Just Because You Can Write a Good Sentence Doesn't Mean You Can Write a Good Novel

A lot of people can write coherent sentences, paragraphs, and reports. Writing a novel is a totally different skill. Just because you are competent in one or more writing domains doesn’t mean that you’ll be competent in all of them. I’m a good fiction writer, but I am not a good poet. Why not? Because I don’t have the skills that are required to write a decent poem. (Whether I could develop those skills is a separate topic.)

Some people think that because they can tell a good story, writing a story is “easy.” On one level, they are right. Humans are naturally good at storytelling. We live our lives as a story (that is, as a series of events ordered in time). From a very early age, children have an intuitive grasp of how to narrate events, and having them write down that story yields a coherent narrative. But just because we humans are natural story-tellers does not mean that we all can be good novelists. The skills needed for writing a novel go far beyond recounting events, or being able to write clear sentences. Those skills include (but are not limited to): creating believable, compelling characters; shaping and pacing the plot so that it captivates the reader; providing immersive details so that the reader feels as if s/he is in that world, but not letting those details slow down the pacing of the story.

This essay covers two main themes: First, writing a novel is different from other kinds of writing. Second, novelists (whether green or seasoned) need an impartial, brutally honest expert who can tear apart their precious manuscript, and tell them what they are doing wrong and what they are doing right. The second point used to take care of itself back when one had to go to a publishing house to get published. But in the age of self-publishing, too many first-time novelists (and even some experienced fiction writers) think they can skip this step and just put their book out there, not realizing that they could’ve produced a far better book had they only been willing to get the help they need. If you think you can get that kind of help from a friend or relative who likes books, you are deluding yourself. In this essay, I’ll show you why.

“I don’t normally read fiction, but I wanted to write a novel.”

For decades, I’ve been asked to read outlines and drafts of books, and give my feedback. I’m going to tell a fictional story about one novice-novelist named Gary, who is an amalgam of real things I’ve seen in drafts, in self-published novels, and in my discussions with wanna-be writers.

Gary was middle aged, and a former Navy lieutenant. He had been an engineer on a Navy destroyer, and he had helped to write technical manuals. He was a clear writer in his domain of expertise, a straightforward and logical thinker. Up front, he admitted that he doesn’t normally read fiction, but he wanted to write a novel. This was a red flag for me. Why? Because if you don’t saturate yourself in the literary form in which you’re trying to write (e.g., novel, poem, play), how can you expect to be a competent writer in that literary form? How do you know you’re giving the audience what it wants or expects?

Gary dismissed my concerns, telling me that as a technical-manual writer, he knew how to write. He was aiming to follow the footsteps of writers such as Tom Clancy, Dale Brown, and John Le Carré. Those three best-selling authors had made their reputation writing in the genres of “techno-thriller” and “political thriller.” They all came from a military background, which gave them excellent command of the technology they wrote about and/or the political-psychological intrigues they’d seen (for example, Le Carré had served in British intelligence).

Gary figured he could do the same, given his own technical and military expertise. The novel was “just the vehicle for telling the story that’s in my head,” as he put it, which I thought was an odd argument. The literary form itself is the point. To tell a story in a novel, versus a movie or a play or an epic poem, requires mastery of each form, even though the basic storyline is the same across all four. This is one reason why having AI summarize a storyline is vapid. The point of a literary form is to experience it as such. You could have AI describe the flavor of a particular fine wine, right down to a chemical analysis, but it would not compare to tasting the wine yourself, and enjoying it with a good meal and good company.

Gary told me that he was an excellent storyteller. Everybody loved his jokes and Navy stories, and he had done stand-up comedy a few times. He therefore figured that writing a novel wouldn’t be all that hard. I pointed out that stand-up comedy was different from writing a novel. But, I conceded, maybe Gary was right about his own fiction-writing abilities. Maybe (unlike me) he would find fiction-writing relatively easy. The proof would be in his manuscript.

Information overload, boring detail, and a clichéd bad-guy

So, I read it. The story was told in first-person, in the voice of the protagonist, a brilliant young engineer newly assigned to a destroyer. It felt autobiographical, which is fine. A lot of good books draw heavily from the author’s life. A few pages in, I could see that his existing writing skills did not translate into being a good novelist. He didn’t balance descriptions of technical detail against a well-paced plot, or believable characters. Like a lot of scientific-technical types, he was more interested in things than in people, and it showed.

Chapter 1 was an information dump as Gary described the ship where the story took place. I felt as if I were reading a technical manual. What a slog. It was not necessary to describe the location of every emergency-escape hatch and every cross-beam. But Gary found all that nerdy detail fascinating, and he assumed that the reader would, too. The reader will find some of it fascinating, but only in the service of a story that is gripping. And there was no discernable story being set up at that point.

One way that Gary could’ve gotten around the information-dump problem and the story-set up problem would’ve been to have other characters (such as the know-it-all petty officer, or the friendly ensign) supply the information and interact with the protagonist. But there was none of this. There were blocks of detailed description, and an occasional appearance of a secondary character who would make a comment that didn’t go anywhere.

