The January 2024 Writing Contest is over. I had the distinct pleasure of being one of the two judges with Emma Anne Tate. We scored the stories independently. The following remarks are my opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Big Closet management, Emma Anne Tate, or Joannebarberella.
The vast majority of Big Closet authors are terrific storytellers with vivid imaginations. They are passionate about their beliefs and eager to please the readers.
Great storytelling can be improved with the use of authors’ tools that compel the readers to want to read the following sentence, the next page, the next chapter, or the next book.
About twenty years ago, I set a goal to become a published author of a Young Adult novel. I had taken several writing classes in college and wrote a column for the student newspaper. Writing a book didn’t seem too daunting. I put tremendous time, resources, and effort into that pursuit.
I read dozens of books about writing. I belonged to a local writer’s group and subscribed to numerous authors’ magazines. In my fifties and sixties, I wrote sports articles and a sports column for our local paper.
I got close but never accomplished my mainstream publishing goal and have created a personal bias as to how stories should be written.
Technically, I know how to write. That doesn’t mean everyone will love my stories. I know what literary agents look for in the manuscripts they agree to represent to publishers.
Storytelling is an art. Much of it is innate. Most of the good writers on BC are much better storytellers than I am. I can grind away at a story and make it readable. Storytellers can make their stories sparkle and shine. But if storytellers ignore essential author “rules” their message might not be as robust.
There are very few “rules” that apply to writing for BC. You can break every “rule” I’ll state in this discussion and still write a very readable and enjoyable story.
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It’s important to have something to say. Once you decide what you want to say, you should then reduce that thought to a three-to-seven-word theme. While writing, constantly refer to your theme.
The required research level varies greatly, but readers appreciate a story that tells them things they didn’t know. For one of my stories, I read seven books as background.
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One thing you hear again and again is “Show – Don’t Tell,” because for many writers, the urge to explain is almost irresistible.
Here is a good discussion of Show – Don’t Tell(link is external).
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To prevent confusion and reduce attributions, a paragraph should contain only a single character's thoughts, dialogue, or actions.
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Stories rise and fall on tensions and conflict between the characters. The reader needs to know enough about the characters to make them and their actions plausible. I prefer to write about emotionally mature characters who have developed impulses traceable to something within their personal makeup.
The Plot Thickens(link is external) by Noah Lukeman is an excellent resource for broadening your characters.
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Once I have a developed story, I will often spread the names of my key characters on a sheet of paper and draw lines between them. On those lines, I will write additional ways to create tension between those characters.
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Your story should start immediately. Don’t start with an exposition dump. Bring in what is needed within the natural flow of the story. The meat of the story should begin roughly after five to seven percent of the story has been told.
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Characters’ names are important. Readers don’t want to be confused. Try not to start the names of any key characters with the same first letter. Try to make the characters’ names consistent with their ages. I often use the Social Security website(link is external) to check the most popular names for specific birth years.
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A good setting adds to any story. A good setting helps explain what makes characters tick. Good characters are critical to unfolding even a great plot.
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A story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning should appeal to all five senses to drag the reader into suspending their disbelief. The beginning should clearly state a story question. The middle of the story should develop the necessary tension to complete the story arcs. The end should tie up enough loose ends so that the reader doesn’t feel cheated.
There is an unwritten contract between the writer and the reader. Violations of that contract will result in the reader putting aside the story and maybe never finishing it. If there are too many violations, the reader will avoid what you write in the future.
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Your characters should not make speeches.
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Electronic print demands that paragraphs be a maximum of three to four short sentences. Large blocks of text put readers off.
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Characters’ names should be used sparingly in dialogue. Next time you converse with another person, note how few times the other person will say your name.
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The fourth wall is a conceptual barrier between fiction and the reader. A casual aside breaks the fourth wall. Many literary agents consider this a major offense that will stop them from reading your manuscript.
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“Oh . . . I probably needed to tell you. . ..” If you find yourself typing those words, don’t. Things shouldn’t come into your story from out of nowhere.
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Editing is important. Self-editing is extremely hard. Find someone you like and respect to edit your manuscripts. This will give you someone to remember as a reader while writing. Getting inside your readers’ minds is crucial to communicating within a story.
Don’t be too hasty to publish. The more time that passes between when you write and when you give your story your final read – the better perspective you will have to read it as your readers will.
