Month: February 2025

  • Genre fiction, Gothic, Horror

    The Ingredients of Gothic Fiction

    The Ingredients of Gothic Fiction

    I recently edited a novel with a heavy Gothic influence, and it got me thinking about the ingredients of Gothic fiction. In the short video above (1:43 seconds long), I list some of the key ingredients, but by no means all. This posts delves deeper into the topic.

    Gothic fiction is a popular genre with roots stretching back centuries. As a genre, it includes a wide variety of story types, often due to the ability of the Gothic aesthetic to marry so well to other genres like romance, crime, suspense, etc. Hence, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Rebecca are Gothic narratives, alongside Dracula, Frankenstein, Interview with the Vampire, The Turn of the Screw, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Fall of the House of Usher, and even a modern novel like Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives (which I have written about before).

    Of course Gothic fiction also includes the likes of narrative poetry and film.

    The origins of Gothic

    Before discussing the origins of Gothic narratives, it’s important to address where the Gothic aesthetic comes from. It really starts with the Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages. The style was prevalent from the late 12th century until the 16th, though it persisted longer in some areas. The roots are in Picardy and the Ile de France and it would not be referred to as Gothic until much later, during the more classically-inspired Renaissance period.

    The key feature of Gothic architecture was the pointed arch, and would go on to include flying buttresses and stained glass windows. It was a style applied to religious buildings like cathedrals, abbeys, and churches, but also to castles, palaces, and civic buildings. Already it’s possible to get a sense of why Gothic fiction is tied to this architecture – vaulted ceilings, monasteries, abbeys (especially ruined buildings), castles, etc, would all become popular locations in Gothic fiction.

    The style fell out of favour with the Renaissance belief that classical architecture was best and Gothic harked back to the barbarous Germans who helped bring down the Roman Empire and destroyed ancient buildings when they sacked Rome. Their replacement style was now looked down upon.

    The blame for Gothic style would later be laid at the feet of ‘the Saracens’ by the likes of Christopher Wren who refused to put a Gothic roof on the new St Paul’s Cathedral. However, the pointed arch existed in Europe before the Holy War, so Wren’s chronology is incorrect. While the Moors may have had an influence via Spain, Romanesque architecture was a definite influence on the development of Gothic.

    Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is one of the most famous examples of French Gothic. The building is also intimately tied to the French Gothic novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) by Victor Hugo.

    The Gothic Revival

    While some buildings, especially universities and religious buildings, were still built in the Gothic style long after the classical style had taken over, the beginning of the revival goes back to the late 17th century. But it was a slow rise in interest, until it finally broke through in the 19th century into what is often referred to now as Victorian Gothic. Yet again it was in favour until it began to wane later in the century.

    There were religious and political connections to the revival, while, in art, the medievalism can be seen in the Arts and Crafts movement and also in the Pre-Raphaelites. In literature, Tennyson’s Idylls of the King looked back to the medieval period, while in fiction old castles, cathedrals, ruined monastries, and other medieval and Gothic settings offered powerful backdrops to enthralling and suspenseful storytelling.

    Gothic literary beginnings

    There are older narratives, predating the late eighteenth century works of Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe, which feature Gothic elements. Some of Shakespeare’s plays – Macbeth being one of the best examples with its witches, stormy weather, and omens – would influence later Gothic writers. Milton’s Paradise Lost was an influence. But there were other stories – I recently re-read a story from Marguerite de Navarre’s 16th century Heptameron, featuring a visitor to a German castle. There he is shocked to see the lady of the house drink from a cup made from a human skull.

    So there was nothing new about the creepy ingredients of what would later be termed Gothic, but the threads really came together to form the genre in the late eighteenth century. Perhaps it was a kickback against the classical preference of that century. The trend was moving towards the Romanticism of the early 19th century that would produce the likes of Byron, Shelley, and Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

    The first novel to actually be described as Gothic was Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764):

    The first edition actually promoted the story as a 16th century manuscript. The true authorship was only later revealed, along with the new subtitle – A Gothic Story. There was a backlash from some readers disappointed that a modern writer had written a supernatural story in the age of reason. Nevertheless, the novel was popular and kicked off a new literary genre. And while more writers emerged to copy the style, it was Ann Radcliffe who dominated by the 1790s, particularly with her most famous novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). Below is an illustration. Her Romance of the Forest (1791) was also very popular.

