Learn from my mistakes

I had three manuscripts rejected before I finally cracked the code and became a traditionally published author.

After the third knockback (ouch!) I decided to get analytical.I combed through each manuscript, looking for fatal flaws.

And I certainly found them, in spades.

Then I fixed them. And THEN I got published.

In future blogs, I’ll take a deep dive into each of these topics. For now, here are my top five unpublished mistakes. I made them so you don't have to.

Character agency

You have a plot with a lot happening, and a character to whom it’s happening.

Is that enough?

Not necessarily.

Your novel will probably be rejected if your character is just standing in the middle of the maelstrom, having events occur to them.

What makes a truly compelling story is to have your character act on the plot, to make sure they have a hand in directing events, to their own benefit or otherwise.

The bottom line is, your characters and the plot need to work together to drive the story forward.

Too little conflict

I'm a very conflict-averse person - the only place I enjoy conflict is on the page or screen.

I'm not alone. Conflict in a novel makes for a compelling story, because it means the stakes for the central character are high.

Conflict can be anything from a global war to an interior struggle. But if it's not there, your reader probably won't be for long, either.

Tension between competing forces (your character and a rival, your character and the situation they find themselves in, even your character and themselves) immediately engages the reader, because it signals that something important is going on, something that they're going to watch the central character strive for or escape from - and that's what keeps them turning pages.

Too much exposition

You've done the research. You've written your characters’ back stories to the point where you know what they had for breakfast at age five. You've drawn maps of the world your character lives in, and created the complex social environment around them.

This is all really important when it comes to building a believable character who readers will engage with as though they were an actual person. It will allow you to write them with the kind of depth needed for authenticity.

But – and this is a big but - the reader doesn't necessarily need to know everything you know.

In my field, historical fiction, so much research and reading gets done which never hits the page. It can be tempting, at times, to put all of your hard work on display.

But I recognise that my reader doesn't need to know how much a ship in the late 1700s weighed. 

They need to know what it was like to be on one in the middle of a storm.

Resist the temptation to go back too far into your character's back story, or to include too much detail which doesn't engage the reader in the character, the plot, or the world you're building.

Remember, every detail needs to earn its place on the page, and you need to avoid bogging your reader down in detail and get them engaged with the character and action as quickly as possible (one of my favourite techniques to do this is to start in media res - in the middle of things - and I'll talk more about this in a future blog post).

A little less conversation, a little more action

You’ve heard it a million times. Show, don’t tell.

You might be rolling your eyes, but there’s a reason this phrase has almost risen to the level of cliché – it’s good advice.

We often judge people by actions rather than words, and readers relate the same way to characters.

The way someone reacts to another person in need of help, for example, tells you far more about them than any number of speeches.

Of course, dialogue is important, but long, unbroken stretches of it can get tiresome.

Sometimes the solution can be as simple as having your characters move as they interact with each other. Can someone walk to a mantlepiece and pick up an object, or pace around the room, as they are extemporising?

More often than not, though, if you have big chunks of dialogue, it's best to read through them and think about which of the ideas or sentiments they have expressed can be turned into action.

(Not) speaking with one voice

Most of the time your central character will not be your only one. There will be other characters which interact with them and with the plot, and have an impact on their journey.

You are aiming to transport your readers into a world which feels real. In the real world, different people have different mannerisms, different points of view, and different ways of speaking.

If every character speaks the same way, reacts the same way, and interacts with other characters the same way, they can all quickly feel like cardboard cutouts.

Pay attention to accents, points of view, manners of speaking and so on to ensure your characters are differentiated.

What do your characters want?

Yes, I know I said there were five mistakes. But I'm giving you a bonus one, and I've left this to last, as in my view it's one of the most important.

When I teach masterclasses on writing fiction, the slide at the start of the character development section recommends students ask three questions of their characters.

What do they love? What do they fear? And what, most importantly, do they want?

Answering these three questions is central to building a character who acts and reacts as a real person would.

The most crucial question is the last one.

This links back to the idea of conflict - in most novels, a character will desperately want something, and a circumstance will prevent them (at least in the short term) from getting it.

So what does your character want? This is the engine which will drag you through the entire novel, if you can get it right.

It doesn't matter if your character is not sure what they want. It doesn't matter if they think they want something which is the opposite of what they really want.

But even if they don’t know, you need to.

I could write about this aspect for a long time, and I will in a future post.

For now, keep writing. And let me know in the comments if you've made these mistakes or others.