I write southern historical fiction and local history. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog is about my journey as a writer and a reader.
My “writing blog” has turned into more of a “reading blog.” It’s my intention to strike a pleasant balance between the two. The purpose of my blog from the beginning has been to give you a way to follow my journey as a writer. A writer needs to read books by other people, and I hope you enjoy learning about the books I read.
I’ve made a conscious effort this month to spend more time writing and less time reading. As I mentioned in last week’s blog post, I’m working my way through C.S. Lakin’s The 12 Key Pillars of Novel Construction Workbook: Your Blueprint for Building a Solid Story. It has been a tremendous help to me in evaluating various aspects of my 85,000-word novel manuscript. I’m not getting paid to sing the praises of this workbook. When I find a book or workbook about the craft of writing fiction that is helpful to me, I’m happy to share that information with my blog readers.
The things I concentrated on since last week’s blog post are theme, plot, and subplot. Hence, the title of today’s post. I have been sporadic in posting my #FixYourNovel blog series. I had planned for the sixth one to be about point-of-view. I don’t feel comfortable writing authoritatively in any way, shape, or form about that subject yet.
Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash
The dreaded question: What’s your book about?
The most dreaded question authors receive is “What’s your book about?” You’ve spent months or years creating a complex story of 85,000 to 120,000 words, and you’re expected to state off the top of your head a one sentence answer to that question. Yikes! I’m still working on my answer to that question, but Ms. Lakin’s workbook questions have helped me sharpen a concise description of my book.
The section of the workbook that addresses theme helped me determine that my book’s main theme is forgiveness. To do that, I had to figure out what the book is about.
My initial answer to that question tends to be something like this: It’s about a pregnant widow accused of her husband’s murder setting out to prove her innocence. But that’s not what the book is “about.” That’s the main plot, and the plot is a vehicle to convey theme.
Theme gets at the heart of what the main characters wants. My protagonist wants a happy family life. That’s a fairly universal desire. In order to achieve that, she will have to ask someone for forgiveness and she will have to forgive many others for their wrongs committed against her. It’s a southern historical novel set in the Carolina backcountry in 1769-1770.
The workbook has helped me brainstorm some parts of the plot that were lackluster, and I’ve worked to strengthen those weak links. When I get some key edits completed, I’ll adjust my scenic plot or step outline to reflect those changes. The next step then will be to get that outline critiqued by a writing professional.
That’s where things stand now with my manuscript with the working title of either The Doubloon or The Spanish Coin.
Since my last blog post
I’ve walked more, as I continue to get my fractured leg back to normal. I’ve done some “spring cleaning” that I wasn’t physically able to do in the spring. Better late than never. I’ve done some reading. I’ve spent many hours working on my manuscript, and that includes a considerable amount of time spent thinking.
Like you, I continue to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic on a daily basis. Here in North Carolina, our “Safer at Home” Phase 2 Order was extended five more weeks. This is the second time Phase 2 has been extended. In the absence of a national plan, each US state and territory is making its own rules. No wonder the virus is not under control in the US.
The M5.1 earthquake 100 miles from me on August 9 has me wondering if I need to add earthquake coverage to my homeowner’s insurance. It’s not something North Carolinians have had to seriously consider until now.
After giving Friends and Fiction on Facebook a plug last Monday, the program on Wednesday night was subpar. It was the first time the guest author used profanity or made vulgar hand gestures. I was embarrassed that I had recommended the program. Here’s hoping the one this Wednesday at 7pm EDT will be better.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read. As usual, I have several books vying for my attention.
If you’re a writer or other artist, I hope you have productive creative time.
Be safe. Be well. Wear a mask. It’s not a sacrifice in the big scheme of things.
I had a bit of fun last week in posting a five-part series about my bizarre accident in January and the equally strange ensuing weeks. I hope you enjoyed my tale of woe.
Today it’s back to work, though, on the craft of writing. This post is geared toward writers, but I think we can all learn how to communicate our thoughts more vividly whether in the written word or in our conversations.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Advice from Barbara Kyle
In her email on March 27, 2020, author and writing coach Barbara Kyle gave some welcomed advice for writers having trouble concentrating on their writing during the coronavirus-19 pandemic. She recommended that writers use this time to do research, if they’re having difficulty producing creative words on the page.
