All Write - Fiction Advice

Getting the Pace Right

2012-02-25T12:34:00.000Z

Pace is like the heartbeat of your story - sometimes it’s steady and relaxed, sometimes it races at breakneck speed.

Pace dictates the speed at which your reader moves through your story. Skilfully done, it can speed things up and slow them down with equal measure, all without the reader really noticing, so getting the pacing right really is a fine art. Do it correctly and it could heighten your reader’s experience, but if you get it wrong, your reader won’t want to read any further.

Pace isn’t just about the rate at which your story is told, but it’s also a clever way of blending action, emotion and tension. And the way to achieve that is to choose the right words for the right scene.

Pace is all about momentum – whether fast, slow or steady. Whichever way, your reader wants to feel that rate, to feel swept along or to feel a gentle lull. The idea is to vary that momentum, to move along steadily, then ramp up the action and pace, then slow things down to allow the reader to reflect, and so on. Without this pacing, a story might fall into the trap of becoming the clapped out old banger chugging along a barren road at a steady 35mph until the very end. There is a risk that the monotony will send your reader to sleep.

The Elastic Band method

The best way to get to grips with pace is by thinking of your story as an elastic band. If you stretch an elastic band, it becomes taut and tense, but if you slacken it, it becomes relaxed and soft. This is exactly how your narrative should be.

The important elements of your story – crisis points, action scenes and conflict scenes – should be tautened, and the pace altered to reflect that. This means the writing accelerates.

Softer, reflective scenes or gentle emotional or romantic scenes etc, represent a slower pace (and a slackened elastic band). This means the writing is more descriptive and full with flourishes, which decelerates the speed of the narrative.

By alternating the faster scenes with slower ones, your reader will enjoy the excitement and thrills of the action, but they will also get much needed respite in softer moments and therefore they are able to share those moments with the characters through the use of empathy.

Milk the Potential

Never miss the opportunity to kick the pace into another gear where it presents itself, otherwise, you will have missed the opportunity to milk the reader’s attention and interest at key moments, but don’t force the pace if you think your narrative is lagging, otherwise you will end up with something contrived and stilted. Let the action develop and grow naturally.

If the narrative is lagging, go back and find out why – it might be in need of some brutal editing.

Choice of words

Choice of words also affects the pace of the narrative. Where action is concerned, be brisk and to the point. If you have a fight scene, don’t spend seven paragraphs beautifully describing the nuances of each character’s movements. Instead, get into the thick of it and use sharp, staccato or abrupt words, like punch, hit, shock, thrust, whack etc. Brevity is the key to action scenes.

Longer descriptive words slow the pace; words like stroll, amble, meander etc, or softer words. The narrative will immediately reflect that mood.

Remember the elastic band – so just when the action scenes reach a crescendo, bring the reader back down and slow the narrative. This is the most effective method of varying pace and tension. And just as the reader gets comfortable, yank that rug away and bring in the action again.

A story should be like riding a rollercoaster. It can be deceptive, it may seem gentle, then it rushes you over the edge, sweeps you down, races along, then lulls momentarily before rushing you up and over once again...

Remember that both conflict and emotion play an important part with pacing. Wherever there is conflict there will always be a slight increase in pace. Wherever there is emotion, the narrative becomes softer and slower.

The key is to vary the pace. Take your reader on that rollercoaster, and don't forget that elastic band...

Next week: Turning points – critical moments in a novel explained.

Writing by numbers

2012-02-19T12:31:00.000Z

Not unlike painting by numbers, writing by numbers - writing to special creative writing programs – is just one of the ways to help writers pen their bestselling blockbusters, but therein lies a problem, because many of these software programs often claim it’s a sure fire way to publication and success.

The reality, however, can be quite different. Writing experience, and the quality of that writing gets you published, not a computer program.

It’s better to do the work yourself because you’ll feel much better about your accomplishments, and you’ll learn so much more about the writing processes.

But does creative writing software actually work?

It can be useful to a degree – they provide an overview of novel writing methods and they help writers understand some of the writing processes. Their selling point is that they offer the framework for which to create your novel; however, not one of them will tell you how you apply some of the most important aspects when it comes to writing - sheer hard work, determination and the ability to write.

None of them will tell you how to actually write a novel.

That’s because there is no correct way, no right or wrong. You approach writing in the way you want to. Writing really is that unique.

And the ironic thing is that the resources and formats that some of these programs offer are already on your computer. You don’t need any fancy interfaces or pretty screens to organise yourself or write your work, you don’t need special indexes or a hundred ways to organise your scenes. In fact, by the time you’ve messed about inputting names of characters and clicking on various buttons and so on, you could have hand-written a full character analysis and moved on to the next character.

Take a close look at the majority of programs and you’ll find they are about organising – organising chapters, indexing characters, creating scene and chapters lists etc. Some programs have name and title generators, so they even remove that creative process from the writer.

One famous writing software program even has a menu so you can list all your scenes. But you don’t need that. The scenes are already there, in your story. You are only creating more work for yourself in an already long writing process.

If you have something that does most of the work for you, is there any point in trying to be a writer when you are not actually learning anything in the process?

Just write. Read and edit, then re-write etc. That’s it. The true heart of novel writing is nothing more than that.

Because so few of these programs actually get to the technical graft of writing, novel writing software is a bit of a misnomer. Realistically, ‘novel organising software’ is more accurate. And in the time you’ve spent organising all the menus and lists and indexes and screens, you could have written 10 chapters of your novel.

Despite the drawbacks, people do use these software packages, and are happy with them and that’s fine – it’s what works for the writer. Writing is a personal, individual activity, as personal as the writing itself.

For the most part, buying a good fiction writing guide is a much better idea (and costs less), and will help writers establish a familiarity with writing, with relevant advice on what matters. They can offer writers ways to improve, they can offer guides on the kind of technical aspects writers should know about when structuring their writing. More importantly, they show writers how to write.

Do you really need novel writing software to help you write by numbers?

Well, in truth, no. Sometimes, the best way to find your own success is to tread your own path and not rely on the one someone has paved for you.

Fiction guides and websites are much better because many are written by writers with the experience and the success to know what they’re talking about.

Primarily, writing is about writing, not organising.

Have you ever painted by numbers? The result is a bit forced and flat, but in the end, it doesn’t teach you how to paint. It’s the same writing by numbers.

Of course, you should gain as much guidance and information about writing wherever possible, by what means you feel comfortable with, but the best way to find out your own writing worth is to work hard and do it yourself.

Next week: Pacing – getting it right

Part 2 - Positive ways to emulate your favourite authors

2012-02-11T12:33:00.001Z

As previously mentioned, our favourite authors play an important part in our development as writers, especially for those who are just starting out.

Everyone is different; everyone has something different to offer. By reading different authors and genres, you will get a feel for the kind of writing that is established and successful, so by reflect on differing styles of writing helps us to nurture our own style of writing.

We’ve previously touched on the reasons why we shouldn’t copy other authors, but we can learn a great deal from them by finding and developing our own inspiration and creativity.

Studying other writers allows us to see how they develop the structure of their stories. In other words, they show us how a balance of description, narrative and dialogue is used, how they bring in conflict and resolution, how they quicken and shorten the pace, how they draw out our emotions.

It also allows us to see the voice of different writers – it could be soft and literary, urban and gritty, laid back, laconic...etc. And they also teach us about the different viewpoints and how they’re used to best effect.

Established authors can show us how they have developed plot and themes throughout their stories, as well as subplots, and we can see how these different strands all come together cohesively in such a way that it produces a seamless tale.

We can study how authors create mood and atmosphere within their stories and how they create tension around the story and their characters. We can see how well developed the characters are, how they make us feel, whether they create empathy and emotion. If they did, how did they accomplish that? If not, why not?

The unique thing about different authors is their take on how they use language to communicate their stories to their readers. This relates directly to that unique sense of voice and style, but the way in which a writer expresses him or herself is vitally important – the use of language is perhaps the most exclusive aspect of a writer.

By studying the way they use language effectively, writers can learn how to better express themselves.

The one thing writers always worry about is beginnings and endings, so by looking at the way your favourite authors do it might also help you formulate how you begin and end your stories. There are no specific rules, but look at how they achieve this.

More importantly, reading your favourite authors acts as a motivational catalyst – it creates a desire to write; it motivates creativity and inspires us to be the best we can be.

They teach us so many things and it’s how we put that knowledge to good use that matters. Writers should take positive aspects from their favourite authors and use it to bolster the creative framework for writing.

Summary - What can we learn from other authors?

Writing Structure
Writing Style
Writing voice
Viewpoints
Creation of mood and atmosphere
Creation of tension and conflicts
Development of characters
Use of language
Development of plot and theme
Beginning and Ending

Becoming influenced by other writers is inescapable, but rather than copy how they write, and cheating on your own limitations, instead expand on your own style of writing and you’ll find yourself becoming a better writer who discovers their own style and voice and sense of language in the process.

By all means, learn from other writers, be motivated and let them inspire you to be the best writer you can be, but don’t copy them.

Next week: Writing by numbers – does it work?

Emulate but don’t copy – Part 1

2012-02-04T15:57:00.000Z

We all have favourite authors and poets. We all enjoy the way they create and weave their literary magic. They inspire us, motivate us and help us grow as writers; however, that’s where writers should draw a line because it’s easy when you start out fresh to writing to want to be just like your favourite authors, and that can lead to all sorts of problems.

The main drawback is that many writers tend to copy favourite authors thinking that this will bring published success. But is copying them such a bad thing?

There are several problems with copying, or trying to be too much like the authors we admire. Here are some of the pitfalls:

Lack of voice
Lack of style
Nothing is learned
Their mistakes become your mistakes
Bad writing habits

Many new writers read the likes of Stephen King or JK Rowling or David Baldacci et al, and are immediately predisposed to that style of writing, they want to be like those writers, but they forget that for years, these authors have developed their own unique ‘voice’ and style and literary nuance, but this is something that all writers must find while developing their own way of writing.

Lack of voice

Borrowing someone else’s ‘voice’ just doesn’t work. Established authors have their own distinct tone and style; they’ve spent years perfecting their craft, to hone that unique ‘sound’ in their work. So when someone tries to write like that, it becomes forced and contrived. Also, there can be a distinct lack of creativity within the work, simply because the writer hasn’t taken the time to grow and develop his or her own voice.

The ‘voice’ is like a fingerprint. It’s exclusive to the writer and should, once developed, distinguish you from other writers. It’s a powerful device - people will get to know your writing because of your writing voice alone.

Lack of style

This brings us to style, or lack of it. Trying to write the way a famous writer does may mean you can’t develop your own style.

Like ‘voice’, writers must also develop their own style. This could be lush and descriptive, it could be sparse, it could be gritty, it could be literary etc. Whatever the style, it should speak to the reader it its own way; one that the writer has cultivated and developed themselves through practice.

If you are writing too much like other authors, taking their tone and technique and approach, you will find that you don’t actually learn anything as a writer. Writing is always a learning process. The more we write, the better we become.

Trying too hard to write in a style that isn’t really you will come across as false and dull. Your style is yours alone, no one else’s.

Nothing is learned

As previously mentioned, writing is all about learning. Being published doesn’t mean a writer stops learning. Writing development never stops. Relying too much on the way your favourite writer does it means that you bypass that learning process – nothing is learned.

Writing the way we do, with our own voice, our own style, means we learn about the craft, we learn about ourselves as writers – what we’re good at, what we’re not so good at, and through that process, we create our own path to improvement.

Be inspired by others, practice, learn, but don’t copy.

Their mistakes become your mistakes

Established authors make mistakes, some famous ones are not beyond dropping a few howlers too, so when new writers find themselves copying the way their favourite authors write, they also assimilate the kind of mistakes that all writers should avoid, things like tenses, poor sentence structuring, telling but no showing etc.

Make your own mistakes and learn from them, but don’t copy others’ mistakes because ultimately you will become ignorant to becoming a better writer.

Bad writing habits

That brings us to bad habits. Ever had driving lessons from your parents, then when you get a driving instructor, you’re given contrary advice and told how to do things properly? That’s because you’ve picked up your parents’ bad habits. The same is true of writers. No writer is immune; we all have bad habits.

The problem here is that beginners become so focused on trying to be a writer that they absorb everything from their favourite author, and that includes bad writing habits (things like hanging participles, fragmented sentences, alternating tenses, lack of observation etc) and they use them in their own work, thinking it will immediately get them published.

By all means let other writers influence the way you might like to write, but don’t copy them, otherwise you end up ambushing the legitimacy of your own work.

There is nothing wrong is emulating other writers, their influences are hugely important to fellow writers, but don’t be a poor imitation. Be your own writer.

Next week in Part 2, we’ll look at positive ways to emulate your favourite others without the need to copy them.

Why you shouldn’t always give the reader what they want

2012-01-29T14:04:00.000Z

At the risk of sounding contrary, this is actually good advice. But what does it mean? And aren’t writers supposed to give the reader what they want, rather than the other way around?

Well, no, not always.

You need to give the reader what they want in terms of delivering the complete story – watertight plot, rounded and believable characters, background and pacing, lots of conflict and tension, atmosphere and emotion etc - but when a writer deliberately doesn’t give the reader what they want, it’s because they are teasing the reader and prompting them to want to know more.

The story is a two-way connection between you, the writer, and your reader. You lay the foundations and paint the background, you indulge them with information and description, but they also have to do some of the work too by trying to figure out what might happen next, what the characters might do and how the story might end etc. That’s precisely what keeps the reader turning the page.

The true art of writing is involving your reader from the moment they read the first paragraph, until the closing sentence at the end of the story. That means they have to be willing to work a little for that effort for them to be rewarded with a good story.

The Art of Holding Back

Holding back from your reader is rather like playing mind games with them. As the writer, you need to impart information that’s relevant to the story– but not too much; otherwise, you blow your chance of surprise and revelation later in the novel.

Deliberately withholding information is the perfect way to dangle the carrot, to stoke the reader’s interest.

Crime, horror and thriller writers employ this to great effect. They plant clues and snippets of information, but they hold back from telling the reader everything, because later in the story, they might have a revelation to surprise the reader, and in the meantime, that keeps the reader guessing.

Other writers hold back on revealing everything about their characters. Others hold back certain elements of the story that could form a twist later in the novel.

Keeping Secrets

How well can you keep secrets? This is another device employed by writers to sustain the tension. This is where the writer lets the reader in on something that the protagonist – the hero or heroine of the story – won’t know, but the writer doesn’t give the full picture of what it is, so the reader is left guessing the outcome later in the novel.

Again, this device is designed to keep the reader interested. They know something, but not everything. Keep them in the dark about stuff.

Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is a good example of this. He throws in bits of information for the reader to piece together, where necessary, then surprises the reader further into the story by completely wrong footing them, while the story twists in another direction.

He also lets the reader in on certain aspects of the story that the protagonist isn’t aware of, thereby leading the reader to keep reading to find out what happens. They have to keep reading.

This is a prime example of not giving the reader exactly what they want.

Foreshadowing

Dropping clues for the reader to work out what might happen is another way to tease the reader, and again this helps sustain the tension and keep them reading. Hinting at things to come is an age-old mechanism used in literature and movies alike, but again, you’re not giving the reader exactly what they want. You’re whetting their appetite by deliberately remaining coy and not giving them all the relevant information.

If we write a story that tells the reader everything they need to know from the outset, then the reader has no true reason to keep reading. Many new writers do this in the early chapters of their novels – they explain everything in the misguided belief that’s what the reader wants, but it means the rest of the story crumbles later on because the reader knows pretty much everything. That means there will be few surprises, twists or revelations.

And trying to add these as an aforethought tends to make the whole thing contrived because they don’t always seamlessly fit together and don’t always make sense.

Hold back on information, keep secrets and foreshadow whenever possible. Don’t be afraid to play games with the reader or mislead them. Close doors, put barriers up and lead them on a wild good chase if you want to.

But, sometimes, it pays to not always give them what they want.

Next week: Emulate but don’t copy – Why you should avoid writing like your favourite authors.

Dialogue versus Description

2012-01-21T14:17:00.000Z

Dialogue versus description – or in simple terms – how much of each should you aim for in your fiction?

This is a common question asked by many writers, and more often than not, if you ask a question like this you will get a hundred different answers, simply because there are no absolutes in fiction. Some people say lots of description is preferable, others say lots of dialogue is better. This can leave writers understandably confused.

The one thing to remember is that fiction is about balance. The dialogue to description ratio doesn’t have to be an exact science, but a healthy amount of both is better than a story that relies heavily on one and not the other, which may leave the whole thing lacking. This then begs the question - why does there need to be a balance?

Dialogue and description depend on each other; they co-exist, rather like strawberries and cream. One without the other just isn’t the same and sometimes it doesn’t work so well.

One element imparts vital information and moves the story forward. The other paints the background, creates a fictional world and supports the entire story with added layers. Every story needs both of these elements.

Dialogue

Some stories thrive on a lot of dialogue, short stories in particular. That’s because the market and genre sometimes demands it. Women’s magazines, for instance, use more dialogue in their structure than description simply to move the story along within the short amount of words allocated. Those kinds of stories won’t have time to dwell on luscious descriptions when keeping to 1000 – 5000 word counts.

If the word count is more generous, however, then the writer can afford to add more description to bolster the story and therefore help balance it, so something like 3000 – 10,000 words has more chance of balance between the two elements.

Some stories need description. Thriller and horror style short stories, for example, really do need something more substantial than large chunks of dialogue, otherwise how will you show your reader the atmosphere, emotion, tension or suspense? Romance markets also like plenty of description to create mood, emotion and allure.

If you are writing a story primarily made up of dialogue, remember that you can only achieve so much with it.

A novel in particular needs more than large blocks of dialogue to sustain itself, otherwise there is a risk of the reader losing interest simply because there isn’t much for them to go on. With 80,000 – 100,000 words to play with, you can be very generous with both dialogue AND description.

Description

A novel or short story top heavy on dialogue will miss a critical key factor in fiction writing, and that is the ability to SHOW the reader what is happening, to move the story forward, create a sense of atmosphere and tension and create an overall picture for the reader. Dialogue can’t really do that, but description can.

Conversely, if you have too much description and not enough dialogue in your novel, then you risk alienating the reader because then they have to trawl through large chunks of it, at the risk of becoming bored. Pages and pages of endless text is hard work unless the writer can thoroughly and cleverly engage the reader.

And here’s a strange thing: Short stories made up entirely of well-constructed description do work – but they have to be very well written.

Dialogue only stories, on the other hand, don’t work. This is because there is nothing for the reader – no sense of mood, no sense of conflict, no atmosphere and no emotion to hook them, other than a few descriptive sentences here and there. These types tend to be sterile and lack lustre and don’t always engage the reader.

As previously mentioned, the balance between the two doesn’t have to be exact. Look at your favourite novels and the majority will have a healthy description: dialogue ratio.

One important point here - having the right balance of description and dialogue increases your chances of being published. Why? Because editors expect it, they are looking for that balance between the two, and they like detail.

Of course, this doesn’t mean your story has to be middle of the road, or ‘safe’, or constructed exactly to ‘how to’ writing instructions, it simply means you have paid attention to the structure of the overall story and made sure one element doesn’t overshadow the other.

Your writing should have a healthy balance of both.

Next week: Why you shouldn’t give the reader what they want.

Do too many characters spoil the story?

2012-01-14T15:23:00.000Z

Often I’m asked how many characters are too many for a story, but the honest answer would be to assess the story or novel and make an informed decision on how many characters are central to the story. In truth, there is no definitive right or wrong. Some novels have many characters, like the Harry Potter novels, and Lord of the Rings, while others have a bare minimum.

Firstly, too few characters are not necessarily a bad thing. Many novels have just a few main and secondary characters and they work well because the main focus is constantly on them throughout the novel. That means there aren’t less important characters stealing some of that limelight, and thus fewer subplots to write and to keep an eye on.

In short stories it’s somewhat different – the fewer the characters, the better. That’s because you may only have between 1000 and 10,000 words to tell the story and having too many characters may complicate the whole thing and make it difficult for the reader to keep track of them. Most short stories thrive on 2 – 4 characters.

But what about too many characters?

Having too many characters in a novel can complicate things. This is where beginners tend to trip up by throwing in lots of characters into the mix with a multitude of viewpoints, thinking that it will make the story more exciting, but this only detracts from the story for the reader trying to follow so many people. The problem is that there is a tendency for the reader not to empathise with or relate to the characters because there are so many of them to follow.

Not only that, but trying to write each individual character, complete with personalities etc, can become confusing for the writer. Sometimes there are many secondary characters with subplots, and the writer then realises that those subplots need concluding by the end of the novel. Sometimes this complicates things and the writer needs to have a major character cull o get back on track.

The other thing to avoid when there is a large amount of characters – and this is common – is upstaging. This where secondary or minor characters take over and inadvertently shadow the main character. If that happens, the balance of characters is wrong and needs correcting. Never allow secondary characters to overshadow your main character.

As with many elements in fiction, however, it’s all about balance. The question you need to ask is how many characters can effectively tell the story?

Pivotal characters – the protagonist and the antagonist - are the main focus of every story. In addition, there are the secondary characters, but only those who are still central to telling the story.

Peripheral characters – minor ones - might only have a few lines or maybe appear in the background, and so will not clog the narrative with superfluous ‘padding’. Keeping peripheral characters to a minimum is wise. The rule of thumb is ‘if they’re not key to the plot, then cut them’.

In any story, the writer is looking for character development; fully rounded personalities that can move the story forward and evoke the reader’s empathy and emotions through conflict. It’s important that your reader cares for you characters. If you have too many people loading the narrative, the reader won’t know which character to bother with.

In an ideal world, the number of main characters would be around 4 to 10. Secondary characters would be around the same numbers. Peripheral and background characters should be just that, flitting in and out of the background.

So, can you still engage your reader with, say, 25 characters? Can you do it with less than 10?

Think carefully about how many of your characters can tell the story, think about their development and conflicts, and decide what will be best for you. Find the right balance of characters and remember who is central to your plot.

Next week: Dialogue versus description.

The Importance of Feedback

2012-01-07T17:28:00.000Z

This is a subject previously touched upon, but it deserves another look.

The process of feedback is very important for a writer, whether the feedback is negative or positive; it still forms an integral part of a writer’s journey and their ability to learn.

It can be daunting letting someone else read your work, because you are not entirely sure whether they will a) understand it, b) dislike it or c) like it.

Handing over work for feedback is the act of opening yourself up for the worst criticism, but by letting others read your work, you are inviting their opinion, their response, and without it, or indeed constructive critique, you will be unable to grow as a writer.

One of the most important reasons for feedback is to enable others to see errors in your story which are not always apparent to you, they will tell you if the story works, they will comment on your characters and description, they will tell you of it all makes sense and so on.

This process allows you to understand your story from an objective viewpoint because a fresh pair of eyes will guarantee to find flaws.

Receiving feedback is easy. Accepting feedback is altogether different. In truth, no one likes to be criticised, but writers have to accept this as part of the job, whether they like it or not. Sometimes we’re right and sometimes we’re wrong. It’s accepting that we got it wrong that separates the true writers from those who value arrogance above all else.

The feedback that is most ignored by writers is the kind of feedback that he or she finds hard to accept, because they will find a hundred excuses to justify it, such as ‘they didn’t understand what I was trying to say’ or ‘they don’t appreciate the genre’ or ‘I deliberately wrote it to be like that…’

Feedback highlights the issues that the writer hasn’t spotted, so it doesn’t matter whether the reader doesn’t understand the genre, or whether they are the world’s greatest grammarian, what they are giving is an honest, open opinion. All writers should respect this and then re-examine the work to see where they can make improvements.

It doesn’t really matter who provides the feedback, whether it is a friend, an avid reader or whether it’s a professional critique, each one is still a reader. And it’s what they think of the work that counts.

And of course, once you have some feedback, it’s how you deal with it that is important. Do you shrug it off with arrogance? Do you take on board their comments? Do you examine what you need to do in order to improve?

What you do determines the kind of writer you are, and how much you want to learn.

Rewriting and editing following reader feedback is just as important as the creative part of writing, because it allows you to take a critical look at it again. The ability to reflect on your own work is a fundamental principle of creative writing. This means you need to be able to edit your work appropriately, you need to be able to take on board any comments and make your work much better. Some writers prefer to eschew this process and plough on regardless. These writers are seldom published.

Antisthenes once said, “Not to unlearn what you have learned is the most necessary kind of learning”.

Antisthenes, once a pupil of Socrates, was onto a good thing there. In other words, by not learning from your errors, you will never learn. And if you don’t learn from such mistakes, you never improve and grow.

There is a very simple process to follow – whether the feedback is good, bad or indifferent.

Once you have written your work, give it to people to read to gain their opinions and views. Their responses might be very positive, they might be very negative, or they could be constructive. Once you have that feedback, it’s important to reflect on it, to understand why or how, to interpret their analysis and to form objective judgement based on their views. Only then can you go back, edit and improve – as long as you are not afraid of humility and you have the desire to learn.

Remember:

Write and edit your work
Let others read it, gain some feedback
Examine all opinions and comments
Reflect on your work
Edit and improve

I’ll leave the last word to Mark Twain: "The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all".

Next week: Do too many characters spoil the story?

Passive Voice

2012-01-02T15:39:00.000Z

This is a subject previously touched upon, but still causes problems for writers.

Passive voice is one of those things that give all writers a headache from time to time, because sometimes it’s needed and sometimes it isn’t, but knowing when to correctly use passive voice causes the confusion.

Firstly, the use of passive voice isn’t always grammatically incorrect. This creates uncertainty for writers, who believe it’s a writing no-no, but there are times when passive voice is actually required, and preferred.

But what exactly is passive voice?

Passive voice is produced by using an auxiliary verb (e.g. to be), which is used with a past participle. If you are not sure of the verb forms of to be, they are - is, are, am, was, were, have been, has been, had been, will be, will have been and being.

A past participle is a form of the verb that usually, though not exclusively, ends in ‘-ed’. Verbs are either active or passive.

In passive voice, the target of the action takes the subject position, for example, ‘the plant was watered by John’, or ‘the door was closed by Amy’. In other words, both John and Amy are the recipients of the action, rather than the other way around, where the subjects (John and Amy) are doing the action.

In the active voice, these sentences would look like this:

John watered the plant.
Amy closed the door.

In an active sentence, the subject performs the action. John is the subject of the sentence because he is doing the action, therefore the sentence is active.

Amy is also the subject of the sentence because she performs the action of closing the door. Again, the sentence is active.

You need to identify who or what is doing the action; therefore, if the subject is performing the action then the sentence is active. If, however, the subject of the sentence is receiving the action, then you have constructed a passive sentence.

The word to look out for that contrives passive sentences is ‘was’. Avoid too much use of ‘was’ in your narrative.

Of course, when we’re in the flow of writing, we don’t always spot passive sentences, so during the editing stages we can go back and correct them because we know what to look for.

As already mentioned above, passive voice isn’t entirely bad. There will be instances where your spellchecker will highlight a passive sentence (rather over zealously) and fill your screen with green little underlines. For instance, in the second paragraph of this article the sentence ‘sometimes it’s needed’ is passive. In the second paragraph, ‘we’ve been taught’ is also passive, however it’s preferable to leave the sentences passive otherwise the flow and fluidity of the whole thing will become awkward if changed, so in this instance passive is preferred.

Passive sentences are very common in dialogue, and are typical representations of everyday speech, so there is little need to change them, for instance:

‘She has been told several times,’ he said.

‘Has been’ is the passive part of the sentence, but it’s in keeping with what we’d say in real life, so there is no need to change it, otherwise the dialogue will become stilted if we were to change it to ‘Told several times, she was.’

So while some passive sentences need eliminating, some are required. Learn about auxiliary verbs and past participles, become familiar with them to help you spot passive sentences. Don’t always rely on your spellchecker.

On the whole, limit passive voice, otherwise your narrative might become awkward. Keep the writing tight and concise and remember to keep sentences active rather than passive wherever possible.

Next week: The importance of feedback

Can music help the writing process?

2011-12-23T15:59:00.000Z

Some writers work better with the sounds of a bustling cafe around them, others prefer the comfort of silence, but for some writers, the medium of music helps them to write better. There is something about the right background music that magically lights the creative touch paper.

Imagine watching a movie without any musical score. Would the emotional, dramatic or action scenes seem right? Would they have any impact? Imagine the opening scenes of Jaws without the clever cello build up of John Williams’ score. Without that creeping sound, the scene loses the sinister feel and it also loses any opportunity to create tension.

And what would the vast visual beauty of Lawrence of Arabia be without Maurice Jarre’s romantic swish of strings to rouse the audience? It would be somewhat empty.

Music and writing works the same way. The right music can create drama, it can affect the mood and it also stirs the imagination.

Of course, every writer is different and it may not work for everyone. But for those who have never really thought about it, the right music can do the following for writers:

It helps to create atmosphere
It helps to stimulate the senses
It fosters creativity
It helps you visualise scenes
It’s a way of infusing your narrative with heightened emotion and feeling
It can create impact

Again, think about how you feel when you hear music in a movie – it’s a perfect accompaniment to heighten atmosphere or tension, to draw our emotions, to rouse us with the action. Let it so the same for your writing.

It’s important to choose the right music for the right scene (although you might be one of those writers who can write sensual scenes to the decibel shattering sounds of Metallica) so perhaps non-distracting music may work better, so that it actually helps you focus on your narrative rather than detract from it. Whatever works for you.

