Editing for Popular Fiction

Editing for Popular Fiction (In Progress)

Editing a popular fiction novel hinges on structural editing. The point of structural editing is to create a book that is easy for the reader to access. A book should not be hard to read, but it is hard to edit. Structural editing is about the writer working their ass off to create a book that is easy to enjoy, not the reader working their ass off to understand the book. If you write literary fiction, then you live by different rules. But if you want a book that the masses will enjoy (popular fiction), you need to embrace structural editing. If anything in your book makes the reader struggle to understand the story, then you’re probably in need of a structural edit.

Unedited books often receive the following kind of responses from readers:

1) No one reads past the first few chapters. The reader quits on the book.

2) People tell you it's a bit slow or boring.

3) Readers get confused and have to ask you a lot of questions that the story doesn't answer or confuses them with.

4) Readers call the story 'jumpy'.

It's worth noting that a first time structural edit is not a pleasant experience. Most authors don't want to be told that their first four chapters need deleting. But if they ruin the reader experience, then those bulky pages need to go. Often the hardest part of being a writer is getting through that first edit. But if you don't edit, then you don't improve. A good author knows they don't know everything and is constantly learning more with every word they write. There is never a time when you stop learning as a writer. So if you think you know it all, think again.

Good popular fiction caters to the reader, not the author. So before you start fighting for that backstory driven prologue, think about what a first impression it will have on a new reader to the book.

So let’s start at the beginning…

The first thing to remember is:  

The first line is the most important one in a book, the first sentence is the most important one in a book, the first paragraph is the most important one in a book, the first chapter is the most...well, you get the point. Everything hinges on the beginning of your story. If you want the reader to keep reading, you put your best work into the beginning of it.

Structurally, the beginning of a story should do three things:

    1) Introduce the main character—so the reader can connect with them.

    2) Introduce the main conflict—so the reader can focus on the main conflict.

    3) Be active and avoid backstory—so the reader doesn't go into a boredom coma.

This is all access for the reader. If you don't do these things, it leads to:

    1) Confusion over who the main character is, and sometimes causes the reader to dislike the main character when they eventually show up.

    2) Without a main conflict that begins on page one and builds up through the story to a resolution at the end, your story will have no meaning and be confusing to enjoy for most readers. A main conflict will often be set off by an event.

      a. Example: The main character is a pacifist who is sent to war. This is a conflict for the character because they do not want to kill, but must to survive and save their nation. The character will be drafted (which is the event) their conflict is to work out how to win a war without killing, but in every chapter it becomes increasingly difficult for them not to kill someone.

How you resolve that story is the author’s discretion, but it must be a main theme throughout the story. Every chapter must build up the conflict until the conclusion where the character can resolve the issue.

    3) Active prose is interesting and exciting to read. The difference between active and passive prose can be narration in the prose or ‘backstory’. Backstory is you as the author trying to tell your reader things. Prologues, flashbacks, thinking about the past, remembering the past and even dreams are all backstory. You should never tell your reader anything, you should show them the story.

         a. Example: The prologue tells the reader about the birth of the main character and how their parents died in a war. Even if this is actively written, it is basically you saying ‘Once upon a time…’ Readers want to meet the main character and get into the current story. The story about their parents is a different story. It’s not what they wanted to read, so they toss the book aside. By introducing this at the beginning, you are alienating your reader from your main character. You can start with the main character visiting their parent’s grave instead and give out the same information in present time, while also introducing the main conflict at the same time (eg: they’ve been drafted and don’t know what to do about it). The story belongs to the main character. It is their story. They belong on page one, not some person from the past.

Technically, you can often spot backstory by the use of ‘had been’ in a sentence. A sentence with ‘had been’ in it is often backstory about to make an appearance. But a misused prologue will have the same ‘backstory’ effect.

Facts about prologues: 50% of readers don’t even read the prologue. They skip to chapter one. The correct use of a prologue is not as an active part of the story. It’s meant to be dull information. Why use one and start with a dull beginning?

Narration vs Active Prose

The difference between active prose and passive prose is narration. A lot of authors put themselves into the story by telling the story. This is a major issue for readers. When an author tells the story, they take their reader and place them into a boring white room while they read to them:

‘Cory was held up by the bank robber.’ <== Boring as hell isn’t it?

This is an author telling a story, narrating to the reader in a boring white room. The reader is going to start looking for something else to do rather than listen to the story. It’s a lazy way to describe a scene.

Active prose will come from the characters. The character will show the reader the story, thus putting them inside the story where they can smell the roses, feel the heartache, fight the battles. It’s when a book becomes an exciting experience:

‘Cory frowned as he entered the bank. Crap. I hope my wages have come in or the landlord is going to—. His mind froze as he stared down the barrel of a shotgun. “Get down on the floor.” The bank robber pushed the gun into his face, knocking him to his knees.’ <== Much more exciting to read isn’t it?

This is the same scene written in active prose. Be your character, not the narrator, and your readers will fall into your story and enjoy every moment.

A technical way to find passive prose is to look for sentences with the words ‘was’ and ‘by’ in them. Any sentence that uses both ‘was’ and ‘by’ is going to be narration.

Conclusion

Although most rules can be broken in structure, at the start of a popular fiction you don’t want any of these issues to appear in your writing. The first three chapters of the book are the ones that will hook your reader, but ideally you want your first sentence to hook them. If you make it hard for the reader to get into the story, most won’t continue reading. Cut the prologue, start where the story starts (at the event that introduces the main conflict for the main character) and keep it active.