In my recent weeks of confinement due to my fractured leg, I’ve worked on some blog posts in advance. That’s the case with today’s post as I continue my sporadic #FixYourNovel series.
Time and place
The more a writer knows about the geography, demographics, history, culture, and people of her story’s location and time period, the better. You don’t have to tell everything you know. In fact, please don’t! You do need to draw from your first-hand knowledge and research to discern which details to give the reader.
Example: The historical novel I’m working on
The historical novel I’m still editing is set in the backcountry of the Carolinas at the close of the 1760s. Specifically, the story is set in present-day Lancaster County, South Carolina and present-day Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, and Rowan counties in North Carolina.
Without knowing what I was preparing myself for, I’ve soaked in the history of this region all my life. My study of local history, colonial American history, and my own family’s history have grounded me in the time and place in which my novel manuscript is set.
Have you heard of en.esosounds.net? (Pardon the pun!)
I recently discovered a helpful website (http://en.ecosounds.net/) as I was trying to add local flavor to the sounds my characters were hearing as they rode along a dirt road in July of 1769. It was a cold, dreary, blustery day as I was trying to transplant my mind and ears to a hot and humid piedmont Carolina day in July. Since I grew up in a rural area there, I know in my head the sounds I want to share with my reader. Putting those sounds on the page can be a challenge. I have to assume my reader is not familiar with the mid-summer sounds in rural South Carolina.
Something I found beneficial as I wrote the sounds my characters were hearing in the countryside on that hot July day in 1769 was this website: en.ecosounds.net. On that site you can listen to recorded sounds form various localities. Listening to a couple of those recordings was the perfect backdrop for me to listen to while I edited that particular scene.
Borrowing the wisdom of Barbara Kyle again
In her book, Page-Turner: Your Path to Writing a Novel that Publishers Want and Readers Buy, Ms. Kyle writes about the importance of using “concrete” words and images in one’s writing. Here’s a quote from chapter seven:
“For example, let’s say you’re describing a man in clothes that are damp from rain. If the reader is given just the appearance of those clothes, the man could be across the room, but if they read that the man’s sweater gives off the musty, wet-dog smell of damp wool, they’re right next to him.”
Ms. Kyle goes on to explain that including sensory details in our writing pulls on the reader’s emotions and thereby makes the writing more memorable for the reader.
Barbara Kyle’s website is https://www.barbarakyle.com/, in case you want to know more of what she has to offer writers.
A case of serendipity
I love when serendipity happens. I had been working on this blog post on March 3 when I changed gears and stopped to read some blogs. I follow Joanna Penn’s Creative Penn blog. I read her March 2, 2020 blog post, ”Opportunities in Audiobook Publishing with Michele Cobb.” (Here’s the link to it: thecreativepenn.com/2020/03/02/opportunities-in-audiobook-publishing-with-michele-cobb/.)
Michele Cobb is executive director of the Audio Publishers Association, the publisher of AudioFile magazine, and a consultant for the audiobook business at Forte Business Consulting.
In an interview Joanna Penn did with Ms. Cobb, they discussed the speed at which audiobooks have caught on around the world and the trend that audiobooks are the thing of the future as people like to listen to books while driving, cooking, crafting, or doing any number of other things.
The thing that jumped out at me from the interview was the following quote from Michele Cobb:
“And when you create specifically for the audio format, you might have multiple narrators, you might have music, you might have sound effects, and you may never want to put that experience into a print format because it wouldn’t work with your eyes.”
Joanna Penn added, “Actually, enhanced ebooks are audiobooks with all the sound effects.”
Maybe such ebooks exist. I haven’t listened to one yet.
I couldn’t help but think about my experience of listening to meadow and forest sounds on en.ecosounds.net while editing that scene in my book. How the book listening experience could be enhanced if there were sound effects on an audiobook! The possibilities are limitless.
In the meantime, a writer still needs to hone her skills in writing sensory details. I think we’ll always have printed books, even if eventually the only “printed” format of books is electronic. If the prose is particularly beautiful, I want to read it over and over again. If I were writing this in 2040 or even 2030, perhaps I’d say, “I want to listen to it over and over again.”
My head is swimming as I try to imagine an audio of my novel with the buzzing of flies and bees, and the chirping of native birds playing in the background as my written words are being read.
