by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
When I read writing rules posts, they usually remind me of the old grammar rules. You know, like: i before e, except after c…but there are exceptions.
There are exceptions. If we know the writing rules and just choose to ignore them, then we might well be doing something innovative. Of course, if we don’t know the rules and break them, then we might well be in trouble.
But this post by James Scott Bell, entitled “The Three Rules for Writing a Novel,” was different. In fact, he could really just have written a post called “The One Rule for Writing a Novel” and it would have been just as good because of the “rule” he listed first:
Don’t bore the reader.
Here’s an excerpt from the post:
RULE # 1 – DON’T BORE THE READERCan anyone disagree with that? Doesn’t it make sense that this should be emblazoned across the writer’s creative consciousness as the most foundational of all rules?If you bore the reader, you don’t sell the book. Or, at least, if the reader does manage to make it to the end, you don’t sell your next book.It’s a rule. In fact, it’s a law, just like gravity.**********
I’d hate it if readers skimmed through large portions of my book because it was boring. I’d hate it even more if they didn’t finish the book or if they skipped buying my next book.
What makes a boring book? Some of that answer is going to be subjective. Or related to genre. Or related to personal preference. I think most of us would agree that a big backstory dump full of set-up information is going to be boring. On the more subjective level, for me, I can be bored by really elegantly worded, descriptive passages. I can be impressed by them—but ultimately disinterested.
What’s boring? I think this is another one of those instances where it’s helpful to be very familiar with the genre we’re reading—what’s the pace of these books? What’s normal for the genre?
In most stories…something has to happen. That may sound really obvious, but there are plenty of books out there (and I’ve started reading a ton of them), where either nothing much happens, or nothing much happens in the first half of the book.
I’m currently writing a book that I’m very consciously working at not making boring. It’s a country house murder—you know the set-up…remote location, cut off by weather, limited suspects, limited setting.
It’s the kind of plot that could get boring if it’s not approached well. I brainstormed a list of ideas for keeping a fast pace and increasing the tension in the country house. There are different ways to hook your reader or keep your reader hooked. For me, my list ranged from minor irritants like losing electricity during the ice storm, to dead bodies. :) It’s basically just making the reader curious about what happens next.
Ingredients that can help spice up a story:
Tension
Conflict (internal and external)
Humor
Characters that pop on the page
Characters that are dynamic and change during the course of the story
Subplots
Complex antagonists
Romance/sex (depending on the story/genre)
Increased stakes and challenges for our characters
Protagonists that don’t take a backseat role in their own adventure
Setting (If it’s really done right and when it’s almost serving as a character in the book.)
What can you add to the list? What makes books interesting to you? What are your favorite elements to add to your own books?
I was once at a major writer’s conference, and one of the guest speakers wanted to illustrate how rambling unstructured prose was boring, so he launched into this rambling story of this winter visit to a friend who took him out in a sleigh… and then he stopped and read the poem Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.
He was trying to show how structure makes things interesting, and how the unstructured story was boring… except it wasn’t! We’d all be hanging on every word.
The lesson I took from that is that if you tell enough stories (especially orally) you just get in the habit of making things interesting — using good detail, etc — and once that’s a habit, you can’t be boring if you try.
And since then, as I’ve listened to other great storytellers, I see how much detail can mean. Whether it’s in description or action or dialog, small things can be the key to keeping it interesting. Little unexpected choices, in particular.
Elizabeth – It is so important not to bore the reader! I think one of the things that helps keep a story going (and I try to do this in what I write) is to limit the amount of narrative description one gives. Some is important; it ‘places’ the reader and gives the reader a sense of what characters look like, etc.. But too much? No, thanks. Character interactions in my opinion are more interesting.
I’m mixed on too much narrative and too much dialogue. I like pretty prose and description when I’m reading, but maybe I’m alone in this. Don’t laugh, but books that are mostly dialogue leave me feeling empty.
Of course the right amount of both, is the key, but what is the right amount for a collective audience?
Love The Daring Novelist’s comment.
T
Camille–That’s funny that his boring story wasn’t boring at all. :) I think you’re right–the more we write, the better we get at storytelling. It gets harder to be boring. I’ve also recently realized the power of detail…instead of just throwing adjectives in there (which is what’s so boring to me about a lot of setting and descriptive passages). Small details, worked into the story, can really make a difference.
Margot–I think you’ve nailed what bothers me so much about many of the descriptive passages I read–they don’t really meld into the story…they sort of pop out in a “look at me” fashion, somehow. Limiting the amount of narrative when describing (or at least interspersing it with other ways of describing something) would probably work better.
Teresa–That’s really what’s tricky…it’s subjective. What’s boring to me can be riveting to somebody else. I’m thinking that it helps to be super-familiar with the genre we’re writing. That way we can get a feel for the standards of our genre and how much narrative vs. dialogue is in the normal range for it.
We learn as we go along. I had to go back and rewrite Breakthrough because of the POV and the back story.
The sub plots can really make a book come alive. This can be a bit tricky but pay off big if a writer gets it right.
Elizabeth, another way I put it when I teach a workshop is to quote Hitchcock’s Axiom: A great story is life, with the dull parts taken out. Then we set about taking those parts out and putting trouble in. Thanks for quoting my post.
