8 Sure-Fire Ways to Improve Your Book—Tips from a New York Times Bestselling Author

This week we have some serious nuts-and-bolts advice from our own Ruth Harris. Ruth learned this stuff from both sides of the editorial desk, as an editor at Bantam & Dell, publisher at Kensington--and as a New York Times bestselling author of women's fiction and thrillers. Since I'm in the middle of editing my new Camilla Randall mystery this week, I'm using these tips right now

Number 8 is the biggest problem for me. It's amazing how many times I say the same thing. Just because your critique group has to be reminded of the plot every week doesn't mean your reader needs a recap in every chapter. Yup. I gotta use that delete button.

And remember Ruth has her own blog now, which provides links to wacky and fascinating news stories that can help jumpstart ideas for your own fiction: Ruth Harris's Blog.

If Ruth doesn't respond to comments in a timely way this week, she may be fighting the effects of the Frankenstorm about to hit the East Coast of the US. Take care, all of you back there in the path of Sandy and her stormy friends!...Anne

8 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR BOOK—AND MAKE YOURSELF A BETTER WRITER

by Ruth Harris

I’ve been a professional writer for over four decades. I started out writing cover copy and flap copy at Bantam and Dell, then built a freelance career writing magazine articles. Finally, I graduated to writing paperback original mysteries, then to women’s fiction and eventually to well-reviewed hard cover publication and appearances on the New York Times Bestseller List.

If you like TV's "Revenge" this is for you!

None of it came fast but, over time, I became aware of my bad habits, figured out how to correct them and my books improved. My advantage was that I was an editor and worked with lots of writers, helping them to make their books better & in the process learning more and different ways in which writers undermine their own work.

Their problems and my problems won’t necessarily be your problems but I’m reasonably sure some of my “fixes” will show you how to take your draft and greatly improve its quality.

1. Embrace the power of the delete button. In my experience, cutting almost always makes a book better, more readable, more exciting. I think it was Elmore Leonard who advised taking out all the unnecessary words.

Specifically, that means delete all the spongy, weasely, weak words—you know, the ones that beat around the bush, the ones that don’t get to the point, the ones that aren’t crisp and precise, the ones that drag out a description without adding anything to it except length.

I duplicate my document before I begin so I can go back in case I get too enthusiastic but then I go ahead and cut like a maniac. Even though it seems terrifying, take out everything that doesn’t advance your story or help define your characters. See if the resulting clarity doesn’t vastly improve your book.

Sorry about this, but don’t just kill your darlings. Kill everything that doesn’t move the story forward. Any gems that don’t make the cut can be saved in a “future” file and used in another book where they pull their weight.

2.  Sharpen dialogue. Just as you leave our the um’s and ah’s of real life, leave out chitchat about the weather, the local gossip, the “warming up” before you get to the nitty-gritty.  No one wants to wade through digressions or long speeches that have nothing to do with your story or characters. Ernest Hemingway said that he wrote narrative in long hand but used the typewriter for dialogue—the rat-tat-tat was similar to the speed of talk.

Dialogue should be short and go fast. A scene with dialogue should have lots of white space. Allow your characters to give speeches at your own peril!

3.  Don't confuse the reader. It's "Dick and Jane": notice it’s not "James and Jane" and that’s for a reason. You want to help the reader as much as possible—it’s known as readability—and you’re not doing yourself or your book a favor by screwing up when you name your characters.

Example: The hero is Ken Brady. The heroine is Kathleen Boies. The villain is Kendall Brackner. The names are similar and the initials are identical.

Trust me, you are not enchanting your reader. You are driving him/her crazy, struggling to remember which of the K’s are OK and which aren’t.

Make a list of all the character names in your book and change names and initials wherever they need to be changed. Don’t confuse your reader. A confused reader is an unhappy reader and you know what that means: no repeat sales.

4. Utilize the almighty cliffhanger. The cliffhanger is the secret writer’s key to compelling the reader to turn the page. End every chapter on a note of suspense or irresolution. No exceptions. The reader, dying to know what happens next, will turn the page, will stay up till three AM to finish your book and then the next day tell her/his friends “you have to read it!”

The cliffhanger worked in beginning-of-the-Twentieth-Century weekly movie serials, in soap operas on radio through the 40’s and 50’s and then on TV. The cliffhanger hangs on today, you will find the little buggers right before the commercial break.

The cliffhanger worked then and it works now. Use it.

5. Have a flight plan. I’m a pantser, not a plotter. For me, a detailed outline results in a book that’s DOA. However, I do plan ahead in the form of lists of key scenes, turning points, notes about characters—anything I can think of that will propel the book along.

If outlines work for you, keep using them. But if you’re a pantser, at least begin with your fly zipped and your belt buckled. Let’s call our no-system system a flight plan.

6.  Know your crutch words. Every writer has them. To this day, I use “begin” even though I know better. To this day, I have to go back over my manuscript and get rid of it. Example: “She began to run for the bus” becomes “She ran for the bus.”

Simpler, more direct and more powerful and yet another example of the power of the delete button.

Do you abuse adverbs? A search for ly will ferret them out.

