Category: Writing Craft

The Top 3 Reasons Publishers Reject Your Manuscript – And How to Fix Them

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I’ve worked on the acquisitions team at Monster Ivy Publishing (middle grade and YA fantasy, horror, and thriller) and Havok Magazine (fantasy, mystery, sci-fi flash fiction). Monster Ivy opened for submissions once a year, and I helped read through the submissions, offered feedback, and voted on which stories to accept. At Havok, I worked for a year as an editor on their Mystery Monday team. We received flash fiction submissions each month, and I collaborated with the team to choose which stories we should accept.

While different companies look for different things, I’ve discovered some major commonalities, on a craft level, for why publishers choose to reject some stories. If you’d like to understand more of the behind-the-scenes, business reasons for rejection, check out my earlier article “How Do Publishers Decide to Accept or Reject a Manuscript?”

  1. Poor Writing
  2. Uncompelling Characters
  3. Pacing
  4. Bonus Reason

Problem 1: Poor Writing

It’s true – the first thing someone notices about your book is the words. There have been times when I have picked up a book at the library, or opened the sample on Amazon, and didn’t read past the first couple of paragraphs. I could instantly tell that the writing was poor, or that I personally disliked the style.

But what does “poor writing” even mean? And if it’s really a barrier to publication, why do so many poorly written books sell out?

Here’s what I consider poor writing mechanics (not big picture stuff like characterization, plot, and endings), and the editors who trained me would concur:

  1. Poor use of verbs – passive voice, overuse of “to be” verbs, repetitive and uncreative verb choices
  2. Repetitive, boring, and unclear sentence structure
  3. Unvaried or overly flowery word choices and descriptors
  4. Unnatural dialogue that sounds the same no matter who is speaking
  5. Stylistic inconsistencies like point of view and tense shifts
  6. Grammar mistakes

There are more, of course, but these are the top ones I’ve seen. Notice that I listed grammar mistakes at the bottom. It’s not hard for a copyeditor to improve the grammar of a manuscript, but all the commas in the world won’t fix repetitive, juvenile-sounding language.

Verb usage is the biggest issue I saw in manuscripts while working at Havok Publishing and Monster Ivy Publishing, and it was the most common reason other editors gave for rejecting submissions.

You may have heard a million times, “Write actively!” Editors may have left you with cursory notes like, “Too much passive voice.” I’ve seen editors offer this line even if the sentences don’t actually use passive voice, but overuse “to be” verbs.

What’s the difference? In passive voice, the subject of the sentence is being acted upon, rather than doing the action.

e.x. 1: There was an air of unconventional attractiveness to him.
e.x. 2: His body was being wracked by hunger pangs.

It’s possible to use forms of the verb “to be” (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been) actively. Here are alternate versions of the examples above:

e.x. 1b: He was unconventionally attractive.
e.x. 2b: He was hungry.

However, it gets boring fast because it’s hard to keep such writing from sounding repetitive. Editors and readers prefer to see active AND varied verb usage:

e.x. 1c: Susy considered Andrew, with his bulging, brilliant blue eyes, unconventionally attractive.
e.x. 2c: Andrew clutched his stomach as another pang of hunger wracked his body.

Why are verbs of such vital importance? Remember the second poor writing issue I listed: sentence structure. Sentence structure just means the order in which you arrange your nouns, verbs, objects, etc. Though all you really need is a subject and verb.

“She ran.” That’s a complete sentence. Who is doing what? At it’s heart, a sentence is only as interesting as its subject and verb, and even changing one word can add information and flair. Did she run, or did she jog, dash, flee, sprint, speed, or fly?

The order and tone of your sentence will change drastically based on what you pick. “She took off at a staggering run, her breath catching.” or “Copper dust leapt up in waves behind Iala as her feet flew across the dry earth.” I didn’t think of describing the dust or the road until I added that Iala’s feet flew across the earth. When she was struggling to run, I thought to add a description of her body’s state, but when she was speeding along, I thought to describe the atmosphere.

Good writing isn’t just about what you avoid, but what you add. If all your sentences read back-to-back like, “He was hungry. She ran. The earth was dry,” they won’t just sound the same, but will lack the energy and emotional connection that makes stories and characters come alive.

Choosing better verbs and improving sentence structure aren’t separate tasks, but actually one and the same. I’m incredibly grateful for my first writing instructor in high school who gave me such a simple yet effective exercise. She gave us a program which enabled us to highlight all the “be” verbs in our documents, and the first word of every sentence.

She forbade us from using a single “be” verb in any of our papers AND banned us from starting any sentence with the same word more than once within a single paragraph. So if you started a sentence with “The” or “She”, it was off limits until you started a new one.

TOGETHER, these exercises forced me to develop sentences with a huge level of variety in both word choice and construction, resulting in a much more interesting style!

Let’s look at an example from Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.

“It was there, sitting in the lunchroom, trying to make conversation with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.
They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I sat as possible in the long room. There were five of them. They weren’t talking, and they weren’t eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them. They weren’t gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was safe to stare at them without fear of meeting an excessively interested pair of eyes. But it was none of these things that caught, and held, my attention….
I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanely beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine.”
Twilight (p. 15-16)

Every single sentence in this excerpt uses “be verbs.” Three sentences in a row start with “They.” Meyer repeats other simple verbs such as “sit” and “stare” in quick succession. It’s easy to understand, but reading a whole book like this usually turns into skimming, jumping over the same words and constructs and grasping for the characters’ emotions.

Here’s your first exercise. Rewrite the above segment following my teacher’s 2 rule: NO “be” verbs, and start every sentence with a different word. The key is to identify WHO is doing the action. If you’d like to share, add your version in the comments at the end of this post!

Then take a look at your writing. Do you tend to repeat the same verbs and sentence frameworks? If so, I suggest enforcing these 2 rules for a while. Once it becomes natural, you can ease off.

I also recommend brushing up on the different types of verbs. This brief article – “11 Common Types Of Verbs Used In The English Language” – acts as a great refresher.

Problem 2: An Uncompelling Main Character

Character-driven stories absolutely dominate the market. Some people prefer plot or worldbuilding forward stories, but they are in the minority, at least at present. It feels impossibly unfair, but unless you can get readers to care about your main character within the first 5 pages-1st chapter, they’re not going to continue.

But how can you make someone care in such a short time?

Writing instructors will offer the same advice time and again. Your main character needs:

  • A strong goal or need
  • A problem that gets in the way of them achieving it (stakes)
  • Strengths that make readers interested in them and weaknesses that add tension to the story (“cool factor” and establishment of future character transformation)

You don’t need to indicate the “meta” plot in the very first chapter. In fact, it’s often best to establish the character’s status quo first. For instance, in the opening scene of Eragon, he’s just a kid hunting in the forest because he wants to have food to bring home to his family. Then his perfect shot gets ruined when some dumb rock mystically materializes in the middle of the deer herd. We immediately learn his status in life, that his family is important to him, that he’s a careful and diligent hunter, and that he, like anyone else, gets pissed off when a wrench is thrown into his dinner plans. Not to mention an introduction to magic and mystery. And that’s just in the first few pages. The next chapter introduces a secondary antagonist – the sneering butcher – who also gets in the way of Eragon’s attempts to feed his family. We get to see how he responds to interpersonal conflict, what makes him feel shame, and what he’s willing to give up in order to do his duty to his family.

On the one hand, he’s a perfectly ordinary teenage farm boy – nothing special about him. But through him, readers feel tension, shock and disappointment, curiosity, embarrassment and resentment, and the hope for something better, even magical. Eragon is hardly my go-to example for characterization – like Bella, he’s kind of a blank slate good boy. But Paolini’s book is a good example of how including these character elements in concert with the plot can make readers turn to the next page.

“But I’ve heard all that before,” you might protest. My character has all those things. Plus well developed family and friend dynamics, hobbies and quirks, and much more interesting things going for them than “fantasy ripoff Luke Skywalker.”

So let me pause to ask, have readers and editors only read your opener or has anyone read a more significant chunk of your story? If people have just read the first couple chapters and say that wasn’t enough to make them care about your mc, it may just be that you haven’t nailed your opening yet (a hard thing to do!). It’s worth begging your beta readers to read a few more chapters and ask if they gain interest in your character with a little more time. Then you’ll know whether you have to go back to the drawing board, or if you need to read up on how to write a smashing opening chapter.

But if a number of people read a good chunk of your book and say they lost interest because they didn’t care about the character, or read the whole thing and were dissatisfied for the same reason, then you should dig deep on characterization.

One question I’ve become convinced more authors need to ask is, “what does my main character believe?” I read so many characters these days who have passionate emotions and opinions, but they don’t feel much different from any other character who’s out for revenge, or has fallen in love, or who’s overcoming their traumatic past. Because none of these characters ponder “the big questions of life.”

They might be vaguely moral, with lines they aren’t willing to cross, but their inner world does not feel exceptionally deep or unique. Why should I keep reading about your brooding fantasy assassin vs. some other fantasy assassin? Because yours has dry, dark humor rather than cringey, “Marvel” one-liners? Because he’s hotter, or has a more unusual magic power?

Sure, I’ve finished books for that reason, then given them 3 stars for “averagely entertaining.” Like watching a B-movie on Netflix. But if you want your character to catch hearts, and be unforgettable to the acquisitions editor who’s making a decision about your future as an author, then I encourage you to dig deeper than “what’s my mc’s Myers Briggs?”

Check out my earlier article on “Why Your Main Character Falls Flat: Do They Think About the Big Questions of Life?” for more tips on how to implement beyond-surface-level characterization.

Problem 3: Pacing

Why do books like Twilight get published and sell millions of copies? The writing is weak, the characters are deliberately flat reader-inserts.

I would argue, however, that the pacing is amazing. Meyers does an excellent job of mixing emotion, danger, and mystery to keep readers flipping to the next page. Just when you’d get bored of Bella’s fluttering heart, someone tries to kill her. Just when the danger seems to have passed, relational issues pop up at home and at school that have nothing to do with the supernatural.

Like a catchy pop song that seems to hit the right beat at every moment to keep you singing along, the chapters are punchy and always leave readers asking, what happens next?

It can be difficult to pin down what exactly makes for “good” pacing. One of the best places to start is with story structure like the 15 point “Save the Cat” model or 3 Act structure. I call that “macro” pacing, but pacing at the chapter level (“medium”), and even sentence level (“micro”), is just as important for an engaging reader experience.

Often, an acquisitions editor will just be left with the feeling that the story is missing a certain “spark.” The character and concept might have been interesting enough, but they just didn’t feel a great urge to keep reading. I think the biggest issue at play in these situations is pacing.

