WRITING TIPS FOR ADVANCED WRITERS
- 5 hours ago
- 30 min read
A lot of what we talk about on NovelMasterClass is geared towards the beginning novelist. Writers who have been working on craft for 10,000 hours or more, who have published short stories and novellas and novels, it’s not so much the “teaching” what writing is, but rather the learning and studying more of the craft that improves our writing, that sharpens what we’re already doing or takes us in new directions we haven’t focused on previously. There are things beginning writers must learn—the structure of a novel, how plot works (causality versus correlation), how to create compelling scenes that touch our readers in some way, how the work we put towards characterization improves the likelihood we’ll root for our protagonists and their supporting casts, how sharp and concise dialogue provides knowledge of not only our characters but moves the plot along by providing information critical to said plot(s), the need for exceptional exposition, intricate details, world building (whether in Vichy France during WWII, a small island in the Caribbean, or a planet far, far away in outer space, and so on).
I liken all of the parts of a novel to baking a cake. Yes, we may have all the ingredients—the flour, the sugar, the vanilla, the milk, the butter, but now it’s time to learn how to put them all together so the cake is not only a cake, but it’s a cake that you want to eat until you can’t eat anymore. Until you must unbutton those jeans of yours and you’re on the brink of diabetes. Until writing great fiction becomes an addiction you can only satisfy by getting more of it—i.e., writing the best fiction you can. And that? It ain’t easy, my friends. Even for the advanced writers out there, writing is tough work. They know, however, that with persistence, continual education and community, they have the potential to do great things. Eventually, they’ll bake a cake you’ll not be able to stop eating.
As seasoned writers, we know what novels and books we stick with for the marathon, i.e., the books we read front to back and can’t wait to return to between the distractions we call life. But how do we create, how do we write books like those books that we can’t put down? For me, there’ve been quite a few novels I’ve picked up and couldn’t wait to get back to. Books like those written by Ernest Hemingway. Novels like David Vann’s Legend of a Suicide. Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Yes, these are all literary fiction. But that’s my preference, my passion, what I write (predominantly), so that’s what I’ve listed. It’s what I know best. I did like Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, which is science fiction. But that was an exception for me. There are a few others, but my preference tends to fall into the literary fiction category. That said, a novel is a novel. Good writing is good writing. A plot, compelling characters, great settings, these are all the things we, as writers, must provide our readers. Like all things, there are exceptions to the rules. Experienced writers know them. Not all beginning writers do. And that’s okay. That’s what a little education and a bit of humility help remedy.
Yet, of course, on the other side of the coin, there’ve been about ten times that number of novels I’ve tried struggling through, and never finished. Novels I read a hundred pages of (and only because the novels were deemed “great” or whatever by people whose opinions I respect) before putting the novels back on my bookshelf to return to on some later date. Sometimes, I pick these books back up at some different point in my life, and my experience is different. I read, and I stick with it. Something clicks. But for the most part, these books remain closed for good, or opened for a page or two or ten, and then, poof! Back to the shelf for a few more years. And that’s okay. It’s also okay to never open them again, as there are so many books in the world you’ll never get to them all anyway. Why waste your time on something that’s not working for you?
But let’s get back to the basics. Or, actually, a little beyond the basics. This is, after all, a blog about writing tips for advanced writers.
One of the truisms I find among all writers, not just experienced ones, is the inability to “finish” a first draft. Now, I’m not saying you should finish all first drafts, but yes, I am saying you should finish all first drafts that may have promise. And by may, I’m talking about drafts of novels that have legs. That you have a plot, or characters, or an idea, something that keeps you intrigued. Something that got you writing in the first place. Look, I get it. It’s easy to start novels; finishing them? Not so much. But as experienced writers, you understand that the first draft is just that: a draft. It’s you getting on the blank page something you can work with.
Something that’ll reach that 70, 80, 90,000 words we call a novel. My advice: push through it. Keep going. The way I go about the slumps (I don’t believe in writer’s block, only the inability to write what you want when you want it) is to move on. You don’t have to write your novel in chronological order if that’s the thing slowing you down or stopping that ambition and excitement that got you going in the first place. You can move on to writing a scene between your characters. Or jotting down ideas of where the plot should go. The themes you want to touch on. Things like that. Things that get you writing and keep you writing. Give it a go if you don’t already do that.
But there are other things besides the obvious one of “finishing” or “completing” the first draft. That’s the basic one, right? You need something to work with. But what comes afterwards?
