Finding Balance

Many of the questions asked about fiction writing – such as how do I know how many chapters to have, how much description should I write, is there enough dialogue or enough conflict? – can all be answered with just one word: balance. 

Story writing is all about balance and finding stability within the writing.  It’s what keeps everything in check, so that writers don’t go overboard with one element over another, thus leading to an imbalance. 

Why have balance?

Balance allows the writer to keep control of many writing elements – like those mentioned above.  There are no set rules where fiction is concerned, but it is purely a guide for writers to help them write better. 

Whether it’s dialogue, description, the amount of scenes or chapters, the amount of tension and conflict that is balanced against the relief and emotion, whether there is enough background balanced with foreground, or whether you have action and inaction within the story, there should be some definitive balance of all these elements to make up a well structured, enjoyable and cohesive story.

I’ve touched on this in previous articles, but balance of dialogue, narrative and description is quite important, especially for those new to writing.  Too much of either of these elements threatens the overall effect of the story, and unless the writer is very experienced, the result – too much of one and not enough of the other – will look badly written and unprofessional.  More importantly, your reader won’t enjoy the story either.

Balance should also exist for scenes and chapters – having the right amount of chapters to tell the story, balanced against the right amount of key scenes.  This is a good way of keeping in check a writer’s penchant for ‘waffling’, i.e. writing scenes that are unnecessary and irrelevant to the story (and pose a danger of boring the reader).

Know what story you are telling, and how long it is likely to be, then you can plan your chapters (not having too many or too few), along with the amount of major, important scenes that you will eventually write.

Balance also keeps in check any inadvertent ‘padding’ that sometimes creeps into the narrative.  When writers find themselves in a situation where a story falls short of their intended target length, they tend to ‘pad’ the narrative with inconsequential scenes, which means that the balanced ratio of dialogue, narrative and description is ignored and the story becomes completely disproportionate. 

Aim to have a good balance of all three.

Conflict and emotion – these sound difficult to balance, but in truth, it’s not that hard.  For every moment of conflict, tension and atmosphere, there should also be some light relief, some happier, more relaxed moments. Don’t let the entire story become full with tension. That has to be lighter moments, so balance conflict and tense scenes with lighter scenes.

Background and foreground should have equilibrium, too. But what exactly does that mean? 

The stuff that happens in the foreground – the key scenes, like action scenes, emotional scenes etc, should always lend themselves to the background.  In other words, don’t forget to involve the reader within your scenes wherever you can; impart details of the setting, the backdrop, the environment etc.  However small these details might seem, they help the reader visualise the whole thing, they draw in the reader.

It’s surprising how many writers forget this completely and simply launch into key/action scenes without letting the reader in.  For instance, picture Constable’s portrait, ‘The Hay Wain’, but imagine it without the river, the lush greenery and trees, the cosy cottage or the dog on the riverside.  There is just the hay wain and horses and nothing else. 

There isn’t much to stimulate or look at is there?

In fiction, you shouldn’t have foreground without a background - have a fair balance of both so that the reader can jump into the scene.

What about action versus inaction?   Stories shouldn’t steam along at breakneck speed for the duration without allowing the reader to breathe and reflect about the story, so make sure you slow things down a little. Find a balance between fast-paced scenes and softer, slower scenes. 

Vary it so that the reader doesn’t feel rushed by the narrative, or, conversely, doesn’t fall sleep through boredom brought on by nothing much happening within the story.  That way you engage and excite the reader, but never bore them.

Finding balance can help you control the ratio of dialogue, description and narrative.  You can control the amount of conflict/tension/action scenes with softer, slower, emotional scenes.  You can create a balanced pace – sometimes fast, sometimes slow.  You can give the reader background as well as foreground detail. 

By keeping an eye on all these elements, you can see if one aspect appears to be stronger or more apparent than the other, and then you can correct it.

We don’t always think about it, but stories work better with the right sense of balance.  That’s because they are fine-tuned and structured well, but more importantly, it means they are appealing to editors and publishers alike, and you stand more chance of becoming published (and staying published).

Next week: Quality or quantity?

Chapter & Novel Lengths

Just how long should a chapter be? What’s the best length? And does a novel have to fit into a set amount of words?

These are just two of the most common questions asked by writers.  They assume they have to work to a strict template of X amount of words and X amount of chapters, usually because most novels have around 30 or 40 chapters and around 80,000 words. 

