First Page Friday is a blog series where I provide a free edit and critique of the first 500 words of an unpublished novel. Read the excerpt without my notes first and leave your vote in the poll. Afterward, feel free to leave a comment for the author. Feedback is always helpful!
First Page Friday is a blog series where I provide a free edit and critique of the first 500 words of an unpublished novel. Read the excerpt without my notes first and leave your vote in the poll. Afterward, feel free to leave a comment for the author. Feedback is always helpful!
First Page Friday is a blog series where I provide a free edit and critique of the first 500 words of an unpublished novel. Read the excerpt without my notes first and leave your vote in the poll. Afterward, feel free to leave a comment for the author. Feedback is always helpful!
First Page Friday is a blog series where I provide a free edit and critique of the first 500 words of an unpublished novel. Read the excerpt without my notes first and leave your vote in the poll. Afterward, feel free to leave a comment for the author. Feedback is always helpful!
First Page Friday is back! It seems like it’s been forever. It was great to finally get back into my big stack of first page submissions again (and I think I picked a good one for today). Continue reading
This is it! The last day of Novel Boot Camp! How did it arrive so quickly?
It’s a bittersweet moment filled with visions of sleep and relaxation but also the knowledge that I won’t be hearing from you all nearly as often.
But Boot Camp isn’t over yet! Tomorrow I will announce the contest winners (I know you’re all dying to know who was the best genre guesser). So make sure to check out the post in case you’re a winner!
For our very last Novel Boot Camp lecture, I wanted to focus on the future – your novel’s future. Whether you simply read the lectures or spent hours on every homework assignment, chances are your novel still has a long way to go.
But its journey doesn’t stop here! It’s time to dig deeper into the perilous activity of self editing. It’s a long and rough road, but you’re ready for it! Here are my best tips:
Most writers start the editing process off on the wrong foot right from the get go. They open their word document to page one and just dive right in. They spend countless minutes debating about whether his shirt is “baby blue” or “light blue.” They fiddle with punctuation marks. They flip-flop endlessly between using “and” or separating the sentence into two.
And then after all of this, they go back and read their revision and it’s…just okay.
This kind of teeny-tiny detail-oriented editing is the absolute last thing you should worry about. Polishing the tiny details before focusing on the big picture just makes it more difficult to let go of unnecessary scenes down the road.
Always start with the big picture and work your way smaller.
The first thing to focus on with your novel is the content. Read your novel from beginning to end and take notes. Be as thorough as possible in your note taking, but don’t change anything just yet. The key is to not waste time making changes until you are 100% sure that the scene will be kept.
Here are some things you will want to include in your notes:
You may need to go over this list several times, expanding on your notes, before you begin making changes within the novel.
Even if you’re a discovery writer (aka a “pantser”), an outline at this stage in the game can really help you see the big picture and figure out how to move scenes and make cuts and additions. Solidifying any plot changes in an outline before revisions can save you a ton of time and stress in the long run.
After you do make the changes within the novel, you will want to do this process again. Go through your manuscript a second time and make notes without changing anything within the manuscript. Then assess your notes, make an outline or game plan, and do another round of editing.
Note that I call this an “editing stage,” not an “editing round.” Depending on the writer, you could go through this process 2-5 times and still have areas to work on.
Note also that the first round of content editing may be very close to rewriting the book from scratch, especially if you’ve learned of some major issues with the plot during your first round of note taking.
After you’ve perfected the story, it’s time to move on to style or “voice.” If your voice is strong already, then this stage might not take as long for you, but if you’re still establishing your style, this stage could involve a lot of rewriting.
The easiest place to start is with a scene that you feel best demonstrates the style or voice you want for the novel. Consider carefully which elements of the writing you like best.
Now choose a scene in which you feel that the writing isn’t particularly strong. Try to “imitate” the voice/style you used in the passage that you do like. Keep fiddling until you get the writing to a place where you are happy with it.
If you don’t have any scenes with especially strong writing, it may be helpful to rewrite the same scene several times in different styles. Then choose the style that you feel best suits the book and incorporate that style throughout the novel.
