It's simple: first write a book, be recognized for it by other people and THEN give advice about good writing. Example: Brandon Sanderson. All of his writing classes and tips free on RUclips. That's the real MVP
@@shiven513 he has multiple writing class videos on youtube. I don't like his books, but the videos are far more useful than the advice those book-tubers give.
The part that I agree most with is that most of these authortubers are only really good at giving advice about ideas but never on how to execute them. It's the sort of thing that critics have where they know what makes something good, but not anything that would be helpful in actually creating something good. They thus end up giving advice that sounds good but that has little practical use. 😔
I used to practically worship Jenna Moreci and watched her videos almost daily. Then I paid to join her discord for patreon supporters and proceeded to be belitted, condescended to, and generally bullied by her. I was an awkward teen wanting to meet my hero and it was such a disappointing experience. Then I tried to read TSC and despite it being the kind of book I love to read, I honestly couldn't finish it, it was that bad. I haven't gone near her books or channel since.
Her birthday is a day after mine so yeah I used to worship her too. Took a break and now I'm finding put all these reviews. Pffew! Glad I didn't buy the TSC, TSS, or EA
I think she got bullied in school and now that she's somewhat famous has turned into one herself. As she became more popular, her ego grew and it's much larger than her talent.
That stinks, I’m sorry that happened. I’m always looking for writing advice and keeping an open mind but yes, it’s discouraging when people are brutal with advice and yet their works don’t live up. I’m a self published author and I’ve had people ask me about my process and such, I have a website with my sister where we talk about our process and perspective. But it’s not like I take credit for inventing the wheel, any good advice I have is probably something I heard from an expert (like screenplay writers on film courage), or other authors and I want to express how it worked for me. I wouldn’t presume to be the person whose advice you “must” follow but rather I try to direct you to what worked for me and others. I tried listening to some of Jenna’s advice but much of it was really specific to her likes and dislikes, but didn’t give me a formula for a good story I hope you’re able to craft your own works and not pay attention to other peoples condescending remarks.
Wanna know an authortuber who practices what she preaches, gives really practical and simple to understand advice, and actually has two really nice and good published books within her genre? Abbie Emmons.
Yup, I also recommend Abbie. Her advice is very practical and she explains it in details with book/movie examples. She doesn't just blindly regurgitate the same old "baby advice" that many other AuthorTubers do.
Yeah Abbie Emmons and her sister Kate Emmons are wonderful and I loved Abbie’s book 100 days of sunlight and her follow up The best Christmas Ever. I stopped following everyone else after I could not read what they produced.
I love Jenna Moreci and she gives really good advice. The one issue I have with her is that she tells you how to write the "right way". Writing is an art with no real right or wrong methods. She makes it seem as if not following tips she gives automatically makes your story trash. Her advice is great, but her approach needs to change. Instead of making her advice seem like rules to follow, it should be more like suggestions or tips. That way she is still providing useful information while not discouraging those with differing methods or styles
Really now? I've watched some of her vids and she usually mentions that there's no "right way" to write a story. She even puts a disclaimer sometimes before or after her vids that her advice doesn't always work, for some writers or for some stories.
The thing about writing, and I'm sure a lot knows this but often forget, is that you can bend and break rules. It's what rules you're going to break that matters though. Jenna is amazing at explaining to what is appealing while also giving a small description to how it "could " appear, based on her perspective. There's a reason she makes 6 digits, and although she may be off-putting, adding personality in videos is a key sign that she doesn't want to appear mundane. The only way it'll turn bad is by how the viewers perceive her attitude.
Jenna can be a fun RUclipsr to watch because of her sarcastic jokes, and her general funny side, but her writing advice should be taken with a grain of salt. She is great at marketing, and she was able to sell her books despite them not being very good, and that isn't easy to do. So, I respect what she was able to accomplish, but in my opinion she's a better marketer than she is a writer, and I would personally consider her marketing advice much more valuable than any of her writing advice.
Authortubers suck, but I will say that a lot of people teach things they can't do. It's when you claim to be able to do it, and you suck at it, that's when it becomes fraud.
They say “those who can’t so teach for a reason.” Though many of the English professors at my University are actually good writers. Plus Jenna doesn’t teach. Her advice is very generic and not truly helpful. Brandon Sanderson is the only truly talented and helpful author on RUclips.
I find that the authortubers who are most enjoyable to follow are the ones who talk about their own writing, their own projects, and their own failures openly. I don't need a bunch of people who have as many (or fewer) credentials than me to try to tell me how to write a sentence. I'd much rather hear about what they've learned by screwing up than what lessons they think they can give to me without any real experience or practice.
I wish I could like your video multiple times. Your smile after you stated if you don't practice what you preach, shut the f#@& up... I busted out laughing.
I'm currently editing my second draft of my debut novel and all I hear from authortubers (like jenna moreci) is to build your author platform with a youtube channel about writing...but I don't want to talk about writing on a channel. I'd rather talk about other interests of mine that dont involve writing. (like art, travel, or collecting) Like I just dont have desire to give writing advice and most importantly, I don't have the qualifications (yet hopefully) to be giving writing advice.
One thing that you can do is to have talk about your interests in your channel, and then either have videos in your channel dedicated to promoting your book or allot some time in your videos to promoting your book. That way, you have the best of both worlds, in my opinion. But then again, I don't have a RUclips channel yet, so take this with a grain of salt.
The VAST BULK of authors don’t have a RUclips channel. Honestly, the idea gives me hives. Yes, you need a platform. A mailing list works beautifully. If you don’t want your YT channel to be about writing, make it about something else entirely. Get yourself a mailing list, mention your books as needed in the YT channel you do create, and go with joy. Not EVERYTHING has to be in service of a job.
I took some of Meg's advice for an Author website. I am rebranding it as a full-on blog because, despite the fact that I am writing a book, I realized it made no sense to make it one. I'm removing and changing everything related to that so it's only just a review blog. I get that it was a rookie mistake, but the decisions I made are mind boggling.
She was making RUclips videos giving advice BEFORE she published her first book. I don’t like the idea of making videos like that as a precursor to writing a book …
As a non native English speaker, just getting into writing at 11/12, I took all the advice I could get. Now at nearly 20 I’ve outgrown so many AuthorTube channels because their advice is very surface level. Good Writing advice on YT from people who know their shit: Shealin Writes (also Shaelin with Reedsy) ALL ROUND AMAZING; Alexa Donne (although I don’t gravitate towards her novels, she’s a published author who gives great beginners advice); Brandon Sanderson’s lectures, enough said; Hannah Lee Kidder, great at short stories and line editing. DIANA CALLAHAN. And Hello Future Me, are gifts from above. These are p much the only Writing Advice channels I regularly watch and whose advice has helped me improve a ton. [edit: I personally don’t like Abbie Simmons (?) she has a very business like approach and it shows. Her advice also doesn’t resonate with me.]
Agree. I've been subscribed long for the writers you mention. But, Abbie Emmons?? For me, she resonates with me very much. I think it really does something with how difference writer has different process, way of thinking, and type. I think she is more into a plotter and doing her craft *methodically.*
Yess same!! I don't like Abbie Emmons' advice either, for the exact same reasons. She makes it too formulaic...turning writing into a science rather than the craft that it is.
The channel "terrible writing advice", even if the advice is surface level, it is a very entertaining channel to watch while writing, if you can't stand silence like me.
I found Abbie Emmons advice mostly helpful when I started needing to plot out the structure of my stories since I'm an amateur. But def yes especially for hello future me the rest are really great
I dont believe the best math teacher would need to be among the best mathematicians. He doesnt even have to be a good mathematician, honestly, his math skills dont even have to be higher than those of the people he teaches. Because what he needs to focus on is teaching. How to get the knowledge he has access to inside the head of his pupils. He doesnt need to prove anything. A football coach does not play football better than his players. Otherwise why wouldnt he play on the field? The flipside as well, a great writer does not make a great teacher about writing. Writing and teaching are two different skillsets, so I dont think you need to stop giving writing advice. Just mention from time to time that you struggle with it as well. You can even use this to your advantage by making you feel relatable to the students. "Hey guys, there is something Im currently trying to wrap my head around and its..." is an interesting start to learn from a viewers perspective. Like a learning group in university. "Practice what you preach" should be about philosophy and religion but NEVER make its way into craftmanship for these reasons. That being said, obviously its a bad thing if someone claims to be something that they're not, especially since this is about money. So I agree with most of the video, just not the conclusion.
I can definitely see that, especially this. "So I dont think you need to stop giving writing advice. Just mention from time to time that you struggle with it as well." I do concede that the conclusion is not for most people, but the way these authortubers work man, they always present themselves as gods on the topic. And that irks me seeing they're so bad hahahaha love your take though, the conclusion is not for everyone. Cheers
@@AGWrites Authortubers need to take something from art youtubers...and that's the fact they all say they aren't very good and always learning. The always learning part is the best. I think a better kind of authortuber would be the ones with writing vlogs channels, because they have this relatability like art youtubers in the always learning and working. Not to mention...it's fun to see when someone finally finds an answer to a solution. The joy in the vlog is so sweet, like child showing you a cool lizard they found
You comparison is actually pretty terrible. Because math teacher do need to know the level of math that they are teaching. So they don't need to be the best mathematicians if the math they are teaching is very low level. But if you are teaching high level math you need to be a good mathmatician or else even if you are a good teacher you are not going to teach well. So if we apply this example, this youtubers should stick to simpler advice on how to writting because they don't know more complex things about writting.
I agree, I could not finish the first page of The Cyborg Tinkerer. Honestly Brandon Sanderson is the only author who truly gives good writing advice on RUclips. And Julian Greystroke is a pretty good writer, she’s definitely more talented than Jenna and Meg. She actually knows how to develop characters and she doesn’t condescend to her audience like Jenna. I stopped watching Jenna because I realized (being a creative writing major in college with Professors who are published authors) most of her advice is shit. She doesn’t realize that there are different types of writers with different psychologies, processes, and ways of writing. She also can’t give good advice about execution. I stopped watching Jenna because of those things and how negative she was to other writers. I started watching Meg because I thought she had a better attitude and personality. The first reg flag with Meg was when she criticized George R.R. Martin for how he named settings in Game of Thrones with names she couldn’t pronounce. Martin is a fantastic world better and fantastic at names! I was excited for her book and had high expectations, but when I couldn’t get past the first page, I realized all her advice was as bogus as Jenna’s. For fellow a mature writers like me, if you want to watch a RUclips channel with good writing advice check out: Brandon Sanderson, Margaret Atwood (teaches a masterclass) watch videos of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, John Green (or whoever wrote The Fault in Our Stars), and the smaller channels of Quotidian Writer and Julia Greystoke. I also recommend reading On Writing by Stephen King. Also good writers to read if you want to improve your craft: (besides King, Gaiman, Atwood, and Sanderson) include Clive Cussler, Anthony Horitz, Ray Bradbury, Adrienne McKinty, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Julie Berry, Francine Rivers, Madeline Miller, Deborah Harkness, Alix E. Harrow, Kelly Armstrong, Maxine Hong Kingston, George R.R. Martin, Beth Hoffman, Toni Morrison, and Haruki Murakami. For good YA, I recommend Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Elizabeth Acevedo, Lev Grossman, Julie Berry, Holly Black, Sarah J. Maas, Ellie Marney, and Emily X.R. Pan. Also, James Brumaire, Daniel Crocker, and Bill Koningsberg. I think the problem with Meg book is that it was rushed. Her idea of a steampunk future in space was interesting in concept, but the world and characters were underdeveloped. I think she was so anxious to be a bestselling author that she rushed to publish her book without getting beta readers outside her circle of friends and without getting editors. The book needed to be heavily edited. Her idea and novel was not fleshed out enough, so she published it when it wasn’t ready. She needed to trim the plot, make the plot more solid and less convoluted, and actually took the time to develop her characters. This book was like a first draft that would have taken YEARS to rewrite, develop, and improve. It’s a caution tale to be open to criticism, honing your craft, and making sure your novel is good and ready before you publish it. Don’t rush it. Good books take time and are more rewarding in the end. If she actually practices writing and hones her craft, I might give her a second chance. Her prose was not good though, but I am hoping she learns from this experience. Practice makes perfect! If you want books with good characters read The Green Mile by Stephen King, The Lovely War by Julie Berry, The Game of Thrones series (full of character development), the Throne of Glass series (also full of character development), and honestly any book by Stephen King and Alice Walker. Thise authors are great at developing characters.
YES! Brandon Sanderson is SO helpful. I used to watch the "top ten tips" etc videos and was like... eh. Not very helpful. It only gave me a checklist of what to "do and not do". (Not that I followed it, since I figured nothing was a hard and fast rule.) But it never actually helped me WRITE. It was Brandon Sanderson that really started getting me thinking about writing. Rather than a checklist, he helped me start to comprehend how the pieces of a story work, what makes them add together, and what my story needs. Plus, all of it was so practical and down to earth, like beta readers, and drafts and working with an editor, or working with a publisher. And it's SO much more helpful- BECAUSE HE'S BEEN DOING IT FOR DECADES. (He also has a lot of experience teaching, he's a part time lecturer at BYU, so I think that helps a lot. He can teach, and write!) Honestly, i think that's the problem. Most of these Authortubers are at the beginnings of their career, and honestly don't quite have a handle on writing yet, ESPECIALLY the business side. Honestly, I prefer the approach of Kate Cavannaugh, she's an Authortuber I watch. She does vlogs, writing experiments, and a bit of booktube, and discusses her steps in getting her books published. It's more of a "follow me on my journey!" than "I, an unpublished author, shall now give you advice".
This is great. I recently started watching "author tube" and was curious about the books LaTorre and Morecci wrote, especially Morecci because she always pushes her books as "My #1 best selling books" but she must have been started to get called out because then she later changed her wording to include "My AMAZON #1 best selling book". It was like she was trying to look like a better author than she really was and it was off-putting when I realized the difference. And LaTorre pushed Morecci's book as "Her favorite book of all time". It was just weird to watch. So when I got curious about both their books I decided to read and watch reviews and look at ratings. Currently LaTorre's has a 3 * on Audible and Morecci's have 4 & 4.5 *'s. But watching reviews of any of the books on RUclips is just people tearing these authors apart for their one dimensional characters, flat world creation, awful character interaction and dialogue. Also the plotlines of their stories seem bare bone and linear. Both of them also have a bad habit of writing Mary Sue's. Which is something both of them strongly preach against! Overall very disappointed. Unfortunately I bought "The Savior's Sister" on audible. But thankfully I only used one of my monthly free credit's on it instead of wasting the $17.99 USD it's priced at. Overall great video! You are pretty funny, opinionated, and informative without really talking shit or taking low blows. I like it. Have you or are you writing/publishing anything? You said you were a writer?
iWriterly did't surprise me and I'm glad I didn't buy The Cyborg Tinkerer even more, I knew to not take her seriously after how she talked fantasy tropes editors are tired of seeing which she than basically listed every part of the heroes journey as something editors don't want to see in fantasy. My head imploded from that video she posted. She didnt even have a full grasp of tropes to where she misunderstands the chosen one character versus the reluctant hero to where she interchanges them. Chosen one is a person that is destinted to save the world. They can be born with a special marking, ability, or just a something that indicates they are fulfilling a destiny and or a propechy that usually invoves them saving society in some manner. Vs a reluctant hero who is the everyday person that becomes a hero and often doesn't want to be a hero and it doesn't me they alone can save the world. Think Harry Potter vs Han Solo. Although Harry potter could be considered both for he had no choice but to fight to live and manuvered to fight by other characters in his life, and it is not uncommon for chosen ones to be reluctant heroes due to pressure. He would still be more likely lumped into CHosen One category first and foremost because prophecy. But Han Solo wouldn't be considered a Chosen One, just reluctant for originally he didn't want to fight in the rebellion, just live his life. But she mixed this simple concept up. Thank you for reading.
I will add one thing to this and it's that the chosen one, which is the test-arc, is the most underrated storytelling device in the world. This trend is especially in modern fantasy where people think it's the source of the problem and in no way their repetitive ways of using it. Anyhow, beautiful stuff. I couldn't agree more ^^
@@AGWrites Agree, and I am surprised by the reply, but glad you did. I too agree about it being underrated and how it's done whether bad or repetitive that can be a problem. I won't lie I was very excited at your response not expecting to hear that, but i'm glad. Thanks for the video. Loved it.
Love this! I consider myself an “AuthorTuber”, and recently made a video about how I’m changing up my channel drastically to avoid falling in the trap of regurgitating the same “advice” over and over again. I’m going to start making more videos contradicting a lot of the advice out there and really get more open about my own writing journey. My next video is actually going to be something along the lines of “why you shouldn’t take authortuber advice”. Thanks for sharing! Excited to check out your other videos.