For me, it’s focusing on each individual element that novels should possess. Again, as advanced writers, we tend to know all or most of the “rules,” and we tend to break them when we can. It doesn’t always work; often, we must kill our darlings or rewrite whole sections of our books. We have to eliminate a lot of what we’ve written. But we know that going in, don’t we? We’re pros. We remove commas only to put them back in. We work on first sentences, first chapters, middle chapters, the last chapter, the last line, over and over again until we get it just right. And even then, we’ll never write the lines we want to write. We’ll always fall short. But we also know that there’s a point in time when what we’ve written is good enough to send out into the world. So, maybe this is just a reminder of the things we must do as experienced writers, rather than any “tips,” per se. But hopefully the below helps remind us.
WRITING TIPS FOR ADVANCED WRITERS
What’s YOUR Story?
Do we know? Is our story about a businesswoman who wants to become CEO of her dream company, the one that didn’t give her an interview after she’d graduated from college? Is it a mystery about a boy who goes missing after a family trip to the Bahamas? About a woman running for a senate seat against a misogynist who’s held the seat for the last thirty years? Know your story. It may not be the story you set out to write, but the writing of it will lead you to what the story wants to be.
Tip:
Just write. Go where the writing takes you. You’ll have an idea, however nebulous, of what you want your story to be. That’s what got you excited in the first place. Remember, if you don’t have a first draft, you have nothing to edit. And your story is everything. Well, not everything, but about 99% of your novel. If you don’t know what your story is about, neither will your readers. But you must write it down before any of the rest can happen.
. . . a novel is a novel. Good writing is good writing. A plot, compelling characters, great settings, these are all the things we, as writers, must provide our readers.
Do YOU Have a Strong, Distinct, Original, Voice?
If you’ve ever queried agents (if you’re an advanced writer with a finished manuscript, there’s a good chance you have), you know how important “voice” is for them. The “voice” is what the reader hears. It’s the distinct, original narrator who speaks to us in their own style. Voice can be a difficult thing to define, yet we know it when we see it (or, in this case, read it and hear it in our heads). Voice is one of the most important elements of a novel that literary agents focus on, because without a strong, original voice, we’ll just have words on a page with no one telling the story in a way that we, the reader, will want to pay attention to. Sharon Pelletier of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret literary agents says of voice: “voice is the thing that makes me confident I’ll love every book you write, no matter what happens with this one.” Rachel Gardner of Gardner Literary, says voice “Voice is not style. It’s not technique. It’s not branding. It’s not a decision to write in first or third person. So what is it? To me, your writer’s voice is the expression of YOU on the page.” And this, from Geraldine Brooks, author of March and Years of Wonder: “The Character's Sound: How she sounds will tell me who she is, and who she is will tell me how she will act - and that starts the plot in motion." Get that voice down. Find it in other writers’ works, if you must. Voice is hard, but it’s critical to pulling in your readers. And, frankly, in pulling your interest into your work enough so that you’ll want to keep going. Here’s the beginning to William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury:
"Here, caddie." He hit. They went away across the pasture. I held to the fence and watched them going away."Listen at you, now." Luster said. "Aint you something, thirty three years old, going on that way. After I done went all the way to town to buy you that cake. Hush up that moaning. Aint you going to help me find that quarter so I can go to the show tonight."They were hitting little, across the pasture. I went back along the fence to where the flag was. It flapped on the bright grass and the trees.”
Now that’s some voice, ain’t it?
Tip:
Experiment with voice. Read the first page or two of your favorite novels. There are plenty of novels where the author steals the voice of another novel or short story or maybe some other source like a movie. Without a compelling voice, literary agents and readers will walk. They’ll put your book down. They’ll lose interest. Are there generic voices? You bet. But is that what you want to write? If you have to, copy the first page of a novel that has a clear, interesting voice. See how it sounds. Read it aloud. Sometimes you’ll need to write the first page in different voices to see which makes the most sense given your story. Do it.
Are YOUR Characters Interesting and Compelling and “Round” Characters?
Flat characters serve a purpose. But they’re flat. They aren’t as interesting as our main or “round” characters, those characters we develop that our readers care about and root for. The characters whose motivations we understand. The characters who are multi-dimensional. The characters who have backstories and developed personalities, whose language you likely know even when there are no dialogue tags applied. The characters whose internal conflicts—their desires, fears, values, and concerns are easily (not always) identifiable.