Good luck -- and have fun!
Jill
Comments
The fourth wall
Angela,
I'm sure that not everyone here understands what this is and how effective it can be when used correctly.
I like to think of it as talking to the camera/audience. Some genres of theater do it all the time.
Pantomime is one of those ("look behind you!"). Many standup comediennes use it to gauge reaction of their monologues on the audience.
Even the Bard himself was not beyond breaking it down with some of his comedy pieces.
In normal fiction breaking it is a big no-no but in the right circumstances, it is a powerful tool to lighten the piece.
We are all different in our approaches to our craft. Your idea of a character matrix to increase tension is a good one but I have seen it used badly. The piece ended up with an totally unnatural feeling about the relationships. Proceed with caution and do not overuse it.
Thanks for taking the time to put the article together.
Samantha
A few more things...
Just a few random notes to add to what Jill said above. :)
Use strong verbs. Weak verbs do not describe. Glare is stronger than look. Scamper is stronger than walk. Poke is stronger than push.
Anglo-Saxon roots are powerful; French and Classical roots are good for precision but often lack visceral connection to your reader.
Slang and dialect are like seasoning, don't overdo them and use appropriately but don't be afraid of them.
Tell me three things about each character, one of which is not obvious. Do this quickly after their introduction.
Sensation is key to reader immersion. In descriptions of person, place or action, using three senses will help the reader be in the story. Sense are the usual five but also, color, vibration, balance, texture, etc.
If it's important, tell me three times. Once, then soon after twice, then after a longer while, a third time.
Hear the voice of your characters and write them in that voice. Bob is terse and almost monosyllabic, Jennifer loves big words, Winston sprinkles his speech with French. Abernathy answers a question with a question. Clair calls everyone dude.
Short direct sentences can compress time. Longer sentences with clauses can stretch the action, or seem to make it hurried or crowded.
Write from character toward plot.
Re-read what you've written, even better read it aloud to someone. This is useful but can be difficult to arrange.
Write early and often.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Thank You Erin.
Thank You Erin.
I will print out your comment and tape it to my monitor for the next time I write. You get across important writing concepts condensed into digestible delicacies. Like a gourmet chef with food, you help me to realize that writing is not mechanics but artistry too. One must know the proper spices and accents and flavor combinations equivalent in writing to make the meal or book visually pleasing, a fragrant aroma, but most of all a delicious taste and of course a compelling read.
A writer was priced out of getting expert advice on editing mechanics in the past with $2 thousand per 200K word book for a human editor just for all the various writing mechanics editing without getting into creative content. Now AI tools (Not ones that write the story for you) can professionally do just as good a job as the human editor for those mechanical issues at a minute fraction of the price.
Thank you for helping me with the part of my writer's craft that those AI tools don't have a clue about. You have always been a good teacher to me over the years. All that I ask is that you don't stop. Maybe with repeating some of it will finally sink in.
All my hopes
Ariel Montine Strickland
Metaphor
Thank you for this primer, Erin! I had written something on metaphors that parallels some of what you are saying about syntax in general. We all use metaphors every day, and — here’s the thing — we tend to use the same damned ones. Readers are so used to the stock metaphors that they no longer carry any punch. Rather than stressing about this too much when I’m banging out a story, I tend to revisit every metaphor choice after my draft is done, to see whether I can come up with something original.
Emma
Never a truer word...
"Editing is important. Self-editing is extremely hard. Find someone you like and respect to edit your manuscripts. This will give you someone to remember as a reader while writing."
The above is an excellent description of the wonderful person who I have relied on many times for the needed 'tough love' editing.
Mind you, I've managed to break all of her rules at times and thumb my nose at her when she tells me off for it!
Jen
Writing
I must be doing something wrong. I just stare at a blank screen until something pops into my head.
Melanie
:)
Hey! I've got a patent on that method. :)
A lot of what I say above takes place in revision. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Breaking the law
But not the Judas Priest version.
Taking the points in sort-of-order:
Get that outline down to a simple mantra. It is your story arc; think of it as a starting point and a finish point, perhaps with a few waymarkers, but minimal detail. As you write anything longer than a short, fresh ideas will come to you.
