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AI covers or "AI assistance" immediately make me drop a book. Using AI for anything but as a search engine a la "I need info about <TOPIC>, please recommend me some relevant writing" dilutes the craft. Nevermind the privacy issues with using public models.
Realistically, the "craft" as a whole has already been degraded and dragged through the mud as much as it possibly could be way before 2022 or whenever the first public version of chatgpt came out. Visual art even moreso than writing because many if not most of the same shartistes who get on their high horse about AI stealing their "work" or being soulless think nothing of making money off things like furry porn commissions of licensed characters who don't "belong" to them either for random degenerates online and that's already so far removed from any imagined lofty artistic ideal they claim to represent that you can't call it anything other than grasping at straws.
With text-only writing it's been a dying and devalued medium for decades as attention spans continued to decline and the publishing industry became more and more of an incestuous homogenous circlejerk so you don't even really have the illusion of there being anything left to dilute since sludge and slop are the gold standard now for the few people who even pretend to care anymore. At this point it's not really a matter of integrity, authenticity, or skill so much as sheer stubbornness and if you don't even have that then why bother at all?
I think a bit of writer's block might be my actual issue; I dunno, it's just a handful of stupidly persistent bits that're stuck in my head. Done a lot of walking as of late already, I think I'm just looking for a suggestion on some stuff. I just got some advice from @Blasterisk about handling writer's block, so I'm going to give that a proper try; only reason I even considered using AI at all was because an author I tried to talk to IRL on my end suggested that I use it.
Realistically, the "craft" as a whole has already been degraded and dragged through the mud as much as it possibly could be way before 2022 or whenever the first public version of chatgpt came out. Visual art even moreso than writing because many if not most of the same shartistes who get on their high horse about AI stealing their "work" or being soulless think nothing of making money off things like furry porn commissions of licensed characters who don't "belong" to them either for random degenerates online and that's already so far removed from any imagined lofty artistic ideal they claim to represent that you can't call it anything other than grasping at straws.
With text-only writing it's been a dying and devalued medium for decades as attention spans continued to decline and the publishing industry became more and more of an incestuous homogenous circlejerk so you don't even really have the illusion of there being anything left to dilute since sludge and slop are the gold standard now for the few people who even pretend to care anymore. At this point it's not really a matter of integrity, authenticity, or skill so much as sheer stubbornness and if you don't even have that then why bother at all?
I had a little difficultly understanding the run-on sentences, but I get what you mean. Actual writing skill has been rare for a while now; hell, even back when my ass was in high school, I was running into high-schoolers that were legit illiterate, much less able to write.
Can't disagree with any of this; as I said, I'm only looking for a small bit of assistance on getting something lined out. Definitely not going to be using this to "write my story for me" - I've... actually got damn near the entire plot lined out, actually - just got a detail or two stuck in my head, wanted to see if it could go anywhere.
The problem is AI is inherently servile and its priority will always be to please you rather than to give genuine creative critique. Any halfway decent advice it gives you will be aped from other writers. IMO drop this project for a couple days or weeks and spend time and energy on a different creative endeavor to cleanse your palette.
Working on a story about thieves and a heist - watched the entire Oceans trilogy recently which kickstarted this kernel of an idea.
The context for the scene is that earlier in this chapter we follow the perspective of the young pickpocket as he demonstrates his skill, stealing what he believes to be an unwitting victim's wallet. The story thus continues...
The boy sauntered down the alleyway with a mischievous grin across his face. Glancing furtively left and right, ascertaining that there were no police officers to be seen, he finally took off the hood of his jacket. The sun beamed on his face - brown locks of hair, a sharp jawline and emerald eyes brimming with self-confidence were tipped up in an arrogant manner.
He basked in the satisfaction of succeding in his mission. His spoil was tucked snugly and now was finally time to empty its contents for pawning. The boy took the leather wallet out and opened its lip. To his dismay there was nothing valuable to be found. No banknotes, no coins, no credit cards. Contrary to what he believed, he had stolen an empty wallet. Empty, save for the blank card flush in the inner pocket. He slid it out with his fingers and read the only two words engraved on its surface. "Judas Lémille".