It may take several rounds of editing to get the style solid and consistent.
Line editing is what most writers think when they hear the word “editing.” This is the last stage of the editing process where the writer moves slowly and deliberately from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph making the language exactly what they want it to be.
A lot of writers and editors would lump the “style” and “line” editing as a single stage, but in my experience, when new writers are editing for the first time, their work is often so far from having a consistent style that an ordinary line edit would send them through their novel two dozens times before they’d settle on a style that suited their writing and the book.
It’s easier to establish your style ahead of time, then move through the book for the little things – cutting adverbs, improving emotional expression, rewording sentences that are clunky or unclear, etc.
If you’ve done the other two editing stages correctly and thoroughly, this stage might only take two rounds of editing.
Knowing exactly when editing is complete can be tricky. The biggest obstacle in the path of most writers is their thought process. Here are some particularly common and damaging ones:
If your thought process isn’t holding you back, you’ll know when you’re done editing when you don’t want to change anything anymore. If you go through your novel and can only think of changing a word here or there, then you’re probably finished. If something still doesn’t quite feel right, you’ve probably got more work to do.
Always remember that you’re writing because you love it, because you’re passionate about it. Never lose sight of that. Editing is a daunting task, but it’s worth it in the end. So go out and polish that book into something you can be proud of!
Need a writing friend? Got a question? Need a shoulder to cry on? We’re there for you!
I will be answering writing and editing questions on our Twitter hashtag as time allows. Due to the insane volume of emails I’m receiving, I cannot provide free advice or assistance via email. Thank you!
Novel Boot Camp is a free online novel writing course focused on identifying and correcting problems in your novel. Learn more about Novel Boot Camp and find past (and future) posts here.
Whether you’re perfecting your query letter or trying to figure out how to market your self-published novel, identifying your novel’s genre is important. Unless you write right down the center of your genre, you’ve probably spent a lot of time debating whether you’re writing thriller or horror, women’s fiction or romance, literary or mainstream.
“What’s my genre?” is one of the most common questions aspiring writers ask, especially as they’re nearing the end of writing or editing their novels.
So how do you identify your genre? Here are some tips that will help:
First things first – before we get into the tips and tricks for identifying genre, let’s discuss what the genre is used for: marketing. The genre allows publishers to determine where to place your novel on store shelves. This means that choosing the genre is often more about where the book will make the most money rather than what genre it technically fits into.
No doubt, you’ve seen science fiction novels in the “mainstream” section of a book store. This is because if a book has wide appeal, it won’t necessarily be shelved with its actual genre.
No doubt, you’ve also seen books that didn’t really fit any genre very well. It wasn’t quite fantasy, wasn’t quite contemporary, or perhaps it spanned a long period of time or seemed to touch on too many topics to number.
The goal of identifying the genre is to figure out marketing, so that your book gets in the hands of the best readers for your individual story. Getting a million people to read your book is disadvantageous if the story really only appeals to hard science fiction fans.
If you market to everyone, it will lower your rating and result in negative reviews. The key in choosing the best genre is to get the right people, not the most people, to read your book.
For querying purposes, just do the best you can at determining the most marketable genre. If you’re wrong, your agent or publisher will adjust the genre as they see fit.
One of the simplest ways of determining your genre is to think about the book store.
If you walked into a book store right now, where would you go to find your book? The science fiction section? Fantasy? Women’s fiction? Romance?
It’s all well and good to call your book “urban women’s fiction fantasy/scifi mashup with a historical setting” but where on earth will it be placed on the shelves?
Remember that there is no “science fiction contemporary women’s issues horror” section of the book store, and you can’t you build a marketing plan off of such a crazy genre. Agents and publishers want to know what shelf the book will be on. That’s all they really need to know.
Hitting the largest amount of readers will not help your novel if the average reader wouldn’t find the story appealing. It is better to focus on the readers who would love your novel the most.
