Imposter syndrome sometimes tells you the truth.
Sometimes, you really do need to get better at the task in front of you to succeed. Many gurus will tell you that you already have everything you need. You just need to pay them money so you can be successful. But in the real world, success requires the hard work of improving your craft. Now, it’s true, sometimes imposter syndrome lies; but deep down, you know you can improve.
But how do you know where you need to improve? And once you find out, how do you become a better novelist?
For most writers, the process of improvement follows three phases.
Phase 1: Mastering the Fundamentals
If you’re going to bake a cake, you need to know the recipe, especially if you’ve never baked a cake before. Certain ingredients are essential; and without them, the cake will fail. If you don’t believe me, just try substituting baking soda for baking powder and see how it goes. Knowing the difference between essential ingredients is key to successful baking.
In the same way, all novels require essential ingredients that make them work.
If you try to wing it or skip some of those essential ingredients, especially out of ignorance, your novel will fail. And in that case, it’s not imposter syndrome; it’s just failure.
Phase 2: Developing Your Writing Abilities
Writers call this developing your voice, and it means learning when and where you can deviate from traditional wisdom. Developing your writing voice means using your own idiosyncrasies that don’t follow the rules but are a result of you breaking rules on purpose. When your writing voice breaks writing rules, you should be able to articulate why you broke the rule or how a higher rule applies.
For example, airplanes don’t break the laws of physics when they fly; it’s just that the more powerful combination of lift and thrust prevails.
Phase 3: Internalizing Fundamentals and Voice
After you’ve internalized the fundamentals and your voice, you can write freely. Your writing flies off the shelves to readers who are eager to read what you write.
At this phase, you’re no longer begging readers to buy your book. They are begging you to write the next one, which is a sign that you’ve arrived at phase three. If you’re still having to beg readers to buy your book, you probably haven’t reached phase three; and most writers don’t. They get lost in the fundamentals or skip developing their voice. If you don’t master the fundamentals, you will not reach phase three.
How can you discover where you need to improve and how you can get better?
I asked Brad Pauquette to talk to us about how to structure a novel and improve our craft. He’s the director of The Company and the author of The Novel Matrix: The Complete Novel Writing Guide (affiliate link). He’s a 15-year industry veteran who’s helped hundreds of authors write and publish their best work, hit bestseller lists, and win awards.
Why do novels fail?
Thomas: Why do novels fail? What are the failure points that keep a novel from resonating with readers?
Brad: Over the past 15 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of authors, helping them complete their projects and successfully bring them to market. One of the most common issues I encounter is what I refer to as a novel being either “too fat” or “too skinny.”
A novel is typically “too fat” when the author has crammed all the ideas they’ve ever had into one 50,000- to 80,000-word book. There are too many characters, different plot threads, and subplots squished together.
The authors seem to think it’s the only book they’ll ever get to write, so they put all the good stuff in there. To use your cake analogy, it’d be like loading the cake with all the sugar, which would make a disgusting, sticky mess.
Thomas: I find that most authors write their first books that way. That’s why one of the ten commandments of book marketing is “Thou shalt not publish thy first book first.”
When someone bakes a cake for the first time, especially as a kid, it’s easy to think, “Why not add twice as much sugar? That’ll make it twice as yummy!” But then you dump it all in, and the result is a disgusting cake.
Brad: I think of it like going to a buffet. As a first-time author, you’re so excited to write your first book that you start piling everything on your plate until your plate is full of random things that don’t go together. It’s better to approach it thoughtfully and ask, “What combinations would actually work well together?”
A novel is typically “too skinny” when an author is stretching a single idea and trying to get the maximum mileage out of it. This is especially common with memoirs, where someone has an interesting story to share, but the material simply doesn’t justify 50,000 to 80,000 words. Instead of embracing it as a great short story, they stretch it into a bad novel.
Thomas: Sometimes, an author has a great idea but tries to carry the entire novel on that single idea without building strong characters, compelling protagonists and antagonists, and all the other elements that make a story work. A good idea alone isn’t enough.
For example, Prince Caspian explores the intriguing concept of what might happen if King Arthur returned in modern times. That idea fascinated C.S. Lewis, but that alone wasn’t enough to sustain the story. Lewis had to weave in additional ideas and elements to make the novel engaging. If the entire book had relied solely on that single concept, it would have failed.
