Oct 24 2008
Quiz: Is Your Manuscript Dead on Arrival?
This quiz will help you diagnose some common manuscript problems. If you’re not sure why your answer was right or wrong, please see our explanations either by waiting until the end of the quiz or hitting “previous question” during the quiz.
On my count, I have only invented one word. That’s Yinyusi, Isaac’s species. That’s pretty obviously made up, but there are ones which I don’t count because they seem real, like Libra Electronics and “Kingdom of Giogani” trading cards. The first is a company that will be majorly involved in the second book, and the second is his friend’s favourite card game.
That sounds very manageable. Just don’t use a book title that will stump prospective readers (The Tears of the Yinyusi, for example).
Remember the Katblack character you suggested I rename?
What do you think of the name Backslash?
That’s better, but I think that it will remind people of an unrelated punctuation mark, heh.
Ok. Maybe Backlash?
I like it!
You should do one like this to determine if any characters are homo superiors. That would be good for me, seeing as Isaac isn’t human.
Hmm, a test for Homo Superiors. I’ll work on that.
Until then, perhaps you would enjoy our new Mary Sue and Chosen One tests.
OK, I’ve been having some trouble coding it. I’ll resolve the interactive problems later today, but I have the script completed. I think it’d be preferable if a race scored 5 or more on this. (Note that I’ve labeled things as “BAD” which are not necessarily problematic by themselves but could contribute to a problem depending on other factors).
1. Is his species generally physically superior to humans? YES = BAD
2. Is his species generally mentally superior to humans? YES = BAD
3. Do members of this species generally find themselves morally superior to humans? YES = BAD
4. Do you find this species generally morally superior to humans? YES = BAD
5. Are humans significantly superior to this species in any physical, mental or moral way? YES = GOOD
6. Is a member of this species generally born with superhuman powers, like magic or telepathy? YES = BAD
7. Is the species immortal or extremely long-lived? YES = BAD
8. Does his species look very similar to humans? (Legolas) YES = BAD
9. Does his species look identical to humans? (Superman). YES = BAD… very bad, heh.
10. If your character is a hybrid, like a half-dragon or a half-elf, does he have a far mix of the strengths and shortcomings of both species? (YES = GOOD)
11. Are there many members of this species in this book or story? YES = GOOD
Hi,
Came across this quiz after a bit of snooping around on your site (found you by a google search for writing tips, specifically cliches). You have some helpful and insightful articles, especially “Writing Authentic Male Characters”. Being a woman, writing the male pov has been a difficult task but the article helped me to understand what I’ve been doing wrong and how to better go about it. Anyway, I thought the above test sounded like fun. And it was. Even though I write Women’s Fiction, it gave me pit falls to avoid when revising my novel.
I did find the scoring ambiguous at the end and felt the stars and % needed to be better defined. At first, I had assumed a higher score (more stars, higher %) indicated a better chance of my manuscript being d.o.a.(as a higher score is usually interpreted as more likely to occur). But after some thought, I figured out that a higher score indicated my manuscript had a lesser chance of being d.o.a. (high score=good, low score=bad). No need to burst my bubble if I’m wrong: )
Thanks! I appreciate the tips! Keep up the good work!!!
Hello, Jane! I think that our quiz-builder always assumes that a high score is better than a lower score. According to my records, you got 29 out of 35 answers right and we coded that as an excellent (least likely to be DOA).
If you liked that writing quiz, please feel free to see our others here.
I think I accidentally chose the wrong answer at some point, because I know I answered way more than one incorrect.
Some of them actually do apply to my work, but the ones I have in mind are important for both the progression of the story and the characterization. I’ll admit it’s slightly cheesy, but I’m working on it.
I’m not really writing to sell, but I’m still aiming for quality. Do you think that my novel is *instantly* DOA if I answered yes to any of the plot-related ones?
Is your novel instantly DOA for one of these? Probably not, but a few are poisonous enough that they can really influence the first impression if they crop up early on.
For example, if a novel confusingly switches POVs in the middle of an early chapter, I think it’s dead. Likewise, if the first three chapters are narrated by three separate characters, the reader will probably pull the plug shortly into chapter 3. Having a character study his own reflection is amateurish in the first few chapters, but could probably be overlooked later on. I’d be nervous about a great prophecy setup, but that gets published frequently.
Which plot elements were you thinking about?
That was pretty good. Though haven’t quite finished set up on my story. I haven’t even completed the alchemical change in my main character. Right now his powers are being held by the twins sons of friends and will soon be transferred to an extended family member after the net transports him to the university hospital a fatigued and dehydrated lump.
Also I am looking for Ideas for my super villain based on Osama Bin Laden. First thing I need is a great name for the villain whose powers will be taken away and stored in containment I Cyber Druid’s lair.
Well done. A brilliant tutorial masquerading as a test. Wonderful humor. Thank you!
Drats!
Didn’t do too well. But I still think I’m right on SOME points.
I agree strongly on this: making that the MC doesn’t know (or isn’t aware) that his/her parents aren’t really theirs or that a character is secretly there half (or full)
sibling CAN tend to get a little farty. That is the last time I’ll use the term ‘farty’.
i got 30 out of 35 and an exalent
thats fantastice lol btw is it so bad for me to have a princess as a main chrater?
