All Write - Fiction Advice

Every story has something to say and every story conveys a message to the reader, whether it’s something about the world in general, or about the human condition, and the kind of issues that relate to all of us. These are all relayed through the characters that inhabit the story. Any intended message can be overt, subtle or implied. The moral of a story is not to be confused with the author’s personal thoughts and feelings, because as a rule, an author should never personally intrude a story.   Instead, morals are the products of our observations and the issues that impact all of us, and how we can learn and grow from them.   Think of the snippets of wisdom given to you by your parents or grandparents – these are the basis of various morals adapted by society and used for generations. Our lives are dictated by morality, and fiction is no different. Even from the dawn of time, storytellers have included morals in their tales; they all want to give us a message of some...

Setting tone in your stories is one thing, but expressing it is another thing entirely. When we talk about tone, it generally means the overall quality, exposition and pitch of the writing and the value it brings to the narrative in terms of what it gives to the reader because they need to understand the tone of your novel or story. The tone is about the writer’s ability to covey thoughts and feelings in relation to the themes that make up the story.   Often writers confuse tone with mood and ‘voice’, but although these aspects complement each other in fiction writing, there are subtle differences between them, and they both have different roles to play within the narrative.   ‘Voice’ is the essence and individual style of the writer coming through the narrative. Mood however, (and its close relation, atmosphere), is the effect created by the writer to evoke a range feelings within the reader – horror, sadness, humour, empathy and compassion etc. The real impo...

If you have ever wondered how you can make your writing that much stronger, then the power of verbs and nouns might help. Unlike adjectives and adverbs, which actually weaken your writing, the use of strong verbs and nouns make the narrative more dynamic, vibrant and, above all, active in order to help strengthen the narrative considerably. They are often referred to as ‘action’ words because they are especially useful for the fluidity and motion within sentences, where the subject is ‘doing’ something.   So when it comes to injecting clarity, movement and action, words like walk, grab, run and chop etc., convey to the reader exactly what they need to know.   They can express the physical (to run, to walk, to fight), they can show a state of being (to appear, to be) or they can show us mental actions (to think, to ponder). The interesting thing about verbs is that, unlike adverbs and adjectives, they can change in form, and there are several forms that belong to ...

To know how important it is – or not – it’s best to get a feel for what writing style is all about. Plenty of writers are under the impression that in order to be a successful, published author, they must create and promote their own distinctive and characteristic writing style, but the truth is by doing that, they could be cultivating some bad habits instead. The truth is, writing styles are not something that writers typically think about, but rather something that develops naturally over time. Writing style is as much to do with individuality as it is about writing.   It’s about how the writer presents the words to the reader, how well he or she knows the beauty of the language, how well a fiction world or fictional characters are blended together, how each sentence starts and ends, how each paragraph is unified with the narrative, how narrative and description are invented.   It’s how well a writer tells their tale. In order to force style into their writing...

Let’s get straight to the point – rules are put in place for a reason. But that’s not to say we can bend those rules when it suits us. But when it comes to fiction writing, how far can you bend those rules and is it okay to even break a few? The answers depend upon the rules in question and the kind of circumstances that exist for writers – i.e. whether the writers are just starting out on their fiction writing journey, or still unpublished, or whether they’re established and experienced writers who perhaps can get away with a few writing transgressions. There is certainly no reason why we can’t bend a few fiction writing rules; we all do it, but blatant misuse of them won’t do writers much good. Firstly, new and unpublished writers should dispense with any arrogance about “It’s my story - I can do what I like, how I like” where creative writing is concerned. That kind of attitude will not get you published (unless of course you are an exceptional writing prodigy bursting ...

In part 1, we looked at the advantages of having a prologue, so in part 2 we will look at the disadvantages of using them, and why they now proving unpopular with agents and publishers. What are the disadvantages of a prologue? The simple truth is that prologues are seen as unnecessary. They form a great chunk of text at the beginning of a novel, which readers might either ignore or skim read out of boredom, or it puts the reader off reading the rest of the novel altogether because it’s just too much of a chore. The idea with the opening chapter of your novel is to get right in at the heart of the action or defining moment in your main character’s life, so why spend so much time constructing an attention-grabbing opening chapter, only to stall the whole thing with a large piece of narrative stuck at the front?   Any momentum, gravitas or excitement that you wanted to achieve in your opening chapter is completely wiped out by a plodding prologue. It’s not exactly the b...

There are plenty of novels, particularly older ones, where you might see a prologue before the main story actually begins. But what are they, and what purpose do they serve? Firstly, a prologue, or pro logos in Greek - which means ‘before words’- is a preface to the main story, or a separate introduction of sorts. Sometimes they are only a paragraph or two long, while others could be as long as an average chapter. There is no set length to how long prologues should be, and no golden rules that govern them. In simple terms, for the prologue to be effective, it must contribute to the main plot in some way, it must provide facts and information which is relevant, otherwise it will lose impact and ultimately fail. How useful are they? That depends on what the writer wants to convey. Prologues are a way for writers to hint at the main story in some way because sometimes they feel they need to convey even more information than they can comfortably slot into their m...