What follows are some brief notes on the Awesome Indies criteria for inclusion in this list. A full understanding of these issues can  be gained from reading ‘Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne & Dave King.’ We recommend this book as a vital resource for all fiction writers.

The summary will give you a quick overview  of the kind of issues that will stop a book meeting our criteria and show you how to spot them.

Contents

Plot and structure
Pacing
Conceptually sound
Engaging
Characters
Wordiness
Point of View
Engaging writing
Grammar, spelling and punctuation
Summary – how to tell is something is well written or not.
Useful site links

Plot and structure

Awesome Indies criteria—the plot is well structured, well paced, conceptually sound and engaging

Check that there is

• a protagonist with clear goals—ie the main character must want something, or be trying to achieve something
• a clear antagonist who gets in the way of what the protagonist wants—ie the bad guy
• a beginning that grabs you, a middle that holds you (ie doesn’t wander)  and an ending that ties up the main questions, problems, or  issues.
• dramatic tension. (Withouttwo or more of the following, the book will be boring.)

• Conflict
• Mystery
• Suspense
• Surprise
• Tension in relationships
• A task to complete
• Humour

Structure – Recommended reading

Michael Hauge’s six stage plot structure based on screen play structure. http://www.storymastery.com/articles/30-screenplay-structure

Kristin Lamb’s excellent series of posts on structure http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/?s=structure+part+1

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/structure-part-2-plot-problems-falcor-the-luck-dragon-the-purple-tornado-2/

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/structure-part-3-introducing-the-opposition-2/

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/structure-part-4-testing-your-idea-is-it-strong-enough-to-make-an-interesting-novel-2/

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/structure-part-5-keeping-focused-nailing-the-pitch-understand-your-seed-idea-2/

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/structure-part-6-getting-primal-staying-simple-3/

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/structure-part-7-genre-matters-2/

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/structure-part-8-balancing-the-scenes-that-make-up-your-novel-3/

Pacing

Awesome Indies criteria—the plot is well structured, well paced, conceptually sound and engaging

The speed of the action should vary, rising and falling, like waves in an ocean.  Even the fastest paced novels should give you some rest stops along the way, but you should never be bored, or feel like you’ve lost the plot. You should want to keep reading, always keen to know what is happening next. Check for scenes, plots and descriptions that go on too long or wander without purpose, or maybe don’t even need to be there.

Is there a good balance between action and character development? Is there so much happening that you haven’t really got to know the character yet, or are you spending so much time in the head of a character that the story isn’t moving forward?

Conceptually sound

Awesome Indies criteria—the plot is well structured, well paced, conceptually sound and engaging

Does the story make sense? Have the concepts involved been fully thought through and, where necessary, researched?

Are there any plot holes? Bits that just don’t make sense, or that couldn’t really have happened in the context of the rest of the story, or that indicate that something has been conveniently forgotten.

Are there too many coincidences?

Is there a clear sense of time and place. In fantasy this also has to be a world that makes sense and fits together in a consistent, logical manner. The characters in the story must be bound by the physics and society of their world.

Engaging

Awesome Indies criteria—the plot is well structured, well paced, conceptually sound and engaging.

Does the story hold your interest?

An interesting, well-structured and well-paced plot is engaging.

Other things that engage readers are

•  a unique ‘voice’ or perspective on the world.
• thought-provoking, moving or inspiring themes.
• unexpected twists

Characters

Awesome Indies criteria—the characters are well developed and their dialogue and interactions with others are believable.

Are the characters believable and three-dimensional? Are the characters likea cardboard cut out rather than something fully fleshed? If you find yourself thinking – he wouldn’t do that, or she wouldn’t talk like that, or how come she didn’t see that when she really couldn’t have missed it, or anything else that makes you find a character hard to believe, then there could be a problem. Note that this is a fairly subjective area, but check that the characters aren’t too

• perfect
• predictable
• stereotypical ie like too many other characters in other books you’ve read, or like
• bland or uninteresting

Do their relationships ring true? Develop too fast or too slow?

Is the dialogue realistic for the characters, time and setting? Or does it sound stilted? Are the dialogue tags simple, eg said,  or unusual and distracting? Is it clear who is talking?

Do the characters relate to each other in a realistic fashion? Do they develop throughout the book? The main character should have developed  in some way by the end of the book.

A helpful article on dialogue. http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/crafttechnique/tp/dialogue.htm

Wordiness or overwriting

Awesome Indies criteria—The book is not excessively wordy, particularly, no rambling descriptions, dumps of information, unnecessary repetition or irrelevant scenes.

