Writing a novel is hard work, a challenging experience for the body as well as the mind. Not only does it require commitment, discipline and a lot of optimism, it asks us to be honest, dig deep and distinguish between our thoughts and feelings. In essence, writing a novel demands that we look for our buried truths, bring them out and process them as though they were someone else’s.

Separating your story from your desires, ideas and feelings about it is a challenging, if not an impossible task. You’ve got things to say to the world, important things you’ve dug out of that deep well of your own experiences. Some storytellers might have scores to settle, lessons to teach and points to make, and it’s often those intentions that keep them from seeing their story as a living organism in its own right. Sometimes they get lucky and their intentions come out beautifully without stifling the story, but more often than not, those intentions act as a hammer that puts nails in all the wrong places. Characters become mouthpieces for their lessons and move stiffly from one scene to the next, as if dragged along by an invisible hand.

It’s the storyteller’s task to keep that hand from showing. A good storyteller knows to keep the backstage curtain drawn at all times and make sure the reader never senses the author’s presence. A good storyteller will seat the reader in the front row and give them what they came for: the story. They won’t allow them to peek at the mess of tangled chords, props and notes that is backstage.

Because as storytellers, we pledge allegiance to the story. To do that, we must kill our darlings, the beloved parts or characters we hold dear, even though they do disservice to our story. Destroying your own creation is tough, especially if you’re attached to it. However, once the story is on the page, it will make its own demands and those might be different from how you wanted the story to unfold.

But how do you know when something doesn’t work? Here are a few common tell-signs:

1) The characters are flat and/or used as tools
When I was writing my second spy thriller, Toni, my protagonist, stopped playing nice. The plot I outlined fell flat and with each new chapter she withdrew more from the story. I had to stop, rewind and rethink the entire story, this time with Toni in the driving seat. Once I took a step back, it was easy to see that I’d tried to impose an old plot onto my character, who had meanwhile developed and grown and wanted to do other things.
Perhaps you’ll have to remove a side character, because they don’t serve any other purpose. It doesn’t matter that you adore that character, nor that they have a special message to deliver, one you’ve been chiselling with love for weeks. If that line propels the story forward, keep it, but give it to another character. If not, cut it out.
Characters that pop out of nowhere and hop around for a few chapters before they disappear again are distracting to the reader. They’ll wonder who they are and what their purpose is. They’ll expect them to re-appear and develop. Their absence will stick out, like a hand from backstage that shouldn’t be seen during the play.

2) ’Floating’ scenes
You’ve got one or more scenes that are meaningful and perhaps beautifully written, scenes you desperately want to keep but regardless of where you put them, they don’t quite seem to fit. Instead, they ‘float’ on top of the story. When this happens, remove the scene(s) from the manuscript, park them in a separate folder, and rework the story. Does it work without them? If yes, congratulations! You’ve just spotted a darling you needed to kill. If not, delve deeper into the scene’s goals and develop it further.

3) The ending/twist/reveal doesn’t work
Perhaps you started writing the story with a great ending/twist in mind, only now that the story is down on the page, the ending no longer works. That’s likely because your story has evolved and morphed and calls for a different solution. A way to resolve this is to brainstorm for at least ten possible alternatives. This will likely unlock your creative flow and get you back on track.

‘But why?’ you might ask. ‘What if the reader never picks up on any of these darlings, or even ends up liking them?’

Well, the reader might not be able to say exactly what’s wrong, but they’re sure to notice ‘something strange’. That ‘something strange’ will keep bothering them, drawing their attention away from the story on the page. Their brain will furiously process bits of information, trying to figure out how they fit in. People are wired to look for patterns and structures, so we’re sure to notice things that don’t fit. As a result, your reader will spend more time trying to make sense of those loose bits and fit them in than reading the actual story you spent so much time crafting. Are you sure you want to risk that?

4) There is no story
I’ve read well-written novels written by very clever people, except those novels had no story to tell. Sure there was a plot, a set of events that were supposed to happen. They had characters, too, fictional people those events happened to, but it wasn’t the characters driving the story forward. They were dragged along, reluctantly reenacting each planned scene.

The writers were so focused on the plot that they forgot to let the reader in on their characters’ dreams and fears, giving the reader a reason to care and root for them. And if readers don’t have a reason to care and root for the characters, they’ve got no reason to continue reading. More persistent readers might continue reading for a while longer to see what happens, but if they don’t care whom it happens to, they also won’t care why it happens.

It takes more than a plot to give a satisfactory reading experience. If we read friction for the sake of plot, we could save ourselves a lot of time and just read the synopsis. Instead, people invest hours, weeks and months of their lives to get lost in a story. Make sure to give them what they came for.

To do so, the storyteller needs to put the story first and make sure that every scene, every character, every piece of dialogue and detail serves the story. If it doesn’t, it’s excessive decoration, padding that needs to be cut out.
Before you can revise your own work with the eyes of a reader, you’ll need to acquire a distance to your creation. The best way to do that is to put the manuscript in a proverbial drawer for a few weeks, then print it out and revise it with a fresh set of eyes. It’s this kind of clarity that makes a massive difference in writing.
But even with that, sometimes it helps to hire a professional, e.g. a developmental editor or a book coach, and allow them to reshape your story into the best possible version of itself.