Author Archives: Audrey Driscoll

Gardener, writer, and former cataloguing librarian. Negotiates with plants and transforms imaginings into words.

Creating Auto-Narrated Audiobooks on Google Play

Based on Chuck Litka’s post Adventures in Audiobooks, I decided to go with Google’s audiobook option only. So this post refers exclusively to auto-narrated audiobooks on the Google Play platform.

I have finished setting up and editing one audiobook, which is now live. From that experience, I can make the following observations.

Once you have an ebook live on Google Play Books, it’s surprisingly easy to create an audiobook. That said, I fumbled my way through the process, and my first book went live in an unedited state. I will have to figure out how to keep that from happening with any others I publish, because it is absolutely necessary to listen to the entire book before finalizing it. There are step-by-step instructions in something called the Auto-Narrated Audiobooks Learning Center, but when I started the process, I found myself being hustled through a number of steps without really knowing what was happening. No harm done, however, as far as I know.

On the plus side, once the audiobook was live, it was easy to whip it into shape. I called up the Audiobook Text, which allowed me to both listen to and see the text. I could start and stop playback, make changes in the text, and save them. It’s possible to have more than one version of an audiobook (with different narrator voices, for example), but only one can be live.

There is a large number and variety of narrator voices available, including male and female voices in different age ranges (18-30, 31-45, 45-60, and 60+) with “standard” American, British, or Australian accents. Voices for a few languages other than English are available, but it’s recommended to use these only for texts in those languages. There are no options for English spoken with accents other than those I’ve already mentioned, or with regional accents.

It’s possible to use more than one voice in a book! Theoretically, you could have dialogue in as many voices as you have characters, but I think this would complicate the setup process. So far, I’ve used only one main voice, with a second one to read brief quotations that open a few chapters in my book.

Changes made to the audiobook text are not reflected in the ebook version. One hazard here is I was sorely tempted to improve the text! I don’t know how many instances of the word “that” I was tempted to delete, but I decided to make no changes except those needed to improve or correct the speech. I want the audiobook, ebook, and paperback versions to be essentially the same, stylistic problems and all. However, I did find it helpful to add or delete commas on occasion.

The computer-generated voices sound human, much more so than the rather robotic voice of Word’s text-to-speech feature. Nevertheless, they can’t be expected to represent the full range of emotion that may be found in a work of fiction. Google’s info about auto-narrated audiobooks cautions that they work best for texts that do not require a lot of drama and emotion. Still, I found the voices I selected to be better than adequate. Quite often, the main narrator was spot-on, to the point he seemed to embody the first person narrator of the book.

Quirks and Issues

  • Stress and emphasis does not always fall where it should in a sentence. This can’t be changed by adjusting the speed of the narration, but deleting or adding commas helps sometimes. Still, I admit there are occasions when a word or sentence sounds a little “off.”
  • Sometimes there is an awkward pause between a word or sentence spoken by a character and the dialogue tag such as “he said” or “I asked.” The best solution might be to delete selected dialogue tags, but I resisted the temptation to do this, not wanting my spoken and written texts to diverge. But this is another reason to use fewer dialogue tags!
  • Weirdly, a few names are pronounced quite differently when a possessive is added. For one name, I had to provide a correct pronunciation for possessives because the default was unacceptable.
  • Homographs are common enough that you have listen for instances where the wrong pronunciation pops up. For example, the default pronunciation of the word “read” is the present tense (pronounced “reed”). When the past tense pronunciation (“red”) was needed, I had to intervene. Fortunately it’s easy to fix these; a right click on the word in the text takes you to both versions, and you can listen to them before selecting the correct one. There is an option to change the pronunciation of all instances of a word, or only one.
  • Abbreviations such as Mr. and Dr. are usually pronounced correctly, but I encountered a few situations where “Dr.” came out as “drive,” for some reason. I fixed these by spelling out the word.
  • Uncommon words, place names, or words in other languages may be mispronounced. In such cases, you can insert a different pronunciation by spelling the word differently, speaking it into your computer’s mic, or by using the International Phonetic Alphabet. I actually did that for a few place names; fortunately Wikipedia sometimes provides IPA spellings in its articles, so I was able to reproduce them with good results. You can listen to the new pronunciation before selecting it. This was about the most challenging part of the editing process.

So what do I think of Google’s Auto-Narrated Audiobooks?

