What is NaNoWriMo, anyway?
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, an incentive for aspiring writers to get off their butts and start writing. It’s held in November, because what else will you do in November, anyway?
How do I find out about it?
For more info and to register for NaNoWriMo, visit their official website at www.NaNoWriMo.org. Here’s the answer to your first question, on their FAQ page:
NaNo in a Nutshell:
“What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.
Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.
Where: You write wherever you’d like. On your computer, on your iPad, on a typewriter---anywhere is fine, just as long as you’re writing! For a more in-depth NaNoWriMo overview, visit the devilishly handsome What is NaNoWriMo? and How NaNoWriMo Works pages.”
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More info and background on NaNoWriMo:
According to Wikipedia, “NaNoWriMo is an annual creative writing project coordinated by the non-profit organization The Office of Letters and Light. Spanning the month of November, the project challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a new novel in one month. The project has been running since July 1999 by Chris Baty, and started out with only 21 participants. In 2009, over 170,000 people signed up and 2,427,190,537 words were written.
How do I get involved?
Writers wishing to participate first register on the project’s website, where they can post profiles and information about their novels, including a synopsis and excerpts. Word counts are validated on the site, with writers submitting a copy of their novel at the end for automatic counting. Municipal leaders and regional forums help connect local writers with one another by holding writing events and providing encouragement.”
What are the rules?
This is for fiction writing, but participants’ novels can be on any theme and in any genre, and in any language. According to the website’s FAQ, “If you believe you're writing a novel, we believe you're writing a novel too.” You start writing November 1, and the idea is for you to reach a minimum of 50,000 words by 11:59:59 PM on November 30, local time. We’re talking first draft here, not polishing and revising, which you leave till later. You’re allowed to do all kinds of advance planning and make extensive notes, but you can’t start the actual writing until November 1.
According to Wikipedia, “Participants write either a complete novel of 50,000 words, or simply the first 50,000 words of a novel to be completed later. While 50,000 words is a relatively low word count for a complete novel, it is still significantly more than the 40,000 word mark that distinguishes a novel from a novella. Notable novels of roughly 50,000 words include The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Brave New World, and The Great Gatsby.”
To complete the NaNoWriMo challenge, participants will need to write an average of about 1,667 words per day. Organizers of the event say that the aim is simply to get people to start writing, using the deadline as an incentive to get the story going and to put words to paper. This “quantity over quality” philosophy is summarized by the site’s slogan: No Plot? No Problem! This is also the title of Chris Baty's book of advice for NaNoWriMo participants, published in late 2004 by Chronicle Books.
Is there a cost to enter this program?
No, there is no fee to participate in NaNoWriMo; all you need to do is register in order to have your progress verified.
Are there any prizes?
No, there are official prizes are awarded, but you will receive a handy-dandy certificate to display as you wish, as well as an icon to display on the Web, and you’ll be officially included on the list of winners. Anyone who reaches the 50,000 word mark is declared a winner.
How do they know I reached the target number of words?
Beginning November 25, participants can submit their novel to be automatically verified for length. No precautions are taken to prevent cheating; since the only significant reward for winning is the finished novel itself and the satisfaction of having written it, there is little incentive to cheat. Novels are verified for word count by software, and may be scrambled or otherwise encrypted before being submitted for verification, although the software does not keep any other record of text input. It is possible to win without anyone (other than the author) ever seeing or reading the novel.
In October 2008, the self-publishing company CreateSpace teamed up with NaNoWriMo to begin offering winners a single free, paperback proof copy of their manuscripts, with the option to use the proof to then sell the novel on Amazon.com.
What about community support?
The official forums on the NaNoWriMo website provide a place for advice, information, criticism, support and an opportunity for “collective procrastination.” The forums are available from the beginning of October, when signups for the year begin, until late September, when they are archived and the database is wiped in preparation for the next year.
Most regions also have one or more Municipal Liaisons (ML) assigned to them, who are volunteers that help with organizing local events. MLs are encouraged to coordinate at least two kinds of meet-ups; a kickoff party, and a "Thank God It's Over" party to celebrate successes and share novels. Kickoff parties are often held the weekend before November to give local writers a chance to meet and get geared up, although some are held on Halloween night past midnight so writers start writing in a community setting. Other events may be scheduled, including weekend meet-ups or overnight write-ins.
Don’t have a computer to write on? NaNoWriMo runs a Laptop Loaner program for those who do not have regular access to a computer or word processor. Old, yet functional laptops are donated from NaNoWriMo participants. Those wishing to borrow a laptop are required to cover the cost of shipping it back and must send a $300 deposit along with proof of identity, but are not charged a fee for using the laptops. In 2006, AlphaSmart, Inc. donated 25 brand-new Neos to expand the Laptop Loaner library with the promise of 25 more over the next two years .
by Jodie Renner, http://www.jodierennerediting.com/
Monday, October 31, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Thrillerfest, Editing, My Craft Articles
Thrillerfest in NYC was excellent again this year. I only attended the two-day Craftfest, but all the workshops were top-notch, and all led by bestselling authors. I attended classes led by Steve Berry, William Bernhardt, Grant Blackwood, Michael Palmer, John Gilstrap, Steven James, and Hallie Ephron. Wish I could have also attended some of the others that took place at the same time! Will get into more details about the seminars and topics soon. Ken Follett was our keynote speaker. He's a relaxed, fascinating speaker, and his talk was really inspiring.
As usual, I am editing three fiction manuscripts at a time (all crime fiction), as that seems to work for me. I edit the books in sections, so when one author is doing revisions on a section, I'm working on another manuscript, and so on. All three books I'm working on now are really well-written and compelling, and the authors are great to work with, so I'm really enjoying my freelance editing these days. As I near the end of one manuscript, I start looking closely at the ones others are sending me.
I haven't had time to post here as, besides editing fiction manuscripts and magazine articles, doing initial critiques of first chapters for others, and judging books for a Writer's Digest competition, I also post regularly on three other blogs: Crime Fiction Collective: http://crimefictioncollective.blogspot.com/,
The Thrill Begins: http://thethrillbegins.blogspot.com/ , and, less frequently, Blood-Red Pencil: http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/. Check out these blogs for great articles of interest to writers (and readers), especially of crime fiction and thrillers.
Here are some of my craft of fiction articles and tips posted on other blogs:
CRIME FICTION COLLECTIVE, http://crimefictioncollective.blogspot.com/
April 25, 2011: Questions for Your Beta Readers
May 9, 2011: Show, Don’t Tell
May 23: Writing a Killer Thriller, Part I
June 6: Writing a Killer Thriller, Part II
June 20: Writing a Killer Thriller, Part III
July 18: Thrillers vs. Mysteries
PUBLETARIAT.COM: http://www.publetariat.com/
April 26, 2011: Questions for Your Beta Readers
THE THRILL BEGINS, http://thethrillbegins.blogspot.com/
March 31, 2011: Writing Effective Dialogue
April 28, 2011: Creating Compelling Characters
May 19, 2011: Act First, Explain Later
June 23, 2011: Pros and Cons of First-Person Point of View
July 21, 2011: Style Blunders in Fiction
BLOOD-RED PENCIL, http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/
August 7, 2010 – Act First, Explain Later
Sept. 17, 2010: Creating Compelling Characters
Oct. 2, 2010: Tips for Writing Effective Dialogue
Dec. 15, 2010: Show, Don’t Tell
Jan. 8, 2011: Style Blunders in Fiction
Feb. 11, 2011: Deep Point of View, or How to Avoid Head-Hopping
Feb. 16, 2011: Survive Your Writing or Editing Career
March 21, 2011: The Pros and Cons of First-Person Viewpoint
March 28, 2011: Deep Point of View, Part 2
April 18, 2011 – Deep Point of View- How to Avoid Head-Hopping, Part 3
As usual, I am editing three fiction manuscripts at a time (all crime fiction), as that seems to work for me. I edit the books in sections, so when one author is doing revisions on a section, I'm working on another manuscript, and so on. All three books I'm working on now are really well-written and compelling, and the authors are great to work with, so I'm really enjoying my freelance editing these days. As I near the end of one manuscript, I start looking closely at the ones others are sending me.
I haven't had time to post here as, besides editing fiction manuscripts and magazine articles, doing initial critiques of first chapters for others, and judging books for a Writer's Digest competition, I also post regularly on three other blogs: Crime Fiction Collective: http://crimefictioncollective.blogspot.com/,
The Thrill Begins: http://thethrillbegins.blogspot.com/ , and, less frequently, Blood-Red Pencil: http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/. Check out these blogs for great articles of interest to writers (and readers), especially of crime fiction and thrillers.
Here are some of my craft of fiction articles and tips posted on other blogs:
CRIME FICTION COLLECTIVE, http://crimefictioncollective.blogspot.com/
April 25, 2011: Questions for Your Beta Readers
May 9, 2011: Show, Don’t Tell
May 23: Writing a Killer Thriller, Part I
June 6: Writing a Killer Thriller, Part II
June 20: Writing a Killer Thriller, Part III
July 18: Thrillers vs. Mysteries
PUBLETARIAT.COM: http://www.publetariat.com/
April 26, 2011: Questions for Your Beta Readers
THE THRILL BEGINS, http://thethrillbegins.blogspot.com/
March 31, 2011: Writing Effective Dialogue
April 28, 2011: Creating Compelling Characters
May 19, 2011: Act First, Explain Later
June 23, 2011: Pros and Cons of First-Person Point of View
July 21, 2011: Style Blunders in Fiction
BLOOD-RED PENCIL, http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/
August 7, 2010 – Act First, Explain Later
Sept. 17, 2010: Creating Compelling Characters
Oct. 2, 2010: Tips for Writing Effective Dialogue
Dec. 15, 2010: Show, Don’t Tell
Jan. 8, 2011: Style Blunders in Fiction
Feb. 11, 2011: Deep Point of View, or How to Avoid Head-Hopping
Feb. 16, 2011: Survive Your Writing or Editing Career
March 21, 2011: The Pros and Cons of First-Person Viewpoint
March 28, 2011: Deep Point of View, Part 2
April 18, 2011 – Deep Point of View- How to Avoid Head-Hopping, Part 3
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Two Conferences, Three Countries, Numerous Blogs and a Lot of Editing…
… all in two months. I’ve been way too busy. Time to slow down a bit and smell the roses…er, tulips…when they bloom here in Canada, that is. And get caught up on my editing.February 16-22, I was in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for a stimulating writers’ conference in a great location. The 6th Annual San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival, Feb. 18-20, offered three days of workshops, with a wide variety of topics to choose from, plus keynote speakers and cultural events to give us all a taste of Mexican food, music and dance. I met some great people at the conference. I really enjoyed getting to know and hanging out with Diana Barnes, a writer and professor of Spanish Literature (far left, in the black jacket).
And I took a little detour on the way home to join my sister and her husband in Cancun for four days of R&R -- and I don't feel a bit guilty about it!
Then, March 22-27, off to Left Coast Crime’s conference, The Big Chile, in beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico, also a high desert location. I chose one of the optional pre-conference bus tours to Taos, led by two friendly, knowledgeable guides, which turned out to be a lot of fun and a photographer’s delight. This conference, for both writers and readers of crime fiction, featured panels (in contrast to the workshops at San Miguel), talks, a bookstore, book signings, and plenty of other cultural and literary activities to choose from, culminating in an awards banquet. I was also pleased to be asked to participate in a panel with literary agents and editors, called “Industry Professionals on Publishing,” which was extremely well-attended.
At the Awards Banquet, I was pleased to join thriller writer David Morrell's table. Morrell is the author of numerous novels, starting with First Blood, which grew into the Rambo movies with Sylvester Stallone. David generously supplied wine and gave each of us a book of his (I chose his excellent book on advice for writers, called The Successful Novelist, since I had just bought three of his novels at the bookroom.)
