PSA: I spent 2 years writing fantasy wrong before a beta reader fixed me

Last month a beta reader told me my battle scene read like a grocery list. I was mad at first but then I went back to a chapter I wrote 3 years ago in my apartment in Portland and saw she was right. I described every sword swing but never said how the rain felt on the character's neck or what the enemy's boots sounded on wet stone. She showed me how adding one sensory detail per paragraph changed everything. Now I write prompts for myself that force me to use smell or touch before action. Anyone else have a critique that totally flipped your writing style?

2 comments

2 Comments

danielh8119h ago

Wait wait wait, you mean you were writing for TWO YEARS without sensory details? lmao that's wild. I totally get the grocery list thing though, my first draft had characters walking into rooms and I'd just say "he looked around" like that means anything. A friend once told me my dialogue read like two robots exchanging information and I was so offended until I realized she was right - people don't talk like that, they scratch their necks and look away and trail off mid sentence. Now I have to physically act out my scenes to catch what my hands would actually be doing while I talk lol.

jana_henderson5217h ago

Normally I'd argue that less is more with descriptions but @danielh81, your robot dialogue example hit home hard - made me go back and add gestures to like six scenes I thought were fine.