Advice for Novelists

Since many of us are heading off to the great ACFW conference in order to rub shoulders with novelists, I should probably take on a "novel writing" question. Somebody wrote to me and asked, "As a first-time novelist, what advice can you give me to create a great, page-turning novel?"

My reply: Dialogue and action. That won't necessarily make for the deepest, or most thoughtful, or the most life-changing sort of book, but it will make your book a page-turner.  A high sense of drama is necessary, of course. So is telling an interesting story at a brisk pace. (Whoever read a slow, rambling thriller?) Unresolved conflicts help. So do plot twists, and fascinating characters, or characters I like who are placed in tense situations. But if you stick to dialogue and action, you'll make your book more of a page-turner.

This leads to the age-old writing question about plot vs character, I suppose. When it comes to page-turners, I think the plot takes precedence. The action and situations dominate the nuances of character in a thriller or suspense novel. People in publishing have a saying: "Editors love characters. Readers love plots." That's a nice way for highbrows to basically tell you "deep thinkers love interesting characters in their novels, so if you focus on plot you're probably shallow." I've never really agreed with that assessment -- in my view, everybody loves an interesting character...but it's the action that gets me turning pages in order to find out what happens next. 

Years ago, in an interview in Saturday Review, novelist Elmore Leonard was asked what made his novels so successful. Here is a guy who has written at least a dozen bestsellers, and has kept up his success for a couple decades, so I was really focused on his answer. It was brilliant in its simplicity: "I tend to leave out the parts people skip."

That's great writing advice. Mr. Leonard's novels are filled with dialoge and action -- and when did you ever skip dialogue in a novel in order to move to the descriptive portions? In the interview, he went on to talk about what he called "the fancy hopnoodle" of description, and that, while it was nice in a historical novel, it tends to slow down a thriller. In my work, I've found that most first novels are overblown, filled with adjectives and descriptions, with lots of telling.  Take your novel and cut it to the bone. Give the reader tight dialogue and action -- that will make the reader turn the pages.

I think most first-time novelists don't really understand what it takes to create a novel. Perhaps they've written a short story, or some magazine pieces, or even a nonfiction book, and they have a tendency to think, "A novel is just like one long short story." But it's not -- the pacing, structure, and texture of a novel make it very different from a short story. There is a story arc that doesn't exist in any other form of writing. Learning the unique struggles of crafting a novel is essential -- and that's why so many successful novelists went through the process of creating several complete books before they landed a publishing contract.

I compare it to baseball. (Really.) You can read about the physics of the game, and study the various parts of the batter's stance, but until you actually take a bat in your hands and stand at the plate, watch the pitcher move toward you and hurl that little white sphere in your general direction, you won't know what it's like to play the game. Nor do you understand everything there is to know about hitting having done it once. It takes considerable practice and coaching to get to the point where you can actually get some hits. The same is true of writing a novel -- you go through the entire process, get a feel for the basics, then complete it and move on. Nothing is more frustrating to me than seeing somebody at a writing conference bring to me the same novel  they pitched to me the previous year. I want to take them by the lapels and explain, "Look...you tried this and it didn't sell. TRY SOMETHING ELSE."

I know of several successful novelists who didn't sell their first work -- but they kept writing, went through the entire process again, and eventually developed the tools to craft a good novel. T. Davis Bunn didn't get published until he had written a half-dozen novels. My writing coach in college, the Nebula Award-winning Ursula Leguin, wrote five complete novels before she got a publishing deal. Think of that as your training ground, your rehearsal, your apprenticeship.  You learn the basics, begin to apply them, and eventually you get to the point where you're creating actual novels.

Or maybe you don't. Though it doesn't get talked about all that much, there is a certain "talent" factor at work here, too. It takes actual talent to write a good book, and that means some folks, no matter how hard they try or how many novels they do, are probably never going to get published. That's a hard fact, I suppose...sort of like the fact that I'm never going to dunk a basketball, no matter how many times I practice or how hard I work on my jumping skills. (I'm 5'6" on a good day, and never really had the gift of hops to begin with.) So, yeah, it takes talent. But one thing I've learned is that you probably won't ever get published based solely on talent. Learning the craft is still essential.