At its simplest, pacing is how you time the telling of your story. Like a joke that needs just enough, but not too much, setup for the punch line to land right, a book needs to be told in a way that connects with readers. Some authors have that flair for storytelling, instinctively starting and ending each scene at just the right time. Other writers have to work harder to develop a style that makes their world and characters pop.

Maybe you’ve received requests for your full manuscript, and the editors sounded excited, but then declined your manuscript with somewhat vague reasons like:

“It just didn’t land right.”
“It didn’t keep me invested throughout.”
“I lost interest part way through.”
“The story didn’t really leave an impact on me.”
“It didn’t excite me as a reader.”
“X part of the novel was good, but the rest felt a little lost.”

Now, editors may say things like this as well if they don’t find your character arc compelling. But if the main issue is the characters, the editor will usually just come out and say it. But if they leave feedback like this and don’t specifically or extensively mention characterization, then I’m convinced the “missing spark” they’re getting at is pacing.

Check out my full article on how to master novel pacing for more insights and exercises. I suggest starting by giving a single chapter to a writer friend or beta reader and asking if they think you started and ended the scene in the right place, and whether all the content felt necessary. You might be surprised by how much feedback readers have on such specific questions.

Bonus Problem: No Author Following

You may have heard that publishers weigh how large of a following authors have when deciding whether to offer a book deal. This is true. When I worked on the acquisitions team at Monster Ivy Publishing, we narrowed down the submissions pile to our top 5 and deliberated from there. We wanted to accept all of them, but as a small press, had to pick only a few.

Two manuscripts were “tied” in terms of craft and story, so we looked at the authors. One of them had a much more established presence online and was clearly ready to jump in with marketing her books. That’s the author we ended up accepting.

Now, the author of our favorite manuscript among the batch had a very small online following. But her book resonated with us so much that we decided to accept her anyway. It was a mark against her though – it was only because of how much we loved her story that we were willing to take on the “extra work” of advising her on how to build up her online presence.

So I won’t say that a publisher will reject you if you haven’t already developed a following. But it’s true that building up your brand before submitting your manuscript for consideration will work highly in your favor, and may even be the tie breaker that gets you the book deal.

Hi, I’m Caylah Coffeen, a freelance editor and marketer of sci-fi and fantasy books. I love reading and writing and am a follower of Jesus Christ.

I’ve worked for Monster Ivy Publishing, Eschler Editing, and Havok Magazine. Reach out to chat about books and publishing!

Thanks for stopping by my website! I hope you’ve found some helpful resources about reading, writing, and publishing. If you liked this article, here’s some more free content…

Is Hollywood Writing Terrible “Strong Female Characters” on Purpose – So We Beg Them to Return to the Old Ways?

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Hollywood creators depict “strong female leads” in such 2-dimensional, cringe ways that I’ve started to wonder if it’s actually a deliberate, long-term strategy to make audiences reject women as central characters.

Many theories have been floated in recent years about why modern, female-led films flop so abysmally, so before I get into my theory, I’ll review them.

“Men write women badly” isn’t an axiom we should accept

One of the leading arguments is that Hollywood producers, directors, and writers are still overwhelmingly male, and men don’t write women well. This argument can actually be separated into 3 claims:

  1. Men are incapable of writing women well – “It’s just too hard! Women are too complex!”
  2. Men don’t bother learning enough about women to write them well
  3. Men refuse to write women in ways that don’t suit them

I reject the first claim as it’s a stereotype that enables laziness, giving permission for men to not even try. Men are perfectly capable of understanding women well enough to write them as fascinating, flawed, memorable characters. Film and literature are filled with such examples, so there is no excuse for the embarrassing alpha women inflatables we’re plagued with today.

So we get to the second claim – men just don’t bother to put themselves in women’s shoes and imagine what it’s like to be treated like a woman, and so their female characters don’t feel like real people. I’m sure there’s some truth to this, but it’s not like these writers have never met women. It’s impossible not to gain an understanding of the opposite sex through interacting with relatives, teachers, neighbors, coworkers, etc. What it comes down to is whether a person keeps their eyes and ears open, or rejects anything that contradicts their preexisting opinions.

Men are capable of understanding women. Men will learn about women whether they try or not. So we get to the third reason. Men refuse to act on what they’ve learned, depicting women only in the ways they prefer.

Before you get your hackles up, this is an observation true to all humankind. Harmful depictions of certain races, classes, religions, and genders aren’t due to an incapacity to understand, or just a refusal to learn, but because of willful cruelty paired with premeditated plans to control certain populations.

Old authors who used women like paper cutouts – the virtuous damsel in distress, the buxom wench, the creepy witch in the woods, the wicked seductress, and so on, made a deliberate choice to use women not as real people, but as objects to move a male-centered plot forward. Classic authors with memorable female characters weren’t geniuses blessed with an unusual understanding of women. They simply made the choice to put the same amount of effort into writing their female characters as they did when writing their male characters.

As far as I’m concerned, modern filmmakers who write unlikable female heroines don’t just misunderstand “strong women” despite trying their best, and haven’t just neglected to get to know “strong women,” but are willfully choosing to portray them in a way that will make audiences groan every time they hear a new release features a female hero.

Hollywood claims “You asked for this!”

Once we agree that Hollywood is entirely responsible for and in complete control of their depiction of women, we get to the second common argument – Hollywood’s response – which is that they’re only giving women what we wanted, what we asked for! “Women demanded the femme fatale, so don’t blame us if you think it’s bad – blame your fellow women for having bad taste.”

Here’s the first problem with this argument: Does Hollywood really think Rey running around snapping, “don’t hold my hand,” is what girls actually wanted to see? If so, they’re morons. Or they want to pretend they are, in order to shrug off responsibility for their insulting depictions of women.

They’re essentially re-using the first argument about women being “too much,” turning themselves into dewy-eyed schoolboys who can’t understand what women want even when they try really, really hard to listen. But that also implies they asked.

Did any producers talk to female Star Wars fans and ask them if Rey was their billion dollar heart’s desire? Or cold-faced women in catsuits breezing their way through problems as they push men around? Hollywood didn’t give us what we asked for, they gave us what they imagined we wanted.

Which is insulting in and of itself.

We say, “I want women who talk to women on screen about something other than men,” and they say, “Ok, you want arrogant bitches who sneer at men.” We say, “I want intelligent women who solve their own problems rather than waiting around to be saved,” and they say, “Ok you want cold, distant, dismissive women who don’t listen to anyone.” We say, “We want multi-faceted women with varied strengths and weaknesses,” and they hear, “ok, women are perfect? We’ll show them strutting around shoving in peoples’ faces how good they are at everything.”

These depictions do more to show us what Hollywood leaders think of women in “leading roles.” Through every box office flop, they are telling us that they think an active female character who saves the day is inseparable from an entitled, aggressive, emotionally distant narcissist.

But women are producing these “alpha women” too

Now, to be fair, many feminists do act like this, and many women writers have written female characters who act like bratty alpha males (Sarah J. Mass). So there’s a real basis for this image. A fact which grieves me greatly.

I think female writers and creatives have an even greater responsibility to depict women of good character! It’s not like we even have the excuse, “It’s so difficult for us to understand women!” So it’s maddening to encounter female characters that read like the author’s teenage fantasy (“Wouldn’t it be great if I could say and do whatever I want and have everyone around me, especially the men, respect and affirm me for it?”).

Male writers get to point at the examples and say, “Look, they’re doing it – I’m just following their lead and giving them more of what they themselves make!” But would female writers get away with that excuse? With meeting such low standards?

Let’s say I wrote a male hero based on the nastiest Homecoming King I’ve known in my life and the rapiest male protagonist I’ve encountered in male-written fiction. Then, in the reviews, readers call me out on it and say my male characters are 2-dimensional caricatures that don’t deserve to be called heroes. If I replied by pointing at my real-life and fictional examples and crying, “But they did it too!” would that fly?

Some men would probably have no problem with how I wrote my hero because they would see themselves in it. Nasty jocks like to see nasty jocks depicted as heroes. Would that excuse me writing all male heroes as nasty jocks? But that’s what Hollywood is doing – they’re writing female heroines with the dialogue of the angriest feminists they’ve met and the behavior of the most entitled YA heroines they’ve read. And then they say, “Well, those feminists and those readers asked for this, so clearly that’s what all female audiences want!”

The cringe ladybosses are deliberate

There are plenty of examples of well-written female characters, but men in Hollywood are choosing to follow the bad examples because that’s how they see women. Just like some female writers choose to write strong men as assholes, because that’s what they think of men.

It’s not that Hollywood’s overlords don’t know what a good example of a strong female character looks like (Princess Leia, Sarah Conner, Ellen Ripley, the original Mulan, Eowyn, Hermione Granger). It’s not that they think the majority of women want the copy pasted “badasses” they’re giving us.

Hollywood isn’t dumb. Between focus groups, polling, early release feedback, etc. there is no way that these massive corporations couldn’t tell that Captain Marvel was going to flop compared to Captain America.

So we get to my new theory – did they actually want it to flop?

Do producers and directors want to go back to the good ‘ol days when it was socially acceptable for women to be nothing more than the booby side-piece? Are they sitting in a room together asking, “How do we get audiences to accept the Bond girl as the norm again? Even better, how do we get them to actually demand it from us?” I think they’re dreaming of the day we say, “Oh Hollywood masters, you knew best all along. How wrong we were. Please forgive us. We beg of you, show us what we really want and need to see!”

Hollywood is doing this on purpose to try to get men and women alike to reject “strong female leads,” when what we’re actually rejecting is “deliberately poorly written, nasty female leads.”

This is a vital distinction. Plenty of people call out Hollywood for writing women badly. More still call them out for being insensitive, incompetent, and dismissive of issues surrounding representation of gender, race, religion, and more. Some call them out for choosing terrible female writers and directors to lead the way.

Plenty of people know what a good story looks like, and they know that modern Hollywood films suck all around, not that heroines are objectively bad. But in some ways, Hollywood’s scheme is working. They’ve primed audiences to think that a female-led film will be awful. So even if we can consciously list all of the ways they set Captain America up for success and Captain Marvel up for failure, the end result is the same: men and women alike are less likely to go see a film about a female protagonist.

If every time you bought a cake, it was sickeningly sweet and chalky, you’d probably start wincing every time someone offered you cake, even though you know there are plenty of good, even amazing, cakes in the world.

When’s the last time you heard someone say the phrases “ladyboss,” “strong female character,” or “badass heroine” without an accompanied eye roll? People didn’t always roll their eyes 10 years ago – we were excited at first! But a decade of horrible movies has primed audiences to think that “cringe” and “ladyboss” always belong in the same sentence.

We have to discern whether Hollywood is doing this on purpose or not. Because there’s no point in criticizing their writing if they picked a barfably woke script to make us hate it and anything remotely related. There’s no point in petitioning for Kathleen Kennedy to be fired if they picked her so we would do just that! …Enabling them to replace her with a male President – the natural order of the world restored.

