Category: Craft & Critical Readers (Page 1 of 2)

July 14, 2024 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

LGBTQIA+ Visibility

Writing Diverse Characters LGBTQIA+ will cover; general advice on referring to humans’ gender and romantic/sex lives in a queer inclusive way, that doesn’t perpetuate the myth of heteronormativity. It will offer suggestions on writing that queer rep that is visibly inclusive of a range of LGBTQIA+ identities, avoiding erasure, and some tips on writing authentic LGBTQIA+ representation.

Inclusive Language

As a child, I assumed books referring to ‘humans’ were talking about men, women and children. By around age eight (in the 1990’s), I became aware that history was mostly written about men, by men, for men. Meanwhile most news was about men and lo and behold, men were the usual main characters in fiction. I grew up in a world that frequently ignored, omitted and when it got away with it, excluded women, let alone the entire LGBTQIA+ community.

Now I write as a nonbinary, asexual, aromantic person who mostly encounters fiction which ignores, excludes and appears mostly oblivious to the existence of my gender and sexuality. This is why I want writers to make conscious word choices, which allow people of any gender or sexual orientation to see themselves in your writing and to perceive themselves as belonging in the world of your fiction. So I’ll start there, before looking at writing specific queer identities.

Gender Inclusive Phrasing

In How Not To Write Diverse Characters, I mentioned the inherent bias and prejudice of the world in which we have all been raised. In relation to perceiving gender in books, there’s the still the chance readers will assume your use of the words; ‘doctors’, ‘police,’ ‘lawyers,’ ‘scientists,’ ‘soldiers’ and jobs in historically male-dominated fields refer to men. Conversely, they may assume your ‘teachers’ and ‘nurses’ are women and that no term refers to nonbinary people.

To get around this, I suggest also using gendered nouns when referring to people whose job title readers may assume refer to men. In my Ruarnon Trilogy, the umbrella term for nonbinary genders is ‘midlun.’ So when referring to soldiers, I refer to ‘men, women and midluns’. In our world, you could refer to ‘men women and nonbinary people.’ Explicitly mentioning nonbinary people has the added bonus of implying that ‘men’ and ‘women’ both very much include trans men and trans women.

LGBTQIA+ Sexuality Inclusive Writing

This is simple. A character mentions having a crush on someone, dating someone, finding someone attractive or having a partner. Do you have other characters respond using gender neutral language, until they know the pronouns/ gender of the love interest/ partner?

This is not just gender diverse inclusive by not assigning gender on the basis of names. Its acknowledging that people of any gender can be attracted to any gender and that gay, lesbian, bi and pansexual identities exist and it challenges the idea that cis/heterosexual is the ‘norm.’

Your characters use of gender neutral language in reference to, and their interest in the love interest/partner suggests and normalise those characters acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and pansexual relationships. A small gesture from you as a writer, that can mean a lot to readers within the LGBTQIA+ community.

Everyday Situations to Show Gender Inclusion

Gendered Bathrooms & Clothes Shops

If you’re a cis, binary gender writer, you may not yet feel ready to (having researched us), include nonbinary characters in your cast. But you can acknowledge the existence of nonbinary people, and help the world realise we exist without doing that.

Little things, like having a toilet with an icon of a person half in a dress and half in pants to signal a gender neutral toilet. Or including ‘Mx.’ as on option for titles in paperwork your characters fill in. Hell, you could go wild and have a department store with a gender neutral clothing section instead of Ladies-wear and Mens-ware only! (I would LOOOOOVVVVE this! Why on earth does clothing almost ALWAYs ‘have’ to be sold by binary gender? GAH!)

Gender Inclusive Character Introductions

Again, even if you have no trans or nonbinary characters, when characters meet new people in your fiction, have them mention their pronouns as well as their names. Having someone say, “Hey, I’m Tom, he/him” acknowledges that just because Tom’s biological sex is likely male doesn’t mean he is therefore, necessarily male. And when you stop assuming that, you signal the possibility that trans and nonbinary people exist. Suddenly we’re no longer invisible in the world of your writing.

Not Being Exclusive

Gender Roles/ Gendered Jobs

Try to be conscious of situations where characters take on gender roles, or are divided and required to act by gender. I don’t just mean go beyond sexist, heteronormative tropes like dad is the breadwinner, and mum is stay at home housewife (cue vomit). Be conscious of fields and jobs in our world (like front line soldiers, or in the Australian conservative political party, cabinet ministers) where women tend to be excluded and men to dominate.

If you’re going to have female sex workers, have male ones. Female strippers? Where are the naked men? Housewife? Where’s the house husband? Why are all the presidents men? Write more male teachers, nurses and happy, healthy fathers! Write women soldiers/ crime bosses, presidents etc. Have nonbinary characters do literally any job under the sun; because if we’re out, we’re not going to let biological sex get in our way!

Bottom line; consciously avoid limiting roles by gender! (Unless its your plot/ historical, BUT some people have ALWAYS defied binary gender norms –look at women pirates of the 19th and 20th centuries, for eg.)

Gender and Traditional Culture

In My Big Fat Wedding 3, there’s a scene where the bride asks women to line up on one side of the room and copy her dance, and the groom asks men to line up on his side and copy his dance. And I thought, but what will the nonbinary character do?

First they danced with the men and did the men’s dance. Then they switched to the women’s side and did the women’s dance. The other dancers were visibly fine with this. Its a great example of how characters in your story may adhere to traditional gender norms, but there can still be a place for gender nonconforming characters.

So if you have traditional gender roles in your writing, how will you create space for nonbinary and gender nonconforming people to exist in your fictional world?

Gendered Magic Systems

I’m a BIG fan of Wheel of Time and well aware it was written before it occurred to nonbinary people such as myself that we needn’t accept ill-fitting binary pronouns, nor conform to binary norms, nor had even heard the word ‘nonbinary’. So I don’t feel left out when women wield Saidar, and men wield Saidin and nonbinary people don’t seem to exist in the world the wheel weaves. But if you’re writing now, and planning a gendered magic system —don’t forget to think carefully how you’ll include gender nonconforming people!

How I Included Gender Diversity in Magic Orders

In my third novel (War in Sorcery’s Shadow), magic and its wielders live in hiding. Children who can wield magic are taught by secret organisations. Sorcery being first mastered during a sexist age, and used in violence against women, Luvaras Priests (Luvaras being god of sorcery) teach boys magic, and Luvaras Priestesses created a safe space to teach girls magic separately.

But if magical education is binary gendered, and gendered behaviours are encouraged because of the gender segregation of magical learning, what about kids who aren’t binary male or female? Who teaches them? So came a third order, The Devoted, adults of various nonbinary genders who educate children of similar identities. Unbound by binary notions of gender, these tend to be the most flexible, and some of the most highly skilled sorcerers on Umarinaris. (Also because many of them are neurodiverse, and or physically disabled).

My point being: consider situations where a scene may divide your characters by gender, and consciously create a space for nonbinary and gender nonconforming characters to be present as their authentic selves.

Situations where people relate to one another, select their clothes and otherwise behave according to binary gender ‘norms’ are when I feel most like a bystander, a visitor passing through (yes, I relate to Dr Who in this) in life and fiction. Its a big disconnect I’ve felt my whole life. And spending a moment to phrase a sentence gender inclusively, or mention a minor character’s nonbinary existence in passing can easily change that disconnection for your gender-nonconforming readers to a feeling of inclusion.

Writing Visible Trans Characters

I assume if you’re still reading, I assume you disagree with US states legislating gender diverse people out of existence and are concerned about respectfully representing trans people in your fiction. I’ve spoken to writers who’ve said, ‘I write my trans woman as a woman, because she’s a woman, but how do I show that she’s trans?’
If you don’t indicate she’s trans, let alone show it clearly, there’s every chance she’ll be cis-washed by cis readers who assume she’s yet another cis woman.

Trans Visibility

If your character has socially (and perhaps medically) transitioned and is living their best life presenting as their gender identity, how do you indicate that they are indeed trans? How do you respectfully let trans readers see themselves on the page and acknowledge and normalise the existence of trans characters in your writing? How do you do so in a way that feels natural to the story and doesn’t come across as forced?

It could be as simple as a pronoun slip. A character refers to your trans/ nonbinary character by the wrong binary pronoun, then apologises and corrects the pronoun. If the pronoun change occurred in recent years, you could even have another character comment about, ‘we’re all learning’, to indicate that characters are still adjusting to the trans character’s social transition.

What if you want to be more explicit, and ensure that trans presences in your work are indeed seen, and not cis-gender washed? You could go further, as Dr Who did with Donna’s trans daughter Rose. In a scene where boys are teasing Rose as she enters her house, Donna’s mother says to Donna, ‘They didn’t pick on him when he was– sorry.’ Thus Rose’s trans identity is explicitly shown, in a respectful manner.

For more on writing trans characters, see this great advice by Charlie Jane.

Nonbinary Visibility

This can also be as simple to reveal as a pronoun slip. When my nonbinary character Ruarnon meets a foreign dignitary who refers to Ruarnon as ‘he’, Ruarnon’s advisor says, ‘their Benevelonce uses they.’ For people who are ‘up’ with pronouns, its clear we’re dealing with a nonbinary character.

The catch is, I came out as nonbinary in 2020 and had a complete stranger politely respond to my public request to be referred to as they/them by saying, ‘I’m not sure what that means.’ This amounted to, ‘I don’t know what ‘nonbinary’ means.’ My family and colleagues response was pretty much, ‘We like/ love you, but we don’t really get what nonbinary is.’

So how can writers explicitly and respectfully signal that a character is nonbinary (and perhaps what that could mean)? And how will this be relevant to the story?

Nonbinary Visibility and Inclusive Language

This is where inclusive language choices come in. When you are referring to a crowd, consider how you refer not just to ‘men and women’ or ‘ladies and gentleman.’ In my Ruarnon Trilogy, I invented a word for nonbinary (midlun) and when naming genders I state; men, women AND midluns.

If there’s a show, consider ‘ladies, gentlemen and friends beyond the binary,’ or if you’re North American, ‘guys, gals and nonbinary pals.’ Consider, ‘colleagues,’ ‘friends’, ‘folks’, ‘people’ or a gender inclusive term instead of ‘ladies’ when its a group of women and one nonbinary person, or vice versa with men. (Every time people at work address me and female colleagues as ‘ladies’ I have to remind myself that they include me in that term, because I’ve never seen myself in it and would otherwise feel excluded by it).

Beyond that, if your they/them has a beard and is wearing a dress, or doesn’t wear make up when everyone else expects them to, or pairs a ‘men’s’ top with a ‘women’s’ skirt or makes gender ambiguous clothing choices —we’ll get the picture. Especially with gender inclusive language and nonbinary pronouns in use (whether it be they/them pronouns or neo pronouns like ne/nir).

Asexual Visibility

Again, I’m flagging this individually as a lesser known queer identity, in this case one the asexuals I know often feel writers get wrong. A common mistake seems to labelling a character as ‘asexual’ and then having them behave like an allosexual person. If you want to write an asexual character, the first thing you need to do is know that asexual (like ‘nonbinary’) is an umbrella term and will present in different ways for different asexual people.