That’s an author’s biggest fear – being boring. Tension was something I had to work on and I know that by the time I’d completed my series, I’d nailed it.
Dialogue works if the characters who are speaking have the right rhythm. Some do, and some don’t. It’s important that all of your characters speak differently though, in my opinion.
I think writers- myself included- worry that something has to be long enough. Make sure you get that 300-some-odd pages or 75-80k (or more) words in. I think we’d be better served if we set a lower limit; how much of a story can I tell in 200 pages, or 55k words? I think most of us would end up going past that, but then every word would count more.
Stephen–I think those are two of the trickiest things about writing novels–backstory and POV.
Diane–That’s another “practice makes perfect” story!
Deb–Yes, and making characters sound different from each other can be tricky.
I write a really sparse first draft–probably 50k or fewer words. For Penguin, I’ll add a lot more to that in other drafts–they do like good description, they like more subplots, etc. For the books that I self-pub, I’ve been surprised at the response to my shorter books. I thought I might get some negative feedback on putting up short books (one is about 170 pages, one is only 160…my Penguin books run about 275–300 pages.) Several readers for my self-pub books remarked on the length in a positive way (nice, quick read…fast read, short book, that kind of thing.) Made me think about writing more that are shorter, just for the readers.
I’ve dropped more than a few books for being boring too. It’s not as easy to spot in our own writing because (obviously) we’re invested in our stories and like them! Love the list :)
I think you also need to surprise the reader, and teach (but not preach or lecture). Books where things don’t go the way I’ve predicted they will, or learning some new tidbit keeps a story interesting.
Terry
Terry’s Place
HA! I’m working on a Bore-ectomy right now! The boring stuff? Mostly of two sorts. 1) the between action scenes that I write just so I don’t lose my place… getting here to here… the days not much happened… and 2) my MC evaluating what something MEANS, or analysing it. If it’s relevant to the story, sure, but otherwise, it is just too much.
Great post!
Think you covered it all. I skim long sections of description as well. Sometimes I even skim the short sections.
I always love your posts, Elizabeth. You keep things so practical, and like James Scott Bell (of whom I’m a fan!), you have the experience to back up your practical advice, which is valuable and treasured.
I don’t really have anything to add, but from a reader standpoint, I give a thumbs-up to your list. Those are things that will keep me turning the page. I recently read The Gate House by Nelson DeMille. It was a very long book, more literary fiction, but with an element of suspense. The story moved quite slowly and I would have been bored if it weren’t for DeMille’s captivating writing style and masterful use of wit.
And of course, sexual tension always does the trick, right? (Any other Evanovich fans out there?)
Hart–Yep, I just do those quickie transitions between that stuff. And with the MC, I try to bounce it all off the interesting sidekick (and you’ve got one!)
Alex–Me too.
James–Right–because who wants to read about regular life? We’re all living it…and it’s boring enough (don’t even ask me about my day today…) :) It was a great post–thanks for writing it.
Jemi–Another place where beta readers and editors come in handy! You’re right, we can be blind to our book’s faults. :)
Terry–I love surprises!
I think “boring” is relative. I know there’s quite a few big-selling books out there that I was surprised to find were as stale as month old chips. I don’t think that every scene has to have action to be not-boring or that spending time on character development will lose the reader. It’s about balance. If you have a chapter of two guys drinking and chumming it up to build back story, make the next chapter happen across town where a guy gets a pipe to the back of the head. Elmore Leonard said he leaves out the parts people skip over but… Certainly no one can argue with his success, but the last book of his I read could have used some more meaningful “boring parts” in my opinion.
“Don’t be boring.” Brilliant advice! Thanks so much for your list of anti-boring ideas.
Diane–Thanks so much! You’ve given me a boost of confidence, too, as I work on my potentially-boring book to make it interesting. :)
Thanks for the reader thumbs-up! And I’m like you–I really respect good use of wit in a book.
Oh, sure! Yes, sexual tension, especially for those of us who don’t write sex scenes (me.) That can make things interesting, without meaning that we have to get explicit.
J. D.–A good point about switching things up. Yes, you can have all kinds of slower-paced elements in your book, but if you keep things moving (change of scenery, switching from dialogue to narrative and vice-versa), then it helps make things more interesting. Change of scenery might be a big one. I’ve been at the emergency room with one of my children before and all kinds of action was going on….but I was bored to tears after several hours because…it was the E.R. And I was stuck there. If we stick readers in the same spot with the same type of story element for long periods of time, that gets boring, too.
My books usually have only one action scene in them (cozy mystery is a quiet genre.) I keep things going mainly with tension, conflict, and humor.
Julie–Thanks for coming by. I think Chuck Wendig has a similar rule he writes by… “Try very hard not to suck.” :)
Hi Elizabeth – the same applies to blog posts .. and in fact anything in life … if we bore our companion – then that’s it .. articles for magazines.
It’s keeping it unique, interesting, fresh .. coming at something from a different angle ..
I get bored with detective series that are one and the same, ie after I’ve read three or four of the books I’ve had enough … I guess that might be why trilogies are good – but with series .. care needs to be taken. I never got bored with the Georgette Heyer books – I don’t think .. but that was then.
I am looking forward to getting into some books – yours will be there too … cheers Hilary