I guess you could say I’m “old school.” I just started listening to books on CD a year or so ago, and more recently started downloading MP3 books onto my tablet. In the interview with Joanna Penn, Michele Cobb said that of the CD versus digital books being published today, 4% are on CD and 96% are digital!
Since my last blog post
I’ve sat in my chair with my fractured leg elevated on a stool. My chair is by a south-facing window through which I can watch a variety of birds at one of our birdfeeders. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve watched the maple tree go from bare limbs to tiny red buds that blossomed into green leaves.
Dogwood blossoms. Photograph by Janet Morrison
I’ve watched a dogwood tree transition from bare limbs to tiny buds to gorgeous white blooms. I’ve watched as the goldfinches almost overnight went from their drab winter US Army greenish brown to their brilliant yellow and black feathers. The Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds are due back from Central America any day now, so it’s time to put out our hummingbird feeders. Many of our azaleas are in full bloom.
Azalea. Photograph by Janet Morrison.
I am blessed to live where I do. Sunshine streams through my south-facing window every morning. I can see the road on which an occasional car, truck, bicycle, moped, or green John Deere tractor passes. I can see the Carolina blue sky and puffy white clouds. I can see the pollen piling up on my red pick-up truck. I can see my brother’s pine tree farm.
I can see the open meadow across the road that is now harvested for hay to feed local cattle. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the rows of soybeans Uncle Ross used to grow there, but I especially remember the years he planted red clover to replenish the soil – and how the red heads of the clover swayed in a soft summer breeze when I was a child.
What more could a person have than what I have outside my window?
Until my next blog post
I hope you stay safe and well as we all journey through this coronavirus-19 pandemic. We truly are all in this together.
I hope you have a good book to read or listen to while you live under “stay-at-home orders.”
Please tell your friends about my blog.
Let’s continue the conversation
As recently as a couple of years ago I did not like listening to books. Now audiobooks make up probably 75% of my reading.
What about you?
What are the pros and cons of audiobooks?
Have you listened to an ebook that included sound effects?
When I wrote my #FixYourNovel #4: Characterization, Part 1 blog post for February 17, 2020, I planned to post Part 2 the following Monday. Life happened, though, and some medical issues forced me to hold off on Part 2 until today. Here’s the link to Part 1, in case you missed it or wish to refresh your memory: https://janetswritingblog.com/2020/02/17/fixyournovel-4-characterization-part-1/.
If you are bored stiff by the subject, just scroll down to the end of today’s post to find out what I’m currently reading.
As I did in Part 1, today I’ll share what two or three writers, writing coaches, or editors have to say about characterization. I hope readers and writers will find something of interest in my two characterization blog posts.
I’ve read a lot about how to develop memorable characters when writing fiction. As I read what other writers, or book coaches and editors have to say about characterization, I try to determine what the best advice is so I can put it into practice as I work on my historical novel.
Book coach Andrea Lundgren’s take on happiness in novels
In her October 7, 2019 guest post on A Writer’s Path, https://ryanlanz.com/2019/10/07/what-does-it-mean-to-write-about-happiness/, book coach Andrea Lundgren observed that novels rarely show characters in a state of happiness. Maybe there’s a flashback to a time they were happy, but the reader doesn’t see the character having a happy moment.
Ms. Lundgren suggests something that goes against the grain of accepted fiction writing advice. She stated the following in that guest post:
“Do we dare take time out, for them and us, to just enjoy life as it flows by, without making the scene “keep things moving forward”?
Ms. Lundgren continued:
“And does happiness only occur in little moments, in the troughs between peaks of activity when no one is doing or demanding or announcing anything? Maybe we need to start plotting for filler scenes, where nothing happens but that exchange of dialogue and silence that is a normal, happy moment of life.”
That resonated with me. Writing experts put a lot of pressure on authors to evaluate every scene and, if it doesn’t move the story forward, delete it. In connection with Ms. Lundgren’s post, it seems to me that having an occasional scene in which your character is just relaxing with a friend or enjoying an event might help that character seem more human and more likeable. And in that way, does that scene not in some small way move the story forward?
Editor and author David Griffin Brown’s take on character
Mr. Brown opens his article with this: “Fiction editors encounter manuscripts at all stages of development. A typical issue we see in early drafts is where one narrative element is given more attention than another.