Instantly, he recoiled, card slipping out of his fingers. This couldn't be possible, he thought in a panic, how could that card have his name on it? Why this card, in this wallet, which he happened to snatch? Just then a mortifying possibility entered his mind, that perhaps this sequence of events was not the circumstance of random chance, but in fact an orchestration by someone who knew who and what he was.
This fearful hypothesis was confirmed as quickly as the boy thought it when a voice, quiet as it was, spoke behind him. "That's your name, right?"
Judas whipped around, his presence shrinking to the nearest brick wall, at once in disbelief, shame and rage. He glared at the gentleman standing before him, a man of peak adolescence, donning a black turtleneck long sleeved shirt, hands tucked in the pockets of his navy denim jeans. He had a simple haircut for the tim, neatly trimmed sides and a slight pompadour at the top. His eyes conveyed a wisdom well beyond his eyes.
The man smiled, to Judas' surprise, in a gentle way. He seemed unfazed by the attempted pickpocketing which put Judas further on guard. "Judas, my name is Mort Casavox." The man tipped his head down, seemingly to show respect for the ruffian. "Your skills are quite promising, for a kid."
"Only good enough to let you catch me, that is!" Judas could only laugh after all that had transpired. Instantly his guard was up again. "Tell me what you want, bastard. I know my debts. Should've known my 'creditors' have sent someone to collect what they're owed." He shrugged and raised his hands in surrender. "So take me to your debauched lair, torture me, feed me to the fishes. Whatever else you deem appropriate. I have no means to pay you back, plain and simple."
Mort took this speech in with bemusement. After a moment of contemplation, he responded. "Didn't think you're in debt. But no worries, we all start somewhere."
Those words hit Judas' nerves. "What do you call that, then?" He snapped, pointing at the empty wallet that had been dropped on the ground.
"A hobby," Mort Casavox said. "To me though, it's a stepping stone to a much more fulfilling and financially lucrative career."
Judas stared at him, processing the implication behind those words. "Wait... you're not a loan shark?"
Mort's wry smile widened into a devilish grin. "I believe a full introduction is necessary, My name's Mort Casavox. I am a thief, an internationally wanted criminal to be exact." He put his right hand out, offering a handshake, which Judas responded to in kind.
"How - Why did you find me?" Judas looked to Mort not with suspicion but admiration. To him, Mort now was no enemy, but a senior and a possible mentor.
"It's a long story - to keep it short, I'm in need of men for a job." Mort began to stride out of the alleyway, Judas close behind. "For reasons I cannot fathom, I was required to enlist your assistance in the undertaking of this heist."
"Heist? For what?" Judas inquired.
"That's the best and worst part about it." Mort lifted a finger as he continued. "We'll be stealing from another thief?"
"How's that bad?"
"Said thief is one of the best in the world. Better than even me." Judas couldn't quite tell if there was sarcasm or venom in Mort's voice when he said that last bit. "He infamous, listed on top of every global criminal ranking system. By hook, or by crook, he gets whatever he wants." Judas lurched at the utterance of that final, familiar phrase.
"You've got to be kidding... Hook Crook?! The man that stole a quarter of America's gold reserves and hid it in an iceberg?!"
Mort nodded. "That's the one everyone remembers, including country bumpkins. He also disassembled the Louvre displays, then reassembled them save for the original canvases. Now, the French government pays him tens of millions every year to keep their paintings in the building."
"Who're you calling a 'country bumpkin'?"
"That's the point you took from what I had to say?"
"No. You're a maniac for challenging him! This is like an ant trying to face an elephant."
Mort's expression turned solemn. "I'm afraid I don't have much choice in this matter." A second later, he returned to his jovial, lackadaisical demeanour. "But enough of all that trouble, just enjoy our upcoming trip to France."
Judas stopped dead in his tracks. "We're going to France?!"
