How to you say politely ‘you missed the point’ to an author?

I read a review copy for a fellow writer on his novel recently, and was horrified to find he’d not even paid attention to the basics of writing a book… So what key elements do you need to make your manuscript successful?

This author is semi successful, he has a number of books self-published, and I have to admit, the premise of his story is very intriguing. His writing style is easy to read and his pacing and action scenes are up there with the best of them. But I found myself continually frustrated. Some essential aspects to writing a novel had been ignored… and I was like, why? WHY!

Apologies if this post has started off as a little bit of a rant, but it leads us to an important question:

– yeah, I know, how could you miss this one? In the first chapter (maybe two) it’s important…