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The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World…Word by Word

The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Home » Craft

Craft

I Did Not Finish Reading Your Book

By Steve Laubeon May 15, 2023
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In the past year, have you started reading a fiction or nonfiction book and did not finish it? I have. Many times.

There are a lot of reasons for this to happen. Here are a few examples.

Fiction:
I didn’t care about your characters.
The plot fizzled.
The story became ridiculous and unrealistic.
It was too easy to put down. Or, in other words, it was forgettable.

Nonfiction:
It became repetitive. I already got the point; why say it three or four different ways?
The conclusions were obvious, to the point of cliché.
The author lost focus and began to meander.
The whole book felt manufactured, as if it had been an assignment and not a passion.

What about you? Have you had a similar experience? Love to hear your comments below.

To be clear, I did not say, “The book made me mad because I disagreed with the author.” In fact, that is usually a good reason to finish a book, so you can craft your own response to a particular position. Instead, the small sampling of answers above are a reaction to poor writing craft.

As I’ve written before, every reader brings their own story to your book and thus creates their own new experience. But if the book is poorly written or poorly organized or long-winded, the reader is pulled out of the experience, the “critic cap” is put on, and the book is put down.

If your book breaks the trust of its readers, it will be hard to get them to read your next one. This is why agents and editors constantly discuss the value of a well-written story. Make those opening pages incredible, and then sustain that genius throughout the book. Let me give you one example (among many).

Years ago, at a writers conference, first pages were waiting for faculty to review upon arriving at the event. I sat in my room with a stack of pages to scan. While reading the opening chapter of an aspiring and unpublished novelist, I literally gasped. The craft was stunning. I met with her that weekend; and during the ensuing months, she worked hard to revise the rest of the manuscript a number of times before we took it to publishers. The book, Words by Ginny Yttrup, was published; and she received the Christy Award for Best New Writer. A few of those first pages can be found in the Look Inside feature on Amazon. It is interesting to note that the beginning pages you read in the finished book are exactly the same as the words I read that first day. Ginny crafted them so well they remain unchanged.

I finished reading her book.

Maybe yours will be next?

 

[An earlier version of this blog was posted on April 15, 2013. I still love Ginny’s writing!]

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Category: Craft, Creativity, Editing, Writing CraftTag: Books, Craft, Writing Craft

Edgy Christian Fiction

By Steve Laubeon January 31, 2022
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A number of years ago the question of what is appropriate to include in Christian fiction was asked, and I wrote much of what is below as a reply. Recently, this issue jumped back into conversations with the release of the film Redeeming Love, based on the bestselling novel of the same title by Francine Rivers. (Some reviews of the movie, not the book, that wrestle with the debate can be found …

Read moreEdgy Christian Fiction
Category: Craft, Creativity, Language, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Creativity, Edgy, Language

Books Are Signposts Along the Way

By Steve Laubeon August 16, 2021
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By Steve Laube

The novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a series of stories linked together in the small town of Macondo in South America. It is surrounded by a swamp and thus is known for its isolation.

One day the town was infected by a plague which causes insomnia. The people of the town were not unhappy at first …

Read moreBooks Are Signposts Along the Way
Category: Art, Craft, Creativity, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Creativity, Signs

The Story We Bring to the Story

By Steve Laubeon June 7, 2021
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by Steve Laube

With all the discussion about the craft of fiction and the need to write a great story there is one thing missing in the equation. The one thing that is the secret to great fiction. And it is the one thing the writer cannot control.

That one thing is the story the reader brings with them to their reading experience. As a reader I have the life I have lived, the people I’ve …

Read moreThe Story We Bring to the Story
Category: Art, Craft, Creativity, Steve, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Reader, story

Diligence Is Rewarded

By Steve Laubeon September 28, 2020
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by Steve Laube

The ease of today’s social media communication brings a casual layer to the task of writing. Careful composition is trumped by the need for speed. For most “throw away” emails and posts that is the new normal. But it should never leak into the business of writing, either in craft or in delicate communication.

The other day I received an email query/proposal. There was a very …

Read moreDiligence Is Rewarded
Category: Book Proposals, Communication, Craft, Pitching, The Writing Life, Writing CraftTag: Communication, Craft, Diligence, Writing Craft

He Said. She Said.

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon May 14, 2020
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A blog reader recently left an excellent comment on an earlier post:
Tamela, fiction workshop presenters taught me that the best word for “said” is “said”–that others only tend to slow down the reader’s eye. I’d appreciate a discussion on this.
While I don't know the workshop presenters in question, what I can guess they meant is to avoid substituting creative verbs for "said" as a tag. For …

Read moreHe Said. She Said.
Category: Craft, Tamela, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Grammar, Tamela, Writing Craft

Letting Go of Your Babies

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon February 13, 2020
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One of the worst mistakes writers can make is being too possessive of their words. They fight for each adjective, adverb, and conversation tag.

My early writing suffered from too many words. I once wrote an artist didn’t “really” understand the difficulties of making a living in his profession. The editor kindly cut all instances of “really,” “just,” “so,” “very,” and other weak words …

Read moreLetting Go of Your Babies
Category: Book Proposals, Craft, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Get Published, Writing Craft

Floating … Floating … Gone …

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon January 23, 2020
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Writers conferences and blogs talk about this topic often so I don't pretend to be breaking new ground with this post. Yet I still see some floating body parts and cliches creep into otherwise great stories. No, I don't mean murder mysteries depicting a stray arm floating in a river. I mean much gentler fare.

Yes, floating body parts offer the reader -- and writer -- shortcuts. But relying on …

Read moreFloating … Floating … Gone …
Category: Craft, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Grammar, Tamela, Writing Craft

Tag, You’re It!

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon December 12, 2019
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One of the most common habits I see burdening stories is overemphasis on conversational tags, which goes hand in hand with not making good use of action tags. Here's an example I just made up:

"No," she exclaimed. She looked at the the pot of stew bubbling the stove and saw red juice splattering. She began to stir.

Unable to resist multitasking, I demonstrated several bad habits in the above …

Read moreTag, You’re It!
Category: Craft, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Dialogue tags, Grammar, Tamela, Writing Craft

C.S. Lewis on Writing

By Steve Laubeon October 28, 2019
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by Steve Laube

On June 26, 1956, C.S. Lewis replied to letter from an American girl named Joan with advice on writing:

Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.
Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

Read moreC.S. Lewis on Writing
Category: Craft, Writing CraftTag: Craft, CS Lewis, Writing Craft
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