I answered question 20 as “no” because although Isaac and Tristram’s lineage is unclear, I can say that they are NOT royal, upper class or otherwise descended from powerful people. Their backstory will eventually be revealed, but their parents are far from any degree of nobility.
I invent the brand names and I’m going to leave Kamari and Isaac’s relationship unsolved until book three.
The only example of a cryptic mentor that I have ever liked is Auron in Final Fantasy X. I like that he isn’t just Tidus’ mentor, but also Yuna’s to a degree.
He reveals little, but when he does it’s WHAM! HOLY CRAP! He’s not annoying. He’s awesome.
“Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain, or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!” ‘Nuff said.
(Runs off to play FFX)
Hmm. The character doesn’t know who her real parents were (adopted) but it’s not an important point to the story. It probably won’t even get mentioned, because this is *years* after her birth and childhood and all that jazz. Didn’t reveal the name because it just didn’t come up… I wasn’t trying to surprise the reader, I just couldn’t think of a good way to work it in, so I had someone ask later on.
I saw the question about ‘why do they fall in love with that person’ and… er… went a bit crazy. Did a brainstorm on why and how exactly they come to love each other and why it would be that person rather than anyone else. Hate how characters fall in love because it’s ‘destined.’ (translation: Author: I couldn’t think of a good reason.)
I used one made up word which appears a few chapters into the book to refer to a prison. ‘Eloth.’ We have other names for it previously, and the name is explained in the narrative.
One conversation in my book reads like a transcript, but in the middle of brutal editing right now, so that will be taken out, have its mouth scrubbed with soap and such and made better.
I… think that’s about it. Anything to worry about?
I read a book over the weekend, The Transall Saga, and it broke a rule. Oddly, I found it acceptable. The rule was the character describes themself in a reflection. The main character, Mark, does this three time throughout the story. But he’s not decribing things like his hair color or eye color, he talks about how his body changes. From chunky to bone-skin to muscular. I found this acceptable because the story was partially about character development.
Is this acceptable?
Yay!
How to Save the World got a 91.43.
- Wings
Hey B. Mac, have you ever seen this:
http://dragonwritingprompts.blogspot.com/2006/11/fantasy-novelists-exam.html
It could be useful for some people here. Although I wouldn’t go as far as saying “answering “yes” to any one question results in failure and means that the prospective novel should be abandoned at once” it’s a useful way to avoid cliches.
I really hope #35 doesn’t mean I have to abandon my novel, because I actually wrote a few sentences yesterday. I might be recovering from my block, finally.
“I might be recovering from my block, finally.” Then keep moving forward with the story as is. I’d recommend using tests and stuff only after you’ve completed your first draft of the manuscript. If you use tests beforehand, it might make it harder for you to get your thoughts onto the page.
Also, #35– “my hero doesn’t know who his parents are at the start of the story”– is a bit cliche but still well within the bounds of publishability.
#35 is “Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?” I was referring to the link Tom posted above.
Thank you for the encouragement.
Oof. Transporting characters from the real world to a fantasy realm is a bit of a tough sell, particularly for older readers. That said, I think it turned out pretty well in the context of your story. When you write your proposal, I think that it will be up to you to explain why modern audiences are ready for this type of book. (“Here’s a few examples where similar book concepts sold well in the past decade, and here’s a few reasons my book is better than them”).
I do not agree with David Parker’s assessment that the concept is instantly dead on arrival in the publisher’s officer. In fact, the only reason it is a cliche is because many stories have tried it and some have gotten published. There are only a few cliches that are so poisonously painful that I would instantly reject them. Notice that execution plays a huge role here.
–A bad prologue is even more dangerous than a bad first chapter. By using a prologue, you set a higher bar for yourself because we’re more removed from the story (and particularly the main character).
–Gods in disguise. I’m skeptical that there’s any way for a modern author to make this work, but it did work in Greek mythology.
–Obviously drawing on a role-playing game or video game for inspiration is a major problem. I would seriously consider dropping any manuscript that used any of the following: mana, hit points, or plate mail.
–A first-person POV that looks at his reflection in the first few chapters. Ick. This is a truly artless way for the POV to describe his appearance to the audience because it usually stalls the story. If this happens 5-10 chapters in, though, I think he might be talented enough that I could consider looking past this mistake.
–Cryptic plots are a big turn-off to me. When a mentor character tries to hide the plot from the main character, it usually feels like the author is so unconfident about the quality of his plot that he needs to hide it from me. Why would you hide a genius plot? For example, if you were dealing with a plot as awesome as City of Thieves or Rules of Engagement, the plot is a major selling point. (COT: two prisoners in the Siege of Leningrad are spared from a painful death sentence if they can find two dozen eggs for a wedding cake. ROE: two elderly aunts looking for love confuse a book about military strategy for a dating-guide. Hijinks ensue!).