    Writing of Ann Radcliffe and The Mysteries of Udolpho, Walter Scott said:

    “The very name [Udolpho] was fascinating, and the public, who rushed upon it with all the eagerness of curiosity, rose from it with unsated appetite. When a family was numerous, the volumes flew, and were sometimes torn from hand to hand.”

    If Ann Radcliffe was the pre-eminent female voice of 1790s English Gothic, Matthew Lewis was the pre-eminent male writer with his novel, The Monk (1796).

    While all of this applied to the English end of the genre, there were also developments on the Continental mainland, especially Germany and France.

    In time though the extremes of the genre would come to be ridiculed and satirised. Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1818) is a famous example.

    The Romantics

    While Byron never wrote a Gothic novel, or any novel for that matter, his influence is still huge in the genre. Particularly through John Polidori’s use of Byron as the inspiration for his Lord Ruthven in The Vampyre (1819). This would launch the vampire genre, not to mention a thousand Byronic heroes and anti-heroes. But Byron was also the inspiration for Lady Caroline Lamb’s title character, Glenarvon (1816).

    Perhaps Byron is most famous for his participation in the famous ghost story night at the Villa Diodati which would give birth to both The Vampyre and Frankenstein (1818), two of the most influential books in the history of horror, Gothic, vampire fiction, and science fiction.

    Other writers would come along, including Walter Scott, while in Germany ETA Hoffman’s The Devil’s Elixirs (1815) included something that would become a new ingredient in Gothic fiction – the doppelganger. In Scotland, James Hogg’s metaphysical novel, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, also featured a double or doppelganger. The Gothic novel was developing in different countries.

    Rise of the Gothic short story

    Thanks to the likes of American writer Edgar Allan Poe, when Gothic novels began to wane in popularity, the genre was kept alive in the short story. These stories appeared in chapbooks or magazines, an early precursor of the twentieth century’s genre magazines like Weird Tales. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote numerous short stories, like The Body Snatchers, and his Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), a novella, is a classic of the genre.

    In the twentieth century there would be influential writers like Lovecraft and others.

    Gothic Romance

    The wild and stormy moors of Wuthering Heights (1847) was a perfect setting for Emily Bronte’s Gothic romance. And in Heathcliffe there was a ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ anti-hero. Likewise her sister Charlotte’s Jane Eyre (also 1847) featured a mysterious Byronic employer, strange noises in the middle of the night, a mad woman in the attack, and dark secrets.

    In the twentieth century, there would be classic Gothic romance in the form of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938) – featuring another young woman out of place in a large house which is full of dark secrets.

    Urban Gothic

    Wild lonely moors, abandoned ruins, or gloomy mansions are not your only Gothic location options. Dark urban environments work equally well. For example, the old narrow and grim streets in the poorest districts of a city like Victorian London. Think of Charles Dickens’ novels Bleak House (1852-53) and Great Expectations (1860-61). In the case of the latter, Miss Havisham is a great example of a classic Gothic character.

    Vampire fiction

    Thanks to Polidori, vampires are a staple of Gothic fiction. They’d later turn up in Varney the Vampire, and literary classics like J Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla (1872) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Modern writers like Anne Rice would carry on the strongly Gothic tradition of vampire stories.

    Ghost stories

    One of the most important subgenres of Gothic fiction is the ghost story. Here, common themes like death, decay, secrets, haunting, the past, the supernatural, darkness, night (when ghosts most commonly appear in fiction), terror, and revelations are staples of this fiction. In Gothic there is a sense of threat, an oppressive atmosphere hanging over the main character(s) and the location.

    Common ingredients in Gothic fiction

    While some writers have played with the genre, offering their own twists, there are some common repeating ingredients and themes. While there are different Gothic schools, partly due to regionalism – like US Southern Gothic – many of the ingredients are near universal:

