The Depth Shift Many Manuscripts Need to Make

And how to fix it.

Let’s talk about something I’m seeing in the manuscripts landing on my desk lately.

The sentence-level writing is clean. The premise is compelling. The plot moves forward. But something feels thin. Like I’m skating across the surface of the story instead of sinking into it.

When I flag this for writers, they’re often confused. Their immediate reaction is to throw in several new characters or plot twists because they assume their story isn’t interesting enough. (I often call this having Kitchen Sink Syndrome). But this, unfortunately, still holds the story on the surface.

Because we can watch characters move through a story without ever understanding what drives them. We can see what they want without knowing why it matters. We can follow their journey without feeling the weight of what’s at stake internally.

This is the craft gap between a manuscript that’s “working” and one that an agent or reader can’t put down.

Today I want to walk you through the three most common ways writers stay on the surface, and exactly what it takes to go deeper. (Unscientific stats: 75% of the pages submitted to me have this issue.)

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