I know a lot of writers, both online and off. What I've found (and to be expected) is that for most, writing is secondary to a day job they hold down to pay the bills. Writing, sadly, doesn't pay the bills. Not unless you are in the right place at the right time and you get "discovered". Much like an actor. And just because a publishing house picks up your book, doesn't mean it will be an automatic best seller.

None of that is the point of this.

Having started your career in another line of work sometimes means it affects how you write. I know several of those authors whose career means they write things all the time. However, what they write isn't fiction. This affects how they write. How they write descriptively.

Someone who is used to writing things like medical reports (just for instance) will continue to be straight forward.

For example, a straight forward writer will do something like this:

The rocks fell from the mountainside. Rolling to the bottom, where they buried the body lying on the ground.

Whereas, a writer would write that scene very differently:

The loose bits of rock tumbled down the mountainside, gather momentum as they went. They knocked others of their kind free, creating a cascading waterfall of stone that settled haphazardly at the base of the mountain. Where it covered her broken body from sight.

Twenty-five words, verses forty-five. A world of descriptive difference. Which book would you want to read?

Those who have spent most their lives writing more analytically need to retrain themselves to improve their descriptive skills. You can do it. I've seen it happen.

Think about the scene before you knock it out. How would you write this so the reader can visualize what my character is looking at? Saying it's a rock doesn't give them much to go on. Writing, she walked into the room, tells them nothing about the room. Is it large, small, sparsely decorated, lavish, is the room dark or is there light? What can you show the reader?

You may know exactly what the room looks like, after all you created it, but your reader is blind to what you create inside your head. At times, it's hard to remember that.

Write a scene, any scene, then go back and read it out loud to yourself. Ask questions about how it reads. If the reader will understand what you're telling them. Then, tear it apart and rewrite it. As many times, as it takes to get the picture as clear on paper as it is in your head.

If you do this, practice it, you'll get better. It will become second nature to check the descriptions when you edit and make certain it's a clear image for those reading. Beta readers can also help to tell you when something isn't quite right.

The point is, no one is perfect. We can all make mistakes, no matter what we're doing. So forgive yourself those mishaps and move forward. Don't dwell on what you may have done wrong, figure out how to fix it, learn from it, and move on. If you can't, you'll never improve. This goes for critiques as well. Don't think of it as bashing what you wrote (I'm talking constructive critiques, not jerkface idiots who have nothing better to do than post trash) really read it and see what the reviewer is trying to tell you. Step back and see if what they're telling you is true. For a lot of writers, the moment a negative is pointed out they go on the defensive without actually reading and understanding what they were being told.

Sometimes, things like a critique can help you fix something you didn't even realize you were doing wrong. Other times, it's simply an opinion about a character or scene. You can look at it objectively and see if you agree with whatever the person is suggesting, but ultimately things like that are up to you. You don't have to change the action in a scene simply because someone doesn't like how the scene plays out. You need to do what works best for your story. Still, there are some rules of writing you can't break. Like proper grammar and punctuation, for instance. Don't type your entire story in text speak. Things like that.

Keep up the work and I wish everyone luck in their writing endeavors.