A minor bummer, writing-wise [View All]

[Orrex]

I recently got back in touch with a friend I hadn't seen or corresponded with in over a decade. We didn't have a falling-out or anything; we just wound up living on different sides of the country, and so on.

Anyway, he's been an aspiring writer for a long time, and many of our conversations back in those days involved whatever he or I was writing at the time.

I got a look at the novel he's working on now, a massive tome near completion. He hopes to start shopping it around to publishers in the next month or two.

So...


It's horrible! Flat characters, bland plotting, drab action, and utterly lifeless prose! There's nothing to recommend it unless we think of it a story that he's telling off the top of his head, rather than as a novel he's been working on for years!


How do I tell him?

Do I tell him?

Do I accentuate the positive and de-emphasize the negative? Will that help him?


What's a friend to do? I could let the publisher reject him and leave it at that, but I know that he's going to ask my opinion, and I don't think that I have the heart to tell him.



Maybe I can just lie low for another 12 years until this all blows over?