If you write a book with elements of multiple genres (for example The Time Traveler’s Wife), you need to decide which group of readers is more likely to enjoy the book. With this example, is it romance readers or science fiction readers? It doesn’t take too much thought to realize that the story is much more appealing to romance fans.
You may need a beta reader to help you with this question if you haven’t put a lot of thought into it (though you really should). The primary emotion experienced in the novel can be a great way to peg which genre it fits into.
For example, if the primary emotion experienced is fear or disgust, then you’re probably writing horror.
If the primary emotion is anxiety and tension, you’re probably writing a thriller.
If the primary emotion is hope and love, you’re probably writing a romance.
Who do you write like? What books have similar plots to yours? Make a list of the top five or ten novels and then go on Amazon and Goodreads to see what genre those novels are listed under.
You may also want to look at reader reviews, which may indicate whether readers agree with the genre placement of this particular story.
If you’re writing a query letter, keep the genre as simple as you can. It’s okay to list subgenres, but don’t go crazy. Remember that the agent has just read (or is about to read) a summary of your novel that will touch on subgenre elements. This eliminates the need to list out every subgenre your novel fits into.
For example, if your query makes it clear that your novel is set in the past, but the novel does not fall under the genre of “historical,” there’s no need to call it a “Paranormal Historical Romance.” Just show in the query that it isn’t set in the modern day and list the genre as “Paranormal Romance.”
As a general rule, it’s best to keep the genre at a length of two words (give or take one if you absolutely have to).
We’re going to have an interactive homework assignment today (“Yippee! Woohoo!” The Boot Campers go wild!).
If after reading this article, you’re still not sure what your novel’s genre is, ask for help in the comments. Post a summary or explain why it is you’re confused or uncertain about your genre and let your awesome fellow boot campers guide you towards the answer.
And don’t forget to help others identify their genre as well!
Need a writing friend? Got a question? Need a shoulder to cry on? We’re there for you!
I will be answering writing and editing questions on our Twitter hashtag as time allows. Due to the insane volume of emails I’m receiving, I cannot provide free advice or assistance via email. Thank you!
Novel Boot Camp is a free online novel writing course focused on identifying and correcting problems in your novel. Learn more about Novel Boot Camp and find past (and future) posts here.
Dialogue tags – they’re such a tiny little thing and yet they have a huge impact on the quality, flow, and professionalism of your novel. Dialogue tags are the little bits of text that attribute the dialogue to the speaker. The most common dialogue tag is “he said.” But they can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes (many of them worse than others).
Not convinced of their importance? Think about how many of them grace the pages of your novel. All of those little buggers really add up, and they can give the impression that you’re a seasoned pro or an amateur without their sea legs.
Here’s how to master the use of dialogue tags:
As tempting as it can be to veer off into the land of bizarre-o dialogue tags, it’s best to stick to the basics – the tried and true tags that readers don’t even notice. If you take nothing else away from this article, remember this:
Dialogue tags should be invisible.
Not like invisible ink invisible, but like seen-it-ten-thousand-times-and-don’t-even-care invisible. Dialogue tags are functional. They’re not intended to be fun or expressive or artistic. They’re like punctuation marks. Sometimes a semicolon makes more sense than a period, but you can’t just start throwing ampersands and asterisks around.
So what are the basic, invisible dialogue tags? For 95% of cases, stick to either “she said” or “he asked.” If you really absolutely have to convey the volume of the voice, an occasional “he whispered” or “she shouted” is okay.
Any other dialogue tags in your novel should be necessary for clarity. For example, you may wish to use “he lied” if the reader truly doesn’t know that a character was lying. Likewise, “he joked” might be used if it’s not clear that a character is joking. But the goal should be to make these things clear within the dialogue itself.
The dialogue tags should not be doing the heavy lifting.
If you do decide that you need to use a dialogue tag to convey volume or tone, put the dialogue tag before the text whenever possible. This allows the reader to read the dialogue with the correct tone or volume level the first time.
There is nothing more jarring than reading dialogue in a normal tone only to find out at the end of the text that the character was supposed to be screaming or whispering.