There’s no point in telling the baker you ordered a low-sugar cake and asking him to remake it if he purposely baked a nauseatingly sweet cake so you’d give up and order the cookies instead – his original specialty.

This is a pattern consistent across film history

Now, before you go claiming that I’m a man-hating woman with a conspiracy theory, it would behoove us to examine some film history. I actually studied Film in college – that’s my degree. If you think producers aren’t sitting in a room together making agreements about how to depict certain races, religions, professions, and genders you’re just wrong. This happened all the time.

One example is the depiction of Asian men – Hollywood studios have very deliberately portrayed Asian men as bumbling, comedic idiots or asexual, walking calculators. When Asian men cry out, as women have done, “Write more stories with active Asian characters!” Hollywood argues, “What are you talking about? There are plenty of you thrown in there. And you’re even shown as smart.”

Mixing positive features into your “stereotype template” doesn’t make it ok. I imagine an Asian man would rather play a genius tech geek in an action flick than a pudgy sidekick in a rom com, but that doesn’t mean he actually wants to play either. Just like women would rather play emotionless heroines in spandex who get to kick the bad guy in the face than buxom babes who scream and cower in the clutches of a monster.

Both depictions are templates that Hollywood has decided are acceptable for screen. Men pay to see the second one. Neither men or women want to pay to see the first. I wouldn’t pay to see a standalone movie of Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman. What Hollywood wants people to take away from that conclusion is, “Women don’t make good leads. Women aren’t meant to be the heroes.”

But I would pay to see a Catwoman movie if Selena Kyle was written as well as Nolan’s Bruce Wayne. I would pay to see a movie about Queen Boudicca if it was written and directed as well as Braveheart. But Hollywood refuses to do so.

You’ve heard the saying, the best lies are made up mostly of truth. Hollywood hasn’t written incompetent female heroines. They know that’s too far from the truth for modern audiences to accept. They’ve just written immature, unlikable heroines. They know how to cover their butts. People aren’t walking out of the theaters able to say, “Hollywood is sexist because they showed women as weak and irrelevant.”

But people should be walking out of theaters saying, “Hollywood is sexist because they’re depicting strong women as arrogant brats.”

Hollywood has power and money to spare. I think they’re playing the long game, perfectly happy to lose money now as they pretend to support PC causes, while actually twisting the narrative so they can reshape demand back into their preferred mold.

Once people gain the power to shape opinions (on an international and society-wide level!), they’re not going to give it up because people tell them to change. They’ll just use the weapons at their disposal to get people to stop asking. And their greatest weapon is their stories.

Again, this is already a well-established flaw of human nature. How many people drive themselves into bankruptcy over issues of ideology, pet feuds, and threats to their own superiority? Some people are willing to destroy themselves to be seen as right or to force their version of what is right on the world. It’s no accident that before the #metoo movement, we saw a mix of excellent and lousy female leads, but after #metoo? I come up with a blank.

It almost feels like Hollywood producers and directors are saying, “You got in our face about how we treated you and then made yourselves reserved and unavailable. We’ll reflect that version of women back at you and see how you like it.”

Still think I’m taking it too far?

Let’s consider the realism of this argument by imagining it from the other side. Let’s say the CEO of a major publisher decided that going forward, 80% of all their fantasy books need to have a male lead. The managing editors at their imprints are displeased by this decision, but they have to go along with it. How could they honor their boss’ demand while actually subverting it?

I know what I would do. I’d round up the equivalent of Terry Goodkind (The Sword of Truth), John Norman (Gor), George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones), Richard Morgan (The Steel Remains), and Mark Lawrence (Prince of Thorns) and put the most money behind the darkest, rapiest, most toxic depictions of masculinity I could find. (Those hyperlinks will take you to discussions about the controversies in those books…)

Then I’d wait for audiences to cry out, “Enough already!” I could then cock my head in innocent surprise and ask, “What? Wasn’t this what you wanted? It’s what you asked for. What you think a male hero is. You don’t like it? Aww, well I did try to tell you.”

And because they’re male authors, and many male readers don’t find the content problematic, I’d be safe from the criticism that I’m pulling this version of masculinity out of my behind so I can spit on it.

Just like Hollywood directors can laugh and say, “but the directors of Charlie’s Angels 2019 and Captain Marvel were women!” Yeah… Elizabeth Banks and Anna Boyden (the directors of each, respectively) wouldn’t exactly have been my top choices for heroic, women-led filmmaking, let alone Kathleen Kennedy. They don’t represent the potential and desire of most female creatives or audiences.

Anyone who uses those flops to prove women make poor heroes (and poor directors) is full of it and deserves to be told as much. Just as I’d call someone out if they praised publishers for rejecting male-authored or male-led fantasy novels using Terry Goodkind as the basis of their reasoning.

Don’t accept Hollywood’s lies about heroines – or their denial that they’re lying on purpose

We know what truly strong female characters look like. And so does Hollywood (“methinks you doth protest too much”) – that’s why they’re trying so hard not to give them to us – because a compassionate, selfless, strong, intelligent, brave, emotionally healthy, unencumbered woman would be truly formidable.

Hollywood can’t convince me they:

  1. Are too simpleminded to write women well
  2. Are just too negligent to learn anything about women
  3. Actually think most women want the garbage they give us
  4. Tried their best to give women what we wanted but just don’t have enough practice yet
  5. Pick only the best women writers and directors who represent the peak of female creativity and vision
  6. Tried their best, but it’s as they suspected – audiences just don’t want heroines

We’re left with one option. No longer able to depict women the way they want – as sex objects and attaches to male leads – Hollywood has settled for second best: a perversion of good leading women that will make viewers sick at the phrases “empowered” and “independent.”

Hollywood told us for decades that female-led superhero films would flop. We disagreed. So they set out to prove themselves right. Big studios give us terrible heroines done up in the flimsy trappings of good ones. They thought this would rob us of our voice, of our ability to call them out anymore on deliberate sexism. Too bad – I’m calling Hollywood out on it anyway.

Under no circumstances should the above portrayal or implications not be insulting to you.

Hi, I’m Caylah Coffeen, a freelance editor and marketer of sci-fi and fantasy books. I love reading and writing and am a follower of Jesus Christ.

I’ve worked for Monster Ivy Publishing, Eschler Editing, and Havok Magazine. Reach out to chat about books and publishing!

Thanks for stopping by my website! I hope you’ve found some helpful resources about reading, writing, and publishing. If you liked this article, here’s some more free content…

From First Draft to Published Product: How a (Flash Fiction) Story Transforms Over 3 Rounds of Edits

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If you’ve never worked with a book editor before, you’re probably wondering what it’ll be like. What kind of feedback do editors give and how do they interact with your manuscript? Is all the time and money of a professional edit actually worth it?

Here I’ve included the first draft and two successive rounds of edits on a flash fiction story that I edited as part of Havok Magazine’s team. My hope is that you will see how editing can bring out the best in a manuscript, clarifying the language, character and plot, and emotional impact.

Havok is an online flash fiction magazine that publishes a 1000 word story each day of the week on the following schedule: Mystery Monday, Techno Tuesday (sci-fi), Wacky Wednesday (humor), Thriller Thursday, Fantasy Friday. I was an editor with the Mystery Monday team for a year.

I share these various drafts with the permission of the author, Victoria Roberts, and Havok’s owners – Andrew Winch and Teddi Deppner.

First Draft

This is the first draft the author submitted to Havok. I, and my fellow editors, read all of the submitted stories for that month and chose which ones to acquire. There were a few reasons this story stood out to me for acceptance:

  • The character has a clear goal and transformation
  • High life and death stakes
  • The situation is emotionally and politically complex, but grounded in a simple scene and decision
  • Strong physical interactions between the characters, space, and the objects in it
  • Varied descriptions using multiple senses
  • A balanced mix of dialogue and internal reflection

Take a moment to read the original version before reviewing successive edits.

Roberts-To Break A Kingdom-First DraftDownload

First Round of Edits

These are the edits I and my team submitted to the author for review. She then had a chance to make submissions and submit a second draft. In my comments, you’ll see a combination of the three major types of editing (proofreaders were a separate team).

Developmental feedback: questions about the character’s situation and motivations and suggestions for how to improve the opening and ending.

Line edits: improving sentence structure, clarifying descriptions, and offering suggestions to maintain conciseness.

Copy edits: grammar and spelling corrections.

Roberts-To Break A Kingdom-First Round EditsDownload

Second Round of Edits

This is the stage where collaboration and clarification come into play. You’ll see that the author accepted a number of my edits as they were. In other places, she left comments explaining what her vision was and asking for further input, or made the suggested edits in her own words.

That’s the sign of an effective editor-author collaboration. Editorial suggestions are just that – suggestions. A good editor will help shape a story into the best it can be according to each author’s style. A good writer will be willing to communicate openly with their editor, standing up for their own choices where it matters, asking questions, offering various revisions and asking the editor which one they think is the clearest and most compelling choice.

Roberts-To Break A Kingdom-Second Round EditsDownload

Third Round of Edits

A third round of edits isn’t always necessary – here, you’ll see that the author fiddled with her word choice a little more and made sure her word count fell within parameters. And I assured her that she should be the one to finalize these details.

Roberts-To Break A Kingdom-Third Round EditsDownload

Final Version

If you want to read the final version of this story, you can find it on Havok’s website! They publish a story every day of the week – each story of the day is free to read, and an annual subscription of $4.99 gains readers access to their entire catalogue.

If you’re interested in submitting a flash fiction story of 1000 words or less, you can find information about Havok’s monthly themes on their website. They are such a kind and joyful team to work with, and I highly recommend them! Thank you, Andrew and Teddi, for allowing me to share about Havok’s process!

You can also follow Havok on social media.

Thank You, Victoria!

A big thank you to the Victoria Roberts, the author of “To Break a Kingdom,” for letting me share her in-progress story on my website. Many authors hate for their early drafts to ever see the light of day! But that makes it hard for other writers to understand how stories can change during the process of editing. So thank you for sharing your work so others can learn from your example! Please check out more of Victoria’s work through the links below.

About Victoria Roberts

Victoria Roberts writes uplifting stories that radiate light. As an acquisitions and freelance editor, she loves encouraging other writers to pursue their author dreams. When she’s not penning or devouring a new tale, she spends her time adventuring with her family, spoiling her poodle Beast, or creating book-themed cross-stitch patterns.

Hi, I’m Caylah Coffeen, a freelance editor and marketer of sci-fi and fantasy books. I love reading and writing and am a follower of Jesus Christ.

I’ve worked for Monster Ivy Publishing, Eschler Editing, and Havok Magazine. Reach out to chat about books and publishing!

