Tag: new writer

I do not finish probably 70% of the books I start reading unless they are so terribly bad that I’m intrigued. Simply put, there are too many great books out there to waste time on one I don’t enjoy.

Generally, I decide whether a book is worth my investment within the first page, sometimes the first few pages. I’ve highlighted the glaring problems that absolutely make me click off, but there are more subtle ones, too: warning signs that others may not even notice. I’ve decided to share some of those from my most recent DNF experiences so you have an idea of might make some (but not all, of course) readers give up.

I’m not the ultimate authority on reading or writing, so these things may not matter to anyone but me. Still, I’m also not the only person in existence who is like this, so just keep some of these in mind when you’re writing.

The authorial viewpoint is too obvious.

Here’s one you may never have thought of. This is a paraphrased example from a recent book I gave up on.

“Sandra wandered through her desert hometown.”

That’s it: all that was necessary to make me give up.

But why? What could possibly make this singular sentence so annoying?

The same reason as a fish would not refer to themselves floating through water. Someone who has lived in the desert their whole life isn’t going to think “I live in a desert town.” Because it’s their hometown.

Now, if someone came from outside of the desert and visited a desert town, then of course they would note that. I was very aware that I was in the desert when I visited Albuquerque last year. But that’s because that environment isn’t my normal, so I note it because it’s unusual.

Additionally, the desert doesn’t tend to encroach inside of a town. The desert is “out there” beyond the scope of their neatly arranged streets and shops. Someone could walk into the desert from their town, but unless they are living in a saguaro, the fact that it is a desert doesn’t occur to them.

I get why the author did this. They wanted to quickly tell us what the environment is without “wasting time” on descriptions. But that’s lazy writing. The descriptions are the story: they set the mood, infuse themes, help us feel that what we are reading is real. So don’t skimp on them.

Furthermore, the author isn’t thinking like the character. They don’t realize that a character who is from the seashore, or the desert, or the mountains, etc, isn’t going to always describe their hometown as being on the sea or the desert or mountains or whatever. They won’t say “I live in a mountain town” to themselves; that would be something they’d say to someone else who doesn’t live in the mountains.

The author could have easily made a more interesting story (and kept me as a reader) by just describing the desert scenery without simply saying “it’s a desert.” Every desert is a little different, too, so this could have given us a better sense of place. We would have felt that we are seeing the story through Sandra’s eyes and would have recognized that she belongs here: this is her land, and she sees it as normal.

If you have trouble with descriptions, you can check out my blog post on how to create stunning descriptions.

Key details are hidden to create too much mystery.

Another book I started had an in media res beginning of character running from “them.” I’ve already discussed my annoyance with in media res multiple times, so I won’t focus on that.

The author’s goal here is to invite mystery and make us wonder who “they” are, of course. Oh, we’ve got a creepy shadow organization that’s hunting people down! How stunning!

Except that it’s been done hundreds of thousands of times before. We need to know who these people are, why they are a threat, and why the character is running from them.

Your goal in the first few pages isn’t necessarily to create mystery; that can come later. Rather, we need to be immediately plopped down in the world and to empathize with the character.

This is why cold opens, like a character running from a nebulous “they,” are the fastest way to make people click off. We don’t care about this person yet. They have not done anything to earn our interest or our compassion. Refusing to reveal something that both the author and character already knows doesn’t add to that intrigue: it just makes us annoyed that we’re not given this valuable information upfront.

Now, I should note that when I’m talking about in media res, I’m not saying that nothing should happen in the first chapter. Not at all. But your very first few paragraphs shouldn’t be someone running, fighting, being stabbed, whatever. Give us a bit of time to bond with the person – and tell us the basic details of their plight.

That includes explaining who they are running from. Could be a pack of wolves, the police, an angry ex. The character already knows who they’re running from, so we should know too.

My next book, Absent All Light, has Cerie get her fingernails ripped out in Chapter 1. (If you’ve already read the rest of the books, you know why that happens.)

But I don’t start with her getting tortured. Rather, the first few pages are about her emotions and some of her backstory. We feel her stress, her fear, and her determination to go through with what’s to come.