Brad: Donald Miller describes story as a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.
A novel’s key ingredients are plot, characters, conflict, and setting. And just like in baking, we have to have the right balance of these ingredients to create a relatable and compelling story.
Thomas: The balance of those elements varies by genre. It’s not about having everything in perfect equilibrium. Some genres naturally lean toward more tension and conflict, while others have less. This is where understanding the rules and when to break them is crucial.
Certain storytelling elements are universal. For example, your characters need to be well-developed, your protagonist should be likable or relatable, and their decisions need to make sense. Readers shouldn’t constantly be asking, “Why are they doing that? That doesn’t follow their previous actions.”
However, other elements are genre specific. Finding the right balance requires familiarity with your genre; and developing your familiarity requires you to read widely within your genre, particularly recent books. If you’re writing fantasy and the last book you read was Lord of the Rings or a Narnia novel, you’re out of touch with where the genre is today and what readers are currently buying. Reading recent works helps you understand the expectations and balance needed for your story to resonate with modern audiences.
Brad: Right. In high fantasy, there’s a strong emphasis on setting and world-building, as the universe itself needs to be fully developed. That’s one of the strengths I brought to The Novel Matrix (affiliate link) when I wrote it. It’s a system I’ve been using with authors for years in both writing and editing.
When I looked at other writing books on the market, I noticed many of them were overly prescriptive. They often dictated that specific plot elements must occur at a precise point in the story or that conflicts always need to follow a certain formula. However, the data doesn’t support such universals. While certain story elements are consistently present, storytelling isn’t that rigid.
In fact, when we impose strict prescriptions, we strip the creative process of its power. For example, someone writing fantasy who tries to conform to a rigid model won’t write the best story they’re capable of.
In developing my system, I aimed to strike a balance that respects the way human beings naturally understand stories while avoiding a “paint-by-numbers” approach. The goal isn’t to fill in blanks left by a more experienced author but to empower writers to follow their own creative process without missing the fundamental elements that have made stories work for centuries.
Thomas: I think a paint-by-numbers strategy is great when you’re just starting out. It’s similar to learning how to paint by copying your instructor’s work exactly. Even though you’re copying, you’re learning fundamentals like brushwork and color mixing.
However, the result isn’t a painting you can sell. It’s just a copy of what the instructor has already mastered. They’ve painted that piece a thousand times and perfected it, but you’re doing it for the first time. Your version isn’t as polished, but the experience is invaluable for building your skills.
So, when Brad talks about paint-by-numbers, it’s perfectly fine to use that approach. In fact, I encourage you to pick a book, course, or training program and follow it closely. But once you’ve completed it, don’t try to sell that book. That was a practice exercise, a stepping stone to help you learn and grow as a writer.
Publishing is a unique industry. Larry Correia points out that it’s the only industry where your entire career is judged by your rookie season. This is especially true if you’re writing a series. The success of the first book in your series largely determines the sales of the entire series. You can’t sell book two to people who didn’t buy or read book one.
If book one is your very first novel, it’s likely not your best work; but it ends up defining all the later, better books in the series. This can be a major obstacle to success, as it creates a barrier for new readers. Core fans might rave about later books in the series; but if book one isn’t strong, it’s like telling someone, “The first two seasons of this show are weak, but it gets good in season three.” That’s a big commitment for a potential reader. It’s far better if the series starts strong from book one and continues to build momentum through the subsequent books.
Where does The Novel Matrix fit on the plotter-pantser continuum?
Thomas: In publishing, there’s a dichotomy between outliners and discovery writers, or what we in the industry call plotters and pantsers—people who write from an outline and people who write by the seat of their pants.
Brad: We talked about why most novels fail, but we should also consider why most novelists fail. Most fail because they never actually write a novel. Among people who say they want to write a novel, only 1% actually do. That’s a staggering statistic.
At its core, this often comes down to finding a system that works for you as an author. The debate between plotters and pantsers (those who outline versus those who write by the seat of their pants) highlights this challenge. In truth, many writers don’t fit neatly into either category.