    • Importance of location – remember the architectural roots of the original Gothic authors who set their stories against Gothic buildings, and also ruined buildings like abbeys, castles, etc
    • Those locations can often include secret tunnels, false walls, hidden rooms
    • Isolated locations are common in Gothic fiction. Characters are cut off from the outside world and exist instead in a claustrophobic environment. This could be a location isolated from the nearest settlement. Or it could be the kind of isolation experienced in the modern Gothic novel, Flowers in the Attic, where the children are locked away
    • The outdoors also takes on Gothic aspects in the form of wild moors and forests with towering canopies of trees (reminiscent of the vaulted ceilings of Gothic churches)
    • Weather and season play an important part in Gothic fiction. Wild and stormy weather, overcast and gloomy skies are common in British Gothic
    • Weather can influence mood, heighten tension, or act as an extra antagonistic force
    • On the whole, traditional British and Irish Gothic flourishes in darker and gloomier settings, and also in nocturnal settings and scenes
    • Main female characters can be damsels in distress or women determined to unravel secrets
    • Monsters (vampires, etc) can also be main characters
    • Heroes can often have a Byronic nature – ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’
    • Doomed love – sometimes a feature of the secret past the heroine or hero discovers in the course of the novel
    • Villains can be mad scientists, monsters (vampires, werewolves, etc) or more human antagonists like the grandmother in Flowers in the Attic of Mrs Danvers in Rebecca
    • Unexpected legacies or inheritances are another common trope
    • Secrets are important to Gothic fiction, including family secrets and hidden secrets of old buildings or objects (like paintings, old diaries, jewellery)
    • A past, hidden crime or murder is another trope
    • Heightened emotion, hysteria, anxiety, fear, terror, etc, are important – though too much can tip a story into melodrama
    • Omens and taboos
    • Madness and incest – Virginia Andrews mined this territory in her popular Gothic novels, starting with Flowers in the Attic
    • Suspense is incredibly important to Gothic fiction, pumping up the tension and providing higher stakes. Readers worry about characters in danger, turning the page to find out what happens next
    • Doppelgangers and doubles are another Gothic trope
    • Good versus evil
    • Revenge
    • Frame narratives
    • Found manuscripts, letters, diaries, etc, are a common ingredient in Gothic fiction

    Importance of sensory details

    In order to fully immerse your reader in the world of your story, include vivid sensory details in all five senses. It’s not just visual details, but smells, sounds, touch, and taste. In Gothic fiction, this really helps the reader inhabit the main character’s viewpoint. And sensory details can further bolster location, weather, and other details.

    Sensory details are also important to establish a sense of threat, danger, or the presence of the supernatural.

    Lastly, sensory details can show emotional and psychological states more clearly. Check out The Emotion Thesaurus by Puglisi and Ackerman.

    Examples of Gothic Fiction

    • Dracula by Bram Stoker
    • Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
    • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
    • Carmilla by J Sheridan Le Fanu
    • Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft
    • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
    • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
    • The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
    • The Shining by Stephen King
    • Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews
    • The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
    • The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
    • The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

    It’s also worth checking out Latin American Gothic. But the Gothic genre as a whole is too large and geographically spread to do the international and non-anglophone spheres justice.

    Conclusion

    Gothic fiction has a rich and vibrant past. It’s woven into the very fabric of architectural history, as well as intersecting with other art forms like poetry and art/painting. Through ecclesiastical architecture and settings, it can also tie in with religious themes, and some Gothic fiction, like Interview with the Vampire, explore existential themes like the meaning of life or the existence or non-existence of God.

    The genre has waxed and waned since its inception, yet it continues to have a loyal following, with twentieth century Gothic horror writers, and a Gothic romance genre featuring women in long dresses fleeing gloomy castles. Virginia Andrews and Anne Rice offer different interpretations of Gothic, while other writers like Sarah Waters, Donna Tartt, Stephen King, and more, have added to the development of the genre.

    Cinema has created a new catalogue of Gothic stories. Just recently, there was an adaptation of a section of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, focused on the ship’s log section of the novel. The Last Voyage of the Demeter features gloomy and stormy weather, confined spaces, an isolated location, dark secrets regarding the boxes in the hold, a monster lurking about and picking people off, death and decay, and vampirism.

    The Underworld series of vampire films are another example of cinematic Gothic, where the vampires even dress like modern Goths and the coven is like a secret Goth club. The colour palette, costumes, hidden past, vampires and werewolves, and the gritty urban settings all combine to deliver a powerful Gothic vision.

    Need feedback on YOUR Gothic novel?

    If you’re working on a Gothic novel, whether it’s Gothic romance, Gothic horror, a vampire novel, or a literary Gothic novel, I have openings in my editorial calendar. I can give you detailed feedback and suggestions on plot holes, character issues, the wrong tone (for a dark novel), advice on pacing and suspense, and more. You have the following options:

    • A critique and developmental edit of your novel outline – I’ve worked with very detailed outlines as well as shorter ones
    • A manuscript critique – I have different package tiers for different budgets. The highest tier can deliver very long and detailed reports, but without the expense and time of a full developmental edit
    • Developmental edits are the most expensive and extensive editorial service – but again, I offer different tiers and levels of feedback to fit different budgets

    I offer a free sample developmental edit.

