Meredith Mansfield, Author

As a writer, I read quite a few books on writing from time to time.  In actual fact, though, I probably learn more about writing from what I read for pleasure than from most of those books.  (There are a couple of notable exceptions.)

Since BLOOD WILL TELL is about a half-werewolf, I needed to read other books about werewolves.  It’s not just market research, although it’s that, too.  There’s a sort of unwritten rule that you should read widely in the genre you intend to write. 

I’m going looking for some more books later today.  I now have some recommendations for books that will hopefully be better.  The first one I picked up has frankly underwhelmed me.  (No, I’m not going to name the author or title here.  That’s not what this blog is about.)  But, you can learn from what doesn’t work at least as much as from what does. 

A few lessons I’ve picked up (or had reinforced) by this reading experience:

• World Building:  Even if you know five hundred fascinating things about this world, you only need to tell, or preferably show, the reader the five that are relevant to the story now.  If you can’t avoid putting all that detail in the first draft, which I admit I sometimes can’t, then cut it in the second draft.
• World Building:  Keep your world building consistent.  If you’ve made a rule for your world, you’re obligated to stick to it.  You can’t just change it for this instance to fit the plot.  If you really can’t live with the rule, go back and do more world building until the world and the plot are consistent.   (It’s okay, btw, for your characters to misunderstand the rules, as long as your application of them is consistent.)
• Plot: While we’re talking about consistency, keep the plot consistent.  When you’ve created an obstacle for your protagonist, don’t suddenly let it morph into a different problem in the middle of the book.  (Which is not the same as allowing the characters to gain a different understanding of the problem.)
• References to Other Stories:  Even if there are other stories in the series, only put in what’s relevant.  Things I don’t need to know to understand what’s happening now are irrelevant unless a point of view character would naturally think about those things and hiding them would be withholding information that I will need to know later. 
• References to Other Stories: References to major events in other stories/books in the series that are dropped in and never expanded on are annoying to readers who have not, in fact, read the whole series.  If this book is meant to stand alone, let it do so.
• Support the Plot:  Do put in every event that is necessary to support the plot.  If I don’t know that Character B was told a secret, I can’t be in any suspense over whether or not that secret will be kept.  If A leads to B leads to C, for heaven’s sake don’t start at B.  (And I really don’t care if A was in another book.  It needs to be here, too.)
• Withholding:  If you’re going to go into the antagonist’s point of view to show him plotting against the protagonists, you have to let the reader know what he’s plotting.  Otherwise, cut the scene.
• I won’t even get into poor or non-existent copy editing.

(Funny how this list keeps growing.)