Don’t make it hard on yourself. Without feedback, one of two things will likely happen:

1. You’ll think your first draft is so wonderful and perfect that you’ll send it out, not realizing you have terrible grammar, spelling and/or serious plot and characterization flaws.
2. You’ll think your writing is the worst piece of junk, second guess yourself, give credence to your fears, and never write again.

Despite the image of  the hermit writer holed up in his study, churning out masterpieces, humans are gregarious creatures that need feedback from our peers. Here are some ways to get balanced opinions of our work:

1. Join or start a writers group. Look for a group of writers of similar experience. If you’re editing that final draft of your first (or second) book, you aren’t going to get much help from someone brand new to writing. Their m/s will be full of basic errors, or crummy dialog or plotting (we were all there once!), and they’ll probably be too shy to critique your work properly. Newbies lean towards praise rather than honesty. Similarly, if you’re working on your first ever draft, attending a group full of bestselling authors (wow, how did you get so lucky?), their polished, professional work might discourage you more than inspire. I’ll blog about writers groups again soon, but get a handful of people, not so many that no one gets time to critique, but not so few that you end up canceling if one or two can’t make a session. Places to look: craigslist, meetup.com.
2. Find a critique partner. Find a fellow writer, again at about the same experience level, and regularly swap chapters or scenes. You can do this face to face at the coffee shop, or by email. The advantage to email is that you can mark each other’s m/s up in Word, not only edits but suggestions too. You can also offer encouragement, hold each other to deadlines, etc.
3. Join a professional critiquing group. Critters is a good example of this. You’re likely to get a large number of people reading your scenes, and the feedback is going to be brutally honest, since most people don’t know each other. Like all groups though, you have to give as much as take, and online groups typically enforce this by validating that you critique other people’s work before they can see yours.
4. Use beta readers. You don’t need writers for this one, just people willing and interested in reading your m/s. They may take an entire copy, or may want you to feed it to them chapter by chapter. You’ll probably get better feedback with the second method. Remember that they aren’t writers, and probably not good critiquers or editors either. Don’t expect your chapter back all nicely edited up in Word. You’re looking for big picture items here: Was it interesting or boring, was the plot flawed, the characters believable? Consider avoiding friends and family. More often than not, they are over-nice to avoid hurting your feelings, and you won’t get an accurate assessment of your m/s.
5. Use an editor. At the end of your project, get it professionally edited. It will make all the difference. You might be lucky to have an editor friend, but otherwise expect to pay, and make sure you find someone reputable. Ask around. You can opt for a pure copy editor if you are confident about your plot and characters.

In all of the above, seek a mix of people in and out of your target genre/audience. A good story should impress someone even if they don’t read your genre. If you’re writing cyberpunk, for example, obviously other cyberpunk fans can provide excellent feedback on your tech, jargon and genre plot; but that historical romance writer will be forced to look beyond that to how well your dialog works, or your scene structure, pacing, etc.

Finally, look for a balanced critique that includes not only the nuts and bolts of grammar, spelling and craft, but also the big picture; the  overarching plot, subplots, tension, protagonist vs. antagonist etc.

And remember, it’s always more fun when you’re not battling your m/s alone. Good luck.

How long is a chapter, and should I give them names? I’ve had this question several times now, and I’m sure established authors have a million times, but I always enjoy answering questions from first time writers like myself.

How long is a chapter? It’s so tempting to reply “how long is a piece of string”, but that doesn’t really help, does it? Well, it depends on your preference and style of course. Many authors have long chapters of 10,000 or 20,000 words, or sometimes no chapters at all. They probably don’t want to break up the pace. Others, like Dan Brown in “The Da Vinci Code”, keep a tight pace by breaking every 1000 words or less; an interesting device that gives the novel a more frantic, exciting pace. What effect are are you going for? A popular choice is to break every time you switch between characters, particularly if you are shifting point of view. If your plot follows a tight sequence of time, you could break every hour or every day. If you are shifting between disparate locations, like countries, or time periods, the chapter break is a useful mechanism. Somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 words is typical.

