2/2 > Also struggled with The Whites by Richard Price. Plot is non-existent, the storytelling is stilted, and the characters are Police clichés. It was hard to care about any of it. Such a surprise from the author of Clockers (which I love).

Yeah, verbal tics of various description happen in every one of my novels. Judicious editing weeds them out

Sounds cool. I like sci-fi and sci-fi adjacent.

Yeah, repetition is a bugger. I always have a phrase or word that becomes a minor obsession during the course of every manuscript. Beta readers nearly always find them and weed them out (although I sometimes erase the majority of them up during editing).

2/2 and the CGI work on the car chases was equally as jarring. The action sequence in the club was good, but not on a par with The Raid films. The final action sequence in the cabin was too dark, too choppily edited and confusing at times. It felt like just another Netflix potboiler, sadly.

What's the genre? If you don't mind me asking.

My first drafts are always a hellscape of sloppy writing and artless repetitions. Draft two turns it into a book. Drafts three and four turn it into a decent book (or at least my idea of a decent book).

I actually relish the editing. That's when it starts becoming a book rather than a manuscript. My trick is to put the thing away for at least a month and then come back to it (all sorts of errors, typos and bum sentences get highlighted after a little time away).

When you finish it, I'd love to read it.