The longer the dialogue, the more important it is to indicate the volume or tone prior to the dialogue.
This is more of a punctuation mistake than anything else, but it can look unprofessional, especially when the issue is repeated throughout the manuscript.
Remember that dialogue tags only describe the dialogue. They cannot be used to describe actions. For example:
“Let’s go,” he ran down the road. < Wrong!
“Let’s go.” He ran down the road. < Right!
Dialogue tags should also never be used to describe sounds other than dialogue. For example:
“You’re so funny,” he laughed. < Wrong!
“You’re so funny.” He laughed. < Right!
“You’re so funny,” he said, laughing. < Right!
I will admit that as far as editors go, I’m a bit more on the lenient side with adverbs than most. I might allow for one or two in a chapter if I feel that it’s the best way to convey a concept. And certain adverbs that fly below the radar I won’t necessarily mess with at all. But still, when it comes to dialogue tags, it’s best to forget about the adverbs.
Here are some examples of unneeded adverbs:
“We’re leaving,” she said decidedly. < It’s pretty clear that she’s made a decision. The adverb isn’t adding anything that isn’t already clear.
“Well why don’t I just kill myself then!” she said dramatically. < It’s pretty clear she’s being dramatic here. I don’t think anyone will question it.
“What exactly are you doing?” he said suspiciously. < Especially with context clues, no one is going to be confused about the fact that he’s suspicious.
Note that certain styles of omniscient POV might get away with using some adverbs in dialogue tags.
This is an element of dialogue tags that many aspiring writers don’t realize – you don’t have to use them. In fact, if you play your cards right, you can avoid them much of the time.
Remember that they serve a functional purpose. That purpose is to indicate to the reader who is speaking. If there is no doubt about who is speaking, then a dialogue tag isn’t needed.
For example, in a conversation with two people, after the pattern is established with the first two lines of dialogue, subsequent dialogue tags may not be necessary for a number of lines. You don’t want to go for pages without reminders of who is who, but you should be able to easily go several lines without dialogue tags.
Another way to skip dialogue tags is to use actions, movements, gestures, facial expressions, etc. to convey who is speaking. For example:
Ash wiped sweat from his brow. “I don’t know, Amanda.”
She scrunched her mouth. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean I don’t know.”
She huffed. “Whatever.”
“Why do you always have to be that way.” Ash turned to go.
Amanda paused, bit her lip. “I’m sorry, okay?”
The scene above doesn’t have a single dialogue tag. Using action in place of dialogue tags reads quick and punchy and can add a professional touch to your writing.
Choose a chunk of your text to analyze or start at the beginning and go through as much of your novel as you have time to work through. Find your dialogue tags and work on improving them by:
Read a few scenes with this new approach to dialogue tags and enjoy the smooth, professional feel of your novel.
Not sure you’ve got this punctuation thing down? Check out my Ultimate Guide on Punctuating Dialogue.
Need a writing friend? Got a question? Need a shoulder to cry on? We’re there for you!
I will be answering writing and editing questions on our Twitter hashtag as time allows. Due to the insane volume of emails I’m receiving, I cannot provide free advice or assistance via email. Thank you!
Novel Boot Camp is a free online novel writing course focused on identifying and correcting problems in your novel. Learn more about Novel Boot Camp and find past (and future) posts here.
Happily ever after….or is it?
The catalyst and climax get a lot of attention, and most writers are pretty knowledgeable about what those terms mean, but whenever I talk about the denouement, I rarely get reactions much better than, “Doesn’t that have something to do with the ending?” The poor denouement doesn’t get nearly enough attention (*wipes away a tear*), but today the denouement gets its whole own lecture.
So what is the denouement? (I know you’re dying to know). The denouement is the very last structural element of a novel. It comes after the climax and may be anywhere from a few paragraphs to a few thousand words long (depending on the story).
Its role is to stitch a pretty little button on the end of your story so that everything gets tied up in a tidy little package. Not a perfect package. But a tidy one. One that leaves the reader feeling as if they know everything they need to know.