'Show, don't tell' is crucial. Avoid being a Bond villain. Sometimes, however, that 'showing' can be done as dialogue. One of my favourite films, 'Manon des Sources', has a plot resolution consisting entirely of a conversation between two old people sat on a bench.
Know your characters as people. Readers need to care for or about characters, even if they come to hate them with a passion. Have a back story for all the main players, and use that to guide how they respond to those intercharacter tensions Angela mentions. Keep them consistent, unless there is a really good reason to break the pattern. Similarly, have a sense of place as well as a sense of person. Avoid out-of-place events, for example someone catching the Tube in Oxford, while remaining aware that while the London Underground doesn't extend to Oxford, the Oxford Tube is a bus service.
A story must have a beginning, a middle and an end, BUT doesn't have to be told in that order. I like to drop into the middle of a story, then flash back for where it came from. That can allow a damned good hook placement. The 'end' (I prefer 'resolution') is best at the finish, though.If you have a lot of subplots, be ready either to edit them, have multiple resolutions, or be prepared to write an extra book to resolve them.
Pick your 'person'. Who is telling the story? If third person, with multiple subplots, be clear whose point of view is in the driving seat at any moment.
your characters CAN make speeches, but only if the story arc requires it. A teacher, vicar, military leader, etc, will naturally make speeches. Done properly, they can work well, but I find them best split up by character reactions. A simple example: "As the vicar paused for breath, Dave turned to his wife. "Where's he going with this sermon?"
For narrative/exposition writing, unless there is a really good reason, focus on spelling and grammar, with room left for the elegant turn of phrase which is wrong for dialogue. Good prose writing should either be so wonderful that you have to stop and savour it, or so seamless that it carries you along all unaware. The second works best for storytelling.
Dialogue is DIFFERENT. People don't speak in soundbites, unless they think they are performing for an audience. They often mangle grammar, syntax, common sense, anything. Listen to how real people speak, and mimic the flow and rhythms. Many people use set phrases, rather than soundbites. That sort of thing can help as a 'speaker marker'. I had a boss years ago who started almost every reply with the words "You say that, but...", and some folk find it impossible to end a sentence without adding 'Narmin?*'. Recognise that, but don't overdo it. All part of making your characters individuals. Speaking of which:
You are not your character, and they are not you. You should know who they are, from their back story, so let them speak.
"Oh, I probably needed to tell you" can work, but only as a comment from one character to another. Remember to limit a character's knowledge of events to what they are actually able to have discovered. See the scene in 'Red Dwarf': "Oh, I probably should have told you: I'm the genetic mind-stealing mutant"
Editing is not proofreading, and they come with a need for different skill sets.
Finally, the oldest of advice: write. Write often. Set yourself a challenge every so often. Listen to a random conversation, and write it out sequentially (a technique used on my linguistics degree. Note how people speak together, across each other, and finish each other's sentences. Practise all of that, but write.
*Narmin, also rendered as any of a number of variations on "Do you know what I mean?" or 'Isn't it?"
Steph on dialogue!
Steph, you write fantastic dialogue; I can’t think of a better instructor. The only thing I would add to what you have written is that dialogue needs to be real in context. It doesn’t matter if you’ve described your protagonist as a ten-year-old boy with confidence issues; if he talks like a distinguished professor of linguistics, readers won’t believe in him. Teenagers don’t talk like adults, and they talk to other teenagers differently than they talk to parents or teachers. So each element of dialogue must be something your character would say to the person she is addressing, at that point in their conversation, in the circumstance you have described.
Emma
Technical terms
The technical linguistic terms are 'register' and 'lexis'. 'Register' is the gestalt term for the style of speech, 'lexis' is the list of words used in that register. I remember my Annie discussing that with young Darren: you speak one way to your school friends, another way to the teachers, another way to grandparents.
Emma's expansion is spot on, and ties in with finding/creating that character. If you get that bit right, you should hear them in your head.
Self Sabotage as an Excuse.
The truth is that with lots of head injuries, I am staring at a preliminary diagnosis of Ataxia. Academia was never my strong suit, so at 77 years old will I become a literary giant?
I've recently had absolutely loving and helpful critiques of my work. It remains to be seen if life will keep me long enough to ascend to a higher level.
Gwen
You can do a lot worse than taking Jill's advice.
