What Makes a Good Author Website

IMAGE ID: A black keyboard with blank black keys surrounding keys that spell out WEBSITE in blue.

Like it or not, a large part of the world happens online. While this has been the case for quite some time, the pandemic has only further entrenched the internet as a place where we connect, discover, and consume.

Literature is no exception. Many of the in-person ways that authors traditionally connected with readers have been supplanted by online mechanisms. These days, it’s more important than ever for an author to have a strong online presence. And that starts with creating an author website that stands out. 

The team at Allegory Editing has put together these tips to help you build the best author website possible. 

How to create an author website 

Whether you’re sprucing up your existing site or starting from scratch, here is a list of some important items to keep in mind.

Up-to-date content

Make sure the event listings and launch dates on your website are current.

Proofread! Proofread! Proofread!

If your website is riddled with typos, readers may assume your books will be too. If proofreading is not your strong suit, consider hiring a professional.

Image is everything

Write Westerns? Your website shouldn’t be filled with cityscapes. YA author? Make sure your site isn’t populated with only pictures of adults. You get the idea. A picture is worth a thousand words—the images on your website should reflect the content of your writing.

Keep it fresh

Nothing says stale like a website that’s never updated with new content. Routinely add new blog posts, links, and other material to your page so that visitors have a reason to keep coming back.

A designer may be in order

You know what they say about first impressions. If your website is poorly designed and clunky, visitors won’t stay long. Poor color choices, backgrounds that make text hard to read, and too-small font are among the common design errors that result in an unprofessional-looking website.

There are many user-friendly programs out there to allow people with no coding experience to create slick, professional-looking websites. But even these programs require a familiarity with technology and a decent design eye in order to turn out an aesthetically pleasing, functional webpage. Be honest with yourself about your skill set. If you and technology just don’t mix, or you don’t spend much time on the internet and aren’t confident about what a good website should look like, it might be wise to invest in a professional. The cost may be more reasonable than you think, especially if you update the content yourself.

Let’s connect

Make sure to include social media links and a way to sign up for your author newsletter. Not on social media? Don’t have an author newsletter? Well . . . that’s a conversation for another time. ;-)

Your website should also include a way for people to reach out to you directly, either by email or a contact form.

Buy, baby, buy

Your website must include links to purchase your books. End of story.

Get an expert eye

The team at Allegory Editing can help you improve your author website. Contact us today to set up your website review or coaching session! 

In short

Creating an author website that stands out is a must. Whether you’re sprucing up your existing site or starting from scratch, it’s essential to pay attention to the details. By using our list of important items when assessing or designing your author website, you’ll be off to a great start. If you want further assistance, our new Author Website Review service is an excellent tool for ensuring your website is polished and professional.

Getting Curious About Sensory Details

A black-and-white line drawing of a brain, surrounded by line drawings of an ear, mouth, hand, nose, and eye with arrows pointing from the body parts toward the brain.

Close your eyes. Describe the place where you are right now. This is not a test of your short-term memory, but rather a way to focus on all the information you have at your disposal to write that description. How do you know where you are and what is around you? Most of us pay more attention to what we see than the other information coming in through our senses. What do you hear, feel, smell, touch, and taste? Is there anything else you can “sense”?

Try writing a description using only this nonvisual sensory information. Then, write a paragraph using only the details you can see. Which engages you more? Using powerful and relevant sensory details helps us pull readers in, making them feel like they're inside our stories, and it focuses their attention on what we want them to pay attention to. Master the use of sensory details and you have your readers in your power.

There are more ways to use this information in your writing than just showing what a character sees, feels, hears, touches, and smells. Consider that when you use a metaphor, you're tapping into sensory information. If you describe something as smooth as silk, your readers’ hands, on some level, feel the sensation of sliding over silk. In the same way, describing sharp edges, knives, and broken glass can cause a subconscious sensation of pulling away from danger.

