My Best Five Suggestions for Becoming a Better Author, by R Clint Peters

I recently received an email with the following question:  What are your five best suggestions to become a better author?  After a few days of thought, I have compiled a list.

First, read in your genre.  If you want to write adventure novels, spend the day in our local library, collecting adventure novels.  If you like romance, spend the day in the romance shelves.  If you like historical novels, find the history shelves.

My favorite author is John D. MacDonald.  My favorite character is Travis McGee, whom I discovered in my senior year in high school.  I had transferred to a small town in Washington State from Canada half-way through my junior year.  I had enough credits to graduate that same year, but was missing one class:  Washington State History.  It was, unfortunately, a freshman class, and I took it when I was a senior.  I had lots of time to sit in the library.

Second, learn about SHOW, DON’T TELL.  This often forgotten rule can turn almost acceptable prose into garbage.

In the three years I have been attempting to be an author, I have read in excess of a thousand novels.  Some of them, I have reviewed, but the majority I have not, other than to post some critiques in The Author’s Club blog of the novels I thought were the worst I’d read.  There have been many.

The majority of the novels receiving very low reviews have been ones that have failed the show, don’t tell test.  These were not necessarily books that hadn’t gotten high review numbers, some of them had, but these were books that could have been better if I hadn’t been compelled to read twenty pages of narration that put me to sleep.

To learn more about Show, Don’t Tell, take a trip on the Internet Express.

Third, cultivate your family and friends to become proofreaders and editors.   I once investigated the cost of third-party proofreading and editing.  Sorry, I haven’t sold enough books to afford a professional editor.

However, there are several rules available on the Internet for self-editing your books.  First is, don’t exceed twenty words per sentence.  Most people think in blocks of twenty words, not sixty.  And don’t have three primary thoughts crammed into those sixty words.  One thought is sufficient.  The biggest complaint offered for my fist novels was “I really like your writing, but I don’t understand it.”   I thought in sixty-word sentences with three topics.  Condensing things was a difficult feat.

Fourth, find worthwhile textbooks about writing.   There are a myriad of textbooks about writing, but I would like to address your attention to four:

Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress The Technology of Fiction Writing by Robert Sanders Dowst How to Write a Novel: a Practical Guide to the Art of Fiction by Anonymous Fiction Writer’s Workshop by Josip Novakovich

I am confident there are more books about writing than these four, but I suggest these four.

Finally, write, write, write.  At various times, I have had six novels in various stages of production.  As I write this blog, I have four novels at least three-fourths finished.  Several weeks ago, the ideas for The God Project sprang from my word processor.  Initially, it was a single short story, but soon grew into a six chapter novella.  (If you’d like to review The God Project, send me an email: rclintpeters@gmail.com.)

Most of the self-help section of the local library has more books about writing than I’m willing to read in this lifetime.  I didn’t start out to be a new Hemingway, and I’m certainly fulfilling my dreams.  But, I have several books in publication, and every three months, a small check arrives in the mail.