How to Acid Test Your Novel (or any Long-Form Writing)
Writing is writing. Whether it’s fiction, non-fiction, or copywriting, there is an underlying structure that applies. Miss any part of this, and it’s the difference between sales and anonymity.
Consider this excerpt from a lecture by Dwight V. Swain in 1990 about the novel. Then go back to find a few books of your own (or others) and test them against this short checklist.
Testing Your Novel for Mistakes
Let's talk about testing your novel. We will get it down to a simple four-word list of things to look for.
Unity, progression, proportion, and continuity.
On unity, ask yourself in regard to your book, “Does one story dominate the book?” In other words, you may have some subplots, you may have some side issues, but is there one central story? And the way you will decide that one central story is what we gave you back much earlier: “Who wants to do what and why can't he?” Have you raised, developed, and answered that question?
Now, where progression is concerned, what your book is supposed to do – what any novel is supposed to do – is to move toward the climax in each chapter and each scene. If you are not moving closer to the climax, then you are in deep trouble. Because you are probably going around and around in circles. It's something that can be corrected. What you need to do is to check for yourself.
Does each chapter have some kind of a climax? And as a result of that chapter, is it moving closer to the end of the story toward the climax of the book? And is the character state of affairs and state of mind changing as the book develops? Is the character the same man at the end as he was at the be at the beginning? Maybe he will have changed. Maybe he will not have changed.
As far as his overall outlook is concerned, proportion is emphasis in the right places – with space allocated to fit the importance of the event at issue. This is closely related to this business of the emotional time clock. Are you writing so that the big things in the book are given bigger attention than the little things?
And remember being in little our subjective terms. Are these big to your hero or are these little to your hero?
Now, how about continuity? Continuity means simply does your story hang together? And the way you decide that is by checking as to whether each scene, each chapter doesn't acknowledge the one ahead of it.
Now, that sounds a little confusing probably, but it's again the same thing that we use in dialogue. When somebody makes a speech, when someone says something, is the speech by the next character an acknowledgement of that first speech? An answer to that first question? Or does it go away off into the wild blue yonder? It's the same way with the continuity of a book. You see to it that each chapter is tied to the one ahead of it.
First, as you finish your book, keep asking yourself, does one story dominate the book? Does it have unity?
Second, does the story move toward the climax in each chapter? Does it had progression?
Third, is the emphasis in the right place is proper properly proportion?
And finally, Fourth, continuity? Does the story hang together?
Find more about writing from this recent release: Writerpreneur: The Basic Formulas of Fiction”
