how to write

What Is A Story?

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This post by David Baboulene originally appeared on his The Science of Story on 11/3/14.

When I first started my research degree in story theory, the thing that surprised me most was that there is no single definition for the term ‘story’. At least, not one that all the authorities agree, and certainly not one which would cover all the examples that you and I would intuitively agree are ‘stories’. 2,300 years since Aristotle and even the dictionary isn’t right.

Of course, like every other narratologist, I have come up with my own definition, but for this blog post, I won’t be trying to sell you that. I thought I would use this space to capture the top lines that most story boffins DO agree. The common elements that comprise the mainstream and which are useful to know if you are a writer of fiction. Please note the scope I’m setting. I’m not trying to include ‘the story of medicine’ or a poem or a recipe or an argument or the story of ‘last summer’ or Japanese Kishotenketsu conflict free narratives, or all the myriad other things that may or may not be stories. I’m talking about a definition that will help an aspiring writer do good things for their story telling by understanding where the centre of the mainstream flows.

So, let’s look at the simple contents of a generally ‘good’ story:

 

Read the full post on The Science of Story.

 

What Are Pinch Points? And How Can They Make Your Book Easier to Write?

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This post by K.M. Weiland originally appeared on her Helping Writers Become Authors site on 3/29/15.

You may have heard of these little darlings called “Pinch Points.” Of all the important structural moments in your story, they’re the most likely to be neglected. They get lost amidst all the excited chatter about their bigger, flashier brethren: the Plot Points. But Pinch Points–two of them, both occurring in the Second Act–are crucial to your story’s structure.

I realized I’ve never written a proper post on Pinch Points, so today I figure it’s time to remedy that. After all, there is a lot of confusion swirling around the subject.

What are Pinch Points?

How do they compare to Plot Points?

Where do they belong in the story?

What do they do?

And what happens when you neglect them?

Let’s find out!

 

Read the full post on Helping Writers Become Authors.

 

Friday Five: Discworld's 5 Best Supporting Characters

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This post by Graeme Neill originally appeared on Pornokitsch on 3/27/15.

The warmth of tributes to Terry Pratchett’s passing – from Neil Gaiman’s sadness at the death of a friend to Nick Harkaway’s exploration of his comedic chops – showed just how loved he was. Broadly ignored by critics and awards, Pratchett was content to write deeply intelligent, complex and hilarious novels that sold and were adored in their millions. I’m sure he coped.

I loved Pratchett as a teen before stupidly putting him to one side for ‘Grown Up’ books. For the past six months I have been making up for my teenage idiocy by reading the Discworld from the start and writing about each book in publication order here. Because Pratchett was the line that links my childhood reading with what I love as an adult. It was time I started looking at that.

There is a myriad of things to love about Discworld but among the best is how it feels like a real place. Even his supporting characters are written with a care and attention that demonstrates his strength as a writer. By way of tribute to Pratchett and his Discworld, I want to put the spotlight on my favourite background players.

1. Cheery Littlebottom

First on the list is easy. It’s CSI: Ankh-Morpork. Cheery is a dwarven forensic expert first seen in Feet of Clay, a character we quickly learn is a woman. Female dwarves have beards and adhere to masculine cultural rules. Sex is, well, confusing. Cheery’s exploration of her femininity, experimenting with heels, make-up and jewellery, could be played for quite offensive laughs.

Pratchett is much better than that. Why Feet of Clay is an amazing book, one of his best, is that it’s about acts of rebellion, from the golem who cannot cope with gaining its own agency and murders as a result, to Vimes, Captain of the City Watch, who refuses to let his butler shave him. Through Cheery looking to break the gender roles dictated to her and the emotional and societal difficulties she faces in doing so, Pratchett humanises the golem’s own struggle and makes the book that much more complex and better as a consequence.

 

Read the full post on Pornokitsch.

 

Show or Tell: Should Creative Writing Be Taught?

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This essay by Louis Menand originally appeared on The New Yorker on 6/8/09.

