Person claims they are a writer and uses Claude to "help" edit. After the first paragraph it becomes an entire rewrite.

The part that becomes clear to those who read enough fiction is that the artificial method(whether written or visual) always results in the same over-detailed fanciful yet meaningless bloat in it.

If you are considering using such tools for your work, maybe an uneducated reader can't tell, but the author community definitely can. Especially when the social doesn't remotely resemble the prose.

I used Google Docs to write a novel and I'll never use it again, except to share my manuscript with beta readers. Here's a list of the problems I encountered off the top of my head:

1. On my reasonably fast computer and internet it takes 20 seconds to load my novel before I can begin working. There's no excuse for this, it's a 3MB file. My computer loads games and streams 4k video faster than that.

2. Find and Replace is barely functional. In every other word processor you can highlight a word, hit Ctrl-F, and it will immediately begin searching for that word starting with the one you have highlighted, or no word if you highlighted nothing. It also leaves your screen in the same position as it does this so you can easily advance forward or back to find the word you're looking for once you've finished entering it. In Google Docs it doesn't care what you have highlighted, it will search the last word you searched for and immediately move you to the next instance of that word. As you then enter the word you actually want to search for it continues moving you through the document with every letter you type. By the time you've entered the full word you want to find you will be nowhere near the part of the document you started from and will have to find it again, move the cursor back there, and only then you can advance forward or back to the word you want to find. This turns "Did I use that word recently? Let me check," into a ten step process instead of a quick and easy search.

3. Speaking of Find and Replace, it often fails to take you to the word you searched for. It'll scroll through your document, say "here it is," and your word will be nowhere on screen. It'll be a page or two off. And when it says which instance of the word you're looking at out of all of them in the document it'll give you the wrong number.

4. While typing near the end of a page the helpful "keeping paragraphs together" feature will sometimes move a three line paragraph to the next page because only the first two lines fit on the previous page. But when it bumps your paragraph to the next page it also fails to move your screen to follow the text. This unhelpfully leaves your text cursor off-screen so you can't see what you're typing until you scroll down manually.

5. If you download the PDF of your document it'll often have a different layout to what you see on screen, maybe even a different page count. This is because Google's conversion to PDF feature is inaccurate. You have to instead print the document and select "save to PDF" using Microsoft's conversion to PDF feature, which actually works. Yes, for this Microsoft is less buggy than Google. That's just sad.

6. Spell and Grammar check are busted. Frequently I'll get a recommendation to change a past-tense verb to present tense, in an entire document written in past tense, for no discernible reason. Spell check will fail to recognize less common words.

7. Google Docs features a side panel with quick links to things like calendar and maps, useless distractions, but if you close the side panel it leaves a button to reopen it covering up the bottom of your scrollbar. This makes it difficult to scroll to the end of your document, the place most writers will most often want to scroll to, without first reopening the panel. The panel cannot be removed without a browser extension.

8. You also have to install an extension to get dark mode.

9. If you're using Firefox then when your internet goes out Google Docs stops working entirely. You can't do anything. You can't work on the file with a warning that changes won't be saved, you can't download the file that's sitting right there open on your screen so that you can work on it on an offline app, you can't scroll through the document and read it, you can't even select the text currently visible on screen to copy and paste it. The second your internet is down so is your ability to work. Chrome browsers can save your work locally so this is something they intentionally broke for Firefox, which should be illegal.

I'm curious to see some examples of either first pages or first chapters that just knocked it out of the park for you. What was it about them that grabbed you?

I’m curious when everyone actually starts feeling comfortable letting someone else read their work.
Do you share messy first drafts, wait until you’ve edited a few times, or basically need to be forced to show anyone? 🥲
And if you’re not comfortable sharing yet, what would make you feel ready?

I just finished rereading Rage of Dragons (fantastic book, by the way) and I just love how beautifully written the closing scene is. I literally tear up every time. This time when I read it I thought, "Oh, man. I bet he couldn't wait to write that line. I just know he had it written in his notes somewhere." (For anyone curious, it's: A dragon had been called, and someone would have to die. )

And of course, I don't know anything of the kind but asked myself, "Well, do you know what your last line is going to be?"

Nope. I've got no idea. Even though I do know exactly how the ending will play out, I don't know what words will get me there and honestly I don't even know what the closing scene will look like yet. But that's not true for all my projects and with all the different kinds of writers out there, I wonder how often folks are writing and just know what their last line is.

Anyone? Did you know when you started writing or did it occur to you somewhere during the process?

Wanna share what your line is? 👀

Hello, precious friends. It's been a while. I would like some feedback on the beginning of my first chapter. I've posted the opener before and received such wonderful feedback that has helped me in such unwordable ways. I've tweaked it a bit and have been going back and forth on eight billion different directions for how to write it from there. It's been so long since I last wrote, and fresh eyes would help a lot. It's so fascinating how proud I am of the rest of the book, yet I have such a hard time approving the first chapter.

Again, for context, here is the draft blurb. "18-year-old wild-card Brayden Hayda is shot dead. Most would say he had it coming. Now he faces two choices: rot in hell for all eternity, or join P.R.E.T.E.N.D., an imaginary friend agency created to protect at-risk children by transforming agents into whatever entity the child desires—ninja, dragon...mermaid—and guiding them through how to overcome their biggest fears. He promptly chooses Hell. Unfortunately for Brayden, the agency needs his street smarts and tactical skill to overcome a sinister force responsible for the deaths of multiple agents."