    Feel free to email me at karen@indiecateditorial.com or check out my main services page below. You can click on the buttons there to check out each specific service.

    IndieCat Editorial services page

    Other related blog posts

    How editorial feedback changed Interview with the Vampire – includes the background to and writing of the classic vampire novel.

    Narrative choices in Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives – a dive into the background of the novel and Levin’s approach to writing it.

    Joan Lindsay and Picnic at Hanging Rock – another dive into the background of a famous novel and how the author wrote it.

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  • Historical fiction, Research, Writing, Writing Advice

    Researching historical locations for your novel

    Researching historical locations for your novel

    I’ve written posts in the past relating to how to research your novel locations online, and also how to avoid certain location problems in your fiction. In this post I wanted to address the specific topic of researching historical locations for your novel. I’ve touched on some tools for this before, but only in passing. The larger topic was left to a future post – which I’ve finally sat down to write!

    Travel writing

    If your novel is set in the 20th century or very late 19th century, you have the advantage of accessing travel guides from the period. In fact, the German publisher Baedeker started publishing travel guides in 1832. They also published in English and French. If you’ve watched or read A Room With a View, you might recall references to Baedeker from the English tourists in the story/film.

    Some of these old books can be bought secondhand. I have travel guides from the late 1920s for Berlin, London, Paris, and Northern Italy.

    • How to Be Happy in Berlin by John Chancellor
    • How to Be Happy in Paris by John Chancellor
    • London 1929 – Illustrated guidebooks published by Wardlock & CoS
    • Muirhead’s Northern Italy – The Blue Guides

    These books contain a treasure trove of information and advice on places and events like markets which no longer exist. Some districts in London and Berlin were badly damaged in the war.

    Indeed, in the case of Berlin, you have a city bombed, and then subject to partition, with a wall running through the city and a no man’s land in between the inner and outer wall. This left tenements and even an old major railway station in limbo, abandoned.

    The map that folds out from the inside back cover of How to Be Happy in Berlin represents a city that no longer exists in the same form. Rebuilding after the war, empty lots left derelict for many years, the wall, and finally the post-reunification building programme has changed the city to the point where areas around the old Potsdamer Platz, for example, would be unrecognisable to a Weimar-era Berliner.

    That’s why a map of late Weimar Berlin is so valuable for anyone writing a novel set in that period. It’s fascinating to look at, and you can also cross-reference the map information with photo searches online. I have a book of photos of Berlin in this period. But there are images online and videos on the likes of YouTube.

    Travel guide information

    While you don’t want to overload your narrative with too much unnecessary information, travel guides provide useful snippets like the price of a taxi, the various railway stations for different destinations (which station do you take in Berlin for the boat train back to Britain), restaurant and food information, etc. Want to know the restaurants near Potsdamer Platz, just so you can throw in a real place? How to Be Happy in Berlin provides a list and the average price. It also goes into the different cabarets and nightlife. Just in case your characters are having a night on the town.

    You can also deduce social customs of the period – some cabarets didn’t allow girls (women) to enter the main establishment unless they were accompanied by a male. According to John Chancellor, the girls therefore hung around the bar, waiting for a male to take them through the ‘magic door that leads to the lights and the champagne‘. He also assures us that the German girl is not ‘a fat, stolid and stupid wench‘. No, Berlin girls are fine girls!

    They also include warnings about places to avoid or what not to do (because the locals don’t like it).

    My Italian guidebook, once owned by someone called Dorothy in 1924 (because she pencilled it inside the book), has passages she’s underlined warning of dangers to tourists. Or perhaps someone else underlined them for her, as an example of what to watch out for.

    Dorothy left some evidence of her holiday in the guide – a pencilled itinerary, and a small flier for a Venetian shop (whose address I tracked down on Google Street View – only to find the shop is no longer there and something else occupies the building).

    Yes, old travel guides, when used with Google Street View, can turn into fascinating rabbit holes, where you can spend all day checking out what those old places look like now. Some addresses and streets will obviously be gone. While some street names will be changed.

    Earlier travel and location accounts

    There are earlier travel accounts – for example, eighteenth century writer Samuel Johnson’s book A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland AND The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (Penguin Classics). Somewhere on my bookshelves I think I have an eighteenth century travel account of America.