This is the first long bit of writing I have done in a while. The writing is pretty simplistic but I hope there's still some character to it. I know some character bits and dialogue are cliched so I would appreciate advice on how to switch things up and write in a more novel way.
Hope you enjoyed my excerpt. Looking forward to sharing more with you all.
My first bit of advice is to not infodump your character's appearance right off the bat. There are some very good authors who are the exception to this rule, but they are the exception.
My first bit of advice is to not infodump your character's appearance right off the bat. There are some very good authors who are the exception to this rule, but they are the exception.
My recommendation is to sprinkle small descriptors throughout the piece. Anything super identifying you want more toward the front (someone who's unusually tall, or walks with a limp, etc.).
One more thing I'll say is we're told four times in the first three sentences that our MC is arrogant. I'd snip two of these.
The boy sauntered down the alleyway with a mischievous grin across his face. Glancing furtively left and right, ascertaining that there were no police officers to be seen, he finally took off the hood of his jacket. The sun beamed on his face - brown locks of hair, a sharp jawline and emerald eyes brimming with self-confidence were tipped up in an arrogant manner.
My recommendation is to sprinkle small descriptors throughout the piece. Anything super identifying you want more toward the front (someone who's unusually tall, or walks with a limp, etc.).
One more thing I'll say is we're told four times in the first three sentences that our MC is arrogant. I'd snip two of these.
BUT this isn't the sort of thing I'd worry about until you've done your rough draft and you're moving to editing.
I had a little difficultly understanding the run-on sentences, but I get what you mean. Actual writing skill has been rare for a while now; hell, even back when my ass was in high school, I was running into high-schoolers that were legit illiterate, much less able to write.
That's definitely a related issue, but the specific flavor of terminal tastelessness of both readers (see the average goodreads reviewer or booktuber/toker/cocker) and gatekeepers (in the publishing industry) in the past 15-20 years is more what I was getting at. Reading and writing are both just punchlines now whereas like 40+ years ago they used to mean something.
Good News! I'm done. It did it, bois. I finished a first draft of a book.
In short:
I finished yesterday, which was the 261st straight day of writing.
Final word count is 412,433 which considering I was targeting 50k-100k is kind of hilarious.
This means I managed to average 1580 words/day average. The reason I care about these statistics is because I had a goal of getting shit done. I have a full time job, dammit.
It also means this is the first day in 261 days where I'm not going to be writing 1000+ words per my autismo strategy. That feels weird. I expected to miss a day here and there, but it happened to work out that I never had a day I couldn't get to writing.
Now to edit it
Below I quoted my own update posts from earlier in this thread, so we can all laugh at how incorrect I was regarding the length, and how cool and correct my writing rules were (for me).
I've been writing recently so I felt like talking about it. I've had a story in mind, a nice comfy scifi story with some fantasy mixed in. I'll just go ahead and compare it to DUNE in terms of setting. I'm at almost 90K words at this point, and it's going great, so I had a few thoughts about writing methods.
I'd been doing outlines and such for probably five years or more. I even started writing it, got around 20K words into it, and scrapped the entire thing as totally unworkable. Long story short, I miscalculated how to write a beginning. It was both trite and weird. To make an analogy, I was on track to write an entire book about Luke on the moisture farm trying to figure out how to turn his lightsaber on. It sucked! Fortunately I didn't give up and my 2nd attempt is going much better.
Here's my current method for overcoming writer's block and my general laziness: I have a set of strict rules, designed to fight procrastination. They sound a bit autistic, but they work for me. The goal is to get as much work done, as quickly as possible. I came up with this around new years.
Rule 1:
I have to write 1000 words minimum per day no matter what. Taking days off is out of the question, no weekends. I picked 1000 words because it's not too much, but not too little. It's a couple hours per day, and I want to form the habit of writing every day.
Rule 2:
If I do miss a day due to something unavoidable, I must make it up by increasing the minimum word count for the next few days. Say 1500 minimum for the next two days. Missing days is inevitable, so there has to be a plan to make it up. (I haven't actually missed any days yet lol)
Rule 3:
I cannot pre-write my 1000 words if I think I might miss a day later. The point is to get shit done, and I know I'd be scrounging for an excuse to skip a day if I allowed this. I must always be in word-debt when I wake up in the morning. It's psychological.