It’s similar to the way we think about extroverts and introverts. Few people are purely one or the other; most of us exist somewhere in between. The same goes for plotting and pantsing. Most writers fall somewhere on a spectrum between both approaches.
When I look at the publishing marketplace and much of the advice out there, I notice extremes. On one side, you have the “follow your heart” crowd, who insist, “You have everything you need inside you. Just write your best story!” While this works for some, I believe it’s a small minority. For most writers, success comes from finding a balance of a method that taps into their creativity while providing enough structure to bring their novel to life.
Thomas: If you’ve internalized the rules and written several dozen books, your heart may intuitively lead you in the right direction. But if you haven’t done that work, then your heart will take you down the wrong road.
Brad: Exactly. People talk about Stephen King as this amazing pantser, but how many novels did he write before Carrie became popular? He wrote over half a million words in order to just be able to sit down and crank out a story as he does now.
Pantsing could get you there. You could follow your heart; and if you had enough self-discipline to do that repeatedly, you’d eventually arrive. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time.
On the other hand, we have plotters who invent rigid systems that you have to follow step-by-step. For a few writers, that works really well; but for pantsers, that system is far too rigid. They don’t feel like they can exercise their creativity, and the whole reason they got into writing was to express themselves. Adhering to a rigid system makes them feel as if they’re checking boxes.
The Novel Matrix presents that middle ground. We acknowledge there are ways that humans fundamentally interact with story that go back to the days of primitive humans telling stories around a campfire. You can’t change those elements. Your story won’t relate if you don’t do those things.
But at the same time, we acknowledge that we must maintain those story structure marks while still giving the writer the freedom to be themselves. It allows characters to become themselves, which is the strangest phenomenon that writers experience. The characters are inside your head, but they become something new and original.
With The Novel Matrix, I wanted to provide a middle ground where you can satisfy both sides. I’ve found that it works for a lot of people who have struggled to reach the end of a manuscript because it provides enough structure while still allowing writers the freedom to be themselves.
Thomas: Storytelling is both ancient and deeply rooted in our human nature. It’s not just old; it’s primitive in the sense that it’s an intrinsic part of who we are.
For example, we recently had a baby; and as I watched her in her bassinet when she was just a week old, I could see her dreaming. She’s a human without language. She doesn’t understand the words we say to her, and she doesn’t have any words of her own. Yet, she’s already experiencing narratives in her mind.
Even at this early stage, there’s a sense of symbolism and a sequence of events forming in her dreams. Of course, they’re probably not very complex; but they’re already there. And as she grows, that natural capacity for storytelling will only deepen.
Storytelling is a core element of who we are as people and who God made us to be. If you read the Bible, you’ll notice that it doesn’t begin with the Ten Commandments; it begins with the creation story. In the New Testament, we read the story of Jesus in the Gospels before we get to the instructions in the epistles.
There’s something powerful about story, and God built us with a need for story. We need to hone our storytelling skills so we can honor God through excellence.
One major element of becoming an excellent writer is understanding the fundamentals. Another important element is who you surround yourself with.
What advice do you have about a writing community?
Thomas: We know that iron sharpens iron, and a writing community can provide an external perspective.
We each need a community of people to pressure, compel, criticize, and encourage us toward excellence. What is your advice for people searching for a writing community?
Brad: I’ve really dedicated a significant portion of my life to creating community for writers. In the early days of my publishing journey, I would host writers workshops through a group that is now the Ohio Writers Association.
Such an important part of my journey was taking my writing, putting it out in front of people, and letting them tear it apart. It created a collegiate-like environment where that feedback was normalized. The expectation was that you would present your piece, and people would tell you what was wrong with it.
I’ve always loved that environment, but I think it’s especially hard for Christians. I’ve gone to my share of Christian writing groups where we were supposed to be doing that exercise, but we’re all so darn nice to each other. Oftentimes, those groups aren’t as productive as they could be.
Instead of committing ourselves to excellence and recognizing that we love each other by telling each other why the writing stinks, we focus so hard on being nice and encouraging to each other that the session becomes useless.
