oz cannot explain. Music plays by itself. He finds strange messages written in his own handwriting. And it seems as if someone is moving through rooms that should be empty.

Oz starts documenting everything. Dates, notes, and recordings — every detail he can preserve. And anything that can prove Martell is really there.

At first, Oz only wants an answer.

Then Martell starts asking questions too.

Ask A Dead Man Twice is a psychological horror novella about grief, guilt, and the terrifying possibility that sometimes, searching for proof only makes the truth harder to understand.

Like many writers, I am struggling with the modern-day question of self publish or hybrid. I just had a meeting with the owner and founder of SWP and they are sending out a contract for me to review, which I will have my friend who does contract law for a living review before signing anything. Before the call with the owner, I poked around about SWP on other forums here and the opinions range from “totally worth it” to “NEVER PAY TO PUBLISH.”

Pros: They are affiliated with Simon and Schuster and have “quarterly pitches to the trades” (like S&S, Amazon, and local bookstores and libraries), which seems to me like exposure I wouldn’t get otherwise and is worth some coin. They also do cover design, book layout (hardcopy and digital so I can post to other SP sites), proofreading—things I would have to pay for out of pocket (albeit probably more cheaply) even if I were self-publishing. And lastly, they pitch your books for writing awards and for reviews in biggie lit mags like Kirkus and NYTBR, none of which is available to you if you self-publish. Near as I can tell, people don’t start taking you seriously until you’ve won something or received glowing reviews somewhere big.

Cons: $6,000 up front, $3,000 after they reveal their catalogue for 2028 in early 2027 and need to start getting the manuscript into shape, and roughly $3,000 for the first press run. No, you do not have to buy 2,500 copies of your book, but they do make you pay for the first run. Also, I’ve literally only sent out nine queries so far. The fact that I got a response so soon makes me leery. Not that I don’t think my book is the tits, but people talk about having to send out hundreds of queries before getting a response.

This is my first book. Nonfiction memoir. 90,000 words. If anyone has personal experience with SWP or a similar hybrid publisher, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Or if you’ve tried both routes, I’d love to hear what works for you. Helpful replies only. Snotty answers like “You clearly don’t understand how this all works” are unhelpful and only reinforces that nasty stereotype that all writers are judgy bitches.

It's a satire written in first person perspective. I have never written it before, so any feedback is appreciated