This is the first Author Tube video I've seen. Very interesting. I watched a few of Meg's videos, and all of Moreci's. I've not read their fiction. Their advice always seemed to be the same stuff I've heard or read a hundred times already.
[DISCLAIMER: This ended up being really long. I'm breaking it into three comments to sort of remedy it.] Know-how does not equal proper application. You can know information without knowing how to apply it in literally every field, and not having the ability to apply it doesn't inherently take away your credibility in the same way that being able to apply it doesn't mean you can teach it efficiently or without leaving out crucial information. You can have all the technical cooking knowledge in the world but if you don't have the experience to execute those complicated dishes, you may create a monstrosity long before you create a gourmet meal. You can know exactly what steps it takes to construct a wooden flute, but if you have little experience using the tools to make one, your flute will probably be crude at best. You can understand and beautifully analyze the parts that make up a gorgeous symphony and not be able to write one yourself. And you can know what makes up a good book, what makes a good character, and why different techniques are used in writing without knowing how to execute it. Likewise, someone who has the skill to make all these things might be the crappiest teacher in spite of - or sometimes because of - their ability to do it so well. Really, if the writing advice that is given can be seen in action in great books, and it's clear they work hard to analyze and break down what works in these books and what doesn't, then this is a matter of good advice and bad execution. I honestly just feel like this comes down to people needing to keep those giving advice off of a pedestal and people giving advice needing to be clear and honest about what they are and aren't. If you give writing advice, be genuine about what you say and if you can't show it in action in your own works, fine, but be able to show good examples in other peoples' works by putting in the time and effort to really analyze and break down what you and your audience have read. As you improve in your ability to pick these things out, revisit old topics to add nuance or just explain where you completely missed the mark. Shadiversity, for example, is a RUclipsr who isn't infallible, but I still take all of his work very seriously, and that's less because I expect him to always be 100% right or able to demonstrate everything he's talking about himself, but because he'll put in the effort to either try, to analyze something else that effectively puts it into practice, or when he does notice a mistake or gap in something, he's open about it and corrects it. His credibility is awesome, but the thing that makes *him* credible to me, as opposed to just his knowledge, is that I trust him to be truthful if he doesn't know something as well as if he finds out he didn't know something as well as he thought he did.
Can you see what these RUclipsr's are giving advice on in action when you look at and analyze good writing? Do they take the time to demonstrate what they speak on and why, whether it be through analyzing the works of others or showing you their own works? Do they acknowledge themselves as fallible? Are they transparent about where they are at and do they try to keep open dialogue with others concerning where they feel their writing requires work? Anyone can be a crappy teacher with great experience and capability, and I've seen that in effect in real life. So many people I've met with amazing skill in their field that were the most horrendous teachers ever (not meant offensively). Likewise, I've met some people who were amazing teachers because they knew the ins and outs of what they spoke on, so they couldn't necessarily do it themselves but their advice was helpful enough that I/others could. I think it's important to acknowledge there's a difference between being a good teacher and being good at applying your knowledge efficiently, just like there's a difference between giving unbacked advice you can't follow and giving advice that can be seen in action even if you can't necessarily replicate it yourself. The problem, to me, isn't really giving advice but not being able to make stellar works. The problem is a combination of followers of these RUclipsrs putting them on a pedestal, everyone mixing up know-how, ability to apply, and ability to teach as something that always exists in one package (when you could lack/have any of those in any combination), some RUclipsrs trying to erase the part of them that proves amateurish and present themselves like they know what to do and how to do it without fail, and - lots of times the first - failed book getting blown out of proportion.
Keep people giving advice in perspective, whether they can apply it or not. If you can see it applied elsewhere, don't look to them to show it or forsake their advice if they can't, look to works that show you how to apply it and take the info they gave you to better analyze that piece. If you realize their advice doesn't ever seem to have practical application in good books, that's when you forsake the advice. Seriously, if I always spent my time worrying if everyone that taught me anything could always professionally apply the work, rather than putting in the effort to see how well what they taught me could be professionally applied in the world, I would've missed out on a lot of good information and experiences. If you're still reading (I know this is long), I just feel there's a weird tendency in the Booktube and Authortube community, whether it's in book reviews, channel critique, or pretty much everything, to make really big claims that tip over problems to one side predominantly, but the problem is usually a greater combination of things on all accounts. This seems less like an inherent problem of not being able to apply your advice and more a matter of whether your advice can be and is applied in great books, and if you take out the time to study the craft and be willing to prove where it holds up versus where it doesn't. And then the great backlash on the end of followers is usually so black and white it ignores the whole part where any advice can be bad, and whether or not someone can do something well doesn't dictate whether they're a good teacher who give solid advice, it just makes it easier for people to not question enough to find out the truth when they aren't. Something one of my teachers always said was that he could definitely teach me everything I needed to know to do what he did just as swiftly, but it didn't mean that someone who'd been doing his work for decades wouldn't teach me a way that cut out all the steps that I wouldn't need to replicate him, but would need to make my own path. He advocated finding people from all walks with varying degrees of experience, because when you don't have as much experience, you're probably going to cover all bases without knowing how to tie them together as one big picture, but when you do have experience, it's easy for you to stray too big or too small in your teachings, because it doesn't cross your mind to think how someone without your knowledge would. Teachers are going to try to teach you everything they can, but you *have* to put in the effort to see where it applies and fill in the gaps, and they have to put in the effort to acknowledge that gaps will probably exist and figure out where those gaps are. Then you go on to find different teachers that meet you at your level, when you're ready to explore greater detail or tie things into one complete picture. Put in your work. Don't soak in advice from anyone if you can't be bothered to check how far it applies on your own time, but you see they don't take the time to thoroughly show you otherwise. And for RUclipsrs who try to paint a picture of perfection instead of being honest about your writing capability versus your analytical ability and understanding of the elements of good writing, just be more honest and work hard. Practice what you preach, here, should be more about practicing research, analyzing good writing, honesty and improvement of your craft, not practicing perfect writing. If I see someone's first book is trash, well... m'kay. If their second book is significantly better, even if still bad, I'm glad. Now that they've gotten real world experience, they know *how and where* to apply their advice, which is just as important as knowing what to apply. Knowledge is usually the what and why, experience is the how and where. I can't expect every teacher to have a full grasp of both. [Edit: Really odd gap in writing, lol]
I do agree with everything you said, and I think this statement from you is a marker where we both differ, " I honestly just feel like this comes down to people needing to keep those giving advice off of a pedestal and people giving advice needing to be clear and honest about what they are and aren't." With this statement, I essentially go one way, which is that: fine, give advice and be bad at executing, but bad execution means you're not well practiced and that means you're not an expert; and therefore, don't sell your self as an expert and take people's money. So with me, if you can't show it in your works, it's not fine to take people's money. It is 100% fine to give the advice, thus why I have only used these two as examples and not a hundred others. But to take money, now that's shady as heck. And this statement is another that I really love. "As you improve in your ability to pick these things out, revisit old topics to add nuance or just explain where you completely missed the mark." Essentially, think of sport analysists. They definitely won't be able to participate in the game physically, but they can analyze and that skill can grow. So when it comes to reading books, one's skill to analyze can grow without their ability to execute it in action. However, there is a problem with most Authortubers and even the two I have mentioned here: they regurgitate easy stuff, as I said, baby advice that is found at the top of google. It is rare that I have ever learned anything from an authortuber. What they say is what's out there, without any personal touch or added nuance. And that creates a sickening problem for me when I see them flaunt around, pretending to be experts like actual writers or, as you put it, analysists who learned over the years to add nuance. Though I haven't seen every authortuber and that means I can't speak for all. I really love your reply and I actually agree with all of it. It's just that, I feel we both take the same statements in a slightly different direction, where one of us is fine with it while the other, me, is drawing lines at taking other's money and not admitting lack of execution ability if it's lacking. Thanks for sharing Marie, you're a legend
@@AGWrites - [Oops: Four more landslides of text. Sorry.] I totally get your point. I honestly don't disagree with the part about taking money from others. If you have a book coming out though, and you have a huge following that buys it but doesn't like it, I do feel that's different from taking money from people unfairly, so I think that should be clarified too. Hopefully, anyone deciding to be an author will try their hardest to create something worth spending money on and price their book within a reasonable range for what they've produced. It's pretty foul to do otherwise. And if you have a huge following, you should be open about where your writing is at the point that you're writing a book, so they know what to expect. But it is important to make sure we don't fill in blanks when we don't have full pictures, so it should be acknowledged that plenty of good and bad authors have naively published early books for money that sucked, and they had no intention of ripping people off. Exercise your power as a consumer. If you've never seen their writing in application, treat their book like you would any random author's first book. If you still want to support them but aren't sure the book is worth it, wait a while and find other ways to uplift them.
But for the love of all things holy, I just wish people wouldn't flame Booktubers so hard without addressing the other side. The way a bad book often is used to discredit years of advice that somehow none of these same people could recognize was faulty (did no one ever take the time to see whether their advice was applied anywhere?) is wild. And even when the advice is sound, so many RUclipsrs are treated like all their advice is somehow less useful. Not every authortuber that is confident in their craft knows they can't execute it well, and not all of them mean to rip others off, and I think the focus people usually take kind of attacks the symptoms and not the cause. Helping others gain the perspective they lack is better, to me, than flaming them for pushing an untrue perspective onto others. Since most of my info will always be incomplete, I can't assume ill intent. But there's little harm in tackling things from the basis of adding perspective and information others might lack. Anyone who already knows it and didn't work to improve probably wouldn't have cared much if I addressed them assuming a lack of care anyway. Those who don't might get something out of it that saves everyone from this situation. Focusing on shedding light on perspectives others might be lacking is a constructive way to combat issues like this. Again, lots of well known authors have sold bad books, both traditionally and self published, with good intent and naivety. So I truly don't condone ripping people off, I just feel discussions here need to keep everything in perspective, and talking about heated topics deserves a strong stance but a light step. It should be noted that the weight of your words can ring deeper and reach further and stay longer than you mean, so speaking so strongly without adequately addressing just how nuanced the subject is can lead to damaging outcomes that stretch for a long time.
Too funny, the computer on the milk crate, the secret door to your grandmother's basement where you are filming, the 50 thread count green burlap sheet, twirling your nunchucks around, and of course, the all too important Joke-Trope, the sprawling greenscreen bookself
great discussion! honestly as a (small) authortuber, I do think writers open themselves up to more scrutiny when they make advice-type content and THEN publish their work. and I also believe that you can have a good grasp for “writing fundamentals” (and even give good advice), without necessarily being able to do it yourself. writing a book, even a bad one (lol), is still hard! I respect these writers, but I think this video is such an important cautionary tale for anyone who wants to start an authortube channel. like, the best way to become a better writer is just… to write a lot!
I think so much of this problem stems from the fact that when many people give advice, instead of saying, “this is what has worked for me,” they say, “this is how it absolutely has to be done.” In writing, almost no advice is universal and works for everyone. But people feel the need to set themselves up as some sort of authority, so they will give advice as if it is the gospel truth, not just something that they find helpful. Now, of course, there are exceptions to every rule, so there are some bits of writing advice that are more universally applicable. I’m not talking about that. I’m just talking about the fact that so many people feel like if it works for them it’s how it absolutely has to be done, and that’s not helpful. Many big Authortubers have set themselves up as a person of authority, and by doing that seem to be unable to say “this personally works for me.” And that’s where you get into the trap of them giving advice they are not taking in their own writing, because instead of sharing what is helpful for them, they are sharing the “rules” that they have heard, or figured out by reading, but not necessarily have mastered themselves. I’ve worked quite hard in my own videos to pass on bits of advice and info that have personally helped me, without portraying them as the absolute way to do it. But I have noticed that viewers respond and resonate more when you present something as THE WAY TO WRITE, not one of many possibilities. So in order to grow their channels many of these authors are presenting absolutes in their advice, because that’s what people respond to.
That's pretty interesting. People can definitely be biased in favor of what they perceive as absolute truths, that give you clear rules to follow instead of letting you experiment and see if something works for you. Just herd mentality doing its thing. We should all be mindful about this in order to avoid falling in these kinds of traps
I don't know about Eve, I only landed on Authortube a couple years ago, and I bought both Savior books on 99 cent sale. Good call. I was shocked by the RUclips author completely missing from the content. I skimmed TSS, it was a hollow duplicate, even the violence didn't stir me. TSC did have action scenes that gripped me, and it was easier to read once I accepted that Jenna Moreci writes for the lowest market denominator but with a little sophistication. I don't blame her. I don't know jack about the Meg LaTorre scenario, her delivery always turned me away. But Jenna Moreci I feel applied sincere intelligence, wit, business acumen and marketing skill, in a terrible crucible of life circumstances and tapped a vein to make an income. Twilight proved to our generation you don't have to write a good story to sell a popular book.
hell dude i still liked twilight, it was interesting, it isnt the Best, but its interesting, fun, and sometimes a little bit emotionally gripping, thats what most of these books lack
We have a lot in common, you and I. I also have problems with non-experts giving writing advice. Which is why I run an AuthorTube channel where I do not give advice. I document my WIP and I interview other writers. HOWEVER, I’m having trouble with your thumbnail saying “authortube sucks” but your video focuses on Moreci and Latorre. These are two of the biggest authortubers, yes, but they don’t represent the entire platform nor do they speak for the rest of us. In fact, the sizes of their INDIVIDUAL audiences basically cause them to stand apart from authortube. There are so many colors and flavors to authortube that a video like this doesn’t even touch upon. My own show, Livestream Sunday, plays like a late nite tv talk show. I’d probably gain more views if I started talking dirt about the biggest booktubers but that’s no more ethical than giving half-assed advice. That said, I’m trying as an authortube to reach across the aisle to booktubers in an effort to bring our two communities closer together. Authortube is authors talking to other authors wishing they were readers. Booktube is readers reviewing the same books to each other wishing they had better books to read. We should be coming together. Not tearing each other down. But that’s just MY opinion. Holla at me if you want to come on my channel and we can deep dive this discussion.
Abbie Emmons’s “100 Days of Sunlight” was neat little story, nothing too daring or original, but it worked. Better do simple things well than doing hard things badly. Jenna Moreci’s “The Savior’s Champion” was okay, but ultimately just a video game in book form: It was pretty much all plot, no theme, with one “level” of the challenge (the maze) chasing the next one (and the lack of worldbuilding or characterisation beyond the main couple has already been brought up by others).
It's pretty easy to preach advice, it's a lot harder to execute that advice. A good reader will know what they want in a book, but reading a book and writing a book are two very different things. Hell, sometimes well established authors give bad advice. Example, Stephen King hates adverbs. So what? Adverbs have a place, it's a tool. You don't learn how to be a good writer by watching authortube, you learn by actually writing and editting your work. You learn by joining peer editing groups and accepting feedback. It's hard, the criticism will make you hate your life, but that's what it takes. I'm saying this as somebody who's writing a book and doing all of this. I'm not an expert, but I'm trying my best. That's all anybody has to do.
I teach art online, and one of the things I always have in the back of my mind is to ensure that I can do the same exercises that I ask the student to do before I upload a class. In some cases I've discovered my own shortcomings for a particular topic and so I don't upload a class on that topic until I'm confident enough that I can both repeat the exercises as well as give advice on the exercises.
honestly I really loved Jenna moreci's advice, it's helped me a lot while writing but man her books disappoint me. I couldn't even get through the first book of the savior series.
From what I've heard, Jenna Moreci does 'practice what she preaches' though, it's just that her advice isn't very good either...? I haven't watched a whole lot of her videos nor have I read her books, but I've heard other people point out stuff like Jenna has said that she doesn't care for in depth world building in books, and her books have shit world building, and that she says to treat your characters as tools not as real people, which makes her characters feel like bland cardboard cutouts made just to move the plot along. Scary to think someone who seems so credible on the surface doesn't actually know what she's talking about...