She's been both a friend and a mentor for a long time now, and a huge influence on the quality of some of my best-received stories.
Another bit of advice I would give to people:
Find a work flow that works for you and lets you get your stories out, even it it means you don't always follow the rules-as-written to get there.
A good example of this is outlines. I know a lot of authors -- here and elsewhere -- who will talk all day long about the value of outlining, of predefining character arcs and relationships and the like. I just straight up can't do this, because it feels to much like writing the story twice, which will usually be enough to stop me finishing it even once. The compromise is that the actual core plots of my stories tend to be quite simplistic in nature... but given my tendency toward hyperfocus on character over plot, that works out fine, even if it does limit what I write in a notable way.
Second -- and be careful with this one -- is don't be afraid to target quantity as much as quality while you're learning to write.
There's an anecdote that goes around the internet quite a bit nowadays about a pottery teacher, and how they decided to do an experiment with two of their classes. In one class, they tasked the students with turning in a certain quantity of projects, while in the other, they tasked the students with only producing one project, but it being the best one they could make. The end results were that the students who produced *more* pottery had overall better quality and results than those who focused solely on a single piece.
Practice makes perfect, and the only way to practice a lot of the skills of a writer is simply to write. Always be ready to accept feedback on the flaws of your work and apply that feedback... but never be afraid to make those mistakes in pursuit of making your next story better than the last.
Read almost any mainstream published book and you'll find the occasional typo, or awkward sentences, or missing attributions that really need to be there, or logical leaps that make no sense, or plot threads abandoned or characters assassinated just to get them out of the way in service to the author's goals. There is no perfect book or story -- merely wonderful stories whose flaws show the people who created them.
The next great American/British/European/Canadian/Singaporean/Japanese/whatever novel isn't going to be a perfect book... but one that delivers a meaningful message to those who read it.
Melanie E.
Writing advice
I’ve gotten some great advice from Erin. For example I had the setting take place at a real school and I wanted to sound like I knew what I was talking about. She told me that all I needed was to describe three facts about the location. It worked great.
Over Research
The amount of research I do at times for settings before writing about them is likely ridiculous in detail - the information available via the web at our fingertips for such is absolutely astounding.
Then I sit down to write the actual scenes, and most of what I dove into never makes it to the page. Only relevant details that anchor things for the reader. At times I feel I've overdone the written descriptions, but ah well. Thing is though: *I* have it all in my head when writing it out so whatever the characters might react to, comment on, or describe (for first person narrations), is available.
Plus when describing places I myself have never been? There's that fear of 'getting it wrong' for anyone who HAS been there. Of course, for the more fantastical of my writings, that's not so much a worry. Instead for off-world places I get stuck pondering way too deeply how they 'work' in terms of their altered physics as well as other factors such as the economics of those who reside there.
Soooo many possible rabbit holes to get distracted by, at times it's a wonder anything gets written at all!!
Ah, research!
I do a lot of research, too - but it can be a mistake to say "I'm still doing research" when you ought to be writing.
Keep in mind that Shakespeare regularly made mistakes in his plays. The clock striking the hour in Julius Caesar; a game of billiards being proposed in Anthony and Cleopatra; various landlocked towns being visited by ships; Hamlet being a Catholic at a time when Danes were pagan... and it doesn't matter. Those plays are sublime. One can spend too much time trying to get all the facts right: 'Enemy at the Gates' remains a good film despite all the guns being wrong.
Help is now at hand: I'm finding that AI is largely unhelpful in writing, but it's now quite useful for background research - as long as you double check what you choose to use.
Sugar and Spiiice – TG Fiction by Bryony Marsh
Printed This Thread
I plan to keep the three pages before me and refer to them as a guide.
Gwen
I can't give writing advice
but I would like to pass on something I learned from one of my hobbies. Try something that you think is too hard. Given a couple of tries you may find it isn't. If you limit yourself to the techniques you have already mastered you cannot get any better.
I have benefited from Angela
I have benefited from Angela (Jill’s) editing skills a number of times in the past, and hope tondo so again. I know I missed having that on my contest entries.
I know also that for me, I sit down with an idea, and then write a draft.
For example, my first draft of Finding Joy! Started with the idea of a man depressed by his wife’s recent passing. I wrote whole scenes from Thanksgiving and Christmas, before the New Years Eve scene.