When David Parker says that any LOTR rip-off can’t get published, I kind of wonder if he’s ever seen what makes the fantasy shelf. At least half of published fantasy titles bear some resemblance to LOTR, and I’d say that maybe a quarter are uncomfortably close. But readers like them anyway. Notice that Eragon became a best-seller and it wasn’t just because the author had teen sympathy.
Do you think Lord of the Rings got any inspiration from any other fantasy novels?
I think Tolkien drew heavily on Icelandic myth and (to some extent) Arthurian legends.
Hey now. #11. I used “I” and counted that as a pronoun. You didn’t. I demand more points on that quiz.
I discovered this website yesterday, and I’m planning on having the entire thing read by the end of the week. Excellent site! Thanks!
“I’m planning on having the entire thing read by the end of the week.” Best of luck! I’m glad to have you on board. That said, it might be a hectic week. We have about 1070 posts.
Thanks, but I won’t need luck. My last final is tomorrow. I’ll have oodles of time.
… WHUT?
I took this test for a laugh with one of my first Mary Sue characters and got ‘excellent.’ O_O I have no idea how that happened. It’s *not* because she was actually a good character- she was awful. Prophesied chosen one with a pretty trinket who fights evil and falls in love with a guy for no better reason than the fact that I wanted a romance. Oh- yeah. And her beginning was more Anakin Skywalker than Anakin Skywalker. (Innocent farmgirl anyone?)
(wonders how on earth she managed to get that score)
It’s because if the test graded prospective writers like a real publisher would, the test would discourage them. In the publishing industry, the bottom 99% of submissions get rejected. Yes, your story would have been rejected. Would a more honest test have helped you?
I find that prospective writers do best when we set up intermediate and attainable goals. If someone’s struggling at 50%, 80% is probably attainable. Let’s get to 80% before we mention that a really serious author has to go above and beyond that.
Ha.
I’m currently revising a piece that should be a total failure… there’s a weird mentor, prophecies, designated love interests, and more.
I think it gels.
“By the end of the third page, do we know the main character’s name?”
(Shudder) I wrote a really bad piece when I was little where I couldn’t think of a good name for the MC, so she became known as “The Girl” or “Oi, you”. Haha.
There are few places where not knowing a character’s name isn’t annoying.
(You guys are gonna hate me for this) The Doctor in Doctor Who’s name has not been revealed, even though it has had 753 episodes, tons of specials, books and spinoffs. Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who/Torchwood also uses a pseudonym, and his real name (as of season two, I haven’t seen Children of Earth yet) has not been revealed. I don’t find it annoying at all, and if their names are ever revealed I will probably fall out of my chair. Laugh if you want, I’m a fangirl and I know it. Haha.
Oh, and it also works for L, Watari, Near and Mello of Death Note. Their true names are major plot points, as Light is unable to kill them without them.
Are you following me?
Jack’s real name is never revealed, and it looks like it never will be.
) She knew his real name, so he has one, but the production team said if his real name is ever revealed it’ll lose all of the magic and mystery behind it. That means they’ll probably never reveal his true name.
As for the Doctor, he’s a good example of someone who doesn’t NEED a real name. Remember that one where he met that woman who had met him but he hadn’t met yet? (Good old time travel show
Another example of the real name being a plot point is in YuGiOh. The Pharaoh’s real name isn’t revealed until the last episode, and an entire story arc revolves around finding it, since he doesn’t know his real name and he can’t enter the afterlife without it.
(spoiler) It’s Atem. (/spoiler)
Ok. I’m cutting and pasting the last few comments to the open forum.
I just took the quiz with an 89%- Some of the things I got “wrong” may be successful elements but some of the questions were rather nebulous. Im anxious to get a review thread started so I can post up my work so far…..oh, BTW – Im new!
Hi!
This seems to be very well geared for genre writers. If I ever taught an MFA workshop this would be helpful. However, imagine telling Tolstoy to cut the characters or Virginia Woolf to do chapter breaks between POV shifts. Although, I’m sure in the current literary climate, Woolf would be published by some prestigious small press, but Tolstoy I think would have a shot at the big time.
Actually, Michael Grant’s YA series, Gone, which is about teens trapped in a town manifesting super powers, handles multiple POVs quite well. Also, he write action quite well.
I think Tom Clancy has recently used multiple POVs within a particular chapter, but I don’t remember that coming up in any of his earlier works. Publishers will give you a lot of leeway once you have a history of success.
However, if you’re an unpublished author going through the slush-pile meatgrinder, you will be judged with a lot of crude heuristics because the publishers’ assistants have to weed through thousands of manuscripts. Hopefully the PAs and editors will smile upon a really well-executed work that pulls off something difficult (like multiple POVs within a chapter)! However, often they won’t. It’s just another thing that can get the work rejected… I wouldn’t recommend risking it on your first manuscript. It might be safer to write it conventionally (ie a bit more structured like most of the works currently getting published for mass-market audiences) and then later ask the editor if he’d be okay with a few more exotic elements later.
It’s easier to get a publisher to sign off on creative risks when you’re a well-established author.
This was a very difficult test for me to take. I got an 83 without cheating which I really, really wanted to do.
Like, my main character has two mentors. One is preparing him for a destined struggle, but that struggle is manufactured and really only benefits the mentor who manufactured it in the first place. Winning *that* struggle is not what makes him heroic.