Thanks for stopping by my website! I hope you’ve found some helpful resources about reading, writing, and publishing. If you liked this article, here’s some more free content…

How Cultivating a Creative “Input-Output Cycle” Can Prevent Writer’s Block and Enrich Your Writing

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Do you know that feeling when you pick up a book and absolutely devour it, sucking it in like you’re feeding a gaping maw within your chest? And then you tear through the next few books trying to satisfy the same clawing yearning.

Then one day, your thoughts wander. You feel restless and when you open Kindle, forget that you had started the book staring at you. The words had slipped out of your mind. Scenes and dialogue fill your mind. A song catches your imagination and before you know it, it’s 2 am and you’re pacing, caught up in a battle or a scheme between characters. Before you know it, you have an entire new backstory, planet, or subplot that’s run away with you.

But then, as quickly as the flood of ideas came, they ebb away. You don’t feel like doing anything but watching TV or reading brain candy – your comfort fiction. That itch is back again that you need to satisfy, and the hunt is on for a book that will touch your heart or mind.

The Creative “Input-Output Cycle”

I call this the creative “input-output cycle.”

All creatives need a mix of input to stimulate their minds, imagination, and emotions. Without craft to emulate, ideas to inspire, and experiences to wake us, our creative well will remain dry.

Some authors can even name the story that “woke them” or tapped the buried flow of water, making it rush into and fill the well. For me, it was the chapter book series The Secrets of Droon by Tony Abbott (#myfirstedgelord) which my mother gifted to me for Christmas in 2nd grade. My parents had already cultivated a love of reading in me, but from that moment onward, I devoured books ravenously for 4 years: horse books, mystery, historical fiction, classics, and above all else, fantasy.

Then, the well overflowed, and stories started spawning in my brain. I couldn’t hold them in. They distracted me from my homework. I would spend hours daydreaming at my desk, incapable of reading because my brain had synthesized too much (no such thing), and now had to express itself.

Have you ever heard this quote?

Q: Why do you write?
A: Because I have to.

It’s not a choice, it’s a compulsion. Just as reading becomes as necessary as breathing, as vital as food for the mind, heart, and soul, so too does creation.

As C.S. Lewis said in Till We Have Faces, “I was with book, as a woman is with child.”

Input Begets Output, Output Crowns the Soul

I’ve always been confused by writers who say they struggle to come up with ideas for their next book. I’ve always had the opposite problem. In fact, the plethora of ideas makes it hard to choose where to start my stories, which could fill dozens of books (according to my outlines).

I can’t read a book, listen to a piece of music, or watch a movie without new ideas blossoming in my mind. I remember the exact moment one of the main characters of my sci-fi universe popped into my head. I was sitting in my room in my senior year of high school, reading the first chapter of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. My main character positively exploded into my mind, thereafter occupying my every waking, and sometimes sleeping, thoughts.

It’s painfully obvious when a writer is unfamiliar with storytelling. When I review a sample that makes me suspect a reading deficit, I usually suggest this exercise – I ask them to pick a couple of their favorite books and rewrite a passage of their work in each style. The answer is usually, “oh… I’m not sure. I don’t really read much.”

Can an artist learn to paint even if they’ve never set foot in an art museum? Yes. Can a musician compose even if they hardly ever listen to music? Yes.

But they might as well be half blind and half deaf in their endeavors. Our brains need stimulation to form new networks, patterns, and understanding. If you are having trouble writing, then read! I know you’ve heard this. Reading is the most important form of input for a writer, but other creative inputs are also vital – art, music, dancing, religious experiences, travel, and so on.

But the opposite is also true. You could be in a reading slump, slightly irritated at everything you pick up, because nothing quite seems to touch that deepest place within your soul. These days, it’s actually easy for our brains to become oversaturated with input – that might be your problem.

If you’re having trouble writing, it might be because you’ve had too much input, and of the wrong type. Imagine again our well of creativity. If you’re constantly tapping into various underwater streams, you could end up with a geyser of Kool-Aid that turns your creative landscape into a nasty sludge of punch, rather than a full well of spring water that you can dip into and disperse with control.

It might be time for some quiet. Let your mind digest everything you’ve consumed and settle. Go back and savor one course a bit more deeply. Your original ideas might be fighting to emerge from the roiling stream of external ideas you keep cramming into yourself.

And what you add to the world’s body of stories will be your crowning achievement, standing atop all you’ve uniquely experienced.

Finding a Creative Balance

Finding the right balance of input and output takes time. In my experience, the right combination has also varied depending on my life circumstances. Sometimes poor mental health led to an abundance of my own stories as a form of emotional expression, while other times I drowned out my own thoughts with other peoples’ stories. New experiences sometimes compel me to add a new facet to my world, while other times curiosity inspires me to read and research a ton about that experience just for the sake of learning.

I’ve come to listen to myself and notice the type of restlessness and frustration I feel when my mind is ready to shift from one part of the creative cycle to the next. When I’ve spent several days reading the first few chapters of a dozen books, with none managing to capture my interest, I’ll start to poke at my own worldbuilding and outlines instead. When I start rewriting the same scene in my mind in every possible iteration till it feels like I’m beating a dead horse, I’ll return to my TBR list, often picking something completely different from the story I’d been working on to shake my brain loose.

I’ve spent months to years in an “output” cycle as my stories rapidly expanded, barely watching or reading anything in that time. But recently, I “cycle” more rapidly, reading multiple books in a few weeks, then switching back to scene development for a couple weeks, and so on.

Name Your Process… and Feel Less Insane

I come from a big family (7 kids!) and over half of us love to write. When we started to articulate our process like this, it helped us understand each other and ourselves so much better. It also helped our non-writer relatives and friends understand our “crazy” a bit better!

Sis: Hey, do you want to watch Stargate?
Me: Nah, not tonight.
Sis: Aww, you said that last weekend, come on!
Me: I know! But I’ve been in output mode. I can’t get this scene out of my head. I just need to get it down!

Me: Hey, how are your stories going? What have you been working on recently?
Sis 2: Ah, I felt kind of stuck on that one character. It was really annoying me so I stopped working on it for a while. I must’ve read at least 5 Mercedes Lackey books in the past week though!
Me: Nice! I’ve been in input mode too. I picked up Nine Princes in Amber and now I’m trying to get my hands on everything Zelazny ever wrote.

Giving yourself permission to take a break and just enjoy stories can be hugely relieving! Not to mention practical for building both empathy and craft skills.

It can be harder to notice when you’re oversaturated and need to take a break to let your own ideas bubble to the surface, but this is also a practice that will greatly benefit your creative process in the long run.

There’s no right or wrong way to balance an “input-output cycle.” You could write in the morning and read in the evening, or vice versa. You could write all day on the weekends and read your comfort fics during the work week. Or if you’re chasing down a deadline, you could do nothing but bang out that draft for several months, and then go on a binge afterwards.

But naming where I am in my creative cycle and discovering what helps me transition between “input mode” and “output mode” has been hugely helpful to me in sustaining both the development of my stories and a well-read mind.

How well do you know yourself? Are you in control of your creative “input-output cycle?”

Hi, I’m Caylah Coffeen, a freelance editor and marketer of sci-fi and fantasy books. I love reading and writing and am a follower of Jesus Christ.

I’ve worked for Monster Ivy Publishing and Eschler Editing, and am currently a weekly editor with Havok Publishing. Reach out to chat about books and publishing!

Thanks for stopping by my website! I hope you’ve found some helpful resources about reading, writing, and publishing. If you liked this article, here’s some more free content…

Is your fantasy book set in a world worth fighting or a world worth fighting for?

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Guest post by Nicholas S. Casale

As an avid fan of the fantasy genre, I consume fantasy stories any which way I can (novels, television, movies, and video games).

Recently, I had a chance to play the Oblivion remake released by Bethesda. After I finished the main storyline quests, I decided to pick up Skyrim (its sequel) while I was at it. I was surprised at the stark contrast between the two worlds. Where the world of Oblivion is beautiful to behold and full of humorous, even slightly silly characters, Skyrim is harsh and jagged, and full of meaner characters.

That was when it dawned on me what the difference was between the two stories. In Oblivion, the world was worth fighting for. In Skyrim, the world was worth fighting.

I have since noticed that these are the two basic types of fantasy settings: the world worth fighting for and the world worth fighting. When we have a world worth fighting for, it is clear that the world the story takes place in is a good one, and the main character wants to keep it. When we have a world worth fighting, the focus is far more on the main character (or characters), and the way they rise to the challenges that the world throws at them.

We can see this in a few other examples.

Middle Earth is a world worth fighting for, demonstrated most by the Shire and Rivendell. Samwise Gamgee even makes a speech reinforcing this point.

SAM: But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.

FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?

SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

Westeros is a world worth fighting. It’s awful, dark, and full of murder and betrayal.

Prydain from the Chronicles of Prydain series is a world worth fighting for. There is beauty in it, and wonderful people. Even some of the more self-serving people are still inclined toward good, and then there are the forces of darkness looking to conquer it.

Warhammer 40K has no bright spot in it, no place where the soul-crushing inevitability of demise hasn’t tainted everything. It is a mad universe where the only constant is war. It is a world worth fighting.

Not Just Grimdark vs. Noblebright

Now, I know that some people will simplify this to being the difference between the Grimdark (what is grimdark?) and Noblebright (what is noblebright?) genres. That is fair, because every Grimdark story’s setting can be summed up as “a world worth fighting.”

However, not every Noblebright story takes place in a world worth fighting for.

Take, for example, Star Wars. I would call Star Wars Noblebright because it features good triumphing over evil, and it is generally pretty clear who the heroes and villains are. Yes, recent stories in the Star Wars universe have brought in more moral ambiguity, but while the heroes may do morally questionably things on occasion, the sheer wickedness of the villains makes it clear that they are the evil ones.

But in the original trilogy, the Empire has control over everything. Making it worse, wherever the Empire doesn’t have control we get hives of scum and villainy, hostile nomadic tribes, monsters, and far-reaching criminal gangs like the Hutts.

Thus, I would argue that the Star Wars setting (true to its name) is a world worth fighting rather than a world worth fighting for. Luke Skywalker doesn’t fight for Tattooine, Yavin 4, or Hoth; he fights for those individuals he loves.

The King Arthur myth gives us a world worth fighting for: Camelot.

Sometimes what determines a world as worth fighting for is something small in it, a specific place. As I mentioned before, Middle Earth has the Shire. Harry Potter’s world has Hogwarts, which, for all its faults, becomes his bastion against the evils of the rest of the world (both the Muggle world and the Wizarding world). In the film Willow, it’s the Nelwyn village, to which Willow wants to return so that he can see his family again.

I would also argue that it could be possible to write a Grimdark story, but make it a world worth fighting for if the hero has some place in it where he can be at peace with his loved ones.