I think the whole "don't treat characters as real people" is a misconception people have? She does preach that characters must have depth and not be one dimensional (I've watched a few of her videos and heard her say it). What she said once (at least that I remember) was that she can't stand / finds ridiculous when authors treat (talk about) their characters as real people, and not inside the book (where it makes sense for the characters to be treated as real), but in the real world. She also said she finds ridiculous when authors say "my character came alive" or "my character won't do what I want them to do", as if they really were sentient beings. She explained that her reasoning behind disliking these expressions is that most of the time are used as excuses, because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how multi dimensional your characters are, they're still your creation and what they do and say it's totally up to you (I mean, yeah, you have to respect the characterization and make the characters do things that make sense for them, but you, as the author, are still the one calling the shots in the story), so when the author messes up the story by writing things that don't make sense instead of accepting it as bad writing, they'd rather blame it on the character "coming alive and doing whatever they wanted to do". So yeah, she did say that characters are not real, but she said it in the context of writers using it as an excuse (or just as writers being annoying). Whether we like it or not, characters *are* tools to tell a story / share a message, although that doesn't mean they shouldn't have depth or that they shouldn't feel real. They should feel real for the story/message to resonate with people (this is not something she said to, this it's just my opinion). And I hope this doesn't come off as if I'm defending her. Maybe she did say that characters should be one dimensional, I don't a have a way to know since I haven't watched all of her videos. But for what I remember her saying about characters not being real, people are kind of misconstruing her words. Although she does have said that she doesn't think world building is all that important. Either way I don't think she's a good writer (sometimes she gives good advice, the problem with her is that she tries to be an authority and teach the right way to write instead of just saying "hey, this is what works for some people, but it doesn't mean it's the only valid way to construct a story"). I just thought it isn't fair to put words on her mouth.
I love parts of authortube. Some authors know what they're doing and give amazing advice/share experiences in a helpful way and manage to always motivate me. On of the biggest issues I had was authors starting their advice videos with a "The right way to..."/"How you should NEVER..." or mentioning something similar because that's just terrible. There's no wrong way of writing, no matter what, and a really, really good writer can make almost everything work (if it's not extremely absurd). I started writing my first novel at 12, and it was always demotivating (rare, but REALLY, REALLY DEMOTIVATING) to see a video in which a person that I perceived as an experienced author told me I shouldn't do a certain thing I did or wrote something in the wrong way. Conclusion: Just try and be positive. Inestad of telling others how they should never do a certain thing, give them ideas and alternatives that are often perceived as nice by others, without 'forcing' them to do them because 'they won't be good if they don't do this and that'.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the author podcasters like Sacha Black, Dan Willcocks, Kate and Abbie Emmons, etc and whether their advice matches what they’re writing
@@AGWrites totally fair! My only thinking was the comparison between the two mediums and the authors using them. I believe the Kate and Abbie show can be watched on RUclips also if you are ever interested
I've watched several of Abbie Emmons's RUclips videos and while I will say she gives solid advice, this video covers exactly what she does. Generic, simple advice you can probably easily Google. Only one video of hers did I see any kind of example, and it was with her own writing. I did read her first book, and while it certainly wasn't groundbreaking and it's not a favorite of mine, I didn't hate it. I thought it was good, and thought it got better the further I got into it. The beginning was the weirdest part, because it felt so very . . . constructed. Like she was just writing it as "Here's how I'm going to set up things for what I really want to write." Once it got to what it felt like she wanted to write, it did improve, and like I said, I did like it. I do want to read her second book, but the premise makes me vary wary, excuse the rhyme. It feels very much like the kind of thing that could be easily solved if the characters sit down and have an honest conversation with one another. And if that turns out to be the case, I'm gonna be disappointed at the end, and angry while I read it.
Not sure what videos you have watched of hers, but I've probably watched 90% of Abbie Emmon’s videos. She brings down countless story and film examples and breaks things down into really clear slides and summaries. She also doesn’t give the basic advice (though she has a few videos on the classics - dialogue, filter words, etc. Maybe those are the ones you’ve seen?). Her advice is sourced from books on writing (liked Wired for Story and Story Genius by Lisa Cron), as well as human psychology - which is something Abbie is really interested in. All of her advice is inspired by her philosophy that story comes from characters - why things matter to the character, why do we care, etc. That philosophy in itself is a unique take (in my opinion - judging from countless books, blogs, and videos I’ve seen on writing). I find her to be a very clear and effective teacher. And I’ve never seen her use any of her own story examples. She usually draws from classics such as Jane Austen novels, and British television. As for her writing: So far, I’ve only read her first book. I think I’ve read it three times now - and my honest review? It’s multiple POV, told from Tessa and Weston’s perspectives. I think Weston’s chapters are five stars. They’re incredible! His voice is so real and unique to him. I see him and hear him and feel him. His story and arc are so emotional and I could really get in his head and understand him. He’s probably my favorite POV character of all time (and I’m suuupppeeerrr picky). All that being said - Tessa? Her chapters are maybe one star. She’s super bland and could never get a sense of her. And… that’s about it. My conclusion is that Abbie is a phenomenal writer who probably lacked enough objective beta readers. Because a good writer can have some off days/make mistakes, but a bad writer could never come close to the masterpiece that is Weston. As far as the podcast: Kate and Abbie are super positive, and I guess that’s… nice. But I find them spouting unrealistic dreamy words of advice and encouragement that might set some people up for failure. Especially if you are deciding whether to self-pub or trad-pub. Don’t listen to them about publishing, they only know their own path. And self-pub is not this easy walk through a meadow of roses that they make it seem. It’s expensive and time consuming and only leads to success if done carefully and well. Not everyone is cut-out, or have the money, for what is involved. For trad pub advice, go to Alexa Donne (her writing advice is more entertaining than helpful - because of her candid, conversational style) she’s a font of information when is comes to querying and looking for agents correctly. And her advice is very grounded in reality. For writing advice, watch Abbie’s videos on the three-act structure and all her character videos. And read Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. If you’re a pantser then just remember to give your MC a goal and go write (advice from a former pantser. No goal equals many months of meandering words and sadness).
Thanks for clip. As a writer I find it difficult to determine how to increase my online presence. Do I start a writing channel? After seeing some controversies such as this out there, I would be reluctant. Also, I have also feared the amount of time and effort placed into creating a writing channel will force your powers to be divided between video editing, marketing, promoting, thumbnail design, etc, then editing, writing etc your book. Youtubing and Fiction writing are two completely difference careers and industries. If you want to get awesome at fiction writing, read, write, and live, and nothing more. If however, you want to get good at RUclips, watch RUclipsrs, (read), and then edit videos. These two industries do not live in harmony with each other, on one level. For as a writer there are far more vital things to be doing than staring at a thumbnail of yourself and wondering if it will gain clips (unless you want to write a book about internet marketing, which might work once or twice). We need to be outside, learning, reading and experiencing. So, how do we build an internet presence? I don't know, but I'm going to make a RUclips channel anyway, even if it makes my books more crap. Because I like staring at myself in thumbnails when I should be reading Shakespeare ;)
I find it interesting that after the controversy over her book and the reviews Meg essentially ended her YT career because of “family reasons.” Sure Jan…
To me, I feel like this phenomenon of "author gives writing advice as their job, but then write shitty books" is related to the "writers who don't actually write" thing. Like, if you look at writing groups, forums, writing-related tags on social media, it feels like 90% of the posts are memes about writers who want to write but don't. Youd see the drake meme, a car swerving off the road meme, etc, where the negative side of the meme is always "actually writing your novel" and the positive side of the memes would always be "daydreaming about your novel/procrastinating/doing tons of worldbuilding that will never make it into the book/etc." It's irritating because it feels like some "writers" are more invested in the IDEA of writing instead of in the story they actually allegedly want to write. I get that writing is hard. It's actually pretty intense work. It's valid to be tired or to take a LONG time to write a seemingly short or shallow book. But the "publishing basic writing advice" crowd sure feels... adjacent to the "not actually writing" community, yknow?
I feel like Jenna does give actual good advice most of the time, and I did enjoy her book... After taking a break 20 pages in, and spending a week erasing my expectations. It was a nice book. Really. Just... Nowhere near to what I thought it would be based on her tips. But my irl literature teacher didn't ever write a book, and I still value her opinion, so I think we should kinda apply it to authortubers as well.
Personally I like Jenna's videos because they make me laugh and are entertaining. I take her advice as reminders of things to keep an eye out for when I write since most of her advice is about tropes. Her advice doesn't go that deep tbh and that's why I rely on other youtubers like Hellofutureme, Savage Books, Diane Callahan and Brandon Sanderson's classes for more in depth writing advice. It's a shame that Jenna's writing isn't on par to what she preaches. I think it is somewhat important that if someone who is giving advice has a sound understanding of their craft. It's hard to say where the threshold lies how good a author needs to be at writing to be qualified to give advice. I think perhaps why Jenna makes the same kinds of videos (besides them being popular) is that the level she is giving advice for is pretty low like mostly beginners. That's why I think she emphasizes rewriting because many beginning writers especially young kids are going to be very resistant about rewriting to better their work. Which if her books show a lack of doing this herself it's very disappointing but well if I were solely watching her videos for the writing advice I would've stopped a while ago since by this point I get most of it. But I still find her funny as hell so I'll keep going back to them.
Awww, i love your cat! Also your video is amazing, really engaging and fun to watch! I've never thought of authortube like this before, cheers for the enlightenment!!
Meg Latorre used to work at Corvisiero (CLA) as an intern, which sank after some SHADY activity. I have friends who interned there (and knew people who worked there as agents in the past). And word on the pub street is CLA was blacklisted from publishing houses. That means editors wouldn't even work with them. I don't know the specifics, but you've gotta do something BAD to get to that point. So, that might explain why she didn't have any sales. And given that CLA was also known to poorly train their agents, it's worrisome that she sets herself up as this "authority" when her experience comes from such a dodgy place.
Being really good at something doesn’t mean you would also be any good at teaching it. At the same time, you can be a good teacher but not be extremely good at practice. This applies too many skills, I’m not sure if it also perfectly applies to writing, but at least a bit I think so. There are many amazing book critics and literary agents that are extremely good at analyzing books and telling you what should be improved, but they aren’t necessary able to write good books themselves. This said, while I don’t agree that to give advice you need to be a bestselling author, I think the two author-tubers in question should be much more transparent and not present themselves like absolute authorities.
One thing I would like to know is why so many Booktoobers have an obsession using the word Fuck? Like, I get it, you don't need to excise swearwords from your book, but why aren't try to be a bit more like Deadwood, instead of tarantino?
okay you've got me in the first 90 seconds because I RELATE TO YOUR CAT STRUGGLES SO HARD!!! I tutor ESL online and the amount of times my cats have just jumped onto my laptop or onto me or wrecked havoc when I'm teaching! Okay, I'll watch the rest of the video now! 😹
This was a good video. I just randomly saw your video . I didn't know this was a thing going on that was actually happening. As someone trying to publish my own book I stopped watching authorchannels long ago. They weren't really helping and I also don't really give out advice either on my own channel . I do like you said you do, talk about what I know about.
I think that's why I see more and more in the Authortubers I follow, more of a documentation of their journey. Holding productivity sprints and the occasional vlog about how their WIP is progressing. Any advice is usually from the business aspect coming from personal experience.
According to Jenna... on her RUclips channel, her dark fantasy series is #1 on Amazon, and yet it ranks 2,795th place on Amazon. I just looked this up...and I wonder about this sometimes.
Okay so once something's "been a best seller" as in reached the top ranking, it's still considered a #1 best seller when other books surpass it, because it has made it to the top, but ofc the literal #1 can't always stay the same book
Maybe is because I dont consider myself a good writer (prose wise), but usually my advice is mostly regarding plotting and structure, because thats the thing I believe I can do well.
Don't know about any sketchy stuff but maybe some folks should just stick to teaching. It's perfectly alright to be great at teaching basic information in an entertaining way without necessarily being great at actually implementing that information. For example, many fantastic directors aren't great at acting themselves and many fantastic actors aren't great directors. Anyway, great video and thanks so much!!🥰
There are TONS of books on writing, which go into a lot more depth than RUclips videos, provide examples, and are written by people with real credentials for publishing houses that have reputations to maintain. Writer's Digest has a bunch of them. That said, there are also a lot of published works that ignore good writing advice and yet somehow become popular anyways.
17:00 "I'm a shit writer" This is a very brutal and courageous appraise of one's own aptitudes. This deserves respect. As for authortube, yeah. I listened to Jenna Moreci's video. It was entertaining, in the beginning. Just going over what should be obvious to not do, but that we know teenagers who want to write would do. All in all, very basic advises. But her more "serious" videos in which she "teaches" how to plot a novel seemed to me to be very formulaic and predictable. So I started finding her videos quite stupid. I went on a little tour of other authortube. Found iWriterly and immediatly saw in her what I didn't like in Moreci so I skipped. And another channel... and another channel. The only one I liked is Jericho Writing because he said: "There's not just ONE way of plotting a novel". I respected that. But well, I might not be the target demographic of authortube (i.e. teenagers who want to write), as I had classes in narratology in my University quite a few years ago.
Thanks for the recommendations, appreciated. I am keeping my eyes open for author tubers who are more mature and aren't writing fantasy. Just for the sake of variety.
Love this video! I recently just made a video about how I don’t even read these types of Authortube books anymore. I’m so much happier now with my channel haha
I started to watch authortube because I was taking a college online wring course and a big chunk of that course was links to videos of authors giving advice. That course was a waste of money, but I kept watching other videos that would pop up in my suggested videos and I did learn more from them than I learned from that course. Many of authors in these videos are basing their advice off of writing advice books they have read, and they do freely admit to it. Although if you ask for them to elaborate more on what they are saying they do not really answer and they would just link to another one of their videos on the topic. I think my favorite author videos are the ones that actually give real examples that you see in writing, movies, or TV shows to back up what they are trying to say. Or they would make up an example right on the spot. I have bought a highly suggested writing advice book; Save the Cat! Write a Novel, which talks about most of what the authors on RUclips are advising, and the book is very interesting. The author, Jessica Brody has advice videos on here too.
I have never understood why anyone would seek writing advice from anyone other than a professional writer with a proven track record. A few years back, I watched a handful of these videos hoping I might pick up a new trick or two. Frustratingly, I found nothing that didn't fall into the Creative Writing 101 category. Which is fine for a beginner. But for someone looking to improve their skills so they can reach a professional level, it's a waste of time. I've made a few videos myself. But only one or two having to do with the craft. I simply don't have the teaching ability to pass on what I know in a way that can be easily understood and applied. In my opinion, these AuthorTubers began to believe their own hype. They had been giving advice for years and been praised repeatedly. Surely they had the chops. Unfortunately for them, very few people do. That is not to say someone can't enjoy writing even if they don't possess the talent to become a professional novelist. I enjoy playing basketball and singing. But I don't think I'll be drafted into the NBA or performing at Carnegie Hall...ever. So what? I have fun.
Yeah I've found most of the advice is very surface level and not actionable at all. Like, you can say "write rounded characters" all day, but it's not actually helpful without being able to explain HOW. What makes a character more rounded, where are the examples of characters we can learn from, etc.
The best author RUclipsrs worth your time and who can give you good and practical advice are 1) Kieran Westwood 2) Shirley Jump 3) Abbie Emmons 4) Diana Callahan I have a feeling I got the spelling of some of their names wrong but it shouldn’t be hard to find them. They are absolutely the best.
To be honest, some people can give advice and know the theoretical side, but that doesn't mean they have the skill to put it into action. (Applied to Art: Helping someone with spotting mistakes in the anatomy of an artwork without being able to draw themselves) BUT claiming to be an expert in theory as well as in practise and being above all is not okay
This is a very good point. The reason I want to make a channel where a writer shows the journey of them being a writer. I haven't found a single authortube channel who says that they are beginners and show their ups ans down with writing, what they learnt while writing, they just spew advice. I am a complete newbie so I can't give advice on my channel. I want to show the journey of my writing and dream of being a published author one day.
10000% agree. I cannot tell you how many writing classes I’ve been in where the person with the least amount of experience gives the loudest notes. Here’s the thing, too. Your first book IS going to suck. I’m 5 titles in and my first book isn’t even available anymore cause it was that bad. You can still be proud of that first book (I was!) but don’t act like that makes you an expert. You need the man hours if you’re going to tell other people how to do it. I feel like those with less experience are going to present themselves as smarter while the opposite is true for those with more. Because the more you work, the more you realize that you should never stop learning (or at least that’s how it’s supposed to go) Also I love your energy and tell the Mad Queen I bow to her
I used to watch Jenna Moreci all the time and in the beginning I really loved her, but then I moved on to other authors like Kate Cavanaugh and others like her when she was doing the ‘Write like So and So’ series and just found I preferred that style of video. Then I returned to Jenna Moreci several years later and was like ‘I don’t like this anymore.’