The other mentor takes on the first half of the hero’s education and is a father figure. Once he is no longer in the position of teacher, he doesn’t want to be the hero’s father figure anymore. It becomes a real point of contention in their ensuing relationship.
The hero knows who his mother is but not who his father is. It never becomes anything. His mother is a drug addicted prostitute. It never ends up as a reveal. I try to make that obvious through a conversation about not knowing who his father is. The friend thinks it’s cool because, with his mother being a prostitute, his father could be anybody, really.
Hero says he doesn’t care one whit who his father was, even if he were the most powerful man in the world. His friend asks him, basically, what if it turned out that, say, X (the most likely culprit of a darth vader reveal) has been your father all along? He responds, “I still wouldn’t care. It wouldn’t change a thing. It wouldn’t surprise me if he kept something like that a secret but I still wouldn’t care. What could that possibly change about anything?”
So what does make him heroic?
Gwen:
Like the Mary Sue Litmus test, you have to realize that these are hints of possibility that the novel is poorly-written, nothing in the test indicates the traits are 100% proof that the novel will be terrible. It’s just that inexperienced writers will have a harder time writing a decent novel with these plot devices.
For example, in a seperate story I used the test on, I answered “Yes” to the question about if there is a cryptic character. Well, I do have a character that withholds information, he’s a salesman. He’s not going to say anything about faulty wiring in the android children he’s selling, not when families are investing thousands of dollars in these artificial children. He’s not being cryptic to be cool and mysterious, he’s doing it or else his product won’t sell.
Yeah, I think that the problem with crypticism is when a character (often a mentor) withholds information for no reason other than to be dramatic. Unless there’s a good reason to withhold the truth from the protagonist, leaving your student in the dark is just stupid.
However, if there is a good reason for withholding the information, then it’ll probably work out as long as the reader has enough information to process the story. For example, Obi Wan Kenobi may have withheld the truth about Darth Vader being Luke’s father to decrease the chance that Luke would let himself be turned to the dark side. (Or, more cynically, OBK may have been hoping that Luke would kill Vader).
B. Mac,
The way he wins the ‘destined’ struggle is actually pretty despicable. Then, he figures out what the whole point of it all was. He figures out why he was taken off the streets as a child and trained to fight. He was made into a martial arts expert in a sci fi world of super advanced weaponry. The guy practically sends him to the Iraq war with a musket. There’s a reason for it. It’s how he responds to that that makes him heroic.
PaintedSaint,
I did sort of get that. But I still wanted an A. I’m that kind of idiot.
Hey, thank you so much for existing! This test is useful for reviewing some of the things that I’ve gone through with my creative writing courses, and fixing some terrible mistakes. One, or maybe two I can’t remember, of the questions that I answered – incorrectly – made me realise how carefully I have to tread while using cliche or terrible ideas. I have to go through my story more often to pick out misplaced details, or lack thereof. Reading many of your posts on this awesome site is going to help me revise my in-class story. Thanks again!
Paul, AKA Professor.
I’m glad to hear that I helped. Good luck!
Man, Dune is a really awful book according to this quiz.
Yeah, Jack.
Two questions.
Does an Irish name (O’Connor, O’Toole etc) count for apostrophes?
Does an acknowledged fostering/adoption where biologic parents aren’t interested in any contact count for real parents?
It’s shown to have left him messed up, parental rejection and childhood bullying for being the black son of white parents.
@ relative newbie
With regards to your question about Irish names, that doesn’t count as apostrophes in my mind. I think apostrophes in a name means something unnecessary. With an Irish name, that’s kind of different, right?
I think adoptive parents, if adoption is acknowledged, can definitely count as being real parents, because in real life they would act like ordinary parents. Also, sometimes not knowing who the character’s parents are can be useful; for example, having an orphan as a main protagonist is important for how their character has developed. But in the main, having unknown parents or biological parents being revealed later on in a novel is very cliched and old, unless the main theme of the novel is the adopted child searching for his/her parents.
I think real names with apostrophes are okay. However, one minor suggestion… I would recommend against using the surname as a possessive. For example, “John Smith’s cat” is okay, but “John O’Rourke’s cat” looks a bit funky even though it is grammatically correct. Fortunately, there are usually many alternatives, such as “John’s cat,” or “his cat” or whatever.
As for the character not knowing his biological parents, 1) I think it’s fine as long as he knows his adopted parents aren’t his birth parents and 2) it’s much more of a cliche in fantasy and maybe a bit in sci-fi than in fiction set in the real world. So I’m guessing you’re fine.
@ B. Mac
I think in most circumstances (especially, seeing Star Wars and Superman, in comics and sci-fi/fantasy) the “finding one’s parents” thing is over-used and, even if it had not been so frequently repeated and malused, would have gotten tired quickly anyway. I’d avoid it, full stop.
Fark! I missed some.
I just found this. It was rather fun. A lot of the questions seemed to apply to fantasy novels, so with a crime story, it was kind of hard to answer some of them. I do have a handsome anti-hero, but the girl falls for him because she’s Stockholming, so it’s not just because he’s hawt. I did a lot of research to make it realistic!!!!!