By the way, that also leads me to consider a question that rarely gets discussed: the problem with second novels. Because people in publishing have long recognized that many successful first novelists simply don't have a story for their second book. They used up all their ideas on the first, and they start tap-dancing, trying to get by on cool characters and fancy style. Too many second-timers fall in love with their own voice. It's one of the reasons a publisher wants a good description of the second book on a multi-book contract -- a way of protecting themselves from an author who is going to be a one-book wonder. (If you're interested in this topic, by all means read Donald Maas wonderful book, Writing the Breakout Novel, which was designed to help people with their second novel.)

Again, going through the process helps. Creating whole books, rather than just some vague ideas, and working all the way through to completion. If you're trying to write a page-turner, that means cutting out the parts people skip and sticking to the parts they read -- dialogue and action. That should get you further down the road.

Since many of us are heading off to the great ACFW conference in order to rub shoulders with novelists, I should probably take on a "novel writing" question. Somebody wrote to me and asked, "As a first-time novelist, what advice can you give me to create a great, page-turning novel?"

My reply: Dialogue and action. That won't necessarily make for the deepest, or most thoughtful, or the most life-changing sort of book, but it will make your book a page-turner.  A high sense of drama is necessary, of course. So is telling an interesting story at a brisk pace. (Whoever read a slow, rambling thriller?) Unresolved conflicts help. So do plot twists, and fascinating characters, or characters I like who are placed in tense situations. But if you stick to dialogue and action, you'll make your book more of a page-turner.

This leads to the age-old writing question about plot vs character, I suppose. When it comes to page-turners, I think the plot takes precedence. The action and situations dominate the nuances of character in a thriller or suspense novel. People in publishing have a saying: "Editors love characters. Readers love plots." That's a nice way for highbrows to basically tell you "deep thinkers love interesting characters in their novels, so if you focus on plot you're probably shallow." I've never really agreed with that assessment -- in my view, everybody loves an interesting character...but it's the action that gets me turning pages in order to find out what happens next. 

Years ago, in an interview in Saturday Review, novelist Elmore Leonard was asked what made his novels so successful. Here is a guy who has written at least a dozen bestsellers, and has kept up his success for a couple decades, so I was really focused on his answer. It was brilliant in its simplicity: "I tend to leave out the parts people skip."

That's great writing advice. Mr. Leonard's novels are filled with dialoge and action -- and when did you ever skip dialogue in a novel in order to move to the descriptive portions? In the interview, he went on to talk about what he called "the fancy hopnoodle" of description, and that, while it was nice in a historical novel, it tends to slow down a thriller. In my work, I've found that most first novels are overblown, filled with adjectives and descriptions, with lots of telling.  Take your novel and cut it to the bone. Give the reader tight dialogue and action -- that will make the reader turn the pages.

I think most first-time novelists don't really understand what it takes to create a novel. Perhaps they've written a short story, or some magazine pieces, or even a nonfiction book, and they have a tendency to think, "A novel is just like one long short story." But it's not -- the pacing, structure, and texture of a novel make it very different from a short story. There is a story arc that doesn't exist in any other form of writing. Learning the unique struggles of crafting a novel is essential -- and that's why so many successful novelists went through the process of creating several complete books before they landed a publishing contract.

I compare it to baseball. (Really.) You can read about the physics of the game, and study the various parts of the batter's stance, but until you actually take a bat in your hands and stand at the plate, watch the pitcher move toward you and hurl that little white sphere in your general direction, you won't know what it's like to play the game. Nor do you understand everything there is to know about hitting having done it once. It takes considerable practice and coaching to get to the point where you can actually get some hits. The same is true of writing a novel -- you go through the entire process, get a feel for the basics, then complete it and move on. Nothing is more frustrating to me than seeing somebody at a writing conference bring to me the same novel  they pitched to me the previous year. I want to take them by the lapels and explain, "Look...you tried this and it didn't sell. TRY SOMETHING ELSE."

