9 Surprising reasons your manuscript sucks
You finally got your novel written, but when you read it over you realize that your manuscript sucks. Or maybe you thought your manuscript was great, but it keeps getting rejected by agents and publishers. Unfortunately, it’s quite possible that your manuscript just plain sucks. In this article, we’ll cover 9 possible reasons why your manuscript might not be as great as you think it is along with a few suggestions on how to fix them.
1. Your point of view is confusing
You should probably think about which point of view to use before you start working on your novel. Since the point of view flows throughout your entire book, it’s extremely annoying to fix during the editing process. If your point of view is a bit of a mess, then it might be easier for your publisher to toss your manuscript into the bin than to ask you to revise it.
When you write your novel in first person, you’re most likely doing things the right way. Of course, if you switch the point of view for different characters, you need to make sure that you’re not switching in the middle of a scene. It should be easy for the reader to figure out who is telling the story.
If you’re writing in third person, then you need to be extra careful about what you’re writing. For example, you may be mixing up the omniscient point of view with head hopping.
2. Your story is lacking substance
Every story needs some meat in order to make someone want to read it. You have probably read books that are lacking substance before. They’re either full of fluff, unbelievable, boring, and/or difficult to get through. Your story doesn’t have to have big moral lessons in it, but it should have some substance to keep readers engaged and wanting to read the rest of it. All the flowery writing in the world isn’t going to keep your readers engaged if nothing happens in your story.
To move things along, you might need to add additional conflicts or create some barriers for your main character they can’t easily get over.
3. Your characters are too perfect
Sometimes it can be tempting to create perfect characters in a fairy tale world. But if your characters have no flaws (physical or otherwise), it will be difficult for readers to identify with them and cheer for them. Character flaws make your characters more realistic and more likable at the same time. Of course, the trick is to make the reader fall in love with the characters even though they have annoying mannerisms or unsightly habits.
4. Your story doesn’t have enough conflict
If your character just goes through life without a struggle, your readers are going to be bored. Your novel needs conflicts, big and small, in every chapter. A conflict arises when your character wants something but something else stands in the way of them getting it. Conflicts make books interesting. How does your character solve the conflict? And how do they change because of it? You have the power to make it happen, now make it worth reading!
5. Your opening chapter is boring or vague
Apart from your query letter, the opening chapter is one of the first things agents and publishers look at. If your opening scene doesn’t grab and hold their attention, then your manuscript is going into the bin. This means you should avoid being boring or vague. The reader needs to know what’s going on, but you don’t need to use the first chapter to unleash a lot of background information. Instead, you should make something happen in the first scene.
6. Your characters’ motives are missing or unclear
Have you ever watched the scary movies where the protagonist walks into the haunted house or basement even though the vampires, ghosts, or monsters are behind the closed door? It’s stupid and unbelievable. Those movies are bad movies, because the characters’ motives are missing entirely. After all, they didn’t have to go into the house. They could have stayed away.
If your characters get into trouble without a clear motive or reason, then your story is in trouble, too. The protagonist needs to have something personal at stake in order to do risky things, whether that’s a kidnapped child or the risk of financial ruin. Otherwise, your readers will wonder why they didn’t just turn around and go home.
7. Your story is not original
Technically, every story has already been told. There are no ‘new’ stories. But you can tell a story that hasn’t been told by adding your own personal style and your own personal twist. Before you send your manuscript off to a publisher, you should figure out what’s unique about your story. What makes your novel different from other novels in its genre? If you can’t think of anything special, then you might still have some work to do.
8. Your manuscript is full of errors
You don’t have to be perfect, but your manuscript should be as close to error-free as humanly possible. If you’re not great with spelling and grammar rules, then you might want to consider hiring an editor. You could also use an online editing program to weed out the worst offenses. Grammarly is a free tool that should eliminate the worst spelling and grammar offenses. You may also want to ask a few select people to proofread it for you.
If you’re concerned about the cost of editing a manuscript, you could hire an editor to edit a few pages for you. You can use the feedback to look over the rest of your manuscript yourself. You could also try a tool like ProWritingAid.
9. Your story doesn’t flow
Writing a story that somehow just doesn’t flow is probably the most frustrating problem to deal with. If it’s really bad, you might even be tempted to throw it into the bin yourself. But don’t give up just yet. You can improve the flow of your story yourself. You just have to carve out some time to work on editing it. You probably need to start at the beginning and look at it with new eyes. Ask yourself if the transitions between your scenes and chapters make sense. Is your character progressing through the story in a meaningful way, or are you jumping around too much? Do the events inside of your story connect, or are they just like short stories that have nothing to do with each other?
3 Steps to quickly improve your manuscript
Leave it alone for a month or longer. Start working on the next novel in the meantime
Proofread it at least twice. Once for flow, once for spelling and grammar
Give it to a handful of friends to review
Did your book get accepted by an agent or publisher? Congratulations! Now it’s time to sell some copies. Learn how to sell the first 100 copies of your book.