First Word

Here are some tips to improve your novel:   Pacing 101 -keep your prose moving by not getting caught up in redundant techniques. For example, I laughed with my author today that only so many facial expressions are available in the repertoire of descriptive opportunities. She puzzled on the comment. I chuckled, "Well, you can only 'smile, grin or frown' so many times before it's repetitious and unnecessary to keep saying it. When you take out what I'll call "the extended version of dialog" you'll notice something interesting-suddenly, your story is moving much faster. When trying to create the famous "page-turner" effect you'll want to expeditiously tell your story. Trim the fat, make it lean, but don't make it skinny (and that's a whole other tip in and of itself).   Redundancy, Redundancy What's Your 'Abundancy'? You'll notice a little play on School House Rock here (for those of you youngst...

My partner Scott D. Roberts and I do book coaching as part of our services at 3L Publishing (www.3LPublishing.com). An interesting weakness we often see in writers is the inability or skill to pace their books. Here are three tips about pacing: #1 -- Using Too Much Exposition . A big no-no is too much exposition in the narrative that bogs down the writing. You have to keep your eye on what you're trying to accomplish on each page. Each scene, each moment needs to move the story forward or have a purpose in the story. We often see new writers who mistake a great description as building a colorful setting. Your description should only feature that which does the following: #2 . Helps define the scene so the reader understands the place . For example, if you have a scene in an office you need just enough exposition to convey the nature of the office and that's all. This gives the reader an idea of it so they can picture it in their minds. For example, a lawyer's office ...