I know of several successful novelists who didn't sell their first work -- but they kept writing, went through the entire process again, and eventually developed the tools to craft a good novel. T. Davis Bunn didn't get published until he had written a half-dozen novels. My writing coach in college, the Nebula Award-winning Ursula Leguin, wrote five complete novels before she got a publishing deal. Think of that as your training ground, your rehearsal, your apprenticeship.  You learn the basics, begin to apply them, and eventually you get to the point where you're creating actual novels.

Or maybe you don't. Though it doesn't get talked about all that much, there is a certain "talent" factor at work here, too. It takes actual talent to write a good book, and that means some folks, no matter how hard they try or how many novels they do, are probably never going to get published. That's a hard fact, I suppose...sort of like the fact that I'm never going to dunk a basketball, no matter how many times I practice or how hard I work on my jumping skills. (I'm 5'6" on a good day, and never really had the gift of hops to begin with.) So, yeah, it takes talent. But one thing I've learned is that you probably won't ever get published based solely on talent. Learning the craft is still essential.

By the way, that also leads me to consider a question that rarely gets discussed: the problem with second novels. Because people in publishing have long recognized that many successful first novelists simply don't have a story for their second book. They used up all their ideas on the first, and they start tap-dancing, trying to get by on cool characters and fancy style. Too many second-timers fall in love with their own voice. It's one of the reasons a publisher wants a good description of the second book on a multi-book contract -- a way of protecting themselves from an author who is going to be a one-book wonder. (If you're interested in this topic, by all means read Donald Maas wonderful book, Writing the Breakout Novel, which was designed to help people with their second novel.)

Again, going through the process helps. Creating whole books, rather than just some vague ideas, and working all the way through to completion. If you're trying to write a page-turner, that means cutting out the parts people skip and sticking to the parts they read -- dialogue and action. That should get you further down the road.

Comments

[Kristi Holl]

While a page turner is mostly action and dialogue, it helps the author to stay interested in her own book if she knows the characters inside and out, including descriptions and backstory and all those parts that readers skip. The characters don't become real to ME without all that extra stuff, but I've found that a good place for it is in a notebook or computer file just for that purpose: getting to know my characters. I can interview them, let them write their stream-of-consciousness ramblings, and tell me what's on their minds. Then, once they're real to me, I can put them into the story and let them act and talk. No one ever sees most of the other stuff. Without it, though, the characters are like cardboard people to me.

[Brandt Dodson]

The publishing industry is full of stories about novelists who wrote several books prior to landing a contract (the horror novelist,John Saul, wrote 10 books before landing his first deal ... and it went straight to the NYT bestseller's list) and there is a good reason for that.

Practice.
I've written books that I know will never see the ink of an editor's pen, nor should they. But they helped me learn the techniques and craft of novel writing.

So will reading. I'm rediscovering the classics of American literature. I'm a growing fan of London (thanks "Doc"), Poe (wow, talk about setting mood) and Hawthorne whose themes often centered on the sins of man and the consequences of them. (Ever read The Scarlet Letter? The House of Seven Gables?)

If you want to be a writer, if you positively ACHE to be a writer, it is essential to learn the craft. But just as importantly, you must improve on your craft. Your second book should be more challenging than your first. If it isn't, somebody isn't working as hard as they should.

Most first books are, in part, autobiographical. But your second, or your third, will likewise need to come from within. They may not tell your story, but they ought to reveal your heart.

[Nicole]

Hawthorne? Puh--leez.

[Bonnie Grove]

*puts her copy of How to Write a Bestseller in Thirty Days back on the shelf.*

Rats.

[Walrus]

Wow. You had Ursula Le Guin for a teacher? I am in awe. Or more precisely, in jealousy.

