101 Questions to Improve Your Novel: for Writing, Editing, Revising, and Polishing

From plot twists to dialogue, authors have a long list to think about when revising and polishing a novel. These 101 questions and explanations will help you improve and check your novel's opening, plot and character development, conflict, pacing, dialogue, and of course the writing itself. After months or years of working on a story, it's difficult to check the quality on every fiction element. 101 Questions looks at overarching issues, small details, and writing technique. You may learn about new techniques and tips, see a method differently, or realize that you forgot a trick. This handy list of 101 questions explores many possible ways to improve specific areas, add layers and depth, strengthen conflict, find plot holes, and identify writing issues. Sample Question - #40. Do all of your characters have strong feelings about each other? Working on this element truly adds another layer to your story. In life, we meet people and classify them right away. It's not often that we know a person but don't have any opinions or feelings about them. But we see that in stories all the time. Sometimes I read or edit a novel and have a hard time telling the characters apart. This arises when the characters aren't distinct, but it's also caused by a lack of feeling toward each other. If your hero really dislikes another character, that will color the hero's description and interaction with that character. Take a closer look at your work: make a list of all of your characters and then describe how your hero feels about them. If your hero doesn't feel anything that shows in your story right now, do you need to make that character more colorful? And by colorful, I mean annoying, more pushy, more opinionated, more deceitful, more secretive, more talkative, more silent, more helpful, more sweet, more of a pushover, more something? Look at the relationship between all of your main characters. It might help to make a chart. Then think about how they interact and secretly feel about each other. You can have a lot of fun in this area, and it really deepens your story.