Dear Ally, How Do You Write a Book

by Ally Carter

  It’s when you notice that a scene has about three lines of dialogue too many, causing it to go on a little bit longer than it needs to.

  You’d be so surprised how many extra lines and unnecessary words there are sometimes, and by trimming things up, you can really make a difference.

  But … be careful. Some authors have very flowy or lavish voices, and all those “extra” words might be what makes their work pop.

  Just know this: When I was working on I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You, I was tasked with rewriting the book so that a particular scene took place about thirty pages sooner. I didn’t cut a single scene. I didn’t cut a single character. I didn’t cut anything that actually mattered, it turns out. And yet I managed to cut thirty pages out of the first hundred pages simply by looking at each and every sentence and making sure that not a single word was wasted.

  Whether or not your book is technically “too long,” keep a scalpel and a chainsaw handy. They’re two really useful tools in making your book as good as it can possibly be.

  Once upon a time, there used to be a thing where car dealerships would run contests to give away a new car. To compete, people would have to go down to the dealership and put one hand on the car. That’s it. Just put a hand on the car. And keep it there. The last person with a hand on the car won it. Simple as that.

  Well, as time went on and people got hungry or tired or needed to go to the bathroom, they’d wander off and give up, but the person who stuck it out—the person who kept one hand on the car at all times—was the winner.

  Your book should be like that.

  Every book has one central story/conflict/plot. There may be subplots. There will no doubt be supporting characters. But every single thing in your book should somehow “touch” that central story/conflict/plot. If there’s a scene that doesn’t have a hand on the car in some way, then that’s a scene that’s got to go!

  Pacing is something that’s really important! But, like voice, it’s one of those things that’s also really hard to pinpoint. It’s more of a you-know-it-when-you-see-it kind of thing.

  But I can guarantee you this: It’s almost impossible to get pacing right on the first try. Or even the second. In fact, pacing is something that’s going to slowly evolve with each draft of your novel because, as you make changes, those changes are going speed your book up in some places and probably slow it down in others.

  My favorite way to judge the pacing of my books is to step away from them for a few days and then sit down and read the book in one go—start to finish. If there are places where you start to get a little bored or start wanting to skim, then the pacing is slow there, and you need to either cut the scenes (a chainsaw edit) or tighten up the writing (a scalpel edit).

  Another great test is to read your entire book out loud. Yep. Have a glass of water handy and make sure you have some time, but know that this is a technique a ton of authors swear by. (See David’s answer below.)

  The key here is to keep working and give yourself a break if you don’t get it right the first time—very few of us do!

  DEAR DAVID LEVITHAN,

  How do you know what to cut?

  I am a big advocate of reading your book in as many different ways as possible before finalizing it. Since I write on a computer, I’m used to reading and rereading drafts on a screen. So the first crucial test is to print it out and edit the printout, pen in hand—I always find things that way that I missed on the screen. Then I read the whole thing aloud. This is, I think, the best way to find boring and unnecessary parts—when you’re reading three hundred pages out loud, you can definitely tell when it slows down or when you have two sentences in a row that say the same thing, because reading out loud forces you to come into contact with every single word—you can’t skim over them like you do when you’re reading silently. My books always get shorter as I edit in this way, and are always better for it.

  There’s a knack to dialogue, I’m not going to lie. Some people will tell you to record and transcribe—or just think really, really hard—about how real people talk. And that’s not bad advice. After all, what most new writers want is to write dialogue that sounds “realistic.” But real people …

  … start sentences without finishing them…. misstart and have to backtrack…. get off track and meander around, looking for a point.

  If you truly wrote dialogue the way people actually talk, then readers would probably get confused and really frustrated!

  So the key to writing fictional dialogue, in my opinion, is to write dialogue that sounds realistic (but isn’t too realistic).

  Some of the best lessons that I learned about writing dialogue came from the world of screenwriting. I mean, think about it: Dialogue really is a screenwriter’s best friend. It’s pretty much the only time an audience will hear or see the writer’s actual words. So screenwriters don’t mess around when it comes to dialogue.

  One of my favorite screenwriting dialogue tips is to cover up or remove all the character names or attributions. If the line doesn’t say Charlie said, can you still tell that Charlie said it? Does Charlie sound different from the other people in the scene? Does it sound like Charlie? Feel like Charlie? If so, then you’re doing at least one thing right.

  Another tip is to use some of those false starts and meandering sentences. It’s a great idea to include some of the “bad” aspects of realistic dialogue—just don’t do it too much. It’s like salt. You want enough to add flavor but not so much that you make it inedible.

  Finally, my advice would be to read as many screenplays as you can get your hands on. Sometimes libraries will have them (especially at universities or colleges that teach screenwriting courses). Every year about Oscar time, some of the studios will put their “best screenplay” contenders up on their websites for people to read. Sometimes you can even buy screenplays from online bookstores.

