A few years ago, I joined Scribophile with one goal: get enough Karma points to have my own work critiqued. The way you earn those points is by critiquing other writers' work first.
So I did.
For months, I read and critiqued everything I could get my hands on. Fantasy. Literary fiction. Thrillers. Romance. First chapters. Final chapters. Stories that were polished and first drafts.
I thought I was there to earn critiques. What I didn't realize was that the critiques were teaching me how to read. Not as a reader.
As a writer.
When you're critiquing, you're not simply asking whether you enjoyed a story. You're asking why.
Why did this scene drag?
Why did that line land?
Why did I stop caring halfway through the chapter?
Why couldn't I stop reading?
You start looking beyond the story itself and into the machinery underneath it. And the glass wall shatters. Now, whenever I read, part of my brain is reading the book and another part is asking questions.
How would I have approached this scene?
Would I have started here?
Why did they choose this point of view?
Sometimes it's a curse. I can't completely turn it off. There are books where I spend half the chapter mentally rearranging scenes or questioning decisions.
Then there are the other books. The dangerous ones. The ones that make me stop and reread a sentence.
The books that make me put the book down for a moment and think, "Well, that's annoyingly good."
I love those moments.
A sentence rhythm that catches you off guard. A chapter ending that practically dares you not to turn the page.
Those moments make me inspired. And if I'm being honest, envious.
But, mostly inspired.
Critiquing taught me something else, too: most writing advice exists for a reason. Yes, yes—every rule can be broken.
But what I discovered is that most beginning writers—including myself—may not be ready to pull it off.
One thing Scribophile has taught me over the years is how to start a story. Or, at least, how not to.
It's usually not someone lying in bed thinking. It's usually not pages of internal monologue while nothing happens. And, it's usually not a character watching life unfold from the sidelines.
Readers want movement. Tension. Conflict.
A reason to keep turning the page.
Those first one or two sentences carry an incredible amount of weight. They're an invitation. A lure. If that opening doesn't create curiosity, readers have every reason to put the book back down.
I know because I've rewritten the opening chapter of my own novel more times than I care to admit.
My manuscript, Eyes on Her, has been started and restarted enough times that I've lost count.
But the version that exists today is light-years beyond where it began. Not because I suddenly became a better writer overnight. Because other people saw things I couldn't.
They pointed out the places where I was holding back. The places where I was explaining too much instead of trusting the reader to figure things out. (The infamous show don't tell rule.) Where I thought I was being clever but was really just being confusing.
The first chapter is stronger because I'm not the only one who has read it.
Writing can feel solitary, but I've found it's rarely improved alone. At some point, we need readers. We need people willing to point at a paragraph and ask, "What were you trying to do here?"
So here's my question for fellow writers:
What are you working on right now? Where do you go for advice, inspiration, or a second pair of eyes?
I'd love to hear.
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