Depending on how you play it, Fallout 4 could be an example of this. The world surrounding the main character is full of mutants, radiation, violent robots, and murderous people. However, in that game you have the option to build places of sanctuary (literally starting with a neighborhood called “Sanctuary Hills”). The sanctuary you build can bring hope to an otherwise desolate wasteland, turning the post-apocalyptic setting into a world worth fighting for.

Where does your story fit?

This forced me to take a look at my own epic fantasy series: The Third Genesis. I had to ask myself if the world of Ymir where the story takes place is a world worth fighting or a world worth fighting for.

It is a world where false gods with space age technology have genetically-engineered an ecosystem made up of mythical creatures in order to exploit the planet Ymir’s unique resources. These false gods pit the people and creatures they’ve created against each other, and there are inquisitions, crusades, and holy wars. At first, I thought this made it a world worth fighting. But then I remembered that the people of Ymir live with the promise of the Third Genesis: a day when the false gods shall be defeated and the True Deity, The One, will reign. Thus, I realized that the world of Ymir is a world worth fighting for.

This also got me to examine the Bible to assess the world we live in according to the Good Book. Does the Bible speak of this world as one worth fighting or worth fighting for? While there are many places in Scripture that speak to the corruption of this world, and even places where it is implied that the Devil has dominion over the physical realm, we cannot forget the LORD’s promises of a day when He will wash away that corruption. And we cannot forget John 3:16, the most famous Bible verse of all, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

The Supreme Being has declared this world worth fighting for. So, let us do so every day, and ensure that we always follow the orders of our King when we do.

About Nicholas S. Casale

Nicholas is a prolific author who has written mostly westerns, but his true passion is for fantasy novels. Starting from the age of six (with stories about a mouse wizard named “Mousey”), he has honed his craft through years of dedicated writing.

His studies in history, religion, mythology, folklore, and classical literature have informed his works. Each of Casale’s works hit emotional notes and raise fascinating questions about the nature of life, love, morality, and existence.

Try Casale’s Fantasy Novel

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Hi, I’m Caylah Coffeen, a freelance editor and marketer of sci-fi and fantasy books. I love reading and writing and am a follower of Jesus Christ.

I’ve worked for Monster Ivy Publishing and Eschler Editing, and am currently a weekly editor with Havok Publishing. Reach out to chat about books and publishing!

Thanks for stopping by my website! I hope you’ve found some helpful resources about reading, writing, and publishing. If you liked this article, here’s some more free content…

Why Your Main Character Falls Flat: Do They Think About the “Big Questions” of Life?

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Sometimes beta readers and reviewers say things like “I just didn’t resonate with the main character” or “The protagonist was nothing special,” despite the many hours and years you’ve spent paining over every one of their thoughts, choices, and words.

So what makes some characters feel forgettable, while others move the hearts of generations of readers? The fact is, characters need more than a driving goal, intricate backstory, and unique strengths and weaknesses in order to truly feel alive. A good horse has most of those things.

If you want your mc to feel deeper than an animal, they need to ponder and act upon matters of “eternal significance,” whether they fall on the side of good or evil. Let’s look at how and why:

  1. The go-to character development checklist doesn’t cut it
  2. What’s missing from “flat” characters?
  3. The few “big questions” most characters do ask
  4. Why they’re not enough
  5. Rebuttal 1: “Peasants aren’t deep.”
  6. Rebuttal 2: “Teenagers aren’t deep.”
  7. Rebuttal 3: “SFF isn’t/doesn’t need to be literature.”
  8. Rebuttal 4: “Morals can be shown through emotions.”

The go-to character development checklist doesn’t cut it

When fleshing out a character, particularly the main protagonist, authors have a list of elements they (should) develop:

  • Deepest want or need
  • Backstory
  • Strengths
  • Weaknesses
  • Likes and dislikes
  • Unique behavioral patterns or personality traits (quirks)
  • Style of speech

These are all important and go a long way in helping readers root for and emotionally connect to a character. But they are still pretty surface level. They’re the bones and muscles, but readers still need the heart and soul.

With the exception of the “deepest desire” or any hidden traumas, you probably know all of those things about your coworkers. Their career and family goals, where they grew up, whether they prefer coffee or soda, if they’re a morning person or obsessed with x sports team, and a whoooole list of weaknesses! 😉

But does this make you feel close to them? Do you really know your coworkers even if you are familiar with their irritating and endearing manners of speech and their drama with their in-laws?

Even if they are the type to gush too much information and you do learn their greatest goals and personal traumas, would you be able to say you “truly” know them?

What’s missing from “flat” characters?

You know the joke (that’s unfortunately not a joke at all): don’t discuss politics or religion at Christmas dinner.

Noticeably absent in workplace and family small talk AND the above character checklist, are topics of “eternal significance.” Do you know what your coworker thinks and feels about the big questions in life? Have you written your main character in a way that will make your reader understand what they believe about what is good, true, and beautiful in the world? Or with only enough depth that readers will know your characters as well as a coworker.

Let’s take a step back. Do your characters actually consider these things? Do they have a well developed inner moral compass, ideology, and active mental world? For some characters, ambivalence is actually part of who they are. Perhaps part of their developmental arc involves learning how to care about more than just themselves. But if you have not deliberately written your character to be shallow, then you need to deliberately develop their spiritual and intellectual world, not just their emotional and plot-relevant one.

Now, let me say straight off that there’s a difference between being shallow and being uneducated. Many fantasy main characters begin as average peasants. Medieval farmers didn’t have much opportunity to learn philosophy or art history. That doesn’t mean they can’t consider meaningful questions and cultivate a life of virtue according to their values.

  • Where do we come from? What happens when we die?
  • What truly makes life meaningful?
  • Should I seek to make the world a better place or merely live as if there’s no tomorrow?
  • Is there any point to choosing good in such a terrible world?

Real people have opinions on almost everything. There’s always a deeper ideology underneath every quirk.

Your character may find embellished clothing distasteful and dress beneath their means as a result. What’s their underlying deeper held truth? A lingering resentment for the wasteful indulgences of the wealthy? Discomfort in their own body and self-image? Subconscious prejudice against the foreign styles that have started to dominate their culture?

Do you know the answer to that question? Does your character?

A stoic, determinedly plain hero is a trope. We get a sense of who and what they are, but not why or how. As a result, they come across the same as every other purposely understated hero in fiction. This behavior does not end up setting them apart, because the details are only surface level.

For a character to truly have complex depth, they need to think and care about significant moral, social, political, and religious topics, AND act according to the conclusions they have drawn.

The few “big questions” most characters do ask

Now, a lot of main characters in sci-fi and fantasy do address “big questions,” but usually only the same handful:

  1. The right way to treat your fellow human
  2. The morality of killing
  3. How the powerful should treat those beneath them (essentially their philosophy of governance)
  4. The existence of a higher power

Fantasy heroes almost always have to decide where they fall on the lawful good to chaotic evil chart, where they draw the line in their efforts to defeat their enemies, what type of rulers they will follow or stand against, and if a greater spiritual or magical power impacts their life.

I rarely see any moral or philosophical insights beyond these 4 topics.

  1. Do I toss a coin to the street orphan or ignore them?
  2. Should I kill the villain or not? Can I torture him first or not?
  3. Am I honoring my oath more by supporting the peasant revolt or the authority of the local noble who was a family ally?
  4. When my loved ones die, will I see them again in Valhalla or not?

We also usually see the mc’s practical opinions on sex and relationships.

Why they’re not enough

The topics of life and death, power and rulership, God and the afterlife, and moral behavior may seem to give your story and character depth. But if you stop to think about it, these questions are really very basic.

A 10 year old asks them:

  1. Should I be nice or a jerk?
  2. Can I hit someone to stop them from hitting my sister?
  3. Is it ok for teachers to be mean to students?
  4. Is God real?

I rarely encounter main characters in modern fiction whose view is any more refined than that of a ten year old. Another assassin who has nightmares about those he’s killed. Another paladin who pains over whether to stand against the tyrant king he was meant to serve. Another spunky farm girl who refuses to be sold off in marriage by her callous relatives.

Adding other character details like “she obsessively loves potatoes” or “he makes really terrible puns all the time” will make a character feel a bit more unique. But it’s still like adding trimmings to white bread. There is little substance at the heart of such characters.

It’s almost jarring reading older fiction and seeing how differently characters used to be written. Characters would regularly and casually discuss matters of great significance on a wide range of topics – art and music, foreign engagement, social dynamics and etiquette, what makes a superstition legitimate or folly, etc. They clearly have a deeply developed mental (and often spiritual) world that actually affects their day to day existence.

They aren’t the type of people who, when asked a question about people, God, the world, politics, money, stories, or really anything, would shrug and say, “who cares?” or “whatever” rather than pausing to think about it and align their choices accordingly.

Rebuttal 1: “Peasants aren’t deep.”

Now, I admit that older novels were almost predominantly written by and about the middle and upper classes (Austen, Defoe, Dumas, Lewis). The 3 older books that I recently read, and which struck me in their moral and intellectual depth, are The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit, A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. All are about members of the British middle and upper classes.

That’s one reason why Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo, and Harriet Beecher Stowe were so hugely impactful. For the first time, authors started writing from the perspective of the (very) poor, and showed them to have deeply valuable lives and richly developed character and beliefs, irrelevant of their opportunity or education.

A fantasy or sci-fi novel that follows a farmer, scrapper, or orphan can still contain complex ideas, rich moral underpinnings, and discussions that peel back layers of the human condition.

Rebuttal 2: “Teenagers aren’t deep.”

Young adult books, and YA characters specifically, have gained a reputation for being somewhat shallow, if entertaining, flashes in the pan. Fun to read, but with little staying power. The mc’s tend to be impetuous, emotional teenagers who are often designed as “reader inserts,” deliberately lacking any true distinguishing features.

So you might be thinking, “it’s not that SFF doesn’t have deep characters. It’s that YA SFF doesn’t – so go read adult fiction.”

It’s true that teenagers haven’t had as much time to develop “life wisdom” and their hormones might be driving them to think that their crush smiling at them is “the meaning of life.” We’re not getting married at 15 anymore, so we aren’t in as much of a rush to wise up. But that doesn’t mean young adults should be portrayed as predominantly insolent, impulsive, horny twerps who happen to be able to save the world.

That’s insultingly reductive. A lot of juvenile fiction from the 20th century shows children with a far more developed moral compass and uprightness of character than 21st century books about teenagers. And plenty of the characters in modern adult fiction feel like empty shells. Youth guarantees vapidity no more than age assures wisdom.

Rebuttal 3: “SFF isn’t/doesn’t need to be literature.”