Thomas: There’s a false form of Christianity that has become very popular in the West. Part of the reason why Western people have turned away from Christianity is because false gospel has snuck in. This false gospel says that niceness is the highest value. They say something like, “Jesus was nice. We are called to love our neighbor like Jesus did and be nice to our neighbor.”
That’s a false gospel because it’s not the whole gospel. It ignores the first part of that commandment, which says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, and mind, which means loving the truth.
You have to love God and truth before you can love your neighbor. If you skip loving God and surrendering to his moral will, you can’t build a religion out of “love your neighbor” when it’s taken out of context. That’s a false religion.
We see this manifested in writers groups where people are unwilling to tell the truth. They’re unwilling to speak the truth in love, and they falsely flatter one another, which isn’t “iron sharpening iron.”
When iron sharpens iron, sparks fly.
Brad: When it comes to writing, our goals can vary significantly; and understanding those differences is crucial. When someone says to me, “Brad, I feel called to write,” my response is always, “Absolutely, you are.” Writing is an incredible gift from God, a means of communication that allows us to express ideas, truths, and emotions. I have no doubt that if God has placed this on your heart, it’s a call to exercise that gift.
However, when someone says, “Brad, I feel called to be a professional author,” my response is more measured, and I say, “Let’s pause and pray about this.” The call to write is one thing, but the call to pursue writing as a profession involves additional responsibilities and discernment.
Whenever we write, I believe two things are happening. First, God is growing us, shaping us into something we’re not yet. Writing can be a transformative journey, helping us become the people God is calling us to be. Second, writing can be about the product. God may intend the words we’re creating to be used in the marketplace to touch hearts and change minds.
This distinction becomes especially important in writing groups. Some groups focus on writing as a personal growth tool, a way for members to explore their calling and become who God wants them to be. Others are dedicated to helping writers achieve professional success and create works that influence others.
If a group doesn’t clearly identify its purpose, it can lead to confusion or even harm. Knowing whether the group’s mission is personal growth or professional development ensures everyone is moving in the same direction together.
What type of writers group do you want?
Thomas: Sometimes, a writing group is like a gardening club. It might be attended by retirees who want to keep their minds active and hang out together. They’re not financially hungry or motivated by sales. They enjoy the experience of community, and they want to write the book that’s in their heart. And that is fine! When I’m retired, I will probably be in a group like that.
On the other hand, the professional approach to writing groups helps people pay their mortgages with their book sales income. When you’re relying on book sales to pay your bills, you have to die to yourself and write what your reader wants to read and is willing to pay for.
Members of the hobbyist group want people to say nice things about their writing because they want to enjoy the process.
Members of the professional group need to pay the bills with their writing income, so their writing needs to be torn apart and rebuilt in a critique group. The negative feedback you receive from your critique group won’t be nearly as harsh as what readers will think if you publish a book that hasn’t been critiqued. Readers will be thinking terrible things as they decide whether to buy another book from you.
Brad: I went to a group when I was younger, and I didn’t know about that distinction. I had been attending groups where people gave hard feedback. When I went to this new group, the first person read a little of their work; and for some reason, I decided to go first. I gave the type of feedback I would typically give in my other groups. When I was done, I looked around the room; and people’s jaws had dropped. Mouths were open because this was the type of group where you tell people, “Oh, that was lovely. Keep going. Don’t give up. Don’t let anybody discourage you!”
It’s so important to understand the type of group you’re in because not all groups will be helpful in that regard.
Do debut authors need a big social platform?
Thomas: In the September 11, 2024 issue of The Hot Sheet, an industry publication by Jane Friedman, she did an analysis of debut authors, trying to determine whether they had a big platform or not.
Of the 150 debut novelists in her research who were published by the big publishers from April to August 2024, only 1.6% were social-media influencer types with a large platform.
Most of the debut novelists were already professional writers in some other capacity. Some were journalists. Others were writing in the literary and university community, while still others were actors, self-published writers, and writers working in the publishing industry. Only 20% of debut authors in that time period had “no known connections.” Those were brand new authors that nobody knew, but they worked their way in.
So, you can do it without industry connections. However, Friedman’s study showed that successful authors who got big contracts as debut novelists didn’t necessarily have big platforms. They were being faithful in the little things and doing other types of writing that allowed them to build their name and credibility.
