Looking for help or advice on a novel that I'm writing

[1r3gr3t3v3ryth1ng]

Hey all, I am about to finish the draft of a ~85000 word novel about humans and dragons. If you just want to know what I am requesting, then you can skip to the final paragraph. Otherwise, here is the backstory about the whole process.

When I started writing almost three months ago I never thought that I would end up at this point. I had a life-changing experience in the weeks before that. It subconsciously began to inspire me and quickly my thoughts formed into ideas. I couldn't get them out of my head. I just had to write them down. Within two weeks I had the first few chapters written. I expected to run out of inspiration, but instead my thoughts started to branch the story out further.

When I knew that I would continue writing I considered sharing the story with other people. Some time ago I came across a video that explained the background of Glukhovsky's Metro 2033 (which is literally the only book that I own). I remembered that he published parts of his book on his website as an experiment and grew the story together with his readers. With the wrong expectations I was inspired to do something similar. I am quite ashamed of how much I loved dragons. FA felt like the best place to upload since I thought that there would be people like me and I would be more easily accepted.

The whole writing process turned out to be rather lonely in the end. Both in real life and online I had no one to talk to who was as much into dragons like me. Despite that, I couldn't get the ideas about the course of the story out of my mind. I felt emotionally driven to continue writing, each time building up to a scene that I was really looking forward to. Eventually I reached a point at which I actually started to run out of inspiration. It was close to the end, where I thought that it would be a waste not to finish it. I already knew how I wanted the story to end, which did keep me driven to continue writing. On top of that, I am currently in the situation in which I have plenty of time, freedom and privacy. That will change from next week, when I move back to the people whom I have spent my entire life with so far. For now I feel too afraid to tell them the way that I am. Maybe I am ready to do so if I do something remarkable with it, like publishing a succesful book. There is only one thing that holds me back.

I absolutely don't feel like I am a passionate writer. A few years ago I started to write a story that was heavily inspired by the time that I still went to high school, but I never felt like finishing it. Last year I attempted to write an SCP, but that ended in disaster. By then I already knew that writing wasn't something for me. This is now the third time that I attempt to do something with writing and it is purely because my love for dragons and the inspiration for the story kept me driven. I have the feeling that that won't be happening anymore in the forseeable future.

While publishing the chapters on FA I was sometimes curious to see what other people would write about and how they did it. I clicked on some of the stories, only to find out that a few of these authors were solid literary artists, whether their stories were popular or not. I always felt like my own writing style didn't live up to that. A big barrier for me is the fact that English is not my native language. My dictionary is not as big as many others, restricting me to use less specific words and expressions than there are. Another big barrier is my flat personality. I often have no idea how I could make certain scenes more lively. Even if I read them myself I can see that they are quite boring, or don't properly convey the mood or atmosphere that I have in mind.

Despite all the things that I criticize myself for, I have to say that I am proud of the work that I have done so far. Being at the point of almost completing (a draft of) a full novel feels like a huge achievement. My profession lies in the creative industry, and from what I can tell about my own experiences and people around me is that creators often tend to be overly enthousiastic about the work that they create. I feel like that happened to me while writing this story as well. Recently I started to re-read some parts, not only to find out how much I like the setting of the story myself, but also to find out how many mistakes I made while writing it. Just by reading the prologue alone I saw that I can spend at least an hour correcting typos and reformatting sentences so that they are gramatically correct or easier to read.

So, that leaves me at the point that I am now. With only the final chapter and the epilogue remaining I am about to finish the whole story hopefully by the end of this week. I thought that I would never be able to talk to someone about the story and that it would eventually be lost in some deep archives of the internet. Then, after publishing the latest chapter last night, I found out about the existence of these forums and read some of the threads before deciding to give it a shot here.

