I have a favorite author, one who writes both sci-fi and fantasy. I really enjoy all his work, in both genres. However, I’m not going to name him because I am going to dissect what I love and don’t love about his work.
I never write a review for books I don’t love, and I have reviewed most, but not all, of his work. In this post, I’m going to point out things I notice with my editorial eye and which I want to avoid in my own work, so I’m not naming names.
Let’s start by saying this: the things I don’t love about his work come from having a contract with deadlines to produce two books every year, installments for two widely differing series. That is a commitment he is well able to honor, as he has been publishing two and sometimes three a year since the late 1980s.
The upside of his meeting his deadlines is this: I get an installment in my favorite series every year.
But the downside is that he has a contract and deadlines he must meet.
First, let’s talk about what I like:
His main characters are engaging from page one. I’m always hooked and want to see where he is going to take them.
The main character always has a good arc of growth and is easy to like.
In most installments of my favorite series, the author’s worldbuilding is excellent. One can easily visualize the settings, whether we are in a future space environment or a world where magic exists. He creates mood and atmosphere with an economy of words.
Science is always grounded in known and theoretical physics.
He has excellent systems for the two types of magic inherent in his fantasy world. They fit seamlessly into the story and feel plausible. They both have a learning curve, and even inadvertent misuse of magic can be lethal, so learning is required.
The societies in all his worlds, whether sci-fi or fantasy, are shown through the main character’s eyes. They are believable and feel personal.
What I don’t love about his work:
While I deeply enjoy his work, the author could use a sharp editor, one who’s not swamped with deadlines. The line editing is mostly adequate, but in recent books, one descriptor (sweetly) is used more than a few times and not to good advantage. “I thought so,” she said sweetly.
I dislike that phrasing because it diminishes the female love interest, making her sound a little snarky, as if she feels superior to the protagonist. I doubt that is the author’s intention, but that turn of phrase occurs more than a few times in more than one novel. Whether the main character is a man or a woman, the love interest is often two-dimensional, and this has been a thing throughout the last five or six books in this series.
I forgive that, because I like the main characters, the world, and love the plots.
Structurally, things can be a bit rough. The characters repeat what they have already done at every opportunity, covering old ground and stalling the momentum. Also, they frequently use the phrase “you deserve it” whenever the rewards of their accomplishments come up in conversation.
The main flaw that is showing up in the most recent installments would be fatal in an Indie’s work. It is something that would be ironed out if our author had a full year to take his manuscript through revisions, rather than only six months. Each time the MC is introduced to someone, his accomplishments are brought up and discussed with awe. Whenever he runs into a fellow officer, which is fairly often, they have heard of his exploits through the grapevine and feel compelled to rehash them.
This is aggravating and slows the pacing.
Finally, proofing the finished product seems to have been rushed. This author has a big-name publisher, so one would think they would put a little effort into the final product.
Overall, this author’s work is good and deserves publication. None of these issues occurs often enough to derail the books, and a reader who isn’t a writer would likely never notice them. I can see how they flew under the radar.
It is important for authors to re-read the books they fall in love with. We rarely notice flaws on a first time through. If we do, we ignore them in favor of the story.
When you read a beloved book a second time, look at it with a critical eye.
Analyze what you like about the structure, worldbuilding, and character creation, and apply those principles to your work.
Recognize what doesn’t work and make notes when you come across something that slows the pacing or diminishes a character. Look for those flaws in your own work during revisions.
I have been making headway with my writing goals this November. Most of the plot is finalized, but it is still in outline form and will likely change as the story evolves.
On Saturday, I crossed the 40,000-word mark at ProWritingAid’s Novel November. Most of what I’ve written (30,000 or so words) is background, stuff that won’t make it into the story but which helps me sort out the plot.
I have learned to write the background fluff in a separate document. When I begin filling out a now-skeletal plot, I have the information I need to flesh out a scene.