At both events, I was very fortunate to hook up with interesting people (mainly writers), companions to share sightseeing, shopping, meals, and lots of stimulating conversation, mostly revolving around writing, editing and the state of publishing and self-publishing. In both cases, although I loved the conferences and exploring new and different parts of the continent, it was the connections with these great people and talented writers that made the experiences so enriching and satisfying. A special thanks to my friend, mystery-suspense novelist LJ Sellers, for introducing me to four other bright, dynamic people – horror and thriller writer Andrew E. Kaufman, romantic suspense writer Peg Brantley, mystery writer Judith Yates Borger, and reviewer Marlyn Beebe. We all shared ideas and brainstormed over lunches, dinners and drinks--great times!
Plus, due to a flurry of activity before I left, I’ve recently had several of my articles posted on three blogs. In February and March, Blood-Red Pencil blogspot, at http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/, posted Deep Point of View, or How to Avoid Head-Hopping, Survive Your Writing or Editing Career, The Pros and Cons of First-Person Viewpoint, and Deep Point of View, Part 2. (Part 3 coming in April.) As well, my article on “Writing Effective Dialogue” was published on The Thrill Begins blog at http://thethrillbegins.blogspot.com/, and my article on “Creating Compelling Characters” on Writing from the Peak – Pikes Peak Writers Blog, at http://pikespeakwriters.blogspot.com/.
And I was surprised to discover that my panel at LCC and my freelance editing services were mentioned in a few other very interesting blog posts: Ctrl+Alt+Pub blog, at http://ctrlaltpub.blogspot.com/2011/03/state-of-indie-i-had-pleasure-of.html and Sisters in Crime blog, at http://sisters-in-crime-sinc.blogspot.com/2011/03/left-coast-crime-2011-mystery-of-santa.html.
The very well-written article by Andrew E. Kaufman on the state of indie publishing, at Ctrl+Alt+Pub, sparked a lot of interest and debate. That will be the topic of another blog post here – the rapidly changing world of publishing, self-publishing and e-publishing.
And you might want to also check out Blood-Red Pencil’s “Ask the Editor” monthly feature for some tips for writers from editors and other writers. Here’s yesterday’s post: http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2011/04/make-most-of-your-spring-with-ask.html.
Time to get back to my editing – my “raison-d’être” and, besides being satisfying and rewarding, the activity that funds my trips to all of these great writers’ conferences!
...speaking of editing, if you have a fiction manuscript you'd like me to have a look at, my website is http://www.jodierennerediting.com/.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
LINKS TO JODIE'S BLOG POSTS on the CRAFT OF FICTION
(See down for Blood-Red Pencil blogspot posts and The Thrill Begins blogspot posts)
Act First, Explain Later (Hooking Your Readers with an Effective Opening)
Point of View – Head-Hopping
Creating Compelling Characters
Tips for Writing Effective Dialogue
Show, Don’t Tell
Style Faux-Pas (Style Blunders in Fiction)
12 Tips for Keeping Your Manuscript out of the Rejects Pile
Dialogue Nuts and Bolts
14 Tips for Breaking into the Romance Genre
16 Tips for Writing an Effective Short Story
Clear, Concise, Powerful Nonfiction Writing
Hyphens, Dashes, Ellipses
Basic Formatting of Your Manuscript
Thrillers vs. Mysteries
Writers’ Conferences in 2011
Fiction Definitions
Query Letters
Writing a Synopsis of Your Novel
JODIE’S BLOG POSTS ON BLOOD-RED PENCIL BLOGSPOT:
August 7, 2010 – Act First, Explain Later
Sept. 17, 2010: Creating Compelling Characters
Oct. 2, 2010: Tips for Writing Effective Dialogue
Dec. 15, 2010: Show, Don’t Tell
Jan. 8, 2011: Style Blunders in Fiction
Feb. 11, 2011: Deep Point of View, or How to Avoid Head-Hopping
Feb. 16, 2011 – Survive Your Writing or Editing Career
March 28, 2011: Deep Point of View, Part 2
April 2011 – Deep Point of View, Part 3
THE THRILL BEGINS Blogspot, http://thethrillbegins.blogspot.com/
March 31, 2011: Writing Effective Dialogue
April 28, 2011: Creating Compelling Characters
WRITING FROM THE PEAK - PIKES PEAK WRITERS BLOG, http://pikespeakwriters.blogspot.com/
March 30, 2011: Creating Compelling Characters
Act First, Explain Later (Hooking Your Readers with an Effective Opening)
Point of View – Head-Hopping
Creating Compelling Characters
Tips for Writing Effective Dialogue
Show, Don’t Tell
Style Faux-Pas (Style Blunders in Fiction)
12 Tips for Keeping Your Manuscript out of the Rejects Pile
Dialogue Nuts and Bolts
14 Tips for Breaking into the Romance Genre
16 Tips for Writing an Effective Short Story
Clear, Concise, Powerful Nonfiction Writing
Hyphens, Dashes, Ellipses
Basic Formatting of Your Manuscript
Thrillers vs. Mysteries
Writers’ Conferences in 2011
Fiction Definitions
Query Letters
Writing a Synopsis of Your Novel
JODIE’S BLOG POSTS ON BLOOD-RED PENCIL BLOGSPOT:
August 7, 2010 – Act First, Explain Later
Sept. 17, 2010: Creating Compelling Characters
Oct. 2, 2010: Tips for Writing Effective Dialogue
Dec. 15, 2010: Show, Don’t Tell
Jan. 8, 2011: Style Blunders in Fiction
Feb. 11, 2011: Deep Point of View, or How to Avoid Head-Hopping
Feb. 16, 2011 – Survive Your Writing or Editing Career
March 28, 2011: Deep Point of View, Part 2
April 2011 – Deep Point of View, Part 3
THE THRILL BEGINS Blogspot, http://thethrillbegins.blogspot.com/
March 31, 2011: Writing Effective Dialogue
April 28, 2011: Creating Compelling Characters
WRITING FROM THE PEAK - PIKES PEAK WRITERS BLOG, http://pikespeakwriters.blogspot.com/
March 30, 2011: Creating Compelling Characters
Thursday, February 10, 2011
WRITERS' BOOT CAMP
by Larry Seeley, Published Author and Guest Blogger
On January 28-30, 2011, I attended a Weekend Fiction Boot Camp in Ventura, California. The boot camp was advertised as “An intensive work and hone experience for serious writers who want to move out of classroom exercises and writing book prompts, and move into the world of writing professionalism. Not for the faint of heart.”
Toni Lopopolo, owner of Literary Management, and Shelly Lowenkopf, noted writing guru, led the proceedings. Fifteen aspiring authors attended. Our experience ranged from novice to published authors, and each participant was encouraged to contribute.
The weekend started off Friday evening with dinner and wine, then Toni and Shelly started the workshops by asking writers why they enrolled in the Writers’ Boot Camp and what they hoped to learn and accomplish over the weekend. Next, we talked about how to write a pitch for your book to attract an agent or a publisher. Basics, like how to distinguish narrative vs. dialogue and what makes up a scene were also covered that evening.
Each attendee submitted at least ten pages of a current project. Fourteen were fiction, and one non-fiction. The pages were emailed prior to the camp, and Toni and Shelly offered editing and comments. After Friday’s introductions and background, the next two days were spent critiquing the offerings. Toni read each selection aloud, the author not permitted to consult a printed version, but the others reading along. Once finished, she and Shelly went around the table and asked for comments. The results were amazing.
When you hear your words read back to you, a different perspective evolves. When other writers take the time to review your work and offer suggestions, it’s easy to see what you do well and where you stray. We noted our comments and returned the marked-up copies to their respective authors. Reading the comments on my writing sample was illuminating. When I came home and got back on my computer, I used many of the suggestions to rewrite several sections of my current novel based on what I learned at boot camp.
Toni and Shelly also offered various gems of wisdom regarding the art of writing. Both are qualified and have worked as editors and teachers. Shelly spent thirty-four years as an instructor in the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC and is an author and editor in his own right. Before founding Literary Management, Toni worked as an Executive Editor for Macmillan’s and St. Martin’s Press in New York, among others.
I should add that I’m prejudiced because Toni is my agent, and I have one published novel, Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves, and a second, 17 Degrees North, almost finished. When we went around the table, and Shelly asked my occupation, I replied, “rewriter,” because that’s what you become when you set out on a path to write and publish fiction. I’m also grateful to Jodie Renner for her encouragement and professional editing.
The weekend proved rewarding and worthwhile. I recommend it to anyone who aspires to success in the writing field. If you’re already selling one hundred thousand books, forget it, but for those of us who still strive toward that goal, consider going.
One writing tip—if you feel you need to use an exclamation point, you haven’t written a good line of dialogue or a creative scene. Incorporate the excitement in what you put on paper, not with punctuation symbols (and don’t write another vampire story).
For more info on the Writers’ Boot Camp, go to: Weekend Fiction Bootcamp – January 28,29,30
Toni Lopopolo Literary Management
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
JAMES FREY KNOWS HOW TO WRITE A DAMN GOOD THRILLER
Just finished an excellent book by James N. Frey called How to Write a Damn Good Thriller – A Step-by-Step Guide for Novelists and Screenwriters. I highly recommend this book for anyone who’s interested in writing thrillers, romantic suspense, crime fiction, or any other kind of fiction, for that matter.
James concludes with some great advice:
“When you start constructing your thriller, it will help a great deal if you have the right attitude. […] To write a damn good thriller, you need a killer attitude. I suggest you make a pledge to yourself to do the following: [I’m reproducing some of Frey’s key points here.]
• Commit yourself to creating strong conflicts in every line of every scene.
• Decide you will have fresh, snappy dialogue and not a single line of conversation.
• Decide to write quickly when drafting. Fast is golden.
• Commit yourself to this: You will not have any major characters that are bland and colorless. They will all be dramatic types, theatrical, driven, larger than life, clever.
• Have your characters in terrible trouble right from the beginning, and never let them get free of terrible trouble until the climax.
• Have powerful story questions operating at all times.
• End each scene or section of dramatic narrative with a bridge, a story question to carry the reader to the next one.
• Keep the clock ticking and the excitement mounting right to the climactic moment.”
And the tips I left out are excellent, too! As is the advice given throughout this interesting and informative book. Now I’m going to look for How to Write a Damn Good Novel (I & II), How to Write a Damn Good Mystery, and finally, The Key – How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth, all by the same author.
Thanks for your inspirational and practical tips, James! And thanks for giving me permission to pass on some of your damn good ideas to my blog followers and editing clients!
James N. Frey, http://www.jamesnfrey.com/
"The Best Damn Creative Workshops on Planet Earth"
James N. Frey is an internationally acclaimed creative writing teacher and workshop leader. Many participants of his workshops have gone on to publish with major New York houses and receive solid advances (as high as $2 million) and much critical acclaim.
Jodie Renner is a freelance editor specializing in thrillers, mysteries and other crime fiction, as well as YA, mainstream, and historical fiction. Jodie’s craft-of-fiction articles appear on 6 different blogs. For more information on Jodie's editing services, please visit her website at www.JodieRennerEditing.com.
Jodie's 4-page, 10,000-word e-booklet, Writing a Killer Thriller - An Editor's Guide to Writing Powerful Fiction, is only $0.99 for your Kindle or on PDF.
Friday, December 24, 2010
FICTION DEFINITIONS
by Jodie Renner, editor and author
www.JodieRenner.com
Here are some terms used in writing, editing and publishing fiction, listed in alphabetical order.
Action scene: A scene where the movement escalates to a crisis.
Active voice: A way of describing action that is preferable to passive voice. “Jason mowed the lawn” is active; “The lawn was mowed by Jason” is passive (generally to be avoided).