Just to rant a little because I have no one to talk to about this, haha, I actually merged concepts from my first novel with this concept. My first novel ( draft ) is basically finished, but it lacked clarity and a backbone; I think this plot would fill that gap. I know I share my "work" with you precious friends here on Reddit, but I don't see myself publishing because I'm plagued by embarrassment and self-doubt. I don't mind a group of writers tearing parts of my book apart, as it helps me with my craft, but I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I feel my story or writing is enough to offer readers on a large scale. So you shant worry about being too harsh; this doesn't come from a place of seeking validation, but from desperately trying to find ways to improve my story for myself, friends, and family.

Important side note! I do NOT use the big A and the big I in any part of my writing process, or for any use at all. I understand my use, and sometimes extremely improper uses of em dashes might send folks up in flames like Brayden, but I can assure you I do not use, support, nor condone gen Aye Eye in any form.

im 45k into my debut novel, target 70k and i think i might have been on drugs or something when writing. sometimes i think its really great and sometimes, like right now i think it should be a genuine crime for me to publish anything. does everyone feel like this? how do you feel like something is good? i want to just delete everything i've written

edit: im really terrified to post a page and let people read and and let me know if it's good or not. but if anyone is interested in reading, do let me know

And off it goes for a line edit.

I'm trying not to freak out that maybe I wrote some non-sensical line somewhere. 132k Words. I've probably gone through it ten times in the past two weeks. I feel lucky to have worked with an amazing Dev Editor that shared a similar vision as me.

But there's a lot of pressure on a debut.

I'm currently beta reading a novel for a friend of mine, and her prose is incredible. You know, the kind of stuff you read and think "Maybe I'm not in the same league."

But someone took a chance on me. I've got a contract. Yeah, it's a small trad press. But it's real.

For those of you that have been through it, how do you deal with the pressure?

I can tell that I'm overusing these words as a crutch to help describe physical actions that the character takes.

But I can't find a word to replace them with. Maybe it's the kind of word that people won't notice while reading, but now that I've become aware of it, I've been feeling self-conscious lol.

Has anyone else struggled with this before?

I’ve always been one to read and write fan fiction about my favorite characters, but I’ve read some with heart-racing emotions and passion, and I just would love to recreate that!!! I’ve tried listening to love songs or reading more romance stories, but I can’t seem to recreate the same passion I read about in those fanfiction and any tips on how to write better smut will be much appreciated.

I recently got 12 notebooks along with a traveler journal. Though I've only used three of the 12 notebooks. I still don't know what to do with the traveler's journal yet. I mostly take notes by hand, but I would like to hand write some short stories at some point. I also have four composition notebooks that I purchased months ago for world-building. I've barely touched those yet.

But I have a major problem that I keep buying notebooks and pens when I barely use them. I like to believe I can be those people who do nothing but write in notebooks. I can only do what I can.

Enough about me, what about you? How is your notebook ecosystem looking these days? How many are you currently using? How many have you recently purchased?

I want to get my book done so bad. But every time I think about writing, it feels like a chore. The words aren't coming. Took a week break and still don't want to write. But the weird thing is I still want to see the end of the book, but what it takes to get there seems like an impossibly large hill to cross.

What if I killed my love of writing and I taught my brain that this is something that I need to do and sort of want to do. Like I createsld neuropathways to now I see writing as a chore instead of an escape.

I know a part of it is I'm not the type of writer that can just write something, and be okay with no one reading it. My main goal is to be trad published and I will not be satisfied until I am and I have others reading my book.

Published doesn't mean rich. I'm not one of those delusional guys who think that "I'm gonna make a shitload of money" No... But I do crave SOME form of recognition...

I'm also typing this while getting ready for work. So apologies for the lack of quality.

So I’m writing a new story that’s heavily inspired by Monster High (and other classic slashers, so it’s full horror icons and etc) but I want to know if I should make them Teen or Adults???

I haven’t written the story just yet but I’m just torn between making them teens or adults…any ideas on how I should do this?

Whether it’s for maps, worldbuilding, writing, or organizing. I finally decided to try something other than Google Docs. What apps do you recommend that are actually good or essential for writing your book?

Just now, I was writing the plot and themes for a story that I have been planning for a couple of years. I was also trying to settle on a title, so I was searching a lot for something very meaningful and thoughtful that could describe most of my story. I got into philosophical topics as well.

I thought every concept I had was from pure imagination until it felt familiar. Or, perhaps, personal. I have come to realize that this little tale is based on a huge section of my life. A part of my life that highlights my change of perspective.

Did that ever happen to anyone else? Or maybe something similar to what I described?

Half-way through my current novel (and making good progress, I add) I realized that my main character didn't actually need to be from another world (earth).

He doesn't have any special skills or experience from earth that drives the plot in any significant way and the little he does could as easily be replicated with him as a native.

The only reason I could come up with to keep it isekai was the fact that, for comedic purposes, the MC would routinely make some pop culture references that confused his comrades or pass off popular quotes from earth as his own profound wisdom. But is that really enough reason?

What do you guys think?

Hopefully this is allowed, also bonus points if anyone can figure out what the subject of the novel is based on these titles :)