Rule 4:
If I reach 1000 words and am on a roll, I don't stop until I run out of steam. 1000 words isn't even that much, it's less than 2 pages. I am a lazy fucker, and my first instinct would be to "save" some work for later, so I have to have a rule against it. This also ties in nicely with rule 3. It doesn't matter if I wrote 3000 words yesterday, I'm still in word-debt today, I still owe 1000 words to the word goblin or else my kneecaps are getting broken.
Rule 5:
I keep a log of my progress. For each day, I record the current word count ( 88,185 ), how many days I've been doing this ( 67 ), and a few other metrics. I need this for motivation, it's like a score card. I like watching number go up.
I learned a few things doing this. I thought I was a planner-type, but after actually writing, I didn't end up using my outline the way I thought I would. With characters finally placed in the situations I set up, I found that I couldn't get them to resolve the situations the way I planned. There was a huge deviation between having a plot point on an outline, and actually doing the work of making it real. In a sense, the characters would chose to do something different, and usually better, than what I was thinking. That's because the version of me writing the outline only had a basic understanding of the situation. The story also grew, with whole chapters that were nowhere on the outline, events that were totally unforeseen consequences of what was going on. I also thought some things would be small and unimportant that turned out to be huge. A minor note like "Then the characters go from A to B" turns into an epic journey way more easily than I realized. Not that I'm complaining.
I also learned that I can't worry about prose on the first draft. It's too inefficient to sit there trying to think of the prefect turn of phrase when I've got 1000 words to get down. I'm often writing in a utilitarian way to keep my pace up. If reading a book can be slow, try writing it. It's slow enough as is, anything I can do to pick up the pace, I do it. I'll edit it later.
I also learned to throw away good ideas if they weren't fitting in. Some of the scenes which were the whole reason for making this story have ended up in the trash. That was part of the problem with my first attempt, I stuck too closely to certain "cool" scenes.
I also became more aware of how much time I'm fucking wasting on the average day, because now that I've started doing this, I can't even watch a two hour YT video without getting antsy about how much shit I'm not getting done.
I also learned that I can't really judge how long of a book I'm writing. I used to laugh at authors for taking 8 books to write 3 books, but I get it now. I thought the book I'm writing would be maybe 50K words. I'm now at 88K and I'm...half way through? Maybe a third? Who knows!
In conclusion, I now have more sympathy for poor old George RR Martin than I once did. This shit is complicated. I'm just writing it for myself, but if I do get it done and publish it, that would be cool too. I don't want my cringe Kiwi Farms posts tied to it though, naturally.
So, I passed the 90 day mark of writing my own story a few days ago.
I had this plan to write a book in 90 days by writing at least 1K words per day.
I followed my plan and on day 90, I was at around 130K words. I haven't missed a day yet and am pretty happy overall with the process.
The only 'problem' is, I'm only around halfway done, in my estimation. I misjudged the length by a fair margin.
Still, I plan to stick to it and finish it. We'll see where I am after another 90 days.
I suspect when I go back to do a 2nd draft, it'll grow quite a lot longer again, because I forgo any flowery exposition and keep the writing very streamlined, so I probably have a lot of floating heads in all-white rooms happening in this draft.
Progress report:
This is day 120 of writing my heckin epic scifi novelerino. Word count is 181,000
I might be...60% done?
I just have to see where this goes.
This is day 180 of writing my scifi book. I still haven't missed a single day writing, I'm still doing 1000 words/day minimum as a goal to get it done. I just want to get something done, bros, and my rules are working for me.
Current word count is 274,000. I am in the home stretch, it's just the climax and wrap up at this point.
Even though my original plan was to finish in 90 days with a book around 100K words, I'm still pretty happy with it. I did not expect the book to be this long. All my expectations have been way off, but I'm now probably going to end up with around 300K when done. (hopefully not too much more.) Then the revision phase will begin.