I wrote detailed scenes of his daughter helping pack up his wife’s things and finding things that were too big, and a full scene with dialog of the daughter’s session with him, at the therapist.
It was really rough, and as I told Kimberly I found I did not really find myself caring about the characters.
Slowly though I reworked it so that it started with New Year’s Eve, some of what I wrote full scenes before made it only as a line or two. The middle and turning point marked by the following New Year’s Eve, and then ending on New Year’s Eve 2 years later.
When I sit down originally I have a very rough thought of what I want to accomplish. Then I open my heart to the characters, and try to make them people I care about. Then I worry about cleaning and tightening up the word smithing, grammar the technical things around it.
It is definitely not textbook approach, but it is the way that works for me. I am overall happy with my results, and I am okay with that.
Still Learning
Thank you for posting this, Jill.
I've copied the main post, s well as many of the comments and put them into the file that has my story ideas, so I always have them to refer to. There's a lot of useful information there to keep in mind, especially as I tackle multi-part stories in addition to the standalone tales.
I haven't had a set writing process yet. Some stories were sketched out in more detail, others were basic plot beats. In some cases, it was a scene or bits of dialogue, maybe an ending I knew I wanted to get to. Or, in the case of "At the Midnight Hour", nothing written before I started at all.
The one thing I'll add that I've found for myself is that it helps to be flexible. Sometimes you think you know where the story needs to go, but the characters and situations will tell you something different.
Case in point -- When I started "Snowed In", I had Olivia winding up with her high school crush, but as I got into it, I realized that it didn't work for me. What wound up happening in changing it is that it opened up the dynamic between the four main characters more, allowed the crush to play a part in the reconciliation between Olivia and her brother, opened up a better ending and ultimately led to a whole new story in "Treehouse."
The flexibilty also has included walking away from a story. There's one I have an opening for, intended as a contest entry. But I wasn't feeling it, so it's in the ideas file for the future.
Another thing I've experienced is writing without regard to where it is in the story. I've really tried not to force a particular scene, to be patient to let it come to me. Back to "Snowed In", the last scene I wrote was when Olivia and her brother went at it. I knew that's what the scene was, but I didn't know what would precipitate it or what the dialogue would be. So I wrote around it until I felt I had an idea that worked.
But, yes, I have the rules and suggestions saved, which will be good to keep at hand for future stories, including that Doppler Press novel down the road.
Good advice
This is great feedback. It's taken me years to find my current routine and I think it has helped me immensely. Mine centers around a checklist I found called "Finding the Pleonasm" which is similar to what you've written. I review it before I publish any story.
I also love the advice of starting the story immediately. We should all strive to come close to Terry Volkirch's opening lines in Cosmic Loophole.
For me, this was the best two lines of the contest. It certainly painted the picture. I could smell the bar by the end.
I Guess I'm Lucky
I follow most of the rules by instinct, the simplest being, Beginning, middle, end. Jill has instilled me with some of the basic rules over decades.
Don't have your characters pontificating long speeches. If you have to, get their explanations broken up into bite-size chunks. Better still, get their history into the story by some other means. "Jack never talked about his exploits in the war."
Listen to the people giving this lesson. They really know what they're talking about, not like me.
Practice...
I think the most important thing about this post is the title. They're "Guidelines" not "Rules." You could have an encylopedia of guidelines for writing, and even if you cohered them all into one logical system that won't get you a good story. The only thing that can get you a good story is you. And for the vast majority of people that means practice, and a lot of it. Then looking at and critically thinking about your work.
You can seek out guides, and advice, and help, but ultimately it's down to you. You could spend a lifetime researching how to write the perfect story, and that is literally some people's jobs. There's still no alternative to putting pen to paper, or bashing things out on the keyboard.
Unless you are extremely lucky, or have practice in other areas of writing (like one author in the competition,) you'll spend a long time not even seeing what you're doing "wrong." Give it time, though. It'll come around.
My "guideline" is something I mention in my author page on here. Many people say to write well you need to read widely. I agree, but you also have to write widely, or if you do it'll help a lot. Across different genres, styles, even into opinion and non-fiction. You'll find different techniques and aspects from every area you can use.
Still, you just have to put the work in, in the end. No-one gets good at something without doing the thing.