I find the Stockholm Syndrome angle very interesting. That’s a much better reason for a romance than (just) the love interest being the most attractive person in the book.
B. Mac you mentioned Eragon…That series fails this so hard its not even funny…
I’m a starting writer who is writing about a struggle of a 13-year-old boy with a bright future ahead of him, being a well-raised kid who is loved by his parents. But in the span of 24 hours, he will lose everything.
My story is basically about his long and difficult struggle towards self-redemption and his search for answers to his problems and about why that 24-hour loss of everything happened to him. It’s not exactly a fantasy story but it is more about the intertwining of his personal dramas (love, friends, etc.) and society’s dramas (poverty, abuse, etc.) that he will have to deal with simultaneously after getting kicked out of school, losing his home, his mother, his older brother, and his father’s sanity all in one day. In the course of the story, he will learn more than just the ways of the poor and he also will become a better person as he matures in this journey in his life.
Now to the point of this comment…
I need advice though on this part of my story where he checks out his reflection in the bathroom mirror and remembers that his pleasing appearance is a gift to him from his parents because his parents worked hard to save up for a plastic surgery procedure he underwent when he was 12. He was born horribly deformed. I think it’s a plot device because this is a part when he reflects on what a shame he has been to his parents and how sorry he feels for his parents once they realize that he just got himself in trouble in school again. Do you think I should cut it out?
“I’m… writing about a struggle of a 13-year-old boy with a bright future ahead of him, being a well-raised kid who is loved by his parents. But in the span of 24 hours, he will lose everything. My story is basically about his long and difficult struggle towards self-redemption…” I like the element that it goes downhill so quickly for him, but what’s a 13 year old doing that he’d really need to struggle to redeem himself for? (Unless he, say, kills his mother and older brother).
…
“It’s not exactly a fantasy story but it is more about the intertwining of his personal dramas…” If it’s written for young adults, I’d recommend submitting it as a young adult drama. I wouldn’t recommend submitting it as a fantasy unless there’s something distinctly fantastic going on (such as magic, elves, djinns, dragons, djinn-riding elven ninjas fighting mermaids, magical realism, etc).
…
In this case, I like the idea of him checking himself out in his mirror. I think it has a lot more dramatic potential than most characters that use a mirror just to show us what they look like. I think the symbolism may also play into the guilt-and-reform elements of the plot very smoothly.
I answered that my characters don’t know who their real parents are at the beginning of the book. I realize that this is cliche in most situations, but in mine, the characters have no parents. They were synthesized from cloned human DNA and then altered. Is this still cliche? Should I change it?
Alish, I think it would probably be cliche and would put pressure on your writing to distinguish itself in other ways. However, I don’t think it’s an insurmountable obstacle.
I couldn’t help myself, I answered the questions as if I were the author of ‘twilight’… yes, yes, I know. Weirdly shallow, but it bugs me how… sloppy the writing style of that book really is. And how many blatant mistakes like these it makes! It got a 51%…
This is so pedantic, but Aslan isn’t a made up word. It’s, I think, Arabic for Lion. Throwing in random foreign words isn’t much better though, although for names I don’t think it’s as big of a deal.
I’ve decided to stop work on my novel “As legends walk”. It just proved too hard for me to give life to characters when I haven’t even finished the first novel yet. So I may just return to the first novel or do something standalone.
I know when my manuscript is dead on arrival. The first one I didn’t finish is looking more and more like the one I should really be trying to concentrate on.
I’ve learned my lesson, no going off for sequels unless I’ve already finished the first novel.
Still…
Does your story have any Mary Sues? (A Mary Sue is a superpowered and idealized version of the author. One warning sign is that your main character goes through the book without doing anything you intend the audience to disapprove of. ***Another warning sign is that the character tends to get everything right on her first try).*** Biggest sign. And not in my story Isn’t an important part of the story supposed to where the characters messup and now have to start from scratch?
The problem I have with this whole “chosen one” thing is it’s normally affirmation they’ll kick everyone’s butt and possibly be inhumanely perfect and posess extraordinary powers and talents.
I have a couple “chosen one’s” (different books of course) but they’re not traditional.
Aian is the chosen wielder of the Sunstone (a magical artifact that can only be wielded elementally light people, which is considerably less than 1% the population. Most people never learn magic, or if they do just defensive spells. Light is powerful because it augments your abilitied to cast other sorts of magic. People have a dominant magic they can cast and defend, if any at all, and one they’re less talented at/ more vulnernerable against. Then there’s the other two elements that are in between. Having light or dark powers makes all of your 4 elemental magics as good as your best. You’re born one of the four natural elements, or light a cosmic element. The other Cosmic elements are Darkness and Aether. You can become a Dark sorcerer later if that’s the path you choose. People that pursue it are rarely inherently bad, they may just think they’re disciplined enough to keep it in control and see no other way to fix things. Nothing bad will happen if I do it once. Ok, I kind of need it this second time too…
Aether is inherent in all of us- it is the substance of our soul (beyond the Natural Element or light) and pretty much any magic that can’t be accomplished by the other six is either accomplished with aether or not at all. I don’t feel like getting into it right now…
This by no means makes up for not studying and honing your craft as any experienced Sorcerer is likely to defeat a novice even if all five are at his best. With the sunstone his chances improve but really its practice. Though they do have a better aptitude for magic and learn it faster so catching up won’t be impossible.
