#brian klems

Pick up the pace of your novel. Slow reads lose readers. To help pick up the pace throw roadblocks and challenges at your characters that help propel the story forward. Good stories aren’t linear lines – they have a lot of bumps along the way. You should aim to have some kind of problem or hurdle arise once every ten pages. They don’t have to be huge problems, just something to keep your reader interested.

Very helpful advice for anyone struggling to write a novel in general. 

So I’m working some more of querying and finding a literary agent today, and I came across this Writer’s Digest article about what we should be doing as writers/authors to make ourselves desirable. I hope you find it as useful as I did!

Consistency is key. This is mainly for your final draft. Be consistent with things like ok vs okay. Pick one and stick to it. Make sure you spell your characters’ names the same way each time like Ann vs Anne. Also stay consistent in how you refer to your characters. If you always call your character Ellie, it makes is that much more powerful when someone calls them by their full name, or last name, or any other name. Most importantly, consistency shows your attention to detail and your professionalism to agents and editors.

Develop your voice. Only you can write in your voice. Some voices are subtle while others are obvious it doesn’t mean one is better than the other. The more you write and read the more you develop your voice. A good way to start is by mimicking your favorite writers. After a while you’ll start to develop your own style and voice, just like how a lot of artists start by mimicking their favorite painter before developing their own style.

Tighten your sentences. Adjectives and Adverbs should be used only when necessary. Overusing descriptions is a red flag to agents and publishers of a novice writer. Go through your writing and circle all adjectives and adverbs and read it without them. If it works without them, then cut them.

Everyone knows the age old rule “show don’t tell” but people rarely explain what that actually means. Don’ tell your reader what happened, put them in the scene so they can experience it with the characters. Don’t say “Ella walked to the dining hall and discovered Stacy and Rick arguing in the corner”. Write about Ella walking to the dining hall, how she heard hushed voices and couldn’t make out the words at first but recognized the voices. Write about how as she got closer she could make out fragments of the argument and when she passed them in the hall they stopped speaking as soon as they spotted her. This will make for a much more interesting story.