7 Ways a Fiction Book Coach Supports Writers

Feedback from a fiction book coach is one of the quickest ways to improve fiction writing skills as you write your story.

When you work with a fiction coach, you'll be supported to improve your writing by a professional developmental editor who has been trained to analyse stories and provide feedback that empowers you to keep writing. 

Here are 7 ways a fiction book coach supports writers to get their book on the page and take a step closer to publication:

1. You'll have the support you need to write and finish your story draft and with feedback provided as your write, you'll have a draft that reads like it has been through multiple revisions, which means that you'll have less rewriting ahead of you. 
2. You'll become aware of plot holes and address them in early drafts which means you'll have a strong plot with tight scenes that build one on the other and increase the stakes of the story. 
3. You'll develop layered characters who have internal and external conflicts, strong motivations to act and story goals that have them facing obstacles and taking action. This means you'll have characters with agency on the page and that means you'll have a story readers want to keep reading so they can find out how the character overcomes the story obstacles. 
4. You'll ensure your story's point of view (POV) is consistent, info dumping is eliminated and this information sprinkled throughout the action of the scenes so that the information is delivered when the reader needs it for context.
5. You'll learn to write in scenes that show emotional reactions and imply meaning to the reader rather than telling the reader how the character feels about what is happening in the story. This means you'll learn to write with showing in mind and use telling strategically to move quickly over boring bits and compress time. 
6. You'll learn to see the opportunities to improve the structure, the characters, world building, story logic and become aware of filter words and phrases (such as 'realised', 'wondered', 'he felt') that put distance between the character and the reader. You'll become aware of tautologies - when you're saying the same thing twice but in different ways which means you'll cut out redundancy and repetition in your story and your prose will be stronger. 
7. You'll learn to cut out tangents and write scenes and characters with purpose that drive the story toward the climax, creating a cohesive story. Tangents happens as you explore the story to discover it, and that's perfectly fine, but at some point, you'll have to identify them and cut them out as they don't serve the story.

When you work with a fiction coach as you write your story, you'll have someone to:

• test story ideas with
• think through plot problems
• dive deeper into character motivation
• build character circuitry between the protagonist and antagonist which drives conflict, and
• help you save years of rewriting which means you'll be writing efficiently and with focus to create the story of your heart.

Here's what Saskia had to say about the feedback she received on her manuscript:

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