I recently participated in a short fiction contest (not the big one with my Romance story), and I was hoping somebody could read it and give me some feedback. The contest is kind of fun, and they do several throughout the year. The next one starts February 3rd. The link will also give you access to more information in case you want to try it out. The day the contest opens, they give you a genre or trope, a character, and an object. Then you have 5 days to write the story and submit it. So, if you have a chance, look my story over, please. I'd love feedback. https://www.writingbattle.com/story/debrief/a258670e-63bc-48ab-a5d5-ef93d1e72d2c?uploadedStory

What’s your biggest struggle with daily writing right now? A) Finding time B) Staying consistent C) Overthinking every line D) Starting but not finishing E) All of the above 😅 Pick one and share what’s behind it 👇

Hey y'all! I'm Liz and I'm a beginning author. In the past I've written poetry and some short fiction as a hobby, but I want to do more with my writing. I'm currently working on a romance story for a contest, and would love to connect with other writers to get feedback. Any constructive criticism is welcome, but pacing is my biggest issue with this project. As a side note, years ago, before Elon Musk bought Twitter and changed it, I used to host a weekly writers' chat called Just Add Tea. I've missed talking with other creative people... I'm glad to be here and look forward to meeting y'all!

One small writing tip that helped me: Before I start a story, I always ask, "What problem will my characters have to solve?" It keeps the story moving. What question do you ask yourself before you write?

Posting an older excerpt today. This is a snippet from a longer project I’ve been working on on-and-off for… honestly, about 14 years at this point. This particular scene is one I went full perfectionist on — I worked on it for months, revisiting and refining it way more than I normally would. Sometimes you get the itch, you know? This is NOT the kind of thing I advocate trying to aim for every day. If we all did this all the time, nothing would ever get shared. I’m posting it more as a contrast: an example of what my writing looks like when I really slow down and give something a long runway. I’m still proud of this one, and I come back to it every now and then. It was also the first time I seriously used song as a narrative tool, so I put a lot of care into making that aspect work, almost in a LOTR style. I’ve attached the excerpt below. There’s also a very light lore primer, since this was written for fans of a specific setting (Warhammer/Warhammer 40k) and jumping in completely cold might be a bit weird otherwise. As always: rough drafts, half-formed scenes, and messy experiments are very much the point here — this is just one snapshot from the other end of the spectrum. ----- Very Light Lore Primer (optional, skimmable) - Itza – An ancient temple-city of the lizardmen; a major center of their power and thought. - Slann – Immensely old, psychic frog-priests who rule the lizardmen. Think philosopher-kings whose debates can literally reshape reality. - Saurus / Skink / Kroxigor – Different castes of lizardmen: Saurus are warriors (8 foot tall t-rex men), skinks are human-sized attendants/scribes, kroxigors are giant crocodile men - Ayacmanik – A parasitic, body-snatching hive-mind species. Highly dangerous, highly intelligent, and the subject of intense debate over whether they should be destroyed… or given true sapience. - Isendral – An Eldar (basically: space elf). An ancient, god-adjacent being involved in the creation of entire species. - Eldar – Long-lived, highly advanced “space elves” who shape worlds more through art, song, and intuition than machinery. - What’s actually happening in this scene: The opening “battle” isn’t literal. It’s a psychic debate among the Slann, where competing ideas manifest as enormous symbolic creatures and fight it out. The outcome of that clash determines a real, world-shaping decision: whether the Ayacmanik will be awakened as a thinking species.