Tip:
To create compelling, interesting characters that pull readers in, your characters must have something they want and want desperately. Does Orlando want to find his missing three-year-old girl? What does he do that shows the reader how desperate he is? How far is he willing to go? What actions does he take that show us the type of man he is, and how his brain works given the situation within which he finds himself? Show the reader. Don’t tell them. Have him hold the obvious perpetrator at gunpoint. Have him risk everything by doing it in front of his wife. Or the police. But make us feel that desperation through his actions rather than being told about it in exposition.
Do YOU Have a Plot?
You need a plot. You don’t need a plot. You’ve heard it all, and, since you’ve been doing this for some time, you’ve maybe considered just going with character-driven novels (without a plot or subplots), speculative or avant-garde or works with unconventional structures, etc. that don’t have plots, and so on. You get the point. But you better be damn good at what you’re doing. Readers want plots. They want to know why this happens, and how it makes that happen, and they want that structure and familiarity all the way to the end of the novel. As novelists and fiction writers, we have big egos, but they’re not so big we avoid giving readers what they want. Because if there’s no plot, the likelihood of your readers reading your entire novel shrink exponentially based on your lack of providing them what they expect.
Tip:
Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser (someone who “writes by the seat of their pants), it doesn’t hurt to outline your plot. I’m a pantser. I write a first draft, and then, once I know what the story is, I may write an outline or just start on a second draft and outline after that. Either way, outlining your novel (and chapters, assuming you have them) is a great way to ensure you’re working with a plot. Plot, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts about plot, is causality. This happened and so this happened and because this happened, this happened, and so on. The king died is not plot. The queen died and so the king died of grief? Plot. An outline will help you visualize and make concrete to you during the process of writing whether or not you’ve written something with a plot. Give it a try if you struggle with plot (which many writers do, whether they’re experienced writers or beginners).
Do YOU Have Powerful Scenes and Tension That Moves the Plot Along or Adds to Character Development?
Personally, writing scenes is my favorite act of writing novels and short stories. The reason is because that’s where the action is. That’s where we learn about our characters. Do we have aggressive characters? Curious ones? Selfish ones? Long-winded ones? Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter, playwright, director and producer who’s worked on movies like A Few Good Men, The Social Network, Moneyball, and others as a writer, says this about scene: "Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written". Ursula K. Le Guin, author of The Dispossessed, The Lathe of Heaven, A Wizard of Earthsea: A Classic Fantasy Adventure of Magic, Dragons, and a Rising Shadow and more, says of scene: "[T]he success of every novel — if it's a novel of action — depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, 'What are my big scenes?' and then get every drop of juice out of them". And Jane Friedman says: “The reader should feel as though every scene has purpose, deepens character, drives the story forward, and ends in such a way that he just has to know what happens next.”
Tip:
I remember scenes. I remember images. I remember the internal thoughts of characters ruminating on what’s to come. Here’s the first line of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls:
"He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass."
This is a scene with only one character. But the scene is so descriptive, the land around our protagonist described through “active” words, it thrusts us onto the stage where the action is happening, however much we may think nothing is happening. And here’s a scene with two people from Julia: A Retelling of George Orwell’s 1984, by Sandra Newman:
He said, “You don’t wear the badge. The Hero of the Socialist Family.”
She shrugged. “One can’t.”
“Yes, it isn’t understood by the average person. You would be feared. You would be hated.”
“Yes.”
Julia, what do you think of those who would hate you for what you did? Please, you must say exactly what you think. I shall know if you don’t.”
She said plainly, “They don’t know what it’s like. It’s very easy to judge what you don’t understand. They think themselves superior, but they don’t know.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but if that’s not tense, I don’t know what is. In just a few lines, we are thrust into the thoughts of two people in conversation. There’s fear there, but it’s not coming from Julia. Julia is the strong, defiant one here. This one little scene shows us the dynamics between the two characters in the scene. It shows us Julia’s defiance, and the man’s subservience. This is what you want to accomplish in your scenes: action moving forward. Character development. Plot movement. And to pull your readers in so they can feel the angst, the tension, the stakes that are at play. Whenever I’m stuck, I start writing a scene with characters from my novel. I may not use it later on, but it gets me going. Give it a try.
Are YOU Being Consistent with Regards to Point of View (POV)?