“For example, with works of historical fiction, it’s common for writers to showcase their research at the expense of plot and character. On the other hand, with a character piece, the plot often drags in the second act. And in high-paced, sharply plotted thrillers, characterization can lag behind plot development.
“That being said, most manuscripts will benefit from close attention to character conflict, motivation, and relationships. But first and foremost, it’s important to let your characters act, react, and interact.”
Mr. Brown goes on to talk about emotions, conflict, and personal relationships between characters. He talks about the king of all fiction-writing rules: Show, don’t tell.
Chris Andrews’ take on character and structure
In his book, Character and Structure: An Unholy Alliance, Australian fantasy quthor Chris Andrews writes about the importance of (or possibly, necessity of) getting your reader emotionally invested in your story or novel. He writes that you must make the reader care.
Character & Structure: An Unholy Alliance, by Chris Andrews
Mr. Andrews’ book says, “Applying character to structure is an unholy alliance as far as many writers are concerned. Doing it well is the foundation of creating a long and successful career.” He says if a writer gives in to his or her preference – character vs. structure – one will dominate and the other will suffer. A character must have a logical structure to work within.
Mr. Andrews writes, “You have to be able to develop, write and evaluate a story from both sides of your brain: logic and emotion…. Combining story (what happens to your characters) and structure (how it happens) means finding the answers emotionally engage your audience.”
I like the following short paragraph in Mr. Andrews’ book:
“Characters are about people, not events. Structure is how you tailor events so your audience can engage with your characters.”
Mr. Andrews’ book is one of the best books I’ve read about the craft of writing. He takes you step-by-step through the structure of a novel and how your protagonist should grow and change within that structure in order for your novel to engage your readers and be memorable for them.
In #FixYourNovel #4: Characterization, Part I, I referenced Janice Hardy. Her blog post on February 26, 2020 was titled, “Oh, Woe Is Me: Strengthening Character Goals.” Here the link to it, so you can read the entire blog post: http://blog.janicehardy.com/2010/05/oh-woe-is-me.html.
It’s about how a writer can make a novel’s protagonist’s life as difficult as possible. She gives lots of suggestions.
That was my inner response when I first encountered the term. In Part 1 of #FixYourNovel #4, I referred to character arc but didn’t address it.
A character arc is how a character changes over the course of a story or novel, but there’s so much more to it than that! People have written entire books on the topic of character arc. I read one in October: Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author’s Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development, by K.M. Weiland.
Creating Character Arcs, by K.M. Weiland
I highly recommend her book to others who, like me, are trying to master the art of writing fiction. The book addresses plot points, when your character arcs, minor character arcs, impact characters, and how to write a character arc in a series.
Biographical sketches
Throughout the writing process I’ve tried to keep in mind to make my characters distinguishable, but it’s time to revisit the question, “Are my characters distinguishable?”
By writing a biographical sketch for each character as I developed the basic bones of the plot for my novel in progress, tentatively titled The Spanish Coin or The Doubloon, I had a computer file containing details about each character. This was the place I made note of all distinguishable characteristics – everything from appearance, clothing, mannerisms, smell, occupation, world view, beliefs, background, family, and manner of speaking.
My hunch is that it is easier to write character biographical sketches before and as you write your novel, but it can be done after the fact. However you choose to do it, it’s a good idea to work through this step before hitting the “publish” button or submitting your manuscript to an editor, literary agent, or publisher.
I read that J.K. Rawlings spent five years writing the biographies of each of her characters before she started writing her Harry Potter series. Wow!
As you evaluate your novel’s manuscript, re-read each of your characters’ biographical sketches, every reference to them in your book, and all their dialogue. It’s time to beef-up those character traits and to check for consistency.
Have you made your characters’ motives clear so their actions are logical?
Did you reveal backstory a little at a time and sufficiently without doing an information dump?
You don’t have a character telling another character something they already know, do you?
Does your character have an arc and is it in the right place?
In summary
At this point, you might be saying, “It’s not enough for writers to invent characters? They must make each one distinguishable in appearance, actions, and speech; make them likable but not perfect; and make them memorable and compelling. Is that all?
No. A writer must also balance character, and plot, and setting. Characters must interact with one another. Characters must be believable. Characters must react to the circumstances in which they find themselves. They must have emotions. They must be motivated. Relationships and conflict are necessary; otherwise, there’s no story.