I think it’s an excellent option for authors who would not otherwise consider producing audiobook versions of their books. It doesn’t cost anything and produces acceptable results.

There’s no doubt that a competent human reader or voice actor would produce a superior listening experience, but at a cost that’s likely prohibitive for most indie authors. Some may have the talents and equipment to be their own reader, but I suspect those are a minority. The AI-narrated option is available for free to anyone.

A few more considerations:

  • You have to publish your books as ebooks on Google Play before you can create audiobooks. Google requires book files in ePub, not Word. I used Calibre (a free program) to convert a copy of the Word doc I used for the Amazon Kindle version of my book into an ePub, which I then uploaded to Google Play Books. It helped that the Word doc was properly formatted and had a linked table of contents.
  • You need a square cover image for the audiobook, but it looks like the rectangular ebook cover image is squared up automatically with a block of matching colour, so you can get away with that.
  • You need to commit the time needed to listen to your audiobook from start to finish in order to correct any serious or even mildly annoying problems in the finished product. The book I worked with is a fairly hefty tome, which ended up being more than 15 hours of listening time. It took me a solid week to complete, spending 2 to 3 hours each day. (Actually, this reminded me why I prefer reading fiction rather than listening to it.)

I encourage anyone who wants to offer their books in audio format to give this a try. The only cost is your time.

Once I’ve converted one more book to auto-narrated audio format I will write a post on my own blog with more details. That should appear in another week or two.

Featured image from Pexels

What Is Literary Fiction?

By Audrey Driscoll

This question came up at the most recent WSW chat session (which will be posted here in the near future). It looks like we will need yet another session to thrash it out further, but I thought I would muddle some ideas around before that.

Here are some irreverent descriptions of literary fiction:

  • Books you have to read in English Literature classes
  • Great literature (they say)
  • The Classics (whatever that means)
  • Long, boring books written by dead guys
  • Long, boring books written by snobs
  • Books that critics write about
  • Books that get awards like the Pulitzer, the Booker, or the Nobel
  • Books that are good for you but no fun to read
  • Books with symbolism and allusions to stuff in other books
  • Books that don’t really have a story, just words
  • Books where you can’t tell what’s going on
  • Books you put on your shelf.

I’m sure you can add to this list.

It’s a lot like the question of what is “classical” music, and where is the dividing line between (hoity-toity, highbrow, inaccessible) music and the (familiar, predictable, head-bobbing) sounds of popular music. A question with no easy answer, it turns out.

And not one I’m about to debate here.

Getting serious, here is a definition from the Wikipedia article on literary fiction: “…novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art.”

The main characteristics of literary fiction are:

  • Character-driven
  • Realistic examination of the human condition
  • Uses language in an artistic way.

It can be argued that literary writing refers more to style than to actual genre. After all, a romance, a mystery, a fantasy, or a thriller can possess these characteristics along with the necessary genre tropes. In fact, such a story would probably be richer and more interesting than one focussed primarily on plot.

There is also the problematic implication that literary fiction is somehow superior to genre fiction, that its readers are more intellectual and sophisticated than those who read for entertainment and just want to find out who did the murder or how the couple will achieve happiness.

I think it isn’t really necessary to classify books by genre unless you are running a bookstore. These classifications are part of the book trade. Even online ebook stores use some form of genre labelling, with “Literature” being given its own slot. I wonder how useful this is, really. Book retailers must make their products searchable, but surely that can be done through tags and keywords?

Genre labels—assuming “literary fiction” is a genre—do tell potential readers what to expect, up to a point. The trouble with this term is it covers a vast territory, everything from serious, slow moving, socially-conscious novels to plotless experimental fiction. Moreover, there’s a lot of genre bending and genre lumping going on, even by “literary” writers.

You want to know what I think? It doesn’t matter. Now that books no longer have to pass the gatekeepers of traditional publishing, there is no need to adhere to the labels of that world. Any book, no matter its genre, can be “literary,” meaning it’s character-driven, presents the human condition in a realistic way, and is written with an awareness of the artful possibilities of language.

Not every book needs to have these qualities. It’s perfectly okay to write and publish books where plot is the main driver and the characters are recognizable genre types. As for language, all writers should use it competently, if not always artfully.

Readers are quick to recognize books they like. Some will keep reading even if the style or content is unfamiliar or uncomfortable, but many will not. That’s perfectly okay too; there’s no shortage of books. Every reader can find more than enough to suit them, and those who cannot are free to write and publish whatever they like.