The typical alleyway you imagine where Batman busts thugs isn't long enough for Judas to saunter across, so it would make more sense if he was just entering it, especially since he just snatched a wallet from a crowd which would be in the open street. However, European alleways tend to be longer and connect streets instead of having dead ends, so you could use the chance to establish the country where this is taking place, especially since the "hook" at the end is they're taking a presumably long trip to France, but I don't know how far France is from them to be impressed.
If he's on an alley, he won't see anything but walls on his left and right. It makes more sense that he'd check for cops using his senses in an all-encompassing manner, especially listening for cop sounds.
he finally took off the hood of his jacket. The sun beamed on his face - brown locks of hair, a sharp jawline and emerald eyes brimming with self-confidence were tipped up in an arrogant manner. He basked in the satisfaction of succeeding in his missionjob.
Describing the character in such details read as amateurish like you've already been told, but the reason why is because it gives away you're picturing the story visually, perhaps as movie stills. Amateur writers often treat prose as a cheaper alternative to movies or shows they don't have the money to make instead of taking full advantage of the medium, which can view the world through any senses, not just sound or images. Even if you wanted to keep the description, the specific colors for each element definitely don't matter to the reader who hasn't been given a reason to care yet.
I would use 'job' instead of 'mission' if this is how he survives and gets money with which to buy food. It's a living, not a game.
His spoil was tucked snugly and now was finally time to empty its contents for pawning. The boy took the leather wallet out and opened its lip. To his dismay there was nothing valuable to be found. No banknotes, no coins, no credit cards. Contrary to what he believed, he had stolen an empty wallet. Empty, save for the blank card flush in the inner pocket. He slid it out with his fingers and read thewith only two words engraved on its surface. "Judas Lémille".
Instantly, he recoiled, the card slipping out of his fingers. This can't be possible. he thought in a panic, how could that card have his name on it? Why this card, in this wallet, which he happened to snatch? Just then a mortifying possibility entered his mind, that perhaps this sequence of events was not the circumstance of random chance, but in fact an orchestration by someone who knew who and what he was.
This fearful hypothesis was confirmed as quickly as the boy thought it when A voice, quiet as it was, spokecame from behind him, on the main street. "That's your name, right?"
Judas whipped around, his presence shrinking to the nearest brick wall, at once in disbelief, shame and rage.
He glared at the gentlemanyoung man of peak adolescence standing before him, a man of peak adolescence, donning a black turtleneck long sleeved shirt, hands tucked in the pockets of his navy denim jeans. He had a simple haircut for the tim, neatly trimmed sides and a slight pompadour at the top. His eyes conveyed a wisdom well beyond his eyes.
Same problem with the descriptions, but, if he's "peak adolescence", he's not a gentleman, because he's not a man. I understand he fits the gentleman thief archetype, but he's still not of age, especially from the point of view of a boy who typically thinks himself as mature as any of the older kids. Also, the "wisdom behind his eyes" is just telling us the character is smart without doing the work of proving it to us.
The manyoung man smiled, to Judas' surprise, in a gentle way. He seemed unfazed by the attempted pickpocketing which put Judas further on guard. "Judas, my name is Mort Casavox." The man tipped his head down, seemingly to show respect. for the ruffian. "Your skills are quite promising, for a kid."
"Right. So promising you managed toOnly good enough to let you catch me, that is!" Judas could only laughed after all that had transpired. Instantly his guard was up again. "Tell me what you wantJust say it, bastard. I know myI have debts. Should've known my 'creditors' have sentwould send someone to collect what they're owed." He shrugged and raised his hands in surrender. "So take me to your debauched lairwarehouse, torture me, feed me tosend me to sleep with the fishes. Whatever else you deem appropriate. I have no means to pay you back, plain and simple."
Some awkward grammar and unnatural dialogue here. I assume English isn't your first language, for what it's worth, it's not totally unfitting for a genre that originates from France and has an 'European vibe' all around. It's like dubbed dialogue. All the same, I changed terms like "lair" and "feed me to the fishes", which make me think of a Bond villain to mob-related words more appropriate to the situation.
