Why Knowing How to Write Doesn't Make You a Great Writer
Do you ever struggle to follow your own advice? You are not alone.
Let me explain exactly why this happens, and why it is a massive reality check for every creator out there.
Why the Execution Doesn't Match the Theory
Here is the hard truth about her books: They are not a disaster. They aren't unreadable, and you won't question how they got published. But they are incredibly familiar and average.
A familiar story can still be highly successful if it is executed with enough emotional weight or personality. But in these books, everything just feels flat. Scenes happen and move from one thing to another, but they never build up to a real sense of escalation.
This is incredibly strange, considering she talks endlessly on her channel about the importance of high stakes and making readers care. And the cracks don't stop there. You will notice slightly awkward, clunky phrasing that feels like a first draft or an attempt to fill up word count. You will also see the exact same cliches that she warns her audience to avoid.
The core concepts of her books are actually really good, but they lack the sharpness of her YouTube videos and never fully commit.
Direct, confident, cutting through the noise. Brilliant breakdowns of pacing, stakes, and character motivation.
Flat scenes, clunky phrasing, and familiar cliches. The concepts are good, but the sharpness is missing.
The Danger of the Expert Spotlight
So, why are people so critical of her work? Let's get one thing straight: She is not a bad writer. She is simply an ordinary writer. Most books sit right there in the middle—they aren't incredible, they aren't terrible, they are just fine.
In fact, if her books were released without her YouTube channel attached to them, nobody would be heavily criticizing them. They would just blend into the massive sea of decent, readable indie books. They are the kind of books you grab on a Kindle sale while traveling and forget about later.
When you confidently teach something to a large audience, people will hold your actual work to that exact standard. It is completely natural. If you build an identity around telling people "this is how you do it," your audience is going to look at your work and say, "Okay, show me." When the actual work comes across as average, it creates a weird disconnect. The advice ends up feeling much stronger than the actual execution.
The Massive Gap Between Knowledge and Application
This isn't just about one YouTuber. This reveals a universal truth about the creative process. Understanding how to write and actually writing are two completely different skills.
It is exactly like a fitness guru who perfectly understands the science, the routines, and the diets, but when you look at their own physical results, they are just "all right".
You can easily break down a story, analyze it, and explain why it works. But when you are in the trenches actually writing, things get messy.
The messy reality of creating
You face pacing issues that you never saw coming in the outline.
You battle self-doubt and the overwhelming urge to delete everything.
You lose sight of your structure halfway through the draft.
Your characters stop doing what you want them to do and rebel against the plan.
It is so much easier to explain how to do something perfectly when you aren't the one wrestling with it on the page.
(Side note: This is why her non-fiction book about how to write a "romanty" novel is actually her strongest work—it plays perfectly into her strengths of organizing and remixing her own YouTube advice).
Close the Gap
Giving brilliant advice does not automatically translate into great execution. Most creators, no matter how confident they sound online, sit somewhere in that messy gap between what they know and what they can actually produce.
Instead of using this to tear people down, use it as a reality check for your own work. It is incredibly easy to sit in an advice space and speak with authority. It is much harder to back it up with consistency.