My comments here are from the assumption that you're writing with the goal of publication. If you're writing for fun, you don't have to worry about any of this. (See "So You Think You Want To Write A Book, Huh?") But if you're serious about a career as a writer, then look at the following overview. Use this as starting point. Entire books have been written on the following. I strongly recommend that you begin a library full of them. Writer's Digest Book Club is a good place to start. Their magazine is sold in most full service book stores. The flyer for the club is inside. Nice perks.

All well crafted novels MUST have:

A)Characters that are so alive to the readers that they feel like real people

Do the characters have a personal history? Likes? Dislikes? What is their family background? Marital status? What are their greatest fears and joys?

All good fiction has characters that invoke the readers' emotions. If the characters are flat, cardboard cutouts, then there's nothing for the reader to care about. A reader who doesn't care can easily put down your book and not pick it up again. You want them turning pages half the night because they're so involved with that happens to the characters that they can't put the book down. If the characters are a major yawn, then all the action in the world won't make anybody care what happens to them.

To quote author Cathy Maxwell (Romantic Times Magazine 8/98) "Strong characters can carry a weak plot, but weak characters can never carry a strong plot. The latter is like biting into a juicy apple and finding out it's nothing but mush inside."

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B)Snappy dialogue that is so true to each character's personality that the reader can hear that voice in her head

People from different backgrounds, educational levels, beliefs, etc., have different speech patterns. So do the characters in a well crafted novel. A character who's a high school English teacher will use a different vocabulary and sentence structure than a drug addict in prison for murder. Make each character's "voice" unique and appropriate.

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C) A tightly woven plot

Give the characters goals. Ask yourself the following. "What do my characters want and why can't they have it?" The answer must be compelling and believable. Also, all the loose ends must be tied up. Was everything that had been set up taken to its conclusion? What about "detours" that crept in and ultimately served no real purpose? If you have any of those page wasters in the manuscript, get rid of them, no matter how much you adore a scene.

Keep in mind the following check list during the revison process. Every scene in a tightly woven plot must do at least two of the following-- 1)Further define character. 2)Increase the tension. 3)Advance the storyline.

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D) Vivid locale(s)

Does your prose have that feeling of "being there?" Can the reader see, smell, taste, touch and hear what the characters do? Or are the characters walking around on a (gulp) blank stage? A good writer employs the five sense and drags the reader right into the middle of the action.

In the same vein, don't go overboard or dump large chunks in all at once. Long passages of description are death to the tension of a story. Why? Because long descriptions of plants, buildings, smog, etc. creates a break in the action. Keep the references short, crips and relevant. Make them add something to the tale instead of slowing it down.

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F) Employ skillful prose and narrative

Narrative is the sequence of events. Prose is how those events are told. In narrative, the skilled writer doesn't tell everything that happens, just the most important. Keep transitions between crucial events as brief as possible. The reader wants the good stuff, not the mundane details of trivia. Prose is--in part--style, and each writer should develop their own voice. It takes time, practice and learning a lot about "self." Don't try to copy someone else's style simply because they're a best selling author. If you're a talented mimic, you may actually be able to imitate them for an entire book. But you'll never build an entire career on it.

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None of these items can be scrimped on or glossed over. All writers find some of them easier to learn than others. But if the goal is to published, then the writer must be skilled in all these areas.

Basics Of The Novel Writing Game