21 Comments
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Kathleen Marple Kalb's avatar

Terrific advice! Even if you've made it into print, you can still make these mistakes. Not all that long ago, I killed the wrong person in my mystery and had to rewrite 2/3 of it. If I'd taken the time to make a synopsis, as I usually do as a plotting tool, I'd have caught it. But no, I was doing one of those "write for a month" things and just kept going. I'll never go without a synopsis again!

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Kristen Weber's avatar

I'm glad you caught it - and I am sure the resurrected character is too :)

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Julie Murdock's avatar

Great list. I hear #5 and #6 over and over again when watching webinars or reading interviews with editors and agents.

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Kristen Weber's avatar

Yes! Backstory and info dumps are big editor pet peeves.

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Janine Eaby's avatar

I once read a book that started with a pages-long description of crops. Go ahead and move that inciting incident or at least the reader hook up to the first page.

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Kristen Weber's avatar

Crops? Maybe they are marketing exclusively to farmers!

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Janine Eaby's avatar

It was fantasy. The dwarves were farmers. I guess the hook was that they were dwarves.

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Kristen Weber's avatar

Well, there's a reader for every book - somewhere!

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Kathy Gerstorff's avatar

Thank you for sharing these tips, Kristen! I’m working on my first fiction novel and constantly get tripped up between starting in the protagonist’s everyday world and in medias res!

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Izzy's avatar

Please come staple #4 to my forehead

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Kristen Weber's avatar

🤪

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Michael Banks's avatar

All great suggestions. Thank you for sharing, Kristen.

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Kristen Weber's avatar

You are welcome! Thanks for reading!

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Jeannie Ewing's avatar

I appreciate this straightforward information, Kristen. I actually had no friends or family members act in the role of my beta readers. I had four moms on Substack whom I didn't know, one acquaintance I'd met a few years ago, and a writer/published author/ELA professor read through the manuscript. All helpful feedback, too!

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Kristen Weber's avatar

I'm so glad you found the right readers - and they helped!

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Bill Cusano's avatar

Great advice.

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Kristen Weber's avatar

Thank you!

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Rachel Victorianna's avatar

Thank you for caring.

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Kristen Weber's avatar

Of course!

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Mark Jacobs's avatar

I love these 10 awareness grabbers. My first book you edited - thank you - was where I learned about the elements of fiction, where I began learning to write a novel. All of these 10 opportunities boil down to growth. My second book in the series is coming out much differently. I'm not concerned with the right word or sentence structure...though if it doesn't feel on the right path, I stick with it until it feels less mucked up. I'm not as attached to backstory or descriptive details. All of this can come later, fill out the novel in whatever way that means. We'll see what happens next...

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Kristen Weber's avatar

You are right - it all boils down to growing as a writer. I love this update and I am so excited to see what happens next!

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