You may also protest, “but fantasy is meant to be entertaining! If you want deep topics, go read serious literature.” Except I vehemently disagree that fantasy and science fiction cannot be “serious literature.” Just take a look at some of the most enduring and impactful books of all time: the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Brave New World, fairy tales, H.G. Wells, and so on. All contain spiritual and speculative elements.

This doesn’t need to be a case of “either/or:” depth of content does not eliminate entertainment value. Homer and Shakespeare were both the “Hollywood” of their day. The reason they have endured is because they’re epic, hilarious, fun AND meaningful.

So yes, I expect more of fantasy and sci-fi books today. I look for more in their protagonists. Because fantastical stories have the capacity to catch and hold the imagination of the world for millennia.

Rebuttal 4: “Morals can be shown through emotions.”

It’s perhaps worth noting that the way many define and develop their ideology and morality has changed significantly over the past few decades alone. With the rise of postmodernism came the belief that right and wrong is “whatever you want it to be.”

Modern individuals often choose their actions and beliefs based off how they feel, rather than through a pattern of philosophy or religion. So authors may think, “but I am showing what my characters believe – by showing how they feel and how they act on those feelings – not by lengthy discussions or periods of introspection.”

Unacceptable. Civilizations cannot stand upon a cloud of morals precipitated by fleeting feelings. Postmodernism is a fundamentally self-contradictory religion. It essentially gives people permission to be shallow – nothing but mammals. Why think about anything significant? Just go along with what you want in the moment. I’ve read stories about literal animals (Watership Down, The Tale of Despereaux, Redwall, Warriors, Mistmantle) who deal with matters of eternal significance more than many contemporary human characters.

Characters who side with the slave revolt because they feel angry about cruelty are no “deeper” than characters who don’t care but side with the slave revolt for money. Why is it wrong? “Because I don’t like it…” What if they start liking it? Does that suddenly make it right?

If your characters just let themselves be blown whichever way suits them, whether for money, survival, or the self-satisfaction of their feelings, then they are certainly no different from many humans, but since when did we start writing stories about “just any” humans?

This isn’t grade school where everyone gets a participation trophy for being average. People write memoirs about exceptional people, or about everyday people who chase after something exceptional. Memoirs about lackluster Joe Schmoe wouldn’t sell, so why do authors think fantasy books about lackluster Joen Sch’moex should?

To be called a hero, to deserve being the main subject of a tale, your characters need to pursue the values, ideas, and dynamics in life that make us more than animals.

If beta readers and reviewers keep saying things like “I just didn’t relate to this character” or “The mc wasn’t really memorable” consider taking a deep look at your mc’s mental and spiritual pillars – then build them deeper and higher!

Hi, I’m Caylah Coffeen, a freelance editor and marketer of sci-fi and fantasy books. I love reading and writing and am a follower of Jesus Christ.

I’ve worked for Monster Ivy Publishing and Eschler Editing, and am currently a weekly editor with Havok Publishing. Reach out to chat about books and publishing!

Thanks for stopping by my website! I hope you’ve found some helpful resources about reading, writing, and publishing. If you liked this article, here’s some more free content…

11 Problems with Multiple Point of View Characters That I See as a Book Editor

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Books with multiple (3+) points of view (POV) have become increasingly popular in the past couple decades, especially in massive fantasy epics and sci-fi. But there are multiple problems with this style that I commonly encounter as a book editor.

The technique is not wrong in and of itself. Every method of storytelling comes with its own pitfalls. The practice of writing novels with multiple points of view in third person is still relatively new, so authors have had fewer exceptional, “classic” examples upon which to base their style.

Now that editors have a larger body of work to analyze, it’s our job to guide authors to improve the way they tell their stories. So I’ll explain these top 11 problems that I see in manuscripts (and published books) with multiple points of view, and offer suggestions for how to avoid them:

  1. Difficulty hooking readers
  2. Skewed story pacing
  3. Skewed chapter pacing
  4. Ruined cliffhangers
  5. Diminished mystery
  6. Harmed character dynamics
  7. Characters as cameras
  8. Likeability wars
  9. Exhausting to read
  10. Lazy writing
  11. More is less
  12. Tips for writing multi-POVs well

I’ll be expanding each point into a full article with more detailed advice on how to avoid each pitfall in your own writing. Part 1: Harder to Hook is already complete – stay tuned for the full series!

1. Difficulty Hooking Readers

With every major point of view character, authors must check off all the same boxes: establish the status quo, show the individual’s wants and needs, give readers a reason to root for them, and spark off their story with an inciting incident.

With only one POV, authors can achieve many of these benchmarks within the first few chapters. This period of time is vital to securing reader interest. If you can’t catch them within this time, most readers will stop reading.

But with each new POV, authors wipe the reader’s emotional slate clean and start all over again. Readers may be interested at the end of the first chapter, but suddenly they’re faced with another stranger that vies for their investment all over again. Then a third. God forbid 4 or more.

It could take an hour of reading to get back to the first character, at which point all the emotional tension has faded and readers have to restart in their efforts to connect with the character.

If a reader only has the mental energy to read 3 chapters, a book with 1 POV has an advantage. 3 chapters is enough time for a reader to build a solid emotional connection to one character. On the other hand, if each of the first 3 chapters is written from a different perspective, after the same amount of reading time, that reader will only have just met each character, not had enough time to get to know them much at all.

How to avoid this problem: As an editor, I find that it’s more effective to group multiple chapters from 1 POV together rather than switching every chapter. It lets readers more deeply immerse themselves in one character before moving on.

Read more about how multiple POVs affect the opening hook of a novel in my full article.

2. Skewed Story Pacing

This is THE biggest problem I encounter in books with multiple point-of-view characters – messed up pacing at the book-wide level.

Say you have 3 POV characters – you’re basically writing 3 books at once and combining them into the same package. This means you’re asking your readers to endure a first act that’s three times as long as usual.

Often, the first act is the least interesting part of a story. In sci-fi and fantasy in particular, there’s often a lot of travel and exposition about the world, races and species, magic system, etc.

Readers are waiting for the moment when something changes. But with three characters, they have to wade through 3 times as much “intro content” before they get to the “interesting stuff.”

A first act usually takes up about the first third of a book. So reading the first act of a book with 3 POVs can feel the same as reading the length of an entire book that only contains first act content.

This is especially problematic if all of the characters have extremely similar situations. For instance, one farm boy trekking across the country to live out his destiny can be repetitive enough, let alone if all your mc’s start out as average joes who undertake a long journey.

How to avoid this problem: Choose POV characters whose arcs complement and contrast one another, rather than being too repetitive or seemingly unrelated (e.x. on opposite sides of the world and won’t meet for several books). Don’t be afraid to introduce some POVs much later in the book or series.

3. Skewed Chapter Pacing

Pacing is most obviously affected at the larger story level, but also at the chapter level. Often, writers are advised to “start late and end early,” but I find that books with many POVs both start and end their chapters too early.

Every time an author switches POV there is a “reset” of sorts. They need to reestablish where the character is, what they’ve been doing since the last time the reader followed them, and how much time has passed.

As a result, the start of each chapter can feel slow and exposition heavy. It’s difficult to use en media res if it’s been 100 pages since your reader last saw this character. It can take a while to build back up to a higher level of energy or greater level of intellectual and emotional intimacy.

But then, because the pacing of these books can feel bloated, authors try to end their chapters on a “snappy” note to avoid boring their readers. So they choose to end a scene too early, sometimes in the middle of the conflict they spent an entire chapter building towards.

This can leave readers feeling like “things were just getting good again” when the POV changed, resetting everything all over again!

How to avoid this problem: If you’re worried that readers won’t push through the next 100 pages unless you end a beat too early every time, you need to face the larger problem – whether that content should actually be trimmed. Authors have learned effective tactics to keep people binge-reading. But that won’t keep readers from noticing – after they’ve put down the book – that they didn’t actually enjoy “getting through” a lot of the in-between content, even though they felt compelled to continue in the moment.

4. Ruined cliffhangers

But multi-POVs even ruin the effectiveness of these cliffhangers!

The more POVs you have, the longer it’ll take to cycle through them all, and the more the emotion and energy will have diminished by the time you get back to your original character.

If you end a chapter on a cliffhanger, and then switch to a second POV, then a third, then a fourth, by the time you return to the original characters, days or weeks could have passed!

Consider: Character A’s companion betrays them. Enemies surround them. CUT. …3 chapters later, we return to character A, sitting in a dungeon. We didn’t get to see their decision to surrender, the gloating of their enemies, their rage and hurt while the betrayal was most fresh, or the horror of their first few days of imprisonment.

In such situations, authors break an implicit promise to readers: “the wait will be worth it.” A cliffhanger draws readers along because they can’t wait to see what happens next. But when time skips are necessary to facilitate more POVs, readers often don’t get to see the content they most anticipated.

Readers can start to feel like authors are just stringing them along with sensational chapter endings – and if you lose reader trust, you’re one step away from losing them completely.

How to avoid this problem: Use cliffhangers sparingly and make sure the interim chapters don’t conflict with the energy you’ve built. If character A is facing a threat to their life, while characters B and C are sitting in meetings, readers will be tempted to just skip ahead to get back to character A (I’ve done this).

5. Diminished Mystery

Mystery is one of the most compelling storytelling techniques an author can use. Humans are curious! But when an author shows readers the perspectives of characters from many sides of a conflict, we don’t have to wonder at their motivations or plots anymore.

If we don’t know what’s happening on the other side of the world, in the mind of a love interest, or to a missing character, every attempt the POV character makes to uncover information is packed with greater stakes. Readers turn the pages eagerly, desperate to find out more. There are false trails, relationship blunders, and a growing pressure to discover the answer to our questions.

Imagine if Dumbledore also had POV in Harry Potter – a legitimate choice. After all, in Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card shows Ender’s superiors planning how best to manipulate him – readers see what’s happening before Ender does. But if Rowling had made this choice, her books would have lost a huge element of mystery!

Not every book needs to focus on this element. But fantasy readers love unlocking the secrets of massive worlds through the eyes of their favorite characters!

How to avoid this problem: Don’t sacrifice character realism to avoid redundancy. Is it “in character” for person A to spend a lot of time investigating x? Don’t reveal that information through person B if you will have to cut it from person A’s POV, thereby harming their plot and character arc.

6. Harmed Character Dynamics

This same problem affects character development. People talk about their experiences with each other – it’s necessary for relationships to grow. But if readers have already seen something happen to character B, the author might not bother to show character A asking about it.

This often results in a lack of important scenes that we really should see. We want to see one of our leads shocked by the other’s traumatic past, or laughing uproariously at their embarrassing mistakes. But if the reader has already seen these moments, they’re usually summarized in passing, since a joke isn’t as funny a second time around.

This can be even more problematic if a party of friends separates and then reconnects later, but never talks about their respective experiences. It’s just skipped over as though it doesn’t matter, when going over that kind of emotion is very important to relationships.

