How To Judge Your Own Fiction
Author: Sandra T. Wales
Original Publication Date in Love Notes: February 2005

Each year the Music City Romance Writers, the Nashville Chapter of Romance Writers of America, hosts a fiction contest called Melody of Love. The score sheet is an excellent checklist for any fiction writer. Many hours of discussion and research by Jody Wallace, Corbette Doyle, Annie Solomon, and Cassondra Murray developed into a workable form. Why were so many hours put into a score sheet? Jody Wallace, one of the committee members says that, “Aside from the participants, the score sheet is the most important part of our contest. It’s what the judges use to award scores and what the contestants use to understand those scores. As such, it needs to be as concise, informative, and self-explanatory as possible.”

The score sheet begins with that most important first page. Does the first line or paragraph intrigue the reader? Is it dynamic enough to captivate the reader? The first page must interest the reader without seeming unbelievable or contrived. The story should begin in the right place as well as provide the reader with enough back story to help them. Too much back story (called an information dump) and the reader’s brain freezes.

All those instructions for the first page? How about the second page? The rest of the novel? That is covered with further questions.

Some famous opening lines have kept readers enchanted long enough to get them into the book. Herman Melville’s MOBY DICK begins with the hook, “Call me Ishmael.” Simple, but it causes the reader to ask, “Who is Ishmael?” And so the reader is hooked.

Shakespeare’s prologue to ROMEO AND JULIET begins with, “Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” It’s a powerful opening and creates enormous curiosity about the two families and the ancient grudge

TEETH OF THE TIGER by Tom Clancy begins with, “David Greengold had been born in that most American of communities, Brooklyn, but at his Bar Mitzvah, something important had changed his life.” Whoa. His life was changed at a young age–thirteen. The reader is hooked. What happened to change this young man? Was it good or bad? And so the reader is off on a tear through another Clancy adventure.

Good writers make certain every word is the right word, every paragraph is necessary, every page important, every chapter dynamic. It sounds daunting, but professional writers must work hard at their craft.

The second section of the checklist concerns plot and pacing. We’ve heard there are only seven plots available to writers. Whether or not this is true is immaterial. It’s important to bring freshness to an old idea and not lose the reader.

How does a writer pace the novel to keep the reader turning those pages? It’s a lot of instinct shored up with a few writer’s tricks. One trick is to avoid information dumps, which not only slows the action, but pulls the reader out of the world the writer has created. It isn’t necessary to tell the reader the back story in one lump–it can be woven into the novel bit by bit. In life we rarely learn everything about a person at the first meeting.

The flip side is that the pace can’t be too fast. We can’t rush the reader through the story. It’s like the porridge in the Goldilocks story. It has to be just right. A mixture of dialogue, inner thoughts, and description, if used effectively, solves the pace problem. Analyze your favorite authors to see how they forged their manuscripts.

In terms of plot, it needs to hold together in your make believe world. Even in fantasy, the world has to be logical, within chosen parameters, and can’t be so farfetched that it jerks the reader out of the story.

Authors who write page turners tend to end chapters with a sentence that keeps the reader hooked without being strained or contrived. An author has to work hard to foreshadow events without overdoing it. It sounds subjective and it is. After the first draft, check the pace and plot of your work. You’ll find rough places that need to be sanded down.

The easiest scene for most authors to write is that of conflict. It isn’t enough to have conflict. The plot line should have a strong inherent conflict (man against nature as in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA by Hemingway), but if it doesn’t the author needs to supply the conflict externally. An external conflict must not only keep the reader’s interest. But be logical. The scenes must show the protagonist’s goal and how it conflicts with the antagonist’s goal. What motivates the protagonist and the antagonist? Do the goals and motivations of each create a believable conflict? Can the major conflict be sustained through out the novel? Is the conflict strong enough that it can’t be solved by the characters with a short conversation?

Compelling characters are a must. Some novels, especially mysteries, are plot driven and some are character driven. The strongest in either category are peopled with believable characters for whom the reader cares. The main characters need to be likable even though they are flawed. This imperfection may be something as simple as a person who works too hard or it may be a compulsion for cleanliness as in the television program, “Monk.” That fault is endearing – at least to those of us who dream of a man who cleans.

If your characters are fully developed, they will be imperfect, but not to the point that they’re unlikable. Your reader must have empathy or sympathy for your characters. The reader must also understand the characters’ goals and motivations that cause them to act/react the way they do and why it leads to conflict. Their actions/reactions must be believable or the reader is pulled from the story.

All the characters should be multi-faceted to avoid being flat and uninteresting. Minor characters should also be rounded and whole, although not to the same extent. It depends on their role in your novel. Avoid the stereotyped grouch with the heart of gold or other too recognizable characters. Also, secondary characters can’t be so strong that they steal the show. One author had a wonderful secondary character that had developed into a strong personality and did take over her novel. The author finally rewrote the entire manuscript with the secondary character as the main character. This is an extreme example, but it was that writer’s only choice.

Most novels, not just romance novels, deal with romance. For some writers this is the easy part, for some it’s fraught with difficulties. The following questions should help with your editing. If your heroine meets the hero and becomes romantically involved is that believable? Even if they argue or ignore each other, when they do get together does it seem realistic or will the reader groan at the impossibility of the relationship? These characters must have some affection and/or respect for each other in order for the reader to feel comfortable.

Over the course of the novel, all your characters need to further develop their personalities through dialogue, interaction with others and introspection. Please don’t use introspection as an information dump for back story since it will slow the pace or stop it dead.

The characters should be pro-active when it comes to responding to the plot. If not, their passiveness should be part of their personality. Do they switch from being passive to active? If so make certain there is a strong reason for this switch either because of internal or external conflict.

The point of view character needs to maintain his personality throughout the time the reader is inside his head. The way the character speaks, the vernacular he uses, and his reactions must be consistent with what the author has already written.

Writers must be aware of the following: whether or not the point of view shifts are seamless and don’t jar the reader; writing that shows, not tells; the avoidance of clichéd phrases, trite words; vocabulary that the point of view character wouldn’t use; the use of the same words too many times in a page or a novel; smooth scene transitions; and varied sentence length and structure to keep the pace moving and the novel interesting.

Dialogue should be used to move the story forward to develop characterization and balance the narrative. Don’t slow the reader down with information via dialogue that the characters already know.

Can your readers tell where and when the story takes place through description of clothing, artifacts, geography, political events and so on? Is the use of visual clues supported by the use of other senses such as hearing, taste, smell, and touch in order to give depth to a scene?

Last, but most important, the manuscript should be free of spelling errors, missing paragraphs, and coffee stains. If you don’t respect your manuscript, can you expect others to?

Self-editing can be a daunting task if you have no framework to follow. Hopefully, you now have one to add to your repertoire.

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Sandra Thomas Wales, writing as Haley Elizabeth Garwood, pens historical fiction about warrior women.  Find out more about her Warrior Queen series here.

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