Scene-appropriate music

Choosing the right music for the right scene is important if you want those creative juices to bubble. Light classical or movie soundtrack music is perfect for this because scores can provide the right amount of mood and atmosphere for a particular scene. For instance, slow thoughtful music for contemplative scenes, or upbeat, bristling, stirring music for action scenes, and sad, softer music for emotional scenes.

Instrumental music tends to be better simply because of its composition and melody structure, whereas songs could distract from the actual ‘sound’ of the music because you might have the urge to sing along or tap your fingers to the beat, when instead you should be writing!

It may be that writing with certain types of music can increase writing productivity because it helps the writer focus the tension, the atmosphere, emotions or conflict into the writing.

Also, try to focus on the piece of music you choose, listen to its rich layers and let your thoughts wander. It should stir your creativity and stretch your imagination, after all, these two art forms - music and literature - work in tandem. They are so ingrained in our psyche that the world would seem strange without them.

I write to well chosen movie scores – ranging from John Williams, James Newton Howard, James Horner, Thomas Newman and many others. Each one offers something different and I can tailor the music to suit my writing needs. Some of these come from CDs while others are from online playlists.

There are a number of free online resources for those interested putting together playlists. Just follow the links:

www.streamingsoundtracks.com is a free streaming and radio service.

www.last.fm/music/+free-music-downloads/classical offers some free music downloads for your MP3.

www.grooveshark.com is also a free streaming service, which I use. You’ll find many movie scores and classical composers here, and you can also create your own playlists.

Background music is just one of a number of tools that can support a writer and in some cases, boost the creative output, so If you haven’t already, why not give it a go? It might inspire you, who knows?

I WOULD LIKE TO WISH EVERYONE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS, HAVE A FABULOUS BREAK.

Next week: Passive voice

Character separation disorder...moving on from your characters

2011-12-17T14:57:00.000Z

You’ve created your novel, you’ve devoted months or perhaps years to writing it, but then the daunting task of sitting down and starting your next big creation begins, yet somehow you just can’t get into it.

Sometimes writers become so entwined with their characters when writing with them for such a prolonged period that it’s difficult to move on and think about new characters and new stories. Months or years spent sheltering in the skin of their protagonists and antagonists can force a wedge between the writer and their creativity.

But this isn’t unusual for writers.

We grow to understand and love our characters, and sometimes it’s hard to move on from them. Character separation disorder simply means that the bond we have with our well-drawn heroes and villains is sometimes hard to break. When we need to create new characters for new stories and themes, we first have to let go of our first set of characters in order to gain and understanding for the new set of characters.

Of course, this poses a one or two problems, because writers will start thinking things like ‘my new character won’t be like my old character, so how can I possibly write a new one?’ or ‘I miss writing with my old characters’ or ‘I loved the way my hero was in my first novel...’ etc. The moment these thoughts creep in, the creative process might stall.

And if there is an excuse, a writer will find it.

Why do some writers find it difficult?

Writers devote time and effort, planning, empathy and creativity within their characters, they have nurtured and watched their characters grow, they have lived through the fictional ups and downs, the highs and lows, and so all these elements are a psychological part of the writer. Those characters will have developed personalities, ways of talking and behaving. They are almost real, and finishing a novel - and therefore finishing with your characters - is rather like seeing children grow up and leave home.

When a writer needs new characters, he or she might make comparisons to the old ones, or simply disguise the same old characters but with new names, however, new stories and themes require new, fresh characters, not old ones masquerading as new.

How does as writer overcome it?

The best way to overcome this is to allow enough time after completing the novel before sitting down to write the next novel. That time allows you to think afresh, sketch new characters, flesh out storylines for them and get to know them.

If you don’t give yourself that time, you’ll spend far too much time making comparisons to your old, dearly loved characters and falling into the trap of trying to start a new novel with poorly planned ideas and badly drawn heroes and villains.

It’s also important that you get to the inner workings of your new story before you jump in with both feet – this allows you to form a writing bond with the elements of the story, and more importantly, it allows you to warm to your new characters.

Once you have sketched out new characters, try writing some practice scenes with them. This is a good way for you and them to become acquainted.

You will grow to love your new characters throughout the lifecycle of your new novel, you’ll get to nurture them and go through the emotional highs and lows. They will become an intrinsic part of you, just like the old set of characters, and you’ll enjoy writing with them just as much.

Characters are like family. They come to stay for a while, but eventually they have to leave and go home.

Remember:

Allow time from finishing the first novel to starting the next.
Discover your new characters, develop them and get to really know them.
Plan and get to know the inner workings of your new story.
Don’t compare your old characters with your new ones.
Write some practice scenes with your new characters to get a sense of who they are.
The more time you spend with your new characters, the less likely you are to think of your old ones.

Next week: Can music help the writing process?

How being subtle can improve your descriptions

2011-12-10T12:51:00.000Z

The art of good description is sometimes about intentionally holding back from your reader.

Have you ever watched horror movies where the monster or creature is never revealed until the very end? You only get hints or shadows or brief glimpses. But if you compare them to movies where you see the monster from the outset, while they might be entertaining, you get two very different results.

The reason that not seeing the monster works so well is that, psychologically, it deprives the visual part of your brain from what is, so consequently, your brain has to fill in the gaps, it has to build up a picture of what the monster looks like. It also helps focus tension and atmosphere, precisely because you don’t know who or what it is.

Imagine the same technique in fiction. By not revealing too much to the reader, you not only create a sense of tension and atmosphere, but you also keep them guessing. And by doing that you keep them reading, because physiologically, they have to fill in the gaps.

It is true when they say less is more. Simply by hinting at something within your narrative will fire your reader’s imagination, rather than a reliance of revealing everything in one great chunk of text. Hold back a little; make the readers draw their own thoughts.

Subtlety can actually improve your descriptions, so try not to over-describe. Give the reader something to work with – it could be a word prompt, a colour or a hint of something.

This is a flash fiction piece, called Prelude, a good example of how description can hint at something without going into all the details:

The shape of deception toiled in the strained expression in the window.

The silence of the moment dragged across her nerves, tore a hole in her senses as the sticky residue of rationality dribbled from an overloaded mind.

Behind her, a figure lay beneath the covers, untainted by such burdens.

Emotions bubbled beneath the surface. They neither made sense nor soothed, but they forged a path through her resolve. She’d given in to temptation.

Cold neon reflections flashed across her face.

Her wedding ring glinted. Guilt clung to her reverie.

And still the blade in her hand sang to her.

Here there is a build up to what will happen, but I wrote it in such a way that the descriptions speak for themselves without being overbearing and too full on.

The key words in the first line are ‘deception toiled’. This tells the reader what is on the character’s mind, again without writing seven or eight sentences going into the finer details. A few well-chosen words do all the work for me.

The key words in the second sentence are ‘silence...dragged across her nerves.’ What does this convey? What can you hear in that? And ‘sticky residue of rationality’ prompts the reader to imagine the character’s thoughts and feelings.

What else do the descriptions tell you? What can you imagine from them? What colours might you see? What might you hear?

The closing line implies what might happen, what she will do, all without going into too much detail. There is just enough there to stir the reader’s imagination, to fill in the visual and sensory gaps for themselves.

What I did with Prelude is deprive the reader of many visual aspects – forcing them to imagine more of the story.

Every writer’s mantra is to ‘show, don’t tell’, and it works the same way to tease your reader. Show them, don’t tell them outright. Plant clues, foreshadow, drop hints through narrative or dialogue. Let them fill in the gaps and let their imagination do the work.

Here’s a simple example:

Josh walked slowly to the car, his mind heavy. He opened the door and climbed in, thought about what had happened. He started the car, clicked his seat belt in place, and wondered how he was going to tell his wife, Melissa, that he had been made redundant. He gripped the wheel and drove away with a heavy heart...

Compare that with:

Thoughts fizzled as Josh walked to the car. A cold realisation trickled into his veins. Redundant. Reduced to nothing. The serrated fear of what he would tell his wife troubled him and shame crept in as he drove away...

The reader doesn’t need to know every single movement Josh made, so the descriptions of getting into the car and starting it and putting the seat belt on are irrelevant. What are important are Josh’s feelings and thoughts. He feels as though he is nothing, he feels ashamed. It’s up to the reader to decipher what that means to Josh and his wife, because the hint has been planted.

This style of description also forms part of the ‘moving the story forward’ idea. In a few sentences we know what’s happened to him and the hint about what his wife will say when he returns home moves the story forward to that moment.

Subtle hints work well in dialogue, too, and will help you move the story forward. Read your favourite authors to see how they achieve it.

Remember the following in your descriptions:

· Prompts – visual, sound, colour, shapes, etc
· Hints – Thoughts, feelings, emotions, events etc.
· Foreshadowing
· Deliberately deprive the reader

Achieving good description isn’t always about describing everything in minute detail. As a writer, you are playing a psychological game with your reader. How good you are with that will depend on how good your description is.

Next week: Character separation disorder...moving on from your characters.

Narrative Oppositions

2011-12-04T15:30:00.000Z

Firstly, what are narrative oppositions? These are certain words – they can be nouns, adjectives etc - that crop up within descriptive passages, but are actually opposite it their meaning. In other words, the writer is trying to describe a scene and inadvertently ends up using pairs of words that mean opposite things.

This is not uncommon because many writers misunderstand the meaning of some words and therefore group them together. For instance, ‘foreboding’ and ‘forbidding’ mean different things but are often wrongly used together when trying to create tension and atmosphere within a scene. For instance:

The house had a cold, foreboding appearance, forbidding in the dark...’

Forbidding means ‘repellent, stern’. Foreboding means bad omen, an expectation’ of trouble or evil.’

Another often seen example is sob and wail.

‘She sobbed into her hands, wailed into the silence...’

To sob means to cry quietly. To wail means to cry very loudly or bitterly, therefore you can’t have a character sobbing and wailing at the same time, and yet writers mistakenly put these two together. These are narrative oppositions that look as though they belong together, but actually don’t.

Another two words which are commonly grouped together within narrative, but actually mean slightly different things, are moan and groan.

‘He moaned and groaned as the pain rippled through him...’

Because of the way English constantly changes, both moan and groan are now used in the context of meaning the same thing, however, to moan is to whinge about something. To groan is to cry out with pain, but where fiction is concerned, describing a character doing both is a sign of lazy writing, so don’t make the mistake of having your characters moaning and groaning.

Clarity, simplicity and accuracy should always be at the forefront of every writer’s mind.

Another two descriptive words commonly linked together, is flail and thrash, for instance, ‘he flailed on the floor and thrashed about...’

Flail means to swing or wave erratically or wildly. Thrash means to beat or strike with a stick or whip etc, as though to flail someone. They mean similar things in English, but when using them in your narrative, they can cause ambiguity and confusion.

The same could be said for writhed and thrashed. Or writhed and flailed. These are two distinct words of different meanings.

Another example often seen is narrative that has a character shuddering and then quivering.

He shuddered as he looked up, quivering in the cold.

Again, while these two words may indicate similarity, they actually describe different things. Quivering and shuddering are different movements, because quivering is like a tremble, from either fear or excitement, and the act of shuddering is a large convulsive movement, associated with extreme cold or terrible fear. Writers mistakenly group them together thinking they mean the same thing.

And two words that often crop up in romance fiction is husked and rasped, as though trying to evoke sensual allure. But husk and rasp mean different things. One is a deep throaty sound; the other is a serrated, sharp sound. You can’t have your hero doing both.

The beauty of the editing process, however, is that you can remove oppositions like from your manuscript and correct the narrative before it hits the agent or publisher’s desk.

When it comes to your descriptive passages and narrative, use your words wisely and only in context, think about what you want to convey, otherwise you risk losing the meaning of what you’re trying to say, or worse still, you’ll end up confusing your reader altogether.

Remember - clarity, simplicity and accuracy.

Next week: How subtlety can improve your narrative.

Action/Reaction & Dialogue sentence order

2011-11-26T15:24:00.000Z

Continuing the theme of strengthening sentences, one of the things that I see a lot of in MSS is the order in which the characters do and say things. This may not seem too important, and it’s one of those things we don’t necessarily pay much attention to, however when it comes to clarity, being able to put the action or reaction or dialogue in the right order makes for tighter, polished and better sentences.

And they make more sense, of course.

The aim is to write actions and their reactions in chronological order. Not only does it create clarity but it also keeps the flow of the sentence, without interruption, and it reduces ambiguity. It makes life so much easier for your reader, and by putting the action before the dialogue, it increases the effectiveness of the sentence.

Here’s a simple example:

He grabbed the phone, startled by it.

Essentially this sentence isn’t actually grammatically incorrect, but it does read as though he grabbed the phone first, then he was startled by it, so the order is a little misleading for the reader.

To give it clarity, and inform the reader, it’s better like this:

The phone rang, startled him. He grabbed it.

This version is punchy and to the point and supplies the reader with a chronological order, i.e. that the phone startled the character and is this is followed by his action of grabbing it.

Here’s another example:

He sipped his coffee as he sat down, watched the assembled faces.

Again, while the sentence is okay, it can be much tighter. This tells us he sat down while drinking his coffee and looked at the people around him. There’s almost a hint of nonchalance about him, but if we change the sentence order, it takes on a slightly different feel.

He sat down, watched the assembled faces as he sipped his coffee.

The character’s action of sitting down and then looking at those around him infers that perhaps he is nervous or he’s carefully gauging those around him.

Here’s a typical example of what many writers tend to slip into their narrative, a reaction to action sentence:

She saw the shock on his face when she opened the door.

Here, the writer has opted to show the reaction first (the shock on his face), followed by the action (opening the door). If we think about it logically, it makes more sense to do the action first, and then show the reaction.

She opened the door; saw the shock on his face.

It’s now clear and concise, and it gets rid of the ‘when’ which is of no use whatsoever. More importantly, it sets the correct order of action to reaction.

Action/Dialogue

On the whole, action is better before dialogue. Why? Often the sentence doesn’t read correctly when the person says something and then does the action afterward, like an afterthought. Sentences are tighter and better with action, then dialogue. Not only that, but the placement of action/dialogue can affect how a reader interprets the events/speech.

This is also a way of informing the reader of your character’s actions or thoughts prior to the action. For instance:

‘Hello?’ he said, grabbing the phone.

This sentence isn’t incorrect, but it’s not great either. The character says hello while grabbing the phone, so this causes inadvertent ambiguity. How many of us say hello before we’ve put the phone to our ears? By rearranging the sentence order, the sentence becomes clearer:

He grabbed the phone. ‘Hello?’

This sentence is now unambiguous. The action of the phone ringing is immediately followed by the response.

The idea is to always make your writing as clear as possible for your reader. Take a look at these sentences and decide which you think work better.

1. ‘So, what happened?’ he said, getting out of the car.

He got out of the car. ‘So, what happened?’

2. ‘I don’t care what he thinks,’ she said, taking a cigarette from the packet and lighting it.

She took a cigarette from the packet, lit it. ‘I don’t care what he thinks.’

3.’I don’t have time for this nonsense,’ he said and stomped around the office.

He stomped around the office. ‘I don’t have time for this nonsense.’

There are no hard rules about sentence order, but having clear sentences that follow a simple chronological order with actions and reactions or dialogue makes for better writing and helps writers improve their writing skills.

Of course, not every single sentence in your story will be like this, but following these simple guidelines will help to improve the standard of your writing. It makes it much easier for your reader, and ultimately, more enjoyable for them to read.

Next week: Avoiding narrative oppositions

Strengthening sentences with some weeding

2011-11-19T15:33:00.000Z

The great thing about the editing process is that it’s a chance for writers to weed out the superfluous, the structural errors and all those grammatically incorrect words and sentences.

A writer should always aim for better constructed sentences. That means weeding out things like adverbs and adjectives, passive sentences, gerunds and making sure the tenses are correct etc.

There are other constructions that creep into our writing without us noticing and that is the use of phrasal verbs or prepositional words.

We write these kind of phrases and words without thinking too much about them, which is why they can end up becoming prevalent in our work. For the most part, if you want tightly constructed, concise and well thought out sentences, you take need to weed them out.

How many times have your characters decided to do something, or they have begun to or started to do something, or they are going to do something? If you read back through your work, I’m willing to bet a few of these have crept into your writing.

Begin to, decide to and going to. Too many of these phrasal anomalies weaken the sentence structure, unless they are absolutely integral to the sentence or form part of your character’s dialogue.

Begin to

How many times do you have characters "begin to" do things? For example:

He began to make the coffee
She began to cry into her handkerchief

While these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, it is better that the characters take direct action, especially if you have a story in based in past tense, so that it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the narrative.

He made the coffee
She cried into her handkerchief

This tidies up the sentences and makes them much tighter and the flow of action is much better.

Started to

This is very similar to begin to, in that you have your characters starting to do something when instead you can be direct and get them to just do the action.

He started to unravel to the rope
They started to run towards the trees

Again, by using direct action, you avoid slowing the narrative and the sentence structure becomes tighter.

He unravelled the rope.
They ran towards the trees.

Decide to

We can apply the same principle when we have characters ‘deciding to’ do something. Instead of the characters doing that, have them do the direct action.

He decided to look through the files
She decided to make lunch

Again, having them decide to do things creates an unintentional slowing of the sentence structure. Be direct.

He looked through the files.
She made lunch or she prepared lunch.

Instantly you have tighter sentences. The only time you would use decide to, is in dialogue between characters, where they would say these kinds of phrases.

‘I decided to go for it,’ he said.
‘He decided to look through the files,’ she said.

Going to be

‘Going to’ is future tense because it’s stating future events or actions that might take place, for instance, someone is going to be angry, sad, happy etc. Something is going to happen. These usually occur in dialogue. For example:

He is going to be angry
She is going to be unhappy with this
They are going to be so happy with our surprise
I think it is going to rain

Again, it’s about being direct within the narrative and what you want to express, and replacing ‘going to’ with ‘will’.

He will be angry
She will be unhappy with this
They will be so happy with our surprise
I think it will rain.

Beginning to, starting to, deciding to and going to all create unnecessary pauses within the narrative and slow the pace, particularly so if you have a fast-paced action scene and your hero is right in the action, but then you have him deciding to do something, or starting to do something or going to do something, which creates a stumbling block.

Always remember to be direct wherever possible. Not all phrasal verbs are avoidable, but most are unnecessary and unconstructive within your narrative. Weeding them out will make for better writing and better sentences.

Next week: Creating better sentences: Action /reaction sentence order

Creating Sibilance

2011-11-12T15:14:00.000Z

Ever wondered how you can create poetic resonance within your narrative, or you’ve read what you have written and you’ve discovered it has strong characteristic sounds? The descriptive language somehow appeals to your senses to create an extra dimension to the narrative. This is known as sibilance.

Sibilance is a literary device which writers can use to create certain sounds within their narrative, usually a hissing sound with ‘s’ or ‘z’ or ‘sh’ and sometimes a soft ‘c,’ and it is most often found in poetry. These words resonate with the reader, it visualises sound and if done properly, it can bring the description to life.

Sibilance can either appear within narrative or you can use it in dialogue, but as with all writing, it’s about knowing how and it works and where the sibilance should be placed that counts. It’s an effective tool to create multi layers to what might be flat, uninspiring narrative. Besides, effective use of language is what writing is all about and writers should take advantage of all the tools in their writing toolbox.

Sibilance in narrative

Scenes of description can benefit from sibilance, it gives can help create atmosphere, it can draw tension, it can paint a more colourful picture for your reader.

Of course, using sibilant words doesn’t mean littering a scene in such a way that it somehow weakens the narrative rather than strengthens it, for instance by using every word beginning with s, such as ‘he slowly sank in shifting shadows, senses starved...’

This is overkill and reads more like a shopping list. This is the wrong way to approach sibilance. Remember that sibilant words don’t have to begin with‘s’ to create sibilance.

Here’s an example of how it should be done within narrative. I've highlighted the sibilant words:

Your deceitful sheen stretched tight across a burnished expression.

Nearly this entire sentence has sibilance. The soft ‘c’ in deceitful, the ‘sh’ sound in sheen and the ‘s’ in stretched is further bolstered by the ‘ss’ in across, ‘sh’ in burnished and finally ‘ss’ in expression.

Notice that not every word begins with‘s’, but that other words which express the softer ‘sh’ and ‘c’ sound and the harder ‘ss’ sound have been utilised.

This is how effective sibilance works. It doesn’t have to be overt, most often it is subtle, and each word doesn’t have to begin with ‘s’, but the sentence is written in such a way that a reader will notice the sounds created within the sentence on a completely subconscious level.

Here are some more examples:

The sounds brushed against the ears like a soft soliloquy.

Here both the ‘s’ at the beginning and end of the word sounds, the ‘sh’ in brush, the ‘s’ in ears, the ‘s’ in soft and finally the ‘s’ in soliloquy are sibilant.

The light zapped across the sky, an intense forceful, flash.

Again, the ‘z’ in zapped, ‘ss’ in across, the‘s’ in sky, ‘s’ in intense, the soft ‘c’ in forceful and the ‘sh’ in flash all work together to create sibilance.

Sibilance in Dialogue

Sibilance in dialogue works slightly differently to narrative, because unlike narrative, dialogue isn’t describing anything except for the attributions, ‘she said, he said, she screamed, he scowled’ etc.

In dialogue, try not to go for these obvious attributions when instead you can show the reader the emotions of your characters and create the sibilance in the sounds for the reader to hear.

Instead of, ‘I despise you,’ she hissed, try this instead:

Something simmered on her tongue. ‘I despise you...’

Here, ‘something’ and ‘simmered’ is coupled with ‘despise’. All have the‘s’ sound. The reader will hear the slight hiss without you having to mention the word ‘hiss’ because ‘something simmered’ is enough to allow the reader to hear the anger in the character’s voice.

Instead of ‘Get out,’ he scowled, try this:

His face creased, anger slithering up his throat. ‘Get out!’

In this example, ‘his face creased,’ creates sibilance, which is coupled with ‘slithering’ and ‘his’ to create a complete sibilant sentence. The reader will know he is upset from the way the character’s face creases and the anger rising in his throat, so there is no need to say ‘scowled’.

Instead of, ‘Help!’ she screamed, try this:

Shadows closed in, stifling her. Fear seeped into her voice. ‘Help...!’

The sentence does away with the attribution ‘she screamed’ and makes use of sibilance to create atmosphere and show the tension by using the ‘s’ in shadows, ‘c’ in closed and ‘s’ in stifling. This is coupled with the‘s’ in seeped and soft ‘c’ in voice.

This works much better. It creates sounds for the reader and helps them visualise the scene and it also brings tension and atmosphere.

Remember, sibilance isn’t about making every word begin with ‘s’ to create the ‘sss’ sound, it’s about using different words together that hint at the sound. It is such a useful device for writers to play around with. It’s there, so make use of it.

Next week: Strengthening sentences with a little weeding.

Part 3 - Modifiers, Intensifiers and Qualifiers

2011-11-07T20:27:00.001Z

Continuing on from Part 1 and Part 2 - modifiers and intensifiers - in this last part we’ll look at Qualifiers.

Writers should familiarise themselves with the different types of modifiers so that when it comes to editing, the process is easier.

Qualifiers are a type of modifier; they modify words in a sentence or phrase in a certain way, they qualify adjectives and verbs and provide readers with specific details. In other words, they change how absolute or generalised a sentence can be.

For instance, ‘this sum is very large’ or ‘this sum is a great deal bigger than I expected’, where the words ‘very’ and ‘great deal’ are the qualifiers. Or ‘he came across it almost by accident’ or ‘he came across it pretty much by accident’, where ‘almost’ and ‘pretty much’ are the qualifiers. To varying degrees, each of these has modified the sentence.

Often, qualifiers provide unnecessary padding to your narrative. We use qualifiers in our speech all the time, but when it comes to fiction writing, they should only appear in dialogue, because, like intensifiers and types of modifiers, they weaken the quality of writing.

Many writers mistakenly believe that their narrative needs this sort of ‘padding’, or that if they use lots of ‘rather’, ‘quite’ and ‘somewhat’, the writing sounds better than it is. It doesn’t.

Take out the qualifiers from the above examples and you have much better sentences.

The most commonly (overused) qualifiers are: rather, very, quite, usually, generally, somewhat, more, less, least, so, just, enough, indeed, still, almost, most, fairly, really, pretty much, even, a bit, a little, a good deal, a great deal, kind of, sort of.

Now you can see why, wherever possible, you should avoid these types of words that modify your sentences.

Take this example:

The rain was somewhat heavy as he opened the door.

Apart from sounding vague, the ‘somewhat’ is completely unnecessary and serves only to pad the sentence with extra verbiage. Leave out the ‘somewhat’ and just have ‘the rain was heavy as he opened the door’ and you’ll see that the sentence has immediately strengthened.

How many of these have crept into your writing without you even noticing? Here are some examples that crop up in writing all the time:-

Jane almost collapsed with shock. (Almost? Either she did or she didn’t.)
It sort of just happened. (Sort of or not quite, or just stuck in between?)
The house was just around the corner. (Does that mean right there, half way, further down from the corner?)
Indeed, it was his first lesson. (Indeed is pointless in this sentence.)

As you can see from these examples, these are the types of qualifiers we use all the time when chatting to other people in everyday life, however when it comes to narrative, avoid littering the story with them because they inevitably weaken the structure and make it look amateurish. They also make the writer appear lazy.

Be succinct and don’t be let sentences become inadvertently vague by using qualifiers.

Of course, as is the case with creative fiction, there are some qualifiers that you do need when writing – all, always, none, never. These are known as absolute qualifiers (a modifier that does not have matters of degree). They are absolute.

It’s impossible not to use qualifiers in the right circumstances, however their use in the wrong circumstances can cause problems, so for the most part, it’s wise to avoid most of them and keep a strict eye on where they end up in your narrative.

As you can see from the various examples, weeding out some qualifiers can make your sentences better and tighter, and now that you can recognise them, it will be easier to edit your work and eliminate as many as possible.

Remember, your narrative should always be concise, tight and sharp.

Next week: Creating sibilance

Modifiers, Intensifiers and Qualifiers - Part 2

2011-10-29T13:31:00.000+01:00

Unlike modifiers, which modify words or phrases, an Intensifier is a term for a modifier that amplifies the meaning of the word it modifies. An intensifier is used exclusively to modify adverbs and adjectives and is placed before the word it is meant to modify.

In simple terms, the intensifier emphasises adverbs and adjectives - it makes them more intense. The word is derived from Latin, meaning to “intend or stretch”.

In grammatical terms, the intensifier lends no weight to the meaning of a sentence other than to give it an additional emotional nuance to the word it is modifying, however, since they modify adverbs and adjectives, they should be treated in the same way adverbs adjectives – used little and sparingly wherever possible within your writing.

This is where learning to spot them will benefit your quality of writing. Intensifiers are attributive and serve only to fill space, so unless there is a valid reason to intensify the meaning and emotion of sentences, such as in a character's dialogue, it’s in every writer’s interest to know how to spot them and get rid of as many as possible.

The kinds of words that ‘intensify’ adjectives are words such as ‘really’, ‘completely’, ‘absolutely’ and ‘totally,’ etc.

It was a really good show.
It totally took me by surprise
This is absolutely none of my business
They are completely over the moon
She was dead sexy

If we were to remove the intensifiers, the sentences would be better, like this:

It was a good show.
It took me by surprise
This is none of my business
They are over the moon
She was sexy

Now you can see why you really should limit intensifiers wherever possible, because they merely make the narrative clunky and some sentences are totally surplus to requirements.

Not only that, but some intensifiers are so overused in modern day English, it would be like sprinkling your story with dreaded clichés. ‘Totally’, ‘very’ and ‘absolutely’ are two of the most overused and misused words used as intensifiers. Avoid them.

Another important point to remember is that some words are now being used in place of others and so the actual meaning is incorrectly replaced. For instance, the word absolute means ‘complete, unconditional or perfect’, however it has been misused so often that it is now used to mean ‘yes.’ This is not the actual meaning of the word, so using the intensifier ‘absolutely’ degrades the meaning and intensity that you are trying to achieve and it is also grammatically incorrect.

Another one that I hate seeing in MSS is ‘real’, as in "real cute". Once again, its use on this occasion is not grammatically correct and when used other than in dialogue (where it is acceptable as part of a character’s nature), it degrades the quality of writing.

Of course, like everything in creative fiction, everything has its place and purpose, so sometimes the odd intensifier here or there isn’t a sin, but your writing should contain as few adverbs and adjectives as possible, and that also goes for the adverbs and adjectives that you’d intensified.

There are some considerations for intensifiers, too. Some intensifiers are known as adverbs of degree. These are adverbs which measure the intensity or degree of an action, an adjective or another adverb. In other words, the degree of intensity or strength is measured, for instance:

She sang really badly – this tells us how bad her voice was.

He enjoyed the show tremendously – this tells us how much he enjoyed the show. He enjoyed it very much.

Now contrast the two sentences with other adverbs of degree:

She sang extremely badly - this tells us it wasn’t just bad, it was terrible. The degree of adverb is more intense.

He enjoyed the show greatly – the degree of adverb here isn’t as emotionally strong as tremendously, so as readers we understand the degree of intensity used.

This is how adverbs of degree work. The exceptions to this are that the words ‘moderately’, ‘slightly’, and ‘barely’ are all adverbs of degree, but they are not intensifiers.

Once again, writers should avoid using degrees of adverbs because it makes the narrative sound as though it has been written by a ten year old.

