Is My Novel Any Good? How to Tell Before Anyone Reads It
You cannot judge your own novel from the inside, but you can run the tests an editor runs. Seven of them, what each one finds, and what they cannot tell you.
By EdithReviewed by Kris6 min read
TL;DR
You cannot tell whether your novel is good by reading it, because you know what you meant and you read it into every gap. What you can do is run the tests an editor runs first: say what the protagonist wants in one sentence, read a middle chapter cold, find where you skim your own book, give ten pages to a stranger and ask only where they stopped, remove a scene and see what breaks, check that the last chapter answers the first, and notice whether all your feedback so far is praise. Each test finds a kind of problem and points at the stage of editing that fixes it. What none of them can tell you is why, or whether the problem is worth fixing, which is what an honest outside read is for. Edith reads your first 10,000 words free and the whole book for $15, and tells you what she found.
Somewhere around the third full read of a finished draft, every novelist types the same question into a search box, usually late at night. Is it any good? The honest answer is that you cannot tell from where you are standing, and the reasons are worth understanding before you try, because they are the same reasons nobody around you will tell you either, which we covered in how to get honest feedback on your novel.
You know what you meant. Every scene you wrote arrives in your head with the version you intended, so when the page falls short, you read the intention into the gap and never see the gap. You know the backstory, so a motivation that is nowhere on the page feels obvious. You wrote chapter three in a good week and chapter nineteen in a bad one, and you remember the weeks, not the chapters. None of that is a lack of skill. It is what being the author means. The question is not how to see your book clearly, which you cannot, but how to get evidence about it that does not depend on seeing clearly. That is what the tests below are for.
Seven tests an editor runs before anyone else reads it
These are the first things an editor checks on a finished manuscript, in roughly the order she checks them. Each one is something you can do alone, with a printout and a pen. Each finds a different kind of problem, and each points at the kind of editing that fixes it, which we set out in which type of editing does your book need.
- The one-sentence test. Write down what the protagonist wants and what is stopping them, in one sentence, without looking at the book. If it takes a paragraph, or the want changes halfway through the sentence, or you can only describe what happens to them, the story has a developmental problem and no amount of polish will reach it.
- The cold middle test. Open the book at chapter five, or whatever a third of the way in is, and read one chapter as if you had never seen it. Then answer: what promise from chapter one is this chapter keeping? If you cannot name one, the thread has slipped. Authors describe this as the book forgetting its own beginning, and it is the commonest note on a first novel.
- The skim test. Read the whole book in one or two sittings, with a pencil, and mark every place where your eye started to skim. Be honest: it is your own book and you still skipped. A reader who owes you nothing will skip harder in the same places, and those places are a map of your structural problems.
- The stranger test. Give the first ten pages to someone who does not love you and ask them one question only: where did you stop reading, or want to? Not whether they liked it. Where they stopped. The page number is data; the compliment is not. Our guide to what beta readers can and cannot tell you covers how to ask more than that.
- The cut test. Pick a scene at random and imagine it gone. What breaks? If the answer is a later scene, a reveal, a change in a character, the scene is earning its place. If the answer is nothing, that is a note, and there are usually more of those scenes than you think, clustered in the middle.
- The ending test. Read chapter one and the last chapter back to back. Chapter one asks a question, whether or not you knew it when you wrote it. Does the ending answer that question, or a different one? Endings that land soft are usually answering a question the opening never asked.
- The compliment test. Make a list of every piece of feedback the book has had. If all of it is praise, you have no information. Not because the praise is false, but because people who like you will find the thing they can say nicely and say that, and the problems are in what they left out.