Note that everything the reader needs to know is not the same thing as everything you want them to know. Writing an effective denouement means knowing when to say goodbye, when to step away from the keyboard, when to leave the reader wanting more.
This is probably the most important aspect of the denouement:
As the reader turns the last page, you want to create a bit of sadness in their heart, a feeling that they aren’t quite ready to say goodbye, to let the characters go, a feeling that there is still a bit more to say, that the characters still have story, still have potential.
This is not the same thing as leaving loose ends. A loose end is something you promise to resolve but do not. Leaving the reader with longing simply means that you end the story with the sense that it isn’t the end, that everything is not tied up with a perfect ribbon, but one that is a bit crumply and fraying at the edges.
Resist the temptation to explain everything, to outline the trajectory of your characters’ lives, to give them a great big “Happily Ever After” sign to wave around like Disney characters. When you tell the reader too much, you destroy that sense of longing, which comes from the feeling that there are still conflicts and mysteries and adventures in the character’s future.
What you include in your novel’s denouement will depend entirely on the plot of your story, how much was resolved during the climax, and how many loose ends are left to be tied up. Denouements are commonly used to:
The denouement is the perfect time to conclude a theme or explain the “moral” of the story. Characters might state the theme outright or it may be explained in the narration. Just don’t be too heavy handed. People don’t read novels to be preached at.
Did a character die while fighting the antagonistic force? The denouement is a good place to let the surviving characters mourn the loss and perhaps discuss that character’s contributions to what has been achieved.
For characters that have been lying or hiding something throughout the novel, the denouement is a good point for them to come clean. This provides a last “ah ha” moment for the reader that makes all the pieces fall into place.
If your character was injured in the final showdown (physically or emotionally), the denouement offers you the chance to show them beginning to heal their wounds. This tells the reader that everything will be okay someday, even if things aren’t perfect just now.
If romance is an element of your novel, the denouement supplies a last chance at professing love. The characters could be exploring their true feelings for the first time or could just be reenforcing a love that they have already expressed.
If your character won some sort of award during the climax, the denouement is the perfect time for him or her to receive it. This provides the reader with a final sense of achievement and success. It also indicates that the character’s efforts paid off with recognition.
And of course, the denouement is a good place to tie up any loose ends that just didn’t fit (or couldn’t be revealed) earlier in the novel. Just make sure it doesn’t take up too much space. The reader only needs enough wrapped up to feel satisfied.
Ask yourself the following questions to strengthen any weak aspects of your denouement:
When in doubt about whether to include something in your denouement, ask yourself if you’re leaving the reader with a sense of longing. There is beauty in yearning for more. It both leaves a favorable impression of your book and prompts the reader to look out for your next one.
Need a writing friend? Got a question? Need a shoulder to cry on? We’re there for you!
I will be answering writing and editing questions on our Twitter hashtag as time allows. Due to the insane volume of emails I’m receiving, I cannot provide free advice or assistance via email. Thank you!
Novel Boot Camp is a free online novel writing course focused on identifying and correcting problems in your novel. Learn more about Novel Boot Camp and find past (and future) posts here.
The climax! It’s exciting! It’s suspenseful! It’s time to learn all about it!
For the readers, the climax will be the most important moment in the novel. It leaves a lasting impression (good or bad) of your novel and of your writing. So a stinky climax can be bad news, not just for this one book, but for your whole career.
No pressure or anything…
So what makes for a great climax? It’s pretty simple:
This is the backbone of what makes a climax rise to the occasion of fall flat. The climax is the moment the reader has been waiting for! It must prove to the reader that this book was worth the time and energy they invested in it.
A bad climax feels like a major ripoff (“Why did I waste my time on this book?”). Readers may feel like you strung them along for hundreds of pages just to give up and drop the ball in the end.
What you’re looking for is a climax that has readers on the edge of their seats, frantically turning pages, unable to wait to discover how everything unfolds. This is the satisfaction the reader has waited for from page one.