  And of course, you should be reading lots of books with great dialogue. But remember, your job here isn’t to read as a reader; it’s to read as a writer. Highlight good lines and great scenes. Make notes about all the little clues that might be contained in a line of dialogue. And pay careful attention to the things that aren’t said.

  All the early chapters of Not If I Save You First open with a letter from Maddie to Logan, her best friend. But when we see Maddie six years after moving away, her father asks her, “Do you have any letters for me to take on my next run?”

  “Did you bring me any letters?” Maddie asks him.

  Her dad just shakes his head.

  “Then that’s your answer.”

  In that exchange, we learn that Maddie must have written Logan letters for a long time. We learn that Maddie isn’t writing to him anymore. We can see—just from this short exchange—that Maddie’s attitude toward Logan (and the letters) is deeply and fundamentally changed. As the author, I didn’t have to spell that out. Instead, I have to trust that my reader is savvy enough to pick up on the clues.

  If you can do that, then you don’t need two characters to have a long conversation about how they’re half siblings. You can just have one of them ask, “My dad or your dad?” Trust in your reader to be smart enough to read between the lines.

  Finally, the most important thing to remember for dialogue is this: Your characters aren’t speaking to us. Nope. They should be speaking to each other. Which means they should never say, “Hello, Cindy, it’s so good to see you again, since we are cousins who only ever get together on the Fourth of July because our mothers had a huge argument five years ago and our families became estranged.”

  No. Just no.

  Cindy already knows all that. The other characters know that, too. Which makes that dialogue lazy (and kind of stupid).

  Instead, you might try something like this:

  “Hey, Cindy.”

  “Hey, cuz.”

  “Long time.”

  “Funny. Fourth of July is the same day as last year.”

  “So is your m
om …”

  “Still mad at your mom? What do you think?”

  “Yeah. Mine, too.”

  If you struggle with dialogue, don’t worry. This is definitely something that takes a lot of time and practice and patience.

  Your book needs to be as good as you can possibly make it. Which means, hopefully, seeing the things about your book that aren’t quite working and then fixing them.

  So how do you see those things? Well, maybe by talking to your mom’s friend or maybe by joining a critique group at your local community college or asking a (very honest) teacher or family member or friend for their opinions.

  When I was starting out, I lived in a small town that had a great library with a small book club that met once a month. I asked the librarian if the group would mind reading my book one month and letting me come hear them discuss it. I made six copies of the manuscript and brought six red pens and instructed everyone not to be afraid to use them. That experience was incredibly valuable.

  Not because I took everything they said and did exactly that, but because (a) rejection and criticism are constant in this business and you need to get used to it, and (b) I got to hear what was working about the story and some opinions about what wasn’t working.

  That’s something I want to make sure you all know: that the world is full of people who are going to try to tell you how to write your book. Listen to them. Thank them. Consider them and the feedback they give, but at the end of the day, follow your gut and write your book.

  Very few people start off working with professional editors or published authors as critique partners. Most of us start off getting feedback from friends and family. And, ultimately, it doesn’t matter who is giving you notes on your book. What counts is knowing which notes to use and which notes to ignore and then figuring out a way for your book to be as good as it can possibly be.

  This is a really hard thing to do sometimes. But you’re right; sometimes this is exactly what’s needed! Sometimes the best work we can do is … to not work at all. Or to work on something else.

  I know it sounds counterintuitive, but I’ve found that to be really true.

  Also, sometimes when there’s a line I’m never really happy with, that’s a sign that the line shouldn’t be in there at all. So I don’t fix it. I cut it.

  One of the hardest things in this business is perspective. When is something truly terrible? And when do you just have a bad case of The Crazies? Honestly, in that situation, only time will tell.

  So take a walk. Take a nap. Go to the movies or see if one of your friends wants to hang out. When you get out of your own head, you’re able to get out of your own way. So step back from things for a few hours or even a few days.

  When you finally come back to it, I bet you’ll have a much better idea what you need to do.

  Since I haven’t written a book with another writer, I’m going to pass this question along to three of my friends—Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, who write the Magisterium series together, and David Levithan, who edits Magisterium and has collaborated with a number of people on YA novels, including Rachel Cohn, John Green, Nina LaCour, and Andrea Cremer.

  DEAR HOLLY BLACK AND CASSANDRA CLARE,

  Do you have any advice for friends who might be interested in writing a book together?

  HOLLY ANSWERS:

  I think the best thing about collaboration is that you come up with things together that you never would have come up with alone. People are worried about disagreements, but it’s from the disagreements that the really good stuff comes. That’s where the other person is going to push you out of your comfort zone and into the challenging but fun part of making up something really new.

  That said, to me it’s really important to have solo work going on at the same time so that you have a space where you can make all the decisions and more easily conceptualize your shared work as shared.