You see, there’s more to writing a novel than typing.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading Winter Garden, by Kristin Hannah.
If you’re a writer or other artist, I hope you have satisfying creative time.
Thank you for reading my blog. You could have spent the last few minutes doing something else, but you chose to read my blog. If you like my blog, please tell you real friends and your social media friends about it.
Links to my #FixYourNovel blog posts #1, #2, #3, and #4 Part 1:
Are the characters distinguishable, what are their motives, and are their arcs in the right places?
Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash
I’ve been trying to get up the nerve to publish today’s blog post for months. Who am I to have the audacity to attack such a topic? I haven’t even published my first novel.
Perhaps I should have left #FixYourNovel #4: Characterization on the back burner until I had more writing experience. However, to be perfectly honest with you, I got tired kicking the can down the road. I got tired revamping my blog’s editorial calendar and shifting this topic further into the future.
I hope readers and writers will find something of interest in today’s post.
In my journey as a fiction writer, I’ve read about all aspects of the craft of writing. New articles and how-to books are published every day. It’s impossible to keep up.
Today’s blog post is a combination of the things I’ve read about characterization by people who know more about that skill than I do. It’s my job as an aspiring fiction author to wade through all the advice, discern what’s worth keeping, and try to put those gems into practice.
Author Kristin Lamb’s take on characters
I read a September 23, 2019 article by author Kristin Lamb several weeks ago and immediately added it to my resources list for today’s blog post. I love the title of Ms. Lamb’s article: “Characters: Audiences Read Stories, but Great Stories Read the Audience.” It pulled me right in. Her article can be found at https://authorkristenlamb.com/2019/09/characters-story-audience/.
Of course, I had to keep reading to find out what she meant. In a nutshell, Ms. Lamb said that every reader reads a book through their unique perspective. The character in a novel has “baggage,” but so does the reader. The reader brings her “baggage” with her but so does the reader. The reader brings her “baggage” with her into the story and that completes how an individual reader sees a character.
If there are three main characters in a novel and three people read it, it’s possible that each reader will identify with a different character due to the readers’ backgrounds and life experiences.
Photo by Frank Holleman on Unsplash.com.Photo by Etty Fidele on Unsplash.com.Photo by Pablo Rebolledo on Unsplash.com.
Also, I think “Great Stories Read the Audience” is an excellent way of saying a writer must know her target audience. I could try to write a novel that would appeal to everyone, but the finished product would probably appeal to no one.
One method is to do what Ms. Harnby suggests: let the viewpoint character describe another character, but don’t let it sound like a description in a police report. The reader doesn’t need to know every detail of how a character looks. Tell what is different about a character. Give each character a distinguishing physical or personality trait.
Author, editor, and writing coach Lori Freeland’s take on characters
Something Lori Freeland says in her June 3, 2019 blog post, https://writersinthestormblog.com/2019/06/down-with-the-rules/, also addresses a method a writer can use when describing their characters. It’s a twist on bending or breaking the writing “rule” that says a character shouldn’t describe herself or himself.
Ms. Freeland writes, “Main characters can describe themselves if they do it right…. Go ahead. Put your character in front of a mirror. But make it a funhouse mirror that emphasizes her faults and grows them larger than life.”
In this blog post, Ms. Freeland also comments about motivation. A writer needs to tell the reader what motivates a character. This clarifies the story.
To quote Ms. Freeland, “The internal journey of your character is as crucial as the external journey.”
Australian Fantasy Author Douglas W.T. Smith’s take on characters
Douglas W.T. Smith wrote about characters, voice, and dialogue in his April 9, 2019 blog post, https://dwtsmith.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/five-ways-to-improve-your-characters-voice-and-dialogue/. He states something important about characters and dialogue: “Remember, if the dialogue doesn’t advance the plot, give insight into characters, or show relationships between characters, it should be deleted.”
Mr. Smith goes on to talk about how a writer can make characters distinguishable by giving each one a unique speech pattern or word choice. From there he reminds the aspiring writer that all dialogue in a novel should be necessary and should move the story forward; otherwise, it is unnecessary.
Some things are better told through narrative. Mr. Smith writes, “Use dialogue when it’s needed – when it will show relationships or reveal character or plot the way no other tool will.”