Wrote this as a response to someone but reiterating here. You mention that you can't say for sure that iwriterly was a known writer but this was actually being openly discussed even before her book came out. There was some scattered criticism that was growing about Meg LaTorre well before her book released and the latter review scandal. It was pretty obvious to everyone who had done more than read a handful of YA lit and had an unresearched pipdrream of being an author that the advice she was giving was the same basic crap going around blogs and intro books for ages. People had been looking into her so called 'publishing' history credentials and found out she only worked as an intern to an agent for a few months at a scammy agency. She never was an agent herself like she pretended to be. Essentially she was lying about her credentials to sell her platform and name and then couldn't even write better than most teenage fanfic writers. She literally sold people (and still does) a course and other services for query letters... from herself, an experienced agent, which was a blatant lie. Her book coming out pretty much sealed it that she was a scammer. She should've shelved it when her own query advice didn't work and she couldn't land an agent and moved on to the next project. Instead she put out a poorly edited, juvenile, unfinished project knowing it would sell to her loyal followers.
Thoughts on Alexa Dunn’s pieces? I personally couldn’t stand her channel because it always has an emphasis on the negative aspects of writing. Does said negativity translate to better books?
The thing that I cannot agree with is that Meg could have publish traditionally because she said that she used to work in the publishing industry. Well, maybe she didn't want to??? At the very least, that's a legit reason. Also, her book may be out of ganre, out of publising course of the publishing house she knows. She may just want to have all creative control. Also, she might have gone traditional publishing with all the supposed links and acquaintances she might have. They wouldn't care if the 1st chapter was shitty, she's popular thus profitable.
I’ve followed Jenna & Meg for years. I still follow Jenna’s videos tho I’ve grown a little jaded to her advice and format. I agree that neither author has writing that matches what they portray it to be. I’ve seen a few reviews for their works pop up on my feed (like this one did), and I’d love for one of these videos really show the evidences for their points (even tho their points are imo true). Just seems like this is becoming a bandwagon topic.
Coming from a theater and film background, this is a common phenomenon. Folks that work within the their perspective industry will often learn lots of great advice and be able to tell you things that worked for them and others. Many times they'll have the golden nuggets of advice and believe they are following it themselves when they aren't following it as well as they could be... completely natural. Regardless, the advice can still be very good... any of these channels will be the first to tell you it's just "their own opinion," so I wouldn't go as far as saying they're toxic or terrible. School/university teachers get the moniker of "if you can't do, teach" but we still lean on their knowledge to bolster our own. And that to me is what any of these "creative subjective performance" practitioners are for.
Oh hi! I just found this channel but this is interesting because this is what I've been thinking about the past few days! Honestly, this problem extends beyond just "authortube". In reality, I've taught creative writing in schools and tutored people in the past and it's just as shady as it is on authortube. A lot of people can give advice and pretend to teach but know nothing about their craft. And I mean this for a lot of teachers. A lot of my high school teachers and university professors couldn't write worth crap. They could sit there and tell you what they liked about a piece and how they interpreted it, but if you sat them down and asked them to write something that would be analyzed...? Yeah. No. You can forget about it. In other words, there are so many people out there who write a little bit and then think that makes them qualified to teach others, and in reality, it doesn't. Not even a college degree can qualify someone, either. The only way you can know for certain if someone is good at writing is if you can read their work for yourself, and when it comes to classrooms or RUclips channels that haven't published books yet, well... take it with a grain of salt, I suppose. This is the exact reason why I published my book almost a year before making my Authortube channel though. I want people to already be able to come join me on my platform and have something they can look at and analyze for themselves, determining if I am the right person for them to be giving them advice. It's the only ethical way, in my mind.
As someone that has just recently started writing, I can agree that Jenna's tips are good advice. Of course, following that advice yourself is difficult for many, especially in a first draft, however, not practicing what you preach isn't a good thing, even artists need to work on something for themselves if they ever wish to improve. They can take all the advice from others as they wish and even regurgitate that advice but if you don't use that advice, you will just keep breaking your own rules till you craft your image of being a novelist that crafts terrible stories built on lies of your own competency.
I actually got started doing AuthorTube videos because my first ebook was an absolute disaster of a product. I might do an entire series of videos on how not to write a book (using my own experience as a cautionary tale). There's more than one right way to write a book, but there's many more wrong ways than there are right ways. I have tremendous respect for Meg and Jenna, although my favorite fellow AuthorTubers are, in alphabetical order, Bethany Atazadeh, Shaelin Bishop, Diane Callahan, Mandi Lynn, and M.K. Williams.
Absolutely! Also, I don't mind at all if an authortuber publishes a book that I don’t think is good if they’re just the type that vlogs their writing journey. But if they're portraying themselves as an expert or peddling some expensive course, and yet their book is hot doo-doo, then, they lose all credibility in my eyes.
Amateur writer here but I have already finished a book I've been creating for 4 years. I finished my second book last month and now I'm stuck with my third so I decided to watch Jenna and iwritely and i got more confuse, and feel more tired about writing. Then I discovered this. I thought I was the problem.
How are your books doing, if you don't mind sharing? I'm working on my first right now and feel like I'm setting myself up for colossal disappointment.
@@AvengerAtIlipa I applied my first novel to a traditional publishing company, the second...well, i got scammed and now i'm stuck because they hold my salary for an unknown reason. I'm currently writing my third and im creating progress. The first book is always the hardest. I had 9 revisions on my first novel, and i still feel lackness from it. But hey! It's like what they said, if you are bored with your story then that is because you are the writer, you know what's gonna happen, you know how it'll end. But the readers don't. It might be disappointing to u but the readers could feel the opposite. Keep going. We are writers. We have so much room to improve.
I'm not an authortube (I am not made of a material for this), but I do write advices. Do I never ever once use others' advice? Sure did, espeicially when there are things are not good at such as describing (if we talked about Jenna Moreci, she has a video that helped get focus on the description part of body) or editting (not an editor). But, I do try to write my advice. Is it good? I don't know, no one ever told me. But I do mention time and again I don't follow my own advice (and I also publish my books on Wattpad rather than a serious book). Why do I allow myself to that? Many of my adivce is made of logic and is very intuitive, but I didn't see so many people talk about this. I have a somewhat theoritcal understanding, but my writing style to intuitive to follow any of this other than by chance. Examples: Think of a role and then add a characteristic and try to build the characters up (I do use this advice, but I don't plan it till th end, but rather initial character's traits) How to develop your story ideas: I have no idea what others do, but it works for me. It doesn't mean there are not any other good ways, I just say mine. When to write a prologue: I am quite sure there is advice abou the matter (sometimes I just copy the title and go from there), cause sometimes people don't always consider the need for one. You can scorn me, hate me, whatever, but to real, is started as failed blog for beta readers. Sot it grew (and remained failed, no one enters. I don't think it's because it's bad but because I don't work day and night for it to be published).
Can you tell us why you think Jenna's and Meg's books are rubbish? I haven;t read them yet, so I honestly don't know. How did they not meet your expectations in comparison to what you saw in the videos? What was it in the books that made you say they don't practice what they preach? #HonestlyCuriousHere
I’m a writing hobbyist and proof reader for friends who are starting out and I tend to put them on to subreddits to ask questions. I write and tell stories myself in different formats but choose not to publish anything because I want a quality book, not crap, if I try. I use my own advice and craft stories in a few subreddits myself to develop my writing, story telling skills and be critiqued. One of the suggestions I give budding writers is to join a TTRPG group. When you join a table you do several things: 1) you learn to create characters in an established system. It doesn’t have to be D&D, pick a system that is in a genre you enjoy. The basic archetypes from books and movies are established, you can bend the archetypes to your story once you learn how to create a character within the system you choose. 2) you are exposed to different types of story telling and arc progression. Your style is your own but being exposed to different styles of story telling can help you develop and mature in your own style. 3) you learn perspective. When I started hobby writing and story telling I was in my own bubble. I didn’t understand how to change perspectives, it’s something I still struggle with and try to improve. Two of my favorite authors who were really good shifting perspective in their stories are Elizabeth Peters and James R. Webb. 4) world building. A big part of TTRPGs is building the world that you are playing in. The game master creates the basics and the rest of the players build in the sand box. You are exposed to so many things like character creation, character interactions, story arc building and progression, cause and effect, life and death, what people enjoy about a setting, and you get to have fun doing it because you help create the story as well. 5) you learn emersion. Young authors need to experience emersion. I don’t put down the lack of life experience a person may have if they are in their early twenties. What I do tell people to do is to get out, See and experience things, in game settings as well as in books and novels, as the story develops and you learn to react to the randomness of the dice, it helps to go out and take a walk in the park. Go on a trip to the beach. It’s difficult to write about things that you have never experienced when some of your prospective readers have. If a writer has a never experienced the first attempt at riding a surf board, how do you plan on writing about it? How do you write about the cool ocean breezes that fill your lungs and you taste the salty spray on your tongue as you watch the waves roll in and peak past the place that you float while your heart races with each passing wave, deciding which rolling tide you want to attempt to conquer? We write what we know. Most of the writers I like have either studied or experienced some of the things they write about. You want to write about a sword fight? Take a fencing class, join a LARP group, or go to a renaissance festival. Internet research is great but watching a RUclips video, in my opinion, doesn’t replace experiencing the sights, sounds, and smells of a real world experience and then using your imagination and word smithing to translate it to a reader or listener. Just my two cents over a cup of coffee.
I agree that the execution falls short, however the advice itself (from many authortubers) is pretty good over all. Some of these creators have only wrote one or two novels. Which tells me they know what to go for but are still practicing and have a ways to go before the goals they express are fully reached. Basically what I'm saying is, sometimes you know how something is supposed to be done but doing it well will take time. ❤️ The sketchy stuff you bring up, I had never heard of. So that is interesting and a new perspective for me. 😀
Stumbled on this and really enjoyed it. Thank you. Good high level advice. I hope you haven't stopped writing. You might have written crap, and still be writing crap, but you could become better and even good. Also, the way you were tapping your finger with that stick made me remember some bad memories of being punished as a schoolboy way, way back, but I'll get over it. :)
2:49 Iwriterly was a good side, full of info, full of helpful things....until her book came out. It sounded bad in the preview and she ignored her own counsel and pushed the thing out. When she had bad reviews, she chopped off her hair and then waged war with Amazon and RUclips over ''fake'' reviews and disappeared entirely. Totally doesn't sound like someone who tells you how not to take criticism for someone who used to be the publishing industry. I know she has health problems, but she totally became everything, not to be. I am not sure what happened to her since.
There was some scattered criticism that was growing about Meg LaTorre well before her book released and the latter review scandal. It was pretty obvious to everyone who had done more than read a handful of YA lit and had an unresearched pipdrream of being an author that the advice she was giving was the same basic crap going around blogs and intro books for ages. People had been looking into her so called 'publishing' history credentials and found out she only worked as an intern to an agent for a few months at a scammy agency. She never was an agent herself like she pretended to be. Essentially she was lying about her credentials to sell her platform and name and then couldn't even write better than most teenage fanfic writers.
@@Gna_d54 Really? how did you or anyone find out about this? it is true? anyway I am shocked and thanks for the update. She was the one who warned us about the fake ones in the industry....blimey,
@@andeeharry I do remember the scammer video! Quite the irony. Basically someone found a tweet that was welcoming her as an intern from an agency, Corvisiero Literary Agency in Aug 2016. She started her blog and channel around 6 months later pretending to be this great publishing expert. No ones ever been able to find a mention of a single book she helped sign / author she represented etc. She may have been hired on officially with the agency but was let go in a mass layoff weeks later and then just did her channel full time. When people started to call her out for not having been an agent she started to scrub some of the mentions of that expertise from her newer videos. Also the agency she interned at is also considered a bit of a vanity scam that has had quite a few scandals since.
@@Gna_d54 Thanks for mentioning this. I found her by accident and followed her for ages and noticed she changed her vids. I know when her book came out, she had tons of problems, as she shaved her head, went to war with everyone and disappeared. I know she ranks 60,465th on Amazon at last count. I commented on her last video and got no response. I am glad someone mentioned this...thanks Gina
I actually do think Meg made those accounts herself. Goodreads automatically puts a location on new accounts and it has to be manually disabled in the settings. All of those fake review accounts were located in Meg Latorres home town. Goodreads also has a minute by minute update of account activity, meaning you could follow the 8 hour trail from the first account to the last- it was one person who did this over the course of a day, not several people/bots.
At one point Meg Latorre had a video where she and literary agents did a "first page critique" and meanwhile the first page of her book contains the words "deflated tits for sails." Jenna Moreci's videos are constantly talking about what not to do, and she presents it as absolute fact. And in her tropes she hates videos, she lists all the things she does in her own books, and we're supposed to watch that with a straight face. Another channel that thoroughly disappointed me was Terrible Writing Advice. His channel mocks stupid things in writing and then he goes and does all of them in his book, like he forgot his channel was supposed to be sarcastic. I've read fanfiction that was written with more care and effort than these books.
I still think TWA is hilarious but his book was just bad. Tons of grammatical errors and it never felt like I was experiencing anything. We were just being told a story. "Silver Wind swung her sword, it missed. The bad guy jumped back, she swung again, it got him in the head. He bled. Then Silver Wind walked away, victorious."
Wasn't Jenna a book critic before trying her hand at writing ? I personally disagree on the idea that for you to critic something, you gotta know how to do it. I can listen to a song and tell you it's objectively bad without being myself able to make one. Same goes for writing ! I can tell you that something is badly written but I wouldn't be able to publish a book myself. I think it's kinda that case with Jenna. Her advices are ... Pretty generic, sure, but it's still good advice. However, not everyone can follow them and it seems that it is her case.
I see a lot of people gunning down Morecci but her content none the less has greatly helped inspire me as a beginning writer and I thoroughly enjoyed both the Saviors Champion and Sister. (I have not read Eve, but that was also her first book.) Maybe some authors aren’t going for the exact text book exact form of literature. Maybe her books aren’t what some people enjoy but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I appreciate the video but not these people in the comments who are only coming in here just to talk smack. Just don’t read her work if you don’t like it. Or, even better, write your own, in the style you want.
I've followed Jenna's videos for a good few years now and while I don't neccessarily follow ALL her tips/advice, I do take at least some things into consideration a little bit. I haven't read her works since the concept/premise isn't exactly my type of thing. You're right though, different writers have different styles and whatnot
I also enjoyed The Savior's Champion. I'd like to know if the people who say it's no good are frequent readers of the genre because if not I'm not inclined to put too much stock in the opinion unless it's related to grammar/editing types of issues.
![Why Are Youtuber Books So BAD? [Authortubers as Well]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BpJeGjkr03Y/mqdefault.jpg)
It's simple: first write a book, be recognized for it by other people and THEN give advice about good writing. Example: Brandon Sanderson. All of his writing classes and tips free on RUclips. That's the real MVP
Always have to use Brandon Sanderson, a notoriously dull writer.
@@shiven513 he’s just the best example of an author on RUclips that’s well known and doesn’t suck at writing.
@@shiven513 you're a notoriously dull person
@@shiven513 he has multiple writing class videos on youtube. I don't like his books, but the videos are far more useful than the advice those book-tubers give.
The part that I agree most with is that most of these authortubers are only really good at giving advice about ideas but never on how to execute them. It's the sort of thing that critics have where they know what makes something good, but not anything that would be helpful in actually creating something good. They thus end up giving advice that sounds good but that has little practical use. 😔
Exactly
dam. right and true
I think Alexa Donne gives really advice and explanations on how to improve your writing.
Those who can't do teach
Ever notice how they all vomit the same advice?
I used to practically worship Jenna Moreci and watched her videos almost daily. Then I paid to join her discord for patreon supporters and proceeded to be belitted, condescended to, and generally bullied by her. I was an awkward teen wanting to meet my hero and it was such a disappointing experience. Then I tried to read TSC and despite it being the kind of book I love to read, I honestly couldn't finish it, it was that bad. I haven't gone near her books or channel since.
Christ, im sorry to hear that
Her birthday is a day after mine so yeah I used to worship her too. Took a break and now I'm finding put all these reviews. Pffew! Glad I didn't buy the TSC, TSS, or EA
good example of never meet your heroes
I think she got bullied in school and now that she's somewhat famous has turned into one herself. As she became more popular, her ego grew and it's much larger than her talent.
That stinks, I’m sorry that happened. I’m always looking for writing advice and keeping an open mind but yes, it’s discouraging when people are brutal with advice and yet their works don’t live up.