Mort took this speech in with bemusement. After a moment of contemplation, he responded. "Didn't think you'red be in debt.,but no worries,. We all start somewhere."
Those words hit Judas' nerves. "'Start?' I just stole a wallet from a crowd without anyone noticing!" He snapped, pointing at the empty wallet that had been dropped on the ground.
Notice I keep cutting your double-explaining every character's action so we understand the feeling behind them. This is typically because beginner writers are scared to trust the readers. You have to let them interpret the scene and draw their own conclusions even if they don't 100% fit what's in your head. The reader completes 50% of any story they read.
"Someone who didn't notice I wanted him to steal it is what I'd call aA hobbyist," the young manMort Casavox said. "To me, though, it's a stepping stonewhat you have can lead you to a much more fulfilling and financially lucrative career."
Apparently Judas forgot the wallet he's pointing to as a matter of pride wasn't a real wallet and it only had a note with his name in it. I tried to put a bow to that little plot thread.
Financially lucrative is just redundant, isn't it?
Loan sharks approve of loans, they don't retrieve them. Those would be repo men, or goons, or enforcers. Either way, an underage boy couldn't get a loan, unless he inherited his parent's debt after they passed. It's too clunky for a single line.
MortThe young man's wry smile widened into a devilish grin. "I believe a full introduction is necessary, My name's Mort Casavox. I am a thief, an internationally wanted criminal to be exactone." He put his right hand out, offering a handshake, whichwith Judas responded to in kindaccepting the handshake.
You can't respond in kind to an offering unless it's with another offering, so the original description you lay out had both men extending their arms and daring the other to close the handshake.
"How - Wwhy did you find me?" Judas looked to Mort not with suspicion but admiration. To him, Mort now was no enemy, but a senior and a possible mentor.
"It's a long story - to keep itTo keep a long story short, I'm in need ofenlisting men for a job."
I lack context to properly edit this, but since he mentions he doesn't know why he's asked to recruit Judas, I surmise it's not Mort that needs men, but whomever his boss is.
Mort began to stride out of the alleyway, Judas close behind. "For reasons I cannot fathomcan only guess, I was required to enlist your assistance ininvite you specifically to the undertaking of this heist."
"Heist? For whatWho are we robbing?" Judas inquired.
"That's the best and worst part about it." Mort lifted a finger as he continued. "We'll be stealing from aAnother thief.?"
"How's that bad?"
"Because said thief is one of the best in the world. Better than even me." Judas couldn't quite tell if there was sarcasm respect or venom in Mort's voice when he said that last bit. "He is infamous, listed on the top of every global criminal ranking system. By hook, or by crook, he gets whatever he wants." Judas lurched at the utterance of that final, familiar phrase.
"You've got to be kidding... Hook Crook?! The man that who stole a quarter of America's gold reserves and hid it in an iceberg?!"
Mort nodded. "That's the one score everyone and their mother remembers, including country bumpkins. He also disassembled the Louvre displays, then reassembled them save for the original canvases. Now, the French government pays him tens of millions every year to keep their paintings in the building."
"Who're you calling a 'country bumpkin'?Sorry for not being as knowledgeable as you on your hero."
This joke was too clunky and Mort didn't call Judas a country bumpkin in the first place. Aren't they in a city? You mentioned brick walls. If this is a small country village, you should establish that. I changed it to "sorry I can't name five songs from your favorite band, bro," banter.
Mort's expression turned solemn. "I'm afraid I don't have much choice in this matter." A second later, he returned to his jovial, lackadaisical demeanoursmile.
The typical alleyway you imagine where Batman busts thugs isn't long enough for Judas to saunter across, so it would make more sense if he was just entering it, especially since he just snatched a wallet from a crowd which would be in the open street. However, European alleways tend to be longer and connect streets instead of having dead ends, so you could use the chance to establish the country where this is taking place, especially since the "hook" at the end is they're taking a presumably long trip to France, but I don't know how far France is from them to be impressed.