So when it comes to actually showing an asexual character, you might show them date someone and become very emotionally attached before showing any signs of being sexually attracted to them (demisexual). You may have a character who will read/ view a sex scene but expresses disinterest in having sex with another person (aegosexual). You may write a character who expresses no interest in sexual or romantic relationships and is perfectly content with the platonic relationships in their life (*waves in aromantic asexual*).

If you don’t know much about asexuality or writing asexual characters, The Asexual Awareness and Education Centre is a good place to start.

Bi and Pansexual Visibility

To step out of my lane for a moment, don’t be the heterosexual writer who writes ‘bisexual’ or ‘pansexual’ characters who only ever demonstrate attraction to, or interest in, the opposite biological sex. Absolutely, your bisexual or pansexual character could be a woman in a long-term, monogamous relationship with a man, or vice versa (and yes, still totally bi/ pan). But if you only write that character attracted to or showing interest in people of the opposite biological sex (and their life isn’t endangered by demonstrating queer attraction); you’re mislabelling a heterosexual character ‘bisexual/ pansexual’/ or just plain misrepresenting bi/pansexual people.

Writing outside your identity means writing outside your personal life experience. It means questioning every assumption and thing you personally consider ‘normal’. For queer identities, this can mean throwing everything you know/ assume/ have personally experienced about gender, sexual and romantic attraction out the window. Don’t forget to step out of your shoes, before trying to step into those of a character from a different identity to yours.

Queer Character and Relationship Visibility & Queer Normative

If you haven’t explicitly decided whether settings in your book are going to be queer normative, queer positive or trans/homophobic, now is the time to decide. Will it be safe for recognisably queer couples to engage in public displays of affection? Will your same-sex couples dance intimately together on the public dance floor? Will they kiss at sunset on the beach? Will you have a same-sex married couple(s) or marriage?

What spaces are publicly out trans and nonbinary people seen and known to occupy? Which positions and which institutions are trans, nobinary and recognisable characters of all LGBTQIA+ identities employed in? The level of LGBTQIA+ normativeness/ acceptance etc can be clearly indicated by these things. (Same can be asked and shown of women characters and levels of sexism in your society).

Queer Normative Representation in Speculative Fiction

If you’re writing speculative fiction, this is where you can say ‘yes’ to all of the above. Heck, you can write a world where whenever a character mentions being attracted to someone or having a partner, no one makes assumptions about that person’s gender.

You can write a world in which no one refers to a child using binary pronouns until that child has decided and articulated which pronouns fit them (and in which everyone respects that child changing their mind, because its for the individual to identify their gender, not for society to impose gender on anyone).

If only the heterosexual couple get to kiss, you’ve normalised that, but are you also normalising the idea that queer couples don’t (or shouldn’t) display affection for each other? Or are you writing a queer couple in a way that homophobic readers can easily interpret as ‘just friends’, thus erasing their queer identities?

If you genuinely want to write inclusively I’m sure the above is not your intention. The problem is the above interpretations align with age-old prejudices and are easy for readers to make, if there is a double standard in how you present marginalised vs. non-marginalised sexualities. So be conscious of times when you treat a marginalised character differently (in anyway, full stop), how you’re treating them differently and clear on your purpose in doing so.

Inclusive Fiction Examples

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 has a nonbinary mayor who is the epitome of queer joy, and a perfect example of letting a character be their authentic queer self and other characters being cool with it.

Umbrella Academy (Netflix) has a trans and a nonbinary pansexual main character, who just happen to be two of seven siblings at the centre of the world’s destruction. Its also in the ‘be gay, do crime’ genre, trans Victor being very troubled and destructive, and Klaus a (recovering) drug addict. This is a great example of how when characters just happen to be marginalised, they can also happen to be anything else. (Fall of the House of Usher takes ‘be gay, do crime’ to even greater extremes, though serious dark horror warning on that one).

Imperfects (Netflix) does double duty with an asexual character whose sexuality is initially shown through her taste in skin-covering, not-too-clingy clothing, who’s romantically attracted to women.

People To Help You Write The Other

Find Sensitivity Readers or Editors

Bisexual/ Pansexual/ Fluidity Sensitivity Readers Spreadsheet (lists emails of 100+ sensitivity readers, courtesy of @saltandsagebook).

As with other marginalised identities, post on whichever social media you use, and or search posts for sensitivity readers (I’ve seen a few offering their services on Bsky).

Writing Diverse Characters (3): LGBTQIA+ Incusivity

Stay In Your Lane -Defined by Vaela & Micah

Every book should have diversity. Every book that shows our world or a world like ours, should have it. And that’s why it’s important to distinguish between – writing a marginalized character vs – writing the struggles of a marginalized character.

Basically, write your Black or Indigenous characters, but don’t write their oppression and their struggle against it unless you are a member of that group. If you haven’t experienced that struggle, it is not your place to portray it as though you know it. You don’t.

You might know what their oppression looks like from the outside, but don’t try to tell stories that quite literally aren’t yours. That’s not diversity, that’s appropriation.

Even when simply putting marginalized characters into your books, it’s a good idea to hire a sensitivity reader of that character’s community. Sensitivity readers can stop glaring flaws and offensive depictions, and can enrich and add to a marginalized character with their own experiences and input.

Research is of course always important. And here it’s necessary that it’s not a matter of “how much research is enough,” but rather that research is a process. Learning about other identities is a continual process, and one that is usually never finished. But it’s well worth it.

You can read Vaela and Micah’s full thread here.

Know Why You’re Writing This Marginalised Character

Before we dive into the writing of diverse characters, I think its important to be clear about which diverse identities you’re including and why. Intent gives you purpose, and guides how you go about completing a task. So consider: are you writing a marginalised identity to:

Have people in your story world resemble the diversity of humanity in real life?

Have marginalised readers pick up your book and see themselves on its pages? And realise this isn’t yet another book about other people, its actually about them too?

To spread awareness (of any particular?) marginalised people’s existence and or to normalise their presence in fiction?

To give non-marginalised people the chance to emotionally connect with/ relate to/ sympathise with marginalised people they may not interact with in real life? (This is easier when you’re writing own voices, but likely if you’re an empathetic writer, though I’d recommend a sensitivity reader if this is part of your purpose or inclination.)

To subvert, challenge or destroy stereotypes with more rounded, more authentic representation of a certain identities? (Great, though again I suggest a sensitivity reader to help you with the ‘authentic’ part).

Write Inclusively

When you first plan characters, think outside the box of your own identities, life experience and upbringing. Every character who sets foot on the page is an opportunity for diversity. That assistant might use speech to text technology to make notes because they’re dyslexic. That autistic side character may hesitate to join the party because bright lights, loud music and crowds make them deeply uncomfortable. The friend your MC confides in may bounce from one topic to another at great speed in conversation, because they have ADHD or are in a hyper stage of bipolar.

Job one on my writing diverse characters list is: look for opportunities to incidentally reveal that a character is in some way a marginalised person. If you do this for multiple identities, you could tick the ‘writing a world as diverse as our own box’ —even if only minor characters in your story are diverse. You’d also be raising awareness of and normalising the existence of people with these identities, and letting marginalised people glimpse themselves on the page. Sure, this is surface and entry level stuff, but if you’re new to writing diverse characters, this is all it takes to get started.

Writing Inclusive, Non-alienating Descriptions

To ensure you do write inclusively, its good to monitor if there are any times in your story when a marginalised character is singled out or alienated from the other characters (or the reader). Some of these times may reflect prejudice, bigotry and or discrimination in the world of your story, as you intend. But some may not.

For example, describing the appearance of people of colour and not white characters. Not commenting on white characters accessories, but being sure to point out the character wearing a turban or hijab. Or not describing what the white kids eat at lunch time, but mentioning the ‘strange’ meats in sauces and green or purple, crumpet-like bread the African kids are eating.

If you only describe the appearance and culture of characters who aren’t like you, you’re positioning them so its obvious how ‘other’ and ‘different’ and ‘not like us/ the other characters’ the marginalised characters are. You’re positioning them to be isolated from fellow characters and the reader the moment you introduce them. So when it comes to describing marginalised characters, try to evade double standards in what you do and don’t mention about appearances and culture.

Write Fully Rounded Diverse Characters,
Not Defined by their ‘diverse’ identity

Focus on the big picture of your ‘diverse’ characters —initially. Consider their family, friends, foes, hopes, dreams etc. Don’t let what makes them different define the way you write them. Give them strengths, weaknesses, backstory, aspirations, fears, loves etc —like your other characters. And don’t let how they are ‘different’ define their aspirations, fears, backstory etc. Let characters exist beyond the manner in which they are marginalised.

What this Means (in part) for Disabled Characters

Yes, if your character is disabled/ neurodiverse, this may mean researching assistive technology and or strategies/ adjustments/ treatments that enable your characters to pursue their dreams despite the limitations of their disability. Don’t just write them off because they’re vision impaired, or ‘its too crowded for an autistic person to function’ or ‘all soldiers must depend solely on brute force to survive battle’ —must they?

I would love to see more disabled characters finding ways to work with/ around their disability, at the heart of stories action. So often in action movies, fantasy, SciFi even in romance you see the muscular man. The thin woman. Physically ‘attractive’ people with 20-20 vision, all of their limbs and senses functioning at full capacity, unimpeded by chronic illness or disability, their brains mostly co-operating with them.

There’s a saying, ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’. And I’ve seen so few fictional characters readers with disabilities can aspire to be. So please include disabled characters in your books! (But not to inspire or motivate other characters/ the reader. There’s a lot of issues with that, explored unapologetically in this article by a disabled author.)

Write Your Diverse Adult Characters as Adults

Certain marginalised identities get infantilised. My open, honest expression of ADHD excitement and impulsivity often leads people to view me as 15-20 years younger than I am. Sure, I can be a big kid by nature (and enjoy doing so). I also hold the views of the highly educated, extensively life experienced adult that I am. But people who stereotype me because of my ADHD, or mistake my unfiltered ADHD behaviour for lack of intelligence, are oblivious to my adult capacity.

Asexual people can also be infantilised. Like they aren’t ‘grown up enough’ to want to have sex with other people, or to be sexually attracted to other people. Just in case anyone is confused: having sex with other people is not a milestone of maturity that must be crossed to claim adult status. A tiny minority of the population do not experience sexual attraction to other people (or don’t unless they’re already emotionally intimate) and may not wish to have sex with other people *waves in asexual*.

Then there are disabled people or older people, particularly those dependent on carers to, for example, get in and out of the shower. Just because a person’s physical capacity is reduced does not mean they lack the maturity, life experience and knowledge —the intellect— of the adult they are. (Alzheimer’s and Dementia being more variable, grey categories here).

Then there’s white characters longing to save poor, ‘helpless’ people of colour —the white saviours I warned you to avoid writing in my diverse characters big don’ts blog. I suspect all white saviours are infantilising people of colour.

So even if your marginalised character appears to you ‘child-like’ in some way, don’t lose sight of the knowledge, experience and intellectual capacity they also have as an adult —and write it.

Know the Specific Identity
& Write It Authentically

Stop assuming (anything). Step out of your shoes. Put yourself in your character’s shoes. This is where you start researching the particular identity/ marginalisation you’re representing.

What May be Normal for That Identity?