Becoming famous isn’t a shortcut to getting published. In the five-month period she studied, only two people were social-media influencers who went on to become debut novelists.
You need millions and millions of followers to pull that off.
Brad: That’s a crazy statistic, but it makes sense.
What other types of writing should novelists pursue?
Brad: We teach people to be multimodal in their writing. It’s not all about novels; you are expressing yourself in so many different ways.
As I look at the publishing world today, I see very few people who focus solely on writing novels. This is partly due to the economics of the industry; but it’s also because, for many, that kind of work can feel monotonous. Sitting at a desk every day and writing novels might be a dream lifestyle for some; but after working with many writers, I’ve found that most people want more variety in their creative lives.
Even those who begin with the goal of being full-time novelists often discover that doing it every day feels limiting. They crave opportunities to diversify and explore other creative outlets. That’s why we encourage writers to branch out and start a podcast, launch a blog, write articles for other publications, or experiment with different forms of content creation.
The question becomes: How can you expand your catalog and build a well-rounded portfolio? You’re probably not going to get millions of followers and be that person who goes from social media fame to book fame. Instead, success often comes from creating connections, building a network, and opening doors through a variety of creative endeavors.
By pursuing multiple avenues, you create more opportunities for growth. Then, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you can choose which paths to follow.
How does real-world experience enhance your writing?
Thomas: If you’re young, it’s important to get out into the real world, interact with real people, and gain life experiences that can enrich your writing. Spending all day behind a screen won’t provide the kind of inspiration needed to create compelling characters.
No one wants to read about someone who spends all day behind a screen. Ironically, many readers are the kinds of people who spend hours in front of screens, but they’re seeking escape. They want stories about characters who are out in the world doing things that matter.
A protagonist who spends four hours a day on TikTok makes for a boring character and an even duller story. Readers want to follow characters on adventures, see them fall in love, or watch them battle dragons. They want to see them engaging with the physical world and experiencing life firsthand.
Great stories are born from great experiences. So, get out there, live your own adventures, and let those moments inspire your writing.
Brad: We often repeat a phrase based on a longer Benjamin Franklin quote that says, “Live a life worth writing about.” That’s such an essential feature of what writers do, and it helps if you’re in a community.
Our writers who come to The Company get to have a Columbus police officer teach them how to shoot.
So many writers include guns in their manuscripts, but they’ve never touched a gun in their life. Readers can tell when you’re ignorant and have never used a gun.
We also have our writers take a motorcycle riding class for the same reason. If you’ve never ridden a motorcycle, how are you going to write about it?
We offer different experiences, the hardest one being where we slaughter rabbits together in a farm setting for that real experience. If you’re writing fantasy, how do people eat? It turns out they have to slaughter small animals like chickens and rabbits. Our writers experience how it smells and looks. It’s an activity that a billion people around the world today have to do by necessity.
What’s more, the insides of a rabbit are similar to the insides of a human. If you want any of the violence in your book to sound informed, you need to know.
Not all of our apprentices do that one, and we don’t make them; but we do provide experiences where they gain real-world knowledge that informs their writing. We don’t want them regurgitating things they’ve read, just facsimiles of facsimiles.
Thomas: A classic example of this is when authors or screenwriters use torture to get answers. The bad guy knows where the princess is being held, and he won’t say, so we torture him and he tells us where the princess is.
Nobody writing those stories has ever tortured anyone, and they probably haven’t even read the literature on it. Research shows that torture gets you wrong answers. People under torture talk, and they lie through their teeth. But you never see that reality played out in fiction.
In novels and movies, torture is portrayed as though it always works. Torture gets you lies. Social engineering techniques where you mic their room are more effective.
For example, during World War II, the British employed a clever strategy for gathering intelligence. Whenever they captured high-ranking officers, they didn’t place them in typical POW camps. Instead, they housed them in mansions in the English countryside.
These officers were given newspapers daily and allowed to live in relative comfort. What they didn’t know was that every room in these mansions was wired with microphones. British intelligence officers listened to their conversations and got valuable information as officers discussed the war.
The approach was far more effective than traditional interrogation. If you demand to know how many tanks are in a particular panzer battalion, he’ll make up a number to satisfy you. You’d end up believing false information that would mislead your operations.
