Novelist reacts to your first pages! // critiquing & line editing my viewers' writing 

This was super interesting and instructive to watch! I thought your critiques were delivered in a kind way, and I enjoyed the wide range of stories that you covered. Much respect to the brave authors who submitted their samples for a public critique!

Please do more of these videos. They’re extremely insightful.

REALLY ENJOYED THIS. not sorry about caps lock. please do it again. :) very helpful. I'm heading to my story now and fixing a couple things.

Thank you (and all the people who submitted) for this video. It helped seeing different types of stories an how the line editing affected the flow. Gonna bookmark this to reference latter since I saw a lot of writing habits that I tend to do in here!

I'm not on Patreon, so I'll just chip in here. I'm so glad you actually looked at my story and kinda dug it. Mine was the last one, the stoner urban fantasy adventure. I'm glad it wasn't too awful and I'm happy you thought the story was unique. And just an FYI, the hardest part about writing a stoner urban fantasy was, of course, doing my research 😉 But yeah, tense in fiction is something I struggle with. I just find it hard to be in the "immediate" while maintaining the correct tense. I need to work on that more. Thanks again!

"Not Today, Truck-kun" is going to live rent-free in my head, I can tell.

I LOVE these kinds of videos!

Whoever wrote "Not Today, Truck Kun" - please let me know when it comes out. I want to read that book!!

There's a really important lesson here for everyone whose first pages were being critiqued today (and in fact anyone who wishes to be a writer in general), and that is: you can always fix it later. I feel like so many writers get hung up on the quality of their work that they fail to actually write in the first place, but if you have words on the page they can be adjusted, they can be deleted, they can be made better. The important thing is to just write. I found your channel a couple of weeks ago and have been enjoying watching your videos. I normally don't watch much "authortube" content (I'm not really looking for writing advice) but there's something about your videos that works really well for me. It's a bit like sitting down for a chat with an old, like-minded friend, and I guess I'm hooked now. You seem like a really interesting person and it's been fun to get a glimpse at your process in general. I just wanted to drop a comment to say that this was a really fun video and I hope it performs well so that I can watch more of them. I love editing and especially line editing; nearly everything you criticized was something I would have changed as well (though, of course, not always in exactly the same way). The fact that you have to line edit some of these same issues out of your own writing was important to mention because that's true for me, too. Sometimes it feels silly (I shouldn't still be making these kinds of mistakes), but really, at the end of the day, it all goes back to Just Write It. It's far more important to get the words on the page than it is to stall eternally on a sentence or paragraph or even scene that just isn't turning out the way you wanted it to. I also thought it was funny that you mentioned L.M Montgomery at one point, and then later in the video, made a suggestion for a sentence that sounded a little bit like her writing to me: “Crumbling stone walls, whispering of an earlier era of grandeur, hemmed in the vast acreage.” But I really love the way LM Montgomery writes about Place so maybe I'm the only one who noticed that, haha. Thanks again for the fun break from my own projects and have a wonderful week!

This was really educational, especially watching you go through different books in different genres and noting the tone/word choices.

I didn't submit anything, but this was fun! I certainly feel like I've learned a thing or two.

Did indeed enjoy this. I am writing a fantasy and "vividness was not something I had in mind at all really. Very useful.

This was the perfect mix of educational and fun! Great job to everyone that submitted their pages, TFS, so we can all learn🤩💜

I really hope you make this an ongoing series!

31:16 thank you SO much for your amazing advice❤ i really appreciate you taking the time to critique my work! I needed someone who wasn’t a friend to put their eyes on it since my art does give away a lot about the characters which means people go in with a backlog (something we can’t rely on as authors). I desperately needed advice on my technical writing exactly as you did, not really character, plot, twists etc. You gave AMAZING critique!💖💖💖💖Im both taking and leaving advice, I can’t express my gratitude in a single comment!

I really hope this is an on-going series. I would love one of these a month at least. I feel like I learned so much from this video.

This was fascinating. I love hearing about what other people are writing as much as I enjoy your insightful critiques. Thank you so much.

I'm not even a writer but this was super interesting! Feels like learning in a classroom. I hope you do more of these videos :D

Well done to everyone for submitting their work and being brave, and well done to Lydia for providing constructive feedback and delivering it in such kind and encouraging way. Line editing is something a lot of us get bogged down with, usually prematurely. But its also a crucial step in making the story as good as it can be. Lots of fun to watch, please do more!

I loved this! I’m finishing up my first series of edits and am going to move into line editing next (after a week or two away to let my brain reset). This helped give me some ideas of things to watch for in my work so thanks. Also - great job everyone who submitted! I love seeing bits of other people’s stories. So fun.

As soon as you introduced it, i knew it was going to be mine 😂 and thank you so much for going though it! I think I made a lot of my problems by moving too many things around and adding paragraphs in. I think i will completely rewrite it tbh because theres only like two images i was happy with 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

Please do more.

Lidiya, this was an exciting video! Thank you for the super helpful advice on my cozy mystery (38:40). I plan to make the edits you suggested. I had not thought about those things before, but once you mentioned them, they totally make sense.🎉

My daughter has a rule for how many minutes she’ll watch a movie before she gives up on it. So I can see why this is also important for books and your video made me think that when I’m browsing for a new book I should read page one. (Not just the back cover summary).

This was extremely useful, so many great notes, wow. Thank you so much, Lydia! I'm really hoping my first page will come up in one of the future videos, but even now I feel I got lots of great advice.

Thank you for this video! I learned some useful things from all of the selections, not just my own. As for the Pulitzer, I have hopes of reading something that good in a litRPG someday, but I haven't seen it yet, and that's OK. As you said, it really is a genre that's all about the ride. :)

I’m sorry I missed this. Please do it again someday. 🦋🦋🦋

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! Mine was the girl in the seaside town one :) she disguises herself as a boy and sneaks onto a ship on page 2 but maybe I need to make that happen on page 1? I've already implemented all your feedback and will try to carry it throughout the rest of the story - you really are great at line edits, and have such a good eye for appropriate beats! Thank you again!! 💖

Thank you for your advice! I wrote the thriller about Clara. Loved your edits, and I feel more confident now. I'm definitely going to focus on the action and less on telling her backstory.

love this!

Love the video

Really enjoyed this video. It inspired me to do some line editing on my own story. I feel like you were able to balance being kind and being critical to each of the pages you reacted to (And that's no easy feat!) It's also so fun to see what other people are writing. Keep it up, writers!

My submission wasn't in this but some of the tips are definitely things I can apply to my stuff :3 quick question, if you do this again will you be opening submissions again or just pick from the ones you've already gotten?

I'm so excited to see other's people's writing and especially to see you critique it this is so fun

It was really interesting and I'm sure very helpful for those authors. I felt your critique of the line editing was useful as its something I can look at when reading a certain authors' work. Very difficult to be objective when you are related to said person 😅🌷😅

Omg this is very useful, thank you sm

This was fun, thanks.

18:27 Omniscient POV