Meet Cute Club (Sweet Rose, #1)

by Jack Harbon

[jamiereadthis]

I wanted to like this so much but I struggled with how much of a first draft it was. It’s, quite frankly, a hot mess, on both a structure level and a sentence level. It’s all telling, not showing, which makes it pretty much impossible to care about what’s going on. Skipping over big scenes that need to be shown and head-hopping every other paragraph don’t make it any easier to follow the story— all things that could be fixed with some diligent revision.

The polished version of the story could be quite… well, cute. And I’m still cringing from recently reading a first draft I wrote in my twenties, so listen, I am all about the trial and error through which a writer grows. I just think this one was ready for a second draft, not publication.

I’ll check in with Jack Harbon again as he grows as a writer. The potential is there.

Oh, and one trigger warning he missed: waking a graphic designer up before noon to design and print a poster on the spot. My literal nightmare, thanks.