    I also have this Regency A-Z of London, which I found in a used bookshop many years ago:

    You can also check out diaries. If you want to know about an eighteenth century masquerade ball in London, you could check out Fanny Burney’s diaries. If you want to check out the opera in Italy, read Casanova’s diaries.

    Diaries and letters can tell you a lot, including descriptions of old eighteenth century pleasure gardens, the entertainments there, and the kinds of people who visited.

    One of my historical novel clients had her characters visit these places, as well as real period shops, etc. While you can just make things up, it’s fun to throw in actual places.

    If you’re researching via history books on specific locations, you’ll often find they reference primary sources like diaries, letters, and other accounts. Don’t ignore these – they can be tracked down online and downloaded if they’re in the public domain.

    I have a book called Glasgow in 1901 by James Hamilton Muir which likely has its foreign equivalents – it’s a tour of the city, with plenty of details and descriptions.

    Period journalism can also be a great source of information on location and social custom. I have a book on Glasgow called Midnight Scenes and Social Photographs: Being Sketches of Life in the Streets, Wynds and Dens of the City. It’s from 1858. It contains interactions with some of the poorest people, and one account describes someone lying in a basement under blankets because they shared clothing with someone else who had gone out.

    These are details many modern authors wouldn’t even think to include.

    The book also includes sensory information from the author about smells, etc.

    Paintings and sketches

    Pre-photography, our main visual reference point for locations is art. I collect books on Glasgow history, and the earlier periods are represented by artists’ renderings of the city. This shows the development of the city over time, the disappearance of rural areas as the city expanded and gobbled up more territory. It also shows old bridges, old building styles, and women standing in the Clyde washing laundry before the river was later deepened in the nineteenth century for shipping.

    All of this will also apply to other cities and towns in the UK and other countries.

    Sometimes artists were commissioned to record a location. Later photographers would be commissioned by some cities and towns.

    Photography and film

    The photographic record starts in the 1840s. For a city like Paris, this allows the modern viewer to see Paris before it was redeveloped by Haussmann. The old rickety buildings had not yet been replaced by the Parisian terraces we think of today. One of my historical novel clients wrote about this city around the time some of the new builds were up while other slum areas still existed. You can read my interview with her in which we discuss her research.

    The city of Glasgow commissioned photographer Thomas Annan to record the old slum district next to the High Street and the old Jacobean university college, before they were demolished. The old tenements would have been more sanitary before the industrial age, when the tenants had a free run down to the river, but boxed in during the industrial age, and crowded out by Irish and Highland immigrants, they had fallen into ruin.

    The celluloid record in terms of moving film starts in the 1890s, and is another useful source of information. Fiction films shot on location can show a lot of background detail. You can even cross-reference a street sign on a city building with your period map, allowing you to build a picture of that district if it’s a significant location in your novel.

    Fiction films often have fascinating backdrops, but you can also look to documentary film. If you’re interested in late Weimar Berlin, I recommend People on Sunday, which is an invaluable insight into the lives of young people in the city.

    Genealogical and other records

    Don’t forget to check out the following:

    • census records (which have fascinating references to professions that no longer exist and which can show the social makeup of a tenement or district
    • Parish records (pre-census in the UK)
    • valuation rolls are another record in Scotland – I can’t comment on anywhere else
    • Post Office directories
    • Cemeteries and gravestones
    • Old newspapers and magazines (another rabbit hole!)
    • ordinance survey maps

    Novels, poetry and songs

    Period novels are always a useful source of information. I also have a book of bawdy English songs which likely includes little social details about the various periods. Likewise, the poetry of Jonathan Swift has thrown up some juicy details, even when he’s being downright cutting. Check out the link to his poem below!

    A Beautiful Young Nympth Going To Bed.

    Conclusion

    Researching for historical fiction can lead to going down endless rabbit holes. So while research can help bring your historical world to life, it’s important to remember that much of the information you find is not something to include in your novel.

    However, understanding the location, the social customs there, the prices of things, the venues, and the social demographics, can help you and your characters navigate your period world more realistically. Sometimes all you need is a tiny detail, mentioned in passing.

    It’s best not to info dump, but you can impart information in a less obvious way that helps your reader immerse themself in the story. Remember to include sensory information. The past, for example, didn’t always smell very nice, but you also have visual textures, noises (carriage wheels on cobblestones), and more.