Back to Louise Harnby
Related to that last quote from Douglas W.T. Smith, is this comment Louise Harnby made in https://www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com/blog/writing-dialogue-and-thoughts-8-problems-and-how-to-fix-them: “Dialogue should be purposeful. If you’re using it to introduce information, have the characters seek answers to questions they don’t know the answers to. Unveil backstory that’s known to the speakers through the narrator, not the speech.”
Author and Writing Instructor Janice Hardy’s take on characters
Janice Hardy’s April 30, 2014 blog post, http://blog.janicehardy.com/2014/04/five-ways-to-create-likable-characters.html, is titled “Five Ways to Create Likable Characters.” This brings up a whole other aspect of characterization. As if making each character look and sound different from every other character weren’t enough, a novelist needs to make most of their characters likeable.
Ms. Hardy prefaces her list of five ways to create likable characters by cautioning writers not make the characters perfect. She says, “There’s a fine–and often moving–line between likable and perfect, which can make it difficult to create a well-balanced likable character.”
Ms. Hardy’s blog post goes into detail about how to make a character likable and how to make each character distinguishable, so please click on the link above and read her entire post if you want to learn more.
Until my next blog post
At my own risk, I’m announcing that my blog post next Monday will be a continuation of today’s. If the topic doesn’t interest you, please check in again in two weeks when I’ll write about some of the books I’ve read in February.
I hope you have a good book to read. I’m listening to The Long Petal of the Sea, by Isabel Allende while I’m partially-incapacitated with my fractured leg.
If you’re a writer or other artist, I hope you have quality creative time.
Thank you for reading my blog post. You have many things vying for your attention and time, so I appreciate the fact that you took time to read my blog today. I hope you’ll visit it every week to see what I’m up to.
Let’s continue the conversation
Do you prefer to read plot-driven novels or character-driven novels? If you’re a writer, which do you prefer to write?
From the
beginning in June of 2010, this blog has generally been about my journey as a
writer. It hasn’t been a smooth ride so far, and some days the destination
doesn’t appear any closer than when I began.
This reminds
me of an experience my sister and I had on a trip to the western part of the
United States a few years ago. We saw our first butte. It didn’t look more than
a mile or two away, so we turned off onto a dirt road that looked like it would
take us to the butte. We don’t have buttes in North Carolina, so we wanted to
see one up close.
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
After
driving on this straight, flat road for a half hour or so, the butte didn’t
look any closer than it had when we turned off the main highway. We gave up on
reaching the butte and turned around.
As for the
manuscript for my Doubloon novel, I
haven’t given up and I haven’t turned around. I don’t think I could, even if I
wanted to. I’m still learning about the work that has to be done after the
rough draft is finished.
Scene Outlines
In my mind I
thought I could evaluate every scene in my novel manuscript of more than 90,000
words by mid-July and be ready to send a detailed scene outline to a
professional editor for a critique. In the meantime, I discovered a scene
outline template on C.S. Lakin’s website.
I wrote an
outline before writing the rough draft of the The Doubloon. After finishing the rough draft, I modified my
outline into a scene outline for reference purposes. Then, I found Ms. Lakin’s template.
It includes details and questions I hadn’t thought about being part of a scene
outline.
Expanding my
outline based on Ms. Lakin’s template has been a beneficial process because it
makes me state how each scene drives the plot forward, what background details
are revealed, and how the point-of-view character grows or changes. It might
even tell me that one or more scenes aren’t necessary.
Ms. Weiland goes on to list five things every scene should
contain. She wrote, “Basically, the art of writing interesting scenes is the
art of preventing reader boredom.”
My favorite takeaway from Mr. Smith’s
blog post was “Each scene should stand alone, make it dazzling enough to inform
your reader of the necessary plot information, exciting enough to create
interest and interesting enough to cause the reader to keep going.”
I will
continue to work on my scene outline. As a hope-to-be debut novelist with my The Doubloon manuscript, I think it’s a
good idea for me to hire a professional editor to evaluate my scene outline. I’ll
let you know when that happens.
In case you missed #FixYourNovel
#1: Read it Aloud
Today let’s grapple with “fixing” the rough draft of
your novel by reading the entire novel aloud to yourself to make sure it flows
naturally, makes sense, has the right amount of backstory, doesn’t have
information dumps, and doesn’t have plot holes.
