In a post on Writers in the Storm, Janice Hardy identifies five red flags your novel might be too much work to read. Hardy notes that “work” does not mean the novel is too complicated or complex, but rather elements that make it harder for the reader to engage with your story.
- Required research. Does your novel contain newspaper articles, poems, songs, diary entries or other elements your reader must read in order to understand the story? Done well, this can enhance your worldbuilding, characterization, or tone. Done poorly and your reader may feel like reading these tidbits feels more like homework.
- Too many characters. Introducing too many characters – and too soon – can make it impossible for your reader to follow along. “If readers can’t remember who people are, they can’t connect to them or even understand why what someone says or does is even important,” Hardy writes. “If it requires a cast of characters list before page one, that’s typically not a good sign.”
- Too many POVs. Some authors can blend multiple POVs while still keeping the reader engaged and up to date. However, this is difficult and it’s easy for a reader to get lost. “If the scenes are constantly changing from character to character, and it’s multiple chapters before the same character or plotline comes around again, salient details can and will get lost,” Hardy says. “Even worse, too many points of view usually go hand-in-hand with too many characters, especially if every point of view has its own cast.” Frequent changes in POV may also kill tension, if readers forget what was happening with Character A while you were helping them catch up on Characters B, C, D, E, and F.
- The names are all too similar, or too hard to pronounce. Super annoying. Fantasy and science fiction writers love apostrophes, and can’t seem to resist sentences with five or six unfamiliar names and locations strung together. If your reader doesn’t know if your noun is a person, place, or thing, they might find your story isn’t worth the effort. Even mundane names can start to blend together if they start or end with the same letters or sounds. A little variety will add interest and help the reader remember who is who.
- There’s not enough backstory or reminders of key details in the later books in a series. “Think about the critical elements a reader needs to know to understand a scene, and treat it like it’s the first book in the series,” Hardy recommends. “Remind them of what they might have forgotten in the year since the book came out.”