Once you’ve tried to step out of your life experience and the expectations it and your upbringing, culture etc have given you, its time to research what may be normal for the diverse identity you are writing, so you can imagine their world. I stress ‘may be normal for that identity’ because as they tell us in teacher training, ‘if you have met one person with autism, you have met one person with autism.’ People’s experiences will vary, even among people with the same diverse identity, especially if that person/ character is marginalised in multiple ways.

Possible Examples of Marginalised Identity ‘Normal’

-always eating with your hands (some people of colour).

-using assistive devices to read/ write/ view/ move (some disabled people).

-carefully pacing yourself with physical activities and balancing them with rest every day. And avoiding prolonged standing or sitting (disabled people with chronic/ invisible illness, particularly chronic fatigue and long covid).

-a preference for uncluttered, neutral coloured, quiet living, working and digital spaces (actually autistic and ADHD people).

-a predisposition to assume they have done something wrong, or their company is unwanted (some forms of anxiety).

-struggling to get out of bed or perform physical activities because you’re so weighed down by the pointlessness of everything (one experience of depression).

-characters buying and wearing clothing and accessories irrespective of their biological sex (many trans and some nonbinary people).

-being attracted to and dating people of the opposite or multiple genders or being in a romantic/ sexual relationship with more than one partner (LGBTQIA+).

-not being sexually or romantically attracted to anyone, period (some asexual spectrum people).

How Might A Marginalised Identity
Not Conform to Majority Expectations?

As marginalised characters live different versions of ‘normal’ than non-marginalised characters, there are times when marginalised will not behave the same way as other characters. They may not even behave in ways many people expect, or defy other character’s (and the reader’s) expectations. So in showing each diverse person, consider the contexts in which they may present/ feel/ think/ behave differently to non-marginalised people.

A Disabled example of Nonconformity

Your characters attend a public event where everyone is expected to stand. It may be a person in a wheel chair who remains seated. Or maybe its someone with an invisible illness like long covid, chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromalgia limiting their stamina and making prolonged standing (more than a few minutes) painful, uncomfortable and or impossible. (I really should have got medical exemption from yard duty and standing during assembly when I had long covid).

A Gender Diverse Example

Its a special occasion. Men are wearing suits and women are wearing fancy dresses. But do all women want to wear dresses? And what are nonbinary people wearing? Are there feminine and masculine suits? Suit jackets with skirts? Is the gender of everyone’s formal clothing matching their biological sex (assigned at birth)? And as a nonbinary person, let me tell you that gender diverse people’s clothes may not fit their figure as well as cis people’s —where our gender identity expression and biological sex don’t match.

Asexual Spectrum Example

Your characters are teenagers and everyone is gossiping about their boyfriend, girlfriend or whoever they have a crush on. Except the asexual, aromantic character. They don’t seem to ‘like’ anyone in the same way people ‘like’ them or that their friends ‘like’ people of the opposite/ same sex/ both. (*waves in asexual aromantic*)

First Nations’ People Example

Its the characters national country day. Everyone is celebrating the public holiday with family meals. Except the country’s First Nations people, who are holding a national day of mourning and commemorating being invaded and colonised. (*jabs finger at Australia and tells their country to get its shit sorted*).

ADHD Example

Technology is being a nuisance in your characters office. Everyone is logically trying to problem solve it, aside from the wildly impatient ADHD character. They keep leaping between multiple solutions, forgeting what they’ve tried, why it didn’t work or what to do next. And get frustrated because tech is moving so slowly they’ve forgotten why they had that tab open and the three things they planned to do after it. Because when things move slowly they swiftly become bored, then distracted by multiple other things. (*waves in ADHD*)

Mind Your Words

Two Wrong Words about a Nonbinary Character= BAD

Without context and knowledge, you can incidentally, needlessly slap marginalised readers in the face. I experienced it in a review of my debut. The reviewers clearly, sincerely wanted to encourage nonbinary main characters. But in reviewing my book, they criticised the ‘gender reveal’ of my nonbinary MC.

If you know anything about current transphobia, you’ll know that since 2008, ‘Gender Reveal Parties’ have celebrated how a baby’s biological sex ‘reveals’ their gender identity. You’ll know such a perspective erases the existence of trans and nonbinary people and recognise ‘gender reveal parties’ as the transphobic practice they are. But if you didn’t know this -words matter, history matters and context matters.

I can give you additional context here too. No-one ever refers to the ‘gender reveal’ of a male or female character. Because we know the character will be male or female. We expect it. Its ‘normal’. And sometimes we forget nonbinary people exist, and they’re never main characters, so when we come across one as a main character its like, ‘Oh yeah! Nonbinary people exist (and can be characters, even main characters). I forgot! What a revelation!’

Here I am, being referred to by the wrong pronouns (by people who know my pronouns) and mis-gendered by strangers everyday in my real life. And people are reminding me in writing that most people forget I exist.

That’s how easy it is as a non-marginalised person, ignorant of context, to blunder in and accidentally slap a marginalised reader with a mere two terrible word choices.

Research Your Words

So if you’re about to describe a marginalised character… stop.
1. Did you research respectful terms to describe them first?
You’ll find plenty in White Writers Writing POC and for not using ableist language; (after the list ableist terms) this list of better alternatives.

2. Did you Google the adjective you’re considering describing a marginalised identity by and that identity’s name together? This is a simple way to get context you may lack from not having lived as a marginalised character, or not belonging to the same communities as they do.

Inclusive Fiction Examples

Shallan (PTSD rep) and Renarin (autism rep) in the Stormlight Archives. These are interesting because they are point of view characters, and Brandon Sanderson didn’t write either as own voices. He did however do his homework and wrote both the impact of Shallan’s experience of PTSD and Renarin’s autism sensitively.

Lupin (Netflix) has a male main character who’s black. He’s French (as is the show), street smart (tough upbringing), charming, clever, highly capable and a loving (ex) husband and father, countering many negative stereotypes of black men.

Locke & Key (Netlix) has a secondary character who is a double amputee. Yet how he lost his feet isn’t mentioned, because this isn’t a story about his experience as a disabled person. Its a fantasy story in which he ends up playing an important role.

People To Help You Write The Other

Listen To People

Your writing community (on whichever social media/ Discord servers you talk to writers) is a good place to listen to people marginalised in the same way as your characters. Try searching hashtags like: #neurodiverse, #actuallyautistic, #ADHD, #ChronicIllness/ #longcovid, #disability, #BLM etc.
On Blue sky, hear what life is like from posts by people living it on; neurodiversity, chronic illness, disability, LGBTQIA+, BlackSky.

If you’re a children’s fiction author, you may be able to talk to marginalised people by submitting a form to Inclusive Minds, a paid service connecting children’s book authors to marginalised people, whose experience and advice can help you write their identities authentically.

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More Resources to Help You Write Neurodiverse Characters

Writing Diverse Characters Part 1: Big Don’ts

Writing Diverse Characters Part 3: LGBTQIA+

I Think I’m Neurodiverse (ADHD?)
Managing my Neurodiversity —ADHD

List of Neurodiverse Definitions and some behaviours by Best Resources for Achievement and Intervention re Neurodiversity in Higher Education.

Writing Characters With Autism by Disability in Kidlit.

Salt and Sage Books Incomplete Guides book series on writing asexual, black and autistic characters, fat positivity and sexual assault, written by own voices authors.

Writing ‘Diverse’ Characters 1: How Not To

January 8, 2024 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

I assume you’re here because you’re interested in writing diverse characters and inclusive books that represent the human diversity of our world. You probably aim to write a range of identities and character backgrounds sensitively, respectfully and in a way that prompts diverse readers to be thrilled to see themselves in your book’s pages (as opposed to hurt by offensive, ignorant, prejudiced representation). This two part blog, written by a white, nonbinary, aromantic, asexual, neurodiverse, chronically ill/ disabled author, aims to introduce you to or help you evaluate your knowledge of common pitfalls in diverse rep. It contains many links to further reading (by more qualified authors in the case of BIPOC rep) along the way.

Why Write Diverse Characters? -My Identity Reasons

I first drafted this blog around 3 years ago, thinking, ‘I’d like to write more diverse characters. I’d like to not perpetuate the myth that ‘everyone’ is white, and cishet, able-bodied and neurotypical in my books —by only writing those characters. I need to educate myself about many marginalised identities.’

Guess what? As a 90’s child, where ‘queer’ meant gay, lesbian or ‘transexual,’ and ADHD and autism were ‘boy things’, it turned out the world I grew up in was so ignorant and devoid of diverse representation that it hadn’t allowed me to recognise my own diverse identities.

I am one of many people who grew up knowing they had ‘quirks’, which I later realised neatly fit under ADHD. Who thought the differences between ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are vastly over exaggerated and mostly mythical —easy to think when you’re nonbinary). And who thought most adults are obsessed with sex and fixated on romance —easy to think as an asexual who doesn’t experience sexual attraction and an aromantic who’s never been ‘in love’.

I grew up almost NEVER seeing who I was in ANYONE else. To such an extent I didn’t have the words or labels to articulate to other humans who I AM. To this day, many people are mystified by the fact I don’t have a romantic partner. I’m the first nonbinary person most people I’ve met have met. And people frequently underestimate the extent to which my ADHD and, courtesy of long covid, my chronic illness (fibromaylgia) impact my life on a daily basis. This is why I think it would be awesome to see more diverse characters in books.

Writing ‘The Other’ Complications

Our challenge as writers is having been raised in a society built on foundations of racism, white supremacy, ableism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia. A multi-generational hangover of deep-seated prejudices makes it so easy (and likely) for us to have internalised unconscious, ignorant bias. And because of that, we’re at risk of perpetuating harmful stereotypes and of alienating and hurting the people we’re trying to include in our stories.

Be concious of how, when and why you set diverse characters apart. I assume we arrived at calling people of colour, first nations, queer and disabled people (including chronically ill, neurodiverse, and people facing mental health challenges) ‘diverse’ because they’re ‘different’ or ‘other’. Different to what? To white, heterosexual, cis and binary gender, able-bodied, neurotypical; aka ‘normal’ people?

Historically to be ‘diverse’ was to be ‘abnormal’, to have something ‘wrong’ with you. Enter white supremacy, sexism, ableism, homophobia etc and prejudice-packed, lying narratives they spawned, like supposed superiority of white, male, cishet, able-bodied, neurotypical people. If you leave diverse your characters out, or highlight their traits -but not those of ‘normal’ characters- or treat diverse characters differently, could prejudice could be in play? What do your critical readers think?

On top of that, you may never have had a face to face (or digital) conversation with one (let alone a group) of individuals sharing many identities you’d like to include in your books. Even if you have, you may never have heard them share, with uncensored honesty, their personal experiences as a ‘diverse’ person.

And while focused on diversity and not representing people offensively, you could fall into the trap of losing sight of that character as a fully rounded human -not limited to and defined by their diverse identity- and fail to write them as that fully rounded human.

How Do You Begin Writing A Marginalized Person Whose Identity You Don’t Share?

Every stereotype we don’t notice, every prejudiced or biased view that was ‘normal’ and ‘mainstream’ when we were growing up is at risk of perpetuating itself in our writing. So what do we need to know to avoid that?