Creative-writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem. The fruit of the theory is the writing workshop, a combination of ritual scarring and twelve-on-one group therapy where aspiring writers offer their views of the efforts of other aspiring writers. People who take creative-writing workshops get course credit and can, ultimately, receive an academic degree in the subject; but a workshop is not a course in the normal sense—a scene of instruction in which some body of knowledge is transmitted by means of a curricular script. The workshop is a process, an unscripted performance space, a regime for forcing people to do two things that are fundamentally contrary to human nature: actually write stuff (as opposed to planning to write stuff very, very soon), and then sit there while strangers tear it apart. There is one person in the room, the instructor, who has (usually) published a poem. But workshop protocol requires the instructor to shepherd the discussion, not to lead it, and in any case the instructor is either a product of the same process—a person with an academic degree in creative writing—or a successful writer who has had no training as a teacher of anything, and who is probably grimly or jovially skeptical of the premise on which the whole enterprise is based: that creative writing is something that can be taught.

This skepticism is widely shared, and one way for creative-writing programs to handle it is simply to concede the point. The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop is the most renowned creative-writing program in the world. Sixteen Pulitzer Prize winners and three recent Poet Laureates are graduates of the program. But the school’s official position is that the school had nothing to do with it. “The fact that the Workshop can claim as alumni nationally and internationally prominent poets, novelists, and short story writers is, we believe, more the result of what they brought here than of what they gained from us,” the Iowa Web site explains. Iowa merely admits people who are really good at writing; it puts them up for two years; and then, like the Wizard of Oz, it gives them a diploma. “We continue to look for the most promising talent in the country,” the school says, “in our conviction that writing cannot be taught but that writers can be encouraged.”

 

Read the full essay on The New Yorker.

 

The Shared Space Between Reader and Writer: A Case Study

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This post by Brenda Miller originally appeared on Brevity on 1/17/15.

I often teach classes on the form of the “hermit crab” essay, a term Suzanne Paola and I used in our textbook Tell It Slant. Hermit crab essays adopt already existing forms as the container for the writing at hand, such as the essay in the form of a “to-do” list, or a field guide, or a recipe. Hermit crabs are creatures born without their own shells to protect them; they need to find empty shells to inhabit (or sometimes not so empty; in the years since I’ve begun using the hermit crab as my metaphor, I’ve learned that they can be quite vicious, evicting the shell’s rightful inhabitant by force).

When I teach the hermit crab essay class, we begin by brainstorming the many different forms that exist for us to plunder for our own purposes. Once we have such a list scribbled on the board, I ask the students to choose one form at random and see what kind of content that form suggests. This is the essential move: allowing form to dictate content. By doing so, we get out of our own way; we bypass what our intellectual minds have already determined as “our story” and instead become open and available to unexpected images, themes and memories. Also, following the dictates of form gives us creative nonfiction writers a chance to practice using our imaginations, filling in details, and playing with the content to see what kind of effects we can create.

I’ve taught the hermit crab class many, many times over the years, in many different venues. So, often it’s tempting for me to sit out the exercise; after all, what else could I possibly learn? But after just a minute, it becomes too boring to watch other people write, so I dive in myself, with no expectation that I’ll write anything “good.” In one class, I glanced at the board we had filled with dozens of forms. And my eye landed on “rejection notes.” So that is where I began:

 

Read the full post on Brevity.

 

The Difference Between “Flawed” Characters and “Too Dumb to Live”

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This post by Kristen Lamb originally appeared on her blog on 3/9/15.

Which is more important? Plot or character? Though an interesting discussion—sort of like, Could Ronda Rousey take a Klingon with only her bare hands?—it isn’t really a useful discussion for anything other than fun. To write great fiction, we need both. Plot and characters work together. One arc drives the other much like one cog serves to turn another, thus generating momentum in the overall engine we call “STORY”.

If we goof up plot? Readers/Audiences get confused or call FOUL. Watch the movie Ouija for what I am talking about *shakes head*.