We, as Americans, believe that torture works because Jack Bauer tortured the bad guy and was able to stop the nuclear bomb from going off. Therefore, the end justifies the means. But it’s not even a matter of ethics. The means and the ends both are unjustified because torture just gets you lies.
Brad: Jack Bauer is just terrible for writers. If you’re basing anything that’s supposed to be real on Jack Bauer, you’ll go astray.
One example I use in the book is that in World War II, the Allies averaged 45,000 bullets fired for every enemy kill. In Vietnam, it was closer to 50,000; but Jack Bauer has a magazine with eight rounds left, and he kills nine guys somehow.
But if that’s your only real exposure to things like that, you’re just always going to be off base. You hear a headline about 50 rounds being fired, and a suspect was only hit three times. The officers aren’t poor shots; that’s just how it goes in real life.
If your only experience comes from other books, your writing and your reality will be skewed.
Thomas: Years ago, I took a group of writers out to my grandparents’ ranch to teach a single gun class. The very first thing I did before they put on hearing protection was fire one of the guns once when they weren’t expecting it. I told them, “Feel that adrenaline. Hear your ears ringing. This is what it’s like to be near a gun that’s just been fired. You can’t have a conversation right now. You’re not thinking clearly. You’ve been shifted into an alternate emotional state.”
I explained that it takes intense, painful trauma training to teach military personnel and police officers how to function in that kind of state. Normal people typically can’t do it. That’s why, in a panic, you could fire 50 rounds and hit nothing. You’re not in your right mind; you’re just pulling the trigger, reacting instead of thinking.
After the Civil War, they found all these guns with round after round shoved in the barrel. People would load their guns over and over and never fire because they were either afraid or not thinking clearly.
Brad: To some degree, we have to abbreviate the reality in our fiction because we really don’t want to see Jack Bauer run around and fire 50,000 bullets for every bad guy he incapacitates. Again, writing is about finding the balance between establishing reality in a way that keeps readers engaged.
Thomas: The best way to do that is to experience it yourself. You need to go hunting and drag a deer carcass 50 yards to find out just how heavy and bloody a deer carcass is.
What if I can’t experience the thing I’m writing about?
Thomas: Your next best option is to have a professional read your book. You don’t have time to go to medical school to learn how to write medically accurate fiction, but you can get a doctor or a nurse to read your medical scenes to make sure your terminology is correct.
When building your community as a writer, it’s important to surround yourself with people who challenge you and understand what excellence in writing looks like. However, be cautious because a toxic group that gives harsh feedback but points you in the wrong direction can be even more damaging than a group full of flatterers.
You need people who truly understand good writing, who read books on the craft, and who can provide constructive feedback tailored to your genre and audience. Beyond that, it’s also valuable to connect with professionals and experts who can offer insights and knowledge specific to the topics in your book.
Brad: To that end, every year at The Company, we have an FBI profiler who teaches a class on what that actually looks like. Having access to experts on a particular subject matter is so important.
When it comes to writing, getting feedback from people who don’t know what they’re talking about isn’t helpful, no matter how honest they are. That’s why, in the workshops we run, we have specific rules to keep things constructive and prevent people from getting upset.
One of our key rules is that there are no experts in the room. Everyone can share their thoughts by saying, “I enjoyed this” or “I didn’t like that.” But no one is allowed to say, “This is how you’re supposed to write a book.” That kind of prescriptive advice, especially in a group of peers, often leads to the blind leading the blind. You end up with a room full of unpublished, inexperienced writers telling each other how to become published and successful, which doesn’t make much sense.
While having a supportive community is essential, it’s equally important to include people with real experience.
Feedback is incredibly valuable. Simply knowing what people liked or didn’t like can help you make significant progress. However, what’s even more powerful is having someone who can work with you consistently, guiding you through the process.
You need someone who can say in an intelligent and productive way, “Here are your next steps. This is how you take that feedback, organize it in your mind, and apply it.”
Even better is having a mentor who can invite the Holy Spirit into that process—someone who can provide constructive guidance without discouraging you.