 Examples of wordiness

• saying the same thing several different ways
• using a lot of adjectives
• pages of descriptions – generally one or two paragraphs is sufficient for any one description.
• the inclusion of unnecessary information
• scenes that don’t move the story forward
• chunks of information that appear without being integrated into the action.
• excessive back story when characters are introduced
• repeating information
• extraneous dialogue  eg extended greetings. Extra dialogue may be a natural progression  but it should be cut back to only what is necessary to tell the story.

Point of View

Awesome Indies criteria— changes in the point of view of the writing are clear; specifically, in third person close POV,  no confusing quick jumps from the thoughts of one character to another and back again. (head-hopping).

The term head-hopping refers  to third person close POV.  It designates non-delineated changes of POV within a scene that move quickly between characters (ie one sentence or a short paragraph, then back again or to another character), especially if it’s between more than two characters, happens often, or uses the POV of minor characters who have limited POV throughout the rest of the story.  Valid changes of POV are limited to main characters, clearly delineated, eg by a blank line between view points, and are longer than one or two paragraphs.

For more details on head-hopping and why writers should avoid it, see this post.

Engaging writing

Awesome Indies criteria— the writing is immediate and engaging. This means that the story is generally shown rather than told, and the writing is active rather than passive, eg doesn’t overuse forms of the verb, ‘to be’.

When we tell the readers something, our prose is not as immediate and engaging as when we show it. It is passive, rather than active. Therefore good writing shows rather than tells. There are some subtle differences between showing and telling that make the difference between writing looking professional or not.

See this comprehensive article on passive writing, what it is, why you should avoid it and how to fix it.

Deep point of view - This helps the reader to identify closely with the characters in a very immediate way. Roz Morris wrote an excellent article on this here. http://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/free-indirect-deep-point-of-view-two-ways-to-get-closer-to-your-main-character/

Avoid adverbs (ie words, usually ending in ‘ly’, that tell us how an action is performed).

When a writer uses adverbs they’re telling you something not showing it. Instead of saying ‘You stink,’ he said angrily, we write something that shows he was angry eg, He stomped across the floor, his face red, eyes blazing. ‘You stink.’

Avoid using with and had in descriptions
This can separate characters from their settings. eg She had a small house with an open-plan living area.It’s better to describe the space from the character’s viewpoint eg She lurched the few steps across the lounge to the kitchen, dumped the bags on the floor and—thwack!—ran into the cupboard door. Descriptions included in the action like this never slow the story down. They may not even register as a description.

Don’t rely too much on your looks and felts.
Instead of saying, he looked angry or she felt sad. Describe the facial expression that allows the reader to decide for themselves whether it’s an angry look or not. eg his eyes blazed above a clenched jaw. In the felt instance, describe her physical sensations and allow the reader to recognise it as sadness. That’s much more engaging than being told.

Renni Browne and Dave King in chapter 11 of “Self-editing for fiction writers” say that awareness of the following when revising “will help your work look like that of a professional rather than an amateur.”

Weed out the “to-be-verbs”: is, am, are, was, were, be, being, and been.

Turn ‘ing’ into ‘eds’ where possible.

void starting sentences with ‘as’ or ‘ing’ words

Have a look at the improvements in these sentences from following the above dot points.

 There was too much tension simmering beneath the surface.

becomes

Too much tension simmered beneath the surface.

And

 ‘Cut it out!’ Jane cried, grabbing his hand and pushing it away.

becomes

‘Cut it out!’ Jane grabbed his hand and pushed it away.

Do you see how much more immediate the writing is after the changes? Authors, search your manuscript for these things. You’ll be delighted how much you can improve your prose by cutting down on your ‘ings’ and forms of the ‘to be’ verb.

 See this excellent article for further explanation

http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/grammar_mechanics/how-to-eliminate-to-be-verbs-in-writing/

Grammar, spelling & punctuation

Awesome Indies criteria— the grammar, spelling and punctuation are correct for the author’s country of origin.

NB: Use of the serial, or Oxford, comma is a matter of personal choice. Whichever system is used should be consistent throughout.

Though grammar is a constant, there are some differences between countries in spelling and punctuation. For example . . .

Differences between Australian/UK English and US English. Australian writing

• uses single quotation marks where both the US use doubles.
• uses italics instead of quotation marks to identify the name of a book, movie, quote and so on.
• capitalises otherwise generic words whenever they are the actual name we call a person or thing, but not when they refer to the type of thing in general. So if we call our teacher, Sir, and the school principal, the Principal, we capitalise them, but not if we are referring to principals or sirs in general. The same goes for school subject names. So we have, I do Art at school, but there are art materials in the Art room. Confused?That might be why the Americans changed this rule.
• only uses commas after conjunctions where necessary for clarity or if a pause is longer than would naturally occur at a conjunction, even when connecting two coordinate clauses. Short coordinate clauses are rarely separated by a comma.
• No periods after Mr, Mrs and Ms—unless it’s the end of a sentence. eg Mr Roberts gave a lopsided grin.
• Spelling -we have an extra u in many words, eg humour, mould, succour, colour etc. We use s where the US uses z eg analyse, summarise etc

Summary – how to tell if something is well-written or not.