Point is, he’s sort of chosen for greatness by a glowing rock and then the community at large (he’s just a poor miner who went out to the fair to see his cousin Delyth (actual Welsh name, not made up)) but he isn’t the only one who would qualify so it’s not “The One”. And being the one wielder of the Sunstone means King Gwythyr will have all his men out looking for him as will the Rebellion’s leader the king’s jealous younger brother Heddwyn who by the way got him started on black magic and really just wants to control the sunstones keeper long enough to get the throne and then dispose of him.
Sorry, I haven’t even mentioned this story’s existance in years and now its mad at me.
I just permanently shelved that story because the characters didn’t make sense to me. I let side characters take up too much of the story, and found that some were just getting too whiny. Also, I wasn’t able to consistently keep their ‘character’ constant or at least on a reasonable progression through the pace of the story.
1) Multiple point-of-view characters: Yes. It’s epic/heroic fantasy! Multiple-POV is expected. I was proud of myself for cutting it down to four major POV characters, plus a few others for a handful of necessary scenes where none of the primary four are present, or where another perspective provides useful information to the reader. One of the four (the first) is the clear MC.
2) Change POV mid-chapter: Yes, but not mid-scene.
14) One character has an apostrophe, yes. It’s to show that the syllable-break isn’t in the place a native English speaker would put it. (The other names don’t require an apostrophe in order to be spelled for an English speaker to read phonetically).
20) Nothing unclear (other than in a mundane way), “glorious”, or “mysterious”. But what’s wrong with including a royal character or two? They are going to be in a position to be making a lot of important decisions (with both intended and unintended consequences). It’s not about “lineage”, it’s about “who’s going to be present at the interesting parts of the story?” and “who has the interesting inner and outer conflicts going on?”
23) The first two I did, but I don’t see anything wrong with it.
1) Why do the villains need to be defeated at the end of the first book? So no, those story threads aren’t resolved yet!
2) They just met! There isn’t a “romance” to resolve yet!
3) The main story threads wrap up (it’s a complete book with a beginning, middle, and end, with several lives and interpersonal relationships changed substantially, and resolution to the conflicts that were given the most attention in the book. The three surviving major-POV characters have undergone noticeable change. The fourth had a life-changing plot-arc as well; unfortunately, it was fatal). Background threads are just getting started, however.
28) More than that *present*, or more than that being *focused on*? Yes, there are fights with (well) more than four people participating, but since we’re limited to what the current POV character (who’s generally rather pre-occupied, being in the middle of a life-and-death fight and all) is noticing. I don’t see a problem with this.
34) Well, it depends on how you define “Barbarian”. Technically, a barbarian is someone who doesn’t speak ancient Greek. (I know, I know, no one likes a smart-ass). There’s no one who would describe themselves as a “ferocious barbarian”, but (if we ignore the Greek meaning) there are characters who might make that accusation against other characters. There’s no stand-in for Conan, however — which is what I think this question was actually asking, so I went ahead and answered “none of the above”.
Got 83 out of 100
You may want to make the answers less obvious. Most all of the correct answers are “No.”
Thanks for your advice. I found it very hard to write questions about things likely to kill a manuscript without making the best answer obvious. That said, on some of these, I could rewrite the questions to be less obviously slanted. For example, “Does the narrator or POV character hide critical information from readers just to ‘surprise’ us?” could be written as “Does the narrator or POV character hide critical information from readers mainly to surprise them?” (At some point, I’ll make a big change, but I try not to do relatively minor ones because ProProfs wipes out the answer results every time the test changes).
PS: Because I was only allowed to have one correct answer for each question, I had to lump in “not applicable” with the correct answer every time it came up.
This quiz is laughably idiotic and misguided, and even crashed at the second last question.
I’m not a huge fan of interactive content–something is almost certainly lost when switching from a writing article to a multiple choice test that only allows for right/wrong answers*. I’m sorry it took you 34 questions to figure that out?
*For example, a pre-written test can’t take into consideration how well an idea is executed.
Thanks for putting this ready-reckoner style test together. As writers, we can read through endless articles and ponder where we may be going off track. A quick tool like this can throw up some interesting points to consider. As you’ve pointed out in other comments, it isn’t comprehensive or infallible, but it’s a good start, in conjunction with the other articles. Thanks again… I have a 110,000 word manuscript which needs working on and this website has helped with a few good pointers on RE-writing…
I’ve had a couple of suggestions from an independent press in the US, in terms of characters and detail (i.e. too much of both, but they quite liked it overall) so a site like this is very useful.
Thanks again B.
Thanks, Robb. If you’d like more individualized feedback, please feel free to send a copy to superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com.
So….IS my manuscript dead on arrival? I can’t tell.