There was another major problem: Some of the key characters were not believable. They felt like what I call “place-markers.” In early drafts, novelists sometimes create “place marker” characters who are there to serve a role or a function in that scene or in the larger story. For example, a character might be a place marker for any number of functions, including: revealing valuable information, planting a false flag, or providing elements such as comic relief, a sinister warning, or a romantic interest. By the time the final draft is finished, a good writer has either deleted those “place marker” characters, or has transformed them into fleshed-out, interesting personalities that are integral to the story.

Gary knew he needed conflict, so he created an antagonist to make his protagonist’s life miserable: Captain Cruel. Shortly after the protagonist arrives on the ship, he has a private meeting with the captain, and he is physically attacked. The reason for the attack isn’t made clear. This was Gary’s attempt to convey that the captain was not only cruel, but also and unpredictable psychopathic. In the novel, Gary described the captain as “a hothead, loose-cannon who goes postal at the drop of a hat, and you never know when that’s going to be.”

Characters like that can work. But it takes skill to shape them properly and not keep them stuck as a one-dimensional place-marker. The first problem here was, Captain Cruel was unbelievable because the way he behaved would’ve gotten him in trouble in the real world. Even a non-military person like me could see that.

The second problem was, there was no rhyme or reason to the captain’s actions at any given point. Smart psychopaths can (and do) attain high-status positions. But they have a logic, a method, and enough self-control to not make mistakes. They are strategic about deploying their psychopathy.

All fictional characters have a logic, no matter if they are good or bad, smart or stupid, sane or insane, self-possessed or erratic. Every character has an internal code by which they behave. Often the reader can figure out the internal code of the character right away. We understand why the starving street urchin stole the loaf of bread, why the love-struck young man always walks past the house where his beloved lives even when the weather is bad. With major characters who are more complex, the writer needs to give the reader a feel for that character’s code, for the logic they use to make decisions, and for the motivation behind their actions. In the case of Gary’s cruel captain, the logic of his internal code was never made clear. He would just pop off and abuse his subordinates without cause. There was never any pushback or consequences. That kept Captain Cruel stuck in the “mustache-twirler” cliché of bad guys.

Ghostwriter in the Machine

These are but a few of the problems I saw in Gary’s manuscript. There were other problems, such as mixed metaphors that didn’t work, and the inconsistent use of first-person narration which often slid into third-person, and back to first-person again. These were rookie mistakes that an experience novelist usually avoids. But because Gary was not accustomed to writing (or reading) fiction, it’s no surprise that these mistakes were present.

I suggested to Gary that he consider hiring a co-author or a ghost writer, somebody who could supply the fiction-writing skills that his book lacked. A ghostwriter and a co-author are similar, but with key differences. A ghostwriter works behind-the-scenes, and is paid before the novel is published. His name does not appear on the by-line, and he often does not get royalties. A co-author’s role is fully public, and she gets the same top-billing as an author, because she is one. She shares the byline and the royalties.

No matter which of these two routes Gary went, I told Gary that it would take time to vet writing partners and make sure they had the skills and the time to collaborate with Gary. Good writers have a crowded schedule, and there is often a waiting period before they can take on a new project.

For the record, ghostwriting and co-authorship is not cheating. Some bestselling authors have ghostwriters and co-authors, especially later in their career when their by-line is a hot-selling commodity. In Gary’s case, he was providing the plot, along with the expertise of being a propulsion engineer on a Navy destroyer. The details that he could supply were invaluable, from the smell of the engine room, to the vibe of the place at midnight, to the emotions that the engineer would feel. These were details that neither a ghostwriter nor a co-author could invent (unless they happened to have a Navy background aboard a destroyer). Gary’s vision and his experience were the heart and soul of his novel. A ghostwriter or co-author would supply compelling storytelling elements to help Gary bring his idea to life. It would be a synergy that would make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Gary told me that he didn’t think he needed a ghostwriter or a co-author. His daughter, who was getting her degree from an English department, had already edited the manuscript. I explained that having a friend or family member give general advice or copy-edits (such as typos and wording) is fine. But his manuscript needed major surgery. You never have a friend or family member do surgery on you (and yes, your manuscript is an extension of you). He needed a professional to tear it apart and rebuild it, regardless of whether he was going to go the traditional-publishing route, the self-publishing route.

If he wanted to go the traditional publishing route, he could not rely on the publisher supplying the editing/ghostwriting assistance because there was no chance a publishing house would consider the manuscript as-is. It had too many problems. So, in order to get a realistic shot at an agent and publishing contract, he needed outside help.

If he wanted to go the self-publishing route, he could put his book out there as-is. But did he really want readers to leave 1-star reviews on Amazon, complaining about the writing quality and the lack of basic storytelling features? Sure, his close friends and family would never say negative things, but the fact was, his book left a lot to be desired, and it would be a shame for a man of his intelligence and expertise to produce a book that fell short of its potential and that never reached the audience it deserved.

How did this story end? Did Gary hire a collaborator? I’ll leave it up to you to supply the ending, dear reader, because it varies. Some people take my advice, others do not. That choice is theirs. What they cannot choose is the reaction of the audience, because the audience judges the quality of their work, and that judgement can be harsh. You, the writer, can mitigate that harsh judgment by collaborating with a professional who can make your story as compelling as possible.