The only real rule is to make sure that your chapter break makes sense. Readers like a neat place to put down a book, so a frequent break allows them to read a chapter or two in a spare moment. Some readers are happy stopping wherever they happen to be, mid-page if necessary, but I’m sure a lot of people are like me, and feel psychologically safer stopping at the end of a chapter. After all, that’s exactly where the author intended a break, right?

Personally, I like to end most of my chapters on some kind of cliffhanger or hook, so that the reader eagerly awaits picking up the book again. Frank is dangling over the cliff and the rope is shredding! Try to avoid ending the chapter with the character going to bed. It sounds logical, but it doesn’t leave the reader wanting more. It’s also tempting to get to the end of that fight or chase sequence before breaking, but it’s a lot more dramatic to stop right in the middle at a pivotal point. The hero spins around just as the assassin throws the knife, aimed between his eyes. I mark my chapter breaks on the second draft, and try to split the book into roughly equal parts. My goal is 3,000 to 4,000 words.

So what about naming your chapters? I think it’s safe to say that the majority of novels don’t, but naming does seem to be more popular with YA or younger. I like chapter names; they’re fun. The secret is to say just enough to intrigue the reader but not enough to give the game away. If you want your reader to be shocked by a ship’s mutiny, clearly don’t name the chapter Mutiny! You can even make it cryptic and let the reader figure out how the chapter got its name. A fine example is Shortcut to Mushrooms in The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. By the end of the chapter, you get it.

I like to anticipate what the reader wants to know next, and use the chapter name as a hook, e.g. you’ve had a mysterious black-hooded stranger asking around the village about the hero. When the reader reaches the chapter, The Stranger Unveiled, he knows the secret (or part of it) is about to be revealed. Traitor! is a popular one when you have a group of characters. While you have apparently ruined the surprise that there is a traitor, you have actually amped the suspense; which one of them is the traitor? Can the reader guess? Hopefully, he pauses to review the story so far, excitedly looking for clues. Everyone loves to solve the crime; after all an entire genre is based upon that premise.

Have fun with the names, and remember that the length can be whatever makes sense for your book.

Does your protagonist drive your plot, or is he just along for the ride? It’s usually easy to spot: the plot or other characters advance the story and the protagonist simply reacts to events.

This is ok in moderation. We can’t expect the hero to do everything. Often, he isn’t in control of events, certainly isn’t omniscient, and ends up in reactionary mode from time to time. You can still write a dramatic scene around this. Sometimes, secondary characters get to make the discoveries or decisions, get to move to center stage so that we can develop their character. No, I’m talking about those times when the hero can lead the scene, but doesn’t, due to an oversight or laziness on the author’s part.

I’ve been reworking scenes in which I failed to seize opportunities to show my hero in action. The protagonist, and maybe one or two other main characters, should carry the bulk of the action, since the reader has the most invested in them. No one cares about the minor character to stage left that says his piece and leaves, or dies horribly to heighten the risk to our hero. Now rewritten, my scenes are considerably more interesting, and advance the plot more dramatically, when my hero leads.

As an example, I just rewrote a scene in which a dead body is discovered by a secondary character, who proceeds to protect my heroine by pushing her away, sheltering her. What was I thinking? I thought this a believable act on his behalf. In reality, I just lost a ton of terror-filled drama.  In the rewrite, she stumbles over the corpse. The reader is deluged with a torrent of raw emotion: shock, disgust, terror, loss. Then she fights attempts to lead her away, chiding her friend for treating her like a baby, and both of them narrowly avoid becoming victims to the killer. Which version would you prefer to read?

Sounds easy, but I have read a number of books or manuscripts where the author seems content with a passive plot. Put your hero on the edge, put him in danger, make him emotionally vulnerable, let him be hurt and get back up. He should disagree, argue, go against the grain, or have his own agenda. An active plot means so much more than physical action.

Take a scene which you consider slow, on the cutting block, or one in which your protagonist is reactionary. Now rewrite it centered on the hero. Let him make the first move, make the discovery, take control. This is an effective way to spice up one-sided, information dump conversations. Avoid your hero simply taking it all in, nodding his head, asking passive leading questions. Instead, let him ask awkward questions, interrupt the speaker, challenge him, argue, contradict. Try it. The results are totally worth it.