Category: Writing Tips

How Many Words Should My Book Be?

Writing Tips

Man sitting at a table loaded with books.

by Caleb Kaiser, @ReedsyHQ

Word count is one of those things you don’t think about when you start writing the first page of your novel. It’s only after your book is completed, when you’re shopping around for agents or thinking of self-publishing, that you think, “Is my book the right length for selling?”

At Reedsy, we’ve connected thousands of authors with editors, proofreaders, designers, and marketers, and as a result, have access to a lot of data on books—particularly, book length.

Below we’ve broken down our insights on how long different genres of books should be.Continue reading

Empathizing With Your Character

Uncategorized, Writing Tips

Two senior men talking at an outdoor table at a restaurant.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Every once in a while, I’ll grind to a halt with my story.  I’ll either want to flesh out a subplot or develop the main plot a bit more, but I won’t be sure which direction to go in.

I always manage to muddle my way through and solve my problem, but I’d never sent a lot of time thinking about how I solve it.

I read a post by Steven-John Tait recently and one of his tips really resonated with me. Tait said, “Find empathy. If you can empathize with a character, you can get into their head. Once you’re in their head, you can fill in the blanks.”

Tait’s tip was intended to help with developing a protagonist, but it works well with all of the characters in the story.  This is one of the main methods that I use when I’m ‘muddling’ through the book to find my way.Continue reading

Twitterific

Twitterific, Writing Tips

Bluebird with beak open and 'Twitterific Writing Links' by ElizabethSCraig superimposed on the image

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 45,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Have you visited the WKB lately?  Check out the new redesign where you can browse by category, and sign up for free writing articles, on topics you choose, delivered to your email inbox!  Sign up for the Hiveword newsletter here.

Continue reading

Consistency

Writing Tips

Woman kneading dough with flour scattered on surface.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Some of you may not know this because I do have a culinary mystery series and was on a food blog for a long time…but I don’t consider myself a good cook.

My problem is that I’m not consistent.  And my inconsistency in the kitchen has a lot to do with focus (or lack of it).  I’ll cook something that everyone in my family likes and then cook it the next month (differently) and everyone will be forcing it down.

When I first started writing, I didn’t find consistency important.  If I’d continued on this track, it would have meant for some really uneven writing in later books. I wasn’t jotting down small facts for later books in the series, for instance.  I wasn’t necessarily consistent with characterization, although I managed to smooth that out in later books.

Recipe for consistency in my books:

First off, I keep a story bible.  Anytime that I throw out any details about a recurring character or setting, I make sure to keep track of it.  Otherwise, it’s all too easy to mess up in later books and ruin that continuity.  That’s sure to pull readers right out of a story when they spot it.

I make sure that characters behave in ways that are consistent with who they are.  If they don’t, there need to be good mitigating circumstances to explain it.  If I change who a character is to make the story work, I’m cheating the reader.

I ensure that the style is consistent. When I worked with Penguin, they would create style sheets for my series to make sure that if I’ve chosen a group to be called the Cut-Ups, that they aren’t called the Cut-ups in other books.

I’m consistent in terms of what I’m delivering in my chosen genre.  I’m not throwing in any surprising gore or endangering children because that’s not what readers have come to expect from me or from cozy mysteries, generally.

I make sure settings and characters are consistently familiar to readers, but described in different ways (no copy-pasted descriptions) for the books.

For further reading: 

Making a Series Bible Using Excel by Heidi Hormel on the IWSG site

How to Create a Series Bible for Your Fiction by Lorna Faith

A Free Consistency Checker (for Style) as a Google Docs Add-On

Keep Characters Consistent by Shay Goodman

How do you ensure consistency in your writing?

Photo on VisualHunt.com

Developing a Bad Idea into a Better One

Uncategorized, Writing Tips

Busy city street crosswalk with 'do not enter' signs facing viewer.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I work on story subplots two different ways.  Sometimes I write them in as I go, including them in the text.  Sometimes I write them out separately on a different document and weave them in after I’ve finished the mystery.

This time I’d written in the subplot as I went.  But, after finishing the book and reading back through it, I was unhappy with the subplot.  It seemed too much of a contrivance to me. Plus, it meant that I was adding in another recurring character when my series already had quite a few.

But there were parts of the subplot that I liked. I was pleased with the way it developed a character in the story.   I decided to rework it instead of scrapping it completely.

Here are my tips for reconstructing a story element.  There are other approaches, but this was the way I was able to do it without making my head spin too much:

First off, remove (cut) the offending storyline completely.  I searched for the character’s name, but you could also reread the draft and cut as you went.

Next, save the cuttings. Paste them into a separate, saved document.

Then reimagine the storyline.  Can the character/subplot serve the story in another capacity?

Additional considerations: can you connect this story element in a meaningful way to the main plot?  Can it be used to develop a recurring character?  Bonus points, if you can.  I found a way for the character to impact two separate subplots.

Open a fresh document and save it.  Mine was “Subplot Text.”   Write out the reimagined storyline, using any bits and pieces from the cut storyline as possible to save time (for instance, I could use the character’s description and some of her dialogue).

Reread your draft.  Weave in the storyline as you go, pacing it throughout the story for better impact.

Is it a pain?  It is.  I haven’t done this in a while (I usually don’t have any major revisions because I’ve gotten very used to my pattern for writing), and it took some time.  But I’m pleased with the finished project and I know that I haven’t created a problem for myself with future books.

If you’re not sure exactly what doesn’t work in your story or need more help staying organized with your revisions, I’m linking to some articles that might help.

The Art of Revising: Macro Revision by R.L. LaFevers

Want to Make Revisions Easier? Create an Editorial Map by Janice Hardy

How to Stay Organized During a Revision by Janice Hardy 

Decisions: What and How to Revise by Darcy Pattison

Do you ever rework bad ideas into better ones?  How do you go about replacing storylines that don’t work?

Tips for revising story elements that don't exactly work: Click To Tweet

Photo on Visual hunt

 

Scroll to top