Intensifier Examples

Dreadfully
Quite
Remarkably
Totally
Extremely
Terribly
Moderately
Awfully
Very

The overuse of intensifiers in fiction weakens the strength of the narrative, so use a few as possible. Also, remember that the grammatical meanings of some words have been misused as intensifiers, so make sure the meaning you want to convey is not only grammatically correct, but also correct within the narrative.

Next week: Qualifiers

Modifiers, Intensifiers and Qualifiers

2011-10-22T13:42:00.000+01:00

Most people won’t have heard about modifiers, intensifiers or qualifiers, but each one has a distinct meaning within writing and the use of each one affects the quality of writing in different ways.

In Part 1 we’ll look at Modifiers; while in Part 2, we we’ll look at Intensifiers and in Part 3 we’ll look at Qualifiers.

A modifier is self-explanatory; it modifies words or phrases and makes the meaning more specific within a sentence. If used carefully, well-placed modifiers will allow a writer to be a little more descriptive. Badly constructed modifiers, however, will make sentences ambiguous and unintentionally amusing and will also weaken sentence structures.

There two types of modifiers that writers need to understand - adjectives and adverbs. Adjectives modify (or describe) nouns or pronouns, and adverbs modify (or describe) verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.

When constructing sentences, the general principle is that you should place modifiers as close as possible to the word or phrase it modifies.

For instance, the word spotty is the modifier in the phrase ‘the spotty dog’.
The word quickly is the modifier in the phrase ‘he quickly arrived’.
The word slowly is the modifier in the phrase ‘she slowly sat down.’

‘A cat’ is a simple enough sentence, but modified it can become a ‘black cat’ or a ‘fat cat’ or a ‘mangy cat’ etc. These are examples of adjectives modifying a noun i.e. ‘cat’.

Adverbs can modify verbs, so when constructing a sentence like ‘John ran down the stairs,’ you can modify the verb to: ‘John ran quickly down the stairs.’

Depending on the meaning you want to convey, modifiers can be useful, but they are subject to inadvertent misuse. Look at the construction of these two sentences - they mean different things:

He ate only fruit.
He only ate fruit.

In the first sentence, ‘He ate only fruit’. It means that the character ate nothing but fruit - no meat or vegetables or anything else for that matter.

In the second sentence, ‘He only ate fruit’, means that the character ate just fruit. He didn’t do anything like prepare, cut or cook the fruit. He merely ate the fruit.

Although the two sentences are very similar, they express different meanings.

Using modifiers correctly is easy when you keep them as close as possible to the thing they are modifying.

Here's another example of two similar sentences with very different meanings:

She almost failed every exam.
She failed almost every exam.

The first sentence ‘She almost failed every exam’ means that despite her reservations, she managed to pass all her exams.

The second sentence ‘She failed almost every exam’ means that she passed only a few exams and failed the rest.

The placement of modifiers is critical if you want to express the correct meaning.

Dangling Modifiers

As with dangling participles, writers should also avoid using dangling modifiers wherever possible because they can cause ambiguity and they can also make the sentence weak. For example:

Leaning on the balcony, the dogs barked loudly.

The way the sentence is written, it appears that the dogs are balancing on the balcony and barking. This is because they are the only subject present in the sentence and therefore it causes ambiguity if this is not the actual meaning you wanted to portray.

To avoid the dangling participle, the sentence should be clearer:

As John leaned on the balcony, the dogs barked loudly.

Now the subject, John, makes the sentence much better by removing the participle phrase ‘leaning on the balcony’ at the beginning of the sentence.

Here are some more examples of dangling modifiers:

The sandpaper is the best way to get results. Rubbing on the bottom, the stone produces a shine.

Rounding the corner, the moon glowed bright.

Rubbing stones on bottoms? And since when did the moon start taking a stroll around the corner? These unintended meanings can be amusing, but they are grammatically incorrect because the words ‘rubbing’ and ‘rounding’ dangle in the air without any meaning. This is a dangling participle.

They are better like this:

The sandpaper is the best way to get results. The stone produces a shine when rubbed on the bottom of the sandpaper.

As she rounded the corner, she noticed the moon glowed bright.

Now both sentences make sense, nothing dangles in mid air. In the first sentence, the reader understands what rubbing the sandpaper will do. In the second sentence, the reader knows that the subject sees the moon as she moves around the corner. There is no ambiguity and the both subjects are clear within the sentences.

Misplaced Modifiers

Misplaced modifiers happen when some words sometimes end up next to the wrong word and thus change the intended meaning. This causes yet more amusing ambiguity.

I saw the moon poking through the curtains.

‘Poking through the curtain’ is misplaced because the intended meaning of the narrator looking through the curtains and seeing the moon is changed by the placement of the modifier, which in turn makes it look as though the moon is poking the curtains.

The correct way is: ‘I looked through the curtains and saw the glow of the moon poking through.’

A famous example of this humorous effect comes from the 1930 film Animal Crackers, with Groucho Marx as Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding:

‘One morning I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I'll never know.’

Remember that the intended meaning can be misinterpreted if the sentence isn’t clearly written.

Let’s take a typical simple sentence like ‘Tracy picked up the knife’ and modify it.

Dependable Tracy Evans picked up the knife gently because she was very careful about sharp implements, but then she quickly dropped it, coughing with fear when she saw the blood on the blade...

Modifiers used within the sentence:

Adjective: Dependable
Adverb phrase: picked up the knife gently.
Adverb in adjective phrase: very careful.
Adverb: quickly
Participle phrase: coughing with fear

This is an extreme example showing most modifiers in one sentence, but it gives you an idea where they should be placed. Used carefully, modifiers help to bolster the narrative, but it’s wise to consider their careful construction to avoid amusing ambiguity and sentence weakness. Not only that, but gaining a little more understanding of them will help weed out the obvious incorrectly placed modifiers or dangling modifiers in your writing. And the general rule still applies: although not totally unavoidable, where possible, cut down on the adverbs and adjectives and limit them within your narrative.

Next week: Part 2 - Intensifiers

How to Make Description Sparkle

2011-10-03T23:32:00.000+01:00

Firstly, there’s description, then there’s description.

Description is one of those wonderful writing elements that you can bend and shape and mould and make it what you want it to be. It’s not fixed and it’s not governed by absolute rules. If a story were a canvas, the description is the colour; layers and layers of it to make the picture a whole.

So how do you go about transforming dull, boring description into something a little more lavish or evocative? It all comes down to that old adage: show, don’t tell. Show the reader, involve them, but don’t tell them.

The descriptive element of any narrative is there to assist the reader, who cannot see the world your characters live in unless you paint it for them. The reader, in effect, is without any sensory detail, unless you provide it. It allows the reader to see this descriptive world, not just read about it.

That descriptive detail is the difference between someone reading your work and enjoying it or not reading it at all.

Descriptive writing is incredibly important to every writer. Description should convey more to the reader than just a setting or a bit of action; it also conveys the hidden nuances, the emotions, the colourful embellishments or the subtle hints of things to come. Description is so much more.

Of course, creating sparkling description isn’t all about making sure every paragraph is jammed with descriptive passages, because it’s easy to overdo it. On the whole, a writer should instinctively know when to add those extra elements and when to leave it fairly simple.

Whether description comes alive or remains turgid, it all rests on the one factor that all writers should pay attention: choice of words, the way they fit into the scene, the way they sound, the sibilance they create and the overall effect you want to achieve with them. And of course, always make the description pertinent to the scene and the characters. Don’t just plonk a bit of description in here and there to pretty things up a bit – it doesn’t work. Make it count and make it mean something.

The words you choose and the way you construct the sentences are what really makes description sparkle.

Here’s an example of one of my flash pieces, published in 2010 in the 6 Sentences anthology, The Mysterious Dr Ramsey, with the original descriptive elements removed.

Sounds drifted in, like vibrations, where the universe came back into view and my eyes opened to life.

I turned my head to the brightness and reflections shone with a muted glow, while dust filtered through sunbeams, the particles glittering as you approached.

Now compare it to the original excerpt, complete with description:

Sounds drifted in, like water-muffled vibrations, where the universe came back into view and grey shapes dissipated as my eyes opened to the majesty of life like a slow, unfolding flower.

I turned my head to the brightness as honey layered clouds and Midas reflections shone with a muted glow, stark against a cobalt blue sky while dust filtered through angled sunbeams, the particles glittering like traces of tinsel and dancing as you approached.

The choice of words above makes the entire scene feel very different. The right amount of description coupled with the right selection of words make a big difference when trying to transport the reader to the fictional world you’ve created.

Think about the scene you are writing – is it tense, atmospheric, romantic, action packed? The words you choose should reflect the feel of the scene you’re trying to create.

There are a few types of scenes which could always benefit attention where description is concerned:

Key scenes (action, emotion, atmosphere etc)

Usually, key scenes - action scenes, emotional scenes, tense scenes and so on – all demand that little extra where description is concerned, otherwise you’d end up with dull, flat, uninspiring rubbish that fails to keep the reader interested. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of these types of scenes and exploit them to create more emotion, heighten conflict or atmosphere etc.

Location Scenes

Location scenes also demand something extra. It’s no use your character being in a great location – be it vibrant city, the countryside or the beach - when the reader can’t feel or sense the place because of a lack of detail.

Introduction scenes

Scenes where you introduce your characters are always ripe for a little more descriptive flourishes because they give the reader something more than the clichéd ‘he was tall and lean’ type of description.

Introducing new characters sometimes needs elaboration rather than a boring two-line mention which often happens.

Where you have quiet scenes, scenes of conflict or dialogue scenes, there is always room for some descriptive flourishes to make the writing stand out.

It’s all in the detail

Details – the ones we sometimes overlook – can make the writing better. This is where observation plays an important part of the writing process. How many writers might ignore the patterns on a floor made by the sun through the windows? How many would ignore the sound of rustling leaves on trees? How many would overlook the myriad colours of a sunset?

Sometimes it’s the simple things that catch our attention. Description is no different. A good writer is very observant; everything provokes interest – the way a stream meanders through woodland, the way mist clings to the ground, the way fog vapour swirls etc. Things you wouldn’t think twice about are the enticing little brushstrokes within description that sing from the page.

For instance, your character is walking through an airport. This is where many writers go for the ‘John walked through the arrivals hall and went outside to get a taxi…’

‘John walked along the narrow beams of light created by the sunlight that filtered through the huge shuttered windows and he headed for the exit to get a taxi, his mind still whirling from what happened in London…’

A little flourish with the sunlight, a reference to what John is feeling, all make the scene pertinent. Remember, it doesn’t have to be pages and pages of description. Just a few sentences or words can dazzle, or even a couple of paragraphs.

Another thing to consider is the sibilance of words within scenes. If there is an action scene, then short, punchy staccato descriptions push the pace along, however if you have a love scene, then the description should reflect that – it will be slower, and words like sensual, sweet, seductive or sexy add sibilance to the feel of the scene.

Consider this:

Lena drew back, tears brimming, unable to speak.

There’s nothing wrong with this, however, the power of the emotion in the scene can be exploited.

Lena’s lips stung with his kiss and she drew back into the shadows, eyes brimming, veiled, unable to speak above her latent fear.

Again, it’s about choice of words and this second example brings the scene alive with what she is feeling within her surroundings, and her reaction to a kiss, and it’s all done with a few extra words. That’s how you make description sparkle.

Remember:

What is it you want to express?
Show, don’t tell.
Observation – it’s all in the detail. Readers love those little nuances.
Add layers of colour.
Sensory details – explore the five senses
Choose the right descriptive words for the scene – action scenes, love scenes, emotional scenes etc
Create sibilance and rhythm.

I’m away for a well-earned break, so the next article, Modifiers, Qualifiers and Intensifiers, will return on the 22nd October.

Why Being Wordy Isn't a Sin

2011-09-24T16:04:00.000+01:00

Firstly, the wordiness in question is not really about the long-winded round-about-way in which we write sometimes or the use of too much verbosity, but rather it’s about being wordy in a narrative/descriptive sense.

Being wordy can create awkward sentences, but when carefully crafted, some sentences actually leap from the page because being wordy is what is actually needed.

There is a lot of debate about the use of big, flowery words in literature and how appropriate they may be within the context of the piece, but many critics sometimes forget that writing is all about expression and the freedom of a writer to express him or herself in whichever way they want. That’s what makes every writer unique, after all.

There are no hard and fast rules that state that big or literary words can’t be used in fiction, because they can, as long as they’re not over used and they’re placed within the context of the story. For example, flowery words that most people have never heard of before wouldn’t really sit too well in a dark, gritty action thriller and likewise, the use of raw, street-style descriptive words wouldn’t fit with a romance novel. Words have their place.

They also have effects that have the right moment, too. Their effectiveness depends on what you want to express.

That aside, there is a lot of advice out there says writers shouldn’t use big or flowery words and that modern editors prefer plain English, but the proof of this is, for the most part, unpalatable and depressing - most books on the shelf are all pretty much the same and some contain some really dull, uninteresting description - there is nothing in the voice that resembles anything fresh or powerful. Nothing but sameness is evident because of this trend for simple, straightforward English.

Writers sometimes need those kind of words sprinkled into their narrative, and they need personal expression, because without being wordy to a certain degree, nothing would be written in the first place. Adding the odd big word or two isn’t bad, nor is bringing boring, stilted description alive with a few colourful strokes.

Choice of words is what counts, but it’s also about what you want to say and how you choose to say it that matters.

The idea is to create elegance and colour with descriptions, to wrap the reader in a visual kaleidoscope and let them enjoy all the shades you breathe into your story, instead of losing them in a flourish of fancy words. Fancy words mean nothing if you don’t understand why and how to use them. You can still be clear and concise with what you want to say, but you can do it with colour and flair.

I despair at some of the MSS I receive for critique because so many writers follow this ‘plain English’ mantra and produce lacklustre drivel. Why? Because they haven’t grasped how or when to use the right words, and they haven’t mastered the colours of description.

This is an excerpt from a flash fiction piece called Zero Hour:

A gentle breeze brushed past him, soft and delicate like a butterfly, and he felt invisible, wispy fingers of comfort against his greying skin. He gazed up at the sky; saw the strange, layered clouds, full with moisture and melancholy.

By keeping it plain and simple, you would you have the following:

A gentle breeze brushed past him and he felt invisible fingers of comfort against his greying skin. He gazed up at the sky; saw the strange clouds, full with moisture.

They are both fine, but one creates a deeper, richer picture, one doesn’t. One of these might be considered too wordy, the other is concise. One brings depth to its descriptive framework, one doesn’t. One tells the reader, the other shows.

You decide which one is better.

Here’s another example of how it’s done, with a 100-word flash fiction piece called ‘A Bad Colour’.

Amber slices projected through the trees, the haze of the fire began to swell. The hint of burnt sienna wafted close, scorched a path beneath their noses.

Rope fibres moaned as they became taut, to temper the weight.

Shadows appeared through the smoke, circled him. Milk coloured robes flapped in the breeze, bathed by the fire glow, their faces hidden by hoods.

Red over black; the colour of life slinked down his skin, snaked down the channels they had gouged through his flesh. Open viscera gleamed.

He swung from the tree as the cross burned; the price for being different.

If I had written A Bad Colour in a plain English kind of way, it would be about as interesting as rainwater in a bucket.

Of course, no entire novel is constructed this way, but it shows that being a bit wordy helps the narrative and description in certain places. As the writer, you have to know when it’s needed and what words to use. So, being wordy isn’t a sin. It’s a way of expression.

Remember:

Choose the right words
Ask yourself - what do I want to express?
Is it better to be dull and concise, or better to be a little wordy?
Is your description dull, or does it bloom with colour?
Is your description and narrative lost, or does it rise from the page with added dimension?

No one can argue that excessive long-winded or verbose narrative is good, because it isn’t, but occasionally there will be times when it’s just necessary because it falls into context of the story and it actually brings the narrative to life.

Being wordy isn’t bad, it just means that we can be rebellious every now and then in the face of the literature police and just express ourselves the way we want to, how we want to.

No one would tell Picasso or Rembrandt how to paint, and likewise we don’t tell writers how to write. We can only show them how, with advice, to be better.

Next week: How to make description sparkle.

Part 2 - How many rewrites is too many?

2011-09-17T13:10:00.000+01:00

When it comes to rewriting, a writer can only do so much before it’s time to let go.

I mentioned in the previous article that five edits seemed to produce a happy medium – not too few that the work is not yet complete and things are missed, and not too many that the work is spoiled beyond repair and so I’ve used it as a working example.

Five stage editorial drafting process

First Draft – This is the raw material of any novel. This is the bare bones, the jumbled stream of thoughts and tangents that you’ve thrown into a messy mix in order to create your story.

Second Draft – The read through and first edit helps you look at how the story flows and also pinpoints obvious mistakes like grammar, sentence structures and plot flaws and unnecessary scenes.

You can start to ‘flesh out’ the story with more narrative, dialogue and description at this stage as well as forming those subplots and themes.

Third Draft – Another full read through to further tighten sentence structures, add more information, more narrative or dialogue and so on, and also fill any gaps with research so that the story isn’t left with gaping holes of made up nonsense and inaccurate information.

You might also cut some scenes or rewrite others to tidy the manuscript and make it tighter.

Fourth draft – You should, by now, have a tight, fluid story devoid of plot flaws and errors; it should read well and make sense and the narrative, dialogue and description should be balanced.

Overall it may only need a minor tweak here or there.

Fifth draft – almost perfection. I say almost because we all know, there is no such thing as perfection (unless you are a perfectionist, which is a completely different story). But this is the final draft, the one you will send to an agent or publisher. This is where THE END really does mean the end.

You have reached the ceiling – any more drafting could potentially spoil the novel, any less and you may not be satisfied with the finished product because some things might still be missing.

Again, I would point out that we are all different, and because of that, we all need different levels of balance and that means finding our own ‘ceiling’.

The five-draft magic number is one I have used over the last 25 years because personally, I do suffer with perfectionism, that need to attain the highest standard in my eyes, and I fell into the trap of the infinite loop of writing, rewriting and more rewriting in the never ending cycle for perfection. I had to force myself to follow a formula that would stop me redrafting a novel from now until the end of time.

I soon realised that this type of rewriting exercise was counter-productive, and I would have never been published otherwise, because I would never have been satisfied that I had finished.

No one said writing was easy, because it certainly isn’t, but we can help ourselves as writers to lessen the pressure we heap on ourselves in the hunt for ‘perfection’ or ‘complete satisfaction’. We can make our lives easier by maintaining strategies and formulas that work for us rather than against us.

Your personal drafting process might be five edits; six, seven or eight edits etc, whatever feels right for you, but then you have to stick to the formula you’ve created.

Know at each drafting stage what you need to do with your manuscript and what you want to achieve – just like the five stages above - and make sure you follow it. Setting yourself these targets will help you in the editing process and hopefully stop unwarranted editing that could, potentially, spoil the story.

The truth is, no story will ever be completely finished, because a year or ten years from now, you will look back on your story and figure that you can make it better. It’s the nature of writing, we’re writers, can’t help ourselves – everyone does it.

Set a target of how many edits you realistically need, and stick to them. That way you edit with confidence, you will know it’s the best it will be and you can send it out into the world and get on with the next project.

Next week: Why being wordy is not a sin.

How Many Rewrites is Too Many?

2011-09-11T13:05:00.000+01:00

Anyone who has ever followed a recipe will know the importance of the measurement of ingredients when cooking. Get the balance of ingredients wrong and you could spoil the outcome. This is also true with rewriting.

The question is, how many edits is too many? Is there a golden number? Can a writer edit a novel
ad infinitum, or is there a danger it will eventually spoil the whole thing?

The answer is as individual as the writer, but it’s all about balance. Every writer knows the importance of redrafting and editing and many worry about how many drafts they should go through before a story is ready for the world, but it’s about finding a balance that works for the individual.

Let’s look at the main problems of re-writing.

Lack of rewrites

On the whole, a lack of novel edits underscores a writer’s inefficiency and lack of experience because not even established writers can write a perfect story in the first draft – they may take several edits, and first time writers certainly won’t achieve acceptable standards under three edits.

Many writers don’t invest time in rewriting and redrafting prior to sending their work to agents or publishers and they don’t always realise that there is still a lot of work needed on their novel. That is one of the many reasons some MSS are rejected immediately without a second glance.

It’s surprising how many writers believe they can write a fantastic, publishable novel in no time at all, and with hardly any re-writing. If they can, they are a genius. And I’ve not yet met one.

Without a doubt, the first two drafts of any novel are unpublishable.

Main problems with too few edits:

Potential problem areas – like plot flaws - haven’t been spotted.
The story isn’t yet strong enough to be considered completed.
The writer hasn’t noticed spelling and grammar errors.
The writer hasn’t paid enough attention to the art of novel writing.
The writer has rushed the whole thing.
Overall, there is a higher chance the novel may be rejected because of all the above.

Too many rewrites

In complete contrast to too few edits, there is the problem of too many rewrites. Eventually, redrafting will just spoil the novel - there is a danger that the story you set out to write ends up so ‘surgically’ enhanced that it no longer resembles the original story – the intrinsic core of the story has been lost.

This is a particular problem with perfectionists, who draft and re-draft in a constant battle for a near perfect story and continue on an infinite, self-propagating cycle – novels will never be published because nothing will ever be sent out because the writer is never satisfied or not confident that it’s not perfect enough.

It’s not unusual to find these kind of writers on their 8th, 9th or even 10th draft - they’ve been working on the book for many years, decades in some extreme cases. They always say ‘one more draft and it will be complete', but that one more draft turns into another and another...and so on. It never truly ends.

Of course, not every writer is a perfectionist, but it’s worth remembering that re-writing a novel has the potential to become infinite with rewrites, and ultimately unfinished, and only you can break that cycle of rewriting and editing your work in a constant battle for satisfaction.

Another problem is that sometimes it’s easy to become so bogged down with the intricacies of the story – to become so close to it or completely immersed in it - that you no longer see blatant errors. Sometimes it’s hard to stand back from your work and see it in a different light.

The best way to counter this problem is to send your work out to agents for for critique, then you will get the kind of feedback you need in order to progress. It will help you understand where you might need to improve and it might also help you step back from the entire novel and look at it with a fresh perspective.

Main problems with too many edits:

Writing ad infinitum in the belief you can make it better – it ends up spoiling the story.
The writer loses sight of the importance of the novel because of too many drafts.
The novel loses strength after numerous re-writes and becomes weak.
The writer is never satisfied with the result, so the self-perpetuating cycle continues – the curse of perfectionism.
The writer become too close to the story to notice any errors.
The story becomes stagnant beyond repair.

It’s a balancing act not to rewrite too much, because there is a limit to how much you can improve a story. Eventually, there comes a point when re-writing becomes counter-productive and writers have to learn to understand when that point is, where their own personal ‘ceiling’ lies.

If you have gone past five, six or seven edits or more, try to step back from the story and ask the following questions:

Can I realistically improve the work further?
Have I spoiled the story’s intrinsic core?
Have I become too close to the whole thing that I can’t see the errors?
Can I trust someone to give me thorough, positive feedback to help me establish points 1 and 2?
Am I brave enough to send it out to publishers and agents?
Can I make this the LAST draft? Do I really need to rewrite?
Am I brave enough to accept defeat on this novel, learn from the process and move on?
Can I work to a realistic threshold from now on?

The simple truth is that it’s just not practicable to rewrite for eons. There is a ceiling, a point where you have to stop, and in my experience over the years, I have found that the most productive number of edits is five.

infinitum and spoiled the whole work.

In Part 2, I’ll show how the five stage editorial drafting process works.

How Character Development can Drive Conflict

2011-09-03T15:37:00.001+01:00

A well-developed character is one that a reader can connect with on several levels and one that they will remember long after they’ve read your story.

If you’ve managed to build your character, developed him or her, made them overcome their flaws and weaknesses throughout the story and they have emerged a stronger, better character by the end of it, then you will have engaged the reader not only on an emotional level, but also on a metaphysical level.

All the fears, emotional difficulties, limitations, faults and obstacles the character endures is what your reader will feel, too. Not only are that, but all the conflicts the character has to undergo, are the same ones the reader will share.

How does it Work?

The character is always in a constant state of flux. From beginning to end, there is a constant cycle of conflict, decision making, actions, consequences and development.

There is a simple way to illustrate a character’s path:

Tension

The idea is to make your character face almost impossible situations and to test their mettle, to play on those weaknesses or flaws and make them overcome them. This is where tension comes into play, because inner conflicts – the emotional kind especially – drive the character’s development and forces them to change.

Their personal development depends on overcoming those conflicts. If they don’t develop, don’t overcome their flaws or weaknesses, then they will have gained nothing by their experiences and neither will the reader.

Facing their Fears

Another way is to make your main character face his or her deepest fears.

This is a two-fold strategy: the fear is the basis of their conflict – it could be anything, like an object, a person (external conflict) or it could be an emotional or psychological one (inner conflict) – and the development of the character, the strength to rise above and overcome, drives such conflict and therefore they will emerge a changed person at the end of this process.

For instance, I write dark, psychological fiction, I like to explore the human condition, and I’ve easily rendered horror-laden scenes, and yet there is one fear I’ve not yet fully faced – the fear of the dark. Even now, it causes conflict and tension whenever faced with this fear – especially if I don’t have a choice, i.e. a power cut.

One day I may find the strength to overcome it and in so doing it will change me. The same is true of your characters.

Your character’s development depends on your ability to be ruthless; stress them, hurt them through ongoing conflict – emotionally and physically, (remember, the reader is a pillion passenger on this rollercoaster ride) – throw everything you have at them so they grow stronger and better and they work to overcome your fictional onslaught. Remember, characters don’t always make the right decisions so this side of their development also creates conflict and tension, because whatever the choices they make, there will always be a consequence.

The main characters in your story – protagonist and antagonist – both have goals so they are in direct opposition to each other = conflict and tension = consequences. How they reach those goals is up to the writer, of course.

Force their Hand

Another way to drive conflict through characters is to make them do something they would never normally do, something that might conflict with their moral code or their sense of values and personal ethics.

When faced with something that might go against our beliefs, we are faced with a near impossible situation. How do we overcome it? Sometimes we are forced to do something that others might not expect of us.

What of the character had to kill someone in order to protect his or her family? Could they do it, even if it was against their beliefs?

Force them into a corner, force them to make near impossible decisions. This creates conflict and tension, and how the character resolves the situation forms part of his or her personal growth and development.

Failure

Some writers make their character fail some of their goals. Even if this happens, the character would have gone through the experience and changed as a person. If there is no change then there is little point to the story.

We’ve all experienced failure – it creates conflict - so how will your character cope? Will they be a stronger person because of it? Is it hard for them to fight back and win the day?

Everything our characters do, the decisions they make, all affect the story pathway and thus it continues to create conflict and tension at every turning point.

Give them problems to solve, make them do things they wouldn’t normally do, force them into corners, force them to make life changing decisions, hurt them, let them develop with these conflicts, but above all make sure their motivation is not lost so that they emerge a different person by the end.

Next week: How many re-writes is too many?

How to Drive a Story Forward

2011-08-28T15:27:00.000+01:00

Every story has to proceed to its logical end. How a writer reaches that end is an important process.

When we refer to ‘driving the story forward’, we mean that the story must have momentum and structure to engage the reader right to the end, but it must also impart necessary information without everything stalling part way through.

It’s a constant within fiction writing – the story needs to move on without dawdling on unimportant, boring stuff. If that happens, your reader will either fall asleep or give up. As Elmore Leonard once advised, cut out the parts that readers skip. In other words, get rid of the boring stuff to allow the story to move on. Readers don’t want to know what your main character had for breakfast, whether he made tea or coffee and what he decided to do with his day while he watered the plants – they want to get right to the heart of the action.

There are several ways to drive a story forward – Use of dialogue, character motivation, conflict, plot twists and pacing all play a part in providing momentum.

To start with, dialogue is a great way of imparting information for the reader and moving the story forward. The way to do that is to make the dialogue count.

Take this example:

‘The restaurant looks busy tonight,’ John said, looking around. ‘Last time we came here it took ages for the food to arrive and it wasn’t all that good anyway, but now it’s under new management hopefully things have improved because I’m starving, I could eat a whole cow.’

‘I noticed they have your favourite wine on the drinks list, too,’ Jane said. ‘I know it’s expensive but we should treat ourselves, since you’ve now made Chief Executive.’

‘Yeah, why not?’

This conversation isn’t actually going anywhere nor doing anything other than filling up white space. It does nothing to move the story forward, a common flaw. Cut the unnecessary chitchat and get right to the point. For instance:

John eyed the restaurant, kept his thoughts to himself.

‘They do your favourite wine,’ Jane said. ‘Splash the cash. You’re Chief Exec, we can afford it.’

His expression darkened...

This reveals far more, and yet uses fewer lines. Why would John keep his thoughts to himself? Perhaps he doesn’t want to share them with his wife. And she seems more interested in spending his money than he does. This is characterisation through dialogue, but more importantly, it doesn’t hang about, it moves the story on.

Concise dialogue not only engages the reader, but it moves the story on in terms of what may happen next, or what might be expected.

Character motivations are often revealed through dialogue, too. In real life, some people let slip what they really think and feel when they are talking – the ‘real’ person behind the persona comes through. Our characters should be no different. What your characters really want and how they’re going to get it provides a catalyst – it moves the story forward.

Motivation drives the action, which in turn drives the story.

Conflict - the backbone of any story - also drives the story because readers will want to know what happens to conflicting characters at the end of the story. All the types of conflict you create act like fuel in an engine – it provides power and thrust. And of course, readers will be desperate to know if the good guy wins over the bad guy by the end of the story.