Anthology: A collection of short stories, novelettes, or novellas written by various authors and compiled in one book or journal.
Antagonist: The character or force in the story that opposes the protagonist. The “bad guy.”
Author intrusion: When the author of a novel provides extra information directly to the reader, rather than through dialogue or the thoughts of the characters. Usually an explanation of the times or circumstances, or a commentary or editorial about some aspect of the story. Generally to be avoided, as it takes the reader out of the story.
Autobiography: The writer’s life story written into a book. (also memoir or narrative nonfiction)
Backlist: Published books that are still in print but aren’t part of the “new” stuff coming out during the current season.
Backstory: History of a character or events that took place before the story events. Novice writers tend to introduce too much backstory too soon.
Bio: Brief info about the author. Usually appears at the end of a novel.
Biography: An in-depth examination of the life of someone other than the writer. (narrative nonfiction)
Brainstorming: Throwing out ideas and getting them down as fast as you can on paper or screen, without judging or censoring them at this point. Just get as many ideas on paper as you can for now. Then later you can decide which ones to actually use.
Chapbook: A small booklet of poetry, journal entries, or stories, often published by small presses.
Character: A story person who is brought to life via action, attitudes, dialogue, description, thoughts, and the impressions and reactions of fellow characters.
Character arc: The status of the main character as it unfolds throughout the story, the storyline or series of episodes. Characters begin the story with a certain viewpoint and, through events in the story, that viewpoint changes.
“The changes, evolution, or degradation that happens to characters over the course of the story or series.” (Jessica Page Morrell)
Character development: “The means used to develop and reveal characters, including appearance, traits, thoughts, emotions, manners, gestures, actions, backstory, and dialogue.” (Jessica Page Morrell)
Chronological order: A way of telling your story in same order as the events happened. Also called “linear order.”
Cliché: An expression that’s been used so much it has lost its power and gone stale. Some examples are: quiet as a mouse, sharp as a tack, snug as a bug in a rug, chills running up and down her spine, warm as toast, cold as ice, short and sweet, hot and bothered. Writers should avoid using clichés whenever possible. Instead, try to find a fresh way to express your idea.
Cliff-hanger: When the outcome of an event, scene, or story is unknown or in doubt.
Climax: The point of greatest tension in a story. The turning point in the action; the point at which the outcome is to be decided.
Closing scene: This is one of the most important parts of your story. It’s the last chance to make your point and leave the reader with a valid emotional sense of completion.
Colloquial: Conversational dialogue. An informal way of communicating; the way people really talk to each other, as opposed to the more formal “written English.” Uses lots of contractions and slang expressions.
Coming-of-age story: A type of novel where the protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience, or both, often by a process of disillusionment. Understanding comes after the dropping of preconceptions, a destruction of a false sense of security, or in some way the loss of innocence.
Commercial novels: Novels designed to appeal to a large audience. Academics tend to disdain commercial fiction in favor of “literary” fiction.
Complication: Intensifying the conflict; usually the protagonist meets an unforeseen obstacle.
Conflict: A complication that moves to a climax. Conflict is the opposition presented to the main character of a story by another character, by events or situations, by fate, or by some act of the main character’s own personality or nature. More loosely defined for contemporary fiction, it is the problem or tension that must be dealt with by the end of the story. A plot needs plenty of conflict in order to be interesting. Conflict is what drives a story forward.
Copyright: “All beginning writers fret over this concept because they’re worried about their work being stolen. By U.S. law, anything you write is automatically copyrighted as soon as you write it. But when your work is published, it should be accompanied by the standard notice, Copyright © DATE by AUTHOR’S NAME.” (Tom Monteleone)
Crucible or cauldron: “A locale or situation that embroils and holds together characters as the conflict in the story heats up.” (Morrell)
Denouement: The resolution of a story. Unraveling or untying the knots in a story’s ending by sorting out the details and solving the questions and issues raised.
Deus ex machine: Latin for “a god from a machine.” Borrowed from Greek drama in which a god descended or arrived onto the stage to resolve problems. In modern fiction, problems that are solved by coincidences or acts of nature. To be avoided.
Dialogue: Capturing what your characters are saying and surrounding it with quotation marks. Be sure to use colloquial language, not formal language for dialogue.
Dialogue tag: (also called “speech tag” or “tagline”): “Phrase that accompanies dialogue and tells who’s talking, as in he said or she asked. In general, speech tags should be invisible and exist only to prevent confusion.” (Jessica Page Morrell)
Draft: Usually preceded by the word “rough.” It’s generally an early version of a story, outline, or chapter of a novel. Early drafts work on plot, characterization, and pacing, rather than style and grammar.
Dramatic arc: “A narrative journey of discovery that carries your reader from the first to the last page. Arcs state the problem to be solved and work toward the resolution. You can actually have more than one dramatic arc in your novel. It’s probably better that way.” (Tom Monteleone)
Dramatic irony: The contrast between what the audience knows (a murderer waits in the bedroom) and what a character says (the victim enters the bedroom, innocently saying, “I think I'll have a long sleep”).
Dramatic narrative: The kind of story that makes a good novel. It uses dramatic tension to keep the reader involved.
Dramatic summary (or just “summary,” as opposed to “scene”): A quick summary of the key points of a scene or event, rather than giving a play-by-play account of the action and events. As in, “She got up, got dressed, had breakfast and dashed out the door.”
e-book (eBook) or electronic book: A book published in electronic format rather than on paper. Usually appears on a website or on a CD-ROM, and can be downloaded to computers or portable readers (e-readers) such as Kindle.
Editing: This is what makes your writing better. It is more than just checking for grammar, logic, and factual errors. It’s also looking for subtle ways to improve the narrative.
Entry point: Where you decide to start your story – the opening scene. This is an important choice. Once you’ve written your novel, you may decide to go back and change the entry point, for greater impact, to create a compelling “hook” for your readers.
Epilogue: Tacked on to the end of a novel, to tell readers what happened after the final chapter of the story. Some writers use it as a “wrap-up” chapter.”
Epiphany: A moment of insight, discovery, or revelation by which a character’s life or view of life is greatly altered.
e-publishing: Any type of non-paper publication, in digital format.
Exposition: Info presented on the characters and story world.
Falling action: The action that follows the climax and moves the story toward its resolution.
Final draft: The final version of your manuscript after all the editing, revising, copyediting, and proofreading has been done.
First-person point of view: A narrative style in which the story is told by one character, who refers to himself as “I”. Some examples of well-known novels written in the first-person: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas series, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier, and White Oleander by Janet Fitch.
Flashback: An interruption of the main (front) story by inserting a scene that happened in the past. Flashback techniques include memories, dreams, stories of the past told by characters, or even author intrusions.
Flash fiction: Fiction under 500 words long.
Flat character: A character that is not sufficiently developed; not complex enough to be interesting or intriguing. Also known as a “cardboard character.” You can round out a flat character in your story and make him more interesting and compelling by giving him motivations, hopes, fears, insecurities, weaknesses and strengths.
Foil: A character that is used to reveal qualities in the protagonist by holding the opposite qualities; for example a stingy character would underscore the main character’s generosity.
Foreshadowing: Introducing clues or hints to suggest later interesting developments. Used to heighten reader interest and intrigue.
Formulaic fiction: “Fiction that follows a familiar formula. The evil scientist who tries to take over the world and is destroyed by his own creation is a very old formula. The “odd man” who rebels against his oppressive society is another.” (Tom Monteleone) Most romances follow a formula.
Genre: Also called a category. A specific type of fiction, such as romance, thriller, mystery, science fiction, horror, gothic, western, erotica, historical fiction, or fantasy.
Ghost writer: A professional writer who writes the story of a well-known figure, or anyone who writes or rewrites someone else’s story. Ghost writers don’t usually get the credit (or enough credit) for their writing.
Gothic novel: “A genre that tells a story involving a pretty young woman, a castle or mansion, a menace, and a hero. This is one of the most well-known genres because it’s considered the oldest form of the novel.” (Tom Monteleone)
Graphic novel: A hybrid made by using comic book features to tell a story. Usually contains boxes with illustrations and balloons for dialogue, plus narration along the bottom of each box.
Guidelines (GL): The set of instructions an agent, publisher or editor gives out to writers for submitting their manuscript for consideration, often tailored to the particular market.
Historical fiction: Fiction set in the past. In order to be succeed in this genre, it’s important to really do your research into the period in history in which your novel is set, so your story is credible. Be careful not to use expressions that weren’t in use at the time.
Hook: An effective opening (first sentence and first paragraph) that creates a question or suggests conflict to come, and piques the reader’s curiosity and interest, so he or she wants to keep reading.
Idiomatic expression: An expression that is particular to a certain language and cultural usage, for example, “get your goat” when it means “make you angry.”
In media res: Latin for "in the middle of things"; starting a story or scene in the midst of ongoing action. An effective technique for hooking the reader in at the start of a novel.
Inciting incident: The precipitating event that sets the story in motion, disrupts the status quo, and threatens the protagonist.
Inner conflict: A character’s confusion, resistance, or doubts about his goals and direction.
Interior dialogue or monologue: Revealing a character’s thoughts.
Literary fiction: A term used to distinguish so-called “serious” fiction (that is, work with claims to literary merit) from other types of genre fiction. In broad terms, literary fiction focuses more on style, psychological depth, and character, whereas mainstream commercial fiction (the “page-turner”) focuses more on narrative and plot.
Main character or protagonist: The person in your novel through whom most of the narrative is experienced or told. It is the person we root for and care about the most.
Manuscript: Your story, typed, in pre-published format.
Melodrama: “Using or exploiting implausible, sensational, sentimental, or emotionally charged aspects in a story to create drama.” (Morrell) To be avoided.
Memoir: A narrative of a writer’s (or fictional narrator’s) family history or personal background.
Mid-list: A publishing buzzword that refers to books that aren’t best-sellers.
Motivation: A character’s drive that builds throughout a story and provides plausible explanations for actions and goals. The external forces (setting, circumstances) and internal forces (personality, temperament, morality, intelligence) that compel a character to act as he or she does in a story.
Multiple viewpoint: The point of view rotates among the characters; the readers see into the thoughts of more than one character. Best used to illustrate conflict, contrast, misunderstanding and deception among the characters.
Narrative: The story, or what happens (both fiction and nonfiction).
Narrative distance: The degree of access that the reader is granted to the characters’ thoughts, perceptions, and knowledge. Today’s readers and publishers prefer a close narrative distance – more intimacy with the main character.
Narrator: The voice and implied speaker in fiction who tells the story – this is not the writer. The narrator can be an insider in the story – a major character, a first-person character, or a minor character.
Novel: A fiction book that’s usually a minimum of 50,000 words (less for YA fiction and middle-grade novels). If yours is over 110,000 words, it probably needs some revisions to tighten it up.
Novelette: A story of about 8,000 to 20,000 words.
Novella: Fiction generally between 20,000 and 50,000 words, but can vary.
Opening: The first few pages of your novel. Especially the first paragraph and first page – very important.
Outline: A plan for your story. Can take several forms, such as written in paragraphs or point-form. Some writers do a scene-by-scene outline; others just do a rough synopsis of the main plot. Character outlines are also very useful.
Pace: The speed at which a story unfolds. Varies within the story, but certain genres, like suspense thrillers, are generally faster-paced.
Passive voice: A way of describing action in which the subject receives the action instead of performing it. Weakens the impact, so to be avoided. Use active voice instead. Passive: “The ball was thrown by the boy.” Active: “The boy threw the ball.”
Pen name or pseudonym: When the writer makes up another name to use as the author of his books. Usually used when the author doesn’t want his/her real identity known. Some authors write different genres under different names.