As writers, we are often so engrossed in presenting our plot that we forget to use sensory details to our advantage. As I've surveyed writing over the last few months looking for how writers use sensory information, I’ve seen some great examples. Many are  about what things smell like, and that makes sense, because smell is so connected to memory. But as I close my eyes right now, I don't smell anything particularly interesting to write about. I feel the pressure of my chair against the back of my thighs. I hear the fan in the laundry room where I'm drying a sweater. I hear my dog shift on the pillow next to me. I feel the tightness of my fingers and the crick in my neck. There is a little bit of warmth on the side of my face coming from the window, and I taste a dryness in my mouth that tells me I should go get a glass of water. None of this means anything, though, unless I can connect it to something I want to tell you about.

That's the challenge. Once we know to pay attention to all the details available, and have gathered up relevant details to use, how do we connect the information to what we want to tell our readers? It could be as simple as those sharp edges and knives in the description of a scene where we want our readers to feel the danger the character is in. And it can always be more complex. Consider the other senses we have, like the odd sense that someone is watching us, or our ability to sense gravity. Could an odd sense of pressure in the head, as if someone is upside down, signal that even though the room looks right, it isn’t?

I invite you to get curious about how your favorite authors use sensory details. Set an imaginary alarm in your head to go off whenever you see sensory information in what you’re reading. Pause for a moment and reread the passages. Pay attention to which senses are being referred to, what information they're giving you, and how that's connected to the rest of the story.

Consider why the author added those particular details, and why they put them in at that place. In the same way, become curious in your own work about the choices you make unconsciously, and think about additional conscious choices that support your story’s aims. Sensory information is the ultimate “show, don’t tell.” Use it to your advantage.

If you're curious about using sensory details and want to consider more examples, please join me on November 14, 9:00-10:30 am (PST) for Engage the Senses, Engage the Reader: Mastering Sensory Details.

Happy writing!

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Christine Pinto is a Developmental Editor with Allegory Editing. As a developmental editor, Christine draws on her experience as a fiction writer and writing instructor. She holds a Certificate in Writing for Children and a Certificate in Editing from the University of Washington. Over a decade of experience teaching writing to children and adults, she has gained a deep understanding of the craft of writing and strong communication skills for sharing that knowledge with writers. Christine’s own journey as a writer informs her editing work with deep empathy for writers preparing a manuscript for publication. Her interests include historical and contemporary fiction, memoir, romance, fantasy, non-fiction, technical, business writing and writing for children. You can reach Christine at christine@allegoryediting.com.

Tips for Standing out in the Slush Pile

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Querying is tough. It’s disheartening to spend years working on a manuscript only to have it dismissed by an agent who never gets past the first chapter, no matter how “good” the rest of the book could be. 

But agents shouldn’t have to read past the first chapter to get invested in a story.

I’m often asked if writers should send their first chapter or their “best” chapter with a query to agents or editors. This question always brings me up short. Shouldn’t your first chapter be as good as all the rest of the chapters?

Writers sometimes believe that later chapters are “stronger” because the stakes are higher and there’s greater tension. They say, “But my climax is the most exciting event!”

Of course it is! The climax better be the most exciting event, otherwise it’s not a climax. But that doesn’t mean that everything leading up to it isn’t engaging too, just in a different way.

Before reaching the climax, readers have to care about the characters, be drawn in by the plot, and love the author’s voice. All of those things are what agents look for in the opening chapters of a manuscript.

They don’t expect a first chapter to be the most exciting, because that’s not the role of a first chapter. If the first chapter was the most exciting, reading a manuscript would be all downhill from there, rather than ramping up with rising action.

If a writer tells me the first couple chapters aren’t that engaging and that things really get going by, say, chapter three, my first instinct is that the manuscript actually starts at chapter three. Oftentimes, those first two chapters are what we’d call exposition or backstory.

What’s the difference between exposition and backstory? I’m so glad you asked.

Here’s how I use the two terms: Exposition is background information that readers need to know to understand the story. Backstory is information that writers need to understand to build complex characters with clear motivations.

In other words, exposition is necessary information for the reader, and backstory is information the writer uses but doesn’t include in the work.

The first thing a writer needs to ascertain about their opening chapters is how much of the information presented is too much exposition or too much backstory rather than active scenes to engage the reader.

Once it’s clear what readers need to know (exposition) and what the author needs to understand (backstory), cut the pages anyway.

“But wait!” you say. “I thought exposition was necessary information!”

