Month: November 2013

jameslwilber:

fictionwritingtips:

There are some elements to your story that just won’t work. I know it’s extremely difficult to cut things from your story that you want to make work, but sometimes that’s just what you have to do.  Through extensive editing, you can reorganize your novel to make sense, but there are certain things that will ultimately weigh your writing down. Here are a few story faults that will make your readers put your book down.

Characters we don’t understand/can’t visualize. It sometimes works to let your readers fill in the gaps and imagine your characters the way they want, but we need some direction.  When introducing a character, you should tell us what we need to know, without overloading us with information, and then reveal things about your character over time. We don’t need you to write a two or three page description of each character every time you introduce someone know, we just need to be able to visualize them. It’s extremely frustrating when readers can’t visualize a character properly.

Not picking a consistent emotional tone. What tone is your story told in? Is it supposed to be funny? Sad? Scary? Obviously, you can combine tones, but you need to be consistent about it.  You need to set this up in the beginning and avoid changing tones entirely. It feels abrupt and intrusive when you do and your readers will feel cheated. The “feel” of your novel is important, so pick a tone (or a combination) and stick with it.

You don’t tie up loose ends. Everything plot point you introduce in your story should have a reason behind it. In a trilogy or series, you will pace things differently and leave questions open, but you need to tie up the main plot points, and let us know that you plan on tackling the others in the future. If you end a single book with all these questions still out in the open, your readers will be disappointed.  Why did you introduce them in the first place? There needs to a reason.

Your characters are unmotivated. If there’s no reason why your characters act the way they do, your story will be boring. ALL of your characters need motivation, even if it’s something small. Someone might want money or attention or simply an adventure—but those reasons need to be there. Make your characters interesting.

You didn’t plan out your world. You need to explain your world and you need to spend time understanding how it works. Planning out your world is important because readers will catch on to something that feels unorganized and rushed. Your world is just as important as your characters and it will play a part in how your characters interact with each other.

-Kris Noel

Please, if you are a new writer DO NOT BELIEVE ANY OF THIS SHIT. I rarely see writing advice that I disagree with just about everything that is said.

Characters we don’t understand/can’t visualize.

Bullshit. What does the main character in Fight Club look like? That’s right, Chuck never tells you. Why? It’s not important to the story. You only need to describe a character if that’s important to the story. If the character is compelling, you don’t need it.

Not picking a consistent emotional tone. 

Bullshit. Some of the best works mix emotional tones. Especially humor. Life without humor stretches disbelief. Your characters can have real lives. Just make sure it serves the story.

You don’t tie up loose ends.

Bullshit. Sometimes the answer is, ‘I don’t know.” It’s perfectly fine for you and your characters. There are plenty of novels like The Stranger, where shit just happens and we don’t know why.

Your characters are unmotivated.

This one I almost agree with. But once again, if you make the character suffer enough, if it serves the story, you can get away with it.

You didn’t plan out your world.

Stephen King starts writing every book with a premise, “What if vampires invaded a small New England town?” “What if a car was possessed/” “What if you could go back in time to 1963?” Then he starts writing. No months of world building bullshit. Is Kris Noel Stephen King? I think not.

Speaking of King, the only real rules you have to follow are: 1. Read a lot, 2. Write a lot. After you do that, you will have an innate idea how stories work and you won’t worry about this crap.

If I were you, I would worry about style and voice instead