Point of view, in fiction, is critical to understanding what’s going on and from whose perspective we’re experiencing what we’re experiencing. Changing points of view, as you know, requires great skill, at least when you’re doing it without chapters, or at least some sort of marker that alerts readers to the fact that it’s happening.
Tip:
Use chapters to delineate when you’re changing point of view. Or asterisks (***). Or a line between paragraphs. Or anything else that’ll let the reader know that something’s happening, which in this case is a change in the POV, meaning a change in whose perspective/which character’s eyes and thoughts we’re now seeing things through. Another way is to use different language. Some characters may speak in a certain dialect. Others may use different words, have different dialogue tags, whatever. Just make sure the reader is provided with something that alerts them that things have changed on the POV front.
What About Style? Have YOU Been Consistent with the Style of our Novel?
Style is a funny one. An author’s style can be generic (I find many of the bestselling novels have a sort of neutral, almost vanilla style that is the most accessible style to the majority of readers out there). I’m not knocking it; I enjoy novels written like that just as much as the next person. But as a writer, I’m always looking for something different. Something with a new and perhaps strange voice. Or a different way of structuring sentences, or paragraphs, characters or vocabulary. Something that shouts, Hey! This is a Hemingway book. Hey! You’re reading something by Jhumpa Lahiri. Yo! Chekhov here! Like that.
But style is tricky. Style is one of those elements of fiction that can alienate readers. Room, by Emma Donoghue, was one of those novels that was tough for me to get into (truth be told, it’s on my “to read” list still, years after I bought it).
Tip:
When considering style, make sure you’re going to be able to maintain that style for the marathon that is writing a novel. If the style you’ve decided to use is one you’re unaccustomed to, it’s likely going to be a little bit trying, sustaining that style for three hundred pages. But if you believe in it, you’re going to stick to it, because you’re a pro. And I agree. If the style is one that works, one that is distinct, one that draws you in and is appropriate for the subject matter, use it. Or experiment with other styles if it’s not working. But don’t back out if it’s hard to do. Often, the harder something is to accomplish, the more worthy it is to pursue.
I’ve written ten plus novels, all but one as of yet unpublished, and I’ve workshopped each of them. The novel that was published is called The Losses. It has a certain style to it, a bit in the vein of the “vanilla” style I mentioned earlier. I wouldn’t say I took the style of Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, but I did have her book beside my desk as I wrote, and I would read passages of it as I wrote my novel. Apparently it worked, as the novel was published in 2016. The style of that book is the same style I’ve used for three subsequent novels. But the reason is this: it’s easy for me to write in that style. The more literary novels I write? The style is more complex. It’s harder to sustain and so it takes me longer to write those books. They take me longer to complete. Longer to edit. But they’re my better books. At least, in my opinion.
Are YOU Controlling the Pace in a Way That Allows the Reader to Breathe Between Scenes?
Pace is a funny thing. Like everything else in writing, the pace of a novel is often dictated by the experience a writer possesses at the time of the writing. Short, declarative sentences, à la Hemingway, move at a faster pace than longer sentences, say, like the ones in Hanya Yanagihara’s incredible novel, A Little Life.
Here’s an excerpt:
“The eleventh apartment had only one closet, but it did have a sliding glass door that opened onto a small balcony, from which he could see a man sitting across the way, outdoors in only a T-shirt and shorts even though it was October, smoking. Willem held up a hand in greeting to him, but the man didn’t wave back. In the bedroom, Jude was accordioning the closet door, opening and shutting it, when Willem came in. “There’s only one closet,” he said.“That’s okay,” Willem said. “I have nothing to put in it anyway.”“Neither do I.” They smiled at each other. The agent from the building wandered in after them. “We’ll take it,” Jude told her.But back at the agent’s office, they were told they couldn’t rent the apartment after all. “Why not?” Jude asked her. “You don’t make enough to cover six months’ rent, and you don’t have anything in savings,” said the agent, suddenly terse. She had checked their credit and their bank accounts and had at last realized that there was something amiss about two men in their twenties who were not a couple and yet were trying to rent a one-bedroom apartment on a dull (but still expensive) stretch of Twenty-fifth Street. “Do you have anyone who can sign on as your guarantor? A boss? Parents?”“Our parents are dead,” said Willem, swiftly.The agent sighed. “Then I suggest you lower your expectations. No one who manages a well-run building is going to rent to candidates with your financial profile.” And then she stood, with an air of finality, and looked pointedly at the door.”