It is. But that doesn’t mean readers need it all at once or right at the beginning. Try this instead. Identify what in those opening chapters is necessary for the reader. Highlight that information or put it into a separate document.

Then cut the opening chapter(s) until the point where the manuscript takes off. That’s your new starting place.

Then, as you move forward, when you identify a place where the reader needs the exposition, sprinkle that information in.

Don’t do it in a long expositional paragraph or “info dump.” Instead, add the bare minimum through action, dialogue between other characters, or internal thoughts by the viewpoint character, letting that information come in as naturally as possible.

For example, rather than an entire chapter devoted to telling readers about a character’s divorce, consider this instead: 

 Jane walked into the bakery to discover her ex-husband and his new girlfriend standing at the counter. The girlfriend looked about twenty, and Jane wondered if she could legally buy a cocktail at one of the many restaurants that she and Robert used to frequent.

 Robert looked startled when his gaze landed on Jane’s face. “Nice to see you.” It was clear from his body language that he didn’t mean it.

 Jane turned on her heel and walked out. The last thing she wanted to do was exchange pleasant chitchat with the person who broke her heart and the woman who helped him do it.

With these few short lines I have shown the reader that Jane went through an ugly divorce because her husband started up with a younger woman. That’s all readers need to know in the moment of this scene.

 That’s what we call exposition, and it’s likely far more engaging than getting an entire chapter that discusses the divorce. As a writer, I might want to know more about the divorce, but the reader never needs to know as much as the author does about events that take place before the manuscript starts.

Further, we feel empathy for Jane because we have all likely experienced that moment of running into an ex when we weren’t expecting it, only to find the wound still raw. It’s show, not tell.

First chapters are not the most exciting chapters, but agents know that is not the purpose of first chapters. First chapters must pull readers in, with all the clues in place to show them that the ending will be worth the wait.

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Image ID: Elena, a white woman with a dark blonde pixie cut is wearing a black jacket and looking into the camera. She is smiling with her chin resting on her fist.

Elena Hartwell Taylor is the Senior Editor & Director of Programming at Allegory Editing. In addition to working as a developmental editor and writing coach, Elena is a published author. Her most recent novel, All We Buried, appears under the name Elena Taylor. The Eddie Shoes Mystery Series appears under Elena Hartwell. Prior to writing novels, Elena worked extensively in the theater as a playwright, director, educator, and designer. She has taught writing and theatre courses at the college/university level for more than twenty years. She holds a PhD in dramatic theory and criticism, a Masters of Education with an emphasis in teaching theatre, and a BA in Mass Media Communications. For more information about Elena, you can visit her website and read her blog about authors, new books, and the writing process. You can contact her at elena@allegoryediting.com.

The Art of Feedback

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Feedback is an essential part of the writing process. It’s also one that many writers dread.

I have an extensive background as a theater artist—an inherently collaborative art that cannot function properly without feedback. As an actor, director, and playwright, I crave and rely on feedback. I’ve come to see it as an essential part of my creative process in all mediums that I work in.

But that doesn’t mean I never struggle with it. Poorly given feedback or feedback on a piece I feel especially raw about can still sting. My task in these instances is to wade through my feelings or get past a less-than-ideal delivery to find the heart of the feedback—that nugget of truth I can use.

Why is feedback so scary for writers?

Neuroscience teaches us that our brains are hardwired to operate on a “minimize danger, maximize reward” principle. This mechanism is designed to keep us safe from anything we perceive as a threat. When delivered ineffectively, feedback can feel threatening, causing us to shut down.

At this point, you’re probably saying to yourself, “But feedback isn’t threatening. What is this lady on about?”

But something doesn’t have to actually be threatening to cause this reaction in our brains. It only has to be perceived as threatening. And that perception has a lot to do with two things: How the feedback is given and how our brains filter the information when we receive it.

Perhaps the person giving me feedback focuses only on what’s wrong with my manuscript without providing any ideas for how I can improve.  Or perhaps the feedback is given in a brilliantly constructive manner, but I’m particularly insecure about my writing and therefore I filter it through a lens of self-doubt, coloring how I receive it.

Therefore, how feedback is delivered and how it is received must both be considered when setting up a constructive critique relationship.

