: Re: Uh oh - My book stinks. Now what? The question pretty much sums it up. I'm a freelance author without much of a platform. It's not that I don't like the story - I spent a great deal of

@Eichhorn147

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Get a good editor. A really good editor. It can be someone hired or someone you know who will trust you when you tell them to be honest. This isn't copyediting (although it is that, too). This is the whole shebang. Give them your manuscript or sections at a time and have them just start marking everything--every single thought they notice having that breaks immersion. They should mark sentences that don't sound quite right, details they wish they knew more about, conversations that get off-track and they can't quite remember who's talking about what, and anywhere they find their mind wandering. What I find is that, very often, when a book gets uninteresting, it can actually be pinpointed to some sloppy writing in the lead-up.

They should do multiple run-throughs of the manuscript. They can give you back sections marked up and you can make changes and hand them right back; it doesn't have to be linear. They don't need to worry about whether the story makes an impact upon first reading, because once it's tightened up, it will. They don't need to make comments only if they know what it should be; they can just circle a sentence or paragraph and say, "I just don't like this." Encourage them to mark also where your individual writing style is too noticeable, where you've indulged yourself just a little too much. They should also mark anything that someone does out-of-character or even if it's just unbelievable. Oh, and if you have anything technical (not just modern technical but anything for which there exist experts and you are not one of them), make sure you do your homework so the details make sense, and then make sure you write about it as much in plain language as you can. It doesn't have to be "Up-Goer Five" level, but getting into the weeds and using jargon or words from foreign languages to add "ambience" tends to be isolating and disruptive for readers.

If, after all that, you still think it's just not great, or if partway through the process, you realize you're not interested in fixing it any more than you have, mothball it. But I bet you'll be very surprised. You may actually end up with a very different story in the end, or very different characters--try not to cling to plot elements or bits of dialogue that aren't working. However, if there is a part you really like and can't make work, copy it into a different document. There's no reason you can't hang onto it, but maybe it just doesn't belong in that book. Or maybe, once some other problems are fixed, you'll find that a perfect spot opens up for it that fits perfectly.

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