I had a discussion with an author the other day that I thought the writers who follow my blog might find interesting. We were talking about his latest WIP, and what I believed could be improved.
About a third of the way through the discussion, I gave him one of my secrets for writing a compelling novel. The secret is asking a simple question: What’s the point?
If you do that before outlining, or writing each chapter, you’ll wind up with a much more interesting book. Alternatively, for you pansters, when you go back on your first editing run, you should view each chapter with scepticism, asking, “what’s the point?”
If there’s no compelling reason for a chapter to be there, if it’s just blah blah, it should be cut. Period. Doesn’t matter that you wrote it, that it’s filled with your precious prose. There has to be a point to every chapter (we can actually take that to each paragraph, as well as to the overall book theme, but you get the idea).
Now, lest you misread me, I’m not saying that every chapter has to advance a major plot element forward. It’s that you need to understand why you’re writing it. Is it to tell the reader more about a character? To put the character in jeopardy? To foreshadow something that will be relevant later? To have something happen that’s essential to the story? Do you need an action beat?
If you find yourself looking at a chapter and the answer is, to increase the word count, or because I need something between this last bit and the next, don’t write it. Figure out the reason that this next chapter cries out to be in your book, and ensure you achieved your objective by the last word of it.
If you take this approach seriously, you might find your books getting shorter. That’s okay. It’s better to have a shorter, punchier book than a fat, bloated screed filled with meaningless meandering. Think as a reader. You really want to read ten pages describing the woods next to the house the protag’s just arrived at? No. There’s no point to it. So axe it.
Don’t get me wrong. You can have an objective like, “I want a rhythmic beat here so the reader can catch his breath.” But it would be better to combine that with, “and I want to show the reader something important about the character while I do it.”
So that’s my quick craft tip for the day. Ask yourself what’s the point. That will ensure that your chapters are mission driven by a clear objective.
Believe me, your reader and your editor will be glad you did.
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