And hopefully, when I finally get this novel to the revisions stage, I will have an eye for the flaws. My writing group is sharp and when they beta read one of my manuscripts, they give me good advice.
The real trick is keeping the lid on my own repetitive words and gratuitous rehashing. Hopefully, in a year or two, my finished product will be a smooth read.
It follows that certain words become a kind of mental shorthand, small packets of letters that contain a world of images and meaning for us. Code words are the author’s multi-tool—a compact tool that combines several individual functions in a single unit. One word, one packet of letters will serve many purposes and convey a myriad of mental images.
I want to avoid that sin in my work, but what are my code words? What words are being inadvertently overused as descriptors? A good way to discover this is to make a word cloud. The words that see the most screen time will be the largest. 
endured
Sometimes, the only thing that works is the brief image of a smile. Nothing is more boring than reading a story where a person’s facial expressions take center stage. As a reader, I want to know what is happening inside our characters and can be put off by an exaggerated outward display.
If you don’t have it already, a book you might want to invest in is 
NEVER DELETE months of work. Don’t trash what could be the seeds of another novel. Save it in an outtakes file and use it later. I give the subfile a name like HA_outtakes_20Dec2022. That file name tells me the cut chapters were last changed on December 20, 2022.
Then, I give the second draft a new file name: Heavens_Altar_version_2, which becomes the version I work on out of the main file folder.
Either way, the characters will be profoundly changed from who they thought they were on page one, becoming who they are when the final sentence is written. The character arc is formed by their experiences.
True inspiration is not an everlasting firehose of ideas. Sometimes there are dry spells. If you take another look at the work you have cut and saved in an outtakes file, you might see it with fresh eyes. You might see the seeds of a different story, and the fire for writing will be reignited.
We add the details when we begin the revision process. One of the elements we look for in our narrative is pacing, or how the story flows from the opening scene to the final pages.
This string of scenes is like the ocean. It has a kind of rhythm, a wave action we call pacing. Pacing is created by the way an author links actions and events, stitching them together with quieter scenes: transitions.
Internal monologues should humanize our characters and show them as clueless about their flaws and strengths. It should even show they are ignorant of their deepest fears and don’t know how to achieve their goals. With that said, we must avoid “head-hopping.” The best way to avoid confusion is to give a new chapter to each point-of-view character. Head-hopping occurs when an author describes the thoughts of two point-of-view characters within a single scene.
In some ways, novels are machines. Internally, each book is comprised of many essential components. If one element fails, the story won’t work the way I envision it.
So, realizing I knew nothing was the first positive thing I did for myself. I made it my business to learn all I could, even though I will never achieve perfection.
I use this function rather than reading it aloud myself, as I tend to see and read aloud what I think should be there rather than what is.
This is a long process that involves a lot of stopping and starting, taking me a week to get through an entire 90,000-word manuscript. I will have trimmed about 3,000 words by the end of phase one. I will have caught many typos and miskeyed words and rewritten many clumsy sentences.
This is the phase where I look for info dumps, passive phrasing, and timid words. These telling passages are codes for the author, laid down in the first draft. They are signs that a section needs rewriting to make it visual rather than telling. Clunky phrasing and info dumps are signals telling me what I intend that scene to be. I must cut some of the info and allow the reader to use their imagination.
Editing programs operate on algorithms and don’t understand context. I am wary of relying on Grammarly or ProWriting Aid for anything other than alerting you to possible problems. If you blindly obey every suggestion made by editing programs, you will turn your manuscript into a mess.
Now you must set it aside, as you must gain a little distance from it to see it with a clear eye. This is where I seek an outside opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of my proto-novel. I am fortunate to have a local writing group of highly talented published authors. I also trade services with several editors. When the first draft of my manuscript is finished, I send it to a reader. While they are reading it, I work on something completely different.
In my current work, the thoughts and motives of the characters are critical to the midpoint event and subsequent crisis of faith. Yes, who these people are, and their place in the story at the point where we meet them is crucial to the plot.
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 