Goof up characters? No one cares about the plot.

New writers are particularly vulnerable to messing up characters. We drift too far to one end of the spectrum or the other—Super-Duper-Perfect versus Too Dumb to Live—and this can make a story fizzle because there is no way to create true dramatic tension. This leaves us (the frustrated author) to manufacture conflict and what we end up with is drama’s inbred cousin melodrama.

If characters are too perfect, too goody-goody and too well-adjusted? If they always make noble, good and professional decisions? Snooze fest.

Again. Bad decisions make great fiction.

 

Read the full post on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

 

The Utility (and Trappings) of the Novel Outline

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This post by Jamie Kornegay originally appeared on Writer’s Digest on 2/12/15.

I’ve been selling books for more than fifteen years and learning to write novels even longer. Of all the author readings and Q&A sessions I’ve hosted (and attended), one of the most common questions among beginning writers, even curious readers, is this: Do you start with an outline?

You’ve heard the pros and cons. An outline helps organize your thoughts and prevents you from spinning your wheels and traveling down dead-end storylines. The flipside, of course, is that constructing an outline boxes you in and limits the possibility of discovery, which is the most creative and rewarding part of writing.

First, it’s important to note that there are no ironclad rules to novel writing. Every writer works differently and stumbles upon his or her preferred method through trial and error. The novel, rather than writing advisers, should tell you what it needs.

The traditional term paper outline, with its Roman numerals and letters, is helpful to organize a finite amount of information, but a novel is more amorphous. I couldn’t begin to collect a novel’s potential in an outline, though I certainly understand the impulse. There’s something terrifying about the blank page and its stark white emptiness. What could you put there that anyone would want to read?

 

Read the full post on Writer’s Digest.

 

The Delivered Story; The Interpreted Story

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This post by David Baboulene originally appeared on his The Science of Story blog on 1/20/15.

Whenever you absorb a story, you are actually experiencing *two* stories. Or at least, two versions of the same story. This is well accepted in academia, and was first documented by the Russian Formalists in the 1920s, (Victor Shlovsky, Vladmir Propp et al) who called the first version the Syuzhet and the second version the Fabula. Great words, but let me try to simplify it to what can help a writer deliver better story today.

The first version is the delivered story. All the tangible sensory stimulation you receive from having the story communicated to your eyes and ears. So, in a film, this includes the music, images, dialogue, action, character behaviours, the poster, the trailer, the reviews you read, the blog-post, your knowledge of the star’s personal life – everything that contributes to what you think about the story.

In a book, of course, the written words are the total sensory stimulation. Here is, allegedly, the shortest novel ever written:

“For Sale. Baby’s Shoes. Never Worn.”

In this case, the total delivered story is just those six words (and whatever else you might overlay if you know it was (allegedly) written by Ernest Hemingway).

 

Read the full post on The Science of Story.

 

Five "Show Don't Tell" Danger Zones

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This post by Diana Hurwitz originally appeared on The Blood Red Pencil on 3/5/15.

Showing is illustrated through actions and interiority rather than the author telling us how the character is reacting and behaving.

Telling often involves adverbs and adjectives. Look for bland descriptive words like: attractive, dumb, embarrassing, fabulous, fascinating, handsome, hilarious, mad, powerful, pretty, smart, stunning, stupid, tired, and ugly. Telling is fertile ground for clichés. Make it fresh.

Here are five danger zones to watch out for.

 

1. Action: Don’t tell us what a character does; describe what constitutes the action.

Telling: Dick worked hard.

Showing: Dick wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve. He lifted the axe and swung: thunk, swipe, thunk. The chunk of wood sheared into small pieces. Each blow reverberated through his shoulders and back.

Telling: Jane walked quickly through the aisles, tossing in items without looking at them.

 

Read the full post on The Blood Red Pencil.

 

Once Upon a Time…

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This post by Lee Kofman originally appeared on Writers Victoria on 1/20/15.

The beginning of yet another year makes me think about other beginnings – those first pages, paragraphs, sentences, words that pull readers into our tales. How do we make them sing?

