: Re: How can I get my style to feel more mature? I'm 22 year old and when I read myself, my writing style feels juvenile. By that, I mean that everything seems enveloped in a drape of purity,

I've been struggling with this as well, @Keker .

I'd ask you this: Would you describe all sections of your manuscript as childish? Are some better and more mature in style than others? This thought ties in part into what Chris said in his answer. To the point: the things you feel passionately about are things you will have more nuanced knowledge about.

The portions of my story that feel most juvenile are the pieces that need to be there - but that I don't actually have much experience with. It reads 'juvenile' because it is not sophisticated. My approach to bring this up is to research those areas to add detail, develop it more.

It's helping.

If you can pinpoint certain scenes or chunks that feel most juvenile, consider researching the pieces of that scene to learn more about it. Ask yourself if there are parts of your story that you sort of 'hand wave' because in your mind it doesn't matter if the details are right or not. then learn more about those details.

Example: I'm currently learning the makeup and definitions of villages in comparison to towns.

This may sound like a trivial thing to worry about - but it matters to tone and style for those portions of my story that are set in a town. I need to also research what sorts of road surfaces would be available to these towns in this era. At the moment the roads are a mix of cobbles, dirt, and paved - because i have no earthly idea which is most accurate or if all three are reasonable. I don't know if there would be sidewalks, or what they'd be made of. I don't know how many guest houses a town like this should reasonably have, or how developed the medical center should be. I've handled all of this in a very hand-wavy sort of way but need to nail down those details - and that will add a little more authority to the setting; the reader will understand that they are 'in good hands' when they read it, and I think this creates a more mature tone.

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: Re: How can I get my style to feel more mature? I'm 22 year old and when I read myself, my writing style feels juvenile. By that, I mean that everything seems enveloped in a drape of purity,

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: How to complement a novel with short stories - what to avoid I have given my novel to beta readers now. hurray! I'm also very pointedly not looking at it for a few weeks. I'm spending these

: How does one gauge the strength of any particular adverb? I am now editing for adverbs, as silly as that may sound to some people. :-) I have learned, 'by ear', that the advice to 'avoid

: I generally agree with @Secespitus and that may be all the answer you need to consider. However the idea of sexuality as a weapon is an interesting one, and could potentially be done well

: Do too many scenes exhaust the reader? I'm now analyzing the scenes in my manuscript. I broke my manuscript into scenes using the definition that a new scene begins when a person, place,

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