ID your own crutch words, be on the lookout for them and let them know who’s boss.

7.  Know your genre. You wouldn’t join an ice hockey team if you didn’t know how to skate. Ditto, genre. A hard-boiled romance? Really? With lots of tough talk? Dark alleys and gritty industrial setting? Beaucoup cursing? Well, lotsa luck.

Romance, thrillers, horror, romcom—all have conventions and readers expect those conventions to be honored. Disappoint them, and you and your book are toast.

Do your homework and study the genre(s) you work in. Read widely. Keep up with shifts and changes in the genre. Learn what your readers are looking for and be sure you give it to them. If you don’t, you’re wasting their time and your time.

8. Don't repeat yourself. Once is enough. This is a fairly common problem and not always quick or easy to fix because it involves actual thinking. Be on the lookout for places where you convey the same thought two or three times in different words. Usually, this kind of repetition means the writer hasn’t quite thought through what he/she is trying to say.

If you find yourself falling into this trap, you need to do the hard work of clarifying your thoughts and then conveying them clearly.

Decide exactly what you want to say and then say it. Do it right once and you don’t have to do it again

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Which one of these tips is most important for your own editing? If you're a pantser, how much of a "flight plan" do you have in writing? 

COMMENTERS: I've had to turn off the Anonymous comments because of a barrage of robospam. It was either that or put the CAPTCHA  back on. If Blogger won't let you comment, email Anne at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com and I'll post it. 

I'd also like to have people weigh in. Would you rather I turn the "word verification" back on, or keep the anonymous comments blocked? 

BOOK NEWS!!! After a year's wait, Anne's mystery,  THE GATSBY GAME is now in paperback! Only $8.99 on Amazon US and £6.99 on Amazon UK. It's Anne's most critically acclaimed book--and offers a possible solution to a mystery that has been called one of Hollywood's Ten Most Notorious Sex Scandals. It's also available as a $2.99 ebook on all platforms. (link to Barnes and Noble in the sidebar.)

And guys, you don't have to be afraid this is too much of a "shoe novel" for you: "Dead End Follies" reviewer Benoit Lelievre said "I never thought I would have so much fun reading a chick lit novel, but this was great, even for my hardboiled sensibility." Vine reviewer John Williamson said, "Anne R. Allen has really taken mysteries like this to a new level. This is a guaranteed 5-star read that shouldn't be missed.

Opportunity for short fiction and poetry writers: Suzannah at the fantastic Write it Sideways blog is starting a literary journal that looks as if it's going to be a very prestigious venue for your work. She's also looking for editors and other staff (positions that will look fabulous in a query letter.) Find out more about the new literary magazine, COMPOSE at Write it Sideways.

Wait! Don’t Kill That Darling! The REAL Skinny on Self-Editing from Samuel Park

Today we're getting a free editing class from college professor and critically acclaimed literary author, Samuel Park. So get out your WIP and try these ten steps. I think you'll find them enlightening. I did. And think of the money you'll save on editor's fees.

Obviously his method works. Here are a few samples of the kind of praise he’s getting from literary superstars:

 “This Burns My Heart is quietly stunning—a soft, fierce story that lingers in the mind. Samuel Park is a deft and elegant writer.” —Audrey Niffenegger, NYT bestselling author of The Time Traveler’s Wife

“Writing prose with the beauty of poetry, Samuel Park traces a young woman's journey to hard-won maturity, alongside the meteoric rise of post-war Korea, in a novel which shines with eloquence and wisdom.”—David Henry Hwang, Tony-Award winning author of M. Butterfly

“Samuel Park's astonishing novel, This Burns My Heart, provides mesmerizing perspective into the life of a Korean wife and lover.”—Jenna Blum, NYT bestselling author of Those Who Save Us

From Good to Better: 10 Tips On Editing Your WIP

By Samuel Park

I’m a big believer in revision. In fact, I think that’s one of the biggest advantages that writers have over artists in other fields. Filmmakers can’t shoot film endlessly, but writers can edit a manuscript to perfection for years. I know writers whose first drafts are spotless and ready to be printed and bound, but I’m more of a reviser, and for me, the revision process is when the manuscript really comes together. Still, every writer dreads the moment when she gets a list of comments from a writer friend. Here are some things I keep in mind whenever I need to implement those changes. These are tried and true tips that I’ve used over the years that can take your WIP from good to better.

1.     Do Listen to the Smart People Around You

My personal philosophy is that as a writer, my responsibility is to write a book that a lot of people will want to read and enjoy and want to recommend to others. I feel like I’m in the business, plain and simple, of providing pleasure and joy. So if I’m not doing that to the friends offering feedback—who are, in fact, my first readers—that is a sure sign that the manuscript needs more work. They’re only the first in a long line of people I have to please: my agent, my editor, my publisher, my publicist, trade publication reviewers, book bloggers, newspaper reviewers, magazine writers, and finally, and most importantly, the readers! That is a long chain and a lot of people. So in order to get to the buying readers, I have to make each person in that chain love it—and I have to start with the friends giving feedback, and so I take their reactions very, very seriously.