Most obviously, banality is the enemy of good writing. Yet in many openings of published and unpublished works I read clichés creep in, often because of the current fashion to begin stories mid-scene, where characters are ‘doing’ something. Such an opening can be effective of course, yet scene-writing – with its focus on the action – lends itself to clichés. How many books begin with someone staring out of the window at a meadow, or running for their lives, or tracing something cool with their finger? We can get away more easily with such descriptions in the middle, but to entice intelligent strangers to stick with our stories we need to work harder.

Think of this beginning:

‘In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”’

This is the opening of ‘The Great Gatsby’, hailed by some critics as ‘the perfect novel’. Here we are at once plunged not into the action, but into the mind of the narrator who confides something urgent to us, thereby immediately creating intimacy with the readers. Moreover, this start hints at a dramatic narrative to do with moral dilemmas around our tendency to both judge and empathise, and the problem of social inequality. In short, these first sentences suggest that this novel is going to be one of substance, and do so without pomposity. This suggestion is conveyed by the measured voice of a sympathetic narrator.

 

Read the full post on Writers Victoria.

 

15 Terrifying Things That Will Make You A Better Writer

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This post by Chris Brecheen originally appeared on Writing About Writing on 9/6/12.

Ready to do some things for your craft that will terrify you even more than a sewer-dwelling clown?

Tired of the same ten articles online giving you the same twenty bits of advice about writing punchy verbs or sitting down at the same time each day? Are the thousands of clones of “How to be a Better Writer” articles getting you down? Do you think, “Okay, already! I’m already carrying the damned notebook everywhere I go. What’s next?” Ready for some new advice?

Then this list is for you!

But be warned. This is not a happy list, an easy list, or a list filled with fluffy easily-implementable things you can do in an afternoon to make yourself feel incredibly productive. It’s not a list for those who want to think themselves writers without doing the work. I have a list like that over here. This is a list for people ready to take their writing, and possibly their craft to the next level but aren’t sure how. Maybe they’ve run into a wall or two or maybe they just feel like there’s something they could be doing to write better. Many of these things will not be fun or enjoyable or may even add an “unpleasant” dynamic to your writing.

But they will make you a better writer without ever using a word like “punchy.”

There are hundreds of craft books that will help you dissect every word choice of your prose, and there are millions of articles with those same 20 bits of advice. But somewhere between those two is this list: things you can do that are less well known, but that writers swear by.

1- Write When You Don’t Want To/Keep Going When It Hurts

This is the flip side to “write every day.” This is the side no one talks about. This is the shitty reality of that plucky wisdom.

Eventually even the best writer doesn’t feel in the mood. No matter how much joy and pleasure the simple act of writing brings you, one day, you will face the fact that you won’t want to. And you won’t want to a lot. Some days it’s like your desire to just take a day off is Aragorn wielding Narsil and your motivation is one of those comic relief orcs. But these are the days when it’s most important to do push through and do something. Even if you just write a couple of pages. Even if it’s just a freewrite.

 

Read the full post on Writing About Writing.

 

The Seven Deadly Sins of Dialogue

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This post by Susan DeFreitas originally appeared on Lit Reactor on 2/23/15.

Ursula K. Le Guin has said that scenes with dialogue are where emotion happens in fiction. According to the emerging body of neuroscience on fiction, such scenes are also where fiction most clearly approximates actual lived experience, that “vivid and continuous dream” of which John Gardner spoke.

That may help to explain why readers love dialogue—some so much so that they’ll skip right over your meticulously written descriptions and summaries to get straight to the goods: people talking to each other.

But dialogue is also a place where things can easily go south. As an editor, I have become far too acquainted with all the ways that otherwise competent writers can absolutely hamstring their fiction—precisely at the point it counts most.

 

1. Said Bookisms

Say what you will about the Bible, The Prince, and Fifty Shades of Grey—as far as I’m concerned, one of the documents most destructive to the project of civilization is Said Is Dead. Starting in the eighties and continuing to this day, many elementary-school English teachers have seen fit to foist this guide upon their hapless students, to the detriment of us all.