My MC knows that she’s adopted; it isn’t a surprise, but she does not know who her biological parents are, as she was adopted from Hungary when she was in her first year of life. She never definitively find out who her parents are. Is this DOA qualified?
So if the hero is even remotely related to the villian (I’m talking father and daughter), we have instant rejection? Or if a character doesn’t truly ‘know’ (meaning she has never met) her parent?
I took this quiz and got 82%…does that mean my manuscript is okay?
The only word I’ve made up is a substitute for marriage… it’s an Echora because it means everlasting union in the native tongue but I don’t subject the reader to a dictionary definition of things. Also I have a lot of perspectives because it’s like a collection of bedtime stories told to kids and different people know different things… should I rethink this because I try to vary the writing style slightly for each person…
My MC doesn’t know her real parents because technically she doesn’t have any. She was a lab experiment, and while her ‘mom’ that raised her did give birth to her, the egg was implanted in her after being mutated genetically. Sooo…does this count as not knowing the MC’s parents?
“Does this count as not knowing the MC’s parents?” I’ll let you decide, but I’d lean towards no (she does know her parents). In general, I’d recommend disregarding any questions that just don’t apply to your work for whatever reason.
This was so much fun! It actually inspired me to write. Beginning story now, and the first sentence will definitely have a pronoun. What can I say; some rules are just made to be “rejected”.
Good luck, Bridie.
@B. Mac.
In an article (I could not find which one), you told us to give the main character urgent goals. Now, in my novel I am showing in the first chapter that the hero is suffering from severe depression due to nightmares related to his horrible childhood. He desperately looks for ways to overcome it. Does it count as urgent goal?
I did a Google search for Superhero Nation urgent goals and this article was the top result.
Yes, I would say that overcoming severe internal obstacles would count as an urgent goal, particularly if his internal problems create external problems (e.g. his mental situation has a significant impact on his school/work and/or key relationships and/or something he’s trying to accomplish).
Another question. Because of depression, he becomes serious, introvert ane not fun loving. I want to make the character a bit dark and complex. Will the readers or publishers like such character?
Here’s hoping this post goes through!
I have a friend who is going to start a new story using the ‘come with us, we will help you learn to use your powers’ theme. She has yet to decide on if the characters will be adolescents or adults though, and is looking for advice on which is most workable.
The biggest concern with the adolescents are that it could seem somewhat cliche/overused. With the adults: what adult would drop everything in their lives to move off to another place into the unknown with a complete stranger? Would the confusion/stress/curiousity angle handle that?
“Another question. Because of depression, he becomes serious, introverted and not fun loving. I want to make the character a bit dark and complex. Will the readers or publishers like such character?” Possibly–I think it depends on execution. It certainly seems to have worked out pretty well for Batman, although Batman has a brusque charm. My main recommendation there would be to avoid (as much as possible) anything which would make him a less interesting character. For example, Sentry/Void experienced depression in a very anti-interesting way that left most readers praying for a more effective superhero.
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“I have a friend who is going to start a new story using the ‘come with us, we will help you learn to use your powers’ theme. She has yet to decide on if the characters will be adolescents or adults though, and is looking for advice on which is most workable.” Especially if she’s doing adolescents, I’d REALLY recommend executing the premise in a fresh way. For example, maybe instead of another stand-in for Xavier or the Green Lantern selection process, maybe it’s closer to a shady talent scout looking to cash in off a promising athletic prospect.
“With the adults: what adult would drop everything in their lives to move off to another place into the unknown with a complete stranger? Would the confusion/stress/curiousity angle handle that?” I think there are a lot of possibilities depending on the nature of the plot and the themes of the book. For example, if mutants are heavily discriminated against (a la X-Men), then a new mutant would have reason to leave (assuming he’d be fired by his company and disowned by his family and/or was so nervous about his powers or security situation that he WANTED to leave for the safety of those he/she cared about). Another possibility is that the situation hinges on a relationship (e.g. one mutant leaving regular society to follow a lover that is also a mutant). Another possibility is that the recruiter is very skilled at manipulation (e.g. taking advantages of various emotional levers to convince mutants to come along).
This probably sounds like a weak excuse, but many of these questions are difficult to apply when my intention isn’t a novel, but a comic book.
“By the end of page three, do we know what the main character’s name is?”
“Do your fight scenes ever last for more than 5 pages at a time?”
A lot more can happen in a single page of text than in a single page of images. If you’re talking about the script written before it’s put into images, then the answer is yes, but that can still translate to a lot of pages in comic form.
“Do the dialogues in your story read like transcripts?”
…Still in the planning stage to determine pacing and layout, so yes, they’re scripts…
“Many of these questions are difficult to apply when my intention isn’t a novel, but a comic book.” Good catch. The title of the quiz is “Is Your Novel Manuscript Dead on Arrival” because some of the questions don’t apply all that well to comics. For example, I think it’d be MUCH easier for a comic to avoid naming the protagonist early on because you can show the character acting/speaking without referring to him by name. In contrast, with a novel, most sentences involving the character will have to refer to the character as something.