Learn What Problematic Rep Looks Like,
—then don’t write it

Physical ‘Abnormalities’ Are ‘Evil’
Sexism, Ageism, Fatphobia & Ableism

Be conscious of traits you give human antagonists. Consider that in fairytales the villain is often an ugly old witch —and you NEVER saw kindly, wise, older women who were positive characters. Or the villain was wicked, jealous stepmothers —so much so I’ve had primary school students ask me why fairytales portray all stepmothers as evil. And nowhere do such stories comment on the systematic sexism and misogyny that disempowered and made women vulnerable historically, and so often the hero is a man. The message in these tales seems to be, ‘any woman with power is evil’ and ‘all good rulers are men.’

What sort of message does your villain tell readers? If the message is ‘being an arsehole is bad’ —you’re fine. But if the villain is the only person of colour, the only older woman, neurodiverse, disabled or the only plus sized character? (See Dudley and Vernon Dursley for fatphobia). What does that say about those identities, traits and people?

Be especially conscious of traits. Have you noticed how often baddies in films have skin defects, physical ailments or other forms of disability? And until very recently other disabled characters tended to be non-existent in fiction? Looks like a pretty clear message that disabled people are bad.

Have you ever seen villains who move their hands, feet or engage in other rhythmic, repetitive ‘weird’/ ‘scary’ movements? (Especially in cartoons). My (autistic) mother recently pointed out to me that this is stimming, a behaviour autistic and sometimes ADHD people use to regulate our emotions and or bodies when we’re under or over stimulated. So don’t make your only stimming, and by extension, your only neurodiverse character the villain!

(For disability stereotypes to avoid, see this post from the Disability History Museum.)

Marginalised Characters as Villains

If you’re worrying you can’t make marginalized characters villains, please don’t. I’d like to see a lot more neurodiverse and disabled characters represented at all —let alone as main characters— before I feel the world is ready for us as villains (without continuing to stigmatise us).

But if you have neurodiverse/ disabled characters as baddies AND gooddies AND neutral characters and the character who’s technically good but also kind of an obstacle? And you’re representing all your (quite a few) marginalised characters as fully rounded identities? —It follows that some of them may be villains, like Desire in The Sandman (a nonbinary character whom I as an enby viewer loved).

Or you may write deeply flawed/ morally grey characters who also happen to be marginalised. For example, Klaus in The Umbrella Academy, who’s initially a barely functional drug addict, but I LOVE them too. And they’re also a hero —again, balance matters. Or Victor in the same show, again, a deeply flawed character who (spoilers) the world, and also happens to be trans.

Just be careful that ARE writing villains who HAPPEN to be queer/ POC etc. NOT villains because they are gay, or black or a (woman). And this needs saying because writers are STILL getting it wrong. Take the 2016 film Split for example. Mental health challenges make you a serial killer? No, they fucking don’t! LOADs of people combatting a whole range of mental health challenges are NOT murderers. Please don’t blame extreme violence in your writing on ‘mental illness.’ Which leads to the next section.

Mad = Bad & Ableism

How many times have you heard opinions you vehemently object to in recent years and called the person, ‘mad’, a ‘lunatic,’ ‘blind’ or ‘deaf’? Sorry, you’re guilty of ableism 101, differentiating between you and people you disagree with by implying those you disagree with are disabled (I’ve also been guilty of this). I know, it’s so tempting to call Trumpists and TERFs crazy and stupid, and blind to the way the hands they worship bite, rather than feed us all. But it isn’t maddness, and it isn’t blindness. These people are NOT disabled. There’s nothing neurologically different in their minds (with the exception of Trump and narcism).

The difference is that covid minimizers, climate change deniers, TERFs etc are wilfully ignorant. They choose not to know. They choose not to believe. But when we call them ‘mad’ alongside ‘bad’… we’re insulting everyone and anyone who’s ever genuinely struggled with their mental health. We’re insulting people who fight their own mental health to function, by lumping them in the same category as people who are too cowardly or too lazy or too gullibly believing Murdoch media to bother facing reality.

So when your characters describe or respond to your book’s equivalent of MAGA characters, please don’t write them doing so in a way that insults actual disabled people.

Ableist language is still rife in the western world, so for a list of common ableist adjectives to avoid and for more accurate, non-ableist adjectives and terms, see this list from Augsberg University. And for how to respectfully write neurodiverse and disabled characters, see part 2 of this blog series.

Bury Your Gays/ Sad Gays

There’s a history of that one token gay character dying in chapter/ act one, while the cishet characters live on. (For details of a bunch of problematic gay and lesbian rep see ‘Bury Your Gays‘ on TV Tropes, a useful resources for identifying tropes, stereotypes and among them, harmful ones).

If you have a minor character who’s going to die quickly —don’t make them gay. Don’t make them your only queer (or otherwise marginalised )character either.

Yes, a book in which loads of people die and some of them are queer can be fine —provided you DON’T kill off ALL the ONLY queer side/ main characters/ couples. Some of them need to survive, just as some of the cishet ones will —see Bury Your Gays for why this is historically and contextually important.

And don’t just write the ‘sad gay’ who’s sad because of ‘the struggle to be queer’. In looking for competitions I could enter my book in, I was astounded that I, queer author of a queer MC didn’t fit the criteria of an LGBTQIA book competition because… I wrote a civilisation (in an epic fantasy) in which being queer is normal and queer joy is a thing! Life can be shitty for LGBTQIA+ (especially trans) people in the real world. Can you give us some queer joy in fiction?

Queer Rep Resources

For why Queer rep is needed, why queer struggles need to be shown in literature but also why queer people like myself want to see some queer joy, this article on Queer Rep in Media is a good (and brief) summary.

More resources with details of problematic queer tropes:
No Bisexuals and Hide Your Lesbians from TV Tropes.
You’ll also find problematic tropes mixed in among common, unharmful queer stereotypes (all linked to explanations of each trope on the list) on Tv Trope’s Queer As Tropes and Homophobia Index.

Part 3 of this Blog: Writing LGBTQIA+ Characters

White Saviours & Racism

While reading to clarify my understanding of ‘white saviour’ for this post, I came across an article (Content Warning on this one!) about a real life white saviour. A story about a modern white person so convinced of their own good will and superiority that they decided to administer medical treatment to Ugandans (via a charity), despite not having any medical qualifications. Yes, their actions killed patients as well as ‘saving’ them. No, this white ‘saviour’ faced no legal ramifications.

In the articles I browsed, white saviours seem to have in common the desire to help BIPOC, often via charity/ foreign aid (as much to make themselves feel better as to benefit others). This may not be a problem, if white saviours didn’t also believe in their ‘superior’ ability to help BIPOC, whilst ignoring how being heirs of white colonialism and supremacy benefits white people on one hand and failing to see how systems built on both systematically disadvantage BIPOC on the other (as mentioned in this article.)

My current thoughts on white saviours is their racism and white supremacy corrupts, can impair and severely limits their capacity to ‘do good’. So if you’re writing a white person who wants to help others… be careful you don’t unintentionally write a white saviour.

(For more examples of how white saviours may present, see an extensive list of them on Wikepedia.)

White Saviours & Racism Resources

As a white writer living on the land of the Wurundjeri people, land that was never ceded and always was and always will be Aboriginal land (aka as an heir of racist colonialism), this is where I point you to BIPOC people to tell us how to represent them.

But first, if you’re unsure, unclear or feeling ambivalent about how racism may have tainted the perspective you’re writing from, I highly recommend the book White Women, Everything you already know about your own racism and how to do better by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao. (Men and nonbinary people, this book will also give you insights into sexism from a cis women’s perspective, which I found educational as a nonbinary person).

For many resources citing potential pitfalls of white people writing POC, see White Writers Writing POC.

For racial stereotypes (and advice on positively writing POC), see Writing With Colour.

Next in This Blog Series

Writing Diverse Characters Part 2: Gives advice on and provides more resources about how to naturally, respectfully and authentically include neurodiverse and disabled and some POC characters, with inclusive language.

Part 3: will focus on Writing LGBTQIA+ characters, and be published in April.

Editing a Novel: Scene & Line Edit Tips

September 7, 2022 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Before delving into specific novel editing tips, I’ll state clearly for anyone who stumbled across this blog in search of a fiction editing start point, DON’T start here. This blog assumes all of your characters are fully developed (including your antagonist, whether its a person or an internal or external force). So if there’s any chance they’re not, I suggest reading my Character Development Checklists. If your characters and overall story structure are good to go, its time to check your writing is clear and engaging in each scene and line. Read on for a list of the main scene and line edit tips I’ve given fellow writers feedback on, as their critical reader.

Novel Scene Level Edit Tips

Orient the reader first

Yes, adjectives, similes, imagery, metaphors etc can enrich your setting and help your writing pull a reader into a scene. But before you throw lots of scenic details at the reader, give them a chance to get orientated. Show them who is where, show a bit of that character via what that person is doing, then drip feed in some scenic details. Be wary of obscuring your main character and the role they’re playing in the opening scene by bombarding the reader with too much scenic detail.

Count Your Cast

On the same note, don’t have your office worker greet every co-worker by name as they enter the office. (And if you have a party in the first few chapters, limit who your main character interacts with to significant characters only, not half the guest list). Naming, let alone describing too many characters before they start playing an active role in the story can jumble people together in the reader’s head. If the reader doesn’t have a clear sense of who’s who, it can be extremely difficult to follow what’s happening in the opening scene (or what the book is about when successive chapters are overcrowded with named characters).

Try to give the reader time with the first point of view character you introduce, and bring other cast members on set gradually, preferably as each does something typical of themself and or contributes to the plot. That will make your characters easier to remember, and your main story easier to follow.

And literally keep a count of how many characters you name. In epic fantasy in particular, with multiple pov characters who have family, friends etc, its easy to create a named cast in the hundreds, even though Susan the maid’s only role is to open the curtains in scene three. Don’t name Susan. Just call her ‘the maid.’ If you’ve got minor characters who don’t appear often but do perform necessary on-screen roles, refer to them by role, or relationship to a more important character. Eg. ‘Barry’s cousin.’

Description and Action or Pacy Scenes

If you’re writing an action scene, or a tense or otherwise fast pace —drop the scenic details. Omit them entirely. In first or close third-person narration, the pov character is unlikely to note the type of metal, decorative style and likely national origins of the sword slashing at their face —they’re too busy trying not to get their head split open. And writing that way isn’t just about plausibly narrating a character’s view point. Detailed scenic descriptions can obscure rapid events or key conversations the reader is trying to follow.

Action Scenes

They happen fast. So write short sentences. Think powerful verbs, not adverbs. Narrate action at the speed it unfolds. And remember: your character doesn’t have time to notice much. So don’t wax poetic.

Point of View Consistency

Is every sentence in that character’s pov chapter really from their point of view? Or is Tim noticing things about Geoff that only Geoff would notice (or even know)? Or did we open the scene through Sarah’s eyes, then end up floating vaguely over her head, seeing everyone and everything?

Did you write mostly in close third person, but write the occasional sentence in which you as the narrator pass moral judgement on the scene (suddenly switch to third person omniscient)? Any one of these things can make a scene jarring for a reader, or even pull them out of your story.