I’m a self published author and I’ve had people ask me about my process and such, I have a website with my sister where we talk about our process and perspective. But it’s not like I take credit for inventing the wheel, any good advice I have is probably something I heard from an expert (like screenplay writers on film courage), or other authors and I want to express how it worked for me. I wouldn’t presume to be the person whose advice you “must” follow but rather I try to direct you to what worked for me and others. I tried listening to some of Jenna’s advice but much of it was really specific to her likes and dislikes, but didn’t give me a formula for a good story
I hope you’re able to craft your own works and not pay attention to other peoples condescending remarks.
Wanna know an authortuber who practices what she preaches, gives really practical and simple to understand advice, and actually has two really nice and good published books within her genre? Abbie Emmons.
Yup, I also recommend Abbie. Her advice is very practical and she explains it in details with book/movie examples. She doesn't just blindly regurgitate the same old "baby advice" that many other AuthorTubers do.
@@alam5055 you said everything I missed, totally agree. thanks
I love abbie!
What about Daniel Greene
Yeah Abbie Emmons and her sister Kate Emmons are wonderful and I loved Abbie’s book 100 days of sunlight and her follow up The best Christmas Ever. I stopped following everyone else after I could not read what they produced.
I love Jenna Moreci and she gives really good advice. The one issue I have with her is that she tells you how to write the "right way". Writing is an art with no real right or wrong methods. She makes it seem as if not following tips she gives automatically makes your story trash. Her advice is great, but her approach needs to change. Instead of making her advice seem like rules to follow, it should be more like suggestions or tips. That way she is still providing useful information while not discouraging those with differing methods or styles
Not to mention her own book was a flop. lol
I used to love her videos until she started talking down to her viewers. It may be sarcastic but it's very off-putting for me.
Really now? I've watched some of her vids and she usually mentions that there's no "right way" to write a story. She even puts a disclaimer sometimes before or after her vids that her advice doesn't always work, for some writers or for some stories.
The thing about writing, and I'm sure a lot knows this but often forget, is that you can bend and break rules. It's what rules you're going to break that matters though. Jenna is amazing at explaining to what is appealing while also giving a small description to how it "could " appear, based on her perspective. There's a reason she makes 6 digits, and although she may be off-putting, adding personality in videos is a key sign that she doesn't want to appear mundane. The only way it'll turn bad is by how the viewers perceive her attitude.
Jenna can be a fun RUclipsr to watch because of her sarcastic jokes, and her general funny side, but her writing advice should be taken with a grain of salt. She is great at marketing, and she was able to sell her books despite them not being very good, and that isn't easy to do. So, I respect what she was able to accomplish, but in my opinion she's a better marketer than she is a writer, and I would personally consider her marketing advice much more valuable than any of her writing advice.
Authortubers suck, but I will say that a lot of people teach things they can't do. It's when you claim to be able to do it, and you suck at it, that's when it becomes fraud.
They say “those who can’t so teach for a reason.” Though many of the English professors at my University are actually good writers. Plus Jenna doesn’t teach. Her advice is very generic and not truly helpful. Brandon Sanderson is the only truly talented and helpful author on RUclips.
I find that the authortubers who are most enjoyable to follow are the ones who talk about their own writing, their own projects, and their own failures openly. I don't need a bunch of people who have as many (or fewer) credentials than me to try to tell me how to write a sentence. I'd much rather hear about what they've learned by screwing up than what lessons they think they can give to me without any real experience or practice.
Thesis: practice what you preach. To me, it's simple as that. Otherwise you get this video lol
Sometimes doing the deed is harder than talking about it lol
16:54 omg i laughed my ass hearing this bro how did you came up to being a bad writer?
Someday i will see a video of you shredding my book lol
@@devoringdemonsoulq9086 it's hard but a combination of self critique and actual developmental editing by a friend. That's when I switch hahaha
I wish I could like your video multiple times. Your smile after you stated if you don't practice what you preach, shut the f#@& up... I busted out laughing.
I'm currently editing my second draft of my debut novel and all I hear from authortubers (like jenna moreci) is to build your author platform with a youtube channel about writing...but I don't want to talk about writing on a channel. I'd rather talk about other interests of mine that dont involve writing. (like art, travel, or collecting) Like I just dont have desire to give writing advice and most importantly, I don't have the qualifications (yet hopefully) to be giving writing advice.
One thing that you can do is to have talk about your interests in your channel, and then either have videos in your channel dedicated to promoting your book or allot some time in your videos to promoting your book. That way, you have the best of both worlds, in my opinion. But then again, I don't have a RUclips channel yet, so take this with a grain of salt.
The VAST BULK of authors don’t have a RUclips channel. Honestly, the idea gives me hives. Yes, you need a platform. A mailing list works beautifully. If you don’t want your YT channel to be about writing, make it about something else entirely. Get yourself a mailing list, mention your books as needed in the YT channel you do create, and go with joy. Not EVERYTHING has to be in service of a job.
I took some of Meg's advice for an Author website. I am rebranding it as a full-on blog because, despite the fact that I am writing a book, I realized it made no sense to make it one. I'm removing and changing everything related to that so it's only just a review blog. I get that it was a rookie mistake, but the decisions I made are mind boggling.
She was making RUclips videos giving advice BEFORE she published her first book. I don’t like the idea of making videos like that as a precursor to writing a book …
As a non native English speaker, just getting into writing at 11/12, I took all the advice I could get. Now at nearly 20 I’ve outgrown so many AuthorTube channels because their advice is very surface level. Good Writing advice on YT from people who know their shit: Shealin Writes (also Shaelin with Reedsy) ALL ROUND AMAZING; Alexa Donne (although I don’t gravitate towards her novels, she’s a published author who gives great beginners advice); Brandon Sanderson’s lectures, enough said; Hannah Lee Kidder, great at short stories and line editing. DIANA CALLAHAN. And Hello Future Me, are gifts from above. These are p much the only Writing Advice channels I regularly watch and whose advice has helped me improve a ton. [edit: I personally don’t like Abbie Simmons (?) she has a very business like approach and it shows. Her advice also doesn’t resonate with me.]
Agree. I've been subscribed long for the writers you mention. But, Abbie Emmons?? For me, she resonates with me very much.
I think it really does something with how difference writer has different process, way of thinking, and type. I think she is more into a plotter and doing her craft *methodically.*
Yess same!!
I don't like Abbie Emmons' advice either, for the exact same reasons. She makes it too formulaic...turning writing into a science rather than the craft that it is.
The channel "terrible writing advice", even if the advice is surface level, it is a very entertaining channel to watch while writing, if you can't stand silence like me.
I found Abbie Emmons advice mostly helpful when I started needing to plot out the structure of my stories since I'm an amateur. But def yes especially for hello future me the rest are really great
I dont believe the best math teacher would need to be among the best mathematicians. He doesnt even have to be a good mathematician, honestly, his math skills dont even have to be higher than those of the people he teaches. Because what he needs to focus on is teaching. How to get the knowledge he has access to inside the head of his pupils. He doesnt need to prove anything. A football coach does not play football better than his players. Otherwise why wouldnt he play on the field?
The flipside as well, a great writer does not make a great teacher about writing. Writing and teaching are two different skillsets, so I dont think you need to stop giving writing advice. Just mention from time to time that you struggle with it as well. You can even use this to your advantage by making you feel relatable to the students. "Hey guys, there is something Im currently trying to wrap my head around and its..." is an interesting start to learn from a viewers perspective. Like a learning group in university.
"Practice what you preach" should be about philosophy and religion but NEVER make its way into craftmanship for these reasons.
That being said, obviously its a bad thing if someone claims to be something that they're not, especially since this is about money. So I agree with most of the video, just not the conclusion.
I can definitely see that, especially this. "So I dont think you need to stop giving writing advice. Just mention from time to time that you struggle with it as well." I do concede that the conclusion is not for most people, but the way these authortubers work man, they always present themselves as gods on the topic. And that irks me seeing they're so bad hahahaha
love your take though, the conclusion is not for everyone. Cheers
@@AGWrites
Authortubers need to take something from art youtubers...and that's the fact they all say they aren't very good and always learning.
The always learning part is the best. I think a better kind of authortuber would be the ones with writing vlogs channels, because they have this relatability like art youtubers in the always learning and working. Not to mention...it's fun to see when someone finally finds an answer to a solution. The joy in the vlog is so sweet, like child showing you a cool lizard they found
You took the words right out of my mouth. 100% agree
Wait, because you just gave me a whole different view… thank you
You comparison is actually pretty terrible. Because math teacher do need to know the level of math that they are teaching. So they don't need to be the best mathematicians if the math they are teaching is very low level. But if you are teaching high level math you need to be a good mathmatician or else even if you are a good teacher you are not going to teach well. So if we apply this example, this youtubers should stick to simpler advice on how to writting because they don't know more complex things about writting.
I agree, I could not finish the first page of The Cyborg Tinkerer. Honestly Brandon Sanderson is the only author who truly gives good writing advice on RUclips. And Julian Greystroke is a pretty good writer, she’s definitely more talented than Jenna and Meg. She actually knows how to develop characters and she doesn’t condescend to her audience like Jenna.
I stopped watching Jenna because I realized (being a creative writing major in college with Professors who are published authors) most of her advice is shit. She doesn’t realize that there are different types of writers with different psychologies, processes, and ways of writing. She also can’t give good advice about execution. I stopped watching Jenna because of those things and how negative she was to other writers. I started watching Meg because I thought she had a better attitude and personality. The first reg flag with Meg was when she criticized George R.R. Martin for how he named settings in Game of Thrones with names she couldn’t pronounce. Martin is a fantastic world better and fantastic at names! I was excited for her book and had high expectations, but when I couldn’t get past the first page, I realized all her advice was as bogus as Jenna’s.
For fellow a mature writers like me, if you want to watch a RUclips channel with good writing advice check out: Brandon Sanderson, Margaret Atwood (teaches a masterclass) watch videos of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, John Green (or whoever wrote The Fault in Our Stars), and the smaller channels of Quotidian Writer and Julia Greystoke.
I also recommend reading On Writing by Stephen King.
Also good writers to read if you want to improve your craft: (besides King, Gaiman, Atwood, and Sanderson) include Clive Cussler, Anthony Horitz, Ray Bradbury, Adrienne McKinty, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Julie Berry, Francine Rivers, Madeline Miller, Deborah Harkness, Alix E. Harrow, Kelly Armstrong, Maxine Hong Kingston, George R.R. Martin, Beth Hoffman, Toni Morrison, and Haruki Murakami. For good YA, I recommend Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Elizabeth Acevedo, Lev Grossman, Julie Berry, Holly Black, Sarah J. Maas, Ellie Marney, and Emily X.R. Pan. Also, James Brumaire, Daniel Crocker, and Bill Koningsberg.
I think the problem with Meg book is that it was rushed. Her idea of a steampunk future in space was interesting in concept, but the world and characters were underdeveloped. I think she was so anxious to be a bestselling author that she rushed to publish her book without getting beta readers outside her circle of friends and without getting editors. The book needed to be heavily edited. Her idea and novel was not fleshed out enough, so she published it when it wasn’t ready. She needed to trim the plot, make the plot more solid and less convoluted, and actually took the time to develop her characters. This book was like a first draft that would have taken YEARS to rewrite, develop, and improve. It’s a caution tale to be open to criticism, honing your craft, and making sure your novel is good and ready before you publish it. Don’t rush it. Good books take time and are more rewarding in the end.
If she actually practices writing and hones her craft, I might give her a second chance. Her prose was not good though, but I am hoping she learns from this experience. Practice makes perfect!
If you want books with good characters read The Green Mile by Stephen King, The Lovely War by Julie Berry, The Game of Thrones series (full of character development), the Throne of Glass series (also full of character development), and honestly any book by Stephen King and Alice Walker. Thise authors are great at developing characters.
YES! Brandon Sanderson is SO helpful. I used to watch the "top ten tips" etc videos and was like... eh. Not very helpful. It only gave me a checklist of what to "do and not do". (Not that I followed it, since I figured nothing was a hard and fast rule.) But it never actually helped me WRITE.
It was Brandon Sanderson that really started getting me thinking about writing. Rather than a checklist, he helped me start to comprehend how the pieces of a story work, what makes them add together, and what my story needs. Plus, all of it was so practical and down to earth, like beta readers, and drafts and working with an editor, or working with a publisher. And it's SO much more helpful- BECAUSE HE'S BEEN DOING IT FOR DECADES. (He also has a lot of experience teaching, he's a part time lecturer at BYU, so I think that helps a lot. He can teach, and write!)
Honestly, i think that's the problem. Most of these Authortubers are at the beginnings of their career, and honestly don't quite have a handle on writing yet, ESPECIALLY the business side. Honestly, I prefer the approach of Kate Cavannaugh, she's an Authortuber I watch. She does vlogs, writing experiments, and a bit of booktube, and discusses her steps in getting her books published. It's more of a "follow me on my journey!" than "I, an unpublished author, shall now give you advice".
The Sanderson lectures on fantasy writing from his BYU class have been immensely helpful to me. I highly recommend them.
I've heard some of the channels you mentioned but i just heard about Julia Greystoke, thank you!
What about Daniel Greene?
@@maadtee6281 The Goblin King is an excellent suggestion.
Cat destroying the paper roll was still a better plot than Cyborg Tinkerer.
This is great. I recently started watching "author tube" and was curious about the books LaTorre and Morecci wrote, especially Morecci because she always pushes her books as "My #1 best selling books" but she must have been started to get called out because then she later changed her wording to include "My AMAZON #1 best selling book". It was like she was trying to look like a better author than she really was and it was off-putting when I realized the difference. And LaTorre pushed Morecci's book as "Her favorite book of all time". It was just weird to watch.
So when I got curious about both their books I decided to read and watch reviews and look at ratings. Currently LaTorre's has a 3 * on Audible and Morecci's have 4 & 4.5 *'s. But watching reviews of any of the books on RUclips is just people tearing these authors apart for their one dimensional characters, flat world creation, awful character interaction and dialogue. Also the plotlines of their stories seem bare bone and linear. Both of them also have a bad habit of writing Mary Sue's. Which is something both of them strongly preach against! Overall very disappointed.
Unfortunately I bought "The Savior's Sister" on audible. But thankfully I only used one of my monthly free credit's on it instead of wasting the $17.99 USD it's priced at.
Overall great video! You are pretty funny, opinionated, and informative without really talking shit or taking low blows. I like it. Have you or are you writing/publishing anything? You said you were a writer?
iWriterly did't surprise me and I'm glad I didn't buy The Cyborg Tinkerer even more, I knew to not take her seriously after how she talked fantasy tropes editors are tired of seeing which she than basically listed every part of the heroes journey as something editors don't want to see in fantasy. My head imploded from that video she posted.
She didnt even have a full grasp of tropes to where she misunderstands the chosen one character versus the reluctant hero to where she interchanges them. Chosen one is a person that is destinted to save the world. They can be born with a special marking, ability, or just a something that indicates they are fulfilling a destiny and or a propechy that usually invoves them saving society in some manner. Vs a reluctant hero who is the everyday person that becomes a hero and often doesn't want to be a hero and it doesn't me they alone can save the world. Think Harry Potter vs Han Solo. Although Harry potter could be considered both for he had no choice but to fight to live and manuvered to fight by other characters in his life, and it is not uncommon for chosen ones to be reluctant heroes due to pressure. He would still be more likely lumped into CHosen One category first and foremost because prophecy. But Han Solo wouldn't be considered a Chosen One, just reluctant for originally he didn't want to fight in the rebellion, just live his life.
But she mixed this simple concept up. Thank you for reading.
I will add one thing to this and it's that the chosen one, which is the test-arc, is the most underrated storytelling device in the world. This trend is especially in modern fantasy where people think it's the source of the problem and in no way their repetitive ways of using it.
Anyhow, beautiful stuff. I couldn't agree more ^^
@@AGWrites Agree, and I am surprised by the reply, but glad you did.
I too agree about it being underrated and how it's done whether bad or repetitive that can be a problem. I won't lie I was very excited at your response not expecting to hear that, but i'm glad.
Thanks for the video. Loved it.
Love this! I consider myself an “AuthorTuber”, and recently made a video about how I’m changing up my channel drastically to avoid falling in the trap of regurgitating the same “advice” over and over again. I’m going to start making more videos contradicting a lot of the advice out there and really get more open about my own writing journey. My next video is actually going to be something along the lines of “why you shouldn’t take authortuber advice”.
Thanks for sharing! Excited to check out your other videos.
This is the first Author Tube video I've seen. Very interesting. I watched a few of Meg's videos, and all of Moreci's. I've not read their fiction. Their advice always seemed to be the same stuff I've heard or read a hundred times already.
