A few years ago, I decided to formalise my BETA reading activities and become a professional BETA reader and editor.
Working with writers, whether they’re experienced or newer to the craft, has been a wonderful experience. Beyond giving me a chance to work on my BETA reading and editing skills, it’s helped me look at my own in a different way.
Part of that has been noticing that, regardless of the genre, style or storyline, there are some common themes that keep cropping up in everyone’s writing, and it’s given me a chance to be more attuned to those things in my own work. Noticing these recurring themes in others has made me look at my own writing with a more critical and objective eye. These are things that we, as writers, are often too close to our stories to properly see, but may be more obvious to someone reading your work for the first time.
So, what are those things, you ask?
Missing or Weak Emotional & Sensory Layers—or: if you can’t feel it or smell it, neither can your reader.
I see a lot of manuscripts that are well-written, thought-through and original, but that are missing key emotional and sensory elements. That is, where we’re told more about what happens, and less about the character’s emotional (how they feel), physical (how it manifests in their body) or sensory (the things they can hear, smell etc.) responses to those events.
Of course, logistics and descriptions are important, but without those added layers of emotions and senses, the narrative can feel dry—and that’s a sure way to lose your reader’s attention.
A fellow author said she went through her manuscripts and made sure she could feel, smell, hear, see and touch every single scene. She would ensure the emotions and key senses were addressed in the narrative to paint a more vivid picture for the reader, which gave the story added depth and substance.
The emotional and sensory layers are what draw the reader in, enabling them to become immersed in the story and feel. These are the details that will hook readers in and make them more emotionally invested in the story. That’s what makes them care about what happens in the book. If they don’t care, why would they keep on reading?
Handling Difficult Topics—or: giving the hard stuff the respect it deserves.
I wrote a piece a while back about how to handle difficult topics in your writing. To me that’s one area which, if handled badly, can make or break a book.
I’m definitely one of those readers who, if I come across a book where depression or grief is merely described as feeling sad, I will likely get annoyed enough that I’ll put the book away because it feels disrespectful for such serious topics to be handled so lightly.
It can be tricky to write about important topics like trauma, grief, depression, recovering from an accident, mental illness etc. These subjects need a lot of care, space and attention. A lot of writers steer clear of these topics unless they have experienced them themselves, because they do not wish to alienate a reader who has gone through these by writing it in a way that’s too generic or incorrect.
I generally advise writers to draw on their own experiences to make sure they sound as realistic as possible, so any reader who goes through something similar can relate. If a writer hasn’t experienced the topics they write about, I strongly suggest doing a lot of research, including talking to people who have, to get a full grip on what these experiences feel like and ensure they treat those topics properly.
Head-Hoping POVs—or: keep hoping around and you’ll end up dizzy.
There are a few different POVs to choose from out there, and I know that picking one will come down to personal preference.
One of the trickiest ones to get right—in my opinion—is the floating narrator. This is the kind of POV where the story is told in third person, from the point of view of an omniscient narrator, an external entity or presence watching the story from above.
I haven’t seen this POV style used a lot in my reading lately, but this obviously isn’t to say writers can’t use it—it’s legitimate, but my view on it is that it risks getting messy.
The risk with an omniscient third person narrator is that you can quickly get into ‘head-hopping’, where you shift the focus of the narrative from one character to the next quickly and without warning or reason. If this happens too often within the same chapter or the same scene, it can get dizzying and confusing for the reader. Switching too often and in short succession can also disrupt the reading flow, because the reader is constantly wondering who’s in the spotlight at any given time. For this POV to work, every change of perspective has to be clear, smooth and justified. The switch has to add something to the story and the narrative.
My own personal preference is when POVs are kept clean and separate, such as a First person POV or Third Person POV with each chapter focusing on only one character’s POV. My experience, both as a reader and a writer, is that focusing on one person at a time helps give an extra layer of depth. Rather than give a little bit about everyone in a given scene, you can deep dive into what one person’s experience of an event is, and that allows for more layering. If you keep things on a higher level, it’s harder for the reader to get emotionally invested with a character or what’s happening to them.
Suspense Building—or: bread-crumbing your hints.
Suspense is a key piece of any story, whatever genre you write in. It makes the difference between the reader turning the next page or putting the book down. This means that creating build-ups and planning reveals is a critical part of writing an engaging story.
It’s that sense of tension that makes your reader think ‘oh, how intriguing, I can’t wait to see what happens next!’. It’s an important balance to get right, because if you don’t, you risk having your reader think instead: ‘this is boring, nothing’s happening’ (if the build-up is too subtle or too slow), ‘I’m lost, there’s too much going on!’ (if the build-up is too packed), or ‘this is confusing, I have no clue what’s happening’ (if the build-up is messy).
Good suspense is generated by dropping just the right hint at just the right time to keep the reader guessing, until you’re ready to unveil the outcome of the build-up. I call that gradual dropping of hints: bread-crumbing.
It’s obviously fine to have plot twists no one sees coming, but if you include too many things that just come out of nowhere, it deprives the reader of an opportunity to get more emotionally involved with the story during the tension build-up.
Building suspense isn’t just about events, it goes for characters too, and it can get complex because you have to manage multiple suspense points in parallel and in a convincing way. Whether you’re a planner, a pantser or a plantser, I would recommend keeping an overview of all of your different tension points. Note down all of the plot points you want to include in the story, and make a list of each of your character arcs. Then pick key turning points or plot twists and make sure you build up to every single one of them by dropping the right hints throughout. Obviously not all of them will have the same build-up, certain turning points will be bigger in impact than others.
I know we sometimes get tempted to include a lot in our stories, but it is better to pick fewer plot points and to exploit them fully and well, rather than have too many that are only half-baked. If in doubt, pick the events that add the most to the story.
What Next?
So, what happens if you read this article and realised that some of these things apply to your work in progress? I say: rejoice!
The best writers out there come across these pitfalls every once in a while, they’re a lot more common than one would think. I know I’ve definitely made those mistakes in my writing many times.
What matters is our ability to evaluate our work with an open-mind and an objective eye. Noticing when you’re doing those things in your work is the first step to making your story better, and that’s where all the growth happens.
The beauty of being a writer isn’t producing the best piece of writing from the get-go. It’s all about learning and growing and improving your skill at every step of the way.
Photo credits: Unsplash, Unseen Studio
This article was first commissioned for and published on Kiingo: The Writing University
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