Photo provided by Arianne "Tex" Thompson.
Western fantasy author Arianne “Tex” Thompson spoke at
our June 2018 monthly workshop series, joining attendees via Zoom technology.
Drawing inspiration from Dante’s Inferno,
Thompson and book editor Laura Maisano (not at the meeting) compiled a list of seven
first-page sins editors frequently encounter that can send your manuscript into
book hell.
“Every sin is equally bad if it gets people to not
read your work,” Thompson said. She launched into a discussion of red flags
that may make your work stand out (in the wrong way) to editors or slush-pile
readers. The first of these seven sins is perhaps the most-easily avoidable --
carelessness.
Failing to clean up your writing before sending it to
an agent is a big mistake. Basic things like correct punctuation, typos,
homophones, etc. can be caught and fixed with a readthrough prior to
submission. If it helps, get a second pair of eyes on your project. A copy of
Strunk & White’s The Elements of
Style is a must-have in every writer’s arsenal of tools. For the
digitally-inclined, Thompson recommended Grammarly or Dragon Naturally Speaking,
although the built-in spelling and grammar checker in Microsoft Word should not
be discounted.
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| Arianne "Tex" Thompson |
Another way to be careless in the submission process
is to be too informal. Stalking the agent’s social media page is probably not
going to be helpful, nor is a query letter that is gimmicky, or characters that
are overused or offensive. Be sure to pay attention to the submission
requirements and use standard manuscript formatting, too.
That first page of text is your opportunity to really
catch an agent’s eye, and like a first impression, you’ll never have the chance
to do it over again, so get it right the first time. A novel stuffed with extraneous words that distance
the reader from the character and events is equally a “sin” in Thompson’s eyes.
Avoid words like “thought,” “saw,” and “wondered.” Instead, “rewrite for
immediacy,” Thompson said, “combining actions where possible. Dashes are a way
of transitioning (with a pause) and indicate an interruption or a sharp change
of plans.”
The third major sin is “perdition”, what Thompson
calls a rambling text, where the prose lacks polish and needs tightening. This
can be taken to obsessive lengths – Thompson’s example being if your work
doesn’t really start until the third chapter, it doesn’t matter how well you
fine-tune and polish that first chapter; you just need to cut it out. Don’t
throw it away, however; you never know when you’ll find a use for it for some
other project. Frequent symptoms of a work that may be committing this sin
include words that aren’t pulling their own weight, frequent spelling and
grammar errors, and words that have a different meaning than what you think
they do, and thus, confuse readers as to your intent.
Writing sloppy and then writing well is called code-switching. “We’re very
practiced in changing our speaking style depending on whom we’re speaking to
(our boss, our toddler, etc.) You can use text abbreviations on the phone that
we’d never use in a business email. This is a skill that you can practice and
continue refining [just] from your daily life.”
The fourth major sin has two
sub-headings: sins of excess -- either your work has too much description
(purple prose) or too much action (and no narrative). In the former problem,
your work may read like something out of a 19th century novel, but
most readers have shorter attention spans and don’t care to read a chapter just
on the foliage of the moors or the cost of every window and fireplace in a
manor house. “The more you can infuse your description with the POV character’s
actions and feelings, that adds zest [to your work],” Thompson said. Use strong
verbs and nouns. You should also keep an eye for descriptive text that is
redundant. You do not need to say that the door swung open and shut on the way
out (we know it did) or reiterate normal activities everyone encounters unless
something unusual or unexpected occurs.
Never sandwich important action in
the middle of a paragraph. Always lead in (or exit) a paragraph with action. If
you’re writing a mystery, however, the middle of a paragraph is the perfect
spot to tuck away a detail you don’t want a reader to notice, but that will be
important later. A narrative packed with action but too little motive can leave
readers wanting more. The story has to be consistent throughout, with a
compelling reason to read so your audience does not skip ahead to get to the
good parts.
Another big sin is using clichés.
We’ve all encountered them at some point -- characters describes themselves
looking in a mirror, an exposition-heavy dialogue, the false opening that’s an
action scene but turns out to be a dream sequence, etc. Clean this up in your
second draft. Remember, the first draft is just to get all your ideas down on
paper. In your second draft, look for the clichéd choices your character makes
and begin brainstorming for a new or unique approach. Your work should always have
an element of surprise that transfers to the reader.
The sixth sin is failing to create
clarity in your work. If your manuscript, or your query letter, or back cover
blurb, etc. causes confusion in its intended audience, then you have gotten
something wrong somewhere. This is usually preventable by not writing under
pressure or under deadlines. Make sure you tick all of the boxes for your genre.
For example, if you are writing a mystery, there are good questions (who is the
killer?) and bad questions to avoid (where am I?). Make sure that action and
dialogue are clearly assigned to characters, too.
Finally, the last sin to avoid is
perhaps the most difficult – boredom. If you fail to capture the reader’s or
agent’s attention, they’re just going to put your manuscript down and that’ll
be the end of that opportunity. It’s impossible to satisfy every single reader,
but with a strong hook, a new take on an old problem, or a fascinating setting,
character or plot, you could have the makings of a great story.
Bearing these sins in mind, what
steps can you take today to improve your drafts and avoid book hell?
Speaker Bio:
Tex Thompson is a rural fantasy
author, egregiously enthusiastic speaker, and professional ruckus-raiser. She
is the author of the Children of the
Drought, an epic fantasy Western trilogy from Solaris, as well as an
instructor for the Writers Path at SMU and chief instigator of WORD ñ Writers
Organizations Round Dallas. Now she is blazing a trail through writers’
conferences, workshops, and fan conventions around the country as an endlessly
energetic, catastrophically cheerful one-woman stampede. Find her online at
thetexfiles.com and wordwriters.org.
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