Watching BookTubers that recommend and review books and authors is sometimes better than searching through authortube 😂
This is the only fact in this universe. Just read/watch reviews hahahaha
The Mad Queen is adorable! 😀
Your cat is so enchanting. Poetry of violence and power covered in fluff. Instant subscribe.
[DISCLAIMER: This ended up being really long. I'm breaking it into three comments to sort of remedy it.]
Know-how does not equal proper application. You can know information without knowing how to apply it in literally every field, and not having the ability to apply it doesn't inherently take away your credibility in the same way that being able to apply it doesn't mean you can teach it efficiently or without leaving out crucial information. You can have all the technical cooking knowledge in the world but if you don't have the experience to execute those complicated dishes, you may create a monstrosity long before you create a gourmet meal. You can know exactly what steps it takes to construct a wooden flute, but if you have little experience using the tools to make one, your flute will probably be crude at best. You can understand and beautifully analyze the parts that make up a gorgeous symphony and not be able to write one yourself. And you can know what makes up a good book, what makes a good character, and why different techniques are used in writing without knowing how to execute it.
Likewise, someone who has the skill to make all these things might be the crappiest teacher in spite of - or sometimes because of - their ability to do it so well.
Really, if the writing advice that is given can be seen in action in great books, and it's clear they work hard to analyze and break down what works in these books and what doesn't, then this is a matter of good advice and bad execution. I honestly just feel like this comes down to people needing to keep those giving advice off of a pedestal and people giving advice needing to be clear and honest about what they are and aren't.
If you give writing advice, be genuine about what you say and if you can't show it in action in your own works, fine, but be able to show good examples in other peoples' works by putting in the time and effort to really analyze and break down what you and your audience have read. As you improve in your ability to pick these things out, revisit old topics to add nuance or just explain where you completely missed the mark. Shadiversity, for example, is a RUclipsr who isn't infallible, but I still take all of his work very seriously, and that's less because I expect him to always be 100% right or able to demonstrate everything he's talking about himself, but because he'll put in the effort to either try, to analyze something else that effectively puts it into practice, or when he does notice a mistake or gap in something, he's open about it and corrects it. His credibility is awesome, but the thing that makes *him* credible to me, as opposed to just his knowledge, is that I trust him to be truthful if he doesn't know something as well as if he finds out he didn't know something as well as he thought he did.
Can you see what these RUclipsr's are giving advice on in action when you look at and analyze good writing? Do they take the time to demonstrate what they speak on and why, whether it be through analyzing the works of others or showing you their own works? Do they acknowledge themselves as fallible? Are they transparent about where they are at and do they try to keep open dialogue with others concerning where they feel their writing requires work?
Anyone can be a crappy teacher with great experience and capability, and I've seen that in effect in real life. So many people I've met with amazing skill in their field that were the most horrendous teachers ever (not meant offensively). Likewise, I've met some people who were amazing teachers because they knew the ins and outs of what they spoke on, so they couldn't necessarily do it themselves but their advice was helpful enough that I/others could. I think it's important to acknowledge there's a difference between being a good teacher and being good at applying your knowledge efficiently, just like there's a difference between giving unbacked advice you can't follow and giving advice that can be seen in action even if you can't necessarily replicate it yourself.
The problem, to me, isn't really giving advice but not being able to make stellar works. The problem is a combination of followers of these RUclipsrs putting them on a pedestal, everyone mixing up know-how, ability to apply, and ability to teach as something that always exists in one package (when you could lack/have any of those in any combination), some RUclipsrs trying to erase the part of them that proves amateurish and present themselves like they know what to do and how to do it without fail, and - lots of times the first - failed book getting blown out of proportion.
Keep people giving advice in perspective, whether they can apply it or not. If you can see it applied elsewhere, don't look to them to show it or forsake their advice if they can't, look to works that show you how to apply it and take the info they gave you to better analyze that piece. If you realize their advice doesn't ever seem to have practical application in good books, that's when you forsake the advice. Seriously, if I always spent my time worrying if everyone that taught me anything could always professionally apply the work, rather than putting in the effort to see how well what they taught me could be professionally applied in the world, I would've missed out on a lot of good information and experiences.
If you're still reading (I know this is long), I just feel there's a weird tendency in the Booktube and Authortube community, whether it's in book reviews, channel critique, or pretty much everything, to make really big claims that tip over problems to one side predominantly, but the problem is usually a greater combination of things on all accounts. This seems less like an inherent problem of not being able to apply your advice and more a matter of whether your advice can be and is applied in great books, and if you take out the time to study the craft and be willing to prove where it holds up versus where it doesn't. And then the great backlash on the end of followers is usually so black and white it ignores the whole part where any advice can be bad, and whether or not someone can do something well doesn't dictate whether they're a good teacher who give solid advice, it just makes it easier for people to not question enough to find out the truth when they aren't.
Something one of my teachers always said was that he could definitely teach me everything I needed to know to do what he did just as swiftly, but it didn't mean that someone who'd been doing his work for decades wouldn't teach me a way that cut out all the steps that I wouldn't need to replicate him, but would need to make my own path. He advocated finding people from all walks with varying degrees of experience, because when you don't have as much experience, you're probably going to cover all bases without knowing how to tie them together as one big picture, but when you do have experience, it's easy for you to stray too big or too small in your teachings, because it doesn't cross your mind to think how someone without your knowledge would. Teachers are going to try to teach you everything they can, but you *have* to put in the effort to see where it applies and fill in the gaps, and they have to put in the effort to acknowledge that gaps will probably exist and figure out where those gaps are. Then you go on to find different teachers that meet you at your level, when you're ready to explore greater detail or tie things into one complete picture.
Put in your work. Don't soak in advice from anyone if you can't be bothered to check how far it applies on your own time, but you see they don't take the time to thoroughly show you otherwise. And for RUclipsrs who try to paint a picture of perfection instead of being honest about your writing capability versus your analytical ability and understanding of the elements of good writing, just be more honest and work hard. Practice what you preach, here, should be more about practicing research, analyzing good writing, honesty and improvement of your craft, not practicing perfect writing. If I see someone's first book is trash, well... m'kay. If their second book is significantly better, even if still bad, I'm glad. Now that they've gotten real world experience, they know *how and where* to apply their advice, which is just as important as knowing what to apply. Knowledge is usually the what and why, experience is the how and where. I can't expect every teacher to have a full grasp of both.
[Edit: Really odd gap in writing, lol]
I do agree with everything you said, and I think this statement from you is a marker where we both differ, " I honestly just feel like this comes down to people needing to keep those giving advice off of a pedestal and people giving advice needing to be clear and honest about what they are and aren't." With this statement, I essentially go one way, which is that: fine, give advice and be bad at executing, but bad execution means you're not well practiced and that means you're not an expert; and therefore, don't sell your self as an expert and take people's money. So with me, if you can't show it in your works, it's not fine to take people's money. It is 100% fine to give the advice, thus why I have only used these two as examples and not a hundred others. But to take money, now that's shady as heck.
And this statement is another that I really love. "As you improve in your ability to pick these things out, revisit old topics to add nuance or just explain where you completely missed the mark." Essentially, think of sport analysists. They definitely won't be able to participate in the game physically, but they can analyze and that skill can grow. So when it comes to reading books, one's skill to analyze can grow without their ability to execute it in action. However, there is a problem with most Authortubers and even the two I have mentioned here: they regurgitate easy stuff, as I said, baby advice that is found at the top of google. It is rare that I have ever learned anything from an authortuber. What they say is what's out there, without any personal touch or added nuance. And that creates a sickening problem for me when I see them flaunt around, pretending to be experts like actual writers or, as you put it, analysists who learned over the years to add nuance. Though I haven't seen every authortuber and that means I can't speak for all.
I really love your reply and I actually agree with all of it. It's just that, I feel we both take the same statements in a slightly different direction, where one of us is fine with it while the other, me, is drawing lines at taking other's money and not admitting lack of execution ability if it's lacking. Thanks for sharing Marie, you're a legend
@@AGWrites - [Oops: Four more landslides of text. Sorry.]
I totally get your point. I honestly don't disagree with the part about taking money from others. If you have a book coming out though, and you have a huge following that buys it but doesn't like it, I do feel that's different from taking money from people unfairly, so I think that should be clarified too.
Hopefully, anyone deciding to be an author will try their hardest to create something worth spending money on and price their book within a reasonable range for what they've produced. It's pretty foul to do otherwise. And if you have a huge following, you should be open about where your writing is at the point that you're writing a book, so they know what to expect.
But it is important to make sure we don't fill in blanks when we don't have full pictures, so it should be acknowledged that plenty of good and bad authors have naively published early books for money that sucked, and they had no intention of ripping people off. Exercise your power as a consumer. If you've never seen their writing in application, treat their book like you would any random author's first book. If you still want to support them but aren't sure the book is worth it, wait a while and find other ways to uplift them.
But for the love of all things holy, I just wish people wouldn't flame Booktubers so hard without addressing the other side. The way a bad book often is used to discredit years of advice that somehow none of these same people could recognize was faulty (did no one ever take the time to see whether their advice was applied anywhere?) is wild. And even when the advice is sound, so many RUclipsrs are treated like all their advice is somehow less useful. Not every authortuber that is confident in their craft knows they can't execute it well, and not all of them mean to rip others off, and I think the focus people usually take kind of attacks the symptoms and not the cause.
Helping others gain the perspective they lack is better, to me, than flaming them for pushing an untrue perspective onto others. Since most of my info will always be incomplete, I can't assume ill intent. But there's little harm in tackling things from the basis of adding perspective and information others might lack. Anyone who already knows it and didn't work to improve probably wouldn't have cared much if I addressed them assuming a lack of care anyway. Those who don't might get something out of it that saves everyone from this situation. Focusing on shedding light on perspectives others might be lacking is a constructive way to combat issues like this.
Again, lots of well known authors have sold bad books, both traditionally and self published, with good intent and naivety. So I truly don't condone ripping people off, I just feel discussions here need to keep everything in perspective, and talking about heated topics deserves a strong stance but a light step. It should be noted that the weight of your words can ring deeper and reach further and stay longer than you mean, so speaking so strongly without adequately addressing just how nuanced the subject is can lead to damaging outcomes that stretch for a long time.
"Basically, its shit". Legit paused while painting to subscribe after that!
Too funny, the computer on the milk crate, the secret door to your grandmother's basement where you are filming, the 50 thread count green burlap sheet, twirling your nunchucks around, and of course, the all too important Joke-Trope, the sprawling greenscreen bookself
great discussion! honestly as a (small) authortuber, I do think writers open themselves up to more scrutiny when they make advice-type content and THEN publish their work. and I also believe that you can have a good grasp for “writing fundamentals” (and even give good advice), without necessarily being able to do it yourself. writing a book, even a bad one (lol), is still hard! I respect these writers, but I think this video is such an important cautionary tale for anyone who wants to start an authortube channel. like, the best way to become a better writer is just… to write a lot!
I'm so glad I came across this video, your sens of humour is brilliant and your points very clever! Cheers
I think so much of this problem stems from the fact that when many people give advice, instead of saying, “this is what has worked for me,” they say, “this is how it absolutely has to be done.” In writing, almost no advice is universal and works for everyone. But people feel the need to set themselves up as some sort of authority, so they will give advice as if it is the gospel truth, not just something that they find helpful. Now, of course, there are exceptions to every rule, so there are some bits of writing advice that are more universally applicable. I’m not talking about that. I’m just talking about the fact that so many people feel like if it works for them it’s how it absolutely has to be done, and that’s not helpful. Many big Authortubers have set themselves up as a person of authority, and by doing that seem to be unable to say “this personally works for me.” And that’s where you get into the trap of them giving advice they are not taking in their own writing, because instead of sharing what is helpful for them, they are sharing the “rules” that they have heard, or figured out by reading, but not necessarily have mastered themselves. I’ve worked quite hard in my own videos to pass on bits of advice and info that have personally helped me, without portraying them as the absolute way to do it. But I have noticed that viewers respond and resonate more when you present something as THE WAY TO WRITE, not one of many possibilities. So in order to grow their channels many of these authors are presenting absolutes in their advice, because that’s what people respond to.
That's pretty interesting. People can definitely be biased in favor of what they perceive as absolute truths, that give you clear rules to follow instead of letting you experiment and see if something works for you. Just herd mentality doing its thing. We should all be mindful about this in order to avoid falling in these kinds of traps
I don't know about Eve, I only landed on Authortube a couple years ago, and I bought both Savior books on 99 cent sale. Good call. I was shocked by the RUclips author completely missing from the content.
I skimmed TSS, it was a hollow duplicate, even the violence didn't stir me.
TSC did have action scenes that gripped me, and it was easier to read once I accepted that Jenna Moreci writes for the lowest market denominator but with a little sophistication.
I don't blame her. I don't know jack about the Meg LaTorre scenario, her delivery always turned me away. But Jenna Moreci I feel applied sincere intelligence, wit, business acumen and marketing skill, in a terrible crucible of life circumstances and tapped a vein to make an income.
Twilight proved to our generation you don't have to write a good story to sell a popular book.
hell dude i still liked twilight, it was interesting, it isnt the Best, but its interesting, fun, and sometimes a little bit emotionally gripping, thats what most of these books lack
The name alone, the cyborg tinkerer, says a lot about the book
We have a lot in common, you and I. I also have problems with non-experts giving writing advice. Which is why I run an AuthorTube channel where I do not give advice. I document my WIP and I interview other writers.
HOWEVER, I’m having trouble with your thumbnail saying “authortube sucks” but your video focuses on Moreci and Latorre. These are two of the biggest authortubers, yes, but they don’t represent the entire platform nor do they speak for the rest of us. In fact, the sizes of their INDIVIDUAL audiences basically cause them to stand apart from authortube.
There are so many colors and flavors to authortube that a video like this doesn’t even touch upon. My own show, Livestream Sunday, plays like a late nite tv talk show. I’d probably gain more views if I started talking dirt about the biggest booktubers but that’s no more ethical than giving half-assed advice. That said, I’m trying as an authortube to reach across the aisle to booktubers in an effort to bring our two communities closer together.
Authortube is authors talking to other authors wishing they were readers. Booktube is readers reviewing the same books to each other wishing they had better books to read. We should be coming together. Not tearing each other down. But that’s just MY opinion. Holla at me if you want to come on my channel and we can deep dive this discussion.
I started noticing Jenna sounds like she wants all books to be the same. She can't just think everyone should write the same way, honestly.
Abbie Emmons’s “100 Days of Sunlight” was neat little story, nothing too daring or original, but it worked. Better do simple things well than doing hard things badly. Jenna Moreci’s “The Savior’s Champion” was okay, but ultimately just a video game in book form: It was pretty much all plot, no theme, with one “level” of the challenge (the maze) chasing the next one (and the lack of worldbuilding or characterisation beyond the main couple has already been brought up by others).
It's pretty easy to preach advice, it's a lot harder to execute that advice. A good reader will know what they want in a book, but reading a book and writing a book are two very different things. Hell, sometimes well established authors give bad advice. Example, Stephen King hates adverbs. So what? Adverbs have a place, it's a tool.
You don't learn how to be a good writer by watching authortube, you learn by actually writing and editting your work. You learn by joining peer editing groups and accepting feedback. It's hard, the criticism will make you hate your life, but that's what it takes. I'm saying this as somebody who's writing a book and doing all of this. I'm not an expert, but I'm trying my best. That's all anybody has to do.
I teach art online, and one of the things I always have in the back of my mind is to ensure that I can do the same exercises that I ask the student to do before I upload a class. In some cases I've discovered my own shortcomings for a particular topic and so I don't upload a class on that topic until I'm confident enough that I can both repeat the exercises as well as give advice on the exercises.
honestly I really loved Jenna moreci's advice, it's helped me a lot while writing but man her books disappoint me. I couldn't even get through the first book of the savior series.
Yeah I only got a couple chapters into it. It felt veryyyyy amateur to me. :/
Honestly I get that, I'm trying to read the first book of the savior series and I'm just... bored, but I've been trying to fight through it
From what I've heard, Jenna Moreci does 'practice what she preaches' though, it's just that her advice isn't very good either...? I haven't watched a whole lot of her videos nor have I read her books, but I've heard other people point out stuff like Jenna has said that she doesn't care for in depth world building in books, and her books have shit world building, and that she says to treat your characters as tools not as real people, which makes her characters feel like bland cardboard cutouts made just to move the plot along. Scary to think someone who seems so credible on the surface doesn't actually know what she's talking about...