Plagiarism: “Stealing someone else’s work, usually word-for-word, and publishing it as your own work.” (Tom Monteleone)
Plot: A series of causally-related events with ever-intensifying conflicts, which forces the characters to take action to resolve the conflicts.
Plot line: The series of events that push a story forward.
Plot point: “Crucial events in fiction from which there is no turning back and which crank up tension and introduce new elements and complications.” (Morrell)
Point of view (Viewpoint): “Perspective, vantage point, or filtering consciousness from which the story is presented.” (Morrell) Point of view refers to who is telling the story and how it is told. The point of view character is the character whose thoughts, feelings and perceptions are revealed to the reader.
Premise: Who and what the story is about. You should be able to state the premise of your story in a sentence or two: Who does what, and why? The premise brings out or hints at the main conflict.
Protagonist: The main character in fiction that the reader comes to know intimately, and who is most changed and hurt by the events of the plot. The protagonist or hero/heroine is the central character in the story who engages our interest or sympathy.
Purple prose: "A term used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader’s response." (Wikipedia)
Resolution: The ending in the story after the climax, when the situation is sorted out.
Reversal: The moment in a story when an unexpected event occurs, changing the plot direction.
Revising or Revision: Making changes to your manuscript to improve the plot, characterization, dialogue, point of view, pacing, style, voice, etc.
Rising action: The events, conflicts, and crises that happen in the story leading up to the climax.
Round character: A well-developed, complex, compelling character with motivations, hopes, fears, interests, insecurities, strengths, etc. A round character is multi-dimensional, as opposed to a one-dimensional “flat” or “cardboard” character.
SASE: self-addressed stamped envelope
Sense impressions: Describing or showing what your character is seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. An effective technique for pulling the reader more completely into your story.
Scene: “A structural unit in fiction, set in a precise time and location and made up of action, description, and sometimes exposition. A scene is an event that is essential to the plot, is based around a goal or purpose, meeting some form of opposition, and usually contains some form of emotional reversal.” (Morrell)
Sci fi: Science Fiction
Secondary characters: They have roughly the same role as “supporting actors” in films. Their role helps develop the main characters as well as the plot and subplots.
Sequel: Within a novel, a section that follows a scene, where a character reacts to the events of the preceding scene. Also refers to other stories that follow the character(s) of the first, on new adventures.
Setting: Time and place of a story, including geographical location, terrain, urban/rural, weather, interiors, epoch, year, season, day/night, lighting, and other factors that establish credibility and context. The locale, time and social circumstances of a story.
Short short story: Fiction story that is under 1,000 words.
Short story: Fiction story that is under 10,000 words, but is often much shorter. Usually less than 7,000 for most markets.
Slush pile: The pile (or electronic files) of unsolicited manuscripts sent to an agent or publisher, who will slowly work his/her way through them, often getting “readers” to rate them first.
Speculative fiction: Fiction dealing with realities other than our own. Science fiction.
Speech tag: See “Dialogue tag.”
Static: A scene that lacks action, dialogue and tension, and doesn’t move the story forward. Take out all static scenes or summarize them in a few sentences instead.
Static character: A character who remains unchanged throughout the story. Generally to be avoided.
Stock characters: Minor characters who occupy traditional roles, such as nosy neighbour, sassy waitress, cynical cop, etc.
Story line: “The series of linked events that follows a protagonist pursuing the story goal toward a resolution and fulfills the story’s promise, thus making it emotionally satisfying.” (Morrell)
Style: “How a writer uses language to communicate ideas or a story. Includes voice, syntax, diction, sentence length and structure, and figurative language.” (Morrell)
The way in which an author uses words that give his or her work a distinctive manner of expression. It is the combined qualities that distinguish one writer’s work from another’s. Closely related to “voice.”
Subplot: Secondary or minor plot in a story, usually related to the main plot.
Subtext: The story within the story. “The river of emotion that lies beneath scenes. Usually what is unspoken during dialogue, often because it is too dangerous to speak of.” (Morrell)
Suspense: The pleasurable anxiety we feel that heightens our attention to the story. Anxiety about what will happen next in a story. “Creating curiosity, worry and involvement by withholding and delaying information and resolutions.” (Morrell)
Symbol: “An object, action or image imbued with meaning; it stands for something beyond itself.”
Synopsis: Similar to a plot outline. Usually sent to agents and publishers along with a query letter. The main points of your story, told in narrative form (not point form), but in present tense. Usually around one to ten pages long, depending on the submission requirements of the particular agent or publisher.
Tagline: See “Dialogue tag.”
Telling: “Can refer to relating information that happens offstage or a habit of summarizing rather than dramatizing action, emotions, and information.” (Morrell)
Third-person point of view: The point of view most writers use. The narrator describes the action by using he, she, it, they, etc.
Tone: The prevailing mood or atmosphere in a literary work – joyful, sad, brooding, angry, playful, and so on. A writer’s tone can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic.
Transition: A technique used to move the reader quickly from one scene to the next. “Telling” rather than “showing”.
Unreliable narrator: “A narrator who intentionally or unintentionally misleads the reader. Often has a hidden agenda, secret, or specific reason for misleading the reader.” (Morrell)
Vanity publishing: Books published at the total expense of the author.
Voice: Has two meanings: a) the author's style, the quality that makes his or her writing unique, and which conveys the author's attitude, personality, and character; or b) the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a first-person narrator; a persona. (from About.com, Fiction Writing)
Because voice has so much to do with the reader's experience of a work of literature, it is one of the most important elements of a piece of writing.
Wraparound structure: A story that begins near the climax, then returns to the opening scene or inciting incident and proceeds toward the end.” (Morrell)
Word count: The number of words in your manuscript. If it’s not visible in the bottom left corner, just click on Control + Shift + G (all three at the same time), and a box will appear, giving you the word count of your whole document, or that section of it that is open in this file.
Wordiness: a sloppy kind of writing, where the writer uses many more words and repetitions of ideas than is necessary to get the meaning across. Slows down the pace and bores the reader. This type of writing needs to be revised and tightened up.
YA (Young Adult) fiction: The category of fiction for young adults, ages 12 to 18 (some publishers say 12 to 16). YA novels are often between 20,000 and 50,000 words long, but can of course be longer.
Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction
editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her
series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and
WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two
clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and
QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also
organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in
BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child
Workers. Jodie lives in Kelowna, BC, Canada.
Website: www.JodieRenner.com; Facebook. Amazon Author Page.
www.JodieRenner.com
Here are some terms used in writing, editing and publishing fiction, listed in alphabetical order.
Action scene: A scene where the movement escalates to a crisis.
Active voice: A way of describing action that is preferable to passive voice. “Jason mowed the lawn” is active; “The lawn was mowed by Jason” is passive (generally to be avoided).
Anthology: A collection of short stories, novelettes, or novellas written by various authors and compiled in one book or journal.
Antagonist: The character or force in the story that opposes the protagonist. The “bad guy.”
Author intrusion: When the author of a novel provides extra information directly to the reader, rather than through dialogue or the thoughts of the characters. Usually an explanation of the times or circumstances, or a commentary or editorial about some aspect of the story. Generally to be avoided, as it takes the reader out of the story.
Autobiography: The writer’s life story written into a book. (also memoir or narrative nonfiction)
Backlist: Published books that are still in print but aren’t part of the “new” stuff coming out during the current season.
Backstory: History of a character or events that took place before the story events. Novice writers tend to introduce too much backstory too soon.
Bio: Brief info about the author. Usually appears at the end of a novel.
Biography: An in-depth examination of the life of someone other than the writer. (narrative nonfiction)
Brainstorming: Throwing out ideas and getting them down as fast as you can on paper or screen, without judging or censoring them at this point. Just get as many ideas on paper as you can for now. Then later you can decide which ones to actually use.
Chapbook: A small booklet of poetry, journal entries, or stories, often published by small presses.
Character: A story person who is brought to life via action, attitudes, dialogue, description, thoughts, and the impressions and reactions of fellow characters.
Character arc: The status of the main character as it unfolds throughout the story, the storyline or series of episodes. Characters begin the story with a certain viewpoint and, through events in the story, that viewpoint changes.
“The changes, evolution, or degradation that happens to characters over the course of the story or series.” (Jessica Page Morrell)
Character development: “The means used to develop and reveal characters, including appearance, traits, thoughts, emotions, manners, gestures, actions, backstory, and dialogue.” (Jessica Page Morrell)
Chronological order: A way of telling your story in same order as the events happened. Also called “linear order.”
Cliché: An expression that’s been used so much it has lost its power and gone stale. Some examples are: quiet as a mouse, sharp as a tack, snug as a bug in a rug, chills running up and down her spine, warm as toast, cold as ice, short and sweet, hot and bothered. Writers should avoid using clichés whenever possible. Instead, try to find a fresh way to express your idea.
Cliff-hanger: When the outcome of an event, scene, or story is unknown or in doubt.
Climax: The point of greatest tension in a story. The turning point in the action; the point at which the outcome is to be decided.
Closing scene: This is one of the most important parts of your story. It’s the last chance to make your point and leave the reader with a valid emotional sense of completion.
Colloquial: Conversational dialogue. An informal way of communicating; the way people really talk to each other, as opposed to the more formal “written English.” Uses lots of contractions and slang expressions.
Coming-of-age story: A type of novel where the protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience, or both, often by a process of disillusionment. Understanding comes after the dropping of preconceptions, a destruction of a false sense of security, or in some way the loss of innocence.
Commercial novels: Novels designed to appeal to a large audience. Academics tend to disdain commercial fiction in favor of “literary” fiction.
Complication: Intensifying the conflict; usually the protagonist meets an unforeseen obstacle.
Conflict: A complication that moves to a climax. Conflict is the opposition presented to the main character of a story by another character, by events or situations, by fate, or by some act of the main character’s own personality or nature. More loosely defined for contemporary fiction, it is the problem or tension that must be dealt with by the end of the story. A plot needs plenty of conflict in order to be interesting. Conflict is what drives a story forward.
Copyright: “All beginning writers fret over this concept because they’re worried about their work being stolen. By U.S. law, anything you write is automatically copyrighted as soon as you write it. But when your work is published, it should be accompanied by the standard notice, Copyright © DATE by AUTHOR’S NAME.” (Tom Monteleone)
Crucible or cauldron: “A locale or situation that embroils and holds together characters as the conflict in the story heats up.” (Morrell)
Denouement: The resolution of a story. Unraveling or untying the knots in a story’s ending by sorting out the details and solving the questions and issues raised.
Deus ex machine: Latin for “a god from a machine.” Borrowed from Greek drama in which a god descended or arrived onto the stage to resolve problems. In modern fiction, problems that are solved by coincidences or acts of nature. To be avoided.
Dialogue: Capturing what your characters are saying and surrounding it with quotation marks. Be sure to use colloquial language, not formal language for dialogue.
Dialogue tag: (also called “speech tag” or “tagline”): “Phrase that accompanies dialogue and tells who’s talking, as in he said or she asked. In general, speech tags should be invisible and exist only to prevent confusion.” (Jessica Page Morrell)
Draft: Usually preceded by the word “rough.” It’s generally an early version of a story, outline, or chapter of a novel. Early drafts work on plot, characterization, and pacing, rather than style and grammar.
Dramatic arc: “A narrative journey of discovery that carries your reader from the first to the last page. Arcs state the problem to be solved and work toward the resolution. You can actually have more than one dramatic arc in your novel. It’s probably better that way.” (Tom Monteleone)
Dramatic irony: The contrast between what the audience knows (a murderer waits in the bedroom) and what a character says (the victim enters the bedroom, innocently saying, “I think I'll have a long sleep”).
Dramatic narrative: The kind of story that makes a good novel. It uses dramatic tension to keep the reader involved.
