Tips for Novel Writers

Publisher of Flying Pen Press shares some insider tips
Part one of a two-part article
by David A. Rozansky, Publisher, Flying Pen Press
Readers, Writers & Royalties columnist
February 10, 2008
Copyright 2008 David A. Rozansky

 
I am always being asked to review and critique the work of aspiring novelists. I love to share my experience with these writers, because often these stories are excellent ideas and talent lies just below the surface, but a few simple mistakes that novice writers make typically hold these stories back. However, it is very, very rare that I have the time to offer such critiques.

I also spend considerable effort reading through the Flying Pen Press review queue of book submissions by first-time authors. Sadly, the same is true of these stories: a great story and obvious talent just hiding below the surface, but the same simple mistakes make the manuscript unworthy of publication. It is the nature of reading a review queue that there is no time to write anything but the briefest reasons for rejection.

So, in hopes of helping out as many writers as I can, in the spirit of Gather.com's finest writing groups, I am going to focus on some standard novel-writing techniques that should help many an author get past the most basic hurdles.

Before I get into my list of tips, I should point out that the story has to be sound, that the grammar and spelling has to be flawless. If the basics of writing are inaccessible to a would-be novelist, none of these tips will help save a bad plot or a story plagued by an inability to craft a sentence. This is not a series of tips on how to write. It is a series of tips on how to craft a better novel. No rules on crafting a novel are ever absolute. These are tips, not commandments.

Focus From the Eye, Not Toward the Eye

Writing and reading are the reverse of each other. The thinking processes are completely opposite in direction. Because of this, the writer's thinking process used to form a scene on paper often works against the reader's thinking process that interprets text and forms an image form those words.

This often presents itself in the way a scene is depicted, especially in the opening scene of a chapter.

One book published by Flying Pen Press, Migration of the Kamishi by Gaddy Bergmann, has a new beginning. Originally, Bergmann's novel — his first — opened with a scene of a valley, wide in expanse with an endless sky. Bergmann then described the trees off in the distance, the river through the valley, the herd of animals grazing down in the valley. The narration flowed along the path, describing the hill, and then the tree on the hill, and finally, the protagonist, Blake, sitting under the tree. I could easily see that Bergmann's thinking process was that of a writer envisioning a setting, and then putting the character into the setting. This is how the mind forms a scene.

But this is not how a reader receives a scene. Without knowing who was looking at the valley, the scene was flat. Bergmann fixed this quite simply: he reversed the focus. Instead of moving from the far to the near, he moved from the near to the far. The book now opens with Blake under the tree, who then sees outward, first the hill, then the stream, then the animals, and then the entirety of the valley. Because we start in the mind of Blake, the reader can assimilate the images in Blake's mind, even getting a feel of Blake's personality by how he interprets what he sees. The background is no longer without depth.

Describe, Don't Tell

It is often said that a book should show, not tell. This means that the writer should not explain what is going on, just present the goings on. To take that even further, it is important to use description over explanation.

For instance, let us take a scene in a kitchen. The author can write: The woman walked into the kitchen. Or she could write,: The waitress charged through the door and nearly crashed into a hot pot. No mention of a kitchen, but because there is a description of activity going on, it has depth, life, pizzazz. It is a far more interesting place.

Details, Details, Details

The reader needs to see the image in his mind's eye. Thus, the author needs to present images in the way that the reader can see it. The eye tends to see details, not broad strokes. The kitchen above, when stated "kitchen," is nothing more than a room with no depth. But a tomato stain on a wall and a waft of steam from a pot make the room come alive, without ever having to explain what the room is about.

Think of it this way. The mind is adept at taking small, intricate pieces that it sees or hears or feels and then putting them into the shape of something bigger, even without having to see all the pieces involved. In fact, only one piece is often necessary. We see a glass doorknob, we know it's an old-fashioned door. We feel a salty breeze, we know it's an ocean.

The Description's in the Details

A powerful aspect of using details and description is that they work wonders when combined. Describe the action with a detail. A single cry, a nod of the head, a crossing of the legs, these can all speak volumes about the actual activity being described.

To show someone is angry, an author doesn't need to launch a full analysis of every facial twitch and body gesture. It can be just as bad to show a complete action as it is to merely tell the reader what is going on. Description works best in tiny pieces, in minute details. The shirk of a shoulder can stand in for all of the body language one uses when describing an apathetic response.