I think the whole "don't treat characters as real people" is a misconception people have? She does preach that characters must have depth and not be one dimensional (I've watched a few of her videos and heard her say it). What she said once (at least that I remember) was that she can't stand / finds ridiculous when authors treat (talk about) their characters as real people, and not inside the book (where it makes sense for the characters to be treated as real), but in the real world. She also said she finds ridiculous when authors say "my character came alive" or "my character won't do what I want them to do", as if they really were sentient beings. She explained that her reasoning behind disliking these expressions is that most of the time are used as excuses, because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how multi dimensional your characters are, they're still your creation and what they do and say it's totally up to you (I mean, yeah, you have to respect the characterization and make the characters do things that make sense for them, but you, as the author, are still the one calling the shots in the story), so when the author messes up the story by writing things that don't make sense instead of accepting it as bad writing, they'd rather blame it on the character "coming alive and doing whatever they wanted to do". So yeah, she did say that characters are not real, but she said it in the context of writers using it as an excuse (or just as writers being annoying).
Whether we like it or not, characters *are* tools to tell a story / share a message, although that doesn't mean they shouldn't have depth or that they shouldn't feel real. They should feel real for the story/message to resonate with people (this is not something she said to, this it's just my opinion).
And I hope this doesn't come off as if I'm defending her. Maybe she did say that characters should be one dimensional, I don't a have a way to know since I haven't watched all of her videos. But for what I remember her saying about characters not being real, people are kind of misconstruing her words. Although she does have said that she doesn't think world building is all that important.
Either way I don't think she's a good writer (sometimes she gives good advice, the problem with her is that she tries to be an authority and teach the right way to write instead of just saying "hey, this is what works for some people, but it doesn't mean it's the only valid way to construct a story"). I just thought it isn't fair to put words on her mouth.
I don't remember her saying she didn't care for it, but that she wasn't good at it. She admitted that was a skill she needed a lot of improvement in.
I love parts of authortube. Some authors know what they're doing and give amazing advice/share experiences in a helpful way and manage to always motivate me.
On of the biggest issues I had was authors starting their advice videos with a "The right way to..."/"How you should NEVER..." or mentioning something similar because that's just terrible. There's no wrong way of writing, no matter what, and a really, really good writer can make almost everything work (if it's not extremely absurd). I started writing my first novel at 12, and it was always demotivating (rare, but REALLY, REALLY DEMOTIVATING) to see a video in which a person that I perceived as an experienced author told me I shouldn't do a certain thing I did or wrote something in the wrong way.
Conclusion: Just try and be positive. Inestad of telling others how they should never do a certain thing, give them ideas and alternatives that are often perceived as nice by others, without 'forcing' them to do them because 'they won't be good if they don't do this and that'.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the author podcasters like Sacha Black, Dan Willcocks, Kate and Abbie Emmons, etc and whether their advice matches what they’re writing
Would love to give my thoughts, only issue is that I am not a podcast listener honestly and I have never listened to any of them :(
@@AGWrites totally fair! My only thinking was the comparison between the two mediums and the authors using them. I believe the Kate and Abbie show can be watched on RUclips also if you are ever interested
I've watched several of Abbie Emmons's RUclips videos and while I will say she gives solid advice, this video covers exactly what she does. Generic, simple advice you can probably easily Google. Only one video of hers did I see any kind of example, and it was with her own writing.
I did read her first book, and while it certainly wasn't groundbreaking and it's not a favorite of mine, I didn't hate it. I thought it was good, and thought it got better the further I got into it. The beginning was the weirdest part, because it felt so very . . . constructed. Like she was just writing it as "Here's how I'm going to set up things for what I really want to write."
Once it got to what it felt like she wanted to write, it did improve, and like I said, I did like it.
I do want to read her second book, but the premise makes me vary wary, excuse the rhyme. It feels very much like the kind of thing that could be easily solved if the characters sit down and have an honest conversation with one another. And if that turns out to be the case, I'm gonna be disappointed at the end, and angry while I read it.
Not sure what videos you have watched of hers, but I've probably watched 90% of Abbie Emmon’s videos. She brings down countless story and film examples and breaks things down into really clear slides and summaries. She also doesn’t give the basic advice (though she has a few videos on the classics - dialogue, filter words, etc. Maybe those are the ones you’ve seen?). Her advice is sourced from books on writing (liked Wired for Story and Story Genius by Lisa Cron), as well as human psychology - which is something Abbie is really interested in. All of her advice is inspired by her philosophy that story comes from characters - why things matter to the character, why do we care, etc. That philosophy in itself is a unique take (in my opinion - judging from countless books, blogs, and videos I’ve seen on writing). I find her to be a very clear and effective teacher. And I’ve never seen her use any of her own story examples. She usually draws from classics such as Jane Austen novels, and British television.
As for her writing:
So far, I’ve only read her first book. I think I’ve read it three times now - and my honest review? It’s multiple POV, told from Tessa and Weston’s perspectives.
I think Weston’s chapters are five stars. They’re incredible! His voice is so real and unique to him. I see him and hear him and feel him. His story and arc are so emotional and I could really get in his head and understand him. He’s probably my favorite POV character of all time (and I’m suuupppeeerrr picky).
All that being said - Tessa? Her chapters are maybe one star. She’s super bland and could never get a sense of her. And… that’s about it.
My conclusion is that Abbie is a phenomenal writer who probably lacked enough objective beta readers. Because a good writer can have some off days/make mistakes, but a bad writer could never come close to the masterpiece that is Weston.
As far as the podcast:
Kate and Abbie are super positive, and I guess that’s… nice. But I find them spouting unrealistic dreamy words of advice and encouragement that might set some people up for failure. Especially if you are deciding whether to self-pub or trad-pub. Don’t listen to them about publishing, they only know their own path. And self-pub is not this easy walk through a meadow of roses that they make it seem. It’s expensive and time consuming and only leads to success if done carefully and well. Not everyone is cut-out, or have the money, for what is involved.
For trad pub advice, go to Alexa Donne (her writing advice is more entertaining than helpful - because of her candid, conversational style) she’s a font of information when is comes to querying and looking for agents correctly. And her advice is very grounded in reality.
For writing advice, watch Abbie’s videos on the three-act structure and all her character videos. And read Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody.
If you’re a pantser then just remember to give your MC a goal and go write (advice from a former pantser. No goal equals many months of meandering words and sadness).
Thanks for clip. As a writer I find it difficult to determine how to increase my online presence. Do I start a writing channel? After seeing some controversies such as this out there, I would be reluctant. Also, I have also feared the amount of time and effort placed into creating a writing channel will force your powers to be divided between video editing, marketing, promoting, thumbnail design, etc, then editing, writing etc your book. Youtubing and Fiction writing are two completely difference careers and industries. If you want to get awesome at fiction writing, read, write, and live, and nothing more. If however, you want to get good at RUclips, watch RUclipsrs, (read), and then edit videos. These two industries do not live in harmony with each other, on one level. For as a writer there are far more vital things to be doing than staring at a thumbnail of yourself and wondering if it will gain clips (unless you want to write a book about internet marketing, which might work once or twice). We need to be outside, learning, reading and experiencing. So, how do we build an internet presence? I don't know, but I'm going to make a RUclips channel anyway, even if it makes my books more crap. Because I like staring at myself in thumbnails when I should be reading Shakespeare ;)
I find it interesting that after the controversy over her book and the reviews Meg essentially ended her YT career because of “family reasons.”
Sure Jan…
She’s still making videos. Anyway, she should have gotten beta readers and an editor. It’s obvious she didn’t.
I love your accent. Great content as well, you deserve way more views.
Thank you so much ^^
To me, I feel like this phenomenon of "author gives writing advice as their job, but then write shitty books" is related to the "writers who don't actually write" thing.
Like, if you look at writing groups, forums, writing-related tags on social media, it feels like 90% of the posts are memes about writers who want to write but don't. Youd see the drake meme, a car swerving off the road meme, etc, where the negative side of the meme is always "actually writing your novel" and the positive side of the memes would always be "daydreaming about your novel/procrastinating/doing tons of worldbuilding that will never make it into the book/etc." It's irritating because it feels like some "writers" are more invested in the IDEA of writing instead of in the story they actually allegedly want to write.
I get that writing is hard. It's actually pretty intense work. It's valid to be tired or to take a LONG time to write a seemingly short or shallow book. But the "publishing basic writing advice" crowd sure feels... adjacent to the "not actually writing" community, yknow?
I feel like Jenna does give actual good advice most of the time, and I did enjoy her book...
After taking a break 20 pages in, and spending a week erasing my expectations. It was a nice book. Really. Just... Nowhere near to what I thought it would be based on her tips.
But my irl literature teacher didn't ever write a book, and I still value her opinion, so I think we should kinda apply it to authortubers as well.
Personally I like Jenna's videos because they make me laugh and are entertaining. I take her advice as reminders of things to keep an eye out for when I write since most of her advice is about tropes. Her advice doesn't go that deep tbh and that's why I rely on other youtubers like Hellofutureme, Savage Books, Diane Callahan and Brandon Sanderson's classes for more in depth writing advice. It's a shame that Jenna's writing isn't on par to what she preaches. I think it is somewhat important that if someone who is giving advice has a sound understanding of their craft. It's hard to say where the threshold lies how good a author needs to be at writing to be qualified to give advice. I think perhaps why Jenna makes the same kinds of videos (besides them being popular) is that the level she is giving advice for is pretty low like mostly beginners. That's why I think she emphasizes rewriting because many beginning writers especially young kids are going to be very resistant about rewriting to better their work. Which if her books show a lack of doing this herself it's very disappointing but well if I were solely watching her videos for the writing advice I would've stopped a while ago since by this point I get most of it. But I still find her funny as hell so I'll keep going back to them.
Had to keep that stick handy throughout the whole video just in case any one of them authortubers made a sudden visit 😆😆
Awww, i love your cat! Also your video is amazing, really engaging and fun to watch! I've never thought of authortube like this before, cheers for the enlightenment!!
Meg Latorre used to work at Corvisiero (CLA) as an intern, which sank after some SHADY activity. I have friends who interned there (and knew people who worked there as agents in the past). And word on the pub street is CLA was blacklisted from publishing houses. That means editors wouldn't even work with them. I don't know the specifics, but you've gotta do something BAD to get to that point. So, that might explain why she didn't have any sales. And given that CLA was also known to poorly train their agents, it's worrisome that she sets herself up as this "authority" when her experience comes from such a dodgy place.
Being really good at something doesn’t mean you would also be any good at teaching it. At the same time, you can be a good teacher but not be extremely good at practice. This applies too many skills, I’m not sure if it also perfectly applies to writing, but at least a bit I think so.
There are many amazing book critics and literary agents that are extremely good at analyzing books and telling you what should be improved, but they aren’t necessary able to write good books themselves.
This said, while I don’t agree that to give advice you need to be a bestselling author, I think the two author-tubers in question should be much more transparent and not present themselves like absolute authorities.
One thing I would like to know is why so many Booktoobers have an obsession using the word Fuck? Like, I get it, you don't need to excise swearwords from your book, but why aren't try to be a bit more like Deadwood, instead of tarantino?
Dude I'm so glad I stumbled on your channel. You're cracking me up.
okay you've got me in the first 90 seconds because I RELATE TO YOUR CAT STRUGGLES SO HARD!!! I tutor ESL online and the amount of times my cats have just jumped onto my laptop or onto me or wrecked havoc when I'm teaching! Okay, I'll watch the rest of the video now! 😹
This was a good video. I just randomly saw your video . I didn't know this was a thing going on that was actually happening. As someone trying to publish my own book I stopped watching authorchannels long ago. They weren't really helping and I also don't really give out advice either on my own channel . I do like you said you do, talk about what I know about.
I think that's why I see more and more in the Authortubers I follow, more of a documentation of their journey. Holding productivity sprints and the occasional vlog about how their WIP is progressing. Any advice is usually from the business aspect coming from personal experience.
According to Jenna... on her RUclips channel, her dark fantasy series is #1 on Amazon, and yet it ranks 2,795th place on Amazon. I just looked this up...and I wonder about this sometimes.
Okay so once something's "been a best seller" as in reached the top ranking, it's still considered a #1 best seller when other books surpass it, because it has made it to the top, but ofc the literal #1 can't always stay the same book
@@emmajakobsen8265 thanks for replying about this.
I really like ShaelinWrites! Great video by the way. Just found you 😊
Maybe is because I dont consider myself a good writer (prose wise), but usually my advice is mostly regarding plotting and structure, because thats the thing I believe I can do well.
Don't know about any sketchy stuff but maybe some folks should just stick to teaching. It's perfectly alright to be great at teaching basic information in an entertaining way without necessarily being great at actually implementing that information. For example, many fantastic directors aren't great at acting themselves and many fantastic actors aren't great directors. Anyway, great video and thanks so much!!🥰
There are TONS of books on writing, which go into a lot more depth than RUclips videos, provide examples, and are written by people with real credentials for publishing houses that have reputations to maintain. Writer's Digest has a bunch of them. That said, there are also a lot of published works that ignore good writing advice and yet somehow become popular anyways.
17:00 "I'm a shit writer"
This is a very brutal and courageous appraise of one's own aptitudes. This deserves respect.
As for authortube, yeah. I listened to Jenna Moreci's video. It was entertaining, in the beginning. Just going over what should be obvious to not do, but that we know teenagers who want to write would do.
All in all, very basic advises.
But her more "serious" videos in which she "teaches" how to plot a novel seemed to me to be very formulaic and predictable. So I started finding her videos quite stupid. I went on a little tour of other authortube. Found iWriterly and immediatly saw in her what I didn't like in Moreci so I skipped. And another channel... and another channel. The only one I liked is Jericho Writing because he said: "There's not just ONE way of plotting a novel". I respected that.
But well, I might not be the target demographic of authortube (i.e. teenagers who want to write), as I had classes in narratology in my University quite a few years ago.
Thanks for the recommendations, appreciated. I am keeping my eyes open for author tubers who are more mature and aren't writing fantasy. Just for the sake of variety.
Love this video! I recently just made a video about how I don’t even read these types of Authortube books anymore. I’m so much happier now with my channel haha
I started to watch authortube because I was taking a college online wring course and a big chunk of that course was links to videos of authors giving advice. That course was a waste of money, but I kept watching other videos that would pop up in my suggested videos and I did learn more from them than I learned from that course. Many of authors in these videos are basing their advice off of writing advice books they have read, and they do freely admit to it. Although if you ask for them to elaborate more on what they are saying they do not really answer and they would just link to another one of their videos on the topic. I think my favorite author videos are the ones that actually give real examples that you see in writing, movies, or TV shows to back up what they are trying to say. Or they would make up an example right on the spot.
I have bought a highly suggested writing advice book; Save the Cat! Write a Novel, which talks about most of what the authors on RUclips are advising, and the book is very interesting. The author, Jessica Brody has advice videos on here too.
First video of yours I watched, and immediately subscribed !! Gonna binge all of your videos now, I love the content !!❤️
I have never understood why anyone would seek writing advice from anyone other than a professional writer with a proven track record. A few years back, I watched a handful of these videos hoping I might pick up a new trick or two. Frustratingly, I found nothing that didn't fall into the Creative Writing 101 category. Which is fine for a beginner. But for someone looking to improve their skills so they can reach a professional level, it's a waste of time.
I've made a few videos myself. But only one or two having to do with the craft. I simply don't have the teaching ability to pass on what I know in a way that can be easily understood and applied.
In my opinion, these AuthorTubers began to believe their own hype. They had been giving advice for years and been praised repeatedly. Surely they had the chops. Unfortunately for them, very few people do. That is not to say someone can't enjoy writing even if they don't possess the talent to become a professional novelist. I enjoy playing basketball and singing. But I don't think I'll be drafted into the NBA or performing at Carnegie Hall...ever. So what? I have fun.
Yeah I've found most of the advice is very surface level and not actionable at all. Like, you can say "write rounded characters" all day, but it's not actually helpful without being able to explain HOW. What makes a character more rounded, where are the examples of characters we can learn from, etc.
Damn I like how, in ur background on the right side of the book shelf there are like 50 dairies of a wimpy kid
"subtext my nigga" LOL
The Mad Queen shall be the barrier of truth.
The best author RUclipsrs worth your time and who can give you good and practical advice are
1) Kieran Westwood
2) Shirley Jump
3) Abbie Emmons
4) Diana Callahan
I have a feeling I got the spelling of some of their names wrong but it shouldn’t be hard to find them.
They are absolutely the best.