Plot twists are another strategy to use. A reader will not be expecting it – so a turning point or major revelation should leave the reader wondering what will happen next. You should be constantly revealing information in your scenes to keep the reader engaged – elements of the plot, bit by bit, pieces of a jigsaw that your reader will be mentally solving. This information revelation pushes the story forward.

Pacing is another way for a writer to move things forward. Vary the action and drama scenes with slower, reflective scenes where the characters, through their thoughts and actions and dialogue, can once again impart necessary information and move things along for the reader.

Each scene you write must advance story. Remember that it is a constant within writing – character motivation, internal and external conflicts, building and solving problems within the plot, revealing characters and above all, revealing necessary information all work together to move the story forward.

All these elements must have momentum...if they don’t then the whole thing could bore the reader. Make things move. Keep them moving. And the reader will enjoy what you write.

Next week: How character development can drive conflict.

Making the reader care about your characters and themes

2011-08-20T13:15:00.000+01:00

The themes that run through your novel are the drivers that create the emotion behind the plot.

Themes like love, hate, rebellion, revenge etc, are all emotive; they have the ability to move us on many different levels. This happens because we recognise and understand those themes – we’ve dealt with some of them first hand and we’ve experienced many of those emotions.

You can have many themes running through your story, not just one.

And of course, without the characters to drive those themes, a reader would have nothing to care about.

Getting the reader to care about your characters is important, and empathy is key. A reader needs to recognise qualities in your characters that are inherent within themselves. Without empathy, the characters won’t connect with the reader.

Writers need the reader to care what happens to their characters, to read to the very end of the novel, because doing that will help a reader care about the entire story.

What makes us care?

The situations and obstacles that your characters experience, together with emotive themes like those already mentioned, helps create immediacy with the reader, especially if they’ve gone through similar situations, because then they can empathise with your character, they have experience of it.

Realistic experiences become the foundations of the themes we choose. Things like the loss of a loved one, being bullied, becoming parents, landing in trouble with parents, peers or teachers, losing a job, or perhaps finding love, seeing the world, getting that dream job etc. Most people have felt many of these emotions at some point in their lives.

Experiences play a significant part in making the reader care about your characters. They see these experiences and understand the difficulties your character faces. You’ve created empathy.

Likable Characters

The people we like are the kind of people just like us. By giving your characters realistic personalities you endear them to the reader - they will be looking for exactly the same qualities as they would choosing a friend.

Complex, emotional and often conflicting characteristics make for the most intriguing characters. Your reader might identify with the extrovert, or the shy and retiring, or the bold and brassy characters.

The likability factor goes a long way in making the reader care about your characters.

Opposites Attract

Of course, it’s not just likable main characters; readers love a good villain, too. The polar opposite of your struggling protagonist - the darker personality of your antagonist - will have the ability to stir the emotions of your reader in a slightly different way; they will dislike the villain by virtue of his or her actions, and by doing so you further bolster their bond with your protagonist.

Readers want to see the main character win the day, to triumph over the villain, or situation, to know that by the end of the novel the main character will have overcome all the troubles and obstacles the writer could throw at him or her. Readers want a satisfying resolution (a happy ending is a bonus), so this alone will keep their vested interest in your main character.

Inflicting the Worst

The one thing that does stir emotions is the theme of pain. This can take the form of emotional pain, physical pain, psychological pain or inferred pain. It’s the one emotion guaranteed to grab your reader’s heartstrings.

With enough empathy created through a character that is easy to identify with, whose struggles the reader can understand, whose persona the reader likes, they can therefore feel the pain of whatever the writer throws at their characters, the reader becomes immersed in that emotion.

Emotions drive all of us. It’s part of our dynamic make up, so emotions should drive your characters too - their goals, their desires, their needs, their disappointments, their failures.

Give them terrible situations to deal with, almost impossible obstacles to overcome. Their struggle will become a theme in itself, and will hook the reader to find out what happens to your main character by the end of the novel.

Summary:

Create empathy, create immediacy
Create characters that readers can identify with
Create sympathy for your character’s situation
Create emotive themes the reader will understand – the motivation that drives the story forward – love, hate, revenge, death etc.
Make characters believable and interesting
Create antagonists a reader would love to hate
Inflict pain upon your characters, make their lives hell, make the reader feel for them

Think about the characters that you connected with in films and literature – characters you liked – did you root for them, did you cry for them, did they make you smile or laugh, or did they make you angry, sad or indifferent?

Did they make you feel for them? Above all, did they make you care?

If you can accomplish the same, then you can make the reader care about your characters and create a story they will thoroughly enjoy.

Next week: The importance of driving the story forward, and what this means.

The Importance of the Opening Chapter

2011-08-13T13:00:00.000+01:00

To continue the theme of the previous article about how to tease your reader, one of the most important devices for luring the reader is the opening chapter of your novel.

Why should you write a compelling opening chapter? Because it is your chance to first grab the editor’s attention, then hopefully it will grab your reader's attention.

Your potential reader is discerning. They take only a few seconds to read the first few lines before they decide to buy your book. Those first few lines will be the difference between getting the reader to carry on reading, or being left on the shelf with other unread novels.

Think of it like fishing. You have to hook the reader first with your bait – the opening chapter. Then you reel them in bit by bit with the rest of the story, until the final chapter, when you can finally let them go.

How can a writer do that?

There are many ways to do it, but you should aim to seize the reader’s attention and curiosity from the very first words.

There are lots of things to get right in a first chapter. It’s very easy for writers to become carried away and forget about to tell the reader about the obvious things like the setting, the nature of the conflict or even the name of the main character.

Your reader needs to know where and when the story is taking place and who the main character is, right from the outset. Remember, writing is about subtlety, so you don’t necessarily have to overload the reader with details. Instead, hint at these and let the intrigue do the work for you by creating curiosity about your character and his or her situation.

Always start with your protagonist rather than minor characters; otherwise you could confuse your reader as to whose story you are telling. You need to have your character connect immediately with the reader.

Most novels quickly establish what’s going on by having the character active within in the scene, as opposed to writing a long block of description about what the character is doing, where they are going, who they are meeting, what they might have for dinner etc. In other words, open at a turning point in the character’s life; a moment of change, a crisis - get the character involved straight away.

Don’t spend four or five pages writing about the lead up to the turning point of your character’s life, the catalyst that propels the story – jump right in at that important moment. By getting the character involved, it means you also are also getting the reader involved. For example:

John left work just after five and made his way to the train station. He meandered onto his usual platform to wait for his train and thought about his stressful day. He hoped tomorrow would be better, but his thoughts were broken by a loud noise to his left, an explosion…

This would bore your reader. Instead, try something like this:

The explosive flash snapped across the train station and ripped John from the platform…

That will instantly spark curiosity and a need to know what happens next.

Don’t make the opening complicated and don’t write pages of boring back story or the character’s life history either, because this will instantly kill any intrigue or curiosity you’ve established. Back story can come later by sprinkling information throughout the novel as it progresses.

You idea is that you need to create a sense of immediacy straight away.

As well as opening a chapter with action, you could start it with dialogue, particularly if it’s a strong, catchy opening line to whet the reader’s appetite. Dialogue helps establish your character’s personality, it will set the scene and it will inform the reader of what is happening at that precise moment in the character’s life and it will also establish POV.

Let the reader share the dilemma your character faces at every opportunity.

The opening chapter can be atmospheric, tense, puzzling, action packed…as long as it grabs the reader and keeps them enthralled as to ‘what happens next’ without giving too much away.

Remember to end your first chapter on a climax – and invite the reader to read on.

What not to do…

Don’t use clichéd openings, like the now famous, ‘It was a dark and stormy night…’ This speaks for itself.
Don’t spend three chapters setting the scene with no hint of your protagonist until page 4.
Don’t use boring dialogue to open your novel – be dynamic, get the reader’s attention and stir their curiosity.
Don’t start off with the weather. Bring the weather in later, but avoid wherever possible beginning your novel with it, otherwise you may fall into the cliché trap.
Don’t start with minor characters
Don’t open your novel with the weather.

Read the first chapter of famous novels or your favourite authors. What method has the author used to introduce the main character and the conflict of the story? How much description or action and dialogue are there? Is the setting and the tone established straight away?

Don’t worry too much about your opening chapter when you write your first draft because the tweaking and polishing comes from the editing process afterward. You’ll have the time to reflect and think about how you want the chapter to open, how you will hook your reader, entice them and tease them.

It’s not uncommon to move chapters around at the edit stage and replace your opening chapter with another one, or rewrite it completely. How you do it is up to you.

Mickey Spillane summed it up perfectly: “The first chapter sells the book. The last chapter sells the next book.”

Next week: Making the reader care about your characters and themes

How to Tease Your Reader

2011-08-06T12:52:00.000+01:00

Writing fiction is all about getting the reader to invest their time and interest in your story. Writers do this by constantly teasing the reader, knowing this will entice them to turn each page and jump into their fictional world.

Of course, the whole premise with fiction is that once you’ve hooked your reader, you have to charm them enough to keep reading. There are several narrative devices available to a writer to accomplish this.

The subtle craft of tease can be simple, slight, or hinted - you don’t have to hit your reader over the head with the obvious and you don’t have to overload them with everything that is likely to happen in the opening chapters.

Less is often more.

There are several ways you can tickle the reader’s fancy and keep their interest nicely oiled:

The opening hook
Chapter end tease
Symbolic overtones – foreshadowing events etc
Planting clues

Hooking the Reader

The opening of any story is important. That means the opening paragraph or sentence has to hook the reader - you have to tease them into reading beyond the first page. You need to grab them and not let them go until the last line of the story.

Make your opening sentences count. Start at the heart of the action; jump right in take your reader along for the ride, make them want to know more about your characters and what might happen to them.

Chapter Cliffhangers

Chapter end teases are those ‘dangle the carrot’ moments at the end of a chapter, a way of luring the reader to turn the page and read on. They don’t have to be overt, they can be quite subtle – your reader is smart enough to understand and interpret them.

These small ‘cliff hangers’ are there to intrigue your reader, to pique their interest to go straight to the next chapter.

There are no written rules - you don’t have to do it for every single chapter end, but it certainly helps to maintain reader interest wherever possible but hinting at something about to happen or luring with a promise of action to come.

Here’s a chapter end from my second novel, which shows how simple and effective they can be:

The Luger lay in the snow a few feet away.
Drecshler unclipped the holster, drew out his PPK, cocked it.
Dmitry reached for the Luger, grabbed it and spun round, trigger poised. Adrenaline surged, blocked out the cold that clawed his flesh.
Drecshler aimed.
Two men. Two guns. Silence.

Symbols & Foreshadowing

Another way to tease the reader is with the use of symbolic overtones. While the narrative and dialogue must work to drive the story forward, it should also act as a catalyst to spark a reader’s curiosity with use of visual clues.

In fiction, symbols are often underused, but if handled well, they can easily lure your reader. Again, you don’t have to be overt – subtlety is the key.

For instance, Dmitry, (the character shown above) is a Russian peasant farmer and hunter, like his father. In several scenes early in the story, Dmitry talks of his prowess at hunting, his skill with a rifle. While this might seem insignificant, it is referred to several times in various chapters – I’ve subliminally planted the seed of intrigue for the events to come; the reader will know his skills with a rifle will become significant later in the novel, and so they are tempted with a promise of something more.

Recurring symbols can be anything you want them to be. Colours, objects, people, animals, the elements, sounds etc, so don’t be afraid to use them in your story.

Another way to entice the reader is through dialogue. I make references to Dmitry’s desire to avenge his young brother’s death at the hands of a sniper, all done through hinting this within dialogue with other characters. This desire is firmly planted in the reader’s psyche – they will know this revenge will happen, but they have to keep reading to find out when and how.

This kind of foreshadowing lights the way for the reader to look forward to events to come, it’s a guessing game, part of the enjoyment of reading a story, of caring and empathising with characters, and to wonder what will happen to them as the story races to its conclusion.

Planting Clues

Planting subtle clues keeps the reader focused by exposing a little information at a time to get your reader salivating. Think of a strip tease; it’s provocative, it reveals a little bit at a time, it plays with you, it makes the mind imagine what’s beneath the clothes. Planting clues in fiction acts the same way by making the reader imagine what will happen.

Objects provide great sources of clue planting, perfect for becoming significant later in a story, like a knife or a gun, a piece of clothing or jewellery, or it might be a car etc. It can be anything.

Of course, if you feel particularly confident, you might also try toying with your reader by planting false clues (red herrings) to keep their interest heightened and to crank up the tension. This is particularly effective in crime novels and thrillers because every reader loves trying to guess ‘who dunnit’.

They also love to guess ‘what will happen next?’

Dialogue clues work well in the same way, too, like one character hinting something to another character, or revealing something in secret.

And of course, clues dropped into the narrative also act as a lure. Hinting at things that may or may not be relevant later in the novel still has the power to draw your reader into turning the page.

Exploit the reader’s curiosity at every opportunity. Provoke them into constantly asking questions – the why, the what, the where, when and how? Dangle a metaphoric carrot, lead them into dead ends, tickle their curiosity, play with their minds...

Above all, make them turn the page to keep reading.

Next week: The importance of the opening chapter

Confidence in Fiction Writing

2011-07-30T13:25:00.000+01:00

There will come a point when every writer’s confidence slips, or they hit a barrier (usually physiological) and in turn, it affects their writing and they find themselves trapped by self-doubt.

Usually this is a short lived blip and writers pick themselves up and get back to writing, but on a more serious note, some writers cannot return to writing at all because their confidence has been shattered.

So what makes a writer lose confidence?

Negative feedback on a writing piece
Rejection
Family and friends
Ourselves

Firstly, you may have given your work to a peer, teacher, or fellow writer for feedback on your manuscript or story, but sometimes the comments are not very constructive.

Critiques, for instance, are designed to find flaws with your writing and help you improve to become a better writer. Good critiques should be constructive and helpful, however when they are overly negative without the support to correct the errors in your writing, this can severely knock your confidence.

Negative feedback instantly equates in the writer’s mind that the writing is rubbish.

If feedback or critique is what you want, give the story to several people to read rather than just one, because this means you’ll receive positive as well as negative feedback and therefore it’s balanced. That way you can see that your writing is essentially on the right track, it’s good; it just needs a bit of tweaking.

The most common cause of any writer’s lack of confidence with his or her own skills and talent is the rejection. Nothing kills confidence faster.

You’ve spent months or even years working on your masterpiece only for it to be rejected out of hand. It feels like a punch in the guts and almost immediately, a writer will think they’re rubbish.

In reality, rejection means that the story is not quite ready, or it’s wrong for the market, not what the editor is looking for, or isn’t quite strong enough etc. Leave the story for a while and then go back to it and work on it a little more – take on board any feedback from rejection and make the story even better.

What about family and friends? They don’t always help. They may not understand why you prefer the company of your computer, or how important writing is to you. You might receive negative comments from friends who put you down because of what you do, or they read your work and don’t provide constructive feedback.

The thing to remember here is that they are not the expert. You are. Go back to the story and make it stronger and better.

Of course, the worst offender when it comes to losing confidence is ourselves.

A writer can spend months writing and editing and polishing, they’re ready to send to agents …then suddenly they think actually, it’s not that good…it may need tweaking…what if it’s complete rubbish? I’m a mediocre writer. I’m not as good as Stephen King or Lee Child or Dean Koontz (or whoever your favourite writer may be)…

The self doubting spiral is the most destructive. We often question our skills and ability as writers, because often we tend to compare our own writing with other writers who we think are good and that just makes us feel inadequate.

The feeling of being not good enough is when confidence is at its lowest point, we stop cultivating our self belief and this can easily turn into writer’s block.

Remember that with writer’s block, the problem is not the story, but rather the writer.

You have to constantly remind yourself that have the raw talent; otherwise you wouldn’t have started writing in the first place. Everyone starts at the beginning and writing is a constant learning curve.

You can turn self-doubt into a positive aspect, rather than let it stifle your creativity and thought processes. There are ways to get out of the vicious circle of self doubt and lack of confidence in your writing:

Revisit old stories or unpublished work and see if you can improve them.
Join a writer’s group – positive feedback is a great way to spark ideas and get you writing again.
Spend time away from your writing projects and do other things. You don’t have to feel guilty doing that because when you return to your project you’ll have renewed enthusiasm to write.
Write regularly – try poetry, short stories, flash fiction, articles. Writing regularly encourages growth in the craft and helps a writer improve.
Practice, practice, practice.

Keeping confidence while writing is all down to how to apply yourself. Take on board constructive criticism, ignore the negativity, turn it around to your advantage and let it spur you to work harder at creating a great piece.

The more you write, the better you become and the better you become, the more confident you’ll be with everything you produce. The more confident you are, the less likely you are to slip into self doubt.

No writer is born with the mastery of the craft. It takes years of learning and understanding it, and, as the cliché says, practice does make perfect.

Above all, be proud of your work.

Next week: How to tease your reader.

Part 3 - The Importance of the Read Through

2011-07-23T12:00:00.000+01:00

Continuing on from last week, we’ll look in more detail at the most common flaws found during the read through of a novel/short story and ways in which a writer can correct them.

Pace

Pacing is one of those things where it is sometimes hard to find a balance. The story shouldn’t race along without pausing for breath, but at the same time, it shouldn’t plod to the point of boring your readers. It needs to fluctuate steadily, slowly building up to a crescendo – the ultimate tease for your reader.

Pacing problems often occur because there is little description to slow the narrative down or there is too little dialogue to support it. This sometimes occurs in the first draft and is easily corrected at the read through stage by making notes to add more description to bolster the narrative or to add more dialogue where necessary in order to break the pace and achieve that balance.

Impossible situations

Sometimes a situation created by a writer might look like a really good idea, but a closer look might reveal some fundamental errors in its plausibility and sense of realism.

It’s easy to create these kinds of situations - we’re too busy writing to worry too much about glaring errors, not until we read what we’ve written find those mistakes.

Here’s a simple example:

You’ve created an action scene within an airport, with people chasing the hero. There’s mayhem and guards/police with guns, but our hero manages to give the security guards the slip and escapes...because it always happens in the movies that way, right?

Well, no, not in real life. Airports are fastidious with security. CCTV cameras watch your every move. Armed security is around every corner. Plain clothed police patrol airport areas, so if the hero did try to escape, you would need to find a plausible way of making that happen, considering his chances would be extremely slim. How will he dodge the CCTV? How will he escape armed police or security patrols? How will he move through the crowds without causing a panic and giving his position away?

All these things can cause plot headaches; anything can happen in fiction, but the situations must to be plausible in order to engage the reader and convince them.

Fiction is just that, it enables writers to make readers suspend a certain amount of disbelief; but remember, writing isn’t like the movies. A writer always has to show a reader why and how things happen. The implausible must become plausible.

If you spot impossible situations within your story, make notes to research thoroughly your subject so that you can come up with ways your hero might be able to get out of and around a tight situation. There are always ways, but the writer must find something credible and tangible if he wants to keep the story within the realms of reality.

Continuity

This is where you have to pay attention when reading your story. Whether you commit a character, a place or situation to a story, make sure you stick to it. Know your characters thoroughly – don’t inadvertently change their eye colour half way through the story, or they take up smoking by chapter 28 without a preceding hint of doing so. Consistency makes perfect continuity.

Places sometimes change – a small town mentioned early in the novel might have changed name by towards the end of it, or moved location without you even realising.

Objects mysteriously change too - a knife used in chapter 5 might suddenly change to a gun in chapter 18. The name of a yacht, say, shouldn’t mysteriously change to something else halfway through the story.

The read through will weed out these minor inaccuracies. Make notes on each chapter, list the changes to you want or use the margins if you’ve printed out your MS, do whatever is best for you to keep track of the errors and ways to amend them.

Places

As with your characters, you should thoroughly know your background setting, because the more you know, the less likely you are to make a continuity mistake. Know beforehand the places your story will take place; do your research, even if the places are only minor mentions.

Don’t set a novel in New York and inadvertently place the Statue of Liberty in the wrong location, or use London as a backdrop and get road names wrong.

Writers should aim for accuracy within their work, no matter how insignificant something might seem. That means spelling the place name correctly throughout.

If you don’t spot these errors, your reader certainly will.

How you go about rooting these problems out is up you as a writer. Many writers simply make a numbered list of the errors they come across while doing a read through. They can then go back and tackle each problem once the read through is complete.

Some make notes in the margins on the manuscript, which I like to do – useful for immediate thoughts and ideas. When I go back to the problem area to correct it, I can refer back to the notes I made and incorporate those ideas.

Others writers do a full chapter-by-chapter checklist, making notes and ideas on each one – what needs to change, or be corrected, what needs to be cut etc.

Each writer is different. The important thing is that the errors are spotted, noted and corrected ready for editing.

Next week: Confidence in writing – or lack of it

Part 2 - The Importance of the Read Through

2011-07-16T15:16:00.000+01:00

Continuing on from last week, we’ll look in more detail at the most common flaws found during the read through of your novel/short story. These are typical errors rather than case specific, the kind that every writer should be aware of, and more attuned to, when reading through work.

Pathetic Plotting

Stories need a lot of thought where plots, subplots and subtle twists and turns are concerned. That’s because they all need resolving satisfactorily by the end of the story.

In simple terms, this means providing the reader with something believable and tangible rather than something that is contrived, forced, ridiculous or highly unbelievable. Any first draft story will have numerous weaknesses where plot is concerned. The read through will flag these for you to address. Weak plots will instantly show up, as will gaping errors within the narrative.

If you don’t resolve them correctly, then you’ve created a plot flaw and your reader will spot this. All issues in your novel/story must be addressed.

Also, a plot demands that you don’t create something you can’t plausibly unravel without creating a huge headache trying to resolve it. Don’t make impossible situations with in a plot (more on this in part 3).

It’s advisable to outline how the story will take shape – use it as a rough guideline, a skeletal framework from which to work. Preparation and planning helps you focus your ideas, design subplots and possible twists, and it keeps a writer from straying too far from the story.

If holes open up within your plot, examine why this is so, then go back and attempt to fix them (plausibly).

Logic First

Every story must be easy to follow and it must occur logically. If the story doesn’t make sense in certain parts, you must go back and examine why and then fix it. The whole story must make sense, not just bits of it, otherwise you will weaken the story.

Every story is borne from preceding events. Logic demands that for every situation within the plot, a resolution must follow. For this reason, new writers should try not to make the plot too complicated, otherwise you could end up confusing your reader, plus it will just cause more headaches in the writing process trying to resolve them.

There is a tendency with some writers to resort to deux ex machina when they run into plot trouble. This particular ‘get out clause’ means, roughly, "God out of the machine", and refers to a writer acting in a God like manner when a seemingly complicated problem or situation is suddenly solved in contrived, unexpected and often unbelievable way.

For example, the hero is imprisoned by the villain, and the hero’s love interest is thrown into the ocean for shark bait…but suddenly the police swoop in to rescue her (having made no mention of police or implied their intervention in preceding events), thus leaving the hero to fight the villain and win the day…everyone lives happily ever after. This is classic deux ex machina.

Every event in the story has a timeline to follow – chronologically – so an event happens, an obstacle for the protagonist is created, and then the situation is resolved by said protagonist in a satisfactory manner. Everything occurs logically.

Terrible Characters

Another problem that arises during a read through is the lack of depth from your characters. Often they don’t feel right, or you feel that something is missing from them. This is invariably because they lack emotional depth; there is little personality that comes through for a reader to empathise with, there is no substance to who your characters are.

Thinly drawn or vague characters will weaken any story because without a clearly visible personality, emotions, imperfections and faults etc, there will be no descriptions attributed to them within the narrative, hence the problem of shallow characters that don’t feel right or are missing something.

Make sure your characters have a fully formed background, a range of emotions,full personality traits and character flaws. They need to be as complex and as fragile as real people.

A writer will instinctively know during a read through if something doesn't feel right, or something doesn't work, or the characters just aren't interesting enough. It's imperative that these common errors are found before the manuscript finds its way onto the editor's desk. Finding them and fixing them is all part of the writing process - it shouldn't be left to an editor to do the work for you.

We'll look at how they can be fixed next week, and ways in which you can improve the process.

Next Week: Part 3 – Pacing problems, implausible twists, continuity and places.

Problem solving - spotting plot flaws and mistakes

2011-07-09T14:48:00.000+01:00

The importance of the read through.

A writer can breathe a sigh of relief when the first draft of a story or novel is complete. Months of blood, sweat and maybe a tear or two, have gone into creating your masterpiece, and any writer knows that the editing process is the most important part of writing a story.

Reading through your narrative from start to finish means you get to digest the story as a whole, because while writing the story, you rarely focus on the intricate goings on. You might move from one scene to another or one chapter to another during the process. Some writers don’t write in chronological order – some write the ending before the beginning, so it’s hard to gauge how the story will actually read.

The purpose of a full read through is that you can read the whole thing in its entirety. This is where large problem areas - not just grammar and punctuation – things like plot holes and glaring continuity mistakes, pacing and characterisation should be addressed.

What are the common problems?

Whenever I do critiques, I come across an array of common flaws and problems during the initial read through, which I’ve listed here. We’ll look at each one in closer detail later.

Plots - One of the main problems a writer encounters is the plot flaw, a structural weakness in the story when you read it back, for example, if a murder happens in chapter 4, don’t get carried away with the story and forget to tell reader who did it when the story concludes. They will spot this error even if you don’t.

Here’s another example: you have a character on the run from the police. He is able to use his mobile telephone and his bank account to help him, but during the read through you realise that the police will have the technology to track the cell phone, and the numbers he dialled, and they can also trace his whereabouts through the use of any ATMs. This in turn will affect the story outcome, and you end up changing it.

These kinds of flaws are often overlooked because we become so engrossed in writing the story that we forget the smaller details. Those small details can be very important.

Making sense - There might be sections of the story that just don’t make much sense, or the story trails off on a tangent before returning to its path again. Often the narrative takes a strange turn from the actual theme of the novel or story, thus becoming something else. Plots should unravel logically, they should stick to the theme and they should conclude satisfactorily.

Characters - Your characters don’t leap off the page, they seem flat and unappealing. That’s because they need emotional depth and personality and a fully formed background. They need individuality that gives different behaviours, qualities and traits. That means character continuity – don’t have Joe Bloggs with black hair in chapter 7, then suddenly change to brown hair and glasses in chapter 19.

Pace – You seem to read the story in no time, it feels a little rushed. That means there is not enough description within the narrative to balance the pace. If the story seems to plod, then it is likely lacking in some action and description to bolster the story. Narrative is flat without description.

Impossible situations - Another common flaw, and by far the easiest to make, is that writers often find that they’ve created impossible situations within the story. For example, the protagonist must infiltrate a tightly secured facility full of dozens of armed security guards…how does he accomplish this, single handed, in a believable manner?

Situations have to be believable – your protagonist is mortal and flawed, not a God or a superhero.

Continuity - We’re all guilty of this one. The rug in your protagonist’s front room is brown in chapter 2 and mysteriously turns white in chapter 6. Or the age of your characters change halfway through the story. The significance of an item that forms a murder clue in chapter 7 vanishes from then on, leaving your reader clueless...all these are common continuity errors. You should pick up on these during your read through and correct them.

Places - Place names, building names, countries and so on often cause problems particularly if there is significance attached to them. So many writers lose track of the names of places in their story that they are often overlooked, misspelled, or the name changes. For instance don’t have a character with properties in Spain on page 100 refer to the same properties in Bulgaria on page 170 during a conversation with another character. Watch out for spelling of certain place names too. Make sure you get them right.

All these problems are easy done, but the read through is designed to weed these errors from your MS. Next time we'll look at these problems in more detail and the ways writers go about solving them.

Next week: Part 2 – looking at these problems in detail.

How Writing Flash Fiction Can Help You Become a Better Writer

2011-07-02T13:22:00.000+01:00

Flash fiction is a bit of an art form. It squeezes a very short story into a very tight space, which could be anything from 50 to 500 words. It’s concise and to the point – it has to be.

Its very nature means that every word counts. Unlike short stories and novels, where you have room to explore things like characterisation, setting and plot etc, flash fiction affords no such luxuries. This means being economical with words and sentences, yet bringing forth the right exposition, narrative and description. It also means, to a certain degree, that it must have a rudimentary beginning, middle and end.

Like short stories, flash fiction should observe the Greek Unities:

Flash fiction covers the bare minimum time frame.
It should take place in one location only.
The action should remain from POV, two at most.

Telling a story in as few words as possible but with as much narrative as you can allow, requires discipline and thought to the craft of writing. If you have 200 words in which to tell your story, you have to begin and end the story in those 200 words, and where possible, to include some description, dialogue and narrative (though not necessarily all three, depending on what you write).

It all sounds very easy, but it isn’t. It’s about making a sentence from four words instead of ten, it’s about relating your theme in a few simple words, it’s about creating expression from little more than a few sentences, it’s about creating a whole thing from very little.

How does this improve your writing?

The very tight, concise nature of flash fiction demands the best of a writer. It makes you strip writing down to its bare minimum and focus on the important elements. When you come to write full-bloodied short stories and novels, you can build upward from these stripped down elements.

This kind of writing also forces a writer to find a great closing line, because sometimes that closing line makes the entire flash fiction story; it leaves a lasting impression with the reader. Doing this kind of exercise can help you find those little teasing closing lines at the end of your chapters.