I’ve never liked the opposition to names with apostrophies. It feels rather anglo-centric, apostrophes are very common in many ethnic names, and my character has a real name but it counts as wrong. I prfer to be asked if my character has “a made-up name with punctuation” than “a name with punctuation”
If you think the name won’t look odd enough to distract readers, go for it. For example, O’Brien and O’Connor are among the 500 most popular surnames in the United States. However, depending on your target audience, apostrophes in names might generally look very strange to your readers. Except for Irish names, I’ve never seen them in any European or Asian names before. I’ve seen them used in some indigenous names in Central/South America (e.g. Quechua and Aymara), but I suspect they’d still look distracting to most native Spanish-speakers.
Personally, if I were making a name for an Irish or Quechua character, I’d probably pick one which didn’t have an apostrophe even though some Irish and Quechua names do.
…
On a somewhat related level, I would generally recommend picking contextually appropriate names which are also easy for the target audience to pronounce. For example, for a ethnically Japanese character in a work aimed at English speakers, I’d strongly recommend a family name like Sasaki, Rin, Okada, or Mori over Oono, Ooshima, Nii, or Samurakami. Even though all of these family names would be plausible for an ethnically Japanese character (i.e. they’re all among the 250 most common family names in Japan), names which would be easier for most of your readers to pronounce and remember would generally be preferable.
Adding to that, you can remove the O from Irish surnames very easily, as the O is a suffix meaning ‘son of’. So instead of Patrick O’Connor, you could easily have Patrick Connor or Patricks Connors. Less common, but useable.
B.Mac, what would you say to using foreign names? For example, one of my characters’ name is Tyrone Ní Mhuirceartaigh. Thoughts?
“Tyrone Ní Mhuirceartaigh…” If the story is written in English, I would recommend something which non-Irish people would find easier to pronounce/read. Some Irish surnames which strike me as notably unusual but easier to pronounce would include Callaghan, Conroy, Cormick/McCormick, Delaney, Dolan or Dulain, McFadden, Flanagan, Flynn, Kennagh, Mulloy, Rafferty, and Slattery.
Alternately, if you’re dead-set on Ní Mhuirceartaigh, I would recommend using it only once throughout the book (referring to the character as “Tyrone” or “he” or other pronouns every other time).
Thank you! Tyrone’s actually a girl, hence the ‘Ní’… I could probably anglicize it to Moriarty. Would that be smoother?
@Achara,
You said your “Tyrone” was a girl…is this pronounced in a different way than TIE-RONE? Just curious.
No, it’s pronounced the same. Would that be a problem, do you think?
On a sort of minor note, I think most non-Irish people would be completely new to Ni vs. Ban. But I think your new surname strikes me as smoother and clearer (assuming the audience is mostly non-Irish), which strikes me as a bigger issue than whether Tyrone makes it sound like she’s a guy. So I think that’s encouraging…
@Achara,
I (of course) agree with B. Mac. It wouldn’t be a problem, and I wasn’t aware of the “Ni” purpose. I get the feeling that knowing it now is going to help me at some point!
I got a 94 out of 100. My character is a half-elf, but he does not know it. He learns pretty quick, though. Also, I do have a mentor, but he does not want to train the MC, he was forced. Are these things workable?
The mentor sounds workable–you will probably have good opportunities for conflict there. The character being a half-elf raises red flags for me about whether he’ll be interesting, but this might be an idiosyncrasy on my part rather than any trend that half-species characters tend to be relentlessly uninteresting. My recommendation there would be 1) use a more unexpected species than elf (or dragon) as the second species, and 2) make sure that both parts of his heritage repeatedly raise obstacles for him throughout the story.
I’ve read on the site before that the character looking at his reflection is a bad idea. But does this apply to when a character sees his reflection and realizes how much he/she has changed?
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Also, I’m curious – how do you feel about flashbacks via recorded videos? I’ve seen it a lot in games, but I’m not sure how it would transfer into a novel.
“But does this apply to when a character sees his reflection and realizes how much he/she has changed?” Hmm. This strikes me as workable–in this case, I’d recommend making sure that there’s some sort of emotional impact to what we see in the reflection rather than “my (say) superhero transformation changed me a lot.”
“my (say) superhero transformation changed me a lot.”
That was done in Spider Man 1, I think. Peter Parkar noticed changes in his body in the mirror after he had been bitten by a spider.
Recently, I’ve wanted to write in a reference to a song, but I’m not clear on what the legal repercussions would be. I’d really like to use it because it feels like the music my MC would have grown up with and it matches his life/situation in life so perfectly. (Creedence Clearwater Revival: Fortunate Son) I know its fairly aged, but wasn’t sure if that had any bearing.
That “homo superiors” test you were talking about sounds a bit iffy. In my story almost everyone (except for like 7% of the human population) has been changed and has “super powers”, a couple of which include telepathy, teleportation, invisibility, and transformation. The rest tend to have increases strength or weapons that are part of their body.
As far as I can tell, nothing’s too bad, and the main character certainly isn’t a mary-sue, but he is a changed human.
With the last question, I answer no, but my main character never learns who his parents are, so that cliché doesn’t fit. Just sayin’
awesome
i only got a couple wrong (over-used obscenities, and 3 POV characters) but i think i can work with that