I know, many of you bailed out on that last sentence.
If you’re still with me, though, I thank you. If you aren’t interested in
today’s topic, just scroll down to see what I’ve been doing, what I’m reading,
and what my blog has in store for you next week.
Purposes
of reading aloud to yourself
Among other things, the purposes of reading the rough
draft aloud to yourself are to:
* See
if the story flows naturally;
*
Make sure there’s the right amount of backstory;
* See
if the pacing is good;
*
Make sure the story makes sense;
*
Make sure events are in proper order;
*
Make sure there are no information dumps;
*
Catch obvious typographical errors; and
*
Look for plot holes.
Some
things I found on my read-through
I’m writing what I hope will be my first historical novel. The working title is The Doubloon. I recently typed “The End” at the end of the rough draft, let it rest a couple of weeks, and then read through it out loud last week. “Out Loud” is very important.
One thing that came to light in my read-through was that some of the scenes weren’t in the best order.
Once the location of a scene is changed – especially
if you move it to a point later in your book – you must carefully review the
scenes between its original location and its new location to make sure there
are no references to what happens or is said in that moved scene in the
in-between scenes.
For example, if you reveal a clue in the scene you
moved from the end of the first chapter to the beginning of the third chapter,
you must make sure you don’t refer to anything in that scene in the second
chapter.
There were places where sentences weren’t in the best
order. You might not catch those instances if you don’t read your rough draft out
loud.
There were instances where a word didn’t do the
sentence justice. Sometimes a sentence needed a stronger verb or more accurate
adjective. If you can’t think of a better substitute immediately, just
highlight it in red and keep going.
I discovered cases where I had not told the reader
something they needed to know in order for a scene to make sense. As the
author, I knew the background, but I had failed to give the reader enough
information.
A number of scenes take place in the meeting house. In
my head, I knew exactly what the log meeting house looked like inside, but I
had not described it well. That task was added to that running list I mentioned
above.
Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash
I was surprised to find some typos, which means I’m
too confident in my typing skills. There were several cases where I’d typed the
wrong word, for instance, “where” when I meant “when” and “of” when I meant
“in.” (What was that about?) The spell-check function on your computer won’t
catch these errors.
How
to deal with problems you find
In some of these cases, I edited the rough draft. In
some cases, I highlighted the word, phrase, or sentence so I can go back later
and take time to make corrections or changes. I started a running list of
things I need to research or be sure to check on later. I only made changes
that could easily be done without taking much time. I didn’t want to get
distracted from the read-through to the point I got bogged down in editing.
Nice
surprise in the read-through
It was a pleasant surprise to find some humor in the
manuscript. I wrote all 85,000 words, so how could I forget? Maybe you can keep
up with such things, but I obviously did not. I was really pleased with some of
the humor and the liveliness of some of the dialogue.
Based on my meager experience, I would say this
read-through of your novel’s rough draft should be fun. It certainly was for
me. I enjoyed getting reacquainted with some of the characters’ personalities
and events in the book.
In addition to the humor in this novel that deals with
several serious issues, I hope my readers will try throughout the novel to
figure out “who dunnit.”
One
of the most important things I learned
One of the most important things I learned through
this rough draft rewrite and read-through is how to get words on the page and
move on. For years I was guilty of trying to write perfectly the first time. If
I had something I needed to research or go back to look for in my research
notes, I would stop right then and chase after the answer.
I’ve finally learned to throw in a red question mark
or type my question in read red, and keep writing. This was a hard
lesson for me to learn. I hope you have learned that or will learn it faster
than I did. It makes a huge difference in how quickly your writing can move
along.
#FixYourNovel
Look for the second installment in my #FixYourNovel blog series in mid-July: Scene Outline Critique will probably be the topic.
Since
my last blog post
We had house guests and also tried to get as much
yardwork done as possible before the heatwave started on Saturday with 95
degrees.
Until
my next blog post
I
hope you’re reading a good book. I’m reading The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington, by
Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch. Next Monday’s blog post will be about the books
I’ve read in May.
If you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time and your
projects are moving right along.
Thank you for reading my blog. You could have spent the last few minutes
doing something else, but you chose to read my blog.
Janet's Writing Blog 