About a month ago, our wonderful, faithful Gevalia coffeepot died. What a shame! Since my wife and I have become rather . . . um, dependent on our daily intake of the coffee bean (hey, it is in the vegetable or fruit family), I zipped out to Walmart for another coffeepot. I figured Mr. Coffee was a decent brand, and the model I grabbed was the right price. What a mistake! Two weeks later, I turned it on one morning between pages of a hectic edits—and nada. There wasn’t a sign of life other than a taunting green light that smirked at me as if some wise guy were playing a joke. Thankfully, Walmart took the coffeepot back, and I decided not to waste a nickel on another Mr. Coffee that might just croak again in two weeks. So this time we’re trying a Black & Decker for the same…
Every once in a while, a friend contacts me and tells me about a promising young man or woman who shows extraordinary writing talent. The young person would like to connect with me and get advice about being a professional novelist. At first, I must admit, I sort of chuckle and shake my head. I’d like that advice too. I’ve published only two novels so far—that certainly doesn’t make me a publishing expert. In many ways I still feel like I’m learning as I go in this sometimes baffling industry. I hope the advice is both encouraging and realistic. Of course, making a career of novel writing is certainly possible; best-selling authors like John Grisham are able to pull it off. But remember, they are John Grisham—and most of us are not. Few novelist get to sign million-dollar book contracts. What am I saying? When you’re a child, it’s easy to…
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about 10 common mistakes I’ve seen in novel writing due to my day job as a fiction editor. Have you ever written or said something, taken a certain position, and then seen examples to refute it? What I should have added to that article was something along these lines: fiction writing styles change over time. When Charles Dickens wrote Little Dorrit, his writing style was popular in his day. But styles change. There’s a reason no one wears bell-bottoms today. The mistakes I cited weren’t grammatical problems; rather, they were “mistakes” according to current expectations on the part of publishers and literary agents. The word current is important to note here because who knows what the popular style will be in a decade. Maybe someday confining a single viewpoint to each scene will seem old-fashioned. Maybe the next big trend will be…
I live in a very tiny but blessed minority. For some reason, known only to God, I get to work from home and do what I love most: work with words. Over the last few years, I’ve worked more with novel writing than with anything else, and I’ve seen a lot of common mistakes. Here are a few of the most common ones, along with solutions. 1. The Info Dump Often insecure authors feel they need to dump a lot of back story at a novel’s beginning before readers will “get” the main story. It’s logical thinking: “Before you get this, you need to understand this.” But the problem is, they tend to give the info dump in the first five pages or so, those precious pages acquisition editors look at first. (Check out The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman.) While back story is often important for character and plot…