Heightening that anxiety gives us a reason to care about Cerie before something bad occurs. While readers may not be extremely invested in Cerie yet, they do have a sense of her personality and want to understand why she would let someone hurt her so badly.

The book starts with characters chitchatting about irrelevant things.

Now we have the other side of the spectrum. The author knows that they need to make us care about the characters; they understand that we have to bond with them before we are concerned about whatever situation they are in.

But instead of finding a compelling way to do that, they just show the characters talking to one another about nothing important.

A while ago, I started a book that had two princes shooting the breeze in a throne room, teasing one another about sexual conquests. Okay, you’re establishing that these two are Lotharios; maybe one is a bit more prudish than the other. But then, out of nowhere, their sister the princess swept in and started going “As you know, we’re at war with this other kingdom and they just took half our land and now we’re all gonna die.”

I’d have been happier if you started with them all discussing the whole Everyone Might Die thing first; it’s not necessarily in media res because it’s not action.

And no, the relationship stuff never mattered, either. It was just to show off that these two were horny and didn’t take their roles seriously.

Whatever happens in the beginning of the book sets the stage for everything else. Those first few pages tell us what we can expect, what will matter, what the characters’ goals are.

It’s fine to have things be a bit more lighthearted at first to ease us in. But people shouldn’t just be yammering about something that won’t matter. You can have a soft, low-stakes tone that still prioritizes the key themes and plot points.

The book starts with an irrelevant minor character who will not play a key role in the book.

Readers are sweet, soft, fuzzy ducklings: they imprint on the first few characters they encounter in a book. Once this bond has been established, their natural instinct is to follow that character around, quacking inquisitively.

So imagine the sorrow and disappointment your highly literate waterfowl friends will experience when they find out that their new blorbo is essentially a store mannequin. We don’t want to bond with someone else! This is our new protector and source of entertainment! Give us our human back.

Extreme negative points if you kill that minor character off within the first few pages and try to make us imprint on someone else. It won’t work. Now we’re confused and unhappy; we’ve lost interest.

Whoever you start the book with should play a key role in whatever happens. They don’t need to be the MC, but we should see them around throughout the story.

The dialogue is too expository.

When I see a character say, “as you know,” I typically lose interest. There are some cases when this would be helpful, and those cases rarely come up at the very beginning of a book.

This can be used to great effect later on, as a courtesy to the readers: whatever the character discusses is something we have likely already encountered, and we don’t need an exhaustive recap. It ensures we know everyone is up to speed like we are and can progress with problem solving.

But “as you know,” in the intro, is shorthand for “My character is now going to walk you through all the important information so I can get it out of the way without making you work for it.”

In other words, you’ve signposted the beginning of an infodump.

I will say that this is better than just giving us a sudden nonfiction-but-fiction rundown of everything, but it’s still annoying.

Also, people rarely say this in real life except if they’re being bitchy. It gives strong “per my last email” energy. So, given what I have experienced in over three decades of living in a society, I am automatically prejudiced against that character because I assume they’re an obnoxious know-it-all. If that’s what you intended, cool – just make sure that the character is insufferable.

But if you actually want us to like this character, then don’t use this phrase.

The author just tells us who the character is without showing it.

Here’s an annoyingly common occurrence: the author wants us to understand that a character is athletic, intelligent, etc, so they just tell us that. But they never show the character doing anything athletic or intelligent.

Sometimes this will be that they are a nuclear physicist (we assume they are smart) or that they are a professional rock climber (we assume they are athletic), but then neither of these things ever show up in the book.

We’re just supposed to infer that because they have these titles, they automatically have these qualities, and the author’s work is done. The author then doesn’t have to show us the character thinking through a difficult problem or fighting for their life and winning.

It is my opinion (though you may disagree) that characters should only tell us lies about other characters. Everything else should be shown to us so that we can make up our own opinion. This way, we are always surprised by what happens because our perceptions have been challenged.

For example, have a character constantly call themselves a coward. Then show them standing up to a corrupt leader or taking a beating without shedding a single tear. Have everyone call a character stupid, then show how they defeat the Big Bad through their clever schemes.

Now we have to decide who to believe. Why does everyone think this brilliant character is stupid? How are their perceptions different from ours?

