The Most Common Editing Mistake New Authors Never Notice

“My beta readers say the story drags.”

“They told me the middle feels slow.”

“They say they got bored but can’t explain why.”

Man a new author receives that kind of feedback … and instantly jumps to the wrong conclusion.

After reviewing enough manuscripts over the years, I have found that many of these books suffer from the same hidden problem.

The author forgot to give the story a direction.

Notice that I did not say plot. Those are related concepts, but they’re not identical.

A story may contain events. The characters can travel from place to place. We may get some action: Maybe villains attack; perhaps there are even explosions. Heck, whole kingdoms can rise and fall.

None of those elements, in and of themselves, give the story direction.

Read the full post on Substack.

Debt Reckoning is now fully funded on Kickstarter. Stretch Goal 1 is funding now, so if you’d like to support the project and help make the book even better, you can check out the campaign here.