Novel Lengths

Firstly, let’s dispel a few myths - novel lengths are dictated by the story itself, not the writer or the editor or a specific written formula.  Secondly, writers don’t have to fit their word count into generic set amounts.  Again, the story will dictate how long the novel will be.

It’s also worth knowing the different types of novels that work well with different word counts.  Uncomplicated stories containing minimal characters tend to be short – usually around 20,000 to 60,000 words.  These are called novellas.

Longer, more complex stories, which contain a handful of main characters and peripheral characters, tend to run at about 60,000 to 95,000 words.  This would constitute the average length novel.

The saga – plenty of characters and a complex, epic story told over many generations – think Roots or War and Peace - usually run at over 100,000 words.

If you are writing a standard length novel, aim for 80,000 to 95,000 words.  It doesn’t have to be exact, but it’s there to guide writers.  If you set yourself a target of 85,000 words, you’ll know that if you fall short of that average figure, your story is either lacking in substance, or it doesn’t have enough fuel to be a full length novel (without some serious editing), and would therefore be a novella instead.  If you go way over that figure and you find yourself easily drifting over 100,000 words, then you need to do some serious editing to reign the story back in, otherwise you risk it turning into a saga.

Another reason to use these figures as a guide is that if you submit your MSS to an agent or publisher stating what kind of story it is, i.e. a thriller based novel which is a whopping 150,000 words long, you might get a rejection before anyone has even read the first line of the first chapter because that kind of length for that kind of story just isn’t a viable option for them.  Conversely, if you state that you have an epic tale of love and revenge, set in the last century, which follows several generations of the same family, the editor would balk at a paltry 75,000 words.

In other words, think about the genre you are writing, think about the story itself, and know what kind of book you’re writing.  Can it be told in that reasonable amount of words?

Chapter lengths

Writers soon learn that there are no particular set rules when it comes to writing and chapter lengths fall into this area. 

New writers tend to assume that a chapter must be a certain set length in order to maintain the average novel length of around 80,000 – 95,000 words, but in truth, chapters can be as long or as short as you need them to be.  There is no formula.  You don’t have to pick a number like 80,000 and then divide it by 30 chapters to give you 2500 words a chapter (average).

If you have ever read Faulkner’s ‘As I Lay Dying’ or many Stephen King novels, then you’ll realise that a chapter can be a sentence long.  Or just one word.  Or it can be 5000 words.  Again, like novel length, chapter length is dictated by what is happening in the story, not by the law of averages and applied mathematics.  Many books have 40, 50 or sometimes 60 chapters, all varying in length.  And it’s the variety of length that counts.  They don’

The only thing you need to apply where chapter lengths and novel lengths are concerned, is common sense. 

If you think a chapter is far too short for whatever reason, examine it to see why.  It may be you simply haven’t included enough description.  If your chapter seems to go on and on...again look at it to see if it is overly long - you risk boring your reader or losing their attention if it doesn’t sensibly move to the next chapter.

If there was such a thing as an average chapter, it would probably be around 2500 words.  Or you could say 10 x A4 sheets, because this also acts as a visual prompt for some people.

There are no hard and fast rules.  It’s all down to the kind of story you are writing, how you tell it, and of course, a touch of common sense.

Next week: Finding balance.

Why Titles Matter

There are several factors that make us choose a novel from the endless books available to us.  One factor is the cover – its job is to initially entice the reader’s eye.  Then there is the blurb – the couple of lines on the front cover or the back that hook you.  Then of course, there is the title.

But a title isn’t just there to tell your audience what your story is called. Titles have a number of uses which a writer should always take advantage of, and titles matter - they are an integral factor when getting your work noticed by agents and editors.

Book and story titles act as a lure.  Great titles always grab our attention – think To Kill a Mockingbird. Or A Clockwork Orange.  They tempt us to want to know what the story is about; there is a sense of intrigue and fascination that entices us.

But what if they were called Scout and Jem’s Adventure?  Or The Droogs?  Would they lure us in the same way?  Probably not.  They certainly wouldn’t have the same allure.  If anything, they would seem rather boring by comparison.

Where novels are concerned, you have spent months or years putting effort into making it the best you can, so a lame title will not do your story any justice.  You should be making a statement with the title you choose, so where possible, make your titles interesting, provocative.  Try to avoid using ‘The’.  i.e The Teacher, The Street, The Cornfield etc.  It’s one of those words that just make a story title that little bit staid and boring, and sometimes quite corny and clichéd.  Think dynamically when it comes to your titles; make your work stand out.