To be honest, some people can give advice and know the theoretical side, but that doesn't mean they have the skill to put it into action. (Applied to Art: Helping someone with spotting mistakes in the anatomy of an artwork without being able to draw themselves)
BUT claiming to be an expert in theory as well as in practise and being above all is not okay
This is a very good point. The reason I want to make a channel where a writer shows the journey of them being a writer. I haven't found a single authortube channel who says that they are beginners and show their ups ans down with writing, what they learnt while writing, they just spew advice. I am a complete newbie so I can't give advice on my channel. I want to show the journey of my writing and dream of being a published author one day.
My favorite authortuber is Brandon Sanderson.
10000% agree. I cannot tell you how many writing classes I’ve been in where the person with the least amount of experience gives the loudest notes.
Here’s the thing, too. Your first book IS going to suck. I’m 5 titles in and my first book isn’t even available anymore cause it was that bad. You can still be proud of that first book (I was!) but don’t act like that makes you an expert. You need the man hours if you’re going to tell other people how to do it. I feel like those with less experience are going to present themselves as smarter while the opposite is true for those with more. Because the more you work, the more you realize that you should never stop learning (or at least that’s how it’s supposed to go)
Also I love your energy and tell the Mad Queen I bow to her
What a banger of a video. Talk about talking truth to power. Absolute smackdown.
I used to watch Jenna Moreci all the time and in the beginning I really loved her, but then I moved on to other authors like Kate Cavanaugh and others like her when she was doing the ‘Write like So and So’ series and just found I preferred that style of video. Then I returned to Jenna Moreci several years later and was like ‘I don’t like this anymore.’
Wrote this as a response to someone but reiterating here. You mention that you can't say for sure that iwriterly was a known writer but this was actually being openly discussed even before her book came out. There was some scattered criticism that was growing about Meg LaTorre well before her book released and the latter review scandal. It was pretty obvious to everyone who had done more than read a handful of YA lit and had an unresearched pipdrream of being an author that the advice she was giving was the same basic crap going around blogs and intro books for ages.
People had been looking into her so called 'publishing' history credentials and found out she only worked as an intern to an agent for a few months at a scammy agency. She never was an agent herself like she pretended to be. Essentially she was lying about her credentials to sell her platform and name and then couldn't even write better than most teenage fanfic writers. She literally sold people (and still does) a course and other services for query letters... from herself, an experienced agent, which was a blatant lie. Her book coming out pretty much sealed it that she was a scammer. She should've shelved it when her own query advice didn't work and she couldn't land an agent and moved on to the next project. Instead she put out a poorly edited, juvenile, unfinished project knowing it would sell to her loyal followers.
Thoughts on Alexa Dunn’s pieces? I personally couldn’t stand her channel because it always has an emphasis on the negative aspects of writing.
Does said negativity translate to better books?
The thing that I cannot agree with is that Meg could have publish traditionally because she said that she used to work in the publishing industry. Well, maybe she didn't want to??? At the very least, that's a legit reason. Also, her book may be out of ganre, out of publising course of the publishing house she knows. She may just want to have all creative control. Also, she might have gone traditional publishing with all the supposed links and acquaintances she might have. They wouldn't care if the 1st chapter was shitty, she's popular thus profitable.
I’ve followed Jenna & Meg for years. I still follow Jenna’s videos tho I’ve grown a little jaded to her advice and format.
I agree that neither author has writing that matches what they portray it to be. I’ve seen a few reviews for their works pop up on my feed (like this one did), and I’d love for one of these videos really show the evidences for their points (even tho their points are imo true). Just seems like this is becoming a bandwagon topic.
Coming from a theater and film background, this is a common phenomenon. Folks that work within the their perspective industry will often learn lots of great advice and be able to tell you things that worked for them and others. Many times they'll have the golden nuggets of advice and believe they are following it themselves when they aren't following it as well as they could be... completely natural. Regardless, the advice can still be very good... any of these channels will be the first to tell you it's just "their own opinion," so I wouldn't go as far as saying they're toxic or terrible. School/university teachers get the moniker of "if you can't do, teach" but we still lean on their knowledge to bolster our own. And that to me is what any of these "creative subjective performance" practitioners are for.
Oh hi! I just found this channel but this is interesting because this is what I've been thinking about the past few days!
Honestly, this problem extends beyond just "authortube". In reality, I've taught creative writing in schools and tutored people in the past and it's just as shady as it is on authortube. A lot of people can give advice and pretend to teach but know nothing about their craft. And I mean this for a lot of teachers. A lot of my high school teachers and university professors couldn't write worth crap. They could sit there and tell you what they liked about a piece and how they interpreted it, but if you sat them down and asked them to write something that would be analyzed...? Yeah. No. You can forget about it.
In other words, there are so many people out there who write a little bit and then think that makes them qualified to teach others, and in reality, it doesn't. Not even a college degree can qualify someone, either. The only way you can know for certain if someone is good at writing is if you can read their work for yourself, and when it comes to classrooms or RUclips channels that haven't published books yet, well... take it with a grain of salt, I suppose.
This is the exact reason why I published my book almost a year before making my Authortube channel though. I want people to already be able to come join me on my platform and have something they can look at and analyze for themselves, determining if I am the right person for them to be giving them advice. It's the only ethical way, in my mind.
As someone that has just recently started writing, I can agree that Jenna's tips are good advice. Of course, following that advice yourself is difficult for many, especially in a first draft, however, not practicing what you preach isn't a good thing, even artists need to work on something for themselves if they ever wish to improve. They can take all the advice from others as they wish and even regurgitate that advice but if you don't use that advice, you will just keep breaking your own rules till you craft your image of being a novelist that crafts terrible stories built on lies of your own competency.
I actually got started doing AuthorTube videos because my first ebook was an absolute disaster of a product. I might do an entire series of videos on how not to write a book (using my own experience as a cautionary tale). There's more than one right way to write a book, but there's many more wrong ways than there are right ways. I have tremendous respect for Meg and Jenna, although my favorite fellow AuthorTubers are, in alphabetical order, Bethany Atazadeh, Shaelin Bishop, Diane Callahan, Mandi Lynn, and M.K. Williams.
Absolutely! Also, I don't mind at all if an authortuber publishes a book that I don’t think is good if they’re just the type that vlogs their writing journey. But if they're portraying themselves as an expert or peddling some expensive course, and yet their book is hot doo-doo, then, they lose all credibility in my eyes.
I just subscribed🤗
You make great videos
Amateur writer here but I have already finished a book I've been creating for 4 years. I finished my second book last month and now I'm stuck with my third so I decided to watch Jenna and iwritely and i got more confuse, and feel more tired about writing. Then I discovered this. I thought I was the problem.
How are your books doing, if you don't mind sharing? I'm working on my first right now and feel like I'm setting myself up for colossal disappointment.
@@AvengerAtIlipa I applied my first novel to a traditional publishing company, the second...well, i got scammed and now i'm stuck because they hold my salary for an unknown reason. I'm currently writing my third and im creating progress. The first book is always the hardest. I had 9 revisions on my first novel, and i still feel lackness from it. But hey! It's like what they said, if you are bored with your story then that is because you are the writer, you know what's gonna happen, you know how it'll end. But the readers don't. It might be disappointing to u but the readers could feel the opposite. Keep going. We are writers. We have so much room to improve.
Whenever I give advice it’s always something basic, and I try to focus most my content on challenges because at this point in time I’m no expert
I'm not an authortube (I am not made of a material for this), but I do write advices. Do I never ever once use others' advice? Sure did, espeicially when there are things are not good at such as describing (if we talked about Jenna Moreci, she has a video that helped get focus on the description part of body) or editting (not an editor).
But, I do try to write my advice. Is it good? I don't know, no one ever told me. But I do mention time and again I don't follow my own advice (and I also publish my books on Wattpad rather than a serious book).
Why do I allow myself to that? Many of my adivce is made of logic and is very intuitive, but I didn't see so many people talk about this. I have a somewhat theoritcal understanding, but my writing style to intuitive to follow any of this other than by chance.
Examples:
Think of a role and then add a characteristic and try to build the characters up (I do use this advice, but I don't plan it till th end, but rather initial character's traits)
How to develop your story ideas: I have no idea what others do, but it works for me. It doesn't mean there are not any other good ways, I just say mine.
When to write a prologue: I am quite sure there is advice abou the matter (sometimes I just copy the title and go from there), cause sometimes people don't always consider the need for one.
You can scorn me, hate me, whatever, but to real, is started as failed blog for beta readers. Sot it grew (and remained failed, no one enters. I don't think it's because it's bad but because I don't work day and night for it to be published).
honestly i still like jenna moreci a lot and her advice is often really inspiring for me as someone who wants to become an author.
Can you tell us why you think Jenna's and Meg's books are rubbish? I haven;t read them yet, so I honestly don't know. How did they not meet your expectations in comparison to what you saw in the videos? What was it in the books that made you say they don't practice what they preach? #HonestlyCuriousHere
I still watch Jenna because she’s entertaining and funny-but yeah, I was pretty shocked by her book, unfortunately 😔😔💔
I love that you have warriors books in your background
I’m a writing hobbyist and proof reader for friends who are starting out and I tend to put them on to subreddits to ask questions. I write and tell stories myself in different formats but choose not to publish anything because I want a quality book, not crap, if I try. I use my own advice and craft stories in a few subreddits myself to develop my writing, story telling skills and be critiqued.
One of the suggestions I give budding writers is to join a TTRPG group. When you join a table you do several things:
1) you learn to create characters in an established system. It doesn’t have to be D&D, pick a system that is in a genre you enjoy. The basic archetypes from books and movies are established, you can bend the archetypes to your story once you learn how to create a character within the system you choose.
2) you are exposed to different types of story telling and arc progression. Your style is your own but being exposed to different styles of story telling can help you develop and mature in your own style.
3) you learn perspective. When I started hobby writing and story telling I was in my own bubble. I didn’t understand how to change perspectives, it’s something I still struggle with and try to improve. Two of my favorite authors who were really good shifting perspective in their stories are Elizabeth Peters and James R. Webb.
4) world building. A big part of TTRPGs is building the world that you are playing in. The game master creates the basics and the rest of the players build in the sand box. You are exposed to so many things like character creation, character interactions, story arc building and progression, cause and effect, life and death, what people enjoy about a setting, and you get to have fun doing it because you help create the story as well.
5) you learn emersion. Young authors need to experience emersion. I don’t put down the lack of life experience a person may have if they are in their early twenties. What I do tell people to do is to get out, See and experience things, in game settings as well as in books and novels, as the story develops and you learn to react to the randomness of the dice, it helps to go out and take a walk in the park. Go on a trip to the beach. It’s difficult to write about things that you have never experienced when some of your prospective readers have. If a writer has a never experienced the first attempt at riding a surf board, how do you plan on writing about it? How do you write about the cool ocean breezes that fill your lungs and you taste the salty spray on your tongue as you watch the waves roll in and peak past the place that you float while your heart races with each passing wave, deciding which rolling tide you want to attempt to conquer?
We write what we know. Most of the writers I like have either studied or experienced some of the things they write about. You want to write about a sword fight? Take a fencing class, join a LARP group, or go to a renaissance festival. Internet research is great but watching a RUclips video, in my opinion, doesn’t replace experiencing the sights, sounds, and smells of a real world experience and then using your imagination and word smithing to translate it to a reader or listener.
Just my two cents over a cup of coffee.
I agree that the execution falls short, however the advice itself (from many authortubers) is pretty good over all. Some of these creators have only wrote one or two novels. Which tells me they know what to go for but are still practicing and have a ways to go before the goals they express are fully reached. Basically what I'm saying is, sometimes you know how something is supposed to be done but doing it well will take time. ❤️
The sketchy stuff you bring up, I had never heard of. So that is interesting and a new perspective for me. 😀
The cat is the best part of the video.
Stumbled on this and really enjoyed it. Thank you. Good high level advice. I hope you haven't stopped writing. You might have written crap, and still be writing crap, but you could become better and even good. Also, the way you were tapping your finger with that stick made me remember some bad memories of being punished as a schoolboy way, way back, but I'll get over it. :)
2:49 Iwriterly was a good side, full of info, full of helpful things....until her book came out. It sounded bad in the preview and she ignored her own counsel and pushed the thing out. When she had bad reviews, she chopped off her hair and then waged war with Amazon and RUclips over ''fake'' reviews and disappeared entirely. Totally doesn't sound like someone who tells you how not to take criticism for someone who used to be the publishing industry. I know she has health problems, but she totally became everything, not to be. I am not sure what happened to her since.
There was some scattered criticism that was growing about Meg LaTorre well before her book released and the latter review scandal. It was pretty obvious to everyone who had done more than read a handful of YA lit and had an unresearched pipdrream of being an author that the advice she was giving was the same basic crap going around blogs and intro books for ages. People had been looking into her so called 'publishing' history credentials and found out she only worked as an intern to an agent for a few months at a scammy agency. She never was an agent herself like she pretended to be. Essentially she was lying about her credentials to sell her platform and name and then couldn't even write better than most teenage fanfic writers.
@@Gna_d54 Really? how did you or anyone find out about this? it is true? anyway I am shocked and thanks for the update. She was the one who warned us about the fake ones in the industry....blimey,
@@andeeharry I do remember the scammer video! Quite the irony. Basically someone found a tweet that was welcoming her as an intern from an agency, Corvisiero Literary Agency in Aug 2016. She started her blog and channel around 6 months later pretending to be this great publishing expert. No ones ever been able to find a mention of a single book she helped sign / author she represented etc. She may have been hired on officially with the agency but was let go in a mass layoff weeks later and then just did her channel full time. When people started to call her out for not having been an agent she started to scrub some of the mentions of that expertise from her newer videos. Also the agency she interned at is also considered a bit of a vanity scam that has had quite a few scandals since.
@@Gna_d54 Thanks for mentioning this. I found her by accident and followed her for ages and noticed she changed her vids. I know when her book came out, she had tons of problems, as she shaved her head, went to war with everyone and disappeared. I know she ranks 60,465th on Amazon at last count. I commented on her last video and got no response. I am glad someone mentioned this...thanks Gina
I actually do think Meg made those accounts herself. Goodreads automatically puts a location on new accounts and it has to be manually disabled in the settings. All of those fake review accounts were located in Meg Latorres home town.
Goodreads also has a minute by minute update of account activity, meaning you could follow the 8 hour trail from the first account to the last- it was one person who did this over the course of a day, not several people/bots.
*Those who can't... teach.*
At one point Meg Latorre had a video where she and literary agents did a "first page critique" and meanwhile the first page of her book contains the words "deflated tits for sails."
Jenna Moreci's videos are constantly talking about what not to do, and she presents it as absolute fact. And in her tropes she hates videos, she lists all the things she does in her own books, and we're supposed to watch that with a straight face.
Another channel that thoroughly disappointed me was Terrible Writing Advice. His channel mocks stupid things in writing and then he goes and does all of them in his book, like he forgot his channel was supposed to be sarcastic.
I've read fanfiction that was written with more care and effort than these books.
I still think TWA is hilarious but his book was just bad. Tons of grammatical errors and it never felt like I was experiencing anything. We were just being told a story. "Silver Wind swung her sword, it missed. The bad guy jumped back, she swung again, it got him in the head. He bled. Then Silver Wind walked away, victorious."
@@whosaidthat84
Based by both of you review, that book would be more into a bad example instead of being enjoyed...
Wasn't Jenna a book critic before trying her hand at writing ?
I personally disagree on the idea that for you to critic something, you gotta know how to do it. I can listen to a song and tell you it's objectively bad without being myself able to make one.
Same goes for writing ! I can tell you that something is badly written but I wouldn't be able to publish a book myself.
I think it's kinda that case with Jenna. Her advices are ... Pretty generic, sure, but it's still good advice. However, not everyone can follow them and it seems that it is her case.
First time seeing your video. I like your style of presenting and you’re very likeable. (All hail the Mad Queen 🐱)
I see a lot of people gunning down Morecci but her content none the less has greatly helped inspire me as a beginning writer and I thoroughly enjoyed both the Saviors Champion and Sister. (I have not read Eve, but that was also her first book.) Maybe some authors aren’t going for the exact text book exact form of literature. Maybe her books aren’t what some people enjoy but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I appreciate the video but not these people in the comments who are only coming in here just to talk smack. Just don’t read her work if you don’t like it. Or, even better, write your own, in the style you want.
I've followed Jenna's videos for a good few years now and while I don't neccessarily follow ALL her tips/advice, I do take at least some things into consideration a little bit. I haven't read her works since the concept/premise isn't exactly my type of thing. You're right though, different writers have different styles and whatnot
I also enjoyed The Savior's Champion. I'd like to know if the people who say it's no good are frequent readers of the genre because if not I'm not inclined to put too much stock in the opinion unless it's related to grammar/editing types of issues.