There are a lot of things that go into a satisfying climax, so let’s break it down into smaller parts:
There is no satisfaction in a climax with a teeny tiny obstacle that takes little effort for the protagonist to knock aside. The climax needs to involve an obstacle that is so big that the reader isn’t even quite sure that it’s possible for the protagonist to win.
It’s not enough to put your character at the edge of a cliff if all they have to do is take a couple steps towards solid ground. You’ve got to throw sticks at them, and spears, and stones, and their girlfriend.
There’s no faster way to kill the excitement of a climax than by coming up with a contrived way for the character to win. The character needs to succeed (or fail) on account of their own merit. An example of a contrived climax is when another character suddenly decides (for no apparent reason) to tell the protagonist something that allows her to defeat the antagonist, such as his location, weakness, etc. Why did this character just now suddenly decide to be helpful?
One of the worst contrived climaxes is when the villain suddenly decides not to be evil anymore. Well isn’t that convenient? Even if there is some foreshadowing to the villain’s decision and the protagonist was integral to the villain’s change of heart, it is very unlikely that this won’t seem incredibly contrived.
The key to avoiding a contrived climax is to only allow conditions to improve for the protagonist when he or she personally earns it.
The protagonist is the hero of your story, so don’t let someone else swoop in and take the glory of the climax. The main character must be the one who ultimately defeats the antagonistic force. Any assistance from secondary characters shouldn’t extend much beyond backup. This is the time for the protagonist to shine, to show the reader what she’s made of! Never take that moment away and hand it to someone else.
If you’re writing YA or MG, beware mommy, daddy, the neighbor, or teacher showing up to save the day. This is the kid’s fight, let him end it.
The climax of your novel needs to feel final to the reader. The bad guy should either win or lose. The character either gets what she wants or fails to achieve her goals. There is not a lot of wiggle room here. If the climactic showdown doesn’t feel final, then the novel isn’t going to feel satisfying.
Note that if you are writing a series, there will be loose ends that haven’t been tied up and of course it may turn out that the conflict isn’t over at all come book two, but the main conflict of the book should be clearly resolved.
“An obvious surprise? You’re not making any sense!” Yes, you heard me correctly, the climax should contain an obvious surprise, something that the reader never saw coming but that seems so super obvious once it happens.
Why do you want this obvious surprise? Because if the climax is too predictable, it’s boring, but if it comes out of left field, it will feel contrived. What you need to strike is a balance in between – an obvious surprise.
This requires that you use foreshadowing, sprinkling some easy to overlook clues throughout the novel. Reading the climax should seem like an “oh duh!” moment for the reader, where they feel like they should have predicted the outcome and yet didn’t.
During or immediately following the climax of the novel, the character arc should come to its end. Often this is because the hero’s “climactic act” requires him to do something that was previously difficult for him or against his character.
The climax may also cause the character to have a realization about how he could or should have acted differently.
Not just the first page’s promise, but the entire promise of the novel needs to be fulfilled in the climax. If your novel is about a horde of angry ghosts, then the final showdown sure better feature an epic fight with the giant horde! If it instead focuses on saving the protagonist’s child from a kidnapper, readers will feel majorly let down.
The climax should deliver to the reader what they have been waiting two or three or four hundred pages to get to. Anything less will fall short.
To think of it slightly differently: everything in the novel has led to this point. Everything. If that’s not the sense the reader gets while reading the climax, then you haven’t done your job.
Spend some time assessing the climax of your novel, ask yourself:
Note that in order to have a satisfying climax, you may need to rewrite earlier portions of the novel. Don’t shy away from these major changes. In the end, a spectacular climax will be more than worth the effort to get there.
Need a writing friend? Got a question? Need a shoulder to cry on? We’re there for you!
I will be answering writing and editing questions on our Twitter hashtag as time allows. Due to the insane volume of emails I’m receiving, I cannot provide free advice or assistance via email. Thank you!
Novel Boot Camp is a free online novel writing course focused on identifying and correcting problems in your novel. Learn more about Novel Boot Camp and find past (and future) posts here.
Ellen Brock 