Writing flash helps a writer focus on the best words to use and the most effective words to use. It makes a writer examine the very worth and meaning of words.

It makes a writer understand the balance of narrative, dialogue and description in writing.

It makes a writer appreciate exposition. Showing rather than telling, in so few words, will help you improve how you write exposition.

It forces a writer to examine every paragraph, every sentence and every word in much closer detail and eliminate unnecessary words.

It makes a writer appreciate which words work and which ones don’t – it makes the writer appreciate the structure of prose.

It makes a writer pinpoint their character – the reader must resonant with him or her with only a few words of dialogue or description to work with, so a writer must make the character count.

I recommend writers to go and try writing flash fiction because it’s one of the best disciplines around for writing. After a few practices, you will find your writing will have improved instantly, because it will make you focus on what is most important in writing.

Here’s an example of one of my flash fictions, a story of 100 words:

Slowburn

Her stomach churned like an acidic tide, washed against her insides. Her ribs shrank in the deluge of adrenaline, squeezed her.

A sulphurous hue freckled her skin. She leaned over the rail, waited for the bilious torrent, yet it stayed in her stomach, coaching the swell into a thick sickness.

Ocean froth hissed in her ear. She heard the excited Irish horde behind her.

She peered up; saw Liberty’s golden flame poking through the mist.

Amber tinted fear pooled in her eyes. Her father’s semen remained warm between her legs, but his blood was cold on her fingers.

Cold.

© A J Humpage 2011

You will find plenty of flash fiction sites on the internet, like 6 Sentences, where you have to write a story in six sentences. They have competitions too, the best ones making it into publication. If people like your story, they will offer feedback.

Another one you could try is the weekly flash fiction challenge found at Lily Childs Feardom, where you’re given three key words to write a flash fiction story around, and it can be anything you like as long as it contains those three key words. Not only that, but other writers will offer valuable feedback on your entry and Lily will also do a summary of your piece as part of the judging process.

This really is a great way to get a feel for your writing, but to get feedback from other writers too, some new to writing, some a little more established, and some that have been published and have years of experience to offer.

Get disciplined and give flash fiction a try!

Next week: Problem solving – spotting mistakes and flaws.

The Greek Unities

2011-06-25T14:41:00.000+01:00

There are lots of tools and strategies at a writer’s disposal to create strong, well-structured stories. For those writers not familiar with the Greek Unities, this is a concept where a writer can use three practical elements within fiction writing to help give balance and structure to their short story and to strengthen what might otherwise be weak areas.

The idea of the unities derives from the classical Greek Unities of drama. Based on a passage from Aristotle’s Poetics, they act as benchmarks for use in drama to aid better performances and sage direction, but fiction writers can also use these principles for their stories.

The idea behind the unities is to keep the story ordered, just as they would have done within drama. They are best used when writing short stories, but that is not to say that these cannot be applied to a certain degree to some novels, too, but on the whole, when you are writing a short story these three elements really do help with the composition.

There are three unities to observe:

Unity of Time
Unity of Place
Unity of Action

Unity of Time – Most short stories and novels tend to take place over a short period of time (hours to days or a few weeks). Some novels will have a time span of months and years. The longer the time span, the weaker the unity structure. Short stories, therefore, are best when compressed into a smaller time frame.

Place – Unity of place in fiction (as opposed to drama) means a consistency with where the action takes place. This unity is more commonly observed within short stories because most short stories take place in one location, as opposed to some novels where the action takes places in several locations.

Action – The unity of action relates to the viewpoint of the character, rather than the actual action that takes place. Most short stories tend to have one or two character viewpoints which a writer keeps to throughout the story, with few subplots to confuse the reader. Obviously, this is not observed in novels where there might be multiple viewpoints and multiple subplots, but again, the more characters you have within a short story, the weaker the story becomes.

Why have these in your story?

Every story needs a sense of time, whether that covers a 24 hour period or spans several decades, it’s essential that you set a time frame so that the reader firmly understands the fictional length of time the story takes to unravel. Without it, a story may not be strong enough to support itself as a whole, because it won’t be clear to the reader what the time span might be.

Some stories are set within a one hour period, (or even shorter), or they are set within several hours. That’s because it’s hard to tell a longer story within 1000, 2000 or 5000 words.

The same is true of every story needing a sense of place. This means giving your reader enough information to know where the story takes place. For instance, a short story might take place exclusively in a house by the beach, or a story might take place entirely within a city, e.g. Paris, or within a small town, and it doesn’t deviate from that location throughout the story, therefore keeping the unity concise.

Of course, no story is any good without point of view. A short story is much stronger if there is only one point of view, the story is told through one character, rather than flipping between a group of characters. The more characters you have, the weaker the story becomes and the more confused your reader will become.

There is no written rule when it comes to using unities, there is nothing to say you have to use all of them, but it’s wise to observe at least two of them within your story, because most short stories take place within a short period – as did Greek dramas – therefore they have only one or two characters at most and one or two strong viewpoints.

The unities are designed to aid a writer, especially new writers who may not be familiar with short story structure. It helps writers create better short stories; it’s a way of bringing semblance to the writing. By using them, a writer can create tighter construction and composition and more importantly, write a strong, successful story.

Next week: How writing flash fiction helps improve your writing

Creating Imagery - Part 2

2011-06-19T16:07:00.000+01:00

When we use imagery in creative fiction, it’s not just description, simile or metaphor that makes it work. Writers can employ other imagery skills such as assonance, alliteration and structure in order to make their writing vivid.

Assonance and alliteration are other tools at the writer’s disposal. Assonance is basically the sound of the words you create, the sound of the vowels in the sentences you write, working well together. Think of poetry, the way verses almost sound like music. This is assonance, and it works just as well within prose.

Here’s an example of simple assonance: ‘He stared at the moon; his thoughts fraught with fear and caught in a swell...’

The words ‘thought’, ‘fraught’ and ‘caught’ give the sentence assonance because they sound similar. Not only that, but 'fraught with fear' contains assonance, and when strung together with 'caught in a swell', both phrases conjure clear images in the reader's imagination.

Alliteration is the repetition of sounds in words too, for instance, ‘Sing a song of sixpence.’

Assonance and alliteration don’t come naturally to writers because they’re not something we consciously think about when writing, but with practice, both assonance and alliteration can make your prose come alive and it can make your descriptions sparkle. It makes the mundane seem marvellous.

For example: ‘The trickle of the stream melted the ice...’
This is mundane and boring, but if you add assonance, then you could have this:

‘The trickle of the stream seemed strained and it softly stressed against the melting ice...’

Stream, seemed, strained, softly, stressed. They all begin with ‘S’ and they all sound the same when strung together, they are all describing something about the stream. This is assonance and alliteration at work, and when interlaced within ordinary description like this it creates a deeper sense of imagery.

The use of assonance helps the writer produce narrative that is fluid, clear and brings a sense of poetry, but it also engages the reader on a much deeper level because the writer is conveying not just an image, but also a whole concept.

Both assonance and alliteration also rely on the right word order. It you don’t choose the right words or you don’t put them together carefully, then it won’t work. No assonance means little chance of conveying the right image to the reader. The connotations of what you want to say may not always work. This is where practice comes into its own.

If you are going to create assonance, think of the image you want to convey, think of the words that might work to support it, and think how fluid they are within the sentence.

Like everything else in fiction, tools for creating imagery, like assonance, are there to use every now and then within the narrative. A writer must decide when and how to employ them; too much can make the prose seem over flowery, too little and your narrative might appear flat and boring. This is why structure is important when creating imagery using metaphor, simile and assonance.

Conveying meanings of imagery – this depends how well you write description. The imagery you create depends on the meaning you want to convey. Remember, you don’t have to hit the reader over the head with a mallet to make those meanings known. Subtle works better. Descriptive flourishes like metaphor, simile or assonance enables the writer to garnish descriptions with these little touches. They are designed to lure and tease the reader into the story.

Summary:

What images do you want to emphasise?
What message are you trying to convey?
Does it create a sense of immediacy?
Do the words you have chosen flow fluidly?
Assonance - do the words work together?
Be imaginative with metaphor and simile – are they fresh and new?
Can you make the reader look beyond the words on the page?

By using these simple tools, you as a writer will be able to create a sense of immediacy with the reader because you are involving the reader on several levels within the story. They want to pick up your story and read much deeper than the words on the page. If they can do that, then you have succeeded in your job as a writer.

Next week: The Greek Unities – time, action and place.

Creating Imagery - Part 1

2011-06-11T16:42:00.000+01:00

Often we come across people who have read a great novel and comment that it was full of imagery. But what does that man exactly?

Writers use imagery to convey a sense of scenes and characters. It is used as a support tool to enhance description, to engage the reader on a deeper level with their writing, to involve the reader to the kind of level where they imagine themselves right there within the scene.

Imagery is a key aspect of fictional writing, it allows the writer to connect with the reader, but it also connects the reader to the story on many different levels. You are allowing the reader to visualise your fictional world.

In essence, it is about emphasis. So, how do you go about creating the right imagery?

One strategy any writer can use is the use of metaphor and simile intermittently embedded within the narrative. (Don’t overuse them; otherwise, your writing could become cliché). The idea with metaphor and simile is to create new ones to resonate with the reader, rather than use ones that you have read by other writers.

A metaphor is a figure of speech that transfers a sense of a word or sentence to another, for example, ‘The burgeoning, darkened clouds were shards of burnished steel’. The clouds are being compared to burnished steel, in both colour and texture, and it creates a sense of denseness, since steel is heavy.

A simile, on the other hand, acts the same as a metaphor, but we use the words ‘like’ to make the comparison and add perception, for example, ‘her eyes glistened like diamonds’. These are useful when creating description and imagery, but use them sparingly and don’t fall into the trap of making it sound like a cliché.

Another way to engage the reader with imagery is to incorporate the senses. For example, if you were blind, how would you picture the world around you? You would use your other senses to compensate in order to build that picture. What if you were trying to explain a photograph of a beautiful landscape to your friend, who is on the telephone and can’t see it? You have to create the image for them. Creating imagery works the same way in fictional writing, because the reader has no idea about the world of the character you have created or their surroundings, they cannot see this world. You have to show them.

The idea with creating imagery is to choose specific and clear words to effectively convey an image. That also means you need to clearly understand the meaning and context to what you want to convey in order for the reader to understand, too, because creating imagery isn’t about being flowery with descriptions (which often happens) or trying to impress your reader. It’s not about being overly literary. It’s about creating a sense of realism; it’s about bringing the two dimensional into the realm of three dimensional by keeping a sense of reality.

You have to make the images as vivid and as clear as possible. That means using colour, texture, sounds, a sense of taste etc.

Here’s an example from one of my own flash fiction pieces, called ‘Sliver’, a micro tale of a serial killer going about his usual business of harvesting flesh from his victim:

He worked quickly so she wouldn’t spoil.

She made patterns on the floor; a misshaped carmine coloured template to his immaculate harvesting. She gleamed in his hands; moist reflections filled his expression as he collected fragile slivers.

Her pain had spiked; numbness rushed in to mask her miserable odour. She’d made poppy puddles; he was careful not to slip on the mess.

He laid her out, slice after slice. Next to her tongue. He worked better listening to her gurgle in her own blood.
She had young, beautiful, soft skin.
And he was going to collect every inch of it.
©A J Humpage 2011

Let’s look at the piece in more detail. The very first line sets out the context of the piece. The key word here is ‘spoil’. ‘He worked quickly so she wouldn’t spoil’. This lets the reader know the urgency of the killer’s work, and what would happen to a body after death.

‘She gleamed in his hands’ is a deliberate way of impressing the connotation of blood on the skin. I could have written something like ‘the light made her blood gleam.’ While this is quite acceptable, the idea that the victim’s flesh does this in his hands adds a deeper message to the reader; it makes them visualise it.

Instead of writing something like, ‘She bled on the floor,’ I decided to create something stronger to allow the reader to visualise the scene, so I chose ‘She’d made poppy puddles’, which is a metaphor. I used the poppy colour to symbolise the brightness of fresh blood, and the word puddle creates a descriptive picture of the mess. I focused on the description of the colour to emphasise the point.

This simple example shows how imagery should work. It’s not out to impress, it’s not created to be pretentious, but it is there to elevate description to a level that draws the reader into the fictitious world you have created without evening thinking about it.

Next week Part 2 – Using assonance, structure and conveying meanings etc

Creating Suspense in Fiction

2011-06-04T17:26:00.000+01:00

Many writers ponder what how to create suspense in their fiction and I’ve been asked this question by new writers because they wrongly assume it’s very difficult, when in fact it isn’t. My answer has always remained the same: creating or building suspense, and maintaining it, will only work if the writer understands the very core of the story they are telling within the genre they want to write.

Crime novels, for instance, have a sense of mystery and therefore they keep a lot of the secrets from the reader until the end, in order to keep them guessing, while some novels, like thrillers, set out their stall early on by letting the reader know most of the facts and building tension and conflict around the succeeding events in the story in order to create suspense.

Suspense is the thing that keeps the reader turning the page to find out what happens next...

Mention the word suspense to most people and they will automatically think of fear, after all, it’s used to great effect in horror movies. Suspense can create fear – fear of the unknown - and because there is an unknown element at play, that uncertainty in turn creates intensity.

Fiction employs the same strategy. The premise of the unknown, what might happen next, what might the character do next...the anticipation created in this way builds intensity and keeps the reader in a constant state of wondering what will happen next. Uncertainty, facing choices, facing fears, raising intensity, creating danger...they all help build suspense within the narrative.

Greek philosopher Aristotle said that suspense is an important element within literature, that there must be a real sense of present danger, but also a glint of hope that all will end well by the end of the story - this in turn creates a fine balance. Danger and relief must always find balance within your story.

That’s all well and good, but how do you go about putting this into practice?

You can create suspense by playing on your character’s fears and anxieties. By giving them fears and making them face those fears, you also allow the reader to face those fears. Or you can make the unexpected happen – for instance, killing off a likeable main character, which may put pressure on the protagonist and which leads the reader to ask...what next?

Force your main character to face impossible choices. How can they possibly choose? This is a dilemma, and thus it creates suspense with the reader, wondering how on earth the main character will choose.

In my second novel, one of the main characters is faced with an impossible choice: He is in a forest, hiding from German soldiers, and is called upon to give himself up. If he does, he will save the women of the town from being brutally murdered by the antagonist. It will mean he will be sacrificing his own life to save them, or he can stay hidden in the woods and watch them all die in order to save himself to face the antagonist in the end game. What should he do?

Dilemmas like this help create lots of suspense because the choice that the character makes – from a lose-lose situation – will keep the reader guessing as to what happens next.

There are many ways to create suspense –like when the reader knows something the character doesn’t. It’s known as Dramatic Irony. Lots of writers employ this method of dropping snippets of information for the reader, leading the reader to wonder...how will the character cope, what will they do, what will happen next? This foresight allows them to glimpse the perils that might lie ahead; it builds on their anxiety and instills fear.

Another useful strategy is the use of time constraints. Thrillers employ this to great effect – the race against time. The main character needs to achieve his goal before a set time – a bomb set to go off, or a ransom needs to be delivered or the hostages die etc. Every moment the hero is held up creates tension and suspense and keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. (And of course this creates conflict, which is the very heart and soul of fiction).

String out the anxiety for a full effect. Think about reality TV shows like American Idol or X Factor. The build up created prior to announcing the winner is down to making the audience wait for as long as possible...is it A or it is B? Who’s won? By stringing out that wait, it creates suspense and tension. Fiction works the same way too. Keep your reader guessing; keep them on tenterhooks for as long as possible before the final reveal.

Suspense also comes from being unpredictable. Nothing should be simple for your main character. Make their life difficult, put them in danger, take away some of their most cherished things, be horrible to them, make it look like the antagonist might actually win the day. Remember that action creates reaction. That in turn creates the ‘what happens next’ effect.

Of course, it isn’t just the actual story that provides the suspense. You can dangle a virtual carrot in front of the reader every time you finish a chapter. Try to end each chapter by luring the reader to continue reading.

Summary:

· Know the genre and know the story you want to tell.
· What’s at stake? Create a sense of danger.
· Impossible choices – make the character face them
· String out the tension for as long as possible
· Time constraints – is your character racing against time?
· End a chapter with a lure to the next one.
· Be unpredictable
· Create the unexpected
· Use dramatic irony – let the reader in on something that the protagonist won’t know.

The unknown = uncertainty = anxiety = fear, what happens next = suspense.

If you become stuck wondering about suspense and how to inject it into your narrative, always ask yourself the following question:

What happens next?
Next week: Creating imagery in fiction

Repetition - Different Types and Meanings

2011-05-28T16:51:00.000+01:00

There are different types of repetition that writers use within their narrative, description and dialogue. Each form has its own unique effectiveness that is sometimes so subtle that the effect goes largely unnoticed by the reader.

The way we string certain words together within a sentence gives the reader different patterns but also gives us different effects. Rhetoric expression is a way of stressing the meaning of certain words and sentences, most often used in speeches, but just as effective nestling within your masterpiece.

There are hundreds of literary terms, too many to go through all of them, however, I’ve listed the most commonly used literary uses of repetition/figures of speech that are useful within creative fiction.

Anadiplosis
This term, from Greek, meaning ‘doubling’, refers to when we repeat the last word of a sentence and then use it again to begin the next. Its purpose is to give a sense of rhythm to the writing, to make it flow seamlessly, for instance:

“Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of business” - Sir Francis Bacon

Or you can conjure your own:

‘To the end of time; time is all we have.’

Anaphora
Another similar form of rhetoric, anaphora is designed for emphasis and comes from the Greek meaning to ‘carry back’. It works by repeating a sequence of words at the beginning of neighbouring clauses to give this effect. It works with dialogue and narrative.

One of the best examples comes from Winston Churchill:

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." - (Speech to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940)

Antistasis
This refers to the repetition of a word in a different or contrary sense. The Greek meaning is ‘opposition, or opposing position.’ Its best use is in dialogue, for snappy rhetoric or a retort.

“I wasted time and now time doth waste me.” - (Shakespeare)

"A kleptomaniac is a person who helps himself because he can't help himself." - (Henry Morgan)

Commoratio
This is a strategic use of repetition by emphasising a point by repeating it several times throughout a sentence. It derives from Latin ‘dwelling’. In other words, you are dwelling on a point, and again most effective within dialogue.

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." - (Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1979)

Diacope
This is a rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or even a phrase which is broken up by one or several more intervening words and is derived from the Greek meaning to ‘cut in two’. The repetition is still emphasised, especially to convey deep emotion, but the effect is less obvious than anaphora.

“All lost! To prayers, to prayers! All lost!” - (Shakespeare - The Tempest, Scene 1, Act 1)

Epanalepsis
This refers to the repetition of a word at the end of a clause or sentence and which also begins the next sentence, a kind of refrain, which derives from the Greek ‘resumption’. It is designed for emphasis in dialogue rather than narrative.

"Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe." -(Shakespeare, Brutus in Act 3, scene 2, Julius Caesar)

Epiphora
From Greek, ‘bring to’, this is the emphatic repetition of a word or phrase placed at the end of several sentences. You’ll notice that anaphora is repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of sentences, and epiphora is repetition of a word or phrase at the end of sentences. The rhetorical pattern creates rhythm and it thus creates flow within the text. It works well with narrative and dialogue.

"She's safe, just like I promised. She's all set to marry Norrington, just like she promised. And you get to die for her, just like you promised." - (Jack Sparrow, The Pirates of the Caribbean)

Epizeuxis
Repetition of a word or phrase for emphasis, very often with no words in between. It comes from the Greek meaning to ‘fasten together’. It makes the reader focus the words in a sentence, to convey importance to the sentence.

"If you think you can win, you can win." - (William Hazlitt)

"I undid the lantern cautiously--oh, so cautiously - cautiously." - (Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart 1843)

Gradatio
This comes from the Greek, ‘climax’. It refers to a sentence in which the last word of one clause becomes the first of the next – an extended form of anadiplosis where the repetition continues from clause to clause. The repetition is structured to increase the order of magnitude, hence the ‘climax’, from which the term derives. It works effectively within narrative and dialogue and lends a rhythmic lilt to any text.

"We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." - (Paul, Romans 5:3)

Whatever the method you choose, however you want to use it, the use of repetition is a clever tool if used correctly. Words and clauses - the emphasis of these allows you as a writer to bring emotion, rhythm, pace and atmosphere to narrative and dialogue. It allows you to focus the reader on what you want to convey, all without them even noticing.

Next week: How to build suspense

Repetition - How to Use it Effectively

2011-05-21T16:26:00.000+01:00

Repetition isn’t something a writer will normally think about, particularly if one thinks about schools days of being told that repetition is a no-no. In creative writing, however, there is good repetition and bad repetition. Repetition can and does work.

The above opening paragraph uses repetition effectively. The actual word 'repetition' occurs five times, but it’s not overpowering within the text. It is there to reinforce the message and provide and subtle way of denotative resonance. This is an example of good repetition.

Bad repetition, on the other hand, occurs when the same descriptive words appear in the same sentence or paragraph several times without offering denotation or structure, for instance:

He fumbled for the keys in the dark, finally managed to open the door. He shuffled through the hallway, switched on the lights, and in his drunken haze, fumbled with his coat buttons...

This basic illustration shows how easy it is to make repetition all the time throughout a story. The first ‘fumble’ is fine, but then it’s repeated. A writer should engage different descriptive words, such as ‘struggled’ or ‘clawed’. This is a form of redundancy, where the second repeated word is pointless and should be changed.

Effective repetition of key words or phrases, however, can create different effects. The denotative effect reinforces the overall message the writer wants to give the reader. It can also create a sense of tension, atmosphere and emotion. It also creates resonance and rhythmic patterns – rather like poetry.

In effect, cleverly crafted, deliberate repetition can become a strategic weapon in any writer’s armoury. Look at this example:

His dark ways, his dark thoughts; soulless and barren and as dark as the swirling ocean beneath him...

The repetition here works because ‘dark’ is a simple descriptive word, and each time it is mentioned, it adds to the feeling of the sinister overtones the writer wants to convey. It also created rhythm within the sentence – it almost has a beat to it. And also because it repeats three times.

Other ways can create emphasis for emotion or conflict, for example:

He was slave to their ways, slave to the demon colonel; slave to everything he had known...

This style of repetition creates a dynamic flow of a powerful key word: slave. This simple sentence creates an impression of emotion simply because the very word slave creates this effect and it can be employed effectively with any well chosen words. Again, it is repeated three times.

She was soft against his touch, soft like the silken threads he had slipped from her body, soft like the gentle murmur of summer.

Once again, repeated three times, the word ‘soft’ reinforces the mood and atmosphere.

It also comes into its own when writing pensive scenes, to create a sense of tension. It works the same way as children’s stories, repeating one emphasised word two or three times.

They huddled in the dark, listening as the silence gave way to their fear.
Thud. Thud.
This sound, creeping ever closer...

Of course, repetition works well within dialogue too. Well chosen words and phrases emphasise what the writer wants to achieve.

‘I told you what would happen, I told you, and you chose not to listen. I told you and you refrained.’

This example shows how the character is reinforcing his/her message, not just to another character, but to the reader, too.

Repetitive strokes can enliven dialogue, and again gives rhythm and resonance to speech patterns, something the reader will be intuitively tuned into, without them even noticing.

As a writer, you have to choose which words and phrases you think would be effective, or how they would create the effect you want to achieve, but repetition is always about emphasis, whether you are highlighting mood, emotion, tension, atmosphere or even action, or whether you use it with within your, narrative or dialogue.

Summary:

· Repetition should emphasise

· Make repetition denotative – reinforces the message

· Make it simplistic and effective

· Create resonance and rhythmic patterns

· Create word dynamics

· Don’t repeat complex words, but instead keep them simple.

Next week: Part 2 – The different types of repetition and their definitions

Description - too much or too little?

2011-05-14T15:33:00.000+01:00

This is the kind of thing that will confuse any writer – how can you tell if you have enough description, or too little, especially when you are confronted with conflicting advice on what constitutes enough description.

Many writers believe that there shouldn’t be great chunks of description in your narrative, because this tends to bore the reader. Some say you don’t need to go into huge detail about your characters or setting– again resulting in a block of text – because the idea is to keep the reader engaged and interested. They don’t want to read lots of description.

This trend of using little description to ensure more action, is flawed - it’s designed for writers who can’t be bothered to invest the time to enrich their stories, nor invest in their readers, and it benefits the readers because they don’t have to use too much brain power reading large chunks of description, when all they want is action and dialogue.

Some of those who write in the thrillers/action genre wrongly assume that description isn’t too important, because action is what counts. Well placed and well-written description, however, is the difference between a great thriller and a poorly written one, and those lacking the element of good description will never make it past the slush pile.

Everything in society, it seems, is fast-paced. It’s what readers demand – short attention spans need shorter descriptions, but writers must remember that there are three elements that must balance to have a fully realised story: dialogue, description and narrative. Sacrificing one at the expense of the other may not get you noticed by agents or publishers, and could weaken your story.

Description should move the story forward –it should hint at something, build a picture for the reader, create mood and tension, heighten the atmosphere. These elements cannot be achieved without description. Too little, and your story really will suffer.

For you, the writer, description is your lifeblood, you need it, the story needs it and your reader needs it (whether they like it or not). The premise of description is for you to fill in the information that the reader won’t know, to build on their awareness, to provide background information and sensory appreciation, to reveal characters and plot and to keep the momentum of the story.

The key is getting the balance right; just enough to inform the reader, but not too much that it bores them. Take, for instance, a scene that describes the main character waking up and facing a day of stress at work, but it has so much description that it’s not until page 8 that he finally gets out of bed! This is where it’s just too much. The more you write and gain experience, the more you will intuitively know that you need to cut lots of unnecessary waffle.

Description can inform and tease your reader. It can hint, it can play with them; it can build them up to a crescendo, it can create emotion, it can take them on a journey. Of course, that would all depend on whether you’re writing the correct kind of description. There is a difference between the wrong sort of description and the right sort. The wrong sort makes excessive use of adjectives and adverbs and provides information that isn’t really necessary, like this:

He raced down the street, his thick black hair glistening in the low-level lighting which cast soft pools of amber across his square-jawed face, which remained unshaven, but his strong blue eyes penetrated the murk in time to see her running into an alleyway. His strong, powerful legs powered him through the darkness and into the alley, his masculine presence filling the entire narrow stone corridor...

By simply cutting the double adjectives and tidying sentence structure, you have a better sense of description, one that is just enough for the reader and one that moves the story forward, without it being excessive.

He raced down the street; his black hair glistened in the low-level lighting and soft amber pools found his face. He saw her slip into an alleyway and he followed, quickly reaching the darkness that clogged the alley. He listened to the echoes of her footsteps across the stone...

The kind of description to avoid is the useless kind; the stuff the reader doesn’t need to know, like the colour of your protagonist lipstick and whether she spent half an hour straightening her hair, or describing the villain’s expensive Italian suit and leather shoes which he bought from Versace in London last Tuesday.

Description should be proportionate to the story - it should be balanced. Think of the Goldilocks rule – Baby bear’s bowl of porridge was too little; papa bear’s was too much. But mama bear’s bowl was just right for Goldilocks.

The same is true of description. Too much – by that I mean pages and pages of it – will bore your reader. Too little – a sentence here or there at the expense of lashings of action and dialogue, will mean you end up creating a story that doesn’t satisfy.

There will be times when maybe a page of description is required to strengthen a particular section of story. There may be times when there is no dialogue for several pages...so what else is there other than description?

It's surprising how many writers lose sight of the importance of description and how it can influence how much the reader will enjoy their story. No one can tell you how much or how little to use. It’s up to you, as writers, how you attain that fine balance, but practice and editing goes a long way to achieve it.

Make sure it’s not the wrong sort of description – keep it pertinent, tight and consistent.
Keep it proportionate – Look for a balance between narrative, description and dialogue.
Appropriate placement of description – interspersed throughout the chapters to help strengthen key scenes.
Don’t over explain – describe your characters, the scene, the tension, but don’t describe every single minutiae. Keep it simple, keep it interesting.
Read and re-read what you have written - you will learn to recognise too much or too little.

Next week: Writing strategies - Repetition and how it works.

Description and why it's important

2011-05-07T13:42:00.000+01:00

Description is one of the three key elements in fiction, along with narrative and dialogue, which brings your story to life. It’s the lifeblood of your role as storyteller. It means a writer must involve the reader at every level, and he or she can do that through the medium of description.

Description creates a vivid picture for the reader, it allows them to open a gateway to your story and imagine themselves within your fictional world.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to go into detail about everything for every scene. It simply means that you have to be prudent in knowing when it’s required and why.

You as a writer can elicit emotions within your reader, you create tension and atmosphere, and you create a sense of immediacy – a sense of being right there with the character. Great description helps the reader to build a fully formed picture in their mind’s eye; to understand what your character is going through and how the character sees his or her world. It creates a sense of the whole scene.

Description isn’t about using pretty words and pages of complicated sentence structures to make a story, it’s about understanding the reason why you use it and when you use it that matters. It’s about conveying important information to the reader in strategic places.

The idea here is not just simply to fill your pages with description in the vain hope of plumping your masterpiece; it’s about conveying four key things that will happen in your story:

· Convey a sense of place/background

· Convey a sense of emotion and mood

· Convey a sense of tension/atmosphere

· Convey a sense of action

Scenes that include some of these can help focus your story. So how can you achieve this effectively? By remembering that you are telling the story, not actually being a part of it. Your reader is the one who will become part of it; they’ve purchased a ticket for your particular roller coaster ride and they want to experience everything you have to offer and enjoy every moment.

