Happy Monday, Reader,

You know, it's quite eerie how sometimes you say or write something and then start noticing it everywhere. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how writing advice should be taken lightly and why some advice should be ignored. Well, two days after I sent that newsletter, I read three articles that talked about this exact thing. Now, I'm not saying I should be the only one talking about it, but it did feel eerie to me.

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The second thing I noticed is how many writers take advice that doesn't work for the kind of stories they're writing.

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Example: Petty AF — a novella I read over the weekend. Now, this novella has already been published, and it has a few more books in the series. But the advice the author took... well, let me back up.

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First, why are people writing so many novellas? I'm not sure I'm on board with this trend. I've been noticing lately that books are getting shorter and shorter. I'm not really sure what's driving this, but I wish it would stop.

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Now back to that unwise advice.

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Petty AF has around 130 pages—I'd estimate 30-40k words. It's a short romance with speculative aspects that were never fully developed. There were questions raised that were never answered. If the author had just written a straight romance and left the speculative aspects out, it would have been a complete novella. But introducing the speculative element brought up more questions than the writer was willing to fully explore.

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For instance, one of the characters is a werewolf, and he doesn't even know why he experiences a particular body change during a specific moment. He questions why it happens—yet he was born a werewolf, so it's not like he didn't know anyone like him. There's also the fact that speculative fiction, even short romances, needs more world building and story development. This author, however, took the advice of not doing info dumps or over-exposition and took it the wrong way. As in, it left the reader—me—more confused than enlightened. By the end of the story I had more questions, and the story didn't really invite me to continue the series. It failed at having me invested in reading more.

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Wow, that was a very negative comment from me. In fact, I'm completely shocked at my own thought process. But the fact remains: writing advice should serve not only the writer, but the story and the reader as well. During revisions, you should ask beta or alpha readers to review your work and identify areas that might need more development—or areas that might have too much development. It should be said that authors who know exactly what to ask their betas and alphas will have better manuscripts at the end than those who only ask them to tell them if they have a viable story.

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So what's the takeaway here?

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It's not that you should ignore all writing advice—it's that you need to understand the purpose behind the advice before applying it.

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"Show, don't tell" and "avoid info dumps" are valuable guidelines, but they exist to serve reader engagement, not to create arbitrary restrictions. In speculative fiction, some exposition is essential. The trick is making it interesting exposition—sprinkled naturally into character motivations, conflicts, or discoveries.

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Before you follow any writing advice, ask yourself: What problem is this advice trying to solve? Does my story have that problem? What does my specific story need to work?

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Which is funny because I've been reading this biker romance series—Raging Barons MC—and it's basically the opposite problem. Where Petty AF followed advice too rigidly and left things underdeveloped, this series... well, it doesn't seem to have followed much writing advice at all.

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I'm on book eight of sixteen. And I'll be honest with you: the writing is objectively bad. Clunky dialogue. Way too much exposition. Awkward tags everywhere. Little to no "show, don't tell." If I were alpha reading this series, I'd have pages and pages of notes about craft issues.

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And yet I keep reading.

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Why? The characters. Some of them, anyway. They're chaotic and over-the-top, but compelling enough that I want to see what happens next. Not all of them—but a few have just enough spark to keep me turning pages.

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Which makes me think about what actually matters in a story versus what we're told should matter.

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Because here's the thing: these books aren't great. They're not the ones I'd recommend to friends. They're not going to be reread or become favorites. They're... passable. They're "good enough" to keep me mildly entertained while I'm doing laundry or waiting in line somewhere.

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But if you want more than that—if you want readers who love your story and your words, who shout your name from the rooftops, who reread your books and leave glowing reviews—then you have to do the work.

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And that's where it gets tricky, right? Because Petty AF clearly did some of the work. The author was trying to follow craft advice. They were being intentional about avoiding info dumps. But they followed that advice so strictly that they created a different problem—confusion and underdevelopment.

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Meanwhile, Raging Barons MC seems to have ignored most craft advice entirely and still has readers (like me, apparently, who can't stop reading despite knowing better).

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So what's a writer supposed to do with that information?

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I think—and maybe this is where alpha readers really become invaluable—you need people who can tell you not just "this isn't working" but why it's not working and what your story actually needs.

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If I were alpha reading Petty AF, I wouldn't just say "I'm confused about the werewolf thing." I'd ask: What role does the speculative element play in this romance? Is it just window dressing, or is it integral to the relationship? Because if it's integral, you need more development. If it's just flavor, maybe reconsider whether you need it at all.

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And if I were alpha reading Raging Barons MC (which, let's be real, probably didn't have alpha readers or didn't listen to them), I'd say: Your characters are carrying this entire series on their backs. But imagine how much stronger these books could be if the writing matched the character work. You're leaving so much potential on the table.

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That's the difference between cheerleading and actually helping a writer improve. It's not about pointing out every grammar mistake or every instance of telling instead of showing. It's about understanding what the story is trying to accomplish and whether the execution is serving that goal.

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I'm realizing as I write this that most writers don't know how to facilitate that kind of feedback. They hand their manuscript to someone and say "let me know what you think," which is basically useless. Or they ask "did you like it?" which is only marginally better.

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The writers I work with who make the biggest improvements are the ones who come in already suspecting where their weak spots are. They'll say something like "I'm worried the pacing drags in the middle" or "I'm not sure if the magic system makes sense" or "Does the romance feel rushed?" They're not looking for validation. They're looking for diagnosis. I had a writer asked me point blank whether she had a saggy middle. She knew she had, but she needed advice on how to move the middle forward. I told her the truth. Yes, you do have a saggy middle, but the problem is not the story itself, it’s these long-winded speeches that drag on for pages, cut those speeches into a third of what they are and you can see how much better your middle will be.

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And that's really what separates a manuscript that's "good enough" from one that's genuinely compelling. It's having the self-awareness to know what you're trying to achieve and the outside perspective to tell you whether you're hitting that mark.

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Because at the end of the day, writing advice—all of it—is only useful if it serves your specific story. "Show, don't tell" might be gospel in some contexts and completely wrong in others. "Avoid info dumps" is great until it makes your speculative world incomprehensible. "Trust your reader" is wonderful until you've left them so confused they stop reading.

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The only way to know which advice applies to your story is to test it with readers who understand what you're trying to do.

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I keep thinking about Petty AF and wondering if anyone in their process flagged the werewolf confusion. And I wonder if they dismissed it because they'd been told readers are smart and will figure it out. Or maybe no one said anything because the author didn't create space for that kind of specific feedback.

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There's this balance between trusting your reader's intelligence and giving them what they need to engage with your story. Between avoiding info dumps and ensuring clarity. Between showing and telling. And honestly? You can't find that balance alone. You need outside perspective—but the right kind of outside perspective.

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Not the kind that says "I loved it!" (though that's nice to hear).

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Not the kind that nitpicks every comma (though sometimes you need that too).

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The kind that says "Here's what you're trying to do, here's where it's working, and here's where you're getting in your own way."

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That's the kind of feedback that actually moves a manuscript from "good enough" to "I can't put this down."

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Anyway, I'm curious—how do you handle feedback on your work? Do your alpha or beta readers give you the kind of specific insight that helps you revise, or are you mostly getting "I liked it" responses? And when you do get critical feedback, how do you decide what to listen to and what to dismiss?

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Let me know. I'm genuinely interested in how other writers navigate this.

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Until next time,

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