As a freelance editor who is dedicated to helping authors develop their stories, I wanted to put together a list of things I see on the regular. This is a list of the most common issues I see authors making when beginning to craft their stories.
I usually help authors in the early stages so there are usually going to be quite a few kinks that need smoothed out. This doesn’t mean that the clients I work with are not great writers, on the contrary! The authors I’ve worked with usually have a solid foundation when they come to me! But they then need my help to iron out all the details.
When you’re beginning to write your book, don’t think about these things. First off, get a draft put together first and then come back and keep some of these things in mind. Don’t let yourself get bogged down in details worrying about this list. Instead, let this list guide you when you begin the self editing phase. And definitely before handing it off to your editor!
1. Telling and not showing
I would say that this is one of the biggest things that I have to help authors work through. This can be a difficult one to spot yourself as a writer until someone points it out to you. As an author you want to avoid spoon feeding the information to your reader. Readers are smarter than you think so let them pick up on some context clues! What does it mean when your editor tells you, “don’t tell us at this moment, show us.” Here’s an example:
If your character is cold, don’t have them say “It’s cold”. You don’t even want them to have internal dialogue of the character saying, It’s cold in here. Instead, show the reader by having the character put on a scarf or describe how they’re shivering from the chill. This blog post here has some amazing examples for you to read through to better understand showing and not telling!
I will often point this out to my authors in their manuscripts and give them direct examples within their work so they can start to notice the patterns themselves. Once they see it in their own book they usually pick up on it pretty quick. They can then resolve the other moments throughout their manuscript on their own!
2. Little character development
Character development is something I’m obsessed with! As someone who’s studied theatre and acting specifically, I love diving into characters’ motivations and understanding what makes them tick. One thing I’ve noticed when helping authors with a developmental edit is that they sometimes lack character development. This can be for one character, such as our protagonist, or it could be multiple characters. No matter what, you want to make sure that every single one of your characters is well developed. Yes, even that side character we only see a handful of times. They have a backstory too!
One particular point I want to make is that this applies to your antagonist as well. I’m a big fan of making your villain multidimensional. Don’t make them evil for the sake of being evil. I’m a firm believer that no one is born evil and for the most part, this goes for fictional characters as well. Some of the best stories contain a “villain” who is raising questions that has our hero pausing. You want to give the reader gray areas when it comes to your characters. This way they can then have deep discussion with their friends about what they would do in those situations.
3. Pacing
Pacing in a story can be a hard beast to tackle. It can be different from genre to genre and even from book to book. This is something that I highly recommend you hire an editor to help you with if you find you’re struggling in this particular area.
When it comes to pacing you want to make sure that a lot of your major beats are placed in the right areas and there is enough distance between them, but you also don’t want them too far apart. I know, I’m probably confusing the heck out of you right now. But beats and pacing overall can be tricky. What it boils down to is that you don’t want your reader to feel as if your story moved way too quickly to the point where everything just seemed convenient.
For example, the main character just happened to bump into the person who’s holding the exact talisman they need to defeat the rabid werewolf. And this person just so happens to give it to them with no fight and no reasoning. When moments like this happen quite frequently in your book, oftentimes your pacing gets thrown out of whack too. On the flipside you don’t want your story moving too slow. Then the reader will want to put your book down because nothing exciting has happened even though they’re 100 pages in!
4. Know your genre and therefore know your word count
When you are in the early stages of drafting your novel, you may not be 100% set on a genre and that’s ok! It’s better to have an idea of where you think it might be placed. But in the very beginning stages, it’s ok to explore and see what you write!
Once you have a completed draft that you’re ready to start sending it out to beta readers you’ll want to be pretty clear by then what your genre is. And don’t be afraid to ask people what they think it is! Oftentimes outside eyes can really shed some light on how your work is perceived. So don’t be afraid to ask your beta readers what they think it is if you’re having some trouble.
Once you’ve gotten the genre nailed down do some research to understand where your final word count should fall. This is going to be super important whether you decide to go the traditional publishing route or independently publishing your book. Readers of those genres are going to expect a certain length when they pick up your book. It can be a red flag to them if it seems way shorter or longer than what they’re used to.
On the other side, if you’re traditionally publishing, an agent is going to look for that word count to see if you’ve done your homework. If you’re a fantasy writer and your book is 200k+ words an agent is not even going to request to see it. They know they will have to help edit you down before they can even go out on submission with your novel. An agent wants the least amount of work done to your book before they start pitching to publishers. So before you start pitching, make sure you’re pretty close to the range of your genre!
5. Info dumping
Oftentimes writers are so busy trying to get the information to the reader they forget that they should be easing the reader in. When a reader picks up your book they’re being introduced to your world for the first time. This is especially true for fantasy writers whom I work with the most. Although, you should be doing this no matter if it’s a completely new dimension for them or not. They need to understand the rules of this world and these characters and to do that, you must slowly introduce them to your world and feed bits of information over time.
Also, don’t be afraid to keep certain information from your reader until the character is ready to know or pass on that information. Only provide what’s necessary to the scene in that moment so as not to overwhelm the reader.
Conclusion
You know your story is great when the reader walks away from your book wanting to discuss the topics and themes you presented. If you’re having trouble in any of these areas don’t be afraid to reach out to an editor, beta reader, or book coach. Having someone in the industry read your book will help to shed some light on your story!
If finances are a concern or you’re worried about committing to paying someone when you’re not sure if it’s a good fit, many editors offer sample edits! Don’t be afraid to ask someone you know for a referral who’s had editing done before. Then ask that editor if they do sample edits to see if your styles and energies match. Don’t be afraid to say no once the editor has gotten a sample back to you and you find they’re not what you’re looking for! We won’t be offended I promise!
I hope this list has helped you spot some errors in your own novel or provided some guidance if you’re feeling a little stuck.
If you’re in need of an editor, reach out to me here and let’s talk about what your book may need!
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