Probably one of the best ways any writer can achieve this is through the use of the senses. In real life we perceive the world with our senses; we smell, we touch, we taste, we hear and we see, but so too must your reader. They want to feel and touch and taste and see your fictional world.

Descriptions that incorporate sensory stimulation help the reader to transport themselves from real life to your character’s story. This is where the power of a writer’s observation and imagination mix with amazing results.

The idea is to reward your reader every now and then with some descriptive flourishes to enhance all that is happening within scene, particularly important ones. Let them hear the door creak, let them shudder in the dark as they see the shadows, let them touch the softness of a character’s skin, let them smell the trash cluttering the alley and let them taste the fiery sting of a malt whisky.

Description doesn’t have to fill page after page. It could merely be a sentence or two, a snippet within some dialogue perhaps, or a simple flourish within the narrative that will fire the reader’s imagination. Of course, there will be occasions where longer descriptions are required, particularly if you need to express the setting of the scene and the atmosphere of it, and maybe build some tension throughout the scene.

The idea is to involve the reader on as many levels as possible. Scare them, make them cry, move them, make them laugh. Description can do this, and it can also move the story forward.

All this leads to the question: how do I achieve this?

Firstly it’s important to identify what is it is you want to describe and why. Do you need to invoke a sense of atmosphere and tension or emotion within an important scene? Do you need the reader to understand the place or the people? Do you want your reader to feel what your character is feeling at that moment during an argument or a kiss? Do you need to show the mood of the moment, the fear or the panic? If it does, then describe it. If it doesn’t, leave it. For example:

He ascended the stairs, moved through the dark, listened out for noises, but he didn’t hear any. At last he reached the top of the stairs.

The above paragraph is typical of lots of ‘descriptive’ writing I see with writers, but it doesn’t do much. It’s pretty flat. It’s a key scene that would benefit from some proper description in order involve the reader on an emotional level, like this:

He began to ascend the stairs. The wood creaked beneath his feet and he held himself still for a moment, tense. He slowly moved to the next step as the darkness pressed against him. He listened. Nothing, except for the rhythmic thud of his heartbeat. Muscles tautened as he crept up each step until he reached the top of the stairs…

This builds atmosphere for the reader, it creates a mood and it shows tension. This example involves the reader, so be careful not to overlook key scenes like this within the narrative, otherwise your reader won’t care much for the story.

Remember, always engage your reader. How you do it will depend on the following:

Choice of language
Choice of word/sentence structure
Relevance to the scene
The ability to keep it real (description needs to feel real)

A story without description is flat, unemotional and boring. Your reader needs to know what characters look like, what places look and smell like, what’s really happening, how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking, they need to know what things feel and taste like, they want to feel a little scared, a little horrified maybe, they want to feel that emotion, to smile, to gasp…all of these created through description.

Description is what makes an ordinary story a great story.

Next week: How much description? Too much or not enough?

Said versus dialogue tags

2011-04-30T15:51:00.001+01:00

Dialogue tags let your reader know who is speaking; they are a way of giving clarity to your dialogue, especially when you have several characters talking within a scene.

The tags are not essential in every line of speech – especially when you have only a couple of characters talking, but you can use them occasionally just to remind your reader who is speaking.

The argument of said versus other dialogue tags has rumbled on for eons. The one thing I have found with fiction writing is that some things are good in moderation, and constructing fiction is always subjective, so it is entirely up to the writer what he or she wants to use.

Said’

The most overused tag is ‘said’. You might think there is good reason for that, after all, we’re taught this in English classes from an early age. Its use, however, can sometimes grate on the nerves if you have nothing else in terms of dialogue tags to give to the reader. Despite many teachers and editors advising to do away with too many dialogue tags, they do actually have their uses, in moderation. To explain why, here’s a typical example of a scene with dialogue:

‘So you’re coming to the barbecue tonight...’ she said, facing him.

‘Hopefully,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘We’re going about six.’
He smiled. ‘Great, I’ll be there between six and half past.’
‘Look forward to it,’ she said.
‘I’ll bring a few bottles of wine,’ he said.
‘Great,’ she said.

He said, she said...pages and pages of this kind of writing can be such hard work to read and a little boring. The use of ‘said’ is very useful, and it does have its place, but the drawback it is that it is also limited in range. Said says nothing about how the character his speaking, not unless you litter each line with description.

Use of dialogue tags are useful, but you should limit their use and how you use them - they should serve only to break up the catatonic-inducing amount of ‘said’ that could creep into your dialogue. The odd tag here and there can show how the character is talking. How do you infer fear, sensuality, anger or any other emotion, or indeed the tone of the words, without actually smacking the reader over the head with lots of ‘telling’?

‘Said’ tells us, but it doesn’t show us.

The argument here is that descriptive tags are not necessary because it will be obvious how the characters are talking. That is true with some of them, but are some of them really that obvious? Take a look at this typical example:

'I don’t love you,' she said.

If you don’t tell the reader how she is saying it, they will not understand the nuance of the emotion you wish to convey, particularly in an important scene. You can put a snippet of description prior to the dialogue, like this:

Her face darkened, creased. ‘I don’t love you.’

That gives the reader more to work with - they will see she is unhappy because of the creased, darkened face. What they won’t hear is the tone of her voice.

Her face darkened and creased as she spat, ‘I don’t love you.’

There is clear a descriptive path, and the tone of the voice supports the emotional punch of the dialogue because of the spitting of her words. In this sense, dialogue isn’t always obvious, not unless you inform your reader the tone of voice your character is using.

Where possible, show your character’s actions prior to dialogue, as this will cut down the need for overloading the dialogue with ‘said’ tags, like this:

He placed his arm around her and whispered, ‘You look beautiful.’

Now the reader has something to work with. We know the whispered tone invites sensuality. You could, of course, do away with tags altogether:

He placed his arm around her and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘You look beautiful.’

Again, to reiterate, some tags have their uses if used correctly and in moderation – like ‘whispered’ above, to break the monotony of ‘said’. As shown, there are several ways to inform the reader of the tone – which one you use is up to you.

There are some tags that are considered dubious for direct dialogue, like: bawled, screeched, exclaimed, shouted, whimpered, enquired, demanded, queried, snapped, thundered etc.

As a rule of thumb, if you are unsure, just listen to the sound these words actually make. Most of us can’t thunder, so this would be a really overly descriptive and unnecessary tag, but on the other hand we can ‘bawl’. We can ‘descriptively’ snap at someone, but we can’t use it as a dialogue tag because we can’t replicate a snapping sound with our voices in normal dialogue. We can shout because we can raise our voices, but our voices can’t ‘demand’. Neither can our voices ‘exclaim’, but our voices can ‘whimper’.

The use of a couple of differential tags can highlight to the reader the changing tone of the scene. As a writer it is up to you how and when you use them, or if you use them at all. Again, it is about listening to the sound of words, understanding the tone, and seeing if it works.

If you find you have a verb which describes an expression – sneer, frown, grin etc - don't force the verb into becoming a dialogue tag, for instance: he grinned.

Instead, the expression is the action and should be placed before the dialogue: He grinned. ‘I will take over the world.’

Using adverbs

As a writer you should look to eliminate all adverbs in dialogue. They make the writing clunky and your story would not get a second glance from an editor.

‘I want to get out!’ she said desperately.
‘I will save you,’ he said coolly.

The way to avoid adverbs is to drop the action/description before the dialogue. It is also a good way of cutting down on the inordinate amounts of ‘said’.

She became desperate. ‘I want to get out!’
His voice was cool. ‘I will save you.’

There are no right and wrongs in creative fiction, only the technical elements that can help you improve. Despite the ‘said’ tag rule, pick up any novel and I guarantee it will contain tags other than said.

Think about it this way, if we kept rigidly to these ‘thou shalt use nothing but said’ rules, how would you write your novel or story without overloading it with exposition (telling and no showing) and it being repetitively boring? Well, it’s harder than you think.

Next week: Description and why it's important

Common sentence errors and how to eliminate them

2011-04-23T15:37:00.000+01:00

With an understanding of what makes good sentences, it will be easier to weed out the common errors that can creep into sentence structures. Everything from non-parallel sentences, fragments, ambiguity and hanging participles, misplaced commas and so on.

Vigilance at the editing stage should eliminate all of these. Without changing these kinds of errors, your writing will remain terrible, clunky and stilted.

Parallel sentences - In fiction writing, a parallel sentence means there is a balance of sentence structure. That means that similar words, phrases, or clauses should be the same in a list within a sentence and the way to join parallel structures is with the use of coordinating conjunctions such as "and" or "or." It probably sounds more complicated than it actually is. The balance is lost when a mixture of gerunds (words with ‘ing’) and verb forms are put together. Take these examples:

He liked to run, to keep fit, and swimming.
He liked swimming and to keep fit.

The sentence has the verb form (to run) combined with a gerund (swimming) and causes an unbalanced sentence structure. The second sentence has the gerund first in the list, followed by the gerund. To maintain the balance, both sentences could be written as follows:

He liked to run, to keep fit, and to swim.
He liked to swim and to keep fit.

John entered the house and couldn’t get the lights to work. He edged his way into the hallway, feeling his way along the wall for the light switch.

This sentence is unbalanced because it has a gerund (feeling) placed incorrectly. This is the most common sentence structure error among new writers. It should be like this:

John entered the house and couldn’t get the lights to work. He edged his way into the hallway and felt his way along the wall for the light switch.

Correct Use of Commas - Sentences often suffer from incorrect use of or misplaced commas. The most common form is a comma splice. This occurs when two independent clauses (sentences on their own) are spliced together with a comma (unless you use a coordinating conjunction such as ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘yet’, ‘but’ etc), otherwise you can use of full stop or semicolon.

The correct way to use a comma is for it to infer a pause, by not doing so could lead to confusion for the reader.

The above sentence uses a misplaced comma to splice both clauses. You can correct them in the following way:

The correct way to use a comma is for it to infer a pause. By not doing so could lead to confusion for the reader. Or you can use a conjunction.

The correct way to use a comma is for it to infer a pause, but by not doing so could lead to confusion for the reader.

Incorrect use of commas, or omitting them, can cause ambiguity, for instance:

When it comes to painting people vary in their abilities. (This sounds as though somebody is painting on someone's skin)

When it comes to painting, people vary in their abilities. (The correct comma placement denotes a pause and the emphasis is clear that people differ in abilities when it comes to painting)

Too Many Conjunctions - Avoid using too many conjunctions within clauses, otherwise the whole sentence structure will end up tripping your reader or confusing. You are also in danger of losing the emphasis of your sentences. The sentence below uses too many conjunctions.

The idea with conjunctions is to keep a sentence clear and concise, and to ensure that the reader understands the meaning, but too many conjunctions might confuse the reader or make them trip up because they end up reading a really long sentence that seems to go on forever, when in fact there could be many stand alone sentences within the whole paragraph, and that would make the sentence much better.

Sentence fragments - Avoid the use of too many sentence fragments. That don’t quite follow on or make sense. Like this. Fragmented.

Sentence fragments can mean your writing is stilted and needs fixing. You should be looking for whole and complete sentences that keep the emphasis of what you want to say, sentences that are clear to your reader.

Passive sentences – avoid using passive sentences wherever possible. Sentences should be active. Passive sentences slow the narrative and cause it to become awkward. Very often writers shift from active to passive within the same sentence without even noticing.

The ball was kicked by John and bounced into the net.

The action of throwing the ball has become passive rather than active. You should write it like this:

John kicked the ball and it bounced into the net.

Hanging participles - avoid these. As mentioned in other posts, these just conjure ambiguity and are a sign of bad writing. You can’t have a character doing two things at once, like this:

Closing the door, she picked up the post from the floor.

It’s better written like this: She closed the door and picked up the post. Not only is the sentence stronger, it is more concise, clear and tells the reader what the character is doing in a chronological manner.

By eliminating these common flaws, you will produce stronger sentences that give your reader clarity and convey the action without being stilted, clunky or awkward.

So, in summary, you should avoid the following when constructing sentences:

• Faulty parallel sentences
• Misplaced or omitted commas
• Too many conjunctions
• Sentence Fragments
• Passive sentences
• Hanging participles

Next week: Said versus dialogue tags.

Part 3 – Sentences and dialogue

2011-04-16T16:23:00.000+01:00

Creating the right rhythm for dialogue sentences is just as important as ordinary sentences within the narrative. How you break up speech, how you punctuate it, how you show the reader who is speaking, requires skill.

Effective dialogue greatly depends on how you structure your sentences. They can end up becoming clunky or stilted without you even noticing, if you are not careful, but these things can be easily amended at editing stage.

Dialogue Sentence Structures

Speech tags show the reader who is speaking, but sometimes, new writers frequently add speech tags to dialogue which are not actually required. For example:

Peter climbed out the car and put his sunglasses on. ‘Let’s check out our new house,’ he said.

The problem here is the tag placement. By telling the reader at the beginning of the sentence that Peter climbed out the car, the reader knows who is talking. This means the ‘he said’ is not required. If you make it clear who is speaking, then you don't need to further identify the speaker with ‘he said or she said’.

Another thing that inexperienced writers tend to do is they put description after the actual action/description. For example:

“Hi, don’t know if you remember me, but it’s Tom, we used to work together.”

“Did we? That must have been so long ago. Sorry Tom, I really didn’t recognise you.” The man’s voice seemed deeper than what John remembered.

The description here is in the wrong place, and its effectiveness is lost because it has been placed at the end of the sentence. If the sentence is changed, then emphasis also changes, and we can show the description before the dialogue, like this:

“Hi, don’t know if you remember me, but it’s Tom, we used to work together.”
“Did we? That must have been so long ago.” The man’s voice seemed deeper than what John remembered. “Sorry Tom, I really didn’t recognise you.”

It’s that easy to change the effectiveness of your sentences. By placing the description immediately after John has spoken about it, we re-affirm the vague memory and how he remembers his friend, before continuing with some more dialogue.’

Rhythm and pace

The rhythm of the sentences ensures a better flow when dealing with dialogue. Every sentence has a pulse – they can be fast or slow, short or long, they can be blunt or soft. Imagine filling the pages with dialogue made up of sentences of around the same length. It would quickly become stilted and boring, like this:

“I came here to get you,” she said.
“Then you had a wasted journey.”
“I’m not leaving empty handed,” she said.
“I don’t care,” he said.
“I’m taking you back home,” she said.
“I told you, I’m not going back.”

In real life, speech is made up of long flowing sentences, short staccato sentences, there are pauses, there are ums and ahs, there are people talking over each other, people being cut off mid sentence etc. A writer can bring some of these representations into dialogue to inject a little reality, but they should be used sparingly. Too many will irritate the reader.

By varying the length of the sentences, you find tempo and pace:

“I came here to get you,” she said, eyeing him.
His voice became abrupt, nonchalant. “Then you had a wasted journey.”
She sighed, tried not to let him upset her. “I’m not leaving empty handed.”
He looked away. “I don’t care.”
“I’m taking you back home,” she said.
He turned as though to walk away from her. “I told you, I’m not going back.”

There will be occasions were you have a character that has a lot of dialogue and makes quite a long speech. You will need to keep your reader’s attention during this and one of the strategies used by writers is to break up the speech with description. For example, here’s a long section of dialogue from one character speaking to another:

“We were never on the same side, him and me. I know Michael wanted to be a part of the organisation, he wanted all the money and the girls and he could have anything he wanted, but he didn’t know when to stop. He found out about me and he wanted a slice of the real action, he thought he could blackmail me, but he had no idea how deep he was in. No idea who he was dealing with.” His face darkened as though stained by a shadow, his eyes remained cold. “You got problems when that happens, when you want more and more; it’s like a drug, an addiction...”

While this paragraph is perfectly reasonable on its own, the insertion of a brief snippet of description to break up the dialogue helps the reader a) understand what the speaking character is feeling, because the darkening face represents a darkening mood, b) allows the reader to retain interest and attention and c) it varies the pace and length of the sentence to make it interesting.

While great chunks of dialogue are not uncommon in some novels, sometimes a little snippet of description inserted in the right place is all it needs to break the monotony of dialogue.

This is also true with short speech sentences, like dialogue written on its own. Many novels use this, for example:

“I really don’t care what you think...”
“You should, it’s all your fault.”
“Your threats don’t scare me anymore.”
“What, you suddenly found a backbone?”

Dialogue only sentences are okay, in short bursts, but without any background information for the reader, they will easily become bored with nothing to go on other than dialogue alone, and unfortunately the biggest drawback to this is that the nature of dialogue is telling, not showing.

Also, you will notice that they are all pretty much the same length – there is no variation.

Now, by adding description placement – it doesn’t have to be a lot – you can vary the length, keep your reader interested and you can also show what the characters are feeling:

She picked up the knife. “I really don’t care what you think...”
His eyes flashed at the blade in her hand. “You should, it’s all your fault.”
“Your threats don’t scare me anymore.”
His brows creased into an incredulous scowl. “What, you suddenly found a backbone?”

The varying length of sentences gives the writing pace and rhythm and provides more for the reader, but the brief descriptions also provide the sentences with a little nuance which flavour otherwise potentially boring dialogue.

Description placement within dialogue

So where do you tag that little bit of description? At the beginning? At the end? Somewhere in the middle of the dialogue? Does it really matter, so long as you are telling reader what’s happening?

It does matter. How you change the sentence would depend on the kind of structure you want and the overall effect you want to achieve. This is why structuring your dialogue sentences is important because it lends emphasis to the different parts of the sentence, for example:

‘It’s my birthday today,’ Jim said, smiling. ‘We’ll go out for a meal, so let’s not bother cooking.’ He could treat all the family.

Jim smiled. He could treat all the family. ‘It’s my birthday today. We’ll go out for a meal, so let’s not bother cooking.’

‘It’s my birthday today. We’ll go out for a meal,’ Jim said. ‘So let’s not bother cooking.’ He could treat all the family.

Jim smiled. ‘It’s my birthday today. We’ll go out for a meal.’ He could treat all the family. ‘So let’s not bother cooking.’

Which of those sentences is the best one? While all of them are acceptable to a lesser degree, the second sentence is the better choice. Here’s why:

Sentence 1 has Jim speaking, followed by the verb ‘smiling’ which has been turned into a gerund. Then the last part of the sentence has the action after the speech rather than before.

Sentence 2 is much stronger. It has the verb, but it shows the action prior to the speech. It tells us that Jim smiled and what he wants to do next, i.e. treat all the family. It has a logical order.

Sentence 3 dispenses with the verb, but still has the action after the speech and so it is not as strong as the other sentences.

Sentence 4 is strong because it doesn’t have the verb and it also places action before the speech. It tells us Jim smiled; it tells us he will treat the family; this is represented by the writer telling the reader the family need not bother cooking. Each section of the sentence has a logical order.

Where possible, try to make your sentences follow a logical order. This is much better for your reader because such structures allow fluidity within your narrative, it allows them to easily understand what you’ve written and it allows them to follow both your narrative and your dialogue.

You as a writer are looking for the best way to convey your story to your reader. In turn, your reader is looking for accessibility to your fictional creation. How you arrange and structure your sentences is important in ensuring a smooth, fluid read with varying pace and length, but also ensuring that you have written something that logically and chronologically makes sense.

Next week: Part 4: Common sentence errors, how to eliminate them.

Part 2 - How do you structure sentences?

2011-04-09T16:28:00.000+01:00

Understanding how sentence structures work should help you build better sentences. But it’s not just about knowing the different types of sentences that can improve your writing – simple, complex and compound sentences -sometimes it is about how we ‘hear’ the sentences when we read them aloud, or when we read them at editing stage that we often find errors.

Often when we look at our sentences, some may not look right. When we read them we might trip up, or stall, or they just don’t make sense – so something isn’t right. This instinct is correct most of the time– it doesn’t look right because invariably it isn’t. That’s why some sentences work better than others.

As an example, let’s take a section of the above sentence and see which of the following sentences works better. The first one is what I was originally going to write and the second one is the one I chose:

Most of the time, this instinct is correct.
This instinct is correct most of the time.

While both sentences are perfectly acceptable, one reads better than the other because it dispenses with the need to include a comma and therefore a clause. Sometimes the sound of punctuation makes a difference to a sentence. Good, overall sentence structure creates a sense of rhythm and balance within the narrative.

This instinct is correct most of the time is the better sentence.

Clever use of sentence construction also enables a writer to create a vast array of effects for the reader. These include sentence fragments to alter pace, clauses and commas for deliberate pauses, longer complex sentences to slow pace and to stress important points in the narrative, or the use of very complex sentences - used sparingly - which add style and flair. The use of punctuation, like a semi colon, help stress a sentence, as can the use of alliteration.

Take a look at this example:

‘It was easier to imprison herself rather than face them, and each time the police came they asked the same questions over and over again. But the anger of their accusations remained fresh in her veins, seemingly unsullied by their prejudices, unwilling to go away.’

By deconstructing these sentences, we can examine how they could be better written for the entire paragraph.

It was easier to imprison herself rather than face them, and each time the police came they asked the same questions over and over again.

This sentence is a compound sentence – it contains a clause, which means that the sentences are also stand alone sentences separated by a conjunction (And):

It was easier to imprison herself rather than face them. (Stand alone sentence).
Each time the police came they asked the same questions over and over again. (Stand alone sentence).

By removing the conjunction, you create a tighter flow of words and create a sense of balance. You can also create a sense of tension because the sentences become sharper, they lean towards being staccato. Conjunctions are useful, but too many writers rely on the use of conjunctions in the wrong places. Sentence construction can be improved by removing some of them.

But the anger of their accusations remained fresh in her veins, seemingly unsullied by their prejudices, unwilling to go away.

The second half of the paragraph is okay, but could be further improved. Where in this sentence could you insert a conjunction? Have you spotted the ambiguous sentence? Could you make the sentence longer by adding to it?

But the anger of their accusations remained fresh in her veins. Did you spot the ambiguity? Is the anger coming from the police, or is it coming from the main character? Ambiguity can be a major problem with some sentences. They’re not always easy to spot, but they can give an entirely different meaning to sentences.

The anger raised by their accusations remained fresh in her veins. By adding the words ‘raised by’ we can clearly show who is feeling the anger. This gives clarity to the sentence and prevents any ambiguity.

Now we can add a conjunction to show the reader that the entire sentence is a continuation of information.

The anger raised by their accusations remained fresh in her veins, seemingly unsullied by their prejudices and unwilling to go away.

By inserting ‘and’ in place of the comma, the sentence now becomes uniform and continuous. It flows better and does away with too many clauses. Also, the reader will instinctively know from the structure that that the word ‘seemingly’ determines the flow of the latter part of the sentence. This works on a subconscious level; it’s not immediately apparent, but it read it again and you will see.

If you were to try and split the sentence again by adding a full stop after ‘prejudices’ and thus creating a separate sentence, you have to use the word ‘was’ to complete the sentence:

The anger raised by their accusations remained fresh in her veins, seemingly unsullied by their prejudices. It was unwilling to go away.

This sentence isn’t too bad, but the addition ‘it was’ interrupts the flow and rhythm of the original sentence. Not only that, but writers should avoid the use of ‘was’ wherever possible.

Here’s another example to illustrate sentence rhythm and pace:

Shadows poked from corners and filled her with unease, but she managed to control her breathing and her heartbeat, and allowed the sharp burst of fear of the unknown to diminish.

This example isn’t too bad. It’s descriptive, but can you spot where it could be improved?

There are too many conjunctions for a start. This slows the sentence rhythm, when in fact it needs to pick up pace to create tension. Removing all those ‘ands’ makes the sentence tighter:

Shadows poked from corners, filled her with unease. She managed to control her breathing, her heartbeat; allowed the sharp burst of fear of the unknown to diminish.

This shows how easy it is to tidy your sentences and correct the flow.

Which of the following sentences are better and why?

The sky darkened and his breathing quickened, and from somewhere he thought he heard a scratching noise...

The sky darkened. Breathing quickened. From somewhere he thought he heard a scratching noise...

The second sentence structure is better. The short, staccato sentences create immediacy and tension and quicken the pace. The importance of the moment is created because of this fragmented nature. You may find that some computer software, like Word, want you to correct fragmented sentences, but on the whole these are quite acceptable because they lend to the effect of your narrative.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with fragmented sentences, as long as they are part of a sentence structure, as above.

As you can see from the above examples, sometimes improving a sentence means nothing more than changing a word, removing it, adding a conjunction or stressing punctuation. Think about where you want clauses, commas and full stops. Think about how sentences would sound with or without some additional words.

Word order makes a difference. Know where to add conjunctions and where to remove them. Know the difference between using a comma compared to a semicolon to construct clauses. Well-structured sentences tell the reader the importance of different parts of the sentence. Stressed words can help achieve this.

Sentences can be as simple or as complex as we want. As writers, we take sentences for granted, but in essence they’re incredibly important and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.

The best way is to improve your work is to read it aloud. ‘Hear’ the sentences. You as the writer will learn to understand which sentences work better and which ones could be improved.

Better sentences do several things -

• Tightens prose
• Makes a point
• Moves the story forward
• Creates rhythm
• Creates clarity
• Creates immediacy

Avoid the following:

• Ambiguity
• Monotony
• Repetition
• Too many conjunctions

Next week: Part 3 – Structuring dialogue sentences.

Part 1 - Sentence Structure

2011-04-02T14:18:00.000+01:00

Understanding sentences

How do you know that writing a sentence in a different way is better than your original? Does it sound right, does it read better, does it make the point? More importantly, is it grammatically correct?

We’re not born with the ability to tell the difference between good sentences and bad ones; it is something the writer learns, with practice, and over time, the writer begins to understand the concept of fitting the right words and ideas together. Sentences not only read better, but also sound better. Creating the right sentences with the right words is an art form and it is one of those important elements in fiction writing that give a writer a sense of style and voice.

We write our sentences without thinking about the technical side of sentence construction, but to fully understand and appreciate sentence structure, writers have to understand the form of language and grammar - this is important when creating narrative.

There are several sentence patterns that a writer should become familiar with – simple sentences and clauses, complex sentences and compound sentences. Hopefully by gaining a better understanding about the technical side of sentences, you will improve the way you construct your sentences and therefore improve your narrative.

Simple sentences contain a single clause. Complex sentences and compound-complex sentences may contain two or more, but to be grammatical, a sentence should have a subject (a phrase or noun), a verb, and should express one complete thought or idea. For instance:

Jane cried. (Jane is the subject, cried is a verb and the fact that she cried is expressing the complete thought or idea of the sentence). Although it is a short sentence made up of two words, it is still grammatically correct.

Often writers (even famous, established ones, unfortunately) use a participle (or hanging participle) to make a sentence, such as:

Looking down at his feet...
Walking away from him...
Wrapping the rope around the post...

Here, there is only a participle, there is no verb and the subject is unclear. Not only that, but hanging participle sentences cause ambiguity - you cannot describe a character doing two things at once, i.e ‘Reaching for the kettle, she realised she had made a mistake.’ This means she reached for the kettle and made a mistake (at the same time).

Refrain from using hanging participles because these are grammatically incorrect, they’re ambiguous in nature and can cause confusion with your reader. It also smacks of bad writing.

Clauses

A clause refers to a bunch grammatically connected words which include a predicate and a subject. The predicate modifies the subject. Every sentence consists of one or more clauses and they can be dependent or independent.

Independent clauses have an ability to stand by themselves – i.e. they are what are known as simple sentences. Dependent clauses are used together with independent clauses because dependent clauses cannot stand alone as a sentence. Instead, they enhance the independent clause.

Simple Sentences

Basic sentences which contain one clause are known as simple sentences. For instance:

This sentence is a simple sentence.
This sentence is a simple sentence with a few more words added.

Even one word can be a simple sentence, for instance: No, Wait, Run.

Simple sentences are just that, but to make your sentences lure your reader and to enrich the narrative, you have to create compound sentences.

Compound Sentences

A compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses joined by co-ordinating conjunctions such as ‘and,’ ‘but,’ and ‘or’, or they can include adjectives like ‘however’ or ‘therefore, as this example:

This sentence is a simple sentence, but this sentence is a simple sentence with the addition of a conjunction.

By using the conjunction, ‘but’, the flow of the sentence is extended and uninterrupted...and this very sentence is also a compound sentence.

Complex Sentences

A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. For example:

This sentence is a simple sentence (independent clause) which has a few more words that make it longer (independent clause).

Compound-complex sentences

When there is a combination of a compound sentence and a complex sentence, or two complex sentences, (i.e. with at least two independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses) then you have what is known as a compound-complex sentence.

For instance:

This sentence is a simple sentence (Independent clause)
Which just has a few more words to make it longer (Dependent clause)
It is basic in its form (Independent clause)

This sentence is a simple sentence; it is basic in its form, which just has a few more words that make it longer.

As in the example, you can also join two originally separate sentences into a compound sentence using a semicolon instead of a co-ordinating conjunction.

Conjunctions are handy when constructing short, effective sentences, but it is best to avoid using too many otherwise your sentences will become awkward and will leave the reader tripping over them. Worse still, don’t use commas to simply stitch together sentences, for instance:

This sentence is a simple sentence, it is basic in its form, it has a few more words added, it makes a sentence longer.

This reliance on commas makes the writing look heavy and awkward. Remember to use conjunctions correctly when constructing sentences. Sentences are an integral part of what you write; the aim is to make them as clear and as effective as possible.

