Once you’re absolutely clear on what fiction genre or nonfiction genre you’re writing in, it’s time to take a closer look at the overarching elements of your story.
We’ll tackle a few of these in future posts as we continue our developmental editing journey, such as the structure of your story and the development of your characters. But in this article, we’ll focus on the thing with many names:
Genre tropes
Genre beats
Genre conventions
Reader expectations.
In this article, I’ll call them reader expectations.
These appear in both fiction and nonfiction, so this article can be used no matter what genre you write.
You can also watch the video below for an explanation and see an example as I analyze my own work in progress.
Recap: What Are Reader Expectations?
Reader expectations are essentially a combination of “tropes” or typical plot points that occur within the genre. These are things that readers will expect within your book, whether they’re aware of it or not.
For instance, romance readers expect a happy ever after, epic fantasy often has the chosen one as a protagonist, and a detective has red herrings and clues throughout.
In nonfiction, readers will expect clear bullet points with action steps, anecdotes of familiar situations, and some references to back up the author’s claims.
All of these are elements of the genre that should appear in your book. This doesn’t mean your book will become a cliched and tropey fabrication.
You can use these expectations to your advantage; do something new and unexpected with them or combine them with tropes from another genre to create something new.
1. Check Your Manuscript Against Your List
Do you have your list with reader expectations?
If not, don’t worry. While I would generally recommend you create it before you start writing (if only so the genre is solidified in your brain as you start writing), there’s no law that says you have to.
If you feel better writing your story without such a list in mind—maybe you feel more creative freedom that way—by all means, don’t do something that doesn’t fit with your process just because I recommend it.
To give a short recap, what you’ll want to do is:
Pick a couple of books in your genre. Ideally, go to Amazon’s bestseller list in your genre and pick about three or four that are similar to your story.
Read these books and take notes on:
Setting details
Types of conflict
Character roles
Catalysts
Inciting incidents
Turning points
Resolutions
Revelations
Decisions.
Compare all the elements within the books. You’ll notice that there are a couple that will always be somewhat similar, while others will be more unique to that book.
The ones that are similar throughout (so in all books or three out of four) will be the ones you want to look out for in your manuscript.
Note: for nonfiction, except for memoir, you’ll want to look more at:
How the author presents the information
How other characters are used to add substance
How many or how few references there are
How the reader is addressed
Tone of voice
Inciting incidents
Turning Points
Resolutions
Revelations.
In this step, all you want to do is check whether the expectation is present in your manuscript or not.
If it’s present, note how you’ve applied this reader expectation.
2. Changes That Will Improve Your Story
Now that you have an idea of what’s in your story and what may need to be included, let’s have a look at some improvements.
First, look at the ones you already have. Answer the following questions:
What about this reader expectation makes it unique in comparison to the other books?
How does this particular expectation affect the stakes of the story?
For nonfiction, it’s not as much about being unique in the aspect of story as it is in the information you provide. And it’s not so much about stakes as it is about how it affects the understanding of the reader; you want to make sure you’re taking the reader on a journey.
If it’s not yet quite unique, see if you can find a way to make it so. For instance, brainstorm a few different ways to fill in this expectation by using the other expectations you found in the books you’ve read and combining them in different ways.
If the expectation doesn’t affect the stakes of the story, brainstorm ways where it will. In general, you always want to keep increasing the stakes throughout your story.
Now, if there are any expectations you missed, brainstorm these as well by trying out different combinations with other expectations. For instance, a lovers meet scene becomes different if you use an enemies-to-lovers trope as opposed to a best friends-to-lovers trope.
Would you like some help with your developmental editing? Then this developmental editing planner is the one for you! It contains a checklist followed by detailed information and worksheets to perfect your developmental editing process.
Note: This planner is geared toward fiction editing. While elements can be used for nonfiction editing, not all will apply.
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3. Make Notes for Edits
Now that you’ve brainstormed a few options for your reader expectations, put them as notes for your developmental edits.
I generally recommend looking at all the other elements first, such as structure and characters, because this can affect your reader expectations as well.
Helpful Resources
The Trope Thesaurus by Jennifer Hilt is a good resource for understanding tropes and getting some ideas as to what kind of tropes appear in your genre. She also has books with tropes more specific to fantasy & science fiction, romance, and horror.
Conventions and Obligatory Moments by Kimberly Kessler and Leslie Watts talks in depth about reader expectations with examples from masterworks. It also gives this information within the wider Story Grid framework.
Book Notes by Savannah Gilbo and Abigail K. Perry is a kind of life book club hosted by two talented editors. They discuss books in a range of genres, so if your genre is in there, watching these meetings will give you a host of information on the kind of elements you’d want to include in your story.
Time for the Next Step
Next, we’re going to hone in on your protagonist and your choice of viewpoint.
If you have any questions about the above steps, please feel free to reach out to me.
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