Fellow writers: Here's a book review I wrote for my writing club newsletter.
Don't Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques to Save Your Manuscript From Turning up D.O.A. by Chris Roerden.
Chris Roerden is an editor, writing instructor and Mensa member. She states that 90 percent of all submissions are rejected for average writing that an acquisitions editor can usually spot in the first few pages. The jacket blurb promises to turn your "A" for Average into "A" for Accepted. I couldn't resist a promo like that.
The book is geared toward mystery writers at the self-editing stage of their work, with punchy chapter titles like "Fatal Flashbacks" and "Dastardly Description". After reading the book, I would recommend it to all fiction writers at any stage of the writing process.
Roerden begins with the novel's first lines. Choose an opening action you can build on and sustain with more and more questions that engage the reader and draw her in. Caring for the main character is the ultimate hook. Beware of prologues that are used to heat up a lukewarm first chapter and avoid too much back story too soon. Keep the story moving forward.
Subsequent chapters tackle technique problems that can crop up at any point in the story. Roerden points out that static description of such things as hair, eye colour and clothing reveal little about a character. You should show him/her through dialogue and actions. She explains how to ground each scene in setting and reinforce the setting to the scene's end. For conflict and tension, each character in a scene needs an agenda that is apparent to the reader. She lists over-used and useless words and suggests writers do a Word Search of the whole manuscript to eliminate most of them. She permits us one "suddenly" per book. Once the manuscript is cleaned up, she shows how to add pizzazz with figurative language, symbols and parallel actions. A last chapter, titled "Exhibit: A", outlines standard manuscript format.
I know I'll never do all Roerden asks (only one "suddenly"?), but I came away with several concrete suggestions for my novel-in-progress and other tips that I hope will improve my future writing.
(Suddenly) Susan
Don't Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques to Save Your Manuscript From Turning up D.O.A. by Chris Roerden.
Chris Roerden is an editor, writing instructor and Mensa member. She states that 90 percent of all submissions are rejected for average writing that an acquisitions editor can usually spot in the first few pages. The jacket blurb promises to turn your "A" for Average into "A" for Accepted. I couldn't resist a promo like that.
The book is geared toward mystery writers at the self-editing stage of their work, with punchy chapter titles like "Fatal Flashbacks" and "Dastardly Description". After reading the book, I would recommend it to all fiction writers at any stage of the writing process.
Roerden begins with the novel's first lines. Choose an opening action you can build on and sustain with more and more questions that engage the reader and draw her in. Caring for the main character is the ultimate hook. Beware of prologues that are used to heat up a lukewarm first chapter and avoid too much back story too soon. Keep the story moving forward.
Subsequent chapters tackle technique problems that can crop up at any point in the story. Roerden points out that static description of such things as hair, eye colour and clothing reveal little about a character. You should show him/her through dialogue and actions. She explains how to ground each scene in setting and reinforce the setting to the scene's end. For conflict and tension, each character in a scene needs an agenda that is apparent to the reader. She lists over-used and useless words and suggests writers do a Word Search of the whole manuscript to eliminate most of them. She permits us one "suddenly" per book. Once the manuscript is cleaned up, she shows how to add pizzazz with figurative language, symbols and parallel actions. A last chapter, titled "Exhibit: A", outlines standard manuscript format.
I know I'll never do all Roerden asks (only one "suddenly"?), but I came away with several concrete suggestions for my novel-in-progress and other tips that I hope will improve my future writing.
(Suddenly) Susan
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