2.     Ignore Bad Advice

This is the exception to the item above: If someone gives you feedback that doesn’t seem to be coming from a place of love, ignore it. Completely. Don’t even think about it for more than a second. As important as it is to implement and use feedback from readers providing constructive, helpful criticism, it is very important—for one’s soul, for one’s future as a writer—to ignore feedback that is not intended to help but to hurt. Be alert to it and do not let it interfere with the good work of improving your manuscript.

3.     Focus on Different Things During Each Pass

I recommend doing one whole pass based on a single aspect of the manuscript you want to improve. For instance, doing a revision based on making the main character stronger—and that’s all you do. Don’t worry about the other characters, the language, the plot. For that pass, just focus entirely on that one character—her development, her dialogue, the descriptions of her. I’ve gotten a lot of praise for writing from a female perspective in my book—people respond uniformly positively to the heroine Soo-Ja. This is partly due to the fact that I spent one long revision period focusing entirely on her. Later, you could do a revision focusing entirely on cuts, or a revision focusing primarily on descriptions.

4.     Trust the Reaction, Not the Prescription

Sometimes your early readers will point out a section that needs work, and then offer a solution. 9 times out of 10, they’re wrong about the solution. They’re right in their reaction, and they’re right in that that aspect of the manuscript may need doctoring. But what may need to be fixed may not even be in that chapter. It could be something that wasn’t addressed earlier on in the story. That section may actually be work fine, and may not need changes at all—what may need to be fixed is the pacing of the section right before it.

5.     If you Think It, It is So

If you think you may need to change something, but aren’t sure, it probably means that you do. The thought alone—the hunch alone—is enough. You may debate with yourself, Well, maybe it’s fine, maybe it’s working, I’m not sure if I should change that. Well, merely the fact that you’re thinking about it means that yes, you do need to change it. If the scene was working or was perfect as it was, the thought wouldn’t have occurred to you. When in doubt, work on it.

6.     Don’t Kill Your Darlings

This is a fascinating phenomenon that I’ve observed: while most of the time your early readers are 100% right about what’s not working on your manuscript, sometimes they want you to cut out exactly what’s best about it. I find that really fascinating, and I don’t know why it happens, but it does. Maybe the parts of the manuscript that are the most personal, original, and fresh, also happen to feel the most foreign, self-indulgent, and unnecessary. I’ve had this happen on a couple of different manuscripts, and fortunately I hung on to the passages, which turned out to be the ones that, post-publication, were the ones that people most liked and were most representative of the book. In one case, the passage that the reader wanted to cut out was the exact reason why I wrote the book in the first place!

7.     Ask “What If”

What if the heroine of the story at one point ran into another character she does not normally interact with? One of my favorite scenes in my novel, when the main character meets the man who is courting her sister-in-law, was not in the original draft. The scene ended right before his arrival. I thought, what if the scene continued? What would happen? What happened really surprised me—I didn’t even realize I needed that scene, and now I can’t imagine the book without it.

8.     Do More Research

If you’re unsure how to make edits on your manuscript, try doing more research. It will probably trigger new thoughts, and help you think of new layers to add to the story. In my mind, in order to create output, you need to provide a lot of input (new inspirations, more information). Personally, before each edit, I feel the need to replenish first by taking in more ideas, more inspiration—the same as when you’re writing the draft.

9.     Don’t (Always) Read Out Loud

I hear this all the time: read your writing out loud when you edit. Indeed, it helps catch redundancies, and makes the prose tighter. Reading out loud also helps you notice mistakes that look “invisible” in print. But ultimately, there’s a very mysterious alchemy that happens when you write something down, and then someone reads it on the page. Writing is not really that oral, otherwise novels would sound like blueprints for performance pieces. If you take out too much language—language that would not normally be spoken—you may take out the very ligaments and joints holding together your sentences. Just because it feels awkward saying it out loud, doesn’t mean it necessarily feels awkward reading it silently, in your head.

10 And When You Get Stuck…

Sometimes an editor or agent asks you to make some changes, and you find yourself unable to think of how to approach it. My suggestion, a trick I learned from a writer friend of mine, is to pick ten separate paragraphs and add two sentences to each. It is easy, doable, and effective.

Originally born in Sao Paulo, Brazil to Korean parents, Samuel Park moved to the United States at age fourteen. He went to high school in Southern California, in the South Bay Area, and then studied at Stanford University, where he graduated with B.A. (with honors) and M.A. degrees in English. He has a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Southern California, and his scholarly writing has appeared in journals such as Black Camera, Theatre Journal, and Shakespeare Bulletin. He is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Columbia College Chicago.

Samuel Park’s novel THIS BURNS MY HEART, chosen as an Amazon Best Book of the Month, is now out. It has also been selected by booksellers as a Great Read Indie Next List Pick, and rights have recently been sold to Germany and Norway. Learn more on his website: www.samuelpark.com and follow him on twitter at @SamuelPark_

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So what about you, fellow scriveners? Are any of these tips new to you? They were to me--especially the not killing your darlings part. And learning that it's good to listen when critiquers see a problem, but generally ignore their solution. Interesting about not reading aloud, too. 

Do you have any questions for Samuel? Or any personal tips to share for self editing?