A bit slower than this excerpt, taken from Jackal, by Erin E. Adams:
“June 17, 2017
Welcome to Johnstown: Home of the World’s Steepest Vehicular Inclined Plane. All of that, every single word, is emblazoned on a massive billboard visible about a mile outside of town. Because of the angle of the train’s approach, the Inclined Plane is the first and only landmark I see. It means I’ve reached my final destination. The journey here has been rife with spotty cell service, dotted with tiny towns and abandoned industries consumed by thick forests. Yes. After fourteen years away, I, Liz Rocher, am returning to Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The rust belt. Home. I take another gulp of my train wine. The cheap varietal burns my palate. Varietal. Palate. Who do you think you are? There it is. Judgment. One of the many things I ran from when I left. The train slows. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window. With my thick natural hair and dark skin, my Appalachian origins are unexpected. I buzzed all my hair off a little over three months ago. It’s finally settled into its new length. Returning home with no hair means no protection. That’s why this trek required a trip to Harlem to get a decent wig. Her name is Valerie. On the box, she looked like a pop star. On me, she looks like a PTA mom. Between the wig and my rumpled business casual, I look like a mockery of what I’ve become: a “city girl.” You’ll never be rid of that backwoods, small-town stink. There it is again. My therapist, a tall white woman who gives me names for my feelings, would call that voice my anxiety. The tightness in my chest is my imposter syndrome. The occasional inability to catch my breath is a perfectionist tendency. Neat little notes in her records. My next sip of wine becomes a full gulp, finishing off the split.“This stop is Johnstown, Pennsylvania.”
Notice anything? They obviously both have a certain musicality to them. But Yanagihara’s prose is a slower walk than Adams’s prose. Yanagihara uses longer sentences, which sort of ebb and flow. Adams gets straight to the point with shorter sentences that have an almost sort of staccato feel to them. Yanagihara’s pace? Slower. Adams’s pace? Faster. Pace, like anything else, is the author’s choice. But you must remember this: readers don’t want to read the same sentence over and over. They want variety. They want a pace that works for the novel and for them, and that often means switching it up some to allow the reader time to breathe.
Tip:
If you’ve written a novel, or published one or more, you understand the options available to you when it comes to pace. I recommend experimenting with pace, and a lot. I’ve heard from my mentor and friend, novel after novel, that I write long, intimidating sentences. And I do. It creates a pace that I’m aiming for, though I’m obviously failing at. But like the saying goes, fail, fail better. I know that, initially, my sentences will be long because I’m trying to get certain things into each sentence. The cutting comes later, in subsequent edits and drafts. Feel free to write long sentences. Feel free to write short sentences. Feel free to combine them, and with intention. Meaning just like you’d focus only on dialogue, or scene, or plot, focus a draft specifically on the pacing of the novel. You’re in control. You are God, when it comes to your novel, and so act like it. See what works for you. Is your novel too slow? Shorten up the sentences. Too fast? Try inserting longer sentences. But do what you have to do to write in a pace that allows readers to enjoy the prose while also allowing them to breathe, with an occasional (or more) few minutes of heart-racing scenes to get their blood going.
Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written.
Is Our Dialogue Powerful, does it Develop Character, and Move the Plot Along?
Dialogue is not only where we focus our attention (other than scene, of course), but it serves many purposes. Dialogue reveals character. It lets the reader know who a person is by what they say, and alongside scene, what they do. If Rene has his face in his hands and is telling Sonny, quietly, “I don’t know why I did it. I was just . . .” we know Rene did something wrong, and that he regrets what he did. We don’t need much more than that to get what’s happening. If we’re in a room at the back of the house, and the kids are in the living room watching television, what does this exchange between a husband and a wife tell you?
“I’m going. My mother’s going. My sisters are going.”
Tom lights a cigarette. Pours himself three fingers of Maker’s. “Twenty-five percent,” he says. “Gas? That much in a month? I don’t get it.”
“And it’s my hometown. My hometown, Art. It’s silly to think I’m not going to bump into anyone I went to school with.”
Art lights another cigarette with the one he’s still smoking. Taps the old cigarette about fifteen times into the ashtray then walks over to the kitchen window. He’s watching the cars swoosh by in the rain. “You know,” he says, “maybe I will go to the game. Steve’s been begging me for months, and why not, right? Everyone’s gotta enjoy life sometime or another, huh?”