Underplaying a character always makes them more intriguing. Now we don’t know what will happen next. Are they going to conform to what other characters are saying and give up at the crucial moment, or will they be brave and push forward? Are they an idiot who will be squashed by the enemy, or are they going to show an incredible feat of intellectual prowess?

This approach also silences the naysayers who will go “you said this guy is the greatest hero to ever exist, but then he was defeated, so he sucks.” No one said he was the greatest hero ever; the author, and all the other characters, said he’s a total loser.

It’s surprising to the cast, and to us, that they were able to push through. Such an approach activates our instinctive desire to cheer on the underdog.

Of course, there will be a point where this shtick doesn’t work. If someone has done something miraculous, then it would be stupid for everyone to still insist they’re a loser who can’t do anything. We can’t let them get such bad Imposter Syndrome that it seems fake. At this point, you can have in-universe critics who downplay their achievements, which pushes us to sympathize with them more.

The authors uses character actions as virtue signaling.

I left this one for last because it’s a more modern phenomenon and may not apply to everyone. It’s also less of a nitpick and more of a “stop doing that, for the love of god.”

Anyway, it’s become alarmingly common for younger authors to desperately reassure us that they don’t agree with whatever bad things their characters do.

I didn’t really come across this much when I was a young adult writer discussing nasty topics like rape and murder; people didn’t assume that I was a murderer for writing it. But, for some reason, the newer generation is terrified of being labeled problematic, even as they explore taboo topics, so they go well out of their way to break the fourth wall and assure everyone that they, themselves, aren’t that Bad Person.

Common examples I have seen:

The piece will usually start with a long, exhaustive list of trigger warnings for every possible theme, no matter how slight. (We know my stance on trigger warnings already.)

Characters will suddenly give an infodump about some social justice issue to another character as a way to show that they are super progressive and reasonable, even if it makes no sense for the scene.

Excessive verbal consent for sexual activity, which is usually fade to black. No one gets to third base without passing a phalanx of “are you sures?” And don’t even think about drunken sex! That’s basically illegal!

If a character drinks or uses drugs, there has to be someone to remind them that drugs are bad. The drug-using character is almost always the bad guy. It’s basically a DARE commercial.

Everyone talks like therapists and assures one another that they don’t agree with the Bad Things that are happening; in other words, they are acting as the author with their hands up, going, “Don’t sue me!”

Good characters are simply not allowed to do the wrong thing, ever. It’s very black and white. Good guys never lie, never steal, never kill the wrong person, never manipulate anyone. They don’t get angry, and they talk through things with total calm in situations that would not be calm in real life.

No good character has any internal biases. None of them discriminate, all of them are totally down with every progressive movement ever, and they aggressively stand up for these values as much as possible (to show the author agrees with these things).

Listen, I am a noted lesbian. The Eirenic Verses has an entire country that ships gay people off to a desert island and lets them be torn apart by wild dogs.

Does this mean that I think all gays should be tossed in prison camps and eaten? No, obviously not. I don’t intend to see the inside of a canine digestive system at any point in my life.

But it’s interesting to me. Homophobia exists in real life. I want to understand how it impacts people, how it starts, how to snap people out of it.

A fictional world with nothing bad in it is boring. There’s no conflict. There’s nothing to fix. That’s why no one gives a shit about utopias and they’re extremely rare in the literary world.

You can write about bad things without being a bad person. If someone comes after you with pitchforks and torches for writing about bad things, that’s because they enjoy being the persecutor. They will do anything possible to get that delicious high of being Morally Correct and Right.

Nothing you write will ever be good enough for a prude. They will always find fault with it, pushing the Overton Window further and further toward a completely sanitized world. If you comply with them, they’ll just find something new to consider “problematic.”

The best thing you can do with such bullies, either in fiction or real life, is to not play their game. Let them sharpen their pitchforks. It doesn’t matter.

Every book is imperfect because writers are imperfect. But, we want to minimize the imperfections whenever possible and focus instead on making unique, exciting works. This ensures that our imperfections encourage speculation, not ridicule.

Take a look at your work and see what sticking points you may have. You may find that with a few simple adjustments, you have something even more amazing to share.