Final Tips On Writing A Book

Come to think of it, this whole web site is filled with tips on writing a book. The kind of novel writing tips I'm talking about here, though, are more practical ones, some nuts-and-bolts hints and suggestions designed to ensure that your novel stands the best chance possible when it gets into the hands of an agent or publisher.

And so, as you go through the process of drafting and then revising your novel, here are a couple of tips on writing a book to keep in mind. They are both very simple but both very important...

1. Structure the Book for Readability

What do I mean by a "readable structure"? Plenty of white space, basically. And keeping sentences and paragraphs on the short side.

Novel readers, of course, are intelligent people, so there is no need to go overboard with this. But even intelligent people can be intimidated by never-ending sentences and page-long paragraphs and entire chapters containing no dialogue.

I have certainly experienced this as a reader - that feeling you get when you are reading in bed and you want to reach the end of a chapter before your eyes give out on you, but when you thumb ahead a few pages to see how far you have to go, the end of the chapter is nowhere in sight, not even one of those lines of white space.

Reading a page of prose with plenty of white space on it makes the page inviting. A page with no white space might be brilliantly written, but it is nevertheless "harder work". What kind of page would you rather an agent or a publisher or a book-buyer sees? Be kind to these people and there is a greater chance that they will be kind to you.

Generally, then, try to ensure that every chapter you write...

• Doesn't run on for too many pages (more than 30, say). If it does, consider splitting it into two.
• Has one or more of those lines of white space along the way.
• Does not contain any page-long paragraphs. (Again, split long ones into two or three.)
• Doesn't contain too many excessively long sentences. (Variety is good, so you will want a good mix of sentence lengths, but shorter is better as a rule of thumb.)
• Contains some dialogue if at all possible. (Dialogue is a great way of adding white space to a page and of giving the reader a break from great blocks of narrative.)

Of course, you shouldn't take those suggestions too literally. You are writing literature, not books for people with learning difficulties. But if you can make your writing more user-friendly without detracting from the story you are telling, then that is what you must do.

Now for the second of my tips on writing a book. This one is more crucial still, in the sense that it is a trap so many first-time novel writers fall into...