Lilith grabs one of Art’s cigarettes off the table. Lights it. Starts coughing.
Art turns around. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m smoking.”
“You don’t smoke, Lilith.”
“Well,” says Lilith, “I thought I might start. I need a new hobby.”
Much is said, even though Lilith and Art are talking past each other. Clearly Art isn’t happy Lilith is going back to her hometown with her family. Art is apparently jealous she may bump into someone, which we assume means another man. And then, since Art is ignoring her, she takes back the power he’s wielding by picking up the smokes. We’ve got trouble, and it’s all communicated by the couple not communicating. At least not directly. The dialogue is direct. It’s powerful. And it let’s the reader know a great deal about who is who and how they view the world.
This interaction between Art and Lilith also moves the plot along. Causality, right? That’s what plot’s about. So, in this scene, we can already predict, or at least form a pretty good hypothesis, about what’s going to happen. Sure, anything can, but because we’re experienced writers, because we’ve been down this road before, we know the best thing to do to keep our readers reading is to just create more trouble. So, in terms of maintaining the tension, we’ll continue raising the temperature with the back and forth between them. Maybe Lilith starts packing her bags for the trip, and Art starts yelling that she ain’t going anywhere. Maybe she sneaks out with the car and the kids while Art’s at work, and since she’s dropped him off (they only have the one car), he’s stuck at work. Imagine the possibilities you have with that scenario.
Tip:
Be intentional with your dialogue. And shorter is almost always better, at least in keeping the pace going for your readers. Make sure you’re not writing mundane conversations that don’t do one of the three main things dialogue should do: build tension, reveal character, and advance the plot(s). Great dialogue is unforgettable. It’s exciting. And it can make or break scenes, depending on how sharp your dialogue is and what it accomplishes.
Do Our Characters Have Clear Motivations for why They do What They do?
Every experienced writer remembers what it was like when they first started writing. Why? Well, besides how horrific our writing was, we probably also had more than our fair share of characters walking around aimlessly with nothing to do. Now, it’s not that we didn’t want them to do stuff: we did. We just didn’t yet understand how to provide them with any clear motivation(s) for why they would do what they did (or didn’t do). Motivation is what makes our story. Without motivation, we have nothing. Remember, a story, a plot, comes down to this: a character wants something, they want it more than anything else in the world, and they go for it. They encounter hurdles, obstacles, and they either overcome them or don’t. But they keep going after what they want. As John Dufresne, author of My Darling Boy, Louisiana Power & Light, and other novels, short story collections, and fabulous books on writing says about plot and motivation, “You have one central character who wants something intensely and goes after it, despite opposition and as a result of a struggle comes to a win or lose.” That want? It’s the character’s motivation. Without it, we have nothing.
Tip:
You don’t have to know what your protagonist wants. At least not in the beginning. But you’ll need to figure it out once you’re writing your novel, or maybe after the first draft. If you don’t want to write like a pantser, or at least not completely blind, then just go ahead and jot down what your character wants and why? Once you have that, everything else will revolve around her goals. You’ll know her motivation. You’ll be able to throw everything and the kitchen sink at her so she’ll struggle to get what she’s after. And that, all of it, will be the novel, or at least the skeleton of it. You’ll put the blood and veins and ligaments and muscles in later if you have to. But motivation is the driving force of not only our own lives but the lives of our characters. So if you can, make sure you know what your characters’ motivations are as early as you can.
Are we Ensuring Everything is in the Active Voice Rather Than a Passive Voice?
Now, this one’s a tricky one, and I only say this because you, as an experienced writer, are probably able to play around with active and passive voice. I know I do. But active voice occurs when the subject performs an action rather than when the subject receives the action. So, for example, the sentence “Bill shot the lion,” is active. “The lion was shot by Bill,” is passive. The active version is more concise. It’s more direct and more interesting. But that’s not to say there is no place for the passive voice in your fiction. I’d recommend reading your entire novel aloud, but especially when it comes to when you’re using the active and passive voice(s).
Tip:
Normally, you’re going to want to use the active voice over the passive voice when writing your novel. But I’m not going to harp on this one, because you know, just by reading your sentences, what works and what doesn’t. But switching between active and passive can absolutely work for you if you know what you’re doing. Does the passive voice kill your pace? Make it active. Is there some space in your sentence or paragraph where it makes sent to use the passive voice when referencing an unknown actor? Say, for example, “The robber was apprehended”? Just weigh the pros and cons of using active vs passive and go with what works best.