Fellow writers, do you read or write literary fiction? Do you think it’s a separate genre, a style of writing, or something else altogether? And do you even care?

Photo by Ravi Kant on Pexels.com

AI As a Fiction Writing Tool

by Audrey Driscoll

As an experiment, I wrote a short story I called “The Green Flash” and then presented its basic elements to ChatGPT and asked it to produce a short story incorporating them. You can read the results in this post on my personal blog.

It took the AI a few seconds to produce its 755-word story. It took me the equivalent of 2.5 standard working days, spread over several weeks.

I did not refine the ChatGPT story in any way. But I reduced mine by a third to make it more comparable to the AI version.

I have to admit, the AI’s version of the story, which it titled “Run for Janey,” isn’t bad. It has an arc, it hangs together, it’s even mildly exciting and ends with an “aww” moment. Many would say it’s a perfectly good story.

A few observations:

  • My prompt didn’t say it was the couple’s 50th anniversary. ChatGPT added that detail independently.
  • I did not specify that either of the photographers took photos of anyone, but I guess ChatGPT knows about Chekhov’s gun.
  • ChatGPT seems to have a positive, sentimental outlook, as well as a sense of humour.
  • ChatGPT doesn’t always show rather than tell, and it doesn’t mind using adverbs or stock phrases (i.e., clichés).
  • The green flash is more dramatic in the AI version.

Based on this rather superficial test, I conclude that AI may be a useful tool for fiction writers, especially those under pressure to produce text quickly. It would probably be a good idea for those writers to work on creating effective prompts and refining their inputs.

Have I done that? No. Do I intend to? I’m not sure. I have admitted that crossing the gap from story idea to a first draft is my toughest writing challenge. It’s obvious that AI can do that easily, but I don’t know how much effort would be needed on my part to revise prompts and repeat the AI’s text generating routines before the results would match my intentions for a specific story. It could be I’d rather stick to using my aging brain.

Take the story in my “experiment.” I think “The Green Flash,” written 100% by me, is a better short story than “Run for Janey” by ChatGPT. If I had started by prompting the AI and working with the resulting text, I don’t know what sort of story I would have ended up writing, or how much time and effort would have been required to produce something I thought worthwhile.

Logically, the next experiment would be to prompt an AI with elements from one of the many story ideas in my notebook, and see if I could turn the results into a real story more efficiently than my current process.

The real question is which method of producing written fiction is more congenial and effective for any individual writer. Some may have no interest in engaging with AI; others may be motivated to try different AIs and learn how to use them effectively.

In the latter case, should the human writer credit whatever AI they use as a co-writer? Or is the AI analogous to all the mental inputs a writer has had over their lifetime, from everything they’ve ever experienced, read, and learned, all the movies they’ve watched, all the conversations overheard. Because really, our minds are repositories of all this stuff, and it’s from these wells we draw the ideas for stories and the words in which we embody them. It could be argued that AIs do the same, only more efficiently.

Writers, what do you think of artificial intelligence as a fiction writing tool? What sorts of writing projects have you used it for?

Feature image photo by Audrey Driscoll enhanced with Canva.

Is “Good Writing” Worth the Effort?

Have you ever been surprised to see many 5-star ratings and enthusiastically positive reviews for a book that’s poorly written? Meaning typos, clunky sentences, and weak or repeated words? I’ve seen this often enough to conclude that it’s not explained by authors’ friends doing them favours.

Then I read a post via a link from the blog of the estimable blogger who calls himself Chris the Story Reading Ape. He searches the blogosphere for posts of interest to writers. The one that caught my interest is titled What is “Bad Writing?” (And How Can We Avoid It?)

For a direct link to the post, click HERE.

Janice Hardy’s post prompted the following unvarnished thoughts which I decided to share here. Remember that word as you read: unvarnished. (And maybe a bit snarky.)

The post questions the idea that fiction writers absolutely must produce polished prose if they want their novels to be read and appreciated.

For readers seeking undemanding entertainment, “good writing” (whatever that is) takes a back seat to the combination of good enough writing and a great story that piques curiosity. Quite simply, readers keep reading if a compelling question is posed at the beginning of a story or novel. They really don’t care if there are a few typos, along with “filter” words, words ending in “-ly,” or too many instances of “was.” They may not even care if there’s telling instead of showing, as long as the story being told moves along briskly toward an answer to the burning question. Who is the stalker? What’s in the box? What will X do when Y’s secret is revealed?