    Some writers research as they go along, and others research up front, before they even start. In the case of the latter, the danger is in delaying the writing of the story for too long. Research can be very seductive. It pays to exercise restraint and remember the purpose of the research – it’s not a form of procrastination! It is meant to serve the novel, not provide a useful avoidance technique for never starting your book.

    There is more to be said about historical research. I might keep some for another post. In the meantime…

    Are you a historical novelist looking for feedback?

    I have worked on novels set in the following periods:

    • Paleo period – with mammoths and cave lions, etc!
    • 18th century
    • 19th century
    • 20th century
    • World War Two

    I particularly like 18th century onwards, though I do have a substantial collection of 17th century history books. And I’m not averse to the medieval period either!

    I am currently open for manuscript critiques and developmental edits. One of my historical novel clients sent me a very long and detailed outline of her book to edit first, before she went on to write it. Outline critiques are also a service I provide – I can also include useful recommendations on books or documentaries/films that might be useful.

    You can find my service pages below. Or you can contact me at karen@indiecateditorial.com

    Service page – click the buttons there for more details on each service.

    You can also check out my blog post below on using period language in your work.

    Too much period language in a historical novel?

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  • Writing Advice

    How copywork can improve your writing

    How copywork can improve your writing

    As a fiction editor, I sometimes see manuscripts which have fairly basic problems like dialogue formatting and other issues which are relatively easy to fix. While you can buy a book on how to write and format dialogue, and how to use dialogue tags and action beats, the best way to learn is to copy. Because copywork can improve your writing in a short space of time.

    And by copy, I don’t mean plagiarism.

    I mean copywork, an old method of teaching writing skills, and one used by famous writers from Robert Louis Stevenson, Benjamin Franklin, Jack London, Joan Didion, and Hunter S. Thompson.

    In the case of Thompson, he copied out The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms not to steal, but to learn how they were written and structured. It’s a good example of learning from the greats. You don’t have to write like them when it comes to your own writing, but you might learn from their techniques and narrative choices.

    Using copywork to improve dialogue writing

    For those who struggle with writing and laying out dialogue, you don’t need to copy out a whole story or novel to learn. You can simply choose dialogue scenes from novels you like, then write them out. Try doing it longhand. It forces you to think more about each word you’re writing down.

    That way you learn where the speech tags go, how they are punctuated, and when you can drop them altogether. You learn how to use action beats. You also learn how to write dialogue that doesn’t run on forever.

    Studying scenes in published books can teach you how to keep dialogue on track and succinct. You don’t need to show an entire conversation, for example. You can cut into the middle of a conversation and then exit before the meeting is over.

    How copywork teaches other writing skills

    Copywork can also teach you about basic formatting and indented paragraphs, the use of line breaks, use of punctuation, pacing, and more. You can examine how much an author describes the world of their novel or short story early on – whether they take time to feed in details, and whether they leave most things to the reader’s imagination.

    If you write historical novels, you can look at the opening pages of well-regarded books in the genre, and copy them out to see how much detail, info dumping, and world building there is. You can see how the writer introduces the main character(s) to the readers – in terms of telling versus showing.

    If you’re struggling to write a battle scene, you could find battle scenes in published novels and copy them out to see how the author choreographed the action, dialogue, point of view, internal dialogue, etc, to create a powerful and pacy scene.

    Copywork can teach you how the greats tackled basic writing skills. While you can read ‘how to’ books (and the best will include examples), copywork using targeted passages to solve particular weaknesses in your writing can go a long way to improving your skills and techniques.

    Again, this is not about stealing other people’s work. It’s about learning from the greats – learning technique, layout, rhythm, and more.

    Copywork exercise

    You can give yourself a regular copywork exercise by choosing a short passage – could be dialogue, opening scenes in a novel, more dramatic scenes – and copying them out longhand to study, word for word, how these passages work. If you struggle with writing tension or conflict, you could choose several relevant passages from published novels and copy them out to see what the author is doing that you’re missing.

    Are they using shorter sentences to drive pacing?

    What else might they be doing?

    While you can simply read the relevant passages slowly, it won’t have the same impact as writing them out. Writing longhand takes more time and thought.

    Need feedback on your novel?

    I’m a developmental editor currently open to new clients. I work with adult fiction – SF/H/F, historical, literary, thriller, and romance. I’ve worked on both standalone novels and series. I particularly enjoy working with newer writers and my manuscript critique and developmental editing packages have tiered options for different budgets.

    I offer a free sample edit. Check out my services page at the link below:

    IndieCat Editing Services

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