A Novel Checklist Revisited

Here's one of my favorite posts from last year:

I was re-working the outline and first few chapters of my fourth Detective Jackson novel and a few things were bothering me. So I went back to the basics and decided to share my eight-point checklist.

Story arc. Does the protagonist grow and evolve? Is the narrative smooth or does it have gaps in logic?

Plot. Is your plot logical? Do you have important scenes that would make a reader say “No one would ever do that”? Is your plot both linear and complex?

Point of view. Is your POV consistent for large chunks of text? Do you tell each scene from the point of view of the character who has the most to lose?

Dialogue. Does each character use distinctive word choices? Do you break up long conversations with body language and movement?

Info dumps. Do you have big chunks of exposition that slow the story down? Can they be broken up or shared as dialogue?

Characters. Are your characters both believable and unique? Is their behavior consistent within the story framework?

Language. Do you use of mix of long and short sentences? Are there overused words or phrases (of course, just, even, that)?

Unresolved issues. Is every plot line resolved and questions accounted for? If something is bothering you, it will bother your readers.

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L.J. Sellers is an award-winning journalist, editor, and the author of the Detective Jackson mysteries, The Sex Club , Secrets to Die For, and Thrilled to Death, and two standalone thrillers, The Baby Thief and The Suicide Effect. All are available on Kindle for $2.99. Contact her at:

L.J. Sellers

Write First, Clean Later