Example 1:

For instance, in the epilogue of Brandon Sanderson’s Words of Radiance [character names redacted to avoid spoilers ahead], we discover that a character we thought died in book 1 is actually alive. It’s a tantalizing reveal for only the readers – none of the main cast knows yet. In book 3, this character makes it back to their family’s base. A servant runs ahead and announces the character’s return, everyone is shocked, then the scene cuts.

There is then a time skip! The actual reunion happens off-page!

Since the author already revealed the character’s survival to the readers, everyone else’s surprise has little emotional impact on the reader. What we have been waiting to see is everyone else’s messy emotions – joy, confusion, tears, asking about what happened.

We see none of that. Chapters later, Sanderson gives an exposition dump about how people responded and what they’re still feeling.

I find more and more that books with multiple POVs skip scenes like this. Too often, group scenes are used to move the plot ahead, and the author forgets to linger on the important emotional moments that lead to character development and deeper relationships.

Example 2:

That’s exactly what happened in the first Avengers movie. I’d been imagining for months what these characters might say to each other when they finally met – how they’d joke with each other, what questions they’d ask, if any would challenge each other to a friendly spar. Unfortunately, for the sake of time, the movie skipped right over such moments and went straight to a briefing room – the plot dump. It was as if the characters already knew each other or had nothing important to say to each other.

I wanted to see Tony and Captain America talk about his father, Thor look befuddled and amused that a human accidentally turned himself into a green monster, and their sidekicks eye each other with “thank god there’s another sane person in the room” looks. I remember being devastatingly disappointed when none of this came up. As if because viewers already know about Cap’s connection to Tony’s father, and because Tony must have read Steve’s file off-screen, that there would be no point in them discussing it. On the contrary, I think that would have been a far more emotionally rewarding moment than the terse conversations we did see between them.

How to avoid this problem: Is your story so long that you have to cut “heartfelt” scenes in favor of barreling the plot along? If the number of your POVs is forcing you to sacrifice character moments for time, you probably have too many. If your characters primarily come together for the sake of plot rather than dynamics that change their lives, then you may be forgetting what truly makes a story touch hearts.

7. Characters as Cameras

Using characters as cameras is a travesty. More and more, I see cutaway chapters that use the eyes of a random character as a way to dump plot info. We never see these characters again. They don’t matter. The author merely uses them as a lens through which to view an important event.

This tactic ignores one of the core tenants of storytelling! Events are important because of who they are about and who they affect, more so than because of what happens. You need to answer “why should we care?” I’d rather see the main character’s reaction to hearing that his King was assassinated than see the event through the eyes of one of the royal guards.

The adage “show don’t tell,” has been taught incompletely, leaving authors feeling like anything that happens must be shown on the page in the form of a scene. That’s not true. Exposition is a useful tool.

It’s easy to get caught in the allure of sensationalism. Authors might think readers will find it boring to hear about the event later, rather than seeing the death “on screen.” But the opposite can be true. Action for the sake of action isn’t necessarily compelling, but the emotional reaction of a character you care about is.

How to avoid this problem: Remember that just because you have imagined a scene, doesn’t mean that readers needs to see it that way. When you know the details, the readers will feel deep layers within the story. Don’t use characters as a vehicle for plot. Use plot as a vehicle to show who your characters are.

8. Likeability Wars

Readers will always have their favorites and least favorites. It’s frustrating to switch from an emotionally compelling character to a POV that feels comparatively flat or purposeless. The comparison can make readers begin to resent other parts of the book, as though they’re getting in the way of letting them enjoy the part of the story they’re actually invested in.

Personally, I often “check out” a little during POVs I don’t care for, essentially skimming through them to get back to “the good stuff.” I read just enough to get the gist of the plot so I can keep up with “the real story.”

Now, I’d never counsel an author not to include a character because some readers won’t like them – you should write the story you love and want to tell.

But the fact remains that readers will drop a book because of how annoying it is to wait a long time to cycle back to their favorite character. I sure have.

How to avoid this problem: Readers can tell the difference between characters you love, and ones you added because you felt like the plot or story needed them. I often see this with books that have a couple male mc’s and then throw in a female POV too. If you aren’t in love with your character, how can you expect readers to be?

9. Exhausting to Read

Reading books with multiple POVs, especially ones with 6 or more, can feel like a slog! It’s a lot of information to keep track of and can feel more like reading a travelogue or worldbuilding encyclopedia than a story.

In my experience, even people who love these kinds of books (Malazan, GOT, WOT) talk as though reading them is an exercise in perseverance. More readers seem to love these books despite their multiple POVs than because of them.

I’ve never heard a person say, “wow, it was groundbreaking for George R.R. Martin to write from 7 POVs. What a great way to tell the story – it just had to be done that way. It would have been way less enjoyable otherwise!” No. Fans commiserate with each other about how tough it was to get through them.

Some of Robert Jordan’s top fans (I regularly attend JordanCon) talk about how there are 3 WHOLE BOOKS in the middle of the series that you “just have to get through and then it gets good.” Do you want your readers to talk like that one day?

How to avoid this problem: Kurt Vonnegut famously said, “pity the reader.” Reading can already feel like hard work. We open up our minds and emotions to new experiences, often after a long day at work. So please, authors, will you pity us a little? Would you want to read a book that’s written like yours?

10. Lazy Writing

Sometimes a large number of POV characters feels like lazy writing on the part of authors.

They have such large worlds with so many characters, that’s it’s easiest to just plop them all in, like throwing every kid who wants to play into a soccer game, rather than picking the ones that make the best team and benching the rest. It’s true that sidelining characters you love doesn’t feel good, and it can be hard to determine which cast will result in the best version of your story.

But it is necessary – just because an idea or character “feels right,” doesn’t mean it should make the final cut.

Writing instructors have been known to say that nothing should be included in a story unless its exclusion would make the readers lose something. Does it have to be there? Would the story and character be lesser without it?

How to avoid this problem: Test various combinations of POVs. Offer different versions to beta readers. Cut, rewrite, repeat. A skilled carpenter will test out multiple types of wood, carving methods, and finishes before settling on a style for a major piece. Are you treating your writing this seriously?

11. More is Less

In books with many POVs, sometimes characters and plot arcs lose a little something with each added main character. Like trying to spread a small amount of butter over 10 pieces of bread rather than 2, the “energy” in a story can only disperse among so many characters.

This is especially true if you have written characters with similar archetypes or plots – their stories can start to feel repetitive. For instance, She Would be King follow 3 black young adults who escape slavery or abuse, see their mother die, and then go on a journey to Liberia. By the time I got to the third mother’s death, which occurred in almost identical circumstances as the second one’s, I was emotionally worn out. Each story on its own would have been powerful, but together, they impaired each other.

Books with multiple POVs are ambitious – the more characters you use, the harder it will be for you to connect them all together in a way that makes the total greater than the sum of its parts.

How to avoid this problem: Think of writing as like knitting a sweater. It’s easier to create a classy pattern with 2-3 colors, but when you try to combine 10 different colors, things can start to look like a kid’s crayon project. Be deliberate about your “pattern” from the start. Too often it’s obvious that the author got weary of trying to balance their POVs and left the story feeling like a tangled heap of yarn.

Tips for Writing Multi-POVs Well

Often, less is more. I encourage you to ask whether you have too many main characters and whether your story would be tighter and more compelling if you trimmed some of them. That is what some stories need.

Of course, not all books with multiple POVs have these issues.

And POV is also a matter of personal preference. Many readers and publishers seek out books with multiple point of view characters. If this is your chosen style, then your next step is to make your writing as strong as possible and avoid the most common pitfalls.

Here are some ways to test whether you have too many POV characters.

Questions to ask yourself:

  • Would character A’s journey be more interesting if the readers didn’t know what was happening with character B?
  • Are all of these characters emotionally compelling to me, or am I writing from their perspective because they are the logical choice for depicting plot in a certain part of the world/story?

Questions to ask your beta readers:

This is extremely important, but many authors are too hesitant to ask tough questions of their beta readers. Understandable – our books are our babies! But it’s better to know if one of your characters is boring or insufferable to readers before you publish, than to find out in your reviews.

  • Were you invested in all the POV characters?
  • Which ones were most and least compelling to you?
  • Are there any characters you thought were unnecessary or detracted from the story?
  • At any point, did it feel like a slog to get through the book?
  • Did these stories feel vitally intertwined or like separate books crammed into one?

Some beta reader feedback will be subjective, so it’s important to ask enough beta readers that you start to see commonalities in their responses. Then you will be able to approach rewrites with more confidence that your changes will improve your story for all readers, rather than for the preferences of a few.

Happy writing and stay tuned for the expanded version of each point – I know the tips I gave above are pretty vague, but I’ll expand them in future posts!

Hi, I’m Caylah Coffeen, a freelance editor and marketer of sci-fi and fantasy books. I love reading and writing and am a follower of Jesus Christ.

I’ve worked for Monster Ivy Publishing and Eschler Editing, and am currently a weekly editor with Havok Publishing. Reach out to chat about books and publishing!

Thanks for stopping by my website! I hope you’ve found some helpful resources about reading, writing, and publishing. If you liked this article, here’s some more free content…

Write Me “Boy Books”: Letter From a Book Editor

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Princes and strategists, martial champions and war heroes, grit, sweat, brawls, and schemes. Since the beginning of time, we have told stories about the best and worst of men – from myths and epics, to action and adventure classics, to modern superheroes and fantasy rogues, such stories have touched hearts across language barriers and millennia.

So why are they hard to find on bookshelves today?

Let’s take a look at the modern publishing market, reader tastes, and my own perspective as a book editor (plus a few obligatory caveats):

  1. I love reading boy books
  2. Big publishers don’t want boy books – they’re wrong
  3. What I’m NOT saying
  4. Write boy books!

I love reading boy books

These are 8 of my favorite books of all time. Notice any commonalities?

Artemis Fowl cover: stylized to look like a leather bound tome with clasps along the spine and a lock at its edge. Foreign runes are stamped beneath the title.
Theft of Swords cover: two cloaked men stand side by side in a battle against knights, one tall and bulky, the other short and slender.

All of these stories are about men (and boys) – clever, dangerous, heroic, stalwart men. Some are written for general audiences, while others go all in on the “bro vibes.”

Each tale contains passion and violence, loyalty and steadfast friendships, promises broken and kept, strategic and psychological contests, and a mix of wit and heartbreak. The ones that have stood the test of centuries reveal great truths about the human condition.

There’s something else I’ll point out though. The most recently published of these 8, Virtuous Sons (read my review) and Theft of Swords, were both self-published first, and only picked up by publishers after finding great success. The same is true of the wildly popular Cradle series by Will Wight and the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman.