Some of the best novels don’t have ‘The’ in the title, and this works well, for instance Misery, Moby Dick, 1984, Slaughterhouse Five, and so on.  Of course, that is not to say that some great titles do have ‘The’ in the title, like The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, but the idea is to be different with your titles, and these classic titles use ‘The’ to their advantage by not giving away too much of the story content.

That brings us to this very consideration: titles often give the story away before the reader has even read the first line.  What’s wrong with that?  Nothing, except that ‘Granny’s Day Out’ or tells the reader what the story is about without reading a single line of the story. 

The idea with genre fiction is to keep the reader guessing all the time, to keep them interested, keep them fascinated.  If you tell them in the title what it’s about, more often than not, you lose some of that allure and impact.

A title can hint at the story, but the idea is not to give too much away so that it invites the reader to step into your fictional world, it lures them enough to want to become involved with the story.

Titles also often deliberately mislead the reader. This is an effective tool employed by writers, and is designed to tease the reader into thinking they know what the story is about, but it turns out to be something completely different.

Think Gone With the Wind or Where Angels Fear to Tread.

When I wrote Under a Veil of Red (see cover image top right) for the February Femmes Fatales showcase, I wanted to convey several things with the title.  It is a story about the underlying prejudice that fuels the pursuit of a victim.  I could have called it ‘The Chase’. Or ‘The Runaway,’ or ‘The Pursuit’.  But none of these titles are interesting, and they tell the reader what it’s about. 

The Veil of the title suggests a shroud, a cover of some sort.  The Red is a symbolic gesture – the colour of blood, which appears in the story.  Under a Veil of Red intrigues but gives nothing away in terms of the story’s content.

Another short story, ‘A Stain on the Heart’, published in the US, deals with intolerance and injustice set during World War 2.  The title is twofold.  It’s hinting at what the story might be about, without giving too much away, and without even telling the reader it’s set during the war, but it’s also informing the reader of nature of the content, and the key words here are ‘Stain’ and ‘Heart’.

So, when it comes to titles, think about what your story is about, what it is trying to say. Coming up with great titles isn’t easy, so think about the story. What is its message?  How does it relate to your reader?  How can you entice them?

Titles do more than just tell your reader what the name of your story is.

·         Grab the reader’s attention – use a catchy title

·         Hint at the story – tease the reader

·         Don’t give too much away in the title if you can – keep them guessing

·         Deliberately mislead the reader with your title

·         Try to avoid using ‘The’ too much

·         Avoid corny or clichéd titles

Effective, provocative and interesting titles can be the difference between agents/publishers being interested in your story, or not.

Next week: Chapter and novel lengths.

Author Intrusion

It’s one of those things that sometimes sneak into the narrative without the writer noticing and it’s not until an editor points them out that you realise you have a problem.

But what exactly is author intrusion?

Primarily, it is where the author personally intrudes the story, quite often unwittingly; they place a large proportion of themselves within the narrative, either through description, actions or through their characters and dialogue.  

Author intrusion is very common. In truth, there is always a tiny bit of us in our characters, but every character should be individual and different. And more importantly, they should be very different from the writer.

They key to spotting them is to understand what they are and how they affect your writing. There are several ways intrusion happens.

Firstly, writers very often use their own personal opinions, personal prejudices, their judgements or subconscious thoughts in their writing. Opinions, likes, dislikes, passions and pet peeves have no place in fictional writing. If, for instance, you are vehemently anti-smoking, you must not let your personal views on it pervade your characters by having them spout anti-smoking views, (unless you specifically have a character who, by his or her nature, is that way for a valid reason connected with the story – and only then their views should not invade the story). This is the most common type of intrusion.

Don’t like certain religions? That’s fine, but don’t let your personal view into your writing by having all your characters disliking religion. Can’t stand sport? Don’t let your dislike spill into your characters, their actions or the surrounding story.

Remember, you are not your characters, and they should certainly be nothing like you. That means having characters that are religious or spiritual, or they love sport, and that they do and think things very differently to what you do.

Never let your characters become your personal mouthpiece. If you have characters speaking your direct opinions and views, then you’ll find yourself moulding other characters to suit, because all of your characters are defined by actions and reactions. That means you’ll have characters responding to things that would, essentially, seem out of character for them. And the moment they start doing that, you start to lose the cohesion and integrity of your story.