How to give and receive feedback

Imagine a feedback relationship, whether it be with a critique partner, a beta reader, or a professional editor, that feels collaborative, constructive, and mutually respectful. It’s entirely possible. But it requires both parties to be invested in making the experience work.

Here are some suggestions for how to create a constructive feedback relationship:

Tips for receiving writing feedback

Be specific about what you need. Even when you’re working with a professional editor, it’s helpful to let the other person know what questions you have about your piece and what areas you’re struggling with. It’s also a good idea to give them a sense of your vision for the project so they can align their feedback to support that vision.

Ditch the ego. I’ve heard Lin Manuel Miranda’s directing style described as “creating an egoless room,” and I’ve been in love with that concept ever since. As much as possible, let go of wanting or needing to be right. Remain open to the possibility that the other person may have an idea that’s better than yours. It’s not about being right; it’s about making the work the best it can be.

Be mindful of your filters. “Filters” are experiences, biases, memories, and values that shape how we see and interpret the world. These filters influence how we understand and contextualize the things other people say and do. Take stock of your own filters so you can recognize when they may be skewing your perception of the feedback you receive.

Ask clarifying questions. If you’re unsure about a piece of feedback, ask for more information. This is especially important if you disagree with that feedback or if it brings up strong feelings for you. Take time to get yourself calm, and then politely ask the person giving you feedback for further explanation. You may still disagree with their point, but hopefully you will at least understand where they’re coming from.

Check your defensiveness. It’s natural to want to defend our artistic vision. But if we let go of our egos, and if everyone involved in the process is working toward a mutual goal of making the writing the best it can be, we can see there’s nothing to defend against. Believe me, I know this is easier said than done—defensiveness is my personal fatal flaw. But if you’re like me and know this is your default stance, your job is to work extra hard against that instinct when receiving feedback.

Budget time to sit with the feedback. When setting your writing deadlines, add in a minimum of a few days (ideally a week or two) between getting feedback on a piece and starting your rewrites. This breathing room allows you the space to properly digest the feedback and integrate it into your vision for the work.

Tips for giving writing feedback

Start with positives. Opening your feedback with what you liked about the piece helps set a supportive tone. It reduces the chances the writer will immediately put their guard up and go into a defensive mode and increases the chances they will remain open to your feedback.

Consider what will be most constructive for the receiver. Is this an early draft and the writer wants to know if the structure and plot are working? It’s usually more productive at this stage to focus on the bigger picture rather than getting bogged down in the minutiae of every sentence. Did your critique partner come to you with three very specific questions and ask you to focus only on those for the time being? Do your best to stick to that. If you have feedback beyond what they asked for, you can always check in with them to see if they would like it now or later.  

Ask questions. Before giving feedback, ask the writer what they hope to get out of the interaction, what they’re struggling with, and what questions they have about the piece. It can also be useful to find out about their prior experiences receiving feedback—what’s worked and what hasn’t—so you can tailor your approach to match their style.

Remember that it’s not your story. Give feedback that supports the writer’s vision. If your critique partner is writing a cozy mystery but you think a high-stakes shootout would really spice up the plot, well . . . perhaps you need to write your own action story instead.

Allow for follow-up questions. Misunderstandings happen and we’re not always as clear as we think we are. Make yourself available for follow-up questions so the writer can get the most out of your feedback.

Understand that if big feelings do arise, it’s (probably) not personal. If a writer gets defensive or angry or hurt after you give them feedback, remember that receiving feedback is scary for many people. It’s worth examining if there was anything in your delivery that could be improved upon, but it may have more to do with their filters than anything else.

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Image ID: Andrea, a white woman with brown, curly hair, stands in front of a tree. She wears a blue dress and is smiling at the camera.

Andrea Karin Nelson is the Founder & Executive Editor at Allegory Editing. In addition to her developmental editing work with published novelists, playwrights, and essayists, Andrea brings a unique set of experiences and skills to her editing craft. Twenty years as a writer and theater maker has developed her keen sense of story structure, plot and character development. Her plays have been commissioned and produced across the United States and performed in both English and American Sign Language. Fifteen years as a Master-Level, Certified Sign Language Interpreter has finely tuned her ear to the subtleties of language and the nuances of human interactions. And with over two decades as an educator, her teacher's heart allows Andrea to personally tailor her work with each writer. Click here to read an interview about Andrea’s journey founding Allegory. You can contact her at andrea@allegoryediting.com.