[Jenny]

Minus House of Seven Gables, I loved some Hawthorne once upon a time too. Great stuff for multi-themes, imagery, symbolism, etc, etc.Adore Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing for wit and one-liners.

And I agree with Brandt--that second book should kick your butt. And the third...and the fourth...

[JC]

"I tend to leave out the parts people skip."

Heard that before and love it.

However, I tend to skip over the description inserted in the middle of diologue, but was told I have to write it so the reader can breathe.

Um, I don't forget to breathe when reading, and I skip them. So do I write them or not?

[Pam Halter]

I'm reading Gone With The Wind right now. I found it at a yard sale and, well, it seemed like the thing to do at the time. :) But I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. The only distraction and parts I tend to skip are the pages and pages of indirect thought. Ack! There's SO much of it. I agree with Chip. Get me to the dialog and action and just sprinkle in the narrative.

[Timothy Fish]

If a good plot is shallow, bring on the shallow novels!

JC mentioned description in the middle of dialog. To me, the ideal place for description is in the middle of conflict. The readers don’t want to miss something, so they read the descriptive statements too. The pause created can also help to crank up the tension of a scene. While it is silly to think a reader would forget to breath, readers need time to contemplate. Occasionally, we need to widen the camera angle and let the reader see where he is.

[Sheri Boeyink]

I agree with Chip as well. Skip the description, get me to the dialogue and the action. Yes, there does need to be some description, but not much, and just a sprinkle like Pam said. I should be able to "get" the description by the characters actions and dialogue, right?

[chip]

True: I had Ursula K. LeGuin as a writing instructor at Portland State University back in the late 70's. She was remarkable (and her husband was a history prof at the university).

I blow hot and cold on Hawthorne... but I LOVE much classic literature (especially Shakespeare, Jenny).

[Camille]

Wow. I'll be the first and perhaps only one to admit that Leonard's quote is new to me. (No surprise---I'm only allowed out of my cage on special occasions.)

I am currently deciding what needs to die as I polish my novel for submission. I'm carving that quote in the wall above my computer screen now.

Timely, excellent advice, Chip. Thanks!

[Bonnie Grove]

Interestingly, (at least to me), when my agent was negotiating with my publisher, she called and said, "They wonder if you would be willing to put in a bit more description."

"Huh?" I said.

"Well, they want to know what the main character looks like."

"Oh, sure. I can throw that in."

I'm a writer who likes to rough sketch in the details and let the reader fill in the details as he/she cares to. It's what I love to do when I read. I read in pictures. Do you?

Then again, the publisher is right, I could at least let the reader know if the protagonist is a blonde or brunette. (She's brunette. I don't think in blonde).

Peace!
http://www.fictionmatters.blogspot.com

[Robert Treskillard]

Great discussion, Chip. And from the little bit I've learned, this comment of yours is key:

"Take your novel and cut it to the bone. Give the reader tight dialogue and action -- that will make the reader turn the pages"

In order to do that ... do you recommend that a learning author should write beyond the proper word-count and then cut? (Rather than writing too little and then beefing it up?)

I am currently cutting my wip down to size, and have found it really improves the text.

[Randy Ingermanson]

Randy sez:

I had Sol Stein for a coach and I'm pretty sure he'd say the same stuff Chip is saying here. Sol taught a whole class at UC Irvine just on dialogue.

Let me highlight one thing that I think Chip might be misconstrued on. Chip is not saying that "great characters are useless." I think Chip's point is that "great characters are really good to have, but they're not enough, because you need dialogue and action to keep that pesky story going."

Dialogue and action are good. They'll take you a long way, IF you have characters who can support them. I've read a fair number of novels with good dialogue and action but with a protagonist that I can't remember. Recently, I threw them all away, because they weren't worth their shelf space. The ones I kept have plenty of good dialogue and action, but they ALSO had characters I'd like to hang around with.

I love exploding helicopters as much as anyone. I love the DIE HARD movies. Why? Well, plenty of explosions of course--skyscrapers, 747s, boats, helicopters--the works. But John McClane is a strong character, and his dialogue works. (That's MCCLANE, people, not MCCAIN.) John McClain is played by Bruce Willis and he's a terrific character.