The kind of things the writer really loves or is passionate about might also creep into the characters he or she has created. A passion for cars might manifest, or a love of animals etc, and then before the writer can control it, characters have turned into someone completely different – their creator.

Just because you might love different things, doesn’t mean your characters will. This kind of intrusion is indulgence.

Another sort of intrusion takes the form of knowledge and awareness; the kind of knowledge only the writer would possess, not the character. These kinds of intrusions allow characters to know preposterous things, such as a character having an intimate knowledge of computer technology, when she is merely an ordinary housewife bringing up baby. Or perhaps a lowly cab driver that knows all about hi tech weaponry by the time he turns reluctant hero in chapter 12.

If it sounds ridiculous and unbelievable, then it likely is, and the reader will spot this straight away, even if you don’t. If you step over the boundaries of what is normal and logical within a character’s experience – in relation to the story - then you risk writing something that is neither believable nor credible.

How do you identify and control author Intrusion?

Sometimes it is difficult to spot because we don’t really look for it when editing – we’re too busy looking at plot flaws, characterisation, grammar, dialogue etc, but this is where editing become an important and integral part of the writing process. You should look out for the following:-

Social views – views that you as the writer have in the real world find their way into the fictional world and have no bearing on the story or the characters. That means political, religious, strong social views etc. When they become prevalent, that’s author intrusion.

Knowledge and awareness – don’t have characters know amazing things (unless they actually work in a job that requires specialist knowledge) just because you are an expert in something. Avoid the same if you have period characters from a set era. People in 1911 won’t know about stuff that you do.

Dialogue - Using the kind of words and phrasing that you use in everyday life, rather than the character would use; how they would talk and react. Making them you won’t work.

Indulgence – Lavishing your knowledge of something into the narrative, even though it doesn’t fit the story or characters, like a love of art, or by endlessly going on and on about your love of trees for example, but done through your main character (who probably wouldn’t care much for ecosystems anyway).

False impressions – By having characters, usually the villain, that become grossly ignorant and especially foolish because of your own opinions – for instance a black character being made to seem stupid or criminal in contrast to the wonderfully angelic, God-like, white main character runs the risk of making them horrible, hideous caricatures that have no place in reality, let alone fiction.

Narration – you are telling a story, not preaching, not teaching, not converting.

Your personal opinions or your personal agendas should never find their way into your fiction.

Apart from damaging your credibility as a writer, such intrusions are quite distracting for readers. Some intrusions might seem distasteful, disrespectful, out of place, disproportionate, too much, and somewhat jarring.

The result will be that the editor won’t bother and you won’t be published. The golden rule of thumb: Narrate, keep it simple and tell the story.


Next week: Why titles matter.

Creating Immediacy

In order to create immediacy, a writer needs to understand what it means, how immediacy works and how it impacts not just the writing, but also the reader.

Immediacy is the delicate and intimate connection between the story and the reader – if a writer lacks immediacy within the writing, then the reader might not be able to emotionally connect with the characters or the narrative, and if that happens, the reader is unlikely to enjoy the story/novel.

It is one of those elements largely overlooked by many writers, but it’s an important element that shouldn’t be ignored.

How do I create immediacy?

Immediacy means closeness. In other words, it’s looking at the closeness of your characters and your story to your reader, and how to make the reader feel as though they are not just reading your story, but they are a part of it.

To create it, you have to understand that your reader wants to become totally absorbed by the fictional world you have created. They want to be able to love the hero, fall in love with the heroine and hate the villain. They want to be swept up by the emotion and action, they want to feel the tension and conflict, they want to enjoy the descriptions that bring places and scenes alive. The want the whole thing to leap off the page at them.

But in order to achieve all that, you have to accomplish a number of things:-

Characterisation – fully developed characters, complete with flaws and foibles and well researched backgrounds - the kind of characters the reader can identify with, to help the reader bond emotionally to them.

Water tight plot – A fully developed plot, with subplots, helps to create a complete and flawless story without the kind of plot holes that can jar the reader and put them off.

Conflict – There’s nothing like conflict to get the reader’s attention. Every story should have plenty of different conflicts, because that in turn creates our next item…

Emotion – No story is complete without this. Emotion is a very powerful force – everybody feels this, whether it’s love, hate, passion, sympathy, fun etc. Characters are no different, and they should elicit emotion with the reader through their own emotions. Your reader should feel what your characters feel.