How to Use Backstory to Develop Your Characters

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Backstory is paramount to effective character development as well as writing realistic, impactful relationships. When I read a story with one-dimensional characters who don't engage my interest, one of the first thoughts I have is, "I'll bet the writer doesn't really know their characters."

What is backstory?

Put simply, backstory is everything that happens to your characters before your reader meets them. It encompasses a wide variety of elements such as a character's age, where they grew up, and their socioeconomic status. The possibilities are truly endless because, just like people, well-written characters contain multitudes.

How do writers use backstory?

In my past life as an actor, one of the first exercises I would do in preparing for a role was to work on my character's backstory. Some of this would come from clues in the script, while a lot was left up to me as an actor to create. Indeed, the many blanks an actor must fill in for their character's backstory, and all the room for interpretation within that, is part of what makes no two productions of a play the same. 

As fiction writers, you should be able to answer all of the same questions an actor does about your characters. (I have provided my suggested backstory questions at the end of this article.) 

Much of the backstory you develop will not make its way onto the page in a direct way. Indeed, much of your backstory should not be included on the page. But it should influence every scene you write. Who a person is and what they've been through impacts every aspect of their lives, whether consciously or not. 

Backstory for plotters and pantsers 

Some of us (myself included) are what I've heard fondly referred to as "pantsers"—as in we fly by the seat of our pants. We're the writers who jump into a blank page, often with no more than a premise, an image in our heads of an interesting character, or the beginnings of a captivating world. The characters and plot develop organically as we go along, and it is in the rewrites that we make sure all the pieces add up. 

Then there are the "plotters.” These are the writers who plan out all of the plot points ahead of time. Spreadsheets may or may not be involved. Plotters may do some character development as they go along, but they are much more likely to have thought deeply about who the characters are before they begin writing. 

These are vast generalizations, of course, and often writers swing along the spectrum from pantser to plotter, depending on the project. My point is, whether you are a pantser or a plotter, you can benefit from consciously considering backstory. Whether you do it before you put a single word on the page, between your first and second drafts, or at various points along the way, it is an exercise that will benefit any story. 

How to develop a backstory for your characters

Which backstory elements are useful for you will depend on your genre, the story you’re trying to tell, and how your writer brain operates. But here are some backstory questions that are useful to consider. Some questions may seem obvious, but you'd be surprised how often writers can't answer some of the more basic facts about their characters. This list is by no means exhaustive, and not every item on the list will speak to each writer. Use it as a jumping off point to get your creative juices flowing. 

• How old is the character? 

• Where did they grow up? 

• What is their socioeconomic background and current socioeconomic status? 

• What is their marital status and relationship history? 

• How do they feel about it? 

• Do they have children? 

• What is their highest level of education? 

• What do they do for a living? 

• Do they like it? 

• How do they know the other characters? 

• How long have they known them?

• How do they feel about them? 

• Do they get along? 

• Did they always? 

  • If not, why not? 

• What are their plans for the future? 

• Their hopes and dreams? 

• Their fears? 

• What do/did their parents do for a living? 

• How does this influence them? 

• Did they follow in their footsteps or take a different path? 

• Was their childhood happy overall? 

• Were there any traumas? 

• Did they have friends growing up? 

• What about enemies? 

• What is their race and ethnicity? 

• Immigration status? 

• Are these the same as the rest of their family or different?

• In what ways did these elements impact them growing up? 

• What about now? 

• What is their gender identity and sexual orientation? 

• In what ways does their gender and sexuality influence their worldview? 

• If they are not straight and/or cisgendered, have they come out yet? 

• When? 

• To whom?

• What was that experience like? 

• What kind of religious beliefs and practices (if any) were they raised with?

• Have they maintained those, or gone a different direction? 

• What is their biggest mistake and/or regret in life? 

• What is their biggest accomplishment or joy?