Some readers do care about the prose, though. Editors, for example, or readers who are also writers. These people read a lot and pay close attention to what they are reading. They notice sloppy sentences, bad habits, and careless use of language.

Some writers may wish to be strategic with their writing efforts, tailoring them for their intended readers and not bothering with effects those readers don’t appreciate. For self-published authors, that means potential book buyers; for writers seeking traditional publication, it’s agents and editors.

A successful self-published author of genre fiction knows that the most important element to attract readers is the urgent question, irresistible puzzle, or imminent threat. Plot is king. Next in importance is an amiable main character or engaging narrative voice. Less important are detailed descriptions, and possibly unimportant is artful prose, otherwise known as “beautiful writing.”

This author would direct their primary effort to devising irresistible situations and setting them up in the first few pages. After that, it’s a matter of structuring the plot in such a way that the reader is always thinking “What next?” And an ending that elicits a gasp or a sigh pretty much guarantees a five star rating.

The writer who intends to engage in querying traditional publishers must think in terms of creating a saleable written product. That means being aware of both current and recent trends. What might be about to peak, or what’s ready to make a comeback? Or what story elements push the envelope just enough that the gatekeepers will see it as potentially the next big thing?

In theory, the author aspiring to be trad-pubbed doesn’t need to worry much about honing and burnishing their prose, because if a publisher takes on their work, it will be put through the editing mill. What the writer absolutely does need to demonstrate is a willingness to be edited. That’s why a track record of publication in magazines, anthologies, and similar vehicles is advised.

At the same time, the writer’s submission must not irritate the people who read submissions for a living. Consider how many typos these folks see every day, not to mention eye rolls, shrugs, and raven-haired heroines. Clichés, excessive modifiers, typos, and tired tropes are not the best accessories in which to dress one’s original and edgy creation for its trip to the publishers’ gates. Spare and underdone might have a better chance than florid and breathless.

Except in the case of literary fiction, where some form of beautiful writing is definitely required. What that is depends on the tastes of the reader, which is why getting published is a crap shoot. Luck is definitely an element. To help tip the scales, the ambitious writer may find it worthwhile to direct their efforts as much to making personal connections with published authors as to polishing their prose. This is where pursuing an MFA in creative writing may pay off, or at least superior schmoozing skills deployed in carefully chosen workshops, courses, or retreats.

Setting aside all those tedious considerations, what about the personal standards of the indie author? Should we not aspire to produce gripping plots, relatable characters, intriguing settings, and artful prose? Aren’t these all necessary elements of good writing?

Yes, they are. And most authors at least intend to incorporate them all in their works. Exceptions may include successful authors who crank out several books a year to satisfy the many readers for whom they are an auto-buy. Their brand sells enough books that they don’t need to twiddle with every sentence.

To sum up, good writing isn’t always worth the effort, but often enough, it is. The wise writer will recognize those situations and act accordingly.

Fellow writers and authors, do you ever decide that “good enough” is good enough, or do you always strive for perfection in your published works?

Blog Repair

by Audrey Driscoll

Ever since we set up the Writers Supporting Writers Blog, there have been a few problems with it. Despite the settings, there was no Reblog button. No one but blog authors could Like posts. Follows didn’t work.

I’ve been fiddling around with the settings, and have finally managed to add the Reblog button. I’ve also seen a few additional Likes on the previous post, so I hope that’s working as well.

As for Follows, does anyone see a Follow button in the lower right corner? Most blogs seem to have these. Has anyone tried to follow this blog without success?

Please test the Like, Follow, or Reblog functions, and let us know what happens via a comment. No, this isn’t a sneaky scheme to attract follows!

My Writing Dream

Audrey Driscoll

First, my thanks to Mark for starting this topic. All writers start with a vision or intention that could be called a dream. Those of us who actually complete a book and get it published one way or another get to live that dream. And naturally it changes as we pursue the journey.

In one or more of our WSW video chats, I admitted that until I was in my forties, I assumed being a writer was something you started when you were young or not at all. But then I had an idea for a novel that I could not let go of. “Why not?” I thought. In November 2000, I started writing, and spent the next decade in the grip of a happy obsession.

Did I get published? Yes, but not the way I originally thought I would. During the dizzy first year of writing, I thought of course my book was supremely publish-worthy. Agents would be falling over themselves to snap it up. I even wondered if my holiday time from work would be enough for a book tour. (Remembering this, I blush and giggle.)