Empathy – Tied in with all the above elements, this is what you want your readers to feel. Great rounded characters, tight plot and interesting sub plots, fantastic story with lots of conflict and emotion all mean that the reader will understand the character’s journey, they will empathise. This creates immediacy.

Viewpoint – 1st person, 3rd person etc. First person is a great way of creating immediacy more intimately than 3rd person, it speaks directly to the reader.  1st person, however, should only be attempted once a writer is experienced and confident enough to tackle a novel or long story because of the verb and tense confusions that arise.

How does immediacy work?

It creates a connection for the reader – emotionally and mentally. It’s the difference between them liking your characters or being completely uninterested and detached from them. If the reader becomes detached from the story and the characters, then there is no immediacy there. The reader will end up disliking your story.

In a nutshell, it keeps readers fully immersed in the story. Immediacy does the following:-

• It creates emotional attachment to the story
• It creates empathy between your reader and your characters
• It allows the reader to engage with your characters on an intimate level
• It creates a sense of ‘being there right in the thick of it’ for the reader

Writers don’t always think about things like immediacy, but it really is something that writers should pay attention to, it’s the difference between someone liking your story, or hating it, and more importantly, it’s the difference between acceptance and rejection.

It's worth remembering that if an editor or agent can’t connect with your characters and story, then the general reading public certainly won’t.

Next week: Author intrusion – how to avoid it.

Taking in writing advice will help you become a better writer

Everyone needs advice, especially when you are fairly new to something. It’s always good to know that there is support and experience available to you.

Those new to writing need lots of advice, support and encouragement, and there is plenty out there. The amount of resources now available to writers is nothing to what it was almost 30 years ago when I first started out. There was no such thing and instant access through the internet, since there was no internet. Everything I have learned has been through three decades of trial and error, reading countless novels, gaining the experience, dealing with editors and publishers and of course, dealing with that character-building thing called rejection.

Whether the advice you receive comes through writing magazines, through books, via teachers, or even through blog articles etc, it is worth taking note of that advice, integrating it and learning from it.

Of course, the strength of that advice is important, because not everyone who dispenses the advice knows what they’re talking about, and it’s vital that any advice is constructive and beneficial, rather than destructive or unhelpful.

Negative Impact

The one problem I noticed is that sometimes, writing advice is given by people who have no experience or technical knowledge to do so, therefore the advice given is actually inaccurate. This can lead to a negative impact on writing, because the writer will wrongly believe they are doing the right thing, so it becomes a falsehood.

Think about it – you wouldn’t listen to someone telling you how they would perform a heart bypass if they were not a qualified surgeon, would you? You want someone who has successful experience of doing so and has studied for it over many years.

So, when advised to tidy your narrative and cut down on adverbs, this nugget of advice is priceless. If you don’t, you will have awful, badly written and untidy narrative, however if you are told that’s all rubbish, and you should write what you want, however you want, then that’s fine – but it’s bad advice and you follow it at your own peril.

Do you think that adverbs aren’t that bad?
Do you think that agents and publishers aren’t bothered about lack of description?
Showing not telling is a load of rubbish, right?
Characterisation doesn’t matter, really.
Why do I need care whose point of view it is?
Who notices tenses anyway?

The reality of bad advice is that you might remain unpublished or unsuccessful for a very long time.

Bad advice breeds bad habits. It creates a falsehood.

Positive Impact

Advice is there because a generation of writers have been there and done it long before us, they have learned from their mistakes and they have passed on their wisdom to us. These are the kind of people who can help and support fellow writers in their journey, by imparting their vast wealth of knowledge and years of experience, particularly the technical side of writing, because the one thing that many writers don’t always understand is that writing is a constant learning process, which takes years (not minutes) of apprenticeship and hard work to understand and perfect the craft of writing.

Writers should learn to take constructive criticism and advice from experienced writers – people who have been there, done it and written about it. Their insight will help new writers avoid some of the pitfalls and mistakes that these experienced writers made when they first started out.

Positive impact for writing comes from the following:

• Constructive critiques from editors or published writers can help pinpoint weak areas, improve your narrative output and help you master the technical aspects.
• Writing groups help foster support and advice, as long as the advice is from experienced, published writers.
• Writing magazines and books on writing are filled with lots of well sourced advice, written by fellow writers who know or have worked with the industry.
• Writing courses help you learn the craft, taught by people who have an understanding of creative writing.