Are we Fulfilling the Promise of Closing Out any Open Plot Lines?
Denouement. I love that word. I love saying it. I love how it looks. And I love what it means. It’s basically the wrapping up of all the loose ends. But you know that already. You’re a pro. But even pros sometimes need help from their first readers, because sometimes it’s easy to just think you’re being clever, that you’re allowing a little bit of ambiguity to pose as closure. But you’re kidding yourself and you know it. I’m not saying everything has to be wrapped up and strangled by the tightest bow in the world. But your readers aren’t dumb. If you’ve left Johnny hanging onto the side of Mount Rainier by his fingertips in chapter 3, we need to know if he falls or climbs back up to safety. This holds true for most any of your plots or subplots. Are there exceptions? Of course. But you know what they are. You can tell when they work. Mostly, however, they won’t work. And if they won’t work, why do you have Johnny hanging on for his life? Get him the heck out of your novel. At best, he’s a red herring. At worst, he’s a darling you’ve let live when he should have been long buried.
Tip:
List out your plot in detail. List our your subplots. Again, in detail. Read your novel. Or better yet, have someone you trust as a reader to read your novel. Then ask them if you’ve left any holes in your novel. Ask them if they have any questions you’ve left unanswered. They’ll know what they are, because they’ll be a point of disappointment for them. They’ll want to know that Johnny fell a billion stories down, or that he got pulled up by the grace of God by Big Foot. But do the work to wrap things up for the reader. You don’t want to leave them unsatisfied, and nothing angers readers more than not knowing something they want to know by the end of the journey they’ve gone on over the last few hours or days or however long it takes them to finish reading your work.
Are YOU Using the Tools Available to us (similes, aphorisms, repetition, etc.?)
Aphorisms are my favorite tool in writing. They’re the aha! moments for me that open my eyes to seeing things in a different light. In a new light. In a clearer light. When I find a great aphorism, I try to mimic it. Not steal it, but mimic the sentiment of it. Is your use of similes as prevalent as your use of the word “the”? Maybe you should slow your roll on them. But a good simile or the use of repetition, metaphor, analogies, idioms, hyperbole, and so on are wonderful tools available to you for your writing. Check out some good examples in books you love. You’re probably already using plenty and have simply gotten so used to them that you don’t even realize you’re making use of them anymore. But use them. They add that little je ne sais quoi, that add those bells and whistles that make good writing great writing.
Tip:
As I mentioned above, pull out whatever aphorisms or similes, metaphors, hyperbole or whatever else you fancy in your favorite novels, and write them down. Once you have enough, start fiddling around with them. Remember the line from Shakespeare’s As You Like It: “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;”? Well, you understand what he means, right? Now make it your own. Rewrite it using different words, different context, whatever. Do the same with some of your other favorites. If your rewrites/version of them work, try inserting them into your novel(s), where appropriate. But don’t if they don’t work. Remember, you must always kill your darlings, no matter how much you love them. But you have an entire toolchest of writing tools at your disposal. Why not use them all?
List out your plot in detail. List our your subplots. Again, in detail. Read your novel. Or better yet, have someone you trust as a reader to read your novel. Then ask them if you’ve left any holes in your novel
Have we Given Our Novel Enough Time to “Rest”?
When you finish a draft, it’s time to celebrate. Have a drink. Eat a decadent piece of chocolate cake. Go on a trip. Whatever makes you happy, do it, because you’ve earned it. But I recommend giving yourself some space from the novel you’ve just written. You need time away from your baby in order to see your baby for what it is. What I mean by that is, is this: you have been deep into the writing of your novel, and, whether you like it or not, it’s going to be difficult to see the forest for the trees. Your blind spots, whatever they may be, are going to continue to be your blind spots. So put that novel away for a while and revisit it later. Trust me, if you don’t already do it now and know why, you’ll learn why after returning to your baby and seeing all of the things that needed fixing but that you just couldn’t see, even when they were right in front of you.
Tip:
When you finish the first draft of a novel (or the second or third or whatever), put it away. Start a new novel. Start a new project. Read a few books. But give yourself time to forget what you wrote. Allow the novel to age like you’d age a good wine. There’s probably some cork floating around in your novel (although hopefully not your wine). You’ll see the defects, which is exactly why you want to stay away from your baby for as long as you can. Once you revisit your novel with fresh eyes, only then will you see the things you need to fix.