Sensing a Better Story

Think of detail and description as two sides of a triangle. The third side of the triangle is the base of storytelling: the senses. Describe the scene, character or action in terms of all the senses. A good author has to go beyond simply working with sensory descriptions, he must use references to the senses, metaphors that use the senses, words that simply infer the senses.

Sight, sound and touch are the most common senses used in storytelling, and odor and taste, while harder to write, can complete an image nicely. Keep in mind, though, that there are more than five senses. There is a sense of balance, a sense of danger, a sense of wonder, a sense of déjà vu, a sense of distress, a sense that all is not right in the world, a sense that one's companion is unhappy, and the list is endless. Incorporating a wide variety of senses brings a story to life.

Moving Lights

Light and motion are two intertwined parts of imagery that a reader must use properly. Because vision is so important to a reader's mental imagery, lighting a scene is important. I have read too many stories that in the dead of night, the protagonist looks out across a wide horizon and sees the green blades of grass bending in the wind, across a wide expanse. The only problem is that it's supposed to be dark outside.

The eye focuses on changes in light and dark. A baby at birth can barely see, but what it does see is based on differences in light. This tendency to focus on high-contrast colors and shadows stays with us all through life, and even in our mind's eye, we establish imagery when contrasting light and darkness is described.

While the main part of the eye focuses on contrast in light, our peripheral vision is motion based. When we se something move out of the corner of our eye, we see it immediately. When looking for details that are hidden in a chaotic jumble of images, we best see the images that move. Thus, a writer should take pains to impose motion in the scenes. Cars should drive by, and dishes should fall to the floor and explode in shards of china. Even metaphors should focus on action words: His anger swooped into the room and flung itself at the scattering salespeople.

The combination of light and motion, therefore, becomes a key method in bringing a scene alive, with shadows crawling across the walls and lights galloping down the highway. The harsher the contrast and the more unusual the motion, the more tense and energetic the scene becomes.

Mind the Adverbs and Prepositions

Every sentence is full of words with different emotional impact. The ineffective verb, such as to be, to go, and to get, have very little impact; they are passive. Nouns have some impact, but because most nouns cannot stand alone without further description, they are not all that strong. Active verbs are very important and very strong. They create the image more so than the nouns. It is odd how the human mind works, I do not understand why this is so, but it is true; the verb is the most important part of the sentence and should be chosen carefully.

However, even stronger than the verb is the modifier word: an adjective or an adverb. Adverbs are great pitfalls, because they steal the thunder from the verb, the very core of the image. It is better to stammer than to slowly get your words out. There are so many colorful verbs in the English language that it is not all that necessary to use an adverb. Adjectives likewise steal the thunder from nouns, but since there are not enough precise nouns in the language and most nouns have no thunder of their own, a sprinkling of adjectives is often necessary. But adverbs, I try to limit them to two per page of 250 words.

Prepositions are like detours. Each prepositional phrase is a new direction for the reader to take. That is okay, but if you put too many prepositional phrases in a sentence, it adds up like a train wreck. I limit myself to two prepositions per sentence, generally speaking.

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"Get the Word Out! Turn Off the TV and Read a Book!"

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This is just one article in David A. Rozansky's column, Readers, Writers & Royalties, a blog column about the book trade, from writing and publishing, to selling and reading. His next article will answer a readers question: How do you get a traditional publisher a first-time author?

Readers may find archived articles or subscribe to Readers, Writers & Royalties at www.ReadWriteRoyalty.Gather.com. Subscribe to all of Mr. Rozansky's articles at www.FlyingPenPress.Gather.com.

David A. Rozansky is the publisher of Flying Pen Press. He has been in publishing since 1987, and has more than one million published words under his byline. Flying Pen Press is at http://www.FlyingPenPress.com. He is available for speaking on the subject of writing magazine articles, public relations, marketing and book-length material.

The book mentioned in this article is published by Flying Pen Press. It is available from the publisher or wherever great books are sold.

Migration of the Kamishi by Gaddy Bergmann (ISN 978-0-9795889-1-4, trade, $14.95). Migration of the Kamishi is a story of life three thousand years after an asteroid has hit the Earth and wiped out all civilization, and how the Earth is healing from all the things done to it by mankind. Readers can connect with Gaddy Bergmann at Gaddy.Gather.com.