Final thoughts

Creating a robust backstory for your characters is one of the most important things a writer can do. The practice allows you to develop multidimensional characters that will appeal to readers and help them feel connected to the story. It can also help drive your plot. Whether you’re a “plotter” or a “pantser,” taking the time to consider backstory is paramount for every writer of fiction, memoir, and creative nonfiction.

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Image ID: Andrea, a white woman with brown, curly hair, stands in front of a tree. She wears a blue dress and is smiling at the camera.

Andrea Karin Nelson is the Founder & Executive Editor at Allegory Editing. In addition to her developmental editing work with published novelists, playwrights, and essayists, Andrea brings a unique set of experiences and skills to her editing craft. Twenty years as a writer and theater maker has developed her keen sense of story structure, plot and character development. Her plays have been commissioned and produced across the United States and performed in both English and American Sign Language. Fifteen years as a Master-Level, Certified Sign Language Interpreter has finely tuned her ear to the subtleties of language and the nuances of human interactions. And with over two decades as an educator, her teacher's heart allows Andrea to personally tailor her work with each writer. Click here to read an interview about Andrea’s journey founding Allegory. You can contact her at andrea@allegoryediting.com.

Commas & Periods & Dashes, Oh My!

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I just ate some spicy Thai delicious food. (Or was it delicious, spicy Thai food?) Because of that large meal, I can’t comfortably zip my black small dress. (Or is it my small black dress?)

This is one of the linguistic rabbit holes into which we writers often fall. And with the recent increased fascination with Royal Family news, it’s timely.

What I call “adjective confusion” has a formal name: the royal order of adjectives. It doesn’t have anything to do with Harry and Meghan, though—unless you’re writing a sentence like this: Harry and Meghan are attractive, intelligent, famous people who live in the sunny, warm, celebrity-studded American city of Montecito, California.

The so-called proper order of adjectives calls for the following placement, although variations do exist: opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose noun. The official rules are often unknown to native English speakers; many of us employ them by instinct honed over time. Teachers may encourage English language learners to memorize the proper order of adjectives, undoubtedly causing headaches and eye rolls.

How about this? “I bought a lovely small old rusted green metal frying pan.”

Granted, we don’t write sentences like this, and that’s for the best. We do, however, employ the royal order in shorter sentences: He has short black hair. We stayed at a drafty little lake cabin. My grandmother has an impressive antique silver jewelry collection.

Discussion of adjective order invariably leads to a discussion of commas, specifically comma use with adjectives. Here, we find a new and enjoyable rabbit hole: cumulative and coordinate adjectives and how to punctuate (or not punctuate) them. But we’ll leave that one for another time.

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Amy, a caucasian woman with brown hair and glasses, smiles facing the camera. Behind her is a large tree.

Amy Cecil Holm is Allegory Editing’s resident Copy Editor and Proofreader. As a copy editor and proofreader, Amy draws upon more than three decades of teaching college English to help authors polish their prose. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in creative writing and has worked as a journalist, technical writer, and educator. Amy has taught courses in English composition, literature, creative writing, journalistic writing, business writing, and developmental reading, among others. She has a keen understanding of grammar, punctuation, and diction and uses her careful attention to detail to help prepare manuscripts for submission and publication.

Build Your Characters, Build Your Plot

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The literary community often talks about plot and character as separate entities, and for many reasons that’s a useful way to discuss those components.

But the reality is more nuanced.

Plot is built from character action. Without action there is no plot; without characters there is no action.

So how do throughlines, spines, and big questions help writers build both plot and character?

I like to talk about throughlines as bread crumbs through the forest. Each one must be visible to the next or the trail ends. If they’re too close together, the reader can get irritated because the scenes are redundant or repetitive, just as a person searching for the next bread crumb in the forest doesn’t need a marker every few inches.

Each scene, each chapter, is a bread crumb, leading the reader from beginning to end.

Spines are like the binding on a book. They hold the pages together—in a specific order. Without a spine, the book would fall apart, the pages becoming hopelessly jumbled. Readers faced with a bound book versus a pile of unorganized pages will choose the bound book every time.

Stories are similar. Readers want the scenes to connect … eventually. Scenes can appear to occur out of order, jumping around in time, place, and viewpoint character. But by the final page, readers can look back and understand that what appeared as disorder was actually a carefully crafted plot held together with the spine.