The pinnacle of Dream 1.0 was where I would be interviewed on one or another radio (yes, radio!) program on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). That’s still my outlet of choice for information and music. I’ve heard many author interviews. The well-read, well-spoken host asks the author what inspired their book, and the two go on to have a civilized and witty chat. To me, that would have been the ultimate in validation.

Well, it didn’t work out that way. In 2010, I published my first novel myself, as an ebook via Smashwords. Over the next decade, I went on to publish six more books, on Amazon as well as Smashwords, and in print as well as ebook.

By now, I’m onto Dream 3.7, at least. I no longer intend to submit or query. I’m content with the way I publish. I’m lucky that I don’t need to depend on any income at all from my writing. I call all the shots.

But what is my long-term dream?

Like Mark, I hope my books will be read and even reread. Like Berthold, I hope my characters and their experiences will linger in the minds and imaginations of readers. That readers will close my books with a sigh of contentment and a wave of biblio-bereavement. My first novel was inspired by another writer’s story. I would be delighted if a future writer found enough substance in one of my works to be similarly inspired.

Ask Us Anything!

Well, almost anything.

The folks behind the Writers Supporting Writers blog (Berthold, Chuck, Lucinda, Mark, Richard, and Audrey) want your questions. About writing, publishing, inspiration, being indie, querying, rejections, sales, marketing, writing rules, etc. etc. The whole gamut of topics related to the world of writing.

We are eager to offer our personal views on any writing-related subject you may be wondering about. Why did we start writing? What did we do to get our works published? How do we promote our writing? I’m sure you can think of many other questions.

We will answer your questions over the next few months, in the form of blog posts and/or video chats.

Ask away! Comments are open!

Featured image from Pexels

Another Response to Berthold

–Audrey Driscoll

Having read Berthold’s post and Mark’s response, I thought I’d better offer my view. I’ve been writing a first draft for the past six months, so I’m in a great position to ponder the question. Why is writing so hard?

First, do I think it’s hard? Answer: yes. It’s certainly not like when I wrote my first novel in 2000-2001. As Mark said of his early writing experience, back then I couldn’t not write. Part of me was always in the world of my novel, throwing out ideas, Even at work I’d stop and scribble them down, or sketch entire scenes. I could hardly wait to get back to the manuscript. I wrote for at least 2 or 3 hours every night, after a full day at work.

Now? I’ve been retired for five years, and all the stuff I jammed into weekends and days off has expanded to fill most of my free time. (Weird how that happens.) And writing? Well, that’s different too.

I’ve written six books since that first one, and each one has been harder than the last. I work on my present WIP for an hour a day if I’m lucky, often way less than that. I have to get in my page a day first thing in the morning, and if I don’t manage that, I fall behind my self-declared schedule. Still, I am more or less where I hoped to be by this time, but the first draft is a mass of scribble that may deliver some unpleasant surprises when I return to the beginning and turn it into an editable document.

As to why it’s so hard to produce that first draft, well, here’s my list:

  • It’s unreasonable to expect every writing project to be as exciting, fun, and easy as the first one. The next novel or story will be freighted with expectations and experiences created by the first, so it can’t possibly be the same, Goodbye, innocence.
  • The writer probably “incubated” a first novel or story for a long time before sitting down to write it. That’s why it poured out with little effort. Sequels or later stories don’t get the long development period in the writer’s brain; hence the hard labour of creation in front of the blank page, Having become an actual writer rather than an aspiring one, the person has to write every day, to create a body of work or crank out a series. Because that’s what real writers do.
  • I wrote my first few books with minimal exposure to the internet. I had access to it at work but not at home. I became connected at home in 2010 so I could publish. Along with that came blogging, which exposed me to a deluge of advice to writers. A good deal of it is useful, but it certainly empowers the inner critic. I’ll be scribbling away, laying down the story, when that little voice whispers things like “Uh-oh–filter words!” or “That’s a cliche,” or “Don’t you know ‘was’ is bad?” The critic’s finger wags and the writer’s pen stops moving.
  • Nascent stories are fragile. An idea, a fleeting glimpse of a character, a ghost of a plot. Sometimes it feels like turning these figments into prose is like sculpting an ice cube–it melts and disappears, despite the writer’s efforts. Fear of this happening may be enough to keep one from writing.
  • There is also fear of brevity. For all the praise of spare, tight writing, it’s disconcerting if something intended to be a substantial novel (80-100K words) ends up as a 40K novelette with a flimsy little plot. A desperate effort to remedy this may be pages of padding. Padding is no fun to write. It takes the form of unnecessary scenes, unnecessary detail, or unnecessary dialogue. Watching cat videos is more fun than writing that stuff.
  • Fear of making wrong choices. There’s the opening scene and an intended ending. Or maybe just the opening scene. (Pantsers, I’m looking at you!) In between is an infinity of choices, an infinity of decisions to be made. Each decision eliminates a world of possibilities and may lead to places the writer doesn’t want to go. Just thinking about this has a paralyzing effect.

