Is My Work Good Enough?

 QUESTION:  How do I know when my work is good enough to send out to editors and agents?  

Part of the answer is experience.  Once our craft and storytelling abilities reach a certain level, some of us have the ability to tell when a work is working.  

For those who haven’t reached this level or want more than their own opinion, there are other options.

Craft, the nuts and bolts of writing, isn't subjective so failure at that is an obvious sign your story isn't ready for prime time.  

An experienced writer or editor can usually clue you in on that.  So can a good writing teacher who can help you improve.  

The art of writing is a bit more problematic, but finding readers who are the audience you are aiming for will help there.  

Give them a series of questions about different elements of your book so they can give you real and specific feedback.  Look at http://mbyerly.blogspot.com/search/label/critiquing for sample lists of questions. 

I don't think anyone can tell you if your book, no matter how competent and "good" it is, will succeed in the market.  Even books that have been published by great presses and respected editors have either had almost universal pans or have disappeared without a trace.  If they can't guess at success, no one can.

Info Dumping is Bad for Your Book's Environment

 You have figured out the complex world building for your novel, and you begin to write your story.

Eagerly, you explain the details of your world and its creatures.  Ten pages in, your main characters still haven’t shown up, or they’ve not done anything to move the story along, but your world is detailed and exciting.

You show your work to your critique partner, and she promptly starts yawning.  

The problem?  Info dumping.

Most inexperienced writers dump a bunch of world building into the first few chapters, and they don't realize that they are writing it for themselves to get everything straight, not for the reader who doesn't need that much to get into the story.  Most of that world building should be deleted in the first edit.

Separating the Reader from the Critic

QUESTION: Ever since I started to write with my eye toward being published, I have trouble reading for fun.  I keep spotting craft mistakes, or I’m analyzing why I like or don’t like something.  I miss the fun.  Any suggestions?

I have two degrees in literary analysis, I’m a professional writer, I’ve worked as an editor, and I teach writing. If anyone has an super-critic in their head, I do.

Years ago, I realized I could never shut off the critic in my head, but I have learned to keep her separate from reader me. It’s not an easy thing to do, but I learned to do it.

About the only time my super-critic takes over is when a book is so flawed I continue to read it like an autopsy of what can go wrong and why. Otherwise, I’ll stop reading entirely.

Reading really good writers helps.  Reading what you love helps.  Reading outside your genre helps.

  

Mainly, though, you simply have to learn to ignore the critic sitting in the corner of your brain taking notes the same way you focus on one conversation in a room full of conversations.

When You Must Info Dump

 If you absolutely must info dump, here are a few suggestions to make it more palatable for the reader.

Have a character who must learn the information so someone explains it to him.

In Jasper Fforde’s ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING, Thursday Next is in charge of an apprentice who follows her around at her job.  She explains a lot of the technical elements important to the story to this apprentice.  The info dumping isn’t subtle, but it is at least integrated into the scenes, and the give and take between the characters makes the info more digestible.  

A another saving grace is that the apprentice and her knowledge of these technical elements become an important part of the final part of the book.

Never begin info dump dialogue with “As you know.”

Many years ago, this was a prime way to info dump in hard science fiction stories. These days, if someone knows something, they don’t need it explained to them in detail.

If both characters know the information, they can still discuss it.  Here’s how I did it in the opening scene of TIME AFTER TIME, a romance about reincarnation.  The hero and heroine’s guardian spirits are talking.

Celeste's expression softened as if she were trying to reason through a solution to their problem.  "Thinking of all their lives....  It's strange how some of the same patterns and events occur in each one."

Although she knew the answer already, Walter prompted, "They're the same people whatever life they're living.  They need reminders and lessons to reaffirm their strengths and fight their weaknesses."  

Celeste grabbed his wrist.  "That's it, Walter.  A way to give him a will to live.  Remember Gerard?"

In both cases, however, the info dump isn’t massive, just a few paragraphs or pages of explanation.  

I have also seen bits of factual info like diary entries and quotes from other books used, most often at the beginning of each chapter.  Some work, others do not, depending on the reader and the cleverness of the entry.  The biggest disadvantage to this type of info dump is that the reader must pull himself out of the story each time, and that can mean the loss or disinterest of the reader.  

However you info dump be very sure that this is the only way for the story to work, or you risk boring your reader.

Making Info Tidbits Palatable

No matter what kind of novel you write, you’ll face the problem of how to share bits of information with your reader.

These bits are minor plot or character clues that the main character and the reader need to know to go forward to a logical conclusion.

Often, these small clues come from different sources, but writing a scene for each bit of information often slows the pace to a crawl.  What to do?

One method is delegation.  Have your character delegate the task of finding out this information to a secondary character who will do it off page.  The secondary character will report back and in one scene present all the necessary information.  This method is often used in mysteries, but it can be just as effective in any genre novel.

The second method is finding a gossip, expert, or reporter who already knows the information.  To make this scene work, make that gossip or expert a bit larger than life, funny, or someone who knows embarrassing things about the main character so the scene is interesting.  

The most important thing to remember when doing this is to make it integral to the novel and to make it a logical choice for the main character to make.

Using Dialog to Explain World Building

QUESTION:  How do I use dialogue to explain world building?

If you want to use dialogue, you can sprinkle the information through a series of scenes so the reader gradually gets the information.

The method most writers use is what I call "inform the outsider.”  The outsider can be a newly turned vampire, the human love interest or ally, etc., and one of the vampires tells him/her about their history. 

Or one character can disagree with another one's version of the story so they argue about it while informing the reader. 

Another excellent trick is to give the information emotional value to the character receiving it.  If the info matters to that character, it should matter to the reader.  

Or you could have one of the characters find a written history or story that's inserted into the story via dialogue.  That's the most awkward method.  

Or you can sprinkle in tiny bits of information in relation to what the characters are talking about so that the reader can add together the information to get the bigger picture.  Having the reader figure it out himself is far more enjoyable to him than having an info dump.  

One thing you need to consider is how important that element of world building is to the reader.  You may have a clever new form of vampire, but unless the reader absolutely must know how that came about or the story won't make sense, the reader needn't be told all that information.

Info Dumping and Modern Tech

 I read a novel recently where characters researched other characters by using their smart phones to check out Facebook and search engines.

To a certain extent, this worked.  The information was given in a tidy manner without some character thinking about his past or offering too much information via dialogue.  And these days, it’s a very common way to check someone out so it was realistic.

On the other hand, the writer went overboard with this technique by giving too much time and attention to facts in a massive info dump at the very beginning and stalling the story for pages.  He also spoiled the reader’s fun of figuring out what makes this character tick and wondering about the dark hint some other character gives by mentioning the hero’s final Super Bowl game.

Sure, the hero is a former NFL player, but the YouTube video of him accidentally killing another player during a tackle doesn’t have to be presented immediately because that information doesn’t inform the reader of what is happening at the present time.  Later, when the hero makes a comment about this moment changing his life, another character can watch the moment of YouTube.

Just because information is easy to find these days doesn’t mean that the reader needs all of it at the beginning of the story.