Big questions are those wonderful openings that hook readers, culminating in a satisfying answer at the end. Writers can use a big question to help them understand what the book is really about, then be confident in a solid ending by answering the question. The answer might be yes or no, or even maybe, but regardless of the answer, the question is addressed fully during the climax of the story.

Each of these concepts can be applied to any manuscript. By understanding and using them during the writing process, complex characters will emerge, and a tight, engaging plot will take readers—including agents and editors—on the thrill of the adventure, the sweetness of the love story, or the poignancy of the coming-of-age. All genres can be improved with the use of throughlines, spines, and big questions.

Writers of narrative nonfiction also benefit from these concepts. Any story, regardless of whether it’s fiction or a retelling of a true event, needs structure and complex characters to truly shine.

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IMAGE ID: Elena, a white woman with long blonde hair, smiles at the camera.

Elena Hartwell Taylor is the Senior Editor & Director of Programming at Allegory Editing. In addition to working as a developmental editor and writing coach, Elena is a published author. Her most recent novel, All We Buried, appears under the name Elena Taylor. The Eddie Shoes Mystery Series appears under Elena Hartwell. Prior to writing novels, Elena worked extensively in the theater as a playwright, director, educator, and designer. She has taught writing and theatre courses at the college/university level for more than twenty years. She holds a PhD in dramatic theory and criticism, a Masters of Education with an emphasis in teaching theatre, and a BA in Mass Media Communications. For more information about Elena, you can visit her website and read her blog about authors, new books, and the writing process. You can contact her at elena@allegoryediting.com.

Let’s Talk about Point of View

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Some of the most common errors I see in manuscripts are issues with point of view. Oftentimes, those issues come about because writers aren’t clear on their point-of-view characters. Other times, the problem lies in the POV character’s point of view.

Why is point of view important in writing?

Choosing who tells a story—and in what POV they tell it—is one of the most important decisions a writer can make. I, you, she, he, they … all of these have pros and cons. Add in third person limited, but multiple, and first person interspersed with chapters from third person omniscient, and the potential for mistakes goes up exponentially.

How does genre impact point of view?

Some genres lend themselves to certain POVs, such as the sassy female detective story told in first person. The Alphabet Series from Sue Grafton, which started out, “My name is Kinsey Millhone,” launched an entire genre back in the eighties. We also see the sweeping fantasy with extensive worldbuilding done in third person omniscient. It’s storytelling from an all-knowing view with access to every character and any event the writer sees fit to include.

This does not mean a writer has to write with those POVs or that first person can’t work in a sweeping fantasy, but understanding the limitations of first person might make a fantasy writer think twice before choosing to put intimacy with character ahead of access to greater world building details.

Common POV mistakes writers make

Head-hopping (leaping from POV to POV and confusing the reader) and including information that a character doesn’t have access to, and therefore can’t inform the reader, are common problems and can derail even the best of stories.

Writers can also miss out on the advantages of a specific POV. First person is the most intimate of POVs, but if the POV character doesn’t share their internal landscape, what’s the point of limiting all the other information in the story? An omniscient POV allows for the reader to experience everything in the world that the author created, so if readers can’t explore that environment and be in on all the secrets, why force them to distance from the protagonist?

Whether writing memoir and not mining first person for all it’s worth or writing a thriller with multiple points of view but lacking tension in each scene, fixing point-of-view can take a problem manuscript to a polished, publishable level.

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IMAGE ID: Elena, a white woman with long, dark blonde hair, smiles at the camera.

Elena Hartwell Taylor is the Senior Editor & Director of Programming at Allegory Editing. In addition to working as a developmental editor and writing coach, Elena is a published author. Her most recent novel, All We Buried, appears under the name Elena Taylor. The Eddie Shoes Mystery Series appears under Elena Hartwell. Prior to writing novels, Elena worked extensively in the theater as a playwright, director, educator, and designer. She has taught writing and theatre courses at the college/university level for more than twenty years. She holds a PhD in dramatic theory and criticism, a Masters of Education with an emphasis in teaching theatre, and a BA in Mass Media Communications. For more information about Elena, you can visit her website and read her blog about authors, new books, and the writing process. You can contact her at elena@allegoryediting.com.