Identifying your story’s strengths is key, not just so you can lean into it, but also so you can recognize and shore up any weaknesses. The last thing you want is to wow readers with something awesome… only to shortchange them.
How to Identify Your Story’s Strengths
Ask yourself this one important question: What is the best part of your book? I’m not necessarily talking about the best scene; I’m talking about the best piece of your book, the best aspect. For example, it might be:
- A really great character.
- The interaction between two particular characters.
- Your action scenes
- Your mastery of suspense
It could be any number of things, depending on your particular story and your strengths as an author.
The point of all this is to consciously identify your story’s greatest strength. You should do this for two reasons:
1. So you can also identify and work on your weaknesses.
2. So you can make sure you’re doing everything you can to play up that strength.
The last thing you want is to add an awesome aspect to your story… and then fail to take advantage of it. More to the point, you don’t want to hook readers in with this awesome aspect—and impress them and make them fall in love with your story—only to then fail to pay off this anticipation by giving them what they want.
A Real-World Example: When a Story Fails to Deliver on Its Strengths
I’m currently reading a fantasy novel that does a great job with the witty repartee between its two main characters. This was the aspect that hooked me from page one. The author’s extremely good at their dialogue. It’s entertaining, and it’s fun. But… there’s just not enough of it.
The author chose to depart from these main characters for long sections of the story, and, not surprisingly, those long sections are where my attention starts to flag, even to the point of skimming and wanting to put the book down.
This is an important lesson. Identify what parts of your story readers will like best—and which parts they will like least. Then do your best to give them as much as possible of the former, and as little as possible of the latter.