In it, the writer is instructed to throw over plain old said and asked for such highfalutin alternatives as queried, snarled, intoned, and god help us, even cajoled. Which, after all, are more specific verbs, and they help us avoid repetition. So what’s the problem?

 

Read the full post on Lit Reactor.

 

Writing the Book You Want to Read (Even When You’re Not an Expert in the Field)

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This post by Sally Hepworth originally appeared on Writer’s Digest on 2/14/15.

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ― Toni Morrison

I’ve always loved Morrison’s saying. The idea that everyone has the potential to write his or her own favorite book is an appealing one, and it’s natural that writers will want to write the kind of books they like to read. But it’s not always as simple as that. What if you enjoy reading about courtroom dramas, and you’re not a lawyer or a judge? What if you love the idea of creating layers to your novel by using architecture, but you’re not an architect?

How do you write the book you want to read if you’re not an expert in the field? Here are a few tricks I learned while writing my debut novel, THE SECRETS OF MIDWIVES:

 

1) Start by making a list of ALL the elements in the book you want to read

The book you want to read is more than just ‘courtroom drama’ or ‘architecture’ or ‘midwives’. While planning your novel, think about all the things that excite you when you read. Do you like a bit of romance? Some mystery? An unforeseen plot twist? (Remember: It’s okay to have more than one of these in your novel, in fact, it’s a good idea). Look at your favorite books and see what they have in common. Ask yourself: what drives the plot in the books I like to read?

Once you have your answers, make a list.

It will look something like this:
– Mystery
– Menace
– High stakes – death?
– Romance

This list will become your roadmap to writing the book you want to read. And once you have your roadmap…

 

Read the full post, which includes details of four additional steps, on Writer’s Digest.

 

“Story. Dammit, story!”

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This post by James Scott Bell originally appeared on Kill Zone on 2/22/15.

In his introduction to Stephen King’s first collection of short stories, Night Shift, John D. MacDonald explains what it takes to become a successful writer. Diligence, a love of words, and empathy for people are three big factors. But he sums up the primary element this way: “Story. Dammit, story!”

And what is story? It is, says MacDonald, “something happening to somebody you have been led to care about.”

I want to home in on that something happening bit. It is the soil in which plot is planted, watered, and harvested for glorious consumption by the reader. Without it, the reading experience can quickly become a dry biscuit, with no butter or honey in sight.

Mind you, there are readers who like dry biscuits. Just not very many.

MacDonald reminds us that without the “something happening” you do not have story at all. What you have is a collection of words that may at times fly, but end up frustrating more than it entertains.

 

Read the full post on Kill Zone.

 

It's OK To Send A Message

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This post by Karen Harper originally appeared on Shelf Pleasure on 1/8/15.

I’m fully aware that over the years, fiction writers have been warned by that old Sam Goldwyn quote, “If you’ve got a message, send a telegram.” I know, I know, in mass market fiction, we’re writing primarily to entertain with great stories, memorable characters, adventure or thrills and gripping emotions rather than share a message.

Yet the longer I have written novels (over 30 years now,) I find I can’t quite follow that advice. Maybe it’s because I taught high school or college (Ohio State University) for 17 years. The teacher/instructor in me just won’t quit. Or maybe it’s because, even reading fiction, I like to learn something new and not only read a good story. Really, aren’t we learning something even if we read a fairy tale? Discovery is old as storytelling itself: Aesop’s fables are fiction and yet pack a punch.

So in my writing, although I usually begin with a setting I love—one with instant conflict embedded in it—and then progress to plot and character. I’m sorry, old Sam Goldwyn, but I think I do send a message, or at least try to inform my readers about something they might not know. Of course, I realize I can’t bog down the action. Interesting information has to be worked in, maybe through the heroine’s career or something huge (and evil?) she’s up against.

 

Read the full post on Shelf Pleasure.