How to examine your novel close-up and overall
Using a microscope and telescope for novel writing. How do they help? What can be learned from the two that will make you a better writer?
Imagine how your life can change if you mastered the ability to see your novel up close and from a distance.
In this blog, we will be examining how to examine your novel close-up and overall…
HOW TO EXAMINE YOUR NOVEL CLOSE-UP AND OVERALL
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If you want to become a better writer you need to have the ability to do two things at the same time, see your novel’s storyline overall and see it up close line by line.
As a writer, you need to be able to do both. When you master these two abilities your chances of being published increase greatly.
When someone submits a novel to a literary agent the book will be judged on two things, how the story is told overall and whether the writer can write a sentence and have it make sense.
If the literary agent fails to see both being done they will reject the novel.
THEY SEE THE SAME MISTAKES OVER AND OVER
The majority of novels submitted suffer from either one of the two. The agent might like how the writer structures each sentence but cannot follow the storyline.
Or the writer does a great job at painting a wonderful picture with their words but the overall flow of the story makes no sense. The pacing is all off. It wanders all over the place leaving the agent wondering what’s happening.
Literary agents forever see the same mistakes again and again. One of them being how an amateur writer makes the mistake of combining two or three characters’ thoughts into one paragraph.
Jumping from one person’s point of view to another in mind sentence. It makes sense to the writer because they can see it in their mind while writing, but to the reader, they cannot understand whose speaking or thinking.
TELESCOPE AND MICROSCOPE
Or another problem they see is a story that wanders from start to finish not following a straight storyline. Or even switches genres halfway through.
A story should be like a train going down a straight track. But some writers have their tracks running all over the place. They’re not aware of what they’re doing.
As a writer, you have to examine your novel with two things. A “telescope and microscope”. But why use such a term, what does each of them do?
SEEING MORE THAN WHAT THE EYE CAN SEE
A telescope looks at the stars. It can see the night sky overall. Whereas a microscope is used to zoom in and see the building blocks of what it’s looking at.
Two objects made by man and both do the opposite of each other. Both are used to seeing something greater than what the eye can see.
The same technique is something a writer needs to do with their novel. Use a telescope to see their overall storyline from start to finish, but also look with a microscope to see each sentence and see if you have written it properly.
YES, YOU CAN LEARN BOTH
It’s wonderful if you can come up with an idea for a novel, but if you can’t write a sentence the telling of the story will be difficult.
However, if you cannot complete a three-act structure with proper pacing the story will suffer as well.
Is it possible to learn how to do both? Yes. there’s a lot of advice online on how to write a novel. The advice is great, it really can help with your novel writing.
However, the problem with online advice is it talks about novels’ structure “overall”. There isn’t really too much advice on how to write a sentence.
How to tell a story in a scene.
THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE
However, “The Elements of Style” does a great job at teaching you grammar. Countless writers sing its phrases. Saying how it made them great writers.
It would be nice to see more websites dedicated to the same thing. Teaching about the writing of a sentence.
But why are there few websites that teach grammar? Because teaching grammar is hard. Most people are given the basics on grammar when in school.
They’re not taught enough to actually teach others. If you know something well enough you should be able to teach it. It’s amazing how many people cannot teach grammar because they were not taught it properly.
YOU CAN BECOME YOUR OWN SELF-EDITOR
As a writer, you need to look at your work under a microscope and be able to look at a sentence and see it as someone else. As though you’re reading someone else’s work. You need to ask certain questions? Does each sentence make sense?
Are the 5 senses being used well? Can you clearly see what’s happening? Does the conversion make sense? How does each scene play out?
As a self-editor, you’re like a scientist looking at something under a microscope. Zooming in and seeing the building blocks. A sentence needs the same thing.
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF WRITERS
But at the same time, you need to be able to step back and see your own work from a distance. As though you’re looking through a telescope and seeing the night sky.
How is the story overall? How does each scene flow into the other? Does it have a three-act structure? Does it flow like a straight line from start to finish? To a point where someone reading it can understand the who what, where, when, and why?
It seems there are two types of writers. Those who are good at writing sentences and creating a scene and those who are good at coming up with the overall idea.
FIRST DRAFT TELLS THE STORY
In Hollywood, the ones who are good at coming up with story ideas usually create the first draft of a script. Then send it off to someone else who’ll take it and create a second draft in which it will have more detail in the dialogue. The second draft brings the story to life.
The first draft “told the story” overall but the dialogue might’ve been ruff.
This is why some Hollywood writers work in pairs, where one writes the overall idea but needs someone else to fine-tune the dialogue.
YOUR AVERAGE WRITER WILL DO BOTH
Songwriters work in the same way. Elton John and Bernie Taupin work together as a songwriter team. Bernie writes the lyrics and hands them over to Elton John to write the melody and music.
One cannot exist without the other.
As a writer, you might be working with someone one day where one of you comes up with the story and the other writes the scenes and dialogue.
But for the most part, your average writer does both. Keep in mind writing is like learning to juggle, it takes time.
STUDY OTHER WRITERS
Working on both does take time. You want to start off getting the story down. Brainstorming the idea, writing point form, and knowing what the story is about. Then turn it into a novel.
Afterward, go back and read it over as an editor would, fixing what needs to be fixed.
Studying other writers is the best way to become a better writer. Stephen King said to be a better writer you have to write a lot and read a lot.
You cannot become a better writer without practice.
IN TIME YOU’LL FIND YOUR OWN VOICE
Every novel you read has something to teach you. You pick up on things that make you better. Your brain is figuring out how to craft a story and write a sentence.
See how your favorite authors craft a sentence. You don’t have to copy them but you can learn from them to find your own voice.
In time your own writing style will come to life. To a point where someone will read your book and know it’s you. But that takes time.
Everything great takes time to learn.
THINK OF ALL THE MONEY YOU CAN SAVE
You want to learn how to write a scene and look back at it as you’re an editor.
Think about how much time and money you can save if you develop the editor skills in your own mind and apply it to your own work.
To be able to look at your work overall from a distance and see if your pacing is correct. If the scenes play out one into the other and make sense.
If the three-act structure makes sense. As though you’re an astronomer looking through a telescope at the galaxy and seeing everything.
SEE YOUR BOOK AT A DISTANCE AND UP CLOSE
Then you need to take the opposite approach and zoom in as an editor on each sentence. Are you using proper grammar? Are you using the right words? Using the right adverbs or nouns?
Can you spot passive or active voice?
Ask any writer and they’ll tell you writing is difficult. If it was easy everyone would be writing. The majority of novels submitted to a literary agent are rejected.
But to excel forward you need to master the ability to see your book from a distance and up close.
IMAGINE WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE
You don’t want to be a writer who has an amazing idea for a story but can’t write a sentence. Or a writer who can create art with words but can’t structure a three-act story.
You have to learn how to master both. Imagine what it would be like if you did. Chances are you can’t get published if you’re weak in one of these two areas.
But they can be learned.
you might be interested in these blogs…
HOW TO EDIT AFTER YOUR FIRST DRAFT
WHY YOU SHOULDN’T SWITCH GENRES HALFWAY THROUGH
THE GREATEST TIP ON HOW TO BE A GREAT WRITER