What the tests find, and what fixes it
Test: One sentence
- What it usually finds
- A story without a clear want, or with two
- Which stage fixes it
- Developmental
Test: Cold middle
- What it usually finds
- A thread dropped between the opening and the middle
- Which stage fixes it
- Developmental, then structural
Test: Skim
- What it usually finds
- Scenes that do not change anything; a plateau in the middle
- Which stage fixes it
- Structural
Test: Stranger
- What it usually finds
- An opening that promises the wrong book, or nothing
- Which stage fixes it
- Developmental, sometimes line
Test: Cut
- What it usually finds
- Scenes that could vanish; subplots that go nowhere
- Which stage fixes it
- Structural
Test: Ending
- What it usually finds
- An ending answering a question the opening never asked
- Which stage fixes it
- Developmental
Test: Compliment
- What it usually finds
- Nothing yet, because nobody honest has read it
- Which stage fixes it
- An honest outside read, first
| Test | What it usually finds | Which stage fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| One sentence | A story without a clear want, or with two | Developmental |
| Cold middle | A thread dropped between the opening and the middle | Developmental, then structural |
| Skim | Scenes that do not change anything; a plateau in the middle | Structural |
| Stranger | An opening that promises the wrong book, or nothing | Developmental, sometimes line |
| Cut | Scenes that could vanish; subplots that go nowhere | Structural |
| Ending | An ending answering a question the opening never asked | Developmental |
| Compliment | Nothing yet, because nobody honest has read it | An honest outside read, first |
Seven self-tests for a finished novel, the problem each one usually finds, and the stage of editing that fixes it
Notice that nothing in the table says line editing or copyediting. That is not because the sentences do not matter. It is because a novel is never bad at the sentence level first. A reader who stops on page forty stops because of the story, and the order you fix things in follows from that, as what order to edit your novel explains. Polishing prose in a book that fails the one-sentence test is the most common way authors spend money and get nowhere.
What "good" means, and when
Part of what makes the question unanswerable is that it is three questions. Is the story good: does someone want something, is it hard, does it change them? Is the book built well: does every scene move the story, is the middle a climb rather than a plateau, does the ending have room? And is the writing good: is each sentence clear, does the voice hold, does the dialogue sound like people? A novel can pass any one of these and fail the others, and most first novels fail them in order, which is why the stages of editing exist in the order they do. When you ask whether your book is good, ask which of the three you mean. The tests above answer the first two. The third you cannot judge at all until the first two are settled, because the sentences you are judging may not survive.
What the tests cannot tell you
A test can tell you that chapter five has lost the thread. It cannot tell you whether that matters, or why it happened, or what the cheapest fix is, or whether the slow middle is slow on purpose and the real problem is that the reader was never given a reason to wait. That is judgement, and it needs a reader who has read the whole book, owes you nothing, and will say what they found. For most of publishing's history that reader cost two thousand dollars and took six weeks, which is why how much a book editor costs is the next search most authors make.
What that read looks like is an editorial letter: several pages on what is working, what is holding the book back, and where to start, with the reasons. We walked through a real one in what an editorial letter looks like. Edith writes one on your first 10,000 words for nothing, and on the whole book for $15, as her Editorial Review. It is honest by design, because an editor who flatters you is the compliment test failing again at a higher price, and it is the only answer to "is my novel any good" that comes from outside your own head. Whether you then take the complete edit, work through the notes alone, or hand a stronger draft to a human editor is your call. The point is that you would be deciding with information instead of at two in the morning.
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Frequently asked questions
- How do I know if my writing is good?
- You cannot judge it from the inside, because you read what you meant into every gap. Get evidence that does not depend on your own reading: write the protagonist's want in one sentence, read a middle chapter cold, mark where you skim your own book, give ten pages to a stranger and ask only where they stopped, and check whether the ending answers the opening's question. Then get one honest outside read of the whole book.
- Is my novel good enough to publish?
- Ask which kind of good you mean. The story (does someone want something, is it hard, do they change), the build (does every scene move it, does the middle climb, does the ending have room), and the writing (clarity, voice, dialogue). Most first drafts fail them in that order, and an outside read tells you which you are failing. Publishing before the first two are settled is how a book collects polite reviews and no readers.
- Why can't my friends tell me if my book is good?
- Because they like you, and because they are not editors. People who like you find the thing they can say kindly and say it; the problems live in what they leave out. Even an honest friend can tell you where they got bored, which is useful, but not why, or what it is costing the book, or what to do about it.
- What does an editor look at first?
- Whether the story works, before anything about the sentences: what the protagonist wants, whether the opening's promise is kept through the middle, whether each scene changes something, and whether the ending answers the question the book asked. Edith's Editorial Review is that first read, on the whole manuscript, written as a letter you can discuss.
Reviewed by
Kris·Founder of Edith
Kris built Edith for his wife, a self-publishing novelist who could not afford a human editor for every book. He reads every article on this blog and checks it against its sources before it goes live. Read the story