Dramatic summary (or just “summary,” as opposed to “scene”): A quick summary of the key points of a scene or event, rather than giving a play-by-play account of the action and events. As in, “She got up, got dressed, had breakfast and dashed out the door.”
e-book (eBook) or electronic book: A book published in electronic format rather than on paper. Usually appears on a website or on a CD-ROM, and can be downloaded to computers or portable readers (e-readers) such as Kindle.
Editing: This is what makes your writing better. It is more than just checking for grammar, logic, and factual errors. It’s also looking for subtle ways to improve the narrative.
Entry point: Where you decide to start your story – the opening scene. This is an important choice. Once you’ve written your novel, you may decide to go back and change the entry point, for greater impact, to create a compelling “hook” for your readers.
Epilogue: Tacked on to the end of a novel, to tell readers what happened after the final chapter of the story. Some writers use it as a “wrap-up” chapter.”
Epiphany: A moment of insight, discovery, or revelation by which a character’s life or view of life is greatly altered.
e-publishing: Any type of non-paper publication, in digital format.
Exposition: Info presented on the characters and story world.
Falling action: The action that follows the climax and moves the story toward its resolution.
Final draft: The final version of your manuscript after all the editing, revising, copyediting, and proofreading has been done.
First-person point of view: A narrative style in which the story is told by one character, who refers to himself as “I”. Some examples of well-known novels written in the first-person: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas series, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier, and White Oleander by Janet Fitch.
Flashback: An interruption of the main (front) story by inserting a scene that happened in the past. Flashback techniques include memories, dreams, stories of the past told by characters, or even author intrusions.
Flash fiction: Fiction under 500 words long.
Flat character: A character that is not sufficiently developed; not complex enough to be interesting or intriguing. Also known as a “cardboard character.” You can round out a flat character in your story and make him more interesting and compelling by giving him motivations, hopes, fears, insecurities, weaknesses and strengths.
Foil: A character that is used to reveal qualities in the protagonist by holding the opposite qualities; for example a stingy character would underscore the main character’s generosity.
Foreshadowing: Introducing clues or hints to suggest later interesting developments. Used to heighten reader interest and intrigue.
Formulaic fiction: “Fiction that follows a familiar formula. The evil scientist who tries to take over the world and is destroyed by his own creation is a very old formula. The “odd man” who rebels against his oppressive society is another.” (Tom Monteleone) Most romances follow a formula.
Genre: Also called a category. A specific type of fiction, such as romance, thriller, mystery, science fiction, horror, gothic, western, erotica, historical fiction, or fantasy.
Ghost writer: A professional writer who writes the story of a well-known figure, or anyone who writes or rewrites someone else’s story. Ghost writers don’t usually get the credit (or enough credit) for their writing.
Gothic novel: “A genre that tells a story involving a pretty young woman, a castle or mansion, a menace, and a hero. This is one of the most well-known genres because it’s considered the oldest form of the novel.” (Tom Monteleone)
Graphic novel: A hybrid made by using comic book features to tell a story. Usually contains boxes with illustrations and balloons for dialogue, plus narration along the bottom of each box.
Guidelines (GL): The set of instructions an agent, publisher or editor gives out to writers for submitting their manuscript for consideration, often tailored to the particular market.
Historical fiction: Fiction set in the past. In order to be succeed in this genre, it’s important to really do your research into the period in history in which your novel is set, so your story is credible. Be careful not to use expressions that weren’t in use at the time.
Hook: An effective opening (first sentence and first paragraph) that creates a question or suggests conflict to come, and piques the reader’s curiosity and interest, so he or she wants to keep reading.
Idiomatic expression: An expression that is particular to a certain language and cultural usage, for example, “get your goat” when it means “make you angry.”
In media res: Latin for "in the middle of things"; starting a story or scene in the midst of ongoing action. An effective technique for hooking the reader in at the start of a novel.
Inciting incident: The precipitating event that sets the story in motion, disrupts the status quo, and threatens the protagonist.
Inner conflict: A character’s confusion, resistance, or doubts about his goals and direction.
Interior dialogue or monologue: Revealing a character’s thoughts.
Literary fiction: A term used to distinguish so-called “serious” fiction (that is, work with claims to literary merit) from other types of genre fiction. In broad terms, literary fiction focuses more on style, psychological depth, and character, whereas mainstream commercial fiction (the “page-turner”) focuses more on narrative and plot.
Main character or protagonist: The person in your novel through whom most of the narrative is experienced or told. It is the person we root for and care about the most.
Manuscript: Your story, typed, in pre-published format.
Melodrama: “Using or exploiting implausible, sensational, sentimental, or emotionally charged aspects in a story to create drama.” (Morrell) To be avoided.
Memoir: A narrative of a writer’s (or fictional narrator’s) family history or personal background.
Mid-list: A publishing buzzword that refers to books that aren’t best-sellers.
Motivation: A character’s drive that builds throughout a story and provides plausible explanations for actions and goals. The external forces (setting, circumstances) and internal forces (personality, temperament, morality, intelligence) that compel a character to act as he or she does in a story.
Multiple viewpoint: The point of view rotates among the characters; the readers see into the thoughts of more than one character. Best used to illustrate conflict, contrast, misunderstanding and deception among the characters.
Narrative: The story, or what happens (both fiction and nonfiction).
Narrative distance: The degree of access that the reader is granted to the characters’ thoughts, perceptions, and knowledge. Today’s readers and publishers prefer a close narrative distance – more intimacy with the main character.
Narrator: The voice and implied speaker in fiction who tells the story – this is not the writer. The narrator can be an insider in the story – a major character, a first-person character, or a minor character.
Novel: A fiction book that’s usually a minimum of 50,000 words (less for YA fiction and middle-grade novels). If yours is over 110,000 words, it probably needs some revisions to tighten it up.
Novelette: A story of about 8,000 to 20,000 words.
Novella: Fiction generally between 20,000 and 50,000 words, but can vary.
Opening: The first few pages of your novel. Especially the first paragraph and first page – very important.
Outline: A plan for your story. Can take several forms, such as written in paragraphs or point-form. Some writers do a scene-by-scene outline; others just do a rough synopsis of the main plot. Character outlines are also very useful.
Pace: The speed at which a story unfolds. Varies within the story, but certain genres, like suspense thrillers, are generally faster-paced.
Passive voice: A way of describing action in which the subject receives the action instead of performing it. Weakens the impact, so to be avoided. Use active voice instead. Passive: “The ball was thrown by the boy.” Active: “The boy threw the ball.”
Pen name or pseudonym: When the writer makes up another name to use as the author of his books. Usually used when the author doesn’t want his/her real identity known. Some authors write different genres under different names.
Plagiarism: “Stealing someone else’s work, usually word-for-word, and publishing it as your own work.” (Tom Monteleone)
Plot: A series of causally-related events with ever-intensifying conflicts, which forces the characters to take action to resolve the conflicts.
Plot line: The series of events that push a story forward.
Plot point: “Crucial events in fiction from which there is no turning back and which crank up tension and introduce new elements and complications.” (Morrell)
Point of view (Viewpoint): “Perspective, vantage point, or filtering consciousness from which the story is presented.” (Morrell) Point of view refers to who is telling the story and how it is told. The point of view character is the character whose thoughts, feelings and perceptions are revealed to the reader.
Premise: Who and what the story is about. You should be able to state the premise of your story in a sentence or two: Who does what, and why? The premise brings out or hints at the main conflict.
Protagonist: The main character in fiction that the reader comes to know intimately, and who is most changed and hurt by the events of the plot. The protagonist or hero/heroine is the central character in the story who engages our interest or sympathy.
Purple prose: "A term used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader’s response." (Wikipedia)
Resolution: The ending in the story after the climax, when the situation is sorted out.
Reversal: The moment in a story when an unexpected event occurs, changing the plot direction.
Revising or Revision: Making changes to your manuscript to improve the plot, characterization, dialogue, point of view, pacing, style, voice, etc.
Rising action: The events, conflicts, and crises that happen in the story leading up to the climax.
Round character: A well-developed, complex, compelling character with motivations, hopes, fears, interests, insecurities, strengths, etc. A round character is multi-dimensional, as opposed to a one-dimensional “flat” or “cardboard” character.
SASE: self-addressed stamped envelope
Sense impressions: Describing or showing what your character is seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. An effective technique for pulling the reader more completely into your story.
Scene: “A structural unit in fiction, set in a precise time and location and made up of action, description, and sometimes exposition. A scene is an event that is essential to the plot, is based around a goal or purpose, meeting some form of opposition, and usually contains some form of emotional reversal.” (Morrell)
Sci fi: Science Fiction
Secondary characters: They have roughly the same role as “supporting actors” in films. Their role helps develop the main characters as well as the plot and subplots.
Sequel: Within a novel, a section that follows a scene, where a character reacts to the events of the preceding scene. Also refers to other stories that follow the character(s) of the first, on new adventures.
Setting: Time and place of a story, including geographical location, terrain, urban/rural, weather, interiors, epoch, year, season, day/night, lighting, and other factors that establish credibility and context. The locale, time and social circumstances of a story.
Short short story: Fiction story that is under 1,000 words.
Short story: Fiction story that is under 10,000 words, but is often much shorter. Usually less than 7,000 for most markets.
Slush pile: The pile (or electronic files) of unsolicited manuscripts sent to an agent or publisher, who will slowly work his/her way through them, often getting “readers” to rate them first.
Speculative fiction: Fiction dealing with realities other than our own. Science fiction.
Speech tag: See “Dialogue tag.”
Static: A scene that lacks action, dialogue and tension, and doesn’t move the story forward. Take out all static scenes or summarize them in a few sentences instead.
Static character: A character who remains unchanged throughout the story. Generally to be avoided.
Stock characters: Minor characters who occupy traditional roles, such as nosy neighbour, sassy waitress, cynical cop, etc.
Story line: “The series of linked events that follows a protagonist pursuing the story goal toward a resolution and fulfills the story’s promise, thus making it emotionally satisfying.” (Morrell)
Style: “How a writer uses language to communicate ideas or a story. Includes voice, syntax, diction, sentence length and structure, and figurative language.” (Morrell)
The way in which an author uses words that give his or her work a distinctive manner of expression. It is the combined qualities that distinguish one writer’s work from another’s. Closely related to “voice.”
Subplot: Secondary or minor plot in a story, usually related to the main plot.
Subtext: The story within the story. “The river of emotion that lies beneath scenes. Usually what is unspoken during dialogue, often because it is too dangerous to speak of.” (Morrell)
Suspense: The pleasurable anxiety we feel that heightens our attention to the story. Anxiety about what will happen next in a story. “Creating curiosity, worry and involvement by withholding and delaying information and resolutions.” (Morrell)
Symbol: “An object, action or image imbued with meaning; it stands for something beyond itself.”
Synopsis: Similar to a plot outline. Usually sent to agents and publishers along with a query letter. The main points of your story, told in narrative form (not point form), but in present tense. Usually around one to ten pages long, depending on the submission requirements of the particular agent or publisher.
Tagline: See “Dialogue tag.”
Telling: “Can refer to relating information that happens offstage or a habit of summarizing rather than dramatizing action, emotions, and information.” (Morrell)
Third-person point of view: The point of view most writers use. The narrator describes the action by using he, she, it, they, etc.
Tone: The prevailing mood or atmosphere in a literary work – joyful, sad, brooding, angry, playful, and so on. A writer’s tone can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic.
Transition: A technique used to move the reader quickly from one scene to the next. “Telling” rather than “showing”.
Unreliable narrator: “A narrator who intentionally or unintentionally misleads the reader. Often has a hidden agenda, secret, or specific reason for misleading the reader.” (Morrell)
Vanity publishing: Books published at the total expense of the author.