Telling Feelings, Instead of Showing them

When you see Tom hunch over, his hands protectively clasping a newly forged sword, as if shielding it and himself from his master screaming: “Can’t you get anything right?” you feel more for Tom than if I said: his master’s relentless criticisms made Tom feel small.
Yes ‘show don’t tell’ may have been pushed too indiscriminately as writer advice, but showing character feelings makes invites readers to connect with and emotionally invest in your characters. Its part of what persuades readers to stick with characters, seeing them through their challenges (or to see a villain get their comeuppance). A popular resource to help you choose physical reactions or internal sensations to describe to show your character’s emotions is The Emotion Thesaurus, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.

Hands typing on a silver keyboard, a put plant, glasses, a phone and two pencils artfully arranged on one side of the round white table. — Photo by Corinne Kutz

Line Edit Tips

Before we zoom in on line level, try to resist perfecting the dialogue, dialogue tags and scenic descriptions of chapter four. Because when you get to chapter five, you’re going to realise that most of chapter four is info dumping and you’ll delete most of it, and merge its remnants with chapter five.
If you’re a pantser or plantser like myself, you may re-read and do some edits while drafting, to keep the story on track and ensure it does arrive at its ending. You may quickly fix typos that hurt your eyes, or the odd sentence so mangled you simply can’t leave it. But try not to get bogged down about how this sentence is phrased, or how the word choices in that bit of dialogue don’t quite match that character’s personality. First, judge whether or not that scene is purposeful, is worthy of remaining in your novel, well paced, and that the only thing you now need to do with it is refine it at word level.

Personal Pronoun Clarity

My golden rule with pronouns, especially if you’re writing a nonbinary character using they/ them/ their or other pronouns is: the most recently named character is the character the personal pronouns belong to.

Eg. It’s not: She didn’t want to clean her room. She said, ‘Clean it now!’ because this sounds like the same woman arguing with herself. You need to state clearly that it was Sarah who didn’t want to clean her room, and Mum who said, “Clean it now!”

This is even more important if sometimes “they” means those men and women, and sometimes “they” means that nonbinary person. If your nonbinary character and their friend of whatever gender are doing something together, I sometimes say ‘the pair did x,’ after naming both. You could also use collective nouns instead of ‘they’. Eg. ‘the students,’ ‘the workers’ ‘the friends’ etc. Another option is ze/zir or other personal pronouns for the nonbinary character, so ‘they’ as a group of people can’t be confused with ‘they’ the individual nonbinary person.

Repetition

Have you used the same noun ten words apart? Eg. She slung her bag over her shoulder. She stuffed the potion ingredients into the bag. Is the bag important, is the potion important, is packing the bag important, or is it the fact she’s delivering a mind-reading potion to the Prime Minister that matters?
Keep an eye out for when you’ve accidentally repeated words that don’t matter. Those can jar the reader, and prompt them to focus on unimportant things. Similarly, don’t repeat adjectives with nouns unless its really important to the story that the reader remembers that, for example, its a ‘high window’ instead of just a ‘window.’

He clutched at the retreating horse. How would he ever escape now? There was nothing he could do. He was so angry. He was so worried. He was so sick of the author saying ‘he’ repeatedly?.
My personal preference for changing it up here is to alternate between starting a sentence with or using the character’s name in one sentence, and their pronouns in the next. However, when the character is nonbinary and ‘they’ could be plural or singular, I make sure ‘they’ singular always comes after the nonbinary characters’ name, so its clear ‘they’ is my nonbinary main character Ruarnon, as opposed to ‘they’ being Ruarnon AND Ruarnon’s friends.

Dialogue Tags

When its: Earasin says, “Did you get the package?”

And Merador replies, “No.”

Then Erasin says, “What if someone intercepted it?”

And Merador replies, “Then we’re in deep shit”

—there are more dialogue tags than necessary. If this conversation continued between only these two characters, you could break it up with character actions. Example, having Earasin rake his hands through his hair and Merador pace restlessly, instead of relentless ‘said whoever’ or ‘replied the other.’ Or you could drop dialogue tags altogether, because we know who both speakers are and that Erasin speaks first while Merador responds. Ideally, each character significant character has their own style of speech, favourite words etc which remind the reader who is saying which bit of the conversation. (And later in the book we will ideally know that character well enough to have a good idea what they are likely to feel or think in response to story events and that will also help us know who is speaking.)

Dialogue Spacing

As an English teacher (in Australia, England and New Zealand) the rule I’m familiar with is: new speaker =new paragraph. You might have a sentence narrating an action, thought or feeling applied to that speaker afterwards, and perhaps the same speaker speaks again. But if it’s: “Then we’re in deep shit,” Merador replied. Erasin slumped. I’d write it:

“We’re in deep shit,” Merador replied.

Erasin slumped.

With the above paragraphing, its super clear to the reader who said what and who did what. And if your story has a lot going on (especially if there’s lots of characters doing it), paragraphing (or phrasing) events as clearly as possible makes it easier for the reader to not get confused.

Said

Yes, you want to avoid using fancy synonyms for ‘said’ that may pull a reader out of the story, eg. ‘He pontificated.’ So if you’re worried about how many times you’ve said ‘said,’ try substituting it for neutral-sounding words. Eg. ‘asked, suggested, objected.’

Word Choices

Have you used powerful verbs instead of adverbs? Eg. instead of ‘They walked swiftly’ try ‘They rushed/ hurried/ raced.’ This is particularly useful in action scenes when you want fast-paced sentences. It can also help your sentences flow better.

Excess words

There are phrases that require more words to get meaning across, which don’t add any value to sentences. I suggest doing a search and replace for the phrases below and any others your critical readers spot.

Eg. ‘In order to’ =’to.’ ‘Was able to’ =’could.’

Filler words

On the same note, filler words are single words that add to your word count without telling the reader anything they don’t already know and without adding value to a sentence.

Eg. Just, even, turned, only, that (NB. sometimes ‘that’ is necessary for meaning and sometimes it’s merely a filler word, so be mindful of that before you auto-cull it).

Again, do a search for filler words and see how many unnecessary words that removes from your novel. For a list of these, see the second link below.

Filter Words

These are words that remind the reader they are looking through someone else’s eyes, which can make the story feel more distant, or even pull the reader out of the story.

Eg. Sarah looked at Tom who was… vs. Tom was…

‘Felt’ can also remind the reader, ‘this is how character x is feeling,’ ie. ‘you’re not there, you’re not feeling it’. Reminding the reader that they are merely reading can push them away from the character, emotionally distancing them from your writing. This can make the reading experience less emotionally powerful, and less satisfying.

‘Looked’ and ‘felt’ are some good ones to do a search and replace for.

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Editing a Novel: Character Development Checklists

June 4, 2022 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

You’ve just finished the first draft of your novel; what now? First, I’d check the big picture of your story. Does your main character and the antagonist develop and do the stakes increase throughout your story? Do you have a fully rounded antagonist and fully developed secondary characters, or is your main character facing a stereotypical villain with the aid of allies who exist solely to help them achieve their goals? Do you have realistic tension in relationships between key characters? Does each chapter actually need to be in your story? And once all of the above is looking good, is the tone (relatively) consistent throughout?
This checklist will unpack all of these things to help you evaluate character development, character arcs and story tension throughout your novel.

Main Character & Antagonist

First things first: what drives your main character and antagonist? If both are human, why do they believe they are right? How do they believe what they want will make things better? And for who?
Have you made their motivations clear throughout the story (when relevant)?

Main Character Considerations

To check your character arc is on track and that each chapter contributes to the development of your MC (main character) or point of view (POV) character’s arc, here’s a few questions.

Youthful heir Ruarnon in bronze full body armour, holding a bronze helmet and leaning on a spear. — Whom else would I illustrate characters with than my nonbinary main character, Heir Ruarnon?
Art by GlintofMischief.

What does your main MC want? What do they think is in their way? What’s actually in their way? Does their goal change as they learn and grow throughout the story? How?

Which is the sequence of steps your pov characters take to achieve their goals?

What obstacles do they face along the way?

When do internal demons, doubtful or worried allies or ‘friends’ with conflicting interests hold them back?

At which point do the characters learn or discover things which aid their ultimate success?

When do they hit roadblocks, and does overcoming roadblocks help them grow and lead to success later on?

Is there a lie they believe and if so, what helps them begin to see and ultimately brings them to accept the truth?

Does every chapter do at least one of the above? (ie. does every chapter pull the character’s arc forwards?) If it doesn’t, how is that chapter pulling its weight? Has it earned its right to remain in your novel?

Antagonist Considerations

Whether your antagonist (antag) is a human, an internal force like self-doubt or an external force, here are some questions to check their development, and to check human antagonists are fully rounded characters.

What steps does the antagonist take towards achieving their goal? If the antagonist is a force of nature or inner demons of the main character, how do they obstruct the MC and at which points?

What obstacles does the antag face? If your antag is a force of nature or internal demons, approaching it this way may help deepen your awareness of and how you portray your protagonist(s), who are likely obstacles to your antag.

Does a human antag have revelations that prompt them to progress along a negative character arc? Possibly as they resort to increasingly harsh/ immoral means of obtaining good ends?

How does the antag respond to roadblocks? If they’re human, are they resilient, or able to charm and win over people who oppose them, or do they throw tantrums and become more aggressive —do roadblocks drive their negative arc?

Even if the human antag has a distorted worldview, does the narration from their point of view show how, to them, what they believe is rational and right?

If the antag is inner demons, does it counter the MC’s success with irrational reasoning, guilt or other powerful emotional reactions to story obstacles?

If the antag is a virus/ monster/ climate change —does it keep evolving in a way that threatens humanity, as humanity learns to adapt to/ combat it?

Is there a lie the antagonist believes and what in the story confirms and strengthens their belief in the lie?

Does each chapter in which the antagonist/ antagonistic force appears move the story’s conflict forwards?

Later Structural Edits

If you’ve achieved the above, but would like to kick your story up a notch, here’s two suggestions for doing that.

1. Make it harder for the MC. Use contagonists, insecurities or roadblocks to make the MC’s struggle greater.

2. Up the stakes. Now the reader knows what the story’s all about and everyone involved, threaten more people or increase the severity of the threat.

Secondary Characters

A trap with secondary characters is making them subservient to the main character’s goals —the faithful friend stereotype. That may mean you write secondary characters who don’t seem to have lives of their own, or whose goals perfectly align with the MC’s. So your MC and secondary character may co-exist in harmonious unity —not very likely, or realistic, or good for story tension.

Who supports the MC? Who is officially onside but disagrees with the MC’s supporters or challenges the MCs methods?

What are the secondary characters goals and how do they align or compete with the MC’s goals?

Are characters sometimes helpful but sometimes arguing? For example, do your secondary characters have any conflicting interests with the MC? Does this lead to rising relationship/ story tension throughout?

Do you have secondary characters who are very similar or playing a very similar role in the story? Can you merge these characters, so there’s a smaller cast the reader gets to know better and connect more deeply with?

All Characters

Before we get into characters generally, I’d like to flag diverse characters. That’s a whole different ball game of informing yourself of problematic stereotypes born of racism, white supremacy, ableism, sexsim, misogyny, homophbia and transphobia. There’s so much involved that I’ve written a separate blog post on the benefits of writing diverse characters and problematic representations to avoid.