Next week: Part 2 - Styling sentences - how to find balance and rhythm and build the right sentence

The Room to Write

2011-03-26T16:42:00.000Z

Should it make a difference where you write or how you write? Would it make any difference to your work if you were tucked away in a little cubbyhole under the stairs and surrounded by a mound of clothes that need ironing, or in a well-lit spacious area and sitting comfortably at a desk?

Writers are very good at adapting to their environments in order to write, and sometimes there is no choice, but is it enough to be creative? Not all writers are lucky enough to have an office to work in. Most have to make do with a corner of the dining room table or the kitchen counter or even the bedroom, but do small spaces crammed with junk or toys or boxes or clothes provide a productive environment for creativity? Some writers say they don’t mind it, while others wouldn’t be able to open their minds if surrounded by clutter or cramped by lack of space to work.

The way we work as writers is important, and where we work is just as vital to how we work.

All writers are different; each of us has a preference to what works for us. Are you one of those writers that can work through all sorts of noise, like a café, a bustling street, or on the move on trains or buses? Or are you a writer that prefers the solitude of peace and quiet to get things done? J.K. Rowling famously created Harry Potter in Edinburgh’s coffee shops, after all, and seemed to relish the sounds of cafe life.

How important is a quiet writing space?

The space to write is as personal as a fingerprint; it’s a place for thinking, motivation, brainstorming, creativity and productivity. Are you really able to formulate ideas in the kitchen while the TV in the next room is blaring and the kids are running amok? Probably not.

Writers often they have to share their space with family members and so thorough, productive writing can prove difficult to achieve. Every writer should have a space of their own to create and write; otherwise there may be a tendency to produce work that falls short of their ability. Of course, this ‘writing space’ isn’t always possible and some writers are quite happy working while on the move or in crowded, busy places. Ted Hughes wrote in a small hallway with a small table and chair, but maintained this space was incredibly productive. Nabokov wrote standing up, at a lectern, and penned his work on index cards. Philip Roth also works at a lectern, turned away from the view of the city so as not to distract. There is no right or wrong in terms of how and where you work.

A quiet working space, however, provides somewhere to reflect and work. The solitude is sometimes actively sought by writers. Many escape the bustle of family life and spend a few hours working in the relative hush of a library. Ernest Hemingway preferred peace and quiet to push out just 500 words a day.

Capote preferred lying down when being creative. He wrote while in bed, or on the couch, while others such as Agatha Christie, were said to have been inspired by having a bath or doing the dishes.

Then there are those writers who really enjoy going out to write. The outdoor sounds and scents of busy towns and cities, or indeed the countryside, can get those creative juices flowing in different ways. Rather than prove a distraction, they inspire and aid imagination.

Does the writing space have to matter?

It’s not vital, because a writing space doesn’t necessarily mean you need a well-organised office with all the mod cons. Many writers are happy to use converted lofts, sheds, cabins, huts and garages as writing spaces. Edgar Allen Poe liked to write in the attic. John Updike preferred different settings to write. “A few places are especially conducive to inspiration – automobiles, church, public places...”

Some writers - myself included - prefer working in a space where there is nothing to interrupt the energy of the work. That means no clutter, no noise and no interruptions. Erica Jong once said, “The most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study...”

Whether it is an office, café, the garage, the kitchen or the basement, use the space that works for you, if it really does help you write, but very often having the room and the comfort to write will help the creative process in so many ways.

Problems of not having room to write:

• Frustration can easily set in and writers quickly become bored with writing.
• The lack of a distinct writing space can restrict creativity and productivity and result in the inability to focus.
• The work produced falls short of your ability.
• Not having clearly defined spaces for you and your family can also cause frustration and friction from constant interruptions.
• You haven’t defined working times with your family so they constantly interrupt you.
• Difficulty with organising and finding your work in the piles of junk you’ve amassed on kitchen counters or the dining room table.
• Not sitting correctly or comfortably while in cramped spaces can cause health problems with your back, wrist joints and neck. If you’re working at the kitchen top or on the bed, your posture might suffer because of it. Give your back a break and make sure your posture isn’t going to cause problems later.
• The area is dark and not very well lit or has no natural light. This can cause eyestrain and headaches.
• Working in untidy, cluttered spaces prevents the mind from focusing. It makes it hard to find the files or books or papers that you need, you have no room to actually contemplate or work.

Having the room to write, having the space to think, having the freedom to create. These are as individual as writers are, but these are more conducive to productivity than they would like to admit. A space away from distractions and noise, somewhere that relaxes and helps to produce words, somewhere to provide respite and reflection can be a necessary means of writing to the best of your ability.

Spaces, rooms, areas, boundaries. Writers need them. “The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.”
James A. Michener.

Next week: Sentence styling - finding sentence rhythm and structure.

Tips to strengthen your novel or story

2011-03-19T14:09:00.000Z

There are many things a writer can do to make a story stronger and more effective. This isn’t just down to the correct use of grammar or spelling, or about having the right theme and plot of story, but often it’s those overlooked little things that really count.

There is so much to remember when it comes to writing that it can be daunting trying to create that ‘perfect’ masterpiece. There are ways, however, to help tighten your prose and strengthen your stories, a general checklist that should prove useful whatever your story.

Realism – Fiction is about imaginary people, it’s make-believe, but within that imaginary world you have to create a sense of realism for it to be any good. It needs to feel real for the reader, whether or not the town or city in your story really exists or not. Characters, setting and events need to feel real, something that makes the reader think they are there, right at the heart of your story.

Make sure you have a strong plot – a weak plot invariably means you have created a weak story. The stronger the plot, the stronger your story. Don’t rush the development if a plot – take the time to think about it, how it will progress in your story, how it will evolve and how it might affect your characters. Don’t take it for granted that the plot is watertight, because sometimes writers can come undone halfway through a novel when they realise the plot isn’t working. They realise it’s too weak or ill thought out or it simply doesn’t feel right.

Strong characterisation is one of the most important elements in your story. Get the characterisation wrong and the whole story will suffer, but you can get it right with well-balanced, believable and often flawed characters; the kind of people that your reader can empathise with and understand and want to know more about.

Always think about how you will reach the conclusion of tour story and why. Writers often plough along with their stories and don’t realise until the end, or during editing, that they have quite literally ‘lost the plot’. This means the meaning behind the story, the theme, and of course the original plot premise, has been lost somewhere. The end result doesn’t bear any relation to the reason to the story. The best way to counteract problems like this is to always keep an eye on how the plot is evolving by having a clear indication of how the story might end. A little planning can go a long way.

There must always be tension and conflict in your stories. Never ignore the need for these. As I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, they are the building blocks of a good story. Think of daily life - nothing ever runs that smoothly, each day brings a challenge, whether it’s problems with the car, you’re late taking the kids to school, the washing machine breaks down, rows with your kids or partner, a fall out with the boss, traffic jams, the cat keeps clawing your leather sofa and so on…all these things happen in our lives on a regular basis and they cause stress and tension, often when we least expect, but it’s how we overcome those stresses and problems that count, and that’s exactly what your protagonist must do in your story.

Life is a continual cycle of problems and resolution, therefore your character’s actions must generate problems or obstacles and then they must overcome them. Just like real life. Think of your story as an elastic band. Stretch it and release it at regular intervals. This is the best way to create and vary tension.

Move the story forward at every opportunity. Whether that is through dialogue, action or description, make sure you keep the momentum of your story moving towards its conclusion. If you don’t, you risk the story coming to a halt.

Point of view - Once you are clear on a point of view, don’t deviate. Don’t start off in first person and switch to third person halfway through (not unless it is a clever addition to the story and you are an experienced writer.) Deviating from the chosen POV will weaken your story considerably and confuse your reader.

Make your dialogue count. Clear and strong dialogue helps to move the story forward and impart pertinent information, thereby involving the reader. Too much mundane waffle between characters will kill the story and bore your reader. Clever dialogue will not only imbue hints and clues to what lies ahead in the story, it also cleverly reveals character.

Symbolism is an often overlooked element in fiction, but careful use of this can help strengthen a story because it has the power to hint at things to come, embedded symbols within the narrative can foreshadow events. It also subtly reinforces the theme of the story or novel and involves your reader on a deeper level. The symbols can be anything you want them to be, as long as your reader will understand them.

Sentence rhythms and pacing play an important role within your story, because without varying the length of sentences and paragraphs, you risk boring your reader with a kind of monotone drone that could irritate or bore them. Sentences should ebb and flow with fluidity. Paragraphs should vary. You need a balance for the right about of descriptions, the right amount of dialogue and the right amount of narrative. The idea is not to have huge chunks of text – not without really engaging the reader – or massive amounts of white space that would make the reader think you can’t be bothered to write any description.

Make sure your character undergoes a change by the end of the novel. That can take on any number of meanings, but on the whole, it usually means your character has learned something about themselves, or they’ve perhaps learned an important lesson on their journey - they have overcome something to achieve their goal. If you don’t let the character blossom this way, then what point would there be to the overall story?

Avoid too many adverbs and adjectives etc. They are sometimes unavoidable, but your novel or short story will be so much stronger without too many of them. Let your nouns and verbs do the work. Also, avoid using ‘was’ and ‘there’ too much. ‘There was a chair’ or ‘it was a dark night’ or ‘she was hungry’ etc. Try also to limit the use of modifiers, things like 'she bubbled' or 'he gushed' or 'she cooed.' etc.

When it comes to modifiers used as gesture tags, again try to limit the amount you use because very often it means you write the modifier and then you reinforce its message through dialogue, so you actually repeat yourself to the reader, e.g. He shrugged heavily. "I don't know” or She shook her head at him. “No.” As with all writing, they are sometimes unavoidable, but these are easily spotted by publishers/agents and they will think it a sign of an amateur if there are too many gesture tags.

Show, don’t tell – every writer’s mantra. Show something is happening rather than simply telling the reader about it. ‘Showing’ helps the reader become involved in the narrative; it creates a sense of immediacy with use of active description. Don’t just say ‘John was tall’. Show it.

Remember to use active sentences as much as possible, not passive ones. This still catches a lot of writers out. ‘He watered the plant’ is better than ‘the plant was watered.’ ‘He threw the ball’ is better than ‘the ball was thrown...’

One very effective way of strengthening your story is to edit and cut what you don’t really need. You will be surprised just how much that is. Boring scenes that don’t move the story forward, dreary and mundane dialogue that doesn’t actually show the reader anything and slows the story down, scenes that go on a little too long…you get the picture.

One other tip…try not to use silly or overly complicated names for characters and places (unless you are explicitly writing fantasy or sci-fi). Names like Glokirthrath or Mortgavarg will, within a page or two, irritate the reader. There is also a trend with new writers to make their characters sound interesting by giving them obscure names. Ripperton Jameson or Galitea O’Rocksville might sound interesting or cool, but it’s the characteristics of a character that make them interesting, not their name. Most people in the real world have oridnary names. Your characters are not extraoridnary; they're ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances.

Lastly, try to finish your chapters on a great sentence. One that invites the reader to turn the page and continue reading...

Next week: The room to write – does this make a difference?

Why Research is Vital

2011-03-12T16:53:00.000Z

How easy is it to just make everything up when writing? Very easy. But how easy is it to give dimension to what you are saying? How easy is it to back up your beautiful, vivid descriptions with the right facts?

As writers, we can create anything we want. We create the characters that inhabit our fictional world, we can create fictional towns or cities, we can turn the weather on and off, we can create life and we can destroy it, we can transport our characters anywhere we wish. What we can’t do (unless you are writing stories set in the future/sci-fi/alternative or fantasy) is change history, nor can we change places that already exist. If your story is set in New York, you must research and know your facts in order to bring your prose to life and make the setting feel real. The same is true of any city or country. Know your facts.

But is it okay to gloss over the reality that sometimes has to enter fiction, just for the sake of being creative and artistic? In other words, you’re making up lots of stuff because you don’t really know enough about the place, the people or customs, or the actual setting of your novel. Well, the simple answer is yes, you could do that, but it’s not the recommended route to take. Besides showing a lack of research and knowledge, by not knowing much about what you are writing about will make you look like an amateur. Agents will not take writers seriously if they can’t get simple facts right.

Facts from Fiction

The right facts help enrich a story. The wrong facts can kill it.

Whether you are writing about the present, the past or even the future, then some research to create a believable background and evoke the senses in every way is necessary.

Your job as writer isn’t just to entertain, but also to teach. The reader may not know anything about the exotic setting of your novel, but through your research (and perhaps experience) you will take them right there and they will learn about it through you. Research breathes life into your narrative and your characters and in turn, that breathes reality into your writing.

Get it right, not wrong

Research isn’t just about the place, the setting, the surroundings or the characters etc. It’s also using the right words, the right descriptions, the right meanings.

Here’s an example how the meanings change. How many of you use the word matador to describe a Spanish bullfighter? The original meaning has been a little lost in translation by writers, movie makers and tourists alike because most people refer to a bullfighter as a matador, even though, originally, it was a toreador that did the fighting (often on horseback). The matador killed the bull, but the word has now become synonymous with fighting the bull as well as killing it. You can see how easy it is to get simple facts wrong.

We love to sprinkle our stories with the flavour and language of another country, but forget to explain what those words mean, e.g. you write about a character in Spain who drinks Café con leche, but you fail to say what it is. Not every reader will know this refers to coffee with milk. In France, you would refer to Café au lait. Again, there will be readers who will not know these little snippets, so let them know.

Don’t be one of those writers who try to impress their readers by offering snippets of information that have not been thoroughly researched. In Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger, (a 1987 Booker prize winner no less) she wrote that Muslims pray six times a day. She was born and raised in Egypt and should have known that Muslims pray five times a day. It seems no one checked the facts.

Some very famous writers have managed to turn fiction into what readers believe to be fact. One well-known sensationalist novel does this to such an extent that, while it remains an exciting ‘page turner’, the facts presented are not accurate and so it detracts from the enjoyment of reading it.

Many stories take place in the past. One thing to remember when writing about events in the past is to make sure that you accurately tie in the story with those events. Unless you are writing an alternative history/science fiction or fantasy piece, you can’t change past events in history. That means not placing something like the Watergate scandal (1974) against a story of your 1960’s happy hippy characters, or characters from the 1990’s referring to the discovery of AIDS, when that happened in the previous decade. Many writers still make these fundamental mistakes.

How much research should I do?

There are no rules about how much research you have to do. That is down to you as a writer. In any given novel or short story there could be dozens of strands of research. e.g., if you were writing a story about journalists on the frontline during the during the Iraq-Kuwait war, you will have to know the background of both countries, the landscapes, the major towns and cities, the economic background, the weather patterns, what the troops wore, the weapons they used in 1990, how they operated, the peoples, the cultures, the foods, the languages, not to mention the research you would need to do about journalism and war reporting...and those are just some of the research strands you would have to undertake if you wanted to give authenticity, depth, colour and richness to your story.

Where and how to research

The internet is a good place to start in order to gain the background information to begin with, however, be warned - unless there are citations along with the quoted information, don’t think that what you read on the web is 100% accurate. Check and crosscheck with other sites to make sure. While information is readily accessible on the web, I would still recommend visiting a library. It’s another way of verifying the information you need, but make sure you read recent publications which are up to date with current data.

Of course, if you’ve actually visited the places you’re writing about then that’s even better. It helps you to recreate the flavour and colour of your background and add a touch of authenticity. If at all possible or feasible, go and visit the place you intend to include in your story to gain valuable firsthand knowledge.

The wealth of online documentaries is also a great way of understanding the subject matter of your novel/story. I recently wrote a short story called A Stain on the Heart, for a forthcoming Static Movement anthology, in which a group of English soldiers find a lone German soldier after a skirmish in the Ardennes, against the backdrop of the Battle of the Bulge. I did painstaking research into the battle, the region, terrain and weather at the time, the movement of English, American and German troops, the weaponry, the uniforms, chain of command, the German language and even the type of papers the German character would have been carrying etc. I did this using the internet, military magazines, library books, watching films and watching many invaluable documentaries about the battle.

All that, for a story of 5000 words. Now imagine the research for a novel of 90,000 words.

Sometimes you may have to write to organisations or groups in order to get the information you require. Don’t be afraid to talk to local police departments, local government departments, emergency services, charities, tourist centres, historical societies or museums etc. More often than not, they are happy to assist.

While background information gives reality to writing, some writers make the mistake of filling the narrative with too many facts. As is often the case with writing, you must find a balance of the right amount of information, so unless a scene demands it, don’t pepper it with facts that could otherwise suffocate the creativity of the whole thing.

Things to remember when researching:

• Know your setting – General background details such as local area, street layouts, the surrounding region, the local people etc.
• Research languages if you have characters from different countries that will sometimes utter words which are not in English (or vice versa, if you are a non-English speaking writer who has an English character).
• Know the customs – Different areas, as well as different countries, have different customs and behaviours.
• Know meanings of words that are not always familiar, or are from another language.
• Know the eras when placing characters against events in history. Also, know the social and political history of the time.
• Know the economy and money of the time when your story is set.
• Know the technical and mechanical aspects, especially if you feature vehicles, aeroplanes/airports, ports, or things like weaponry, satellite systems, gadgets etc.
• Know the weather patterns of your place setting – Is the place susceptible to hurricanes, torrential rains, snowstorms etc?
• Know the systems in place for your chosen place setting – transport systems, government and political systems, educational and social systems etc.
• Know key features of place settings – famous buildings, civic centres, parks, museums, ancient ruins etc.
• Know the environment – the type of flora and fauna of your setting, the terrain etc.
• Don’t just window dress – Know even the minutiae of details, things like the livery colours of organisations or police/soldier uniforms, flags etc.
• Know the types of religions practiced within the setting of your story – don’t write about a character entering a church if the story is set in a predominantly Muslim country.

Research your subject matter well if you want to breathe life into your novel and transport your reader right to the heart of your story, but remember, if you think you can just skirt around some aspects of reality in your novel with a bit of made up rubbish, think again. There will be somebody, somewhere, who is eagle-eyed and clever enough to catch you out.

Next time: Tips to strengthen your story

Three R’s - reduce, reuse and recycle.

2011-03-05T17:31:00.000Z

Most writers have, somewhere, a drawer full of stories or half-finished novels, not to mention numerous scraps of paper with snippets of story or plot ideas scrawled across them. Some writers still have their very first novel, written earlier in life, tucked away somewhere and collecting dust.

Early stuff, to give it a non-technical term, is the unpublished work you have produced since you began writing. Looking back on these stories and novels, you can probably see why the work you produced then was never published – poor writing, terrible characterisation, lots of telling and no showing – and yet for some reason you couldn’t bear to bin them. That’s probably because they formed the basis of your fiction-writing learning curve; they made you the writer you are now.

There is an important reason for not throwing any manuscript or half-finished story in the bin. In fact, the reasons are twofold: Firstly, by revisiting those old manuscripts and stories you will be able to see how flawed and raw your writing was at that earlier stage compared to the writing you can now produce. It provides a benchmark on how you have improved. Whether your work is 5, 10 or 15 years old or more, you will see just how much your writing has changed. What you wrote then will be quite different to what you write now and so it becomes a marker to chart personal progress. That’s because as writers, we are constantly evolving and improving.

(If you are completely new to writing, this will also be true in years to come, as you write more and improve your work. So don’t throw any of your work away.)

The second reason for not throwing early stuff away is that there are many elements of these previous unpublished works that provide a large creative pool of words, sentences, phrases, ideas, plots, situations...in fact, just about anything from which to ignite your imagination and write something fresh.

That’s what the three R’s philosophy is all about.

Reuse

This is very similar to recycling, but not to be confused with the same concept. Re-using work means you take sections or elements of previous unpublished writing and use them in your current writing projects, pretty much word for word. This could be a few great words from a short story, the kind of words that stick in your mind, or it might be a fantastic sentence. It could be an entire scene that you could use without much tweaking, or you can re-use your work as another writing concept completely. The latter is common with flash fiction, by turning it into short stories, or turning short stories turning into novels etc. Essentially, you are re-using the original material for another purpose.

Of course, it’s not just writing that we should reuse. Writers should do their bit for the environment by printing only when necessary. Some writers prefer to edit using a fully printed version of their book rather than doing so on screen, so when you’ve finished with the editing, use the reverse of the paper for something else rather than use up a fresh batch of paper.

Recycle

Unlike reusing some of your work, recycling means that you take some elements of what you have written from previous works and regurgitate the material to produce something completely new. This works with raw material like stories, novels, flash fiction, poems, notes etc, as well as concepts and ideas. How many of us have half-scribbled ideas, sketches and notes locked away, collecting dust along with unfinished novels?

Revisit your old stories to see what you can salvage and make anew. We all have stories that didn’t make the cut, or they didn’t work somehow – maybe at the time the concept just wasn’t right, or the story didn’t quite make much sense, or they were stories that were rejected so many times you just gave up on them. There could be ideas for poems, flash fiction, articles or new stories waiting to happen or there could be a new novel leaping at you from the dust.

You can pretty much recycle anything: characters, plot ideas, themes, dialogue; chapters, whole stories or novels – you name it - and turn them into something new. Maybe even a portion of your old unpublished novels or stories might even become secondary plots within your next writing project.

Reduce

This works twofold, too. Firstly, we all have to print from time to time, it simply can’t be helped, and this involves paper and ink and peripherals in varying quantities. An average 80,000 – 100,000 word novel could number 320 – 400 A4 pages. That’s a lot of paper when you’re editing. It’s very much as case of common sense, but only print when it’s necessary.

Secondly, you will also notice that, during the editing stage of your masterpiece, you will need to get rid of unwanted scenes, overly long chapters, boring dialogue and narration etc. You should aim to shave around 20 – 25% from your work in progress. The resulting novel will be leaner and tighter and a much better read. (This also reduces your printed page output).

The moral of the story is this: never throw any of your old writing out. You can find use for it. Reuse, recycle and where you can, reduce - get every last use out of your paper, books, notepads, stories, ideas and novels etc.

Next week: why research is vital.

Flashbacks

2011-02-27T16:54:00.000Z

What is a flashback?

Flashback is one of those useful tools that a writer can use to enhance a story. It enriches and, in a sense, nourishes a story with information that the reader would otherwise not have known.

Flashbacks bring information from the past into the present to help the reader better understand a character or part of the story. In particular, it can enlighten the reader of your character’s life story by showing the character in an earlier time – anything from early childhood to an hour ago – in order to move the story forward. It’s a way of conveying information that isn’t relayed through ordinary narrative means, usually because it involves a back story. And because flashbacks deal with the past, they also provide an insight into a character’s motives, the very essence of who they are and how he or she acts and interacts with the world around them.

An appropriately placed flashback can do several things:

• Provide past information
• Move the story forward
• Prevent a story from drifting off course
• Keep your reader interested

How to use flashbacks

Using flashbacks sounds easy, but they can be troublesome if not done properly. Knowing how to do them is one thing, knowing where to place them is another.

It’s important to remember that flashbacks slow the action down, so it is essential to know when to place a flashback without it interrupting the flow on the entire story. Avoid inserting a flashback during or just prior to action scenes because this will not only disrupt the story, it will confuse and frustrate your reader considerably. Try not to use long flashbacks near the end of the novel either, as this is where action and excitement usually mounts as you head towards the climax of the story, and flashbacks will either slow the narrative or kill it entirely. They are more effective towards the beginning and in the middle of your story.

The best way to distinguish flashback from the main story is with verb tenses, but also that you have indicated some future action or excitement, for example, Jane is waiting at the train station to meet her long lost sister, and she begins to recall her early memories of their childhood together:

The tannoy announced the next train about to arrive, but Jane wasn’t listening. Her mind drifted off, thinking of an earlier time in her life, somewhere in the past as she remembered her elder sister.

(Flashback begins in pluperfect tense)

They had played so many times in the apple orchard at the bottom of their parent’s garden, dashing in and out of the trees and shaking them to make the apples fall, and they had giggled beneath the large cherry blossom tree, protected by its pretty canopy, but the laughter soon ended when their parents split and they had become separated from each other.

(Now the narrative eases back into past perfect tense to signal the end of the flashback)

The screech of the brakes brought her from her thoughts and Jane looked up, saw the train had stopped at the platform. A sea of people alighted, and finally, through the mass of people, she caught a glimpse of a face she hadn’t seen for seventeen years…

The seamless way in which this example is done is how most flashbacks occur, as though they form part of the story. (They do, but the reader won’t notice this verb transition). Other flashbacks might occur as new chapters or separate scenes, or long pieces inserted into the narrative, as long as they are indicated prior to them happening, as in the example above. They might also consist of a few sentences strategically placed throughout the story, again as shown in the above example.

One thing to remember when you enter a flashback from an early period in your character’s life is that the character will be a very different from the character they are now, in your story. Characters, just like real people, will have different ideals, different aspirations and goals, different needs and different outlook in the past compared to the present.

If they are not done properly they have a tendency to confuse the reader because they won’t clearly know the difference between past and present in your story.

Things to try to avoid when writing flashbacks:

• Ty not to make the flashback more exciting than the main story.
• Indicate clear transitions to the reader, otherwise you may end up confusing them – they won’t be able to tell the difference between the actual story and the flashback.
• Try not to introduce the flashback as the first scene in the novel because this doesn’t always work. That’s not to say this isn’t possible or permissible, but you need to feel comfortable that it works and doesn’t hold up the story.
• Try not to make them overly long.
• Use flashbacks sparingly. Too many will confuse and irritate the reader and will make the story hard to understand. Your reader might also lose interest and become bored.
• Try to use the right tenses. If your story is told in past tense (he tried to talk, she pulled the handle etc) then you use pluperfect tense to signal flashback (he had talked, she had pulled the handle) etc.

If the story is told in present tense, (I try to talk, she pulls the handle), then the flashback is signalled using past tense (I tried to talk, she pulled the handle).

One caveat to the above list is that some new writers accidentally mix their verb transitions. Don’t make the mistake of writing a flashback in present tense. You cannot describe something in flash back if it has not yet happened! You are writing about something that has already happened, hence it must be past tense. If you do the writing will be clunky, amateurish and impossible to read.

When you’ve completed your first draft, read it through to establish whether or not the flashbacks you’ve used work within the story, or whether your story needs a flashback at all, because not all stories do. You might even decide that the story could benefit from adding a few more flashbacks. The general rule of thumb for writing is simple: If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, take it out.

Done properly, flashbacks bring depth to your characters and story without infringing the ‘readability’ of the story. The reader won’t even notice well crafted flashbacks, but they will notice that the story is all the more enjoyable for them.

Next time: Using the three R’s – Reduce, re-use and re-cycle.

Transitions

2011-02-19T15:10:00.000Z

Transitions are a useful tool for any writer. They are commonly sentences and paragraphs that you use to let the reader know that there will be a change in the story, usually a change in time, a change of location or a change of the character viewpoint.

Transitions can take the form of sentences within paragraphs, or they can be physical scene breaks or chapter breaks.

Transitions in creative fiction are used in order to bridge from one scene to another, one chapter to another or more importantly, one period of time to another. They’re the logical connections that the reader follows. They work to keep your reader from losing their way within your story, or becoming bored. They are an important strategic tool in letting your reader know what is happening, without having to launch into several paragraphs or even pages to explain the minutiae between scenes and time.

Every story needs them. Without them, you’ll find your writing isn’t as smooth as you think. Lack of transitions will confuse a reader and make it hard to follow exactly what is going on and ultimately it might bore your reader as they try to follow the story.

The most important function, however, is that transitions move the story forward cleanly and seamlessly. Done skillfully, your reader will hardly notice the breaks.

Types of transitions

• Transition of time – when you want to move forward (or backward) in time with your story.
• Transition of scenes – the start of a new scene or location
• Transition of character – the start of a new scene or chapter another character viewpoint.

Where they occur

• Transitions within paragraphs – these can bridge the gap from one timeframe to another by skipping through long periods of time, anything from hours to decades or even millennia.

• Transitions between scenes/chapters – these can bridge the gap in the same way as transitions between paragraphs, smoothing the jump from one point to another without startling the reader.

How they work
Transitional scenes help the reader follow the action through a given period of time. For instance if you had a character in a set period of time, say August, and you had to touch on his time from leaving one job and entering another, rather than bore your reader with unnecessary description covering those months, you could write something like “The rest of the time with the Daily Writer’s Newspaper passed without event and by October he’d found a better job...” This tells us that the character had an uneventful last few weeks in his job, for however long his notice was, and found something else two months later. It does two things: it briefly sums up what happened and moves the story forward.

You can employ the same strategy with time in almost any bridging scene that doesn’t require long passages of description, for instance, if your character has to catch a flight, or travel by boat, or a long car journey etc. This will cover the ‘boring’ time and move on swiftly to the next important scene or chapter or paragraph within the story.

There will be instances with your characters as you progress through your story that do not need to be recorded in every possible detail, like the preparation of going to bed and then sleep, or the daily routine in the bathroom each morning, driving to work and being stuck in a traffic jam, trips to the bathroom etc. Transitions help you leave the peripheral boring stuff out of the story and let you get on with what’s important, and that is moving the story forward. If you don’t include transitions, you are in danger of jarring the reader because you haven’t led the reader into the change of time or scene.

Poems are like short stories, but in verse…

Wait a minute… Poems? Confused? You’re wondering why the sentence above doesn’t make much sense. It doesn’t quite belong to the article as a whole and it confused you for a moment. This is exactly what your reader might experience if you don’t bridge your writing correctly. It jars the reader, confuses them, and it interrupts the flow of the story.