The insecure person that I am has a desire to know if my story has a potential to be published after some improvements. Is it interesting enough to dive deeper into it? In the end I'm sure that I can carefully re-read the full story and attempt to fix all the mistakes that I made. Maybe I will even be able to touch up some parts that I'm not satisfied with anymore. What I'm afraid that I won't be able to do is bringing more life to it. I am hoping that someone who is experienced in writing would be willing to help me with that, perhaps advicing me, guiding me or collaborating with me to get the most out of it. Maybe I'm getting my hopes up too much and is the story too boring or too cliché to do something with it. I have no idea where I stand, so I hope to find my answer here.

Here is the link to the prologue, from where you can reach the other chapters, in case you are interested: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44696663/

 

[reptile logic]

Hello,

I also felt inspired to write a dragon-centric novel; there's a link to it in my signature line. Somehow, I banged out a 90, 000+ word draft in six weeks, and self-published it in six months. Now that I have a few years more experience, there are definitely some things that I would do differently; one of which is to follow the wise words, "Never make your first novel part of a series." It has taken me five years to write the 100,000 word sequel draft to the first book, and I ended up setting it aside, unsatisfied. There are still some plot holes to be filled, more polishing to be done, and my mind has been insisting on writing other things. I'll get back to the series. Like you, I feel that I really should complete it. I've decided to finish a completely unrelated short story collection, first. I'm one year into it and need to write two or three more stories to complete that book.

Back to you. It is a frightening thing to put your work out there for others to critique, but better that, than to put it away and forget about it. Good for you in making this decision. I'm willing to take a look at it; I beta read for others all the time. I have a historical novel to finish going through, first, then I'll dive into yours. I am not a professional editor, but most folks I beta read for at least tell me that my input was helpful. I understand if you are uncomfortable with sending me a PDF, but I use a PDF reader/editing app that helps make things easier for me. Just attach it to your reply, here, or in a private message if you prefer.

In any case good luck with your project.

Edit: If you are curious of my writing style, I have shared some of my stories here and on the FA main site. On FA, you can find me under reptile-logic.

 

[1r3gr3t3v3ryth1ng]

Hello,

I also felt inspired to write a dragon-centric novel; there's a link to it in my signature line. Somehow, I banged out a 90, 000+ word draft in six weeks, and self-published it in six months. Now that I have a few years more experience, there are definitely some things that I would do differently; one of which is to follow the wise words, "Never make your first novel part of a series." It has taken me five years to write the 100,000 word sequel draft to the first book, and I ended up setting it aside, unsatisfied. There are still some plot holes to be filled, more polishing to be done, and my mind has been insisting on writing other things. I'll get back to the series. Like you, I feel that I really should complete it. I've decided to finish a completely unrelated short story collection, first. I'm one year into it and need to write two or three more stories to complete that book.

Back to you. It is a frightening thing to put your work out there for others to critique, but better that, than to put it away and forget about it. Good for you in making this decision. I'm willing to take a look at it; I beta read for others all the time. I have a historical novel to finish going through, first, then I'll dive into yours. I am not a professional editor, but most folks I beta read for at least tell me that my input was helpful. I understand if you are uncomfortable with sending me a PDF, but I use a PDF reader/editing app that helps make things easier for me. Just attach it to your reply, here, or in a private message if you prefer.

In any case good luck with your project.

Edit: If you are curious of my writing style, I have shared some of my stories here and on the FA main site. On FA, you can find me under reptile-logic.

Thanks for your reply! I will contact you somewhere next week

 

[JollyCooperation]

What you should do is dependent on what you hope to achieve with "publishing" your work. If you just want people to see it and maybe create a small fanbase around it, posting it on websites such as FurAffinity might do the trick already. There also is a Furry Writer's Guild, you might wanna look into them if you wanna keep honing your skills and maybe become a household name in the community some day.

If you actually wanna sell it and maybe even use it to kickstart a career as a writer, I would recommend that after having reptile logic help you out with viewing at your work from an outside perspective and doing some tweaks and improvements, you start looking for an actual professional editor, someone who has credentials and a reputation so you know they are legit.

Because being an editor and being a writer are actually two different sets of skills, even if they overlap in some areas. And you will definitely need someone who knows the business side of poetry to get your story into stores with any chance of it selling.