Yesterday, a ghostwriter visited us and shared a powerful piece of advice with our apprentices: Mentors are the fastest path to achieving your goals. Find someone who has done or is doing what you aspire to do. Get as close to them as possible. Even if it means sweeping floors or cleaning toilets just to be in the same building as that person, it’s worth it. Being around someone who is living your dream allows you to learn, grow, and absorb the wisdom and habits that lead to success.
How do I know which suggestions to implement and which to ignore?
Thomas: Knowing people who’ve done this before is really important, and knowing how to interpret feedback is just as critical. There are two types of feedback you’ll get.
The first comes from a mentor who says, “Here’s what’s broken, and here’s how to fix it.” If they’re a good mentor and know what they’re talking about, this kind of feedback is useful and easy to apply.
But most of the feedback you’ll get as an author, especially from other authors who haven’t had much success, is different. They’re often correct in identifying the problem but offer an incorrect solution.
For example, imagine someone saying, “When I come to a stop, my car makes a squeaking noise. I think it needs more oil.” When they take the car to a mechanic and describe the issue, the trained mechanic recognizes the real problem. They’d say, “Ah, squeaking when stopping? That’s a brake issue. It has nothing to do with oil. We need to replace the brake pads.”
Now, if the mechanic simply agreed and changed the oil, the squeaking would persist. The car owner might think, “It just needs more oil!” and keep chasing the wrong solution, never actually fixing the problem.
The same principle applies to feedback in writing. Identifying the issue is one thing; but if the proposed solution is wrong, you could end up going in circles without addressing the real problem. It’s essential to distinguish between accurate diagnoses and misguided advice.
Brad: A great example of feedback that gives the wrong solution is when someone says, “I wanted more of this particular element of the story.” At first, you might think you need to add more. However, the opposite of “I wanted more” could also be “I wanted less,” depending on the context.
This is where wisdom and experience come into play. A skilled writer or mentor can evaluate the feedback and recognize that, in some cases, “I wanted more” is actually a compliment. It means the element was compelling enough to leave the reader wanting more, which is exactly what keeps them engaged in the story. It doesn’t mean you should add ten pages of a character’s flashback.
On the other hand, sometimes “I wanted more” points to a real issue, such as underdeveloped elements. For example, if the relationship between characters isn’t fully fleshed out, it might leave readers confused about their motivations or decisions later in the story.
Thomas: I recently recorded an episode with Angela Hunt where we discussed showing versus telling in writing. We talked about how telling is actually very important and how the “show, don’t tell” advice often borrowed from screenwriting can sometimes hurt your book if applied too rigidly. Like many aspects of writing, it’s about finding the right balance. The entire episode explored when to use each effectively.
She shared a compelling scene she had written and explained how she had asked her readers for feedback. Some told her, “You’re telling too much. You need to show more.” But Angela didn’t take their advice because she knew they were wrong. She recognized that the scene was strong as it was.
Angela’s perspective comes from experience. She’s written dozens of books and sold over 5 million copies, so she knows what good writing looks like. With that level of experience and confidence, she understands that not all feedback is helpful. In fact, some feedback, if followed, can lead you astray.
This is why mastering the fundamentals is so important. Once you’ve mastered them, you’ll understand when and how to deviate from the rules. You’ll be able to say, “I understand this rule and why it’s generally correct, but here’s why it doesn’t apply in this specific case.”
Returning to our airplane metaphor, we’d normally expect a ten-ton metal object to fall out of the sky; but the principles of aerodynamics, lift, and thrust come into play. These forces don’t negate gravity; they simply override it in this situation.
There’s no shortcut to reaching this level of mastery. While many false paths and quick fixes may seem tempting, they often lead to longer, more frustrating journeys.
Tell us about your book and podcast.
Thomas: Finding good training and mentorship is key to a writer’s success, so tell us a little bit about your book and your podcast that goes along with it.
Brad: My book The Novel Matrix (affiliate link) is based on my 15-plus years of experience working as a consultant in the publishing industry, primarily as a developmental editor. I help people tell their stories in the best way so they can get them into the marketplace.
As I started writers workshops, a lot of authors and publishers came to me. Working with authors and publishers has given me a unique perspective.