I think the love/hate thing is part of being a writer. When the hate (or weariness) overcomes the need to turn idea sparks into stories, we just stop writing. But as long as we have the desire to embody ideas and imaginings in words, we’ll force ourselves to sit down in that chair and beat out the story. Grumbling and grousing, but pushing on. And appreciating the moments of true inspiration.

Writers Talking: a Lost Podcast

Back in 2019, writer Kevin Brennan and two other writers sat down together to talk about writing novels and getting them published. He recorded the conversation, intending to turn it into a podcast. Unfortunately, a power outage destroyed the recording.

Brennan says: “It sounded so good too. You’d have loved it. I had some classic jazz to open the show with. I even put a little reverb on the recording so it sounded like we were in a small concert venue or a high-ceilinged coffeehouse. I could have thrown in ambient coffeehouse sounds to enhance the mood, but the thing was gone before I got the chance.”

But he had made a transcript, so the text of the conversation was preserved. Brennan published it under the title Close to Perfect: three writers talk about the craft and business of fiction in the 21st century.

And now, the book is available as a free download on Kevin’s blog. I recommend this book to any fiction writer, or to readers who wonder how it’s done.

Pep Talk #3: Have Faith in Your Writing

Remember the first time you read something you had written and thought, “This is a great piece of writing! And I wrote it!” I hope you savoured that moment and still think of it fondly. Because it didn’t last, did it?

Part of becoming a writer is experiencing doubt in your abilities. There are multiple opportunities for this. The critique partner who shreds your offering for that meeting. The agent or publisher who responds with “Sorry, not for us.” The readers of your published book who post one-star condemnations or two-star lukewarm dismissals. And perhaps worst of all, your own reactions the day after what you thought was a productive writing session–“Did I write this crap?”

If you want to get your writing into the public arena, to be read by people who don’t know you except as the writer of your words, you must have faith in it. Not blind faith, but faith that comes from knowing you’ve done the work to the best of your abilities.

That faith will be tested. You work through your list of agents and publishers, and send out queries that precisely match each one’s requirements, and receive only rejections, or no response at all, So you work over those first ten pages again, trying to figure out how to fix them.

You submit the improved query to a different set of agents/publishers, with the same result. Then you wonder if you might have had better luck with the first set of queries if you had sent the improved version. But you’ll never know, because you can’t submit a work more than once to the same agent/publisher. Each attempt is a fresh crapshoot.

At this point, you conclude you’re a lousy writer who has no business troubling busy agents and overworked acquisitions editors. After all, their inboxes are overflowing with the offerings of better writers than you. Because all writers are better than you.

This is where you need faith in your writing.

After wallowing in self-pity for days or weeks, you read over your manuscript again, and despite everything, you conclude it’s not worthless. Maybe a critique partner or beta reader agrees. So you decide to publish it yourself.

This process can raise another set of doubts. Is that (much-rejected) work really worthy of publication? Now you read it with the eye of an editor, remembering stuff from books on How to Write and blog posts on How Not to Write. Does your plot follow the three-act structure? Are your characters realistic? Is there enough tension and conflict? Is the narrative voice engaging? Have you used the correct point of view? How about those dialogue tags? Are the stakes high enough to keep readers interested? What about all those filter words and that mushy middle? There are a thousand things that can be wrong with your novel, and probably are.

It’s time for another meeting with yourself and your manuscript. Remind yourself of these facts:

  • Many of those “rules” are just guidelines
  • There is no way everyone will like your book
  • There is no way no one will like your book
  • Your book will never be perfect

Nothing worthwhile can be done without some element of risk. If you have done your due diligence as a writer, you arrive at a point where you take the next step or quit, whether it’s sending our more queries, entering that contest, or publishing. Or writing the next book.