Voice: Has two meanings: a) the author's style, the quality that makes his or her writing unique, and which conveys the author's attitude, personality, and character; or b) the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a first-person narrator; a persona. (from About.com, Fiction Writing)
Because voice has so much to do with the reader's experience of a work of literature, it is one of the most important elements of a piece of writing.
Wraparound structure: A story that begins near the climax, then returns to the opening scene or inciting incident and proceeds toward the end.” (Morrell)
Word count: The number of words in your manuscript. If it’s not visible in the bottom left corner, just click on Control + Shift + G (all three at the same time), and a box will appear, giving you the word count of your whole document, or that section of it that is open in this file.
Wordiness: a sloppy kind of writing, where the writer uses many more words and repetitions of ideas than is necessary to get the meaning across. Slows down the pace and bores the reader. This type of writing needs to be revised and tightened up.
YA (Young Adult) fiction: The category of fiction for young adults, ages 12 to 18 (some publishers say 12 to 16). YA novels are often between 20,000 and 50,000 words long, but can of course be longer.
Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction
editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her
series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and
WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two
clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and
QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also
organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in
BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child
Workers. Jodie lives in Kelowna, BC, Canada.
Website: www.JodieRenner.com; Facebook. Amazon Author Page.Friday, December 10, 2010
TERMS IN FICTION
Here are some terms that apply to works of fiction such as novels, novellas and short stories. Also, please see my much more detailed and comprehensive list of Fiction Definitions at http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/2010/12/fiction-definitions.html
PREMISE: Who and what the story is about. You should be able to state the premise of your story in a sentence or two: Who does what, and why? More concrete than "theme."
THEME: the central idea or meaning of a story; what the work is about. When you express the theme in your own words, it should be worded in a complete sentence and universally expressed.
CHARACTER: an imagined person in a literary work. Some famous characters in fiction: Romeo, Juliet, Jay Gatsby, in The Great Gatsby, Holden Caulfield, in The Catcher in the Rye, Sherlock Holmes, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Atticus Finch, in To Kill A Mockingbird.
Flat character: a one-dimensional figure, with a simple personality. Flat characters, also known as “cardboard characters,” show none of the human depth, complexity, and contrariness of a round character or of most real people. You can round out a flat character in your story and make him more interesting and compelling by giving him hopes, fears and motivations.
Round character: a full, multidimensional character whose personality reveals some of the richness and complexity we are used to seeing in real people, rather than the transparent obviousness of a flat character. We often see a significant change take place in a round character during the story.
Protagonist: The protagonist or hero or main character is the central character in the story who engages our interest or sympathy. Usually the “good guy.”
Antagonist: the character who opposes the protagonist. The “bad guy.”
Examples: In Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chief Bromden in the narrator, McMurphy is the protagonist, and Nurse Ratched is the antagonist.
Character Arc –the status of the main character as it unfolds throughout the story, the storyline or series of episodes. Characters begin the story with a certain viewpoint and, through events in the story, that viewpoint changes. Some examples include:
• In Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman’s character begins as a misogynistic chauvinist but when he is forced to play the part of a woman, he also experiences a change in how he views women and becomes a different character by the end.
• In Empire of the Sun, Jim begins as a carefree young boy. After the Japanese take over Shanghai and he is separated from his family, he is forced to suffer trauma because of the war.
• In Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle degenerates from a somewhat disturbed, highly disorganized Vietnam veteran into an extremely highly-organized, full-blown psychotic.
Motivation is the external forces (setting, circumstances) and internal forces (personality, temperament, morality, intelligence) that compel a character to act as he or she does in a story.
PLOT: The events that unfold in a story; the action and direction of a story; the story line. The events can be presented in a variety of orders:
Chronological: the story is told in the order in which things happen. It begins with what happens first, then second, and so on, until the last incident is related.
In medias res: Latin for “in the midst of things.” We enter the story on the verge of some important moment.
Flashback: the returning to an earlier moment in literary time, usually through a character’s reminiscing. A device that allows the writer to present events that happened before the time of the current narration or the current events in the fiction. Flashback techniques include memories, dreams, stories of the past told by characters, or even author intrusions. (That is, the author might simply say, “But back in Jake’s youth….”) Flashback is useful for exposition, to fill in the reader about a character or place, or about the background to a conflict, but be careful not to overdo it.
Exposition: the opening portion that sets the scene, introduces the main characters, tells us (briefly) what happened before the story opened, and provides any other background information that we need in order to understand and care about the events to follow. Today's bestselling authors spend much less time setting the scene and providing background information; they tend to jump to a the first conflict (main) quite quickly.
Rising action: the series of events that lead to the climax of the story, usually the conflicts or struggles of the protagonist. During rising action, the basic internal conflict is complicated by the introduction of related secondary conflicts, including various obstacles that frustrate the protagonist’s attempt to reach his goal.
Conflict: a complication that moves to a climax. Conflict is the opposition presented to the main character of a story by another character, by events or situations, by fate, or by some act of the main character’s own personality or nature. More loosely defined for contemporary fiction, it is the problem or tension that must somehow be addressed (if not perfectly resolved) by the end of the story. A plot needs plenty of conflict in order to be interesting. Conflict is what drives a story forward.
Suspense: the pleasurable anxiety we feel that heightens our attention to the story. Anxiety about what will happen next in a story. In Poe’s short story, The Pit and the Pendulum, the main character is strapped to a board in a dark cell while a pendulum in the form of a steel blade swings over him. With each swing, the pendulum descends closer to his body. The reader is kept in suspense about how the character will free himself.
Foreshadowing: The indication of events to come later in the story. The introduction of specific words, images, or events into a story to suggest or anticipate later events that are central to the action and its resolution. The presentation of hints and clues about later events in the story. Often used to “tease” the reader and heighten her interest.
Climax: The point of greatest tension in a story. The turning point in the action; the point at which the outcome is to be decided. The climax is the turning point, which marks a change, for the better or the worse, in the protagonist’s affairs. In a plot line, the climax occurs after the rising action and before the falling action.
Falling action: The sequence of events that follow the climax and end in the resolution. During the falling action, or resolution, which is the moment of reversal after the climax, the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels, with the protagonist winning or losing against the antagonist. The falling action might contain a moment of final suspense, during which the final outcome of the conflict is in doubt. Summary: The falling action is that part of the story where the main part (the climax) has finished and you’re heading to the conclusion.
Examples of falling action: In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling, the falling action occurs after the climax of Professor Snape's apparent hex upon Harry during the Quidditch match: Harry, Ron, and Hermione learn about the Sorcerer's Stone; Voldemort attacks Harry in the Forbidden Forest; and Harry faces Professor Quirrell and Voldemort.
Denouement: (French for “untying of the knot”) The series of events that follow the plot’s climax. It is the resolution of the story, its conclusion or outcome. In a murder mystery, the denouement may outline the clues that led to the capture of a murderer. In a romance, the hero and heroine finally resolve all the conflicts that were keeping them apart and experience their “happily ever after” moment.
Resolution: Same as denouement: The part of the story’s plot line in which the problem of the story is resolved or worked out. This occurs after the falling action and is typically where the story ends.
Subplot: Secondary or minor plot in a story, usually related to the main plot.
POINT OF VIEW: The vantage point from which a story is told. Point of view refers to who is telling the story and how it is told. What we know and how we feel about the events in a story are shaped by the perceptions of the point of view character(s). We, the readers, are aware of the point of view character’s thoughts, feelings and motivations.
In the first-person point of view, the narrator is a participant in the story. A story told by a narrator who is not one of the story’s participants is called third-person point of view.
NARRATOR: the teller of a story (not the author, but the invented speaker of the story).
Third-person narrator - uses “he,” “she,” or “they” to tell the story and does not participate in the action.
The first-person narrator - uses “I” and “we” and can be a major or minor participant in the action. With a first-person narrator, the “I” presents the point of view of only one character’s consciousness. The reader is restricted to the perceptions, thoughts, and feelings of that single character.
A second-person narrator, “you,” is possible but rarely used because of the awkwardness in thrusting the reader into the story, as in “You are minding your own business on a park bench when a drunk steps out of the bushes and demands your lunch bag.”
Omniscient narrator - takes us inside the characters. Omniscient narrator is all-knowing.
Editorial omniscience: the narrator not only recounts actions and thoughts, but also judges.
Neutral omniscience allows characters’ actions and thoughts to speak for themselves.
Selective omniscient or limited omniscient: the narrator takes us inside one or two characters. The selective omniscient narrator is much more confined than the omniscient narrator. With selective or limited omniscience, the author often restricts the narrator to the single perspective of either a major or a minor character. The way that people, places, and events appear to that character is the way that they appear to the reader.
Stream-of-consciousness: when limited omniscience attempts to record mental activity ranging from consciousness to the unconscious, from clear perceptions to confused longings.
Objective narration - the narrator is outside the characters. Objective point of view employs a narrator who does NOT see into the mind of any character. From this detached and impersonal perspective, the narrator reports action and dialogue without telling us directly what characters feel and think. This point of view places a heavy emphasis on dialogue, actions, and details to reveal character.
An unreliable narrator is a fictional character whose interpretation of events is different from the author's. One type of unreliable narrator is the naive narrator (the innocent eye) who lacks the sophistication to interpret accurately what he/she sees. The reader understands more than the narrator does.
SETTING: the total environment for the action of a fictional work. Setting includes the time period (such as the 1890s), the place (such as downtown Warsaw), the historical milieu (such as during the Crimean War), as well as the social, political, and perhaps even spiritual realities. It’s the locale, time, and social circumstances of a story.
Examples of setting:
An Eastern U.S. town in winter, about 1950, in an upper-class private girls’ school.
Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News is set in Newfoundland in the early 1990s.
Tone: the prevailing attitude (for instance, ironic, compassionate, objective) as perceived by the reader; the author’s feelings toward the central character or the main events. The tone is the prevailing mood or atmosphere in a literary work – joyful, sad, brooding, angry, playful, and so on. A writer can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic.
Style: the way in which an author uses words that give his or her work a distinctive manner of expression. It is the combined qualities that distinguish one writer’s work from another’s. For example, Hemingway’s use of short words and simple construction make his style markedly different from that of his contemporary, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Mark Twain has a very distinctive, relaxed, regional style in his novels Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Style is the manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use. Some general styles might include scientific, ornate, plain, emotive. Most writers have their own particular styles.
Cliché: Overused expression. Examples: raining cats and dogs, snug as a bug in a rug, chills running up and down my spine, warm as toast, short and sweet. Writers should avoid using clichés whenever possible.
Irony: a contrast of some sort; reveals a reality different from what appears to be true.
Verbal irony: the irony is between what is said and what is meant (“You're a great guy,” meant bitterly).
Dramatic irony: the contrast is between what the audience knows (a murderer waits in the bedroom) and what a character says (the victim enters the bedroom, innocently saying, “I think I'll have a long sleep”).
Situational irony: when an incongruity exists between what is expected to happen and what actually happens (Macbeth usurps the throne, thinking he will then be happy, but the action leads him to misery).
Symbol: a person, object, action, or situation, that, charged with meaning, suggests another thing (for example, a dark forest may suggest confusion, or perhaps evil), though usually with less specificity and more ambiguity than allegory. In a literary work or film, a symbol is a person, place, thing or idea that represents something else. Writers often use a snake as a symbol for evil, as in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. Commonly used symbols include the eagle (strength), a flag (patriotism), and the sea (life).
Epiphany: a moment of insight, discovery, or revelation by which a character’s life or view of life is greatly altered.
fiction terms, fiction definitions, literary terms, literary definitions. See also http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/2010/12/fiction-definitions.html
http://www.jodierennerediting.com/
PREMISE: Who and what the story is about. You should be able to state the premise of your story in a sentence or two: Who does what, and why? More concrete than "theme."