I listened to your episode on showing and telling, and when she mentioned people saying, “You’re telling here. You need to be showing,” I immediately thought of what I call the MFA effect. It’s when people know the rules but lack the sensibility to apply them effectively. As a result, they just regurgitate these rules to each other without truly understanding their purpose.
Since I didn’t come through the traditional MFA or academic background, I approached storytelling differently. Instead of relying on the same academic theories, I watched a lot of movies, read a lot of books, and started analyzing the patterns. I asked myself: What does every story have? What are the components that are always present? What elements show up sometimes, and what can break a story completely?
Rather than simply building on existing theories or trying to create a more elaborate version of what’s already been said, I started from scratch.
A good friend once told me, “A good teacher takes complex things and makes them simple. A bad teacher takes simple things and makes them complex.” That insight really shaped my approach to writing The Novel Matrix. My goal was to take the complex, nebulous, almost mystical process of writing a book and make it simple. I wanted to say, “Here’s the foundation. Here’s the basic theory you need to know. All successful stories share these core elements.”
But I also knew it couldn’t stop there. When I finished the first draft of the manuscript and shared it with beta readers, their biggest feedback was, “This is great, but what do I do with it? How do I apply this?”
So, the book ended up being longer than I had originally planned. I added an entire section not just on the theory of storytelling but on how to apply it in practical ways. I included strategies for doing the work of writing a novel, breaking it down step by step. The goal is to help writers move from dreaming about a novel to actually completing one and being one of the one-percenters who finish a manuscript.
Does The Novel Matrix have writing exercises people can apply as they go?
Thomas: Do you have writing exercises people can apply as they go?
Brad: We do. The book includes an entire section of diagrams that you can print, copy, and use as tools to guide your writing process. These worksheets are also available for free at NovelMatrix.com, whether you purchase the book or not. They’re designed to help you organize a novel-length manuscript so that it’s not “too fat” or “too skinny.” Instead, you’ll have just the right amount of content to create a satisfying, well-balanced novel.
We recently completed the 90-Day Novel Challenge for the first time, and it was an amazing experience. This challenge, inspired by NaNoWriMo, gave writers a chance to use the book as their guide to writing a novel in 90 days. It was incredible to see so many people finally break through and finish their first manuscript. Many of them had been struggling to complete a novel for years. It was a rewarding and exciting milestone for everyone involved.
Thomas: Very cool. Tell us about your podcast.
Brad: My podcast is called The Company Podcast with Brad Pauquette, and we place a strong emphasis on achieving professional results. Our mission is to help writers do what it takes to become professionals, whether that’s making money with their work or influencing the people God has specifically prepared for them to impact.
Another key focus of ours is continually inviting the Holy Spirit into the writing process. I believe we take this aspect more seriously than any other group I’m aware of.
The content we produce, including our podcast episodes and blog articles, often centers on this approach. We explore questions like:
- How do you stay aligned with Christ’s calling in your writing?
- How do you pursue your craft without losing sight of God or your own identity?
- How can you continually invite the Holy Spirit to guide and inspire your work?
These are the questions that drive what we do.
Do you have any final tips or encouragement?
Brad: One of the most common questions I get is, “How do you make sure your work stays Christian?” This is an important question, especially because I believe we should live in a marketplace where not every Christian book has to explicitly talk about Jesus to reflect Christian values.
So how do you do that? The answer lies in Luke 6:45. My paraphrase goes like this: “From the overflow of your heart, your mouth speaks.” The key is to ensure that your heart is filled with Jesus.
The most important thing you can do to stay on track is to keep your well full of Him. Be persistent in your spiritual disciplines, consistently returning to the source of life, creativity, and story. When you nurture that relationship with Christ, you can confidently use tools like The Novel Matrix (affiliate link) and other resources without fear of losing yourself or the values that mattered most to you when you began this journey. It all starts with staying rooted in the source.
Thomas: If you’re not connected to the vine as a branch, you won’t bear fruit. No technique can replace the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. It’s a profound reminder.
Connect with Brad Pauquette:
- BradPauquette.com
- The Novel Matrix Book
- Download Free Novel Planning Worksheets
- First Four Chapters of The Novel Matrix
- The Company Podcast with Brad Pauquette
- The Company
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