The grammatical edits are probably sound (can't be assed to read all of it) but his more subjective bits of editorializing like "trust your heccin' audience" aren't because it actually doesn't take anything that nuanced or clever to confuse the average reader. In fact, I'd say the average reader in 2026 is probably borderline (if not fully) retarded to the point where they might complain about "plot holes" if they feel like you didn't overexplain a character's motivations or an action sequence they couldn't follow. A lot of seemingly sensible advice in that vein is geared towards audiences from 20-30 years ago with higher average levels of literacy than what you'd realistically be dealing with now. It's not even that the average writer is smarter than the average reader but that you should expect them to be at least as retarded as you at a bare minimum 9/10 times.
So unless you're writing literary fiction (which no one and I mean NO ONE even pretends to read anymore) disregard any and all dated truisms about audiences being smarter than you. But even then labelling something you've written as "literary" or "satire" makes you a pretentious dickhead everyone hates by default which pretty much gives you carte blanche to shit directly into a reader's mouth and call it chocolate because writing and reading turn into a pvp game where the goal is to make your opponent cringe and/or seethe as much as possible when everyone on both sides of the equation gets bored enough to write and/or read things not intended for human consumption.
The grammatical edits are probably sound (can't be assed to read all of it) but his more subjective bits of editorializing like "trust your heccin' audience" aren't because it actually doesn't take anything that nuanced or clever to confuse the average reader. In fact, I'd say the average reader in 2026 is probably borderline (if not fully) retarded to the point where they might complain about "plot holes" if they feel like you didn't overexplain a character's motivations or an action sequence they couldn't follow. A lot of seemingly sensible advice in that vein is geared towards audiences from 20-30 years ago with higher average levels of literacy than what you'd realistically be dealing with now. It's not even that the average writer is smarter than the average reader but that you should expect them to be at least as retarded as you at a bare minimum 9/10 times.
So unless you're writing literary fiction (which no one and I mean NO ONE even pretends to read anymore) disregard any and all dated truisms about audiences being smarter than you. But even then labelling something you've written as "literary" or "satire" makes you a pretentious dickhead everyone hates by default which pretty much gives you carte blanche to shit directly into a reader's mouth and call it chocolate because writing and reading turn into a pvp game where the goal is to make your opponent cringe and/or seethe as much as possible when everyone on both sides of the equation gets bored enough to write and/or read things not intended for human consumption.
Put more stock in the parts where he corrected your grammar, decide whether everything else (storytelling/character motivations/how much or how x should or shouldn't be described, etc.) makes sense or not on a case by case basis for yourself because it's not as cut and dry as it seems.
The grammatical edits are probably sound (can't be assed to read all of it) but his more subjective bits of editorializing like "trust your heccin' audience" aren't because it actually doesn't take anything that nuanced or clever to confuse the average reader. In fact, I'd say the average reader in 2026 is probably borderline (if not fully) retarded to the point where they might complain about "plot holes" if they feel like you didn't overexplain a character's motivations or an action sequence they couldn't follow. A lot of seemingly sensible advice in that vein is geared towards audiences from 20-30 years ago with higher average levels of literacy than what you'd realistically be dealing with now. It's not even that the average writer is smarter than the average reader but that you should expect them to be at least as retarded as you at a bare minimum 9/10 times.
So unless you're writing literary fiction (which no one and I mean NO ONE even pretends to read anymore) disregard any and all dated truisms about audiences being smarter than you. But even then labelling something you've written as "literary" or "satire" makes you a pretentious dickhead everyone hates by default which pretty much gives you carte blanche to shit directly into a reader's mouth and call it chocolate because writing and reading turn into a pvp game where the goal is to make your opponent cringe and/or seethe as much as possible when everyone on both sides of the equation gets bored enough to write and/or read things not intended for human consumption.
Saying you don't need to double-clarify that a character is angry when his dialogue is yelling angrily doesn't mean I'm pointing him to write literary metafiction satire pvp not for human consumption.