THEME: the central idea or meaning of a story; what the work is about. When you express the theme in your own words, it should be worded in a complete sentence and universally expressed.
CHARACTER: an imagined person in a literary work. Some famous characters in fiction: Romeo, Juliet, Jay Gatsby, in The Great Gatsby, Holden Caulfield, in The Catcher in the Rye, Sherlock Holmes, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Atticus Finch, in To Kill A Mockingbird.
Flat character: a one-dimensional figure, with a simple personality. Flat characters, also known as “cardboard characters,” show none of the human depth, complexity, and contrariness of a round character or of most real people. You can round out a flat character in your story and make him more interesting and compelling by giving him hopes, fears and motivations.
Round character: a full, multidimensional character whose personality reveals some of the richness and complexity we are used to seeing in real people, rather than the transparent obviousness of a flat character. We often see a significant change take place in a round character during the story.
Protagonist: The protagonist or hero or main character is the central character in the story who engages our interest or sympathy. Usually the “good guy.”
Antagonist: the character who opposes the protagonist. The “bad guy.”
Examples: In Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chief Bromden in the narrator, McMurphy is the protagonist, and Nurse Ratched is the antagonist.
Character Arc –the status of the main character as it unfolds throughout the story, the storyline or series of episodes. Characters begin the story with a certain viewpoint and, through events in the story, that viewpoint changes. Some examples include:
• In Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman’s character begins as a misogynistic chauvinist but when he is forced to play the part of a woman, he also experiences a change in how he views women and becomes a different character by the end.
• In Empire of the Sun, Jim begins as a carefree young boy. After the Japanese take over Shanghai and he is separated from his family, he is forced to suffer trauma because of the war.
• In Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle degenerates from a somewhat disturbed, highly disorganized Vietnam veteran into an extremely highly-organized, full-blown psychotic.
Motivation is the external forces (setting, circumstances) and internal forces (personality, temperament, morality, intelligence) that compel a character to act as he or she does in a story.
PLOT: The events that unfold in a story; the action and direction of a story; the story line. The events can be presented in a variety of orders:
Chronological: the story is told in the order in which things happen. It begins with what happens first, then second, and so on, until the last incident is related.
In medias res: Latin for “in the midst of things.” We enter the story on the verge of some important moment.
Flashback: the returning to an earlier moment in literary time, usually through a character’s reminiscing. A device that allows the writer to present events that happened before the time of the current narration or the current events in the fiction. Flashback techniques include memories, dreams, stories of the past told by characters, or even author intrusions. (That is, the author might simply say, “But back in Jake’s youth….”) Flashback is useful for exposition, to fill in the reader about a character or place, or about the background to a conflict, but be careful not to overdo it.
Exposition: the opening portion that sets the scene, introduces the main characters, tells us (briefly) what happened before the story opened, and provides any other background information that we need in order to understand and care about the events to follow. Today's bestselling authors spend much less time setting the scene and providing background information; they tend to jump to a the first conflict (main) quite quickly.
Rising action: the series of events that lead to the climax of the story, usually the conflicts or struggles of the protagonist. During rising action, the basic internal conflict is complicated by the introduction of related secondary conflicts, including various obstacles that frustrate the protagonist’s attempt to reach his goal.
Conflict: a complication that moves to a climax. Conflict is the opposition presented to the main character of a story by another character, by events or situations, by fate, or by some act of the main character’s own personality or nature. More loosely defined for contemporary fiction, it is the problem or tension that must somehow be addressed (if not perfectly resolved) by the end of the story. A plot needs plenty of conflict in order to be interesting. Conflict is what drives a story forward.
Suspense: the pleasurable anxiety we feel that heightens our attention to the story. Anxiety about what will happen next in a story. In Poe’s short story, The Pit and the Pendulum, the main character is strapped to a board in a dark cell while a pendulum in the form of a steel blade swings over him. With each swing, the pendulum descends closer to his body. The reader is kept in suspense about how the character will free himself.
Foreshadowing: The indication of events to come later in the story. The introduction of specific words, images, or events into a story to suggest or anticipate later events that are central to the action and its resolution. The presentation of hints and clues about later events in the story. Often used to “tease” the reader and heighten her interest.
Climax: The point of greatest tension in a story. The turning point in the action; the point at which the outcome is to be decided. The climax is the turning point, which marks a change, for the better or the worse, in the protagonist’s affairs. In a plot line, the climax occurs after the rising action and before the falling action.
Falling action: The sequence of events that follow the climax and end in the resolution. During the falling action, or resolution, which is the moment of reversal after the climax, the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels, with the protagonist winning or losing against the antagonist. The falling action might contain a moment of final suspense, during which the final outcome of the conflict is in doubt. Summary: The falling action is that part of the story where the main part (the climax) has finished and you’re heading to the conclusion.
Examples of falling action: In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling, the falling action occurs after the climax of Professor Snape's apparent hex upon Harry during the Quidditch match: Harry, Ron, and Hermione learn about the Sorcerer's Stone; Voldemort attacks Harry in the Forbidden Forest; and Harry faces Professor Quirrell and Voldemort.
Denouement: (French for “untying of the knot”) The series of events that follow the plot’s climax. It is the resolution of the story, its conclusion or outcome. In a murder mystery, the denouement may outline the clues that led to the capture of a murderer. In a romance, the hero and heroine finally resolve all the conflicts that were keeping them apart and experience their “happily ever after” moment.
Resolution: Same as denouement: The part of the story’s plot line in which the problem of the story is resolved or worked out. This occurs after the falling action and is typically where the story ends.
Subplot: Secondary or minor plot in a story, usually related to the main plot.
POINT OF VIEW: The vantage point from which a story is told. Point of view refers to who is telling the story and how it is told. What we know and how we feel about the events in a story are shaped by the perceptions of the point of view character(s). We, the readers, are aware of the point of view character’s thoughts, feelings and motivations.
In the first-person point of view, the narrator is a participant in the story. A story told by a narrator who is not one of the story’s participants is called third-person point of view.
NARRATOR: the teller of a story (not the author, but the invented speaker of the story).
Third-person narrator - uses “he,” “she,” or “they” to tell the story and does not participate in the action.
The first-person narrator - uses “I” and “we” and can be a major or minor participant in the action. With a first-person narrator, the “I” presents the point of view of only one character’s consciousness. The reader is restricted to the perceptions, thoughts, and feelings of that single character.
A second-person narrator, “you,” is possible but rarely used because of the awkwardness in thrusting the reader into the story, as in “You are minding your own business on a park bench when a drunk steps out of the bushes and demands your lunch bag.”
Omniscient narrator - takes us inside the characters. Omniscient narrator is all-knowing.
Editorial omniscience: the narrator not only recounts actions and thoughts, but also judges.
Neutral omniscience allows characters’ actions and thoughts to speak for themselves.
Selective omniscient or limited omniscient: the narrator takes us inside one or two characters. The selective omniscient narrator is much more confined than the omniscient narrator. With selective or limited omniscience, the author often restricts the narrator to the single perspective of either a major or a minor character. The way that people, places, and events appear to that character is the way that they appear to the reader.
Stream-of-consciousness: when limited omniscience attempts to record mental activity ranging from consciousness to the unconscious, from clear perceptions to confused longings.
Objective narration - the narrator is outside the characters. Objective point of view employs a narrator who does NOT see into the mind of any character. From this detached and impersonal perspective, the narrator reports action and dialogue without telling us directly what characters feel and think. This point of view places a heavy emphasis on dialogue, actions, and details to reveal character.
An unreliable narrator is a fictional character whose interpretation of events is different from the author's. One type of unreliable narrator is the naive narrator (the innocent eye) who lacks the sophistication to interpret accurately what he/she sees. The reader understands more than the narrator does.
SETTING: the total environment for the action of a fictional work. Setting includes the time period (such as the 1890s), the place (such as downtown Warsaw), the historical milieu (such as during the Crimean War), as well as the social, political, and perhaps even spiritual realities. It’s the locale, time, and social circumstances of a story.
Examples of setting:
An Eastern U.S. town in winter, about 1950, in an upper-class private girls’ school.
Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News is set in Newfoundland in the early 1990s.
Tone: the prevailing attitude (for instance, ironic, compassionate, objective) as perceived by the reader; the author’s feelings toward the central character or the main events. The tone is the prevailing mood or atmosphere in a literary work – joyful, sad, brooding, angry, playful, and so on. A writer can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic.
Style: the way in which an author uses words that give his or her work a distinctive manner of expression. It is the combined qualities that distinguish one writer’s work from another’s. For example, Hemingway’s use of short words and simple construction make his style markedly different from that of his contemporary, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Mark Twain has a very distinctive, relaxed, regional style in his novels Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Style is the manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use. Some general styles might include scientific, ornate, plain, emotive. Most writers have their own particular styles.
Cliché: Overused expression. Examples: raining cats and dogs, snug as a bug in a rug, chills running up and down my spine, warm as toast, short and sweet. Writers should avoid using clichés whenever possible.
Irony: a contrast of some sort; reveals a reality different from what appears to be true.
Verbal irony: the irony is between what is said and what is meant (“You're a great guy,” meant bitterly).
Dramatic irony: the contrast is between what the audience knows (a murderer waits in the bedroom) and what a character says (the victim enters the bedroom, innocently saying, “I think I'll have a long sleep”).
Situational irony: when an incongruity exists between what is expected to happen and what actually happens (Macbeth usurps the throne, thinking he will then be happy, but the action leads him to misery).
Symbol: a person, object, action, or situation, that, charged with meaning, suggests another thing (for example, a dark forest may suggest confusion, or perhaps evil), though usually with less specificity and more ambiguity than allegory. In a literary work or film, a symbol is a person, place, thing or idea that represents something else. Writers often use a snake as a symbol for evil, as in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. Commonly used symbols include the eagle (strength), a flag (patriotism), and the sea (life).
Epiphany: a moment of insight, discovery, or revelation by which a character’s life or view of life is greatly altered.
fiction terms, fiction definitions, literary terms, literary definitions. See also http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/2010/12/fiction-definitions.html
http://www.jodierennerediting.com/
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
10-MINUTE FIXES TO 10 COMMON PLOT PROBLEMS
December 07, 2010, by Elizabeth Sims
This is excerpted, by permission of the author, Elizabeth Sims. Read the full article, complete with all of Elizabeth Sims' excellent wisdom, at Writer’s Digest online: http://writersdigest.com/article/10-minute-fixes-to-10-common-plot-problems/?et_mid=38382&rid=3044016
"Structural problems can sink a novel. Let’s look at 10 common plot problems and how to quickly fix them.
Good fiction takes time. You cannot sit down at the keyboard and pound out the Great American Novel in one or two sessions. (Take it from me; I’ve tried.)
No, we must be patient with our art and our craft, we must read, we must study, we must write. And write, and write. Then we must think, cut, rewrite, polish and look again.
But there’s such a thing as agonizing too much over your writing. Just as excessive reworking with charcoal and gum will ruin a drawing, too much scrutinizing and amending will sap the vitality of your original words. Most aspiring authors fall victim to this from time to time, causing needless pain, delay and, frankly, stunted results.
It’s the hard parts that get you. When you come up against a knotty structural problem, take a breath and do what professionals do:
• Calmly evaluate the problem.
• Decide whether it really is a problem.
• Work out a solution.
• Implement it.
• Move on.
• Revisit the situation later.
Did you pick out the key phrase in that list? It’s a solution. Not the perfect solution, but a solution. There is no single best way to solve any given writing quandary. What seasoned writers know—and what we can all take comfort in—is that there are lots of fine ways to solve them all. So when a problem arises and threatens to slow, divert or even stop your creative flow, you simply need to find one of those solutions so you can keep writing—it’s as simple as that.