Are YOU Editing with Intention?
Editing isn’t proofreading. It isn’t checking grammar. It’s not checking for typos, or misaligned spacing, page margins, word choices and seeking out synonyms. And it’s not crossing out whole sections, killing your darlings, working on your subplots, or ensuring you have a plot, compelling dialogue, or that your descriptions are so well written you can smell the gardenias in the air as you stroll by a Carmen in Granada. And it isn’t just substantive editing, which focuses on the big picture—the structure of your novel, the flow, the content within. Editing is ALL of those things and more.
Editing requires patience. It requires stepping back from your novel for a while (how long depends on your ability to separate yourself from your work so you can view it objectively) and returning to it with fresh eyes so you can identify the problems and issues you’ll need to correct. Before I ever share my writing with my fellow writer friends, If you’re an experienced writer, you know how to self-edit a novel. I make sure I’m providing my friends with the best version I can; I don’t want to waste their time with obvious grammatical errors, or open plotlines, or crappy dialogue that doesn’t add value (builds character, moves the plot along, etc.). I want to provide them with something they’ll be able to go through from the first line through the last line and hopefully understand what I’m trying to do.
How you go about it is up to you. My process is to attack each draft by focusing on one thing, and one thing only.
Tip:
Focus on one element of fiction when revising/editing your work/draft. Here are the elements that I focus on when I’m editing/revising the drafts of my novel:
Voice
Tense
Point of View
Characterization
Scene
Structure
Setting
Theme
Description
Dialogue
Plot
Musicality
Are we Finishing our Novel?
Years ago, a New York Times bestselling novelist that I worked with in Vilnius, Lithuania, said something I’ll never forget. She said three simple words to make her point: “I’m a finisher.” By that, she meant that she finished her books. She wrote first drafts, and second, third, etc. And then she revised those drafts until she got to a point where her novel could be sent to her editor. And then revised again before sending her novel back to her editor. And on and on until the novel was ready to get published and sent out into the world. She didn’t waffle. She didn’t give up. She didn’t put minimal effort into just showing up. She finished.
And that’s what you must do if you’re going to be successful at producing a product worth the paper it’s printed on (yes, books are products, even if you don’t sell them).
Tip:
Don’t give up. Sure, you may need to (or want to) put your book in a drawer for a week, a month, a year. And that’s okay. But return to it. You spent countless hours in a world you created, with characters you created, with a story you created. Why not finish what you started? The only way to finish something is to put the effort into finishing it. That means putting in the work. Finishing may not be as fun as starting, but why waste so much time upfront if you’re not going to reap the rewards of a completed manuscript. Now, I’m not saying every novel you write is going to be worth putting out into the world. Probably, they won’t be. I know that’s the case with novels I’ve written. But I finished them. Or, actually, I’m still working on finishing them, because I haven’t quite reached the point where I’m ready to send them out. And that’s okay. I know the process. I know how it works. I understand that it’s pointless to not “finish,” because no one wants to read something that’s not finished. You wouldn’t eat a cookie if it wasn’t thoroughly cooked, would you? (excluding cookie dough in ice cream, which is fantastic).
So, finish what you’ve started. Put the work in. Be that finisher. You may be proud of that first or second draft you’ve written. But just think about how proud you’ll be once you’ve “legitimately” finished. There’s nothing like it.
That last thing I’ll touch upon is something one of my MFA professors told me one time that sort of opened my eyes and has stuck with me ever since. He said, and I’m paraphrasing, “You don’t need me to teach you how to write. Your writing is great. And it’s because you’re self-aware.”
That term, “self-aware,” is, for me, the perfect word for having reached a certain sophistication or mastery (although I am not a fan of that word) of the craft of writing. Being self-aware means you know what’s working and what’s not, and so you do something about it. Dialogue not working? You know it isn’t, because you’re self-aware. The characters not believable? You fix it because you’re self-aware. Your novel overwritten? It is, and you identify the problem immediately. Why? Because you’re self-aware! And that, my friends, is probably one of the most important aspects of putting in those 10,000 hours you need to put in in order to “master” the craft of writing.
Cully Perlman is author of a novel, THE LOSSES. Have a novel you need help with? He can be reached at Cully@novelmasterclass.com. You can also fill out the contact form.
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