Most scene transitions rely on a couple of double-spaces to indicate a break in time or place. This prepares the reader for a transition without confusing or irritating them, and more often than not a few carefully chosen words at the end of the scene should indicate what will happen in the following scene(s). For example:

Ending the scene: ‘It’s a fabulous surprise. I’ll see you in London.’

Beginning the new scene: ‘I can’t believe you’re going to leave for London,’ John said.

Or, alternatively, you can bridge the time by beginning the scene like this: Jane emerged from the jumbled chaos of the underground into the sunshine grazing across London…’

You can see how simple it can be. They are useful and easy for any writer, and done well they will ensure a seamless transition of time, characters, scenes and chapters without the reader even realising.

All fiction (rather like a movie) is life with all the boring stuff taken out.

Next week: Flashbacks – how to use them.

How To Write A Novel - Part 4

2011-02-12T13:06:00.000Z

The ending of your novel might prove more difficult than writing that middle section, because unlike the simple fairytale ‘they lived happily ever after’ scenario, endings involve much more than plain statements and happy ever after moments.

Unlike the hook of a first chapter, where you have to grab a reader’s attention, your last chapter might prove more troublesome because you have to hook the reader into buying your next book.

Getting the ending right is as important as getting the opening right, so think about the ending carefully. You might already have the ending in your head, which is fine, but you have to link it logically from your preceding chapters and ensure your ending fits properly with the overall story.

Endings rely on the preceding events in the novel to work effectively and therefore should develop naturally, rather than ploughing headlong into something that the reader might not be able to follow or even understand. Don’t engineer it so that the ending becomes contrived or forced. The ending must occur after the character has taken that final action, followed by a very brief winding down, or the resolution, which again should come in a natural way.

Ideally a good ending to a novel should leave the reader fully satisfied, that they’ve enjoyed a good read and it doesn’t leave them wanting or wondering. Moreover, it will entice them to read more of your work. An ending can be anything you want it to be, as long as the reader feels that it’s absolutely the right ending for the story.

The ending order is simple: the lead up from preceding chapters, the climax of the story and then finally the resolution. An ending should accomplish three things:

1. Resolve the problems that run through the story, particularly the character’s primary goal.
2. Resolve subplots.
3. Bring closure through a satisfactory climax, conclusion and resolution.

What do we mean by a satisfactory ending?

Well, as the above list indicates, by the end of your story you should have tied up the loose ends and made sure that those loose ends don’t confuse the reader in any way - also make sure you don’t cheat the reader, don’t make them feel as though they’ve been short-changed. They want to feel that everything is resolved by the dénouement of the story, and more importantly, that the ending is right for the story, otherwise they won’t forgive you for a badly written, terrible or contrived ending.

Make sure you resolve your subplots. There is nothing worse than having the hero fall in love with another character by chapter 7 and then that character vanishes in chapter 27, never to be seen again. You might have forgotten, but your reader won’t. It’s easy to forget subplots are still part of your main story, but they need resolution too. Again, don’t force them, they must occur naturally.

There are no set rules about how your novel should end. You can end it through narrative, through dialogue or a little bit of description, but remember to keep the ending brief. Many new authors have a tendency to let the ending drag on by over-explaining everything. This isn’t necessary and it will irritate and bore the reader because the original excitement and punch of the ending will have been lost.

Study your favourite authors to get a feel of how they have achieved an ending. Some use a dramatic last line, because dialogue can be a very effecting way of ending the novel. Some use an effective, punchy paragraph; others might leave the reader guessing if there might be a sequel by using a teasing bit of narrative.

One thing you shouldn’t do with your ending is over-do it. Here are some common problem endings:

• Anti-climax – the lack of surprise or a bang, the failure to raise the reader’s attention. The climax is more of a fizzle than a firework.
• Overstretched – this is where the writer drones on and on and tries to explain things after the initial climax, but goes on far too long, thus losing all the excitement.
• Contrived – these are forced endings because the writer hasn’t grasped the correct way of writing a satisfactory ending which brings all the elements of the story together in a natural progressive way.
• Contemplative – After the climax, the author contemplates the events of the novel through the eyes of the characters. Unless you want to send your reader into a coma, don’t even consider this type of ending.
• Epilogues – Keep them brief. Don’t use drawn out explanations that stretch into several pages, otherwise the reader will lose interest.

Things to remember:

• By the end of the story, your character must have changed because of his or her experience, or perhaps learned something about themselves through their journey.
• The ending must be right for the story.
• The subplots must be resolved.
• The ending must make sense and follow the preceding events of the story.
• Keep it brief and succinct.
• Try to hook your reader into buying your next book.

Next week: Transitions – What, how and when.

How To Write A Novel - Part 3

2011-02-04T19:55:00.000Z

The dreaded middle section of the novel. The bit that sometimes makes would-be novelists give up entirely and take up gardening instead. The part after the amazing beginning and just before the satisfying ending has a habit of stalling many writers, because often they are not sure how to progress.

Once you’ve begun the novel, it’s daunting to sustain it for 25 chapters and this fear can cause problems later in the novel. The main thing to remember is that the novel will have a chronological flow. It’s your character’s journey from the beginning to the end.

The middle section is where most of the action will take place, slowly building up as you edge towards the climax of the story and it’s where the reader learns everything about the characters, the situation and what is driving the character to achieve his or her goal.

Motivation

The middle section of the novel is where the reader learns the motivation for your character’s struggle to solve his or her problems. The beginning of the novel is the set-up; the middle is the execution of the events that lead to the resolution – the end. Always keep this in mind – motivation is what will drive your story forward.

As with actions, motivation comes from the reactions of characters and events. There are always motivations: the motivation to save an individual, find the truth, discover something in the past, to kill someone, to avoid someone, to get something, to do something...all these kind of motivations might appear as you move the story forward.

Of course, the ultimate motivation is the goal of the main character, so don’t lose track of how important this is.

Pace

Pacing the novel is about giving balance to the story, of knowing when to go from a gentle, steady pace to an exciting action packed sequence before slowing the narrative again. Think of the story as a roller coaster ride – lots of highs and lows and dips and plenty of twists and turns. Most stories slowly build to a defining crescendo.

Varying the pace of the writing can heighten the tension and action within your story. Slowing the pace will allow the reader to momentarily relax before speeding up the action again. Writers can employ different strategies to do this - descriptive passages, or passages of explanation, or interjections of tight dialogue and action.

Remember action and reaction. In other words, for every action there is a reaction. A character might say something, and another character will react. Or your character might do something, and this always affects the outcome, there is a reaction. Everything happens for a reason, and this must also be true for your novel.

Description, Dialogue and Narrative

These three elements should be working together to create the story, but you should be looking for a balance of all three. Try not to have pages and pages of description – it’s likely to send the reader to sleep. Likewise, don’t have pages and pages of dialogue, otherwise this could irritate the reader. You can keep the reader interested by varying the balance.

Narrative works on different levels. Your job as narrator is to make the reader respond in a particular way. Clever narrative can make us sad, make us laugh; it can horrify or excite us. We write stories to entertain and inform and they help us understand human nature and the world around us.

Dialogue gives your character’s something to say, plus it moves the story forward. Characters always have lots to say!

Description is very important. If you don’t describe the scenes, how will your reader truly be involved or understand the story? Lack of description is a major flaw in many writers. They write the scene, put in some dialogue and a bit of narrative and think that is sufficient. It isn’t. This is the ‘telling’ rather than the ‘showing’. Description allows a writer to show what is happening. Again, balance is key, but don’t neglect to describe what’s happening not just to your character, but what is happening around them.

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekhov

Flashback

This is something else that could prove useful for when the middle section of your novel slows down or begins to stutter. The use of the flashback has three functions: to involve the reader about past events that relate to the story in the present, to inform the reader and move the story forward.

What has happened to your characters in the past ultimately influences their actions in the present, so flashbacks are used to interrupt the narrative to show or explain past events. The most useful way to make flashback more effective is to introduce this device after you have hinted some future action in the story.

This will also help flesh out your chapters and help you on your way to the end of the novel.

Plot Twists and Turns

Think about the rollercoaster again. There a few straight sections of track. Instead you have something that rises and falls and bends in all directions. This is how you should think of the story – the middle section is perfect for building up tension, yanking away that comfortable carpet from the reader’s feet and keeping the excitement going.

You are the writer – add subplots or new events to shake things up (keep them in context with the story).

Problems

Many first time novelists give up completely while writing the middle section, or they move onto something else. This happens for several reasons:-

1. You run out of steam
2. Lack of planning – leads to writer’s block or giving up altogether
3. Lack of focus – tendency to start something else
4. Boredom – Lack of planning, can’t think of anything else to write

There is a temptation to leave the novel and start something new because the initial excitement of a new project is far more appealing than finishing something that is giving you problems, and so you give up. The novel, half finished, sits in a drawer to collect dust.

So why is the novel plodding? Why have you run out of steam? You’ve got a great beginning and introduced the characters, but you’re struggling by chapter 8 and scratching around for ideas to get the story moving again. Very often, this is down to a lack of planning. If you don’t have a chapter plan sketched out, it makes it difficult to ‘see’ the likely events to come within the story. It’s like travelling along the road in the dark, not knowing when the next turn might be. It would be so much easier with the headlights on to illuminate the way.

If you haven’t already done so, do a rudimentary chapter plan of possible events, situations, scenes and characters to explore.

Another reason why the novel tends to sag in the middle is that you’re looking at the writing from only one angle. This means you’re writing the story like a straight line: this event happens by chapter 8, and that scene happens by chapter 9, then something else by chapter 10, then the story dries up and then comes the sudden realisation that you have another ten chapters to fill before even contemplating an ending, and you have no idea how you can achieve that.

This often happens because a writer hasn’t involved the main character thoroughly.

Characters are like real people, they’ll always have something to say. Your novel will be no different. Your characters have so much to do and say throughout the story, you have to find ways of showing the reader. So make life difficult for your characters, construct conflicts and put barriers in their way, give them some subplots to play with. Most importantly, give them a voice. Give them thoughts that they can share with the reader. This creates immediacy; it involves the reader on a personal level with your character.

If something important is happening in a scene, don’t just write about the scene with your character in it, involve your character. Jump into your character’s head and find out what they’re feeling, what they’re thinking and why they are in this situation. Do that, and before you know it, you’ve fleshed out those chapters and now you’re edging towards chapter 20 and the end is in sight. Of course, if you have a multi-viewpoint novel, you can do this for other main characters, too. Remember, the reader wants to know everything, so involve them.

Whatever the character viewpoint, delve into your characters and let the reader know what everything that is going on. What are the characters thinking in that scene, how to do they feel about what’s happening, what could they do to make things different? How to they feel about the other characters? What’s important to them? What might happen? How can they resolve things?

Checklist

• Create action and reaction
• Create motivation and more conflict, add obstacles
• Flashbacks
• Move the story forward – dialogue, narrative, description
• Involve the character’s thoughts and feelings
• Pace – Keep it varied
• Keep up the plot twists and turns

Next week: The end is nigh. An effective, satisfying ending.

How To Write A Novel - Part 2

2011-01-29T13:25:00.000Z

You have the great idea, you’ve planned the chapter order, you’ve created four-dimensional characters and created the likely ups and downs that will happen in your story. You’ve created a setting. You’ve done the planning and the preparation. You’ve researched background information...

Now you need to translate all that to the page.

Writing the First Chapter

This is quite daunting; in so much as this is the beginning of a journey, not just for your characters, but also for you. It’s the start of a story that will have a beginning, middle and an end. It’s about taking that leap off the edge and jumping into the unknown.

It’s not always an easy prospect. Where do I start? How do I start? Should I start with description or action or dialogue?

The simple answer is to not think about it too much, don’t overanalyse things. Just get writing. Remember, this is your first draft of many, so the aesthetics of writing are not important at this stage, because the editing process will do the essential work. (Try not to edit too much until you’ve finished the novel).

For the first chapter, however, there are a few things to consider.

Firstly, you should start as near to the action as possible, or a defining moment in your character’s life that sets the character on his or her journey. Don’t make the mistake of writing pages full of dreary stuff leading up to the defining moment or action, or fill the reader with endless background information before you finally getting going by chapter five. This will kill any tension or trepidation and bore your reader. Jump straight in with the story.

The first few lines, the first paragraph should grab your reader’s attention and hook them in.

The Hook

This is what you use to compel the reader to want to read your story and keep them reading until the closing paragraph. It’s the same principle used on the back of book covers: the blurb that enticed you to buy and read it.

The hook can be a paragraph, a sentence or just a few words that grabs your reader from the off and doesn’t let go, i.e. ‘He lifted the blade and sliced cleanly’ is a simple first paragraph hook. Or ‘He knew he was going to die, but he didn’t know when...’

These simple hooks make the reader want to learn more.

Whatever you do, don’t open your chapter with the ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ cliché. Be creative, be imaginative. Be anything but clichéd. You can start with a short description of action, or dialogue that grabs the attention – you decide. Dialogue should never be mundane.

Also, remember that you don’t have to tell the reader everything about the situation or the main character from the opening chapter. The best way to provide information is to drip-feed snippets. Tease the reader. This is one of the best ways to keep them interested.

The art of a good story is to tease the reader, and slowly feed information as the story unfolds.

Make sure you make your main character available to reader at the earliest opportunity. Again, it’s not necessary to launch into an entire life history or full-on description of what your character looks like – just entice the reader with snippets here and there throughout the chapters. Let the reader do some of the work – enable them to picture the character, the situation and the scene for themselves, because that’s part of the enjoyment of reading a good book.

Of course, the purpose of any story is to get from the beginning to the end, so your narrative and dialogue should always move the story forward.

Create immediacy with your reader. This means your characters and scenes must leap off the page, that this world is so believable the reader thinks they are right there with your characters, they’re feeling the emotion, getting involved with the action. How do you accomplish this? By thoroughly knowing the background and setting and the characters of the story and bringing the fictional world to life with narrative, description and dialogue.

Set the tone. The reader will know immediately if the story will be action packed (thriller, crime etc), filled with sadness (true-life style, romance, literary etc) or sprinkled with humour (funny, satirical etc). There’s nothing worse than picking up a book and not realising that half way through it’s a horror story and not a thriller.

The reader should also learn from the first chapter the likely conflicts that might crop up, especially if there is tension created between characters. Conflict is at the heart of any story, so let the reader get a taste of this as soon as possible. Editors and readers alike want to know what is at stake for your character; what is making your character undertake this journey and why? And ultimately, what will be the outcome?

Ending a chapter

As with the beginning of the chapter, the ending of a chapter is just as important, because you will still be employing that hook technique to reel the reader back in to continue reading the second chapter, third, fourth and so on. Again, you’re giving an invite for them to read on. Don’t be over the top, or necessarily dramatic, but a simple subtle hint at what might come is all you need to keep the reader interested.

For instance: ‘...as the sun set, she knew exactly what she had to do...’ Something like this sets up some intrigue for the reader. This is just an example, so it can be even more subtle than that, if you wish.

And before you know it, you’ll be into the second and third chapter...and onto the rest of the story journey.

The best way to remind yourself of these starting points is to draw up a simple checklist:

1. Open with a life-changing situation or action.
2. Introduce the main character.
3. Move the story forward.
4. Create immediacy
5. Set the tone
6. Set up the likely tensions and conflict to come
7. End with a hook to the next chapter.

Next week: Part 3 – The middle section of the novel.

How To Write A Novel - Part 1

2011-01-22T17:52:00.003Z

Planning and Preparation

“When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can” - Samuel Lover, Handy Andy, 1842

Sitting down and writing a novel is no easy task. It’s extremely time consuming, it’s daunting, difficult and at times frustrating, but it is always very rewarding because by the end of the process, you have a tangible, finished product that not only entertain and thrills, but you will also have become a better writer for it.

But writing a novel isn’t just about sitting down in front of a blank screen and producing words. There is so much more to consider what is, essentially, a mammoth undertaking. If you are starting your first novel, there are lots of things to consider first before you even commit your words to paper or screen – some planning and groundwork is required before you start to lay the foundations of your story, because without it you will find the process overwhelming and you’ll hesitate, so much so that you won’t even be able to write the first line.

Writing a novel is one giant circular structure of planning, researching, writing, editing, polishing, submitting...then the next project of planning, researching, writing, editing, polishing, submitting etc. The one thing this process demands from you is commitment. No commitment = no success. You will spend months or years planning and researching and then writing your novel, following by a period of editing. This is where around 15% or 20% of your work will be slashed from your pride and joy. This means many scenes may have to be re-written or even cut completely. It is not unusual to lose entire chapters. The ability to do that, and remain focused, is what a committed writer will do see his or her words in print.

Where to start?

The starting point is your idea, not the actual writing, as most people assume. Without your initial idea, there is no novel. You need some sort of idea of what your story will be about, so this is where you start some kind of planning. As I’ve already mentioned in previous posts, writing a novel or short story is entirely subjective in how you approach and execute it. This article is merely for guidance and advice, to hopefully make your job as a writer that much easier. Some authors do little planning, others are meticulous in their approach.

You can choose to do preparation or none at all. How you go about your planning is also entirely up to you. Agatha Christie once said, “The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes”.

My advice for new writers is to at least do some planning and preparation. I fall into the ‘meticulous’ category, because I like to make sure my idea evolves into a concrete, believable story. I have everything planned in as much detail as I can. I don’t have to follow it to the letter, but it serves as a guide. Of course, you will have your own way. It’s whatever feels right for you.

Take the wise words of Benjamin Franklin: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”.

Planning is all about knowing what your story is about – the plot – and who the story involves – the characters. The plot is the basic premise of the novel. This is subject to change as the novel evolves, so don’t worry too much about planning it in-depth, just as long as you have a believable plot (nothing too outlandish). You might also think about possible sub-plots to accentuate your main plot.

The one thing you must have is credible and fully rounded characters. It’s wise to invest some time researching and building your characters before you start writing, giving them biographies and backgrounds, otherwise how can you write about someone you don’t know? Characterisation is vital.

You should also know the theme (the core idea, like revenge, fear, hate, greed etc) and a rough direction it will take. Not to be confused with plot, the theme is the undercurrent moving beneath the surface of the story. For instance, if you are writing about greed, then perhaps make some notes on what this is and what it means, and the implications of greed on the way people behave in your story.

Know your genre – don’t write a sci-fi novel if you’re into women’s fiction and love to explore the lives of primarily female characters, or don’t write a bodice ripping Mills & Boon style romance if you love gore and blood and demonic creatures of the night. For most of us, we write the same material as the stuff we like to read because it interests us, we like it and we feel comfortable with it. Write what feels comfortable to you.

With some idea of a plot, a theme, characters and genre, you can put all that against a setting. Where does the story take place? Will the action take place in different states or counties; will it take place in several countries? You might know this from the start, or it might come a little later as you progress through the story, so some of these elements don’t come into play until you actually start writing, and that’s because a novel is a constantly evolving entity.

Another thing you will need to know before you start is to know what viewpoint you want. This is where many novels collapse, because the writer isn’t clear on whose story they are telling. Know whose story it is from the outset, otherwise you might find you will have to change the structure of the novel halfway through when you realise that in fact it’s a peripheral character that becomes the satellite character, not the character you thought it would be.

Another thing to consider in your planning is point of view (or tense). Not to be confused with Viewpoint, this is whether you want to tell your story in first person, third person singular or third person multi-viewpoint. This is very important. I know many writers who start out with one POV and have to change half way through because they discover the POV just isn’t working. That’s because they haven’t thought the process through. Know which POV will work not just for the story, but also for you, because writing an 80,000 – 100,000 word novel in first person is difficult for new novelists to master.

(See Point of View, which one? Aug 2010) for more advice on POV.

Understand that every story is about conflict. Your novel will need conflict because without it, the story won’t be worth reading. Any novel is always about a character being in a situation that needs resolving. Your character will face many problems in order to resolve that situation, which means things get progressively worse before that final moment, when the situation is at its worst, and the character must change and take difficult action to bring about a resolution. The key here is not just about what the character does to achieve this, but how the character evolves with the story and how he or she changes because of it.

“Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man's life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible” - Leo Tolstoy

Try to give your main character not just an external conflict – the main thrust of the story – but also an inner conflict that relates to the story. It could be something like facing a fear, facing a moment in the past or facing past mistakes, (characters aren’t perfect after all).

Finally, have some idea of your beginning. The idea is to start your novel as close to the main action as possible. The best way to do this is have a rough chapter plan. You don’t have to know exactly how many chapters you will need, or the length of them, and you don’t have to meticulously plan every single one, but rather have some rudimentary idea of chapter flow. You will find that the chapters evolve as you write, but having a guide to work through helps to formulate the chronology of the story.

Once all these elements are in place you can start to plan how they will all come together to create your story with use of lists, timelines, mind maps etc. (See the previous article Tools for Short Story and Novel Writing, Jan 2011) for ideas on the tools that could help the process.

How you plan and prepare is as individual as the writing you produce. You are in charge, but it’s wise to start with a solid foundation to your project.

“As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from writing it till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall” - Virginia Woolf

Planning & Preparation Summary:

• Idea
• Plot
• Subplots
• Overall theme
• Know your genre
• Characters
• Character Viewpoint
• POV (Tense)
• Conflict
• Rough idea of the beginning and some chapter outlines.

You should have here all the elements in place to start writing.

Then the real work begins...

In Part 2 we’ll look in depth at beginning the novel and translating the idea into words.

PS - As a little aside from all this planning, you might be interested in a fascinating article, "20 Acclaimed Authors and Their Unique Writing Rituals", which details the approach of many famous writers to how they write, everything from standing up and working, being on autopilot, lying in bed or writing while naked...we all have our own way!

Click on the link:

http://www.mastersdegree.net/blog/2011/20-acclaimed-authors-and-their-unique-writing-rituals/

Thanks to Kate Rothwell for sharing this.

Tools for Short Story and Novel Writing

2011-01-15T16:53:00.000Z

The tools for writing short stories and novels are the instruments that make planning and writing your stories that much easier to manage and organise. They include everything from the old-fashioned pen and paper and notepad to a vast array of novel writing software available online to download.

Well-organised writers fair better with their writing than those who are somewhat disorganised, simply because their approach is controlled and ordered and they have all their resources to hand.

Every writer will have the basic tools of writing: Computer, word processor or an old-fashioned typewriter, the obligatory pen and paper, dictionary, a generous amount of creativity and a wild imagination. There are, however, other tools that a writer can utilise to help keep organised; especially as writing a novel has a tendency to generate lots of paper, and most of them are already at your disposal.

Novel Writing – Planning Tools

The basic thing for any writer planning a novel is the development of the story arc and the characters that inhabit that story, the construction of a story from the ground upward. You don’t have to plan every single thing or nuance that happens, because novels never go exactly according to plan, but getting some basics down gives you a guideline to follow and keeps a sense of management over your novel.

How a writer approaches novel planning is a personal, subjective thing, but there are plenty of useful tools to help us organise ourselves, things like Mind Maps, Timelines, Lists, Charts and Spreadsheets, databases and computer programs, all there to make our life easier.

Mind Maps

These are so useful for brainstorming your initial ideas. They consist of bubble or wire diagrams used to represent ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. They help a writer to visualise, structure, and sort ideas, themes, characters and plot points etc. These are great for simply generating and throwing out ideas.

All writers are creative creatures; they love nothing more than to free their imagination, and mind maps are a great way for exploring that imagination. (See below. Click on Change Zoom Level, bottom RH corner of your computer screen for closer look).

Timelines

Timelines are a useful tool for anything that needs a chronological order. This could include events in your story or novel, such as potting high points and low points or the number of chapters and a brief description of them etc.

They work well as a visual aid because you get to see something that is in a progressive order and it makes it clearer to you how things could unfold over a certain amount of time. You don’t necessarily have to meticulously plot them on a computer; you can do it by hand on paper - whichever works best for you. (See example below).

Storyboarding

The more artistic writers out there might like doing a basic storyboard of key scenes that sometimes pop into your head. I do this sometimes, by simply sketching out important scenes or character conflicts. It helps me visualise how I see it, because sometimes a big scene might play out in my mind rather like a movie and I want to follow the same “cinemagraphic” approach.

Lists

Another old-fashioned method that has proved eternally useful is the list. Not to be underestimated in their simplicity, lists are just as helpful as mind maps and timelines if this is your preferred method of bullet pointing ideas, events, characters, conflicts and so on.

You can make a list of practically anything when writing, and each writer has his or her own way of doing so. Some like a visual sheet of paper in front of them, so a handy A4 organiser/notebook is perfect for that, while others prefer to keep lists in a simple Word format on a computer for easy access. It’s up to you, but lists are so important to writers because they help us organise our ideas into a simple to follow analysis.

I tend to use many lists, so for example, a list of characters, a list of chapters, a list of possible points to research, a list of resources that I might need during the course of the project etc.

Charts & Spreadsheets

These tools are great for those writers who prefer to use simple charts to chart events chronologically, or to create interactive lists which they can regularly update and change. Using Excel is perfect for organising and keeping up with your writing. What you put in your chart, or how you use it, is entirely up to the writer, but some writers find this approach helpful.

Spreadsheets are good for creating a database of information in relation to your novel, especially when you start to amass lots of information. This may take the form of character lists, plot points, or it may be a database of the agents and publishers that you have sent your MSS to, so you can easily keep track of your submissions.

And the beauty of all these programs like is that you tailor them to fit how you work and what you want from them.

Notice boards/white boards

Some writers like to visualise things as they think out their ideas, and white boards are perfect for jotting down those flash ideas, notes, mini-mind maps or wire drawings, timelines etc. They are yet another useful tool to help writers organise how they work and retain information, plus they offer the information at-a-glance and they can be used over and over again.

I use white boards to jot down any quick ideas I might have, a list of upcoming anthologies, flash fiction submissions and competitions, as well as reminders for events or writing projects.

Powerpoint

Why Powerpoint? How can this help? It depends how you use it, but it’s yet another useful organisational tool that might otherwise be overlooked. Not all people can get on with spreadsheets or timelines or other planning tools, so another way of planning your novel is by adding information to Powerpoint slides, for instance and including all the things you might need for your writing project, for instance a short synopsis, a detailed plot, a list of all the characters in your novel, complete with bios and backgrounds, the theme(s) and background to your novel, the possible subplot(s), a reminder list of things to include, like pace, emotion, tension, conflict, the five senses, the objectives and opposing obstacles in your character’s path and a list of research items etc.

This is so useful as a reference tool (and cuts down on all the bits of paper flying about) because you have everything there at a glance to help you with your novel. I use Powerpoint to detail everything I need on a writing project because I find it easy and handy to use.

(See the example below).

Novel Writing Software

There are plenty of software programs for the budding writer: Snowflake, Storybook and Writer’s Cafe are just some of them. These are a useful aid for new writers; lending advice and guidance while helping you formulate your novel. They won’t actually tell you how to become published. That’s down to you, but they will help you organise your novel.

Organisational Tools -

Notebooks/organisers

No writer should be without a notebook of some kind. They don’t have to be anything special, just a simple writing pad is apt. This is where ideas, scribbles, musings, observations and bits of scenes can be jotted down for use later and then incorporated into your novel.

Very often inspiration and ideas strike at inopportune moments, so a handy pad is great for scribbling something down before you forget it. Most writers will have umpteen notebooks or organisers lying around. It’s rather like a woman and her shoes...writers just have to have notebooks.

Project Files

No writer is without files, whether they’re actual files or digital files. Each writer is different on their preference, but useful nonetheless for keeping bits of notes, research and ideas related to your project. I tend to use both actual files as well as digital files. When I’ve finished my project, I copy all the digital files onto a CD and pop it into a box file containing all my other documents relating to that project. That means I have a hard copy file of everything and a digital one, just in case of loss or damage or any other eventuality that might occur to your project.

I have a backup of my MS, notes, papers, research, electronic files, photos etc, in a box file on the shelf, so if something happened to my computer or my electronic files, I have something I can refer to and I know I won’t lose any valuable information because I have a hard copy of everything.

Memory Sticks/CD’s/external backup drives

Essential tools for every writer. Memory sticks and re-writable CD’s are lifesavers. There is nothing worse than spending hours and hours working diligently on your masterpiece, only for there to be a power cut...or your computer crashes...or a virus corrupts your files.

Every writer has experienced a mini breakdown after becoming victim of forgetfulness. Back up regularly. Whichever medium you prefer – whether memory sticks, re-writable CD’s or external memory drives, always make sure you back up any work, together with all the files on your computer.

OneNote

This is a useful organisational tool in that it acts as your electronic filing cabinet by allowing you to run a host of projects by allowing you to gather, organise, search, file notes and screen clippings, thoughts, reference materials, research and other information. All your notes will be visible with easy to use, colour coded notebooks, sections, and pages. It’s a great organisational tool (and it saves on paper).

I use this for all my major writing projects, and as with other electronic files, your OneNote files can be backed up too.

Hopefully there is enough resources and ideas here to keep budding writers well organised and able to manage projects efficiently!

Resources

• Internet – every writer’s best friend when it comes to research.
• Library – Again, a visit to the library is just as useful for research.
• Artists’ & Writers’ Yearbook – Listings of agents and publishers in the UK and some in the US. (Non-UK writers should check their own equivalent resource publishers).
• Dictionaries/Thesaurus – No writer should be without either of these. There are plenty of online dictionaries, but a hard copy of the OED or similar is even better.
• Writing magazines and books – These are a great source of help, advice and support.

Next time: Part 1 How to plan a novel.