With the increasing popularity of self-publishing, there is a worrying trend of ‘instant’ writers pushing out the kind of work that would never pass an English exam, the kind of writers that unwittingly make a mockery of the craft of writing. Sadly, not all ‘writers’ can actually write.

There are also people that already think they know it all; they don’t actually think they need advice or support. I’ve come across plenty of new writers who dismiss advice, thinking they know better. That’s fine, but such arrogance will only hold them back. We all need advice and support, no matter how experienced we are.

Valuable guidance is such an integral part of any writer’s journey, because without it, we won’t grow or improve, and we certainly won’t understand how hard writing actually is.

Everybody can write – but how good you are depends on how much you are willing to learn, because it’s up to the individual to take advice on board, ignore it or dismiss it.

Ignore sound advice and it may just be the difference of you being accepted or rejected as a writer, but also whether you become a better writer.

If you are passionate about writing and want to write, then take the time to study it, gain experience from it and learn from those who’ve been there and done it. The right advice is invaluable.

Next week: Creating immediacy.

Use of Conjunctions

A conjunction refers to a word that connects or conjoins parts of sentences, phrases or clauses, and forms part of a relationship within the sentence. There are three basic types of conjunctions:

Coordinating conjunctions – These are used to connect words, phrases and clauses – And, So, Yet etc.

Subordinating conjunctions – These join a subordinate (dependent) clause to a main (independent) clause, e.g. Jane went walking over the fields, although it looked as though it would rain.

Correlative conjunctions – These come in pairs which link words, phrases or clauses within the sentence, i.e. ‘not only’, ‘but also’, ‘just as’, ‘either or’ etc. 

As with prepositions, and the ever shifting tastes of present day fiction, it is sometimes desirable to have conjunctions to begin a sentence, and just as with the correct use of prepositions, they can add a cumulative, overall effect to the narrative, depending how you use them.

Sometimes we use them for contrast, sometimes to make a statement, sometimes they can represent consequence and sometimes we use them to offer contrasting ideas or intent. They may only be two or three letter words, but their effect can be considerable.

But weren’t we taught not to use them at the beginning of sentences? 

Once again, it’s a case of pushing aside the dated advice given by your English teachers about starting sentences with conjunctions and prepositions, and instead using both of these tools to your advantage. Conjunctions have the ability to make the narrative a little more interesting, it prevents it from being flat.

The common ones used are:

• And
• For
• But
• Or
• Yet
• So

All of these, for example, might appear like this:

So, they had lied to her after all.

For the longest time, the sound of the planes hummed above them.

But now the tables had turned.

Or was she imagining it?

Yet, armed with the truth, he realised they couldn’t be trusted.

By far the most commonly used conjunction is ‘And’. Not only is it the most common, but one of the most powerful. But why should this unassuming little word be quite so influential?

When used at the beginning of a sentence, its effect is multiplied by how it’s used. As with prepositions, it’s not just about where it’s placed, but how it’s used and why. 

‘And’ is one of those words that brings brevity to a sentence, it can breathe a sense of atmosphere into the sentence, but it’s also a rather effective way of ending a chapter, too, because it makes an effective statement of intent, leading the reader into the next chapter.

Compare the effectiveness of these two sentences:

The lights went out.

And then the lights went out.

The first sentence is perfectly acceptable. It describes exactly what it needs to. The second sentence is also acceptable, but the only difference is that it adds a little bit of gravitas with the addition of ‘and’. This addition also changes the way the reader reads and interprets the sentence. It’s also quite effective joined with other words, like ‘And so’ or ‘And then’ or ‘And yet’.

The following excerpt is from a short story that takes the premise of ‘and’ to add something extra to the narrative; it repeats it throughout, giving the reader a sense of the passage of time, and it’s called ‘And Then’.

Legs moved, and arms and hands. His head felt so heavy.

The minutes evaporated.

And then that strange sensation rushed through him again when he tried to move – his head remained skewed. Something trickled into his stomach, flooded his abdomen and he winced against the sickly eddy, tried hard not to vomit...

...Then the minutes stopped. 

Amid the suffocating inner silence, his final moments vanished into the encroaching darkness and his vision instantly turned into an infinite blackness.

He slumped back against the cold tarmac.

And then...

Nothing.

Remember, it’s not how many times you use them that make the narrative better, but how they are used, so think carefully about the effect you want, the statement you’re making and the intent that you want to show. Used effectively, conjunctions add that little bit extra and help prevent flat, uninteresting narrative.


Next week: Why paying attention to advice will make you a better writer.