All Write - Fiction Advice

Most writers can contend with both short stories and novels. They’re able to switch between the two with relative ease, but for some writers, it’s not so straight forward.   There are writers who struggle to write novels and instead prefer short stories. Conversely, there are those who find it hard to write a story confined to a short amount of words, so novels work better for them. That’s why many writers are drawn to either one or the other. Short Story Writers Short stories can be more complex in the way they are constructed – because a well told story with almost the same elements as a novel still needs to be crammed into 10,000 words or so – and some writers become very skilled at this. Are you a short story writer? Do you find plotting is too complicated, that you have to try to make the story make sense and avoid large plot holes and mistakes? Are things easier with one central story? Do you balk at the thought of creating loads of characters and creating in-de...

Some people are naturally good a short story telling. Others find novels much easier to write, because it’s not confined to a condensed amount of words. This is perhaps why people find short stories more difficult to get to grips with. But are they really difficult? Let’s consider the differences first. The short story and the novel may share some similarities – a main story, a main character and a theme or two – but their overall structure and length make them very different. The common mistake most beginners make is to write the short story as though it was a novel and the result is that the story doesn’t work, and often doesn’t feel like a complete story because they haven’t taken into account these differences. Length Short stories vary in length, from 1000 words to around 20,000 words.   Average novels tend to range from 80,000 to 100,000 words. So with a short story, the plot needs to be told and wrapped up in a shorter length, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. ...

Some people are excellent short story writers.   Others are novel writers, and write only novels. There are times, however, we look upon a short story and realise there’s more. There’s more to say, more to explore, more to write. In other words, the short story demands to be something else – it wants to be a novel. One thing to note is that not every short story can be a novel. Sometimes they just don’t work on a larger scale. And you don’t choose short stories to make them into novels – that’s like forcing an idea into being; it doesn’t work. Most short stories work as short stories and nothing more. If there is more beyond the ending of a short story, that story will tell you. You will instinctively know that the story could be extended because the characters and the plot almost strain to reveal more. Sometimes the subplots need further expansion, beyond the boundaries of 5000 or 10,000 words, sometimes the characters push for more attention, or the plot is so deep that y...

‘Write what you know’ is an adage that most writers will have heard of, and while it’s certainly true that what a writers knows makes a solid foundation for their writing, it’s not an entirely accurate, because much of what is written is all about what we don’t actually know. That’s why it requires great creativity and imagination. Writing from experience isn’t about a writer being autobiographical – fiction isn’t about that and should never be about the writer, nor should it project the writer’s feelings or opinions. Instead it’s about the stuff the writer knows, which could be used in their work. That’s why writing from experience does have an advantage. A lot of our writing is generated from stuff we remember or things we’ve done. That means our writing is a balance between what we imagine and snippets of things we know or we have experienced. That could be anything from having knowledge of a certain skill, an expertise in a certain field, experience from a particular job,...

Compelling – or effective – dialogue is an essential ingredient in every story because it not only helps to tell the story, it moved it along, it imparts necessary information for the reader, it reveals characterisation and it’s a great way to create conflict and drama. There are a number of ways writers can do this. A Sense of Realism One of the best ways to involve the reader is to give the dialogue a sense of realism. But what does that mean, exactly? By ‘realism’, there is an expectation from the reader that dialogue will reflect real speech to a degree .   So writers can use dialect or accented words, they can use ‘ums’ or ‘ers’, or even hesitations, stutters, or when dialogue is abruptly cut off by interruptions etc., as per these examples: ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I...I tried not to...’ ‘Er, I don’t honestly know,’ he replied. ‘He ‘bin around these parts, ya’ll.’ ‘And to think I ever wan--’ The rule of thumb is simple - don’t overuse them to the poi...

It’s every writer’s wish to create compelling and realistic dialogue. It adds to the enjoyment of a story; great dialogue gives it depth and structure, and more importantly for the writer, it accomplishes more than showing the reader conversations. Dialogue doesn’t just tell half of the story – or further the plot – it can move the story forward, it develops relationships, it can create tension, conflict an atmosphere and it can reveal character. It’s one of those things that can show the reader how skilled you are – it’s the difference between great dialogue and bad dialogue, and the latter is a sign that the writer hasn’t yet got to grips with how dialogue works. So, how can you make your dialogue compelling? Well, thankfully, there are multiple ways a writer can do this. He Said/She Said Let’s start with probably the most contentious element – dialogue tags and how they should be used. A dialogue tag is the ‘he said’ or ‘she replied’ etc., tagged on the end of the dialog...

In this second part we’ll continue our look at some of the elements that make a first chapter work. They are considered ‘key’ essentials to grab the reader, agent/publisher’s interest and lure them into reading your book and keep them reading. Introduce Conflict Conflict is the driving force for fiction; it’s at the very heart of every story and so it must be present in your opening chapter, but since conflict comes in all manner of guises, the conflict in question is the character’s main conflict and not the bullets and explosions and all out action kind. In a nutshell, what’s at the heart of the story? What’s the main problem, what must the character do to achieve this and who is standing in their way? That’s the type conflict the reader needs to know, rather than large, full scale conflict that might appear later in the story, because it allows the reader to become involved – they will recognise and understand such conflicts and empathise with your character. And once th...