Parting note: My sixth novel was the one that sold, and Chip was the editor who bought it.

[Conlan Brown]

Chip gave me this exact advice when I pitched a book to him last year at CCWC, and I took his advice as I finished writing it.

The contract for that book just arrived this morning. So, I guess it's good advice.

Chip, if you read this, thank you.

[Ashley]

Yes, practice. I think that's the best advice in this post. Last year I began writing a novel and silly naive me thought for sure I'd have a prolific novel in about three months. HA!

Now, here I am a year later, four attempts at writing a novel later, and I'm just now getting into the swing of things.

Time and patience is definitely key for me and I'd think for every other new writer as well. Without it, I probably would have pitched some horrible novel to agents who would have remembered my name for years--in a bad way.

As for the description conversation... as a reader I can handle description if it doesn't go on for three pages and it is relevant to the action. Recently I read Charles Martin's latest book because I loved "When Cricket's Cry," but his newest book wasn't as good to me. I found myself lost in a river ;o) of descriptions about the river. And while I can see his point in doing that, it didn't hold my attention and it annoyed me.

Personally, though, I like description... just not more than a page or so.

[Laurin]

I think description gets a bad rap. Yes, too much brings your pacing to a screeching halt, but in the right places and right amounts it can also lend depth and texture to your story, echo conflict, heighten emotion. It's all in how it's used. If it's just thrown in, it's probably not needed, or at least it's not pulling its weight. If it's used in a conscious way, it can be powerful an not get skipped over. The trick is not to do a description dump, but to weave the most important parts of it throughout the dialog, the action, and the introspection.

One easy way to make description interesting is to use it as part of building your characters. Only describe things in a room that would catch your character's eye, for example. Then use his or her pov to describe it. A woman might notice the dust on the antique writers desk. A man might set his beer bottle down on it without really noticing what it was. If either of them were an antique dealer, s/he might notice the type of wood it was made out of, or estimate what it would go for at auction. If it was a cherished family piece, there would be emotions and memories attached to it that you could explore... or avoid, if that's the character's way. In every case you've learned a little more about the character through the description of a desk and at the same time you've filled in some of the setting for the reader. Description doing double duty.

That said, action and dialog are king for sure. White space is your friend on a printed page, but description can play an important supporting role in your story if you use it well.

[Nicole]

Yay for Laurin's first paragraph!

[KR Dial]

Chip,
I read this post. No. I studied this post. I would have paid money for it. Not sure how much. I'm trying to say there was real value here. And by the way. Your friend Mr. StuffChristiansLike is like refreshing funny, Albert Brooks funny, think about it later and laugh out loud funny. Today he did this thing on jargon in the counselor's office, I'm still grinning. Thanks for the intro to him. You know the good stuff.

[chip]

Wow -- that's great stuff. Some thoughts...

1. I like the occasional description as well. But my experience is that it slows things down. And newer writers who rely on description tend to neglect action and dialogue.

2. I appreciate those who admit that they're taking some time to create their work. "Good" is always better than "fast."

3. LOVE Charles Martin. Haven't read his latest, but I put him on a par with the Lisa Samsons and Susan Meissners and Mindy Clarks -- great writers who all teach me s omething when I read them.

4. And Robert, my advice is to write more and cut back, rather than write short and pad.

chip

[Gerlayn Beauchamp]

I totally agree with keeping it to the bare minimum. I needed to be reminded of that! I'm in the middle of writing my second in a series and keep telling myself it's OK to just keep it moving. My first novel reads so fast due to the action and dialogue that it leaves a reader somewhat breathless when they are done. (all 200,000 words of it.) Gads, I felt a little guilty and thought to put a bit more description in my second book to slow it down a tad not to mention the fact it's shorter than the first. However,after reading this, well, I'll let book two just be as wild of a ride as book one! Thanks, Chip!