Not every problem can be solved in minutes, of course; situations like editing out a main character or completely reworking a plot cost plenty of time and effort. But surprisingly many structural problems can be dealt with more quickly than you might think.
Let’s look at 10 common plot problems you can tackle in a flash—and then find out how to do it.
1. I’M MISSING A CRUCIAL PIECE OF INFORMATION.
You’re writing a key scene, and you realize that you really need to know something, but it’s either impossible to find out or too costly in time or money to do so.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: If you can’t find the exact data you need, get as close as you can and wing the rest.
Recently I was on a conference panel with other authors discussing intensive research, and after everybody shared exciting (or humiliating) stories about our quests for authenticity, we all agreed on one thing: When the chips are down, make it up.
Let’s say you need to present exact details about the innards of a nuclear bomb. Current atomic devices are top secret, but you can learn a lot online about outdated ones. Then, use common sense and your imagination to take it from there. What might be different today in a bomb? Well, you can bet the electronics are smarter and smaller. With the addition of fictional details, you can BS your way convincingly through the scene:
[...]
You might be surprised at how much you can make up in a convincing way. Maybe you need a recipe for the perfect poison and have no idea where to begin. Invent a character who’s a chemist, and have that character develop a poison that’s as lethal as cyanide, as innocent-smelling as strawberries and as traceable as water.
Be bold!
2. MY ACTION IN THIS SCENE DRAGS.
We’ve all been there: You’ve got an action scene that’s starting to bore even you. Granted, your story is moving forward, but it feels cumbersome.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Resist the urge to pile it on; rather, tighten what you’ve got.
You could spend hours—days!—trying to inject more life into a scene, but the best solution is often just the opposite. Usually a quicker pace will do the trick.
One of the easiest, most effective ways to tighten prose is to turn full sentences into fragments and opt for one-line paragraphs.
If you start with this, for example:
The thug was much taller and heavier than Jamal. Looking up, Jamal thought: If I don’t figure something out fast, we’re all dead meat. There was the pool cue, propped against the table, his only available weapon. He grabbed it, wound up as the big man began to react, and swung. It was with a tremendous sense of satisfaction that everybody in the bar heard a crunching sound.
Turn it into something like this (and be sure to drop the “dead meat” cliché):
Jamal looked up.
A giant.
Without thinking, he grabbed the pool cue and swung, eyes closed.
A satisfying crunch!
You shouldn’t try to write a whole book this way, but rat-a-tat passages like this will bring variety and movement to your fiction.
3. ONE OF MY CHARACTERS IS STARTING TO SEEM LACKLUSTER.
Sometimes you get too careful with a character, especially if you’ve based her on yourself or a close friend or relative. If this seems to be the case, consider adding weirdness.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Give her an obsession.
Obsessions are great because they’re simple to drop into a character’s personality, and you can use them repeatedly to spice up your plot.
[...]
An obsession gives a character a sort of schizophrenic point of view that can be used for comic relief, extra conflict, inner turmoil or all three: [...]
An added bonus to this strategy: It’s fun.
4. I HAVE TO COMMUNICATE A LOT OF INFORMATION, AND IT’S OVERKILL.
You’re at a turning point in your novel, and you’ve got one character revealing information to another, or making connections in his head as the puzzle pieces fall into place. Or your omniscient narrator is explaining a lot of stuff to the reader. And it doesn’t feel natural.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Turn narrative into dialogue.
Don’t underestimate the modern reader’s ability to infer, generalize and make connections. A professional’s first instinct is to cut exposition, but when you’ve sliced away all but the essential and you’re still looking at an awkward block of text, turn it into dialogue.
Scope around for a handy character for the first one to talk to. Then, give the two some back-and-forth, something to disagree about. Create a little conflict while delivering your basic facts. Or, if your character is alone, make him have an internal argument, as in this example:
I ought to confront Otto with what I know about Tim’s death.
Wait a minute, shouldn’t this be a matter for the police?
To hell with the police! They don’t know he worked for the bank five years ago. Plus—
Don’t get upset. Stay cool.
I’m cool, OK. I just want him to know I’m onto him,
and if he tries anything with Selma or Johnny, I’ll be in his face.
This technique has served me well in several of my books. (I stole the method after seeing Erica Jong employ it so well in Fear of Flying. Of course, she probably ripped it off from Shakespeare—all those soliloquies …)
5. I DON’T KNOW WHAT SHOULD COME NEXT.
You’re writing something new; perhaps you even have a rough outline. You’re galloping along, happy and breathless, and you finally bring a scene or chapter to a satisfying conclusion. Then you get that uh-oh feeling.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Have a 10-minute brainstorm.
I actually feel great in this situation: I love to brainstorm, and I know I’m about to have ideas I’ve never had before.
Flip to a fresh page in your notebook or computer notepad, check the time and give yourself 10 minutes to write down anything and everything that might come next. Record every idea that comes to you, even if it seems ridiculous or awful. Keep going. If you do this with a feeling of open exploration, you will come up with a good idea of what should come next.
[...]
6. I’VE GOT A COMPLEX PLOT, AND ALL MY FINAL UNRAVELING FEELS FORCED.
You’re proud of your plot, and you want to show the reader that you’ve thought of everything. This one’s as tight as a drum! But now it feels as if you’re ticking off boxes on a checklist, and the effect is artificial.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Choose some loose ends to leave loose.
Readers will know they’re in good hands if you pay off your suspense. This is key, and it bears repeating: Suspense is the most important aspect of a book to build and bring to a satisfying climax and conclusion. This holds true in any genre; even the most sedate literary novels are built on a foundation of suspense. In this way, Mrs. Dalloway and her flowers have everything in common with Hannibal Lecter and his fava beans.
It follows, then, that not every loose end needs to be tied up. Granted, some bestselling authors commonly knot theirs meticulously—Harlan Coben comes to mind—but others, like Elizabeth George, make a point of not doing so. Leaving your readers with a little bit of hmmm can be a good thing (especially if you’re writing a series).
[...]
Challenge your impulse to wrap up everything with a bow, and you might achieve a more natural result.
7. I NEED A BRIDGE BETWEEN TWO SCENES, BUT I’M AT A LOSS.
Transitions can be the bane of fiction writers. I think this goes back to composition teachers in high school, who insist that there “be a link” between every idea. Oh, the contortions we used to go through to satisfy that requirement!
Forget it.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Insert a chapter break, or use the magic word: "meanwhile..."
An excellent way to bridge two scenes is to actually separate them. A chapter break can eliminate the need for a bridge altogether. [...]
The magic word is meanwhile. Rather than a big-deal transition, meanwhile might be all you need.
8. MY ENDING MADE MY CRITIQUE GROUP GO, “SO WHAT?”
You’ve written your novel, you’re at the point of bravely hearing any and all criticism, and you’ve just found out that your ending leaves your writing buddies cold. You feel (understandably) frustrated, and maybe a little angry. Now what?
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Add passion, violence or both.
A weak ending, of course, may signify major problems with the rest of the book. But not necessarily. If you’ve built convincing characters and worked out a believable, suspenseful story, but things still fall flat at the end, this could be because you haven’t gone far enough. Some authors simply take their foot off the accelerator toward the end, either from fatigue or from an unnecessary sense of restraint. Whatever the case, if you discover you’re one of them, you’ve got to ramp up the emotion.
[...]
So try heightening the ending you’ve already got. A good way to do it is to add passion or violence—or both.
[...]
9. MY AGENT/EDITOR WANTS ME TO CUT 10,000 WORDS!
Many authors on the brink of getting published are told by a prospective agent or editor, “I love this novel, but it’s too long. If you can cut it by about 10,000 words (or whatever terrifyingly high number), I think I can sell (or publish) this.” They don’t want any specific cuts at this point; they just want the manuscript to better fit a common format.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Micro-edit your way to success.
You can spend lots of time rereading your manuscript and painfully strategizing what hunks to cut, but an excellent way to quickly trim it to size is to cut one word per sentence. This technique is pure magic. Or, you can divide the number of words you need to cut by the number of pages you have, and come up with an average words-to-cut per page. Of course you won’t be able to whittle down your whole manuscript in 10 minutes, but take it as a challenge: Time yourself, and I bet that once you get the hang of it, you can blow through 10 pages of a draft in 10 minutes. This is a job you can do in the interstices of your day; you don’t have to find large spans of time for it.
As a former newspaper reporter and editor, I got good at cutting excess verbiage early in my writing career. But every so often, for the heck of it, I challenge myself to cut one word per sentence. If I can do that too easily, I know I’ve gotten sloppy.
10. THE WHOLE THING STINKS.
Every author is stricken, at least once per book, by Creeping Rot Disease. CRD begins as a dark feeling that takes over your mind and heart when you least expect it. You look at your manuscript and the feeling creeps over you that all you’ve done is foul a perfectly good stack of paper. It’s lousy. It’s not original. It’s nothing any agent, let alone editor, would look at twice. I’m wasting my life, you think. I’m a fool.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Take a break!
Believe me, when CRD strikes, you are in plentiful, excellent company. Terrific authors have drunk themselves to death trying to self-medicate against CRD.
The better solution is to take a break. Turn off your computer, close your notebook, cap your pen (because the problem is not with your manuscript, it’s with you) and do something completely different, like:
• Walk outside. Pay attention to the first great-looking tree you see. Hang out with it for a while.
• Get some good coffee.
• Phone a friend and spill your guts.
• Prepare a mini picnic lunch and open the window.
• Make a sketch of a simple object, like a bowl or a bottle.
Or do anything else you can to break the stream of negative thoughts.
Can you become a great author in 10 minutes? No, but between careless abandon and paralyzing overanalysis, you can find a lot of solutions to help you move forward. The goal is to work past problems as they arise so you can keep writing. You can always go back and smooth over any rough edges later."
by Elizabeth Sims, from http://writersdigest.com/
This is excerpted, by permission of the author, Elizabeth Sims. Read the full article, complete with all of Elizabeth Sims' excellent wisdom, at Writer’s Digest online: http://writersdigest.com/article/10-minute-fixes-to-10-common-plot-problems/?et_mid=38382&rid=3044016
"Structural problems can sink a novel. Let’s look at 10 common plot problems and how to quickly fix them.
Good fiction takes time. You cannot sit down at the keyboard and pound out the Great American Novel in one or two sessions. (Take it from me; I’ve tried.)
No, we must be patient with our art and our craft, we must read, we must study, we must write. And write, and write. Then we must think, cut, rewrite, polish and look again.
But there’s such a thing as agonizing too much over your writing. Just as excessive reworking with charcoal and gum will ruin a drawing, too much scrutinizing and amending will sap the vitality of your original words. Most aspiring authors fall victim to this from time to time, causing needless pain, delay and, frankly, stunted results.
It’s the hard parts that get you. When you come up against a knotty structural problem, take a breath and do what professionals do:
• Calmly evaluate the problem.
• Decide whether it really is a problem.
• Work out a solution.
• Implement it.
• Move on.
• Revisit the situation later.
Did you pick out the key phrase in that list? It’s a solution. Not the perfect solution, but a solution. There is no single best way to solve any given writing quandary. What seasoned writers know—and what we can all take comfort in—is that there are lots of fine ways to solve them all. So when a problem arises and threatens to slow, divert or even stop your creative flow, you simply need to find one of those solutions so you can keep writing—it’s as simple as that.
Not every problem can be solved in minutes, of course; situations like editing out a main character or completely reworking a plot cost plenty of time and effort. But surprisingly many structural problems can be dealt with more quickly than you might think.
Let’s look at 10 common plot problems you can tackle in a flash—and then find out how to do it.
1. I’M MISSING A CRUCIAL PIECE OF INFORMATION.
You’re writing a key scene, and you realize that you really need to know something, but it’s either impossible to