2 more of my favorites, The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard (read my review) and Paranoid Mage by InadvisablyCompelled, have continued to gain momentum as self-published works.

It’s not like we have a net shortage of books about boys and men – that’s the majority of what’s been published for all of human history. But, naturally, modern readers gravitate toward books written in a modern voice – we want new ones.

If I, as a female reader, am irritated by the lack, I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for male readers, especially boys and young men who are developing their taste for reading!

Big publishers don’t want boy books – they’re wrong

But the Big 5 publishers don’t want to publish “boy books” anymore. Many will deny there’s even such a thing as a “boy” book, or that there shouldn’t be (“that’s not inclusive!!!”).

I strongly disagree with all 3 statements:

  • I want to see boy books published – I want to read them! And edit them. And market them to more readers who will love them.
  • There’s definitely such a thing as a book by, for, and about men/boys, that male readers enjoy more than female readers (not that girls can’t as well – I’m a woman and you just saw my favorites list). That doesn’t change the fact that at the core, they are bro books.
  • There should be boy books. Stories that feel like they were written just for you are incredibly powerful! Everyone should have the chance to read stories that delight and resonate with the deepest parts of our soul. If that means reading books about people that are like you… well, duh.

Modern publishing has a chicken and egg problem. They claim they don’t publish as many books about male main characters because male readers don’t buy books as much as female readers.

Male readers respond thusly: “We’ve stopped buying your books because you won’t publish the types we actually want to read.”

There are thriving indie publishers and reading communities online for action and adventure books that are just straight up fun – no identity politics, no need for sensitivity readers – just cool dudes running around with swords. Virtuous Sons, published initially as a web novel on Royal Road, received over 4 million views.

In the past, before the digital age and the advent of self-publishing, books published by the Big 5 were the only option. If you weren’t reading them, you weren’t reading. In their elitism, the Big 5 have refused to adjust their attitude. They blame their potential buyers rather than their own business model. But men are reading. They’re just taking their time and money elsewhere.

And why wouldn’t they, when their tastes are being insulted?

No, I have no interest in reading any of the “adventure fantasy” books on Amazon with grotesquely proportioned anime pinup girls spilling across the covers. No more than I want to read any of the romantasy featuring glowering, glistening, shirtless shifters.

But male readers (and female ones) are told they’re stupid or backward for wanting to read books about male heroes running around killing dragons, clearing dungeons, leveling up with ridiculously powerful magic, sitting around with their comrades swapping scar stories, and chasing (and getting) the girl at the end.

You’re not stupid. Those are great stories. Some are just good stories – that’s ok too.

What I’m NOT saying

Because everyone gets triggered so easily these days, let me tell you what I’m not saying.

I’m NOT saying that girl books are stupid, or that female authors shouldn’t write the stories they want to tell, or that female characters are worse than male characters, or that if a book can’t appeal to a male audience too, it shouldn’t be published, or that female characters can’t compel male readers etc. etc. etc.

I’m certainly not saying that for a book to be truly great, it needs to be by, for, or about men.

But the publishing industry needs to stop saying the opposite. Stop telling (white) male authors that it’s their duty to step aside and “stop taking up the limelight already so that others can have their turn.” Stop telling authors that their stories are “too male-centric” and that unless they have at least one female POV/main character, their book won’t even be considered. Stop telling male authors that strong, masculine, confident male protagonists are inherently problematic.

Write boy books!

I want to read your boy books! Even more so, I want to read your “men books” – with characters worthy of the tag “epic.” So please write them (whether you’re a male or female author)!

If you’re also on the hunt for modern bro books, you’re not alone. Guess what my most popular blog post is? By a massive margin.

It’s the one titled 18 High/Epic Young Adult Fantasy Books with a Male Protagonist. My third most popular post is 22 High/Epic Adult Fantasy Books with 1 POV & a Male Protagonist.

There is demand. Don’t let people tell you otherwise.

And if you’re a male author looking for a book editor, but are feeling a bit querulous after discovering that almost all book editors are women, you don’t have to worry that I’m going to treat you like a tasteless jerk for “having the audacity to think a story deserves to be told about a male main character who starts out as kind of a jerk.”

Characters are supposed to have weaknesses. There wouldn’t be a story if your characters didn’t have to grow and change.

Neither does a male protagonist have to be the most profound, unique character ever written in order to make a good story that readers will buy. The female protagonists in most modern books sure aren’t.

I would be delighted to read your story, review it, and perhaps even work with you to edit it into the best it can be.

So keep writing about brave boys and mighty men!

Hi, I’m Caylah Coffeen, a freelance editor and marketer of sci-fi and fantasy books. I love reading and writing and am a follower of Jesus Christ.

I’ve worked for Monster Ivy Publishing and Eschler Editing, and am currently a weekly editor with Havok Publishing. Reach out to chat about books and publishing!

Thanks for stopping by my website! I hope you’ve found some helpful resources about reading, writing, and publishing. If you liked this article, here’s some more free content…

English Book Editor for International and ESL Authors

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Are you an author who speaks English as a second language? Welcome! Whether you’re dreaming of publishing your book with a North American publisher, or looking to translate your novel into English to reach a wider audience, our team would love to support you.

Let’s discuss a few key topics:

  1. Why publish your book in English?
  2. Common English as a second language errors
  3. Editing your novel
  4. How to get published in North America

Why publish your book in English?

First of all, I’d like to enforce the value of submitting your book to the English-speaking publishing market. According to data reports, books written in English make up between 1/3 to 1/2 of all global book sales.

In 2024, book sales in North America accounted for 33% of the global book market’s revenue. Europe accounted for a share of over 25% of worldwide book revenue.

Publishing your book in the English language will position your work in front of the largest demographic of book buyers in the world. A potentially lucrative choice!

Publishers and agents in these marketplaces are happy to accept the work of ESL authors from around the world, as long as your work holds up to industry standards. This means your work needs to be indistinguishable in quality from writing by native speakers.

Common English as a Second Language Errors

English is a hot mess! Native speakers admit it freely. The grammar is confusing, and it’s even harder to get the idioms right – for instance have you heard the phrase “hot mess” before? 😉

As an editor, I often see the same types of mistakes in writing by non-native English speakers:

  • Omission or incorrect use of articles such as a, an, the
  • Subject-verb agreement
  • Incorrect order of adjectives
  • Improperly used verb tenses
  • Overuse of passive voice and transitional phrases
  • Unclear sentence structure
  • Use of descriptors that don’t quite fit the context

A manuscript that contains basic errors like this will not appear marketable to an agent or publisher. Even if your English skills are exceptional, native speakers might still sense a stiffness to your style.

Working with a native English speaker will transform your novel, eliminating common errors and smoothing out cultural idiosyncrasies that you may not be aware of.

Editing Your Novel

I love working with global authors! You bring a unique perspective and style to storytelling which can be refreshing and exciting for native English-speakers to experience. As a reader, I am so incredibly blessed to have access to books from around the world that have been translated into my native language!

It’s been my privilege to work with authors from:

  • China
  • Central America
  • Ghana
  • Austria
  • Ethiopia

Types of projects I accept:

  • Manuscripts written in English by advanced or fluent ESL authors
  • Manuscripts that have been professionally translated into English and need a second look
  • Speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, fairy tale and mythic retellings, etc.) is my specialty. I am also familiar with the mystery and thriller genres.

Projects I do not accept:

  • Manuscripts written by authors who are at the beginner or intermediate ESL level and still need significant language instruction
  • Manuscripts that have been translated with Google Translate, other AI, or a non-native English speaker
  • Nonfiction (excepting memoirs)

I would love to be able to work with all authors, but below a certain level of language proficiency, authors would benefit more from further language and writing instruction. A professional edit is a significant investment – it’s best to wait until your work is truly ready.

Self-Editing Support

I encourage you to take advantage of grammar and editing programs like ProWritingAid (both free and paid options available)! They highlight mistakes, but also explain each error, teach you the matching rule, and offer editorial suggestions. Unlike programs like Grammarly, ProWritingAid is designed for creative writing, not business or academic writing, and so they have better stylistic suggestions.

Running your work through programs like this can help you eliminate a lot of the more common mistakes, like absent articles, which will reduce the amount of time your editor needs to spend on later drafts – saving you money!

WARNING: Please be very careful not to write using AI! That is a sure way to get your work rejected by publishers. ProWritingAid offers suggestions for how to rewrite sentences. Do NOT just copy/paste them into your text. These programs are wonderful as a learning tool, but if you let them think for you, your writing skills will not improve.

How to Get Published in North America

Please note that while my team offers book publishing services to authors, including coaching, editing, self-publishing support, and marketing, Creative Cornerstones is not a publishing house or agency. We also do not offer translation services.

I would be delighted to edit your novel to maximize its quality and increase your likelihood of finding representation. I have worked with 2 publishing companies – Monster Ivy Publishing and Havok Publishing – and can advise you on the expectations of the publishing market in the United States.

Even native English speakers are increasingly hiring freelance editors before querying agents, because they know how competitive the industry is. In an attempt to cut costs, publishers are much more likely to accept a book that has already undergone developmental editing than one that needs significant rewrites.

Traditional publishing in the United States is dominated by the Big 5 Publishers:

  • Penguin Random House
  • HarperCollins
  • Macmillan Publishers
  • Hachette Book Group
  • Simon and Schuster

Each company operates many imprints – subsidiary publishing companies that they have acquired or created to specialize in certain sub-genres or audiences.

These companies are businesses looking to profit, so they seek books with mass appeal. They only offer deals for books they think will sell tens of thousands of copies – at least. If you’re seeking publication with a traditional publisher, you will first need to gain the representation of a literary agent.

For more information about finding a literary agent, I highly recommend Gina Kammer’s course on querying – she has over 15 years of experience in publishing and offers exceptional coaching to authors.

Other publishing options include mid-size and independent publishers, and self-publishing. I discuss these different routes in greater detail in the following article.

Ready to take your book to the next level?

I would love to hear more about your story and discuss how we could work together to make your book stand out in the crowd!

You are welcome to send me the first chapter of your book – I will complete a free sample edit on your first 1000 words and provide my recommendation for the type of edit your manuscript needs.

You can find a breakdown of the different types of editing – developmental, line, copy – here. Feel free to reach out to my team with any other questions as well!

Or check out this great resource: Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics – An engaging ESL textbook for Advanced ESL students

Hi, I’m Caylah Coffeen, a freelance editor and marketer of sci-fi and fantasy books. I love reading and writing and am a follower of Jesus Christ.

I’ve worked for Monster Ivy Publishing and Eschler Editing, and am currently a weekly editor with Havok Publishing. Reach out to chat about books and publishing!

Thanks for stopping by my website! I hope you’ve found some helpful resources about reading, writing, and publishing. If you liked this article, here’s some more free content…