A publisher friend of mine said something like –“ Beautiful writing is when every word is the right word, in its right place and there for a reason. There is nothing extraneous. The words flow so smoothly that the reader is transported beyond the words. They even forget they are reading.”

Warning signals that something is not well written.

 You have to read a sentence or passage several times to get the meaning.
This is likely to be an inability to express ideas in a clear fashion and/or poor grammar and/or punctuation. It could also be poor dialogue skills.

You have to go back several pages to see if you understood something correctly.
This could be a poor flow of ideas, illogical progression, an unclear change in point of view, indication of a plot hole, or it could be that the ideas were complicated and you weren’t paying attention.

You get pulled out of the story, or something reminds you that you’re reading.
This could be an abrupt change from one character’s point of view to another or something unbelievable within the context of the story.

Something draws your attention to the words.
This could be

• incorrect spelling or poor punctuation,
• too many fancy phrases or one that seems odd or makes you wonder what it’s really trying to say. Lots of fancy words isn’t good writing, it often obscures the meaning. Good writing is clear writing.
• poor word selection – the author may have used a fancy word when a simple one would have been more effective (it usually is), or the word has a subtle connotation that doesn’t fit the context.

You’re not really in the action, it’s more as if you are watching it from a distance or the story and the characters are fine but the writing is kind of ordinary, dull or sameish all the way through.

You’re probably mostly being told the story rather than shown it. There are a great many subtleties in this one, and it’s here that the difference between good writing and mediocre writing becomes clear. Writing that tells rather than shows

• is general rather than specific.
• gives us the name of emotions rather than describing the actions that show us the emotion . eg George felt angry, instead of George slammed the door and threw the book across the room.
• uses a lot of ‘to be’ verbs, such as ‘was’, ‘is’, ‘were’ etc when alternatives are stronger.  Eg John raced along the sidewalk is more immediate than John was racing along the sidewalk.
• uses a lot of ‘ing’ ending words when ‘ed’ endings would be more immediate – see above example. Words starting with ‘ing’ used at the beginning of a sentence weakens the writing if used more often than about once in a thousand pages.
• uses the word ‘as’ a lot, especially at the start of sentences.
• uses too many adverbs (words describing action words that often end in ‘ly’, eg running slowly)
• The sentence structure or length may be too similar all the way through the book. More variety would liven it up, eg questions, fragments, short punchy sentences next to longer ones and so on.

You’re tempted to skip over sections .
Check for

• overly long descriptions
• scenes that go on too long
• repetition eg scenes with a similar function, or you’re hearing about how gorgeous the love interest is AGAIN.
• poor pacing eg you want to be racing towards the conclusion of a scene, but the story has wandered off in another direction.
• a lost or wandering plot
• excessive internal dialogue
• information dump. A whole lot of back story or information is dumped into the story in one chunk. It’s better if it’s broken up and dished out as required.
• unnecessary information – do we really need to know exactly what food is on everyone’s plate, or the details of the colour, texture and design of every person’s clothing?

It seems a bit long winded. Less is more in writing and overwriting is common in beginning writers. Check for everything in the above and

• the same thing said in several different ways
• no more than one metaphor/fancy phrase per paragraph
• action described in too much detail. Readers have imagination; we are very good at filling in the gaps
• the same words or phrases used excessively eg ‘heart pumped’, ‘eyes rolled’ etc
• too many adjectives (words describing things or people eg red hat)
• too many dialogue tags eg ‘she said’, ‘he said’. Or ‘he scratched his nose’, ‘she burped’ etc

Useful site links

Editing, style, grammar, good writing.

http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/writing/writing.htm

 About .com/ grammar and composition.

http://grammar.about.com/

There is a particularly good section on ‘cutting the clutter’,

http://grammar.about.com/od/words/tp/clutter_tips.htm

An associated site is

http://fictionwriting.about.com

This has tips for fiction writing for eg a posting on writing dialogue

http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/crafttechnique/tp/dialogue.htm

There are tabs with info on getting started and getting published.

Writing tips

 Five common mistakes made by beginner fiction writers

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/fivemistakes.shtml

  Angela Booth’s writing Blog

http://copywriter.typepad.com/copywriter/2006/01/top_ten_writing.html

Guardian.co.uk

This is a link to a page of advice from an assortment of writers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one

Revising and editing

This one has links to info on grammar, punctuation, structure, plot, feedback and so on.

http://www.uq.edu.au/student-services/phdwriting/phlink09.html

Writing Novels

 Fiction Factor

Lots of useful links

http://www.fictionfactor.com/novel.html