  CASSIE ANSWERS:

  Set some ground rules when you start about how you are going to resolve any disagreements. If you really want a plot to go one way and your collaborator wants it to go another way, you should sit down and try to figure out a third way because if you’re not fighting for your idea, it’s easier to come up with something that you both really like.

  There’s something challenging about giving up complete ownership of something in the service of creating something different and special. Make sure to talk about scenes or pieces of plot you’re especially excited about so that, if possible, the person most excited about a particular scene gets to write it. You’ll also wind up talking through different life experiences that inform character. Blending them creates characters probably neither of you would have come up with on your own, which means you’re getting to write something, and write about people, you wouldn’t normally get to do.

  If you’re like me, you’ll travel to faraway lands so your co-writer will be forced to chase you around the globe. Fun vacation time!

  DEAR DAVID LEVITHAN,

  Do you have any advice for friends who might be interested in writing a book together?

  I am always amazed at how Holly and Cassie write Magisterium—they will plot it out together, write in the same room together, even finish each other’s sentences. That’s one kind of collaboration.

  For my collaborations, we always alternate chapters and never plot things out ahead of time. The fun of the writing is discovering what happens by seeing what your co-author does next. So for Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Rachel came up with the premise—two kids from New Jersey, named Nick and Norah, in New York City for a night. That’s all we knew about the story going into it. Then I wrote the first chapter and emailed it to her. We hadn’t even talked about the fact that we weren’t going to talk about it—but lo and behold, a day or two later, chapter 2 was waiting in my inbox. So I wrote chapter 3 and sent it to her. And so on. We’ve done it this way for five books now, and it’s always an adventure. We get to control our own chapters, even if we’re not controlling the overall story—I like that balance a lot.

  Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

  Most writers get this. I mean really get this. Because to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever really finished a book. It’s more like my editor ripped it out of my hands because it was either that or cancel the contract, and a girl’s got to eat. There’s not a single book with my name on the cover that I wouldn’t LOVE to go back and edit right now if they’d let me.

  I think that’s just kind of how a lot of writers are wired. I’m genetically prone to only seeing the mistakes.

  Which can be a good thing. Writers need to be critical of their work. We need to always be striving to be better.

  But it can also be a bad thing because, frankly, sometimes we try to fix things that aren’t broken and we end up making a great big mess.

  Now, of course, I have writer friends who I know and trust. I have an editor who wouldn’t let me make a fool of myself. But I didn’t always have those people in my life! So what did I have when I was working on those screenplays that never went anywhere and the first book I ever queried agents for?

  Well, I still had friends. They weren’t professional writers, but they were readers. And they were people who I knew well enough to know when they really liked something and when they just said they liked it.

  I had resources like my local librarian and the book club members who generously agreed to read my book when it was just a pile of pages.

  I also had contests that I found online and entered. In fact, I’m where I am today because one time I won a contest and there was one line on the critique sheet: Why hasn’t this been published?

  That’s when I started querying agents.

  That’s when I knew it was time to take the next step.

  Finally, I had my gut—and you have yours, too! If you’re writing a lot. If you’re reading a lot. If you’re watching a lot of TV and movies, and thinking about all of these things—not as a fan, but as
a writer—then your gut might be the best resource there is.

  Every path to success is different—there is no yellow brick road. Maybe you have friends you can ask to read your manuscript. Maybe you have a teacher or librarian who might be able to give you feedback. Maybe you can find a contest or two to enter and see what some judges have to say. And if all else fails, you have your gut. And you have time. Put that manuscript in a drawer for six months. If you read it with fresh eyes and your gut says it’s pretty darn good, then it probably is.

  DEAR MELISSA DE LA CRUZ,

  You astound me, lady. I don’t know anyone who publishes faster than you, so on behalf of every one of our mutual friends, I have to ask, how have you written so many books in such little time?

  I think the key to my success and my process is I am a very fast but also very clean writer. I can procrastinate until the cows come home, but I know I can write 40,000 words in two weeks if I have to. This means that mostly it takes me three to six months to write the first 20–40,000 words, but when I’m two weeks to deadline, I know I can pull it out and crank it out. The more pressed I am to deadline, the smarter I am, the faster I write, and the book takes shape during those last two weeks. It’s like I’m a different writer at the end. It’s like running a marathon and having the endurance and speed at the end. I also revise and polish as I write, so my work is very clean. I don’t really do a messy first draft. My first drafts are like third drafts.

  Of course, every writer is going to be different, but for me, the editing process is where my books are really made. Sometimes that means chainsaw edits where I have to get rid of whole subplots or change entire endings. Sometimes it means looking at a fifteen-page chapter and using my scalpel to get it down to twelve. Sometimes it means writing extremely carefully and rereading every day so that when you reach The End, parts of your book have already been rewritten dozens of times.