General character considerations;

Are character actions and logic believable and does backstory indicate why they are predisposed to be that way? (This is a good question to ask your beta readers).

As characters speak, act and pursue goals, are the biases, knowledge, prejudices, sympathies or passions that guide (or misguide) them clear? How do these things influence character actions?

Does each character speak with their own voice? (In dialogue and especially if you have multiple point of view characters).
Possible voice influences: socioeconomic status, education, are they speaking from a position of authority or servitude? Publicly or privately? To a friend, family member or stranger?

All Characters

If all of the above is going well, I’d do an edit focusing on the internal consistency of character beliefs, opinions, actions, dialogue and voice.

Focus on Chapters

How does each chapter reveal what drives a point of view character in the story?

Does each chapter bring point of view characters closer to or push them further away from achieving their goals?

How do relationships or revelations prompt the MC to reevaluate their goal?

How often do chapters raise the stakes of the story goal?

Story Tone

Now we know who’s in this story, what journey they’re on and what they’re up against: What is the overall tone of your story? Serious and heavy? Light? Playful? Casual? A mix of deep, possibly dark themes and comic relief?

As you edit —how do scenes and character interactions fit with the overall tone? Do some scenes clash with the overall tone? Ie. are some scenes too light and funny, or too dark compared to the tone of the rest of the book?
This may not be an issue in chapter 10 (especially if it’s a grim story with comic relief), but if the tone and events of chapter one hilariously silly and innocent and then chapter two gets violent and nasty —the reader won’t know what kind of story this is. So I’d check your events and character interactions in the early chapters set the tone for the book.

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Critical Reader Checklist: Act 3

September 5, 2021 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Blonde woman reading a book seated on a window sill with early morning sun pouring through the bow window, open behind her. — *Photo by* Yuri Efremov

Your book has covered a lot of ground to reach Act 3. Now its time for reader payoff. If you’re a writer, this critical reader checklist of questions will help you ensure Act 3 is clear and rewarding for readers. If you’re a critical reader, responding to these questions will help you provide invaluable feedback to the writer. (Missed my previous checklists? You may like to start with Chapter 1 or Act 1.)

Story Progression and Reader Engagement

Does each scene build your anticipation of the final resolution of the conflict?

Does each character realisation build towards the character’s Moment of Truth?
(Or even foreshadow their final state, particularly if the character is an antagonist with a positive arc, who changes sides at the end)?

Does the tension of Act 3 pull you in and hold you in from start to finish?

Scene Level Considerations

Do scenes give you enough time to absorb events and information, especially character deaths?

Are there thematic or scene-level elements (too many things going on) which distract you from the resolution or which make it harder to follow?

Climactic Moment

Are you with the main character, whose at the heart of the action during the climatic moment?

Or does narration flit between point of view characters scattered between conflict locations too often?

Or does the main character observe others actions too much, making this scene feel emotionally distant?

Does anything else distract you, or make you impatient for the scene to get a move on or reduce its tension?

Has the writer positioned you to scream encouragement at the main character through the climactic moment? Are you excited, thrilled or really happy when they triumph? Or shattered if they don’t?
Or did you not connect emotionally to them well enough throughout the novel to care much either way?

The Resolution

Is each aspect of the conflict, and each step of how it needs to be resolved and why clear to you?

Do particular skills or abilities of each pov and secondary character play a relevant and fulfilling role in the resolution of the conflict?

Does the resolution deliver on thematic promises, e.g. character lessons, framing key themes of the story and showing the role they play in the resolution?
Or was it mentioned that Tom needed to learn to make friends, and that subplot was forgotten? Did it play no role in the resolution, breaking that promise to you as a reader?

A Satisfying Ending?

Are you feeling satisfied by the way characters resolve their differences?

By how supporting characters being their typical self helped resolve the story problem?

Are you satisfied with how the story is wrapped up, and with the state in which you depart the story world and its characters?

If not, is this because the ending feels rushed? Or did the story stop too soon, leaving things unresolved that you wanted to know about and which would have made the ending more satisfying for you?
Or does an epic conflict leave the world in a state of devastation, instead of fast forwarding to a scene showing that the world does in fact recover?

Not the Last Book in a Series?

If this book marks the end of one stage in an epic conflict (as opposed to a stand alone novel), do you still feel there was a clear beginning, significant plot development and that it took you on a journey? Is Act 3 leaving you satisfied with the ground covered in this book?

Are you satisfied with how much characters have grown in this book, or did they feel flat or their growth stagnate at any point?

Does this book’s final state scene show which things pov characters are still grappling with, foreshadowing what their character development may involve in the next book?

Is it clear how, despite this book’s main conflict being resolved, a significant element of conflict is still out there? and are you left with some idea of who it still threatens and how?
Does this suggested continuance of conflict feel like an organic continuance of story, or like its been tacked on? Does it feel like another great instalment in a saga, or a prequel movie designed to make it producers money?

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Critical Reader Checklist: Act 2

July 4, 2021 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Mixed race woman with long curly black hair in black velvet hat sitting cross legged on a sofa reading, with a bookshelf — *Photo by* Seven Shooter

Some writers dread the middle of a novel. Its an easy place for characters, themes, plots and subplots to get stuck, lost, or to go on unnecessary tangents. The critical reader questions in this post are designed to help reader feedback to support the writer in keeping Act 2 on track, and ensuring it gives the reader a good experience. (I developed them while working with and as a beta reader, and they have companion blogs for Chapter One and an Act 1).

Are the Characters Engaging?

Are you seeing enough character actions, and hearing enough dialogue and internal thoughts to feel tensions between characters?

Have you seen enough of character’s personalities to understand why certain characters are drawn to or inclined to be in conflict with each other?

Do you react to some character actions with ‘of course he/ she/ they did!” because you feel you are getting to know them?

Do you know any characters well enough to guess what they may do next? Does this make the story more engaging?

Is the Story Engaging?

Does each chapter end by doing at least one of the following:

-adding tension between key players?

-providing another clue in the overall mystery?

-affirming or challenging the lie the pov character believes?

-adding another complication the pov character must overcome to resolve the main conflict? Eg. the character gets something wrong and makes their own life harder.

-moved the pov character nearer to getting what they want, what they need or (if it differs from both) does each chapter take them a step closer to resolving the main story conflict?

Character Development & Plausibility

Can you follow the character’s logic as they persist in believing a lie, or begin to realise the truth?

Do you see and are you convinced by why the character still clings to the lie?

Are you convinced by how characters experiences are changing them?

Progression

Are you being shown or reminded of things you’ve already seen (especially when it seems unnecessary?) Or is each scene making you feel like the story is moving forward and drawing you on to its next stage?

If you don’t feel the story is moving, and you’re starting to lose interest -which bits aren’t appealing to you? Do you know why or what the writer could change to resolve this?

Are relationship dynamics between characters -positive or negative- being tested and changing? Or is everyone getting along perfectly? And is the supporting cast solely focused on helping the MC achieve their goal (instead of characters having their own goals? And are character relationships too idealistic and or flat?

Story Tone

Occasionally, I’ve beta read books with an Act One mixing serious themes, humour and playfulness, then in Act 2 -boom! The story turns a corner and is suddenly twice as dark or twice as violent as Act 1’s tone led me to think it would be. So are you jolted by how light or heavy, how serious or playful, how gentle or violent later chapters are, compared to earlier ones?

Story Focus

Does the story home in on particular themes, particular relationships and particular character goals?

Does it focus on too many things for you to follow or appreciate?

Or does it focus only on one or two main things, when there’s room and other things you’d like to see further developed to give you a real sense of payoff?

Connections

If the characters went to that place, or the MC was given that thing, or we know a secondary character loves x, does the middle of the story start referring back to and building on these?

Examples:

Does the secondary character’s knowledge because of an interest you’ve already read about, or skills from a hobby mentioned earlier start helping the MC tackle aspects of the story problem?

Does the location where we met key players later yield clues in solving the murder? Or is it a place about which we know family secrets are kept or where other allies are now being sought?

If there something about a character, a place, a device etc that got your interest, but hasn’t been developed and that you would like to see more of?

Action Scenes

Can you picture who is where, doing what? Or are there so many details that you lose sight of the main actions in a scene?

Are you hanging on the edge of your seat, reading short, sharp sentences which narrate at the speed the scene unfolds? Or is some of the suspense and tension killed by long winded sentences?

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12 Critical Reader Partnership Tips

January 14, 2021 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Two women looking at a computer. — Photo by CoWomen

You’ve found a critical reader or a story to read! How can you ensure that working with the reader or the writer is a positive, productive experience? I’d like to say the hard part is finding each other and from now on it will all be sunshine and rainbows, but I’ve heard stories of critical reader feedback such as, “This is wrong” or “That was poorly done” and even “You’re such a bad writer.” Or maybe you agreed to read a novel, you get it and… it’s not your cup of tea, or so raw that just re-reading to figure out what’s happening will take more time than you want to give it. To help you create effective partnerships (and pull out of ineffective or negative ones), here’s 6 critical reader tips for positive partnerships, and 6 tips for productive partnerships.

6 Tips for Positive Partnerships

1. Ensure feedback is given with the aim of improving the quality of the writing

Ideally, feedback will indicate where the writing can be clearer, easier to follow and a more engaging read. It will spell out when the reader gets confused, when they start to lose interest, what they want more of and what they really enjoy. It won’t be, “This is wrong/ rubbish/ you should never…” Aside from being negative, all that really says is, “I think something here doesn’t work.” That’s of limited help. Whereas feedback like, “This scene was a bit slow for me,” suggests the problem and a solution -editing to accelerate pace and keep the reader engaged.

General positive statements can also help with editing. Its easy to lose sight of whether your writing is any good when you edit, so as a reader, commenting on things you find effective, entertaining or which really impact on you can help writers identify what’s working –and to not lose sight of and accidentally edit it out.

2. Ensure Feedback accounts for the reader’s personal bias.

If you want to make a suggestion but can’t cite an objective reason, its good to let the writer know, “This might just be my preference but…. ” Objective statements like “This should…” can make the writer feel that ‘everyone’ sees it that way and they ‘must’ change something, when reading can be very subjective and it may only be some readers who find it that way.

3. Feedback Is Honest.

Holding back to ‘spare the writer’s feelings’ does not improve the quality of the writing. Yes, feedback can be painful, especially if the writer in question sees every observation or suggestion as something they ‘did wrong’, as opposed to something they ‘can do more effectively.’ But the writer is asking for feedback because they believe comments about how a reader sees their story can help them tell their story more effectively, so denying them feedback isn’t helpful. If you’re inclined to hold back because of prior experience with giving a writer feedback, no. 4 might be the problem.

4. The Writer Must Be Receptive to Feedback.

No, I don’t mean ‘the writer has to edit everything the critical reader says.’ A critical reader may love that character and want to know more about their backstory, or for the book to delve deeper into theme x. They may suggest the writer do so and the writer may disregard that feedback, because it doesn’t fit with what they’re trying to do with their story.

I’m talking about writers who are consistently defensive or argumentative in the face of feedback. Writers who seem unwilling to receive constructive feedback, let alone act upon it. I’m also talking about writers I’ve seen tweets about, who appear to think a critical reader’s job is to shower them with praise, not to indicate that they have work to do. If either description matches the writer you’re reading for -your time may be wasted on them.

Writers, I’m not saying you can’t wince or flinch when you get feedback, especially on your first book (and you’re more likely to do so if you see suggestions as ‘I did something wrong,’ as opposed to, ‘here’s a potential opportunity to make my writing more effective for readers’). Nor am I saying the reader won’t make occasional comments about your story that are incorrect. What I’m saying is if your standard reaction to feedback is to defend yourself -you’re not being attacked, the reader is trying to help you improve your writing- or to argue -yes, a reader may make mistakes, but arguing with most things they say is essentially sticking your fingers in your ears- then you need to step back, and figure out why you respond this way to constructive criticism before seeking more of it.

Is Feedback Positively Phrased?

Is it “This is poorly done” and “Why are you doing that?” Or is it, “This word is repeated 5 times in 2 lines”? Or “I’m not convinced by the character doing x because y”. There is a line between being honest and direct and being arrogant, talking down to people or constantly telling them they’re doing it wrong. It can be hard to spot, and different people may perceive it as lying at different points. But if you’re finding feedback stressful, if it’s eroding your confidence or negatively impacting on your wellbeing or writing, it may be that you need to part with your critical reader because their feedback is too negative. (It may also be that you’re not in the right frame of mind to work with critical readers at that point, because life is negatively impacting how you respond to constructive, as opposed to negative feedback -especially during covid times.)

If you still find negative feedback helpful, bear in mind that constant negativity can wear anyone out -so try to phrase your feedback in terms of how the writing impacted on you as a reader- not ‘objectively’ judging what’s ‘wrong’ with the writing.

6. Does Feedback speak to the writer or reader as an equal, or lecture them?

Have you ever asked someone a question about a particular topic, and they assume you know nothing and start explaining everything about it? Don’t be the writer who assumes the reader has completely misunderstood your character and begins explaining things the reader’s other comments tell you they already know. Don’t be the writer who spots a potential gap in your critique partner’s craft and starts lecturing them in crafting that aspect 101, when -as is likely- you’ve just found one of their many author bias blindspots, or they thought that was a problem but they didn’t realise how big a problem it was.

If you aren’t sure what was unclear to the reader, ask a clarifying question. Eg. “Were you unsure how Barry’s relationship with Fred impacted on Barry’s decision, or why Barry made the choice he made or about something else?” Don’t lecture your critique partner about pacing, just say, “I’m wanting the story to move on now.” Or, “I think you could cut this paragraph without the story losing anything.” Starting a conversation with a reader or writer this way gives them a chance to respond and show you what they know or what they’re thinking, as well as being clear and effective communication. (As a primary school teacher by trade, I’m very conscious of this, because its how I make a living.)

6 Tips for Productive Partnerships

Man and woman high fiving over laptop. — Photo by krakenimages

1. Only agree to read (or swap) the first 1-3 chapters initially.

As a Reader You may find that the book isn’t your cup of tea. That you don’t want to read the whole thing. Or perhaps you find it interesting, but so much isn’t working for you, and or commenting on this novel would be a bigger time commitment than you’re prepared to make.

As a Writer You may find critical reader feedback unhelpful. If you’ve asked the reader to comment on character and plot development and how they find the overall story, and they mostly comment on your punctuation, I’d be saying, “Sorry, I don’t think we’re well-matched.” If this happens, here’s some places to find more critical readers.

2. Talk about how much you can read/ edit and over what time period upfront.

How many chapters are you aiming to read a day/ week/ fortnight? Don’t assume you have a similar balance of day job, family life, reading/ writing etc as your reader/ critique partner. Some of my initial CPs finished editing their whole books with other CPs while we were only up to commenting on each other’s chapter 6-9. Knowing what your goal is helps you have realistic expectations about what to expect from each other, and when.

3. Tell the reader what you’d like them to focus on, or tell the writer what you’re likely to notice and comment on.

As a Reader: the writer may be grateful for any and all feedback, but they may also want feedback on particular things. If, for example, you’re passionate about world building and the writer is desperate for feedback on their characters -you may identify from the outset that you’re not the right match. Or (as is probably more likely) -knowing that world building is your thing- the writer may also seek another beta reader who’s passionate about characters.

As a Writer: if you don’t ask your critical readers to comment on anything in particular, they may not happen to comment on things your editing focused on, leaving you no idea whether those edits did enough to support or engage the reader. You may also find that your critical reader comments only on what they like, or don’t like, or -if they’re also a writer- on aspects of craft which happen to be their personal strengths. This can leave you without an overall impression of how readers see your character, plot or tone and can mean missed editing opportunities. Yes, these impressions are subjective, but I recently noticed that one of my battle scenes may be far darker than I intended for a YA Fantasy, and that kind of overall impression is useful for a writer to know.

For ideas on what to ask your critical readers to look for, see my Act 1 Critical Reader Checklist.

4. Critique Partners: Allow for Stylistic Differences

I was conscious of this from the first as a critique partner, because one of the writers I was reading for favoured longer phrasing and descriptive writing, while my style is more concise. I had to think carefully about whether his style was slowing the pace and losing story tension at a chapter level, or whether I was getting hung up on his sentences because I didn’t like their style. As a CP -style isn’t your concern- but things like losing interest because of drawn out sentences slowing the pace is. So if your CP’s writing style is different -respect it- and try to only comment on it when it poses problems for you as a reader.

5. When you’ve Given/ Received Feedback

As a reader if you’ve given feedback, eg. you can’t visualise the scene, and you see from the writer’s reply, revised chapters or Google docs that the writer has ignored that feedback, I suggest just commenting on what they are editing at that time, as they may only focus on certain things during each edit. However, if the writer appears to be editing hardly anything -again you may have a writer unwilling to take on feedback, best parted with.

As a Writer Don’t hesitate to ask the reader if they could comment a bit less or a bit more about certain things. I have a tendency to get hung up on sentence structure, but some of my CPs have been more interested in my thoughts and feelings on characters and how engaged I am in the story. So if you want less feedback of one kind or more of another: ask for it.

If you get feedback you think is helpful, but you’d like to know more -ask a follow up question. When I interviewed Halla Williams recently, she said that when she got feedback on her query letter, “I really interrogated it.” She asked follow up questions based on reader comments, then revised certain things and asked if people could take another look. As one of her critical readers, I saw how much her drafts developed and how much stronger her query letter became from one revision to the next, which asking follow up questions clearly helped with.

6. Be Flexible

Even if a critical reader wants to read the whole book, or both critique partners are invested in commenting on each other’s books till the end, life happens. Circumstances can differ and vary across time. During my country’s second lock down, I had a few restless days where I wanted to escape and I smashed through half my CP’s novel. Then I reached a point where I was so emotionally drained and exhausted that I couldn’t write comments which made sense, and I had to stop reading for her for 3 months. During covid times more than ever, I’d see timeframes you agree on as aspirational.

As a writer, you can have critical readers or CPs pull out for one reason or other at any time. During covid times, this is more likely. So don’t rely on one or two critical readers. Have at least three and ideally more. If someone can only comment on your first 3 chapters when you’d really like feedback on the entire book -take them up on the offer for three. It all helps.

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Critical Reader Checklist: Act 1

December 15, 2020 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Woman reading on window ledge in early dawn light. — *Photo by* Yuri Efremov

Act 1 is crucial in guiding readers into your character’s world and maintaining reader engagement. Critical readers can help evaluate how your Act 1 impacts on readers, but in my experience, they may be inclined to comment only on what annoys them, what they love and if they’re writers -their personal strengths in writing craft. If you don’t ask your critical readers to comment on anything in particular, let alone provide a critical reader checklist, their feedback may exclude clues about which aspects of your craft -or a particular novel- may need developing.

This beta reader checklist asks reflective questions to help guide well rounded critical reader feedback throughout Act 1 (and in some cases beyond). As a writer, you may like to select or adapt some questions to give your readers. As a reader, you may consider where the strengths and weaknesses of the story you are reading lie and which questions you’ll give feedback on. If you missed it, you’ll find my Chapter One Critical Reader Checklist here.

Do You Understand The Point of View Characters?

Do you have a clear sense of point of view character goals?

Do you understand what drives these characters?

Do character actions make sense to you? And do characters emotional, physical & verbal reactions match what you’ve read about them so far?

If you feel jarred by a character’s actions or reactions, telling the writer so can help focus their edits.

If the pov character thinks in italics, do you read the italics and do you find them effective or annoying?

Do you get a good sense of who a character is and what they’re thinking and feeling through their dialog, actions and internal thoughts, or do they seem distant or unknowable?

What is your overall impression of point of view characters?

Telling the writer can help them reflect on whether they have accurately and consistently represented their characters throughout their story.

Do you get a Good Feel For Character Relationships?

Can you see why new friends/ love interests are drawn to each other?

Do you get a feel for the dynamics of the main characters key relationships?

If these draw you into the story, it can help the writer to know this. If you can’t get into the story because characters or their relationships feel flat, stereotypical or underdeveloped, knowing they don’t engage you also helps inform the writer’s edits.

How Do You Find the Setting/ World Building?

Does what the MC sees, hears, smells, thinks and feels about their world draw you into the setting?

Are you getting a sense of the setting through the characters experience, or through chunks of disembodied narration? Either way, does it engage you?

If there is a magic system, or an alternate political or class system, do you understand how the system impacts on characters lives and the story? Is this made clear to you, or are there details you need to understand to follow the story which seem murky?

Green treed shores of a rock bordered oasis bellow sand dunes in Aswan, southern Egypt. — Photo by yours truly.

How Do You Feel About the Antagonist?

Do you feel like you’ve ‘met’ the antagonist early enough? Or are the characters wandering around having a lovely time, and you don’t feel drawn into the story because there doesn’t seem to be any tension or signs of conflict?

Do you understand the nature of the threat the antagonist poses? Is the worst they (or it) can do at any given point in the story made clear to you?

If the antagonist is a person, do you understand what drives them and what their goal is?

Is the Story Engaging?

Are you meeting interesting people, seeing interesting places & learning interesting things about characters and their world?

Do you feel like the story is going somewhere? Are there signs of things being not quite right, growing tensions between characters or within the world or signs of danger or trouble to come?

Are point of view characters having overlong internal monologues where you’re dying for someone to do or say something?

Do any details of narration bog you down, overwhelm or confuse you? Or do you want to skip ahead at any point?

Are you staying engaged throughout scenes? If your engagement drops, I suggest commenting when it does and if you think you know why, saying so.

Larger Casts, and Characters acting in groups

Does each character speak with their own distinct voice? (Ie. in speech patterns which reflect their personality, age, background, education, class, culture etc.)

Can you see that the characters have different personalities?

Do they show their emotions with different gestures and behaviours or do multiple characters act like they’re the same person emotionally?

Can you remember which character is which within a scene and across chapters, or do you feel like there’s too many characters to keep track of?

Or are some characters so similar that you get them mixed up?

Letting the writer know this may indicate that they need to differentiate characters more or to amalgamate similar characters (who don’t need to be separate people), so the reader can keep track of and get to know the remaining characters properly.

If the characters are working in a group, do they have their own ideas about how to precede? Is there tension and different opinions on how the group should respond to story problems? Or does everyone agree with each other to an unrealistic extent?

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Further Reading

Beta Reader Checklist: Chapter One

Beta Reader Checklist: Act 2

12 Critical Reader Partnership Tips

Finding Critical Readers (or mentoring programs to help you develop any of the above aspects of your craft) + When is my Editing Finished?

9 Tips For The First 5 Pages

November 15, 2020 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Open old book — Photo by John-Mark Smith

With many literary agents wanting only the first 5-10 pages with a query, those opening pages are crucial to readers and traditional publishing alike. Yet as a critical reader, the main advice I’ve given is to delete or rewrite whole paragraphs. With so much to set up, it’s easy to focus on “have I covered this bit yet”? in chapter one, as opposed to, am I presenting my main character as relatable, or interesting and about to embark upon a journey on which the reader wishes to accompany them? And do I foreshadow intriguing story problems to come, without distancing my readers with chunks of telling, boring them with info dumps or confusing them with time jumps? To help you reflect upon and edit, or plan and write your opening pages in a clear and engaging way, I’ll unpack 9 reflective questions giving first five pages tips.

What do I Want the Reader to Know About my Setting?

Let’s orient the reader. Let’s show them that the main character is on another planet or it’s the year 1492. I’d try to get at least one clear thing about location and which point in time the story is taking place on the first page. I’d consider doing it while introducing the MC, by thinking about things such as: what technology is your MC using? What clothes are they wearing? If they’re traveling, what is transport like in your era/ world?

Eg. In my second trilogy, my main character has to go through a checkpoint in the stone walls of a city which, until that point, sounds like anywhere in the modern world. Until my MC gazes out the window at the massive, magically shielded fence lining a deserted highway, and expresses his hope to see the monsters it’s designed to keep off the road flying overhead. Having established that my contemporary-sounding novel actually takes place in a fantasy setting, my story moves on, elaborating on world specific details and history bit by bit, later on.

Where is the Best Location to Introduce My MC?

You’ll also want to consider: what’s most important for a reader to know about my main character at the outset? Which personal factors or relationships will impact on my character’s arc? Which factors in my world/ planet, country, government or society’s beliefs impact on my MC’s life or the lives of people they love? In other words, which location is most appropriate to show the deepest desires of my MC’s heart? To show their want or goal, the lie they believe and to hint at the truth and personal flaws they may address along the way? If your external conflict extends beyond your character, I’d consider where can I place my MC to show these things and show the external conflict?

As your MC moves through the opening scene, I’d slip in casual references to what they see, here and do to show your reader the time and place your character is living in.

What Do I Have My MC Do in the Opening Scene?

That depends on what you want to show about them and their world. For example, instead of explaining that Geoff works on a planet being mined for star fuel which powers the galactic empire’s space travel and is under constant threat of meteor strikes, you could have him stub his toe on a large rock, and comment, “Haven’t they finished clearing the meteor strike yet? If the empire doesn’t staff this mine properly soon, we’re going to get buried and they can kiss their precious star fuel goodbye.”

Whatever you have your MC doing -choose a location, action and or dialogue which shows the reader who and where they are. For example, I open my prologue with Prince Ruarnon strolling through the palace of his people’s long-time enemies. As heir to the throne, he wears a mask of calm, posing to enemy servants, officials and enemy guards he’s walking past as the grave-faced ruler he believes he needs to be. He conceals his inner tension -an act and a lie tested by his character arc. He walks, not with friends or family, but with adult body guards, showing that this teen moves in the adult world and struggles with the isolation of it.

What can I have my MC doing to show through their organic reactions in thought, feeling and behaviour, what guides their beliefs? And to foreshadow their role in my story’s external conflict?

Whatever you decide, try not to begin with logistics. If you start with an MC waking up, reader me would quickly lose interest, unless your character’s first move is to insert a re-charged power source into their arm, or let pet bats in to eat giant insects, which have swarmed around the inside ceiling overnight. Have your MC doing something interesting. If you open with them driving somewhere, have them sweating and cursing as they rehearse the conversation in which they will soon try to persuade their spouse to move somewhere the spouse hates, because your MC has a fantastic job opportunity there.

Start with character action or conversation hinting at underlying tensions (in personal relationships or the entire SFF world), or at something being wrong -hint at an interesting story to come.

What can I show through dialogue?

Who are the key people and what are the key relationships in your MC’s life? What is the nature of those relationships? Are they under strain/ impacted by past events or will they undergo change during the MC’s journey? If so, how can you use dialogue, gestures and other actions to indicate the current state of your MC’s key relationship/ relationships in an early scene? You might also like to consider how you can use dialogue to show what’s relatable to readers, or unique and interesting about your MC’s relationships. Is there tension, suspicion or lack of trust beneath the surface? Banter? Do your MC and their significant other anticipate each other’s thoughts and wishes?

What other details do I Want My Reader to Know?

Answers which may leap to mind include showing off the MC’s personality, indicating their background, life experience, education, knowledge and skills or prior learning which will help them tackle the story problem. But before you put ALL of this at once, consider: What is the minimum the reader needs to know at any one point for this scene to make sense?

If page one opens with your main character being yelled at by her office boss and thinking it’s time for a career change, do we need to know right then that she was raised by a single mother? If she meets her mother for coffee after work on page two, and this conversation is the inciting event which inspires her to turn a love of deep sea diving into a career assisting marine archaeologists -maybe. But, if any of the things you want to introduce aren’t relevant to what your MC sees, hears, thinks or feels about whatever they’re responding to in the present scene -now is not the time to mention other stuff -and a paragraph or more about other things is most likely an info dump.

How Much Info Do I Show At Once?

Ideally, as little as possible. Your character comments on a strange crack in the wall, which later turns out (like Dr Who series 6) to be a crack in the universe. Then the scene moves on. Your thieves gather after a heist, one comments that someone is missing, the others decide there’s no time to waste and get out of there. Only later do they learn of the missing member’s body being found and that they have rivals -probably the same people stalking them on their next heist.

Ice cavern in Iceland — An ice cavern in Iceland, 2016. If your MC is walking through here, give an impression of this space, but don’t try to cram the MC’s backstory or the history of the city in the heart of the ice cavern by the time your MC has walked to the far end of this space.

Each time you introduce a little piece of world building via dialogue or what your character observes in the present scene, I would move your character further into the scene or through a location. Have them take in scenery or do the next action, before slipping another piece of world building or backstory in.

Give your reader time to ingest new information.

This is especially true for bringing new characters onto the scene. If possible, stagger their arrivals. Give time and show a unique thing or two the reader can remember them by before bringing the next character/ pairing etc on stage. And don’t have multiple character names starting with the same letter, or similar sounding names- that’s highly likely to position readers to confuse characters.

What does the Reader Need to Know about Backstory?

There’s a reason this question isn’t, “what do I want the reader to know?” The answer could be “all of it” and the likely result is info-dumping -slabs of telling which become disembodied from the main character and disconnected from the present scene. That makes it very hard for a reader to get into your story or know what’s going on, let alone want to keep reading. So, I would ask, what must my reader know about my character’s past to understand my character’s actions in the present scene?

The question I asked to write my first prologue was, “how do I give the reader an idea of the state of affairs between the empire and the small kingdom it has always wanted to conquer, but never been able to hold?” I did it by getting my MC to wander through the enemy palace on a diplomatic visit. Ruarnon’s thoughts and their reactions to the presence of their long-time enemies standing all around them tell the reader a lot about how Ruarnon feels about their enemies, and gives present story context for snippets of backstory. I hope its just enough for the reader to understand the present state of uneasy peace my story begins with. Then an assassin tries to kill my MC, and my book continues to reveal more about past conflict in the context of my MC grappling with signs war will break out again -soon.

As your opening scene unfolds, continue asking: how does what my MC is seeing, doing and thinking relate to backstory?

Is it essential to the reader understanding that I tie in backstory every time it relates to my character’s thoughts? Which bits of backstory can wait until the reader is better oriented in the present story?

How often across the first 5 pages (and whole first chapter) have I slipped in references to backstory? Is there too much information across those pages for a reader to easily take in information AND follow present events?

Is the backstory ‘backstory’ -or does my present story start in the wrong place?

If the narration of your first chapter wanders back to specific past events the reader needs to know about -and narrates these in past tense- you risk confusing the reader with a past and a present story, neither of which they can properly grasp. You also risk the reader getting bored with what reads as an interruption to the present story and so skipping over the backstory. (Because if the backstory mattered, surely it would be the present scene? As a reader, I find a past event narrated in past tense has no immediacy or tension, so to be blunt, I have no interest in persevering with reading about it.

If you keep writing full paragraphs about a key event prior to the current story -that prior event might need to be your opening scene, narrated as the present story, so it neither bores, nor confuses the reader as they try to get orientated in the present story.

Are Your Characters Moving in the First Five Pages?

Elise and a friend running through snow past pines in Canada. — A memorable run in Canada 2015. There’s no movement quite like sprinting on snow ?

If your character is on the move, going somewhere and doing something, that gives the feel that your story is also going somewhere. Slip some clues in that something isn’t quite right, hinting at tension and or conflict to come, and you have an engaging first five pages. Having everyone sitting around talking may make the reader may wonder where the story is going and if it is in fact going somewhere.

It’s hard to show a character has agency if they’re sitting and chatting with friends in scene one. The first five pages need to prove your MC is an active character, who’s going to do interesting things a reader wants to read about. ‘Active’ doesn’t have to mean taking control of their life or achieving milestones -that might not be possible for them at present. If it isn’t possible, I’d show your MC’s aspirations and small steps your MC can and is taking to meet those aspirations.

Exceptions

One of my novels has my MC sit at a table with his mother and father on page 3. Mum has baked a cake to celebrate my 15 yo MC’s achievements and is trying to play proud mum (if not happy wife.) Dad is being rude, ungrateful, self-centred and domineering, while my MC’s internal monologue about his father is overtly aggressive and he’s sitting with fists clenched under the table. The characters are still because stillness amplifies the tension of the family dynamics and my MC’s inner tension.

So consider, is having my characters remain stationary at any point in the first five pages a necessary or effective way to show something about my MC, their relationships, world etc? If you don’t have a particular reason for keeping your characters immobile early on -get them moving!

Recap

?Orient the reader in space and time.

?Consider: Where can I place my main character and what can I have them doing to show, through their organic reactions in thought, feeling and behaviour, what guides their beliefs and thinking?

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How can I foreshadow their role in my story’s external conflict?

1. Start with character action or conversation hinting at underlying tensions (in personal relationships or the entire SFF world), or at something being wrong -hint at an interesting story to come.

2. Introduce world building and backstory in small snippets, with character movement or action in between, to give the reader time to digest information about your story and character’s world.

3. Consider: what must my reader know about my character’s past to understand my character’s actions in the present scene?

4. Make sure narration focuses on the present scene, with no more than a sentence or two of backstory or world building, to let the reader get oriented in the present story.

To get help your critical readers comment on how effectively you’ve done all of the above, see my Chapter 1 and Act 1 (links to Act 2 & 3) Critical Reader Checklists.

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Learn What Problematic Rep Looks Like,
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Physical ‘Abnormalities’ Are ‘Evil’
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