FIVE MISTAKES EVEN PUBLISHED AUTHORS CAN MAKE
By Anna Schmidt
 

#1        Not looking at the BIG Picture

This one is a double-edged sword:

First, writers are notorious for trying to fit writing in amongst the many other demands of their busy lives. Multi-published authors are as likely to bemoan a lack of time to write as are those who are just beginning.

Because time (and project) management skills are inportant for a write, take a moment to answer the following::

• What is your overall goal -- your desired outcome?
• What is your timeframe for accomplishing that?
• What are the obstacles/conflicts?
• What are the primary actions you need to achieve?
• What is the goal/purpose of each action?
• What is the timeline?
• What are the obstacles?
• What actions must you achieve....etc.?
• Identify your milestones in a continuum
• Identify obstacles/conflicts that could be delegated
• Establish a project planning/scheduling sheet for the overall project and for each sub-action
• Develop a pie chart of your time use now and determine what will have to shift to provide time for writing.

Second, you must have a clear vision of your novel from the outset -- not just an idea. There is no question that as you write the book it will take turns and byways that you never planned on in the beginning, but that does not negate the fact that you must know at the outset what you want this book to be about and why whatever that is will have universal appeal to an audience of readers.

Consider your idea against the following criteria:

• What is the appeal of your story for a mass market?
• How is it a new twist on a universal idea?
• Why should you be the one to write this?
• How much experience and knowledge do you already have about the characters and their lifestyles and problems?
• How much knowledge do you have about settings, careers or other technical elements you plan to use in the story?
• Have you targeted some prospective publishing houses and if so, why?
• Do you know who the top fiction authors are at that house? Have you read their stuff? How does your story measure up?
• Do you have a clear understanding of the publisher’s guidelines and “personality”?
• Does your book fit within those guidelines?

#2            Openings That Don’t Engage the Reader

You have maybe three pages to catch the editor’s (or freelance reviewer’s) attention and keep him or her reading and wanting more. Why? Because in today’s busy world you have a little less than that to capture the average reader. Nothing is more important than that you write the very best opening sentence that you can -- and that you keep that up for the rest of the book. A good battle plan is to think of the reader as walking in in the middle of something. The reader knows stuff has happened prior to his/her arrival, but is so drawn in by the opening scene that he/she is willing to catch up with what came before later. Many an experienced writer -- including me -- will tell you that we often write the first three chapters and then wind up starting the book with chapter three.

But action is not the only task you have in your opening. If the book is historical the reader needs to have that information right away. The setting is important -- not that you need to write paragraphs of descriptions of the weather, the style of the room, the clothing. Well-selected details will solve this problem. Whoever is present at the beginning of the book -- at least one of them must be a key character, hero, heroine or villain. Finally the reader needs to know point of view -- whose head the reader is in – and it should be the main character, NOT the author.

#3        Don’t Front Load Your Novel

See number 2 and then understand that many authors, especially beginning authors, make the mistake of frontloading their novels. Front-loading when you feel the need to give the entire back story for each main character at the beginning of the book. The back story is the motivation for what is driving the character in the conflict he or she faces in your novel. It’s what happened to bring the characters to each pivotal moment. A general rule of thumb is that you won’t need to provide in-depth details of the back story until about Chapter Three. Even then you want to be careful not to stop the forward progress of the story by spending too much time on back story.

Read your opening three chapters and mark everything in them that is intended to provide the reader with a set-up for the action. How much of that does the reader really need to know at the outset? Have you used a sentence where the perfect descriptive word would do? Have you provided enough information so the reader is not confused, but not so much that he or she is bored?

#4        Watch out for giant leaps of faith

One of the pitfalls of not frontloading is that you’re grooving along writing your novel and you forget that the reader doesn’t necessarily know what you know -- at least not yet. This is where having somebody else ready your stuff can really pay off. Of course, you’ll need to assure them that you really do want their honest opinion and ideas. And you’ll have to remind yourself not to get defensive or argumentative when they take you at your word. My personal rule of thumb is that if something was enough of a problem to stop a reader and make him or her turn back a few pages or puzzle over why when what I want is for them to keep reading, there’s a problem. It may not be major, but it’s there and if it happens for more than one reader in exactly the same spot, then I’d better pay close attention what they are telling me about their confusion.

 #5       Avoid punchline or sound byte syndrome

There are two problems here but they both harm the writing in a similar way.
Punchline syndrome is when the author is in too much of a hurry. The author knows the outcome and rushes to get there before the reader can figure it out on his or her own.

Sound Byte syndrome is when an author is so wrapped up in impressing the reader with his or her lyrical prose that the story and its characters become secondary. One symptom of this is things like body parts taking on a life of their own -- her eyes quickly traveled both aisles of the church. Another symptom is when as a writer you sit there agonizing over how to say something relatively ordinary in a different way. It’s not the way you would say it in ordinary speech. You’ve never heard anyone say anything remotely similar. And a third symptom is when every page and paragraph is filled to overflowing with these flowery or offbeat-for-the-sake-of-offbeat metaphors and adjectives.

And in the vein of “Underpromise but over-deliver), here’s one more: WRITING IS A BUSINESS! Keep reminding yourself of that as you write. Your publisher (or hoped-for publisher) has stockholders, boards of trustees and others who could care less about your story and who could not care more about the bottom line. For them the only happy ending is a book that sells – and that, my friends, trickles all the way down the line to the editor or assistant editor who reads those first three paragraphs of your novels and makes the decision to keep reading – or not!
 
[This article first appeared in the Wisconsin RWA newsletter and may be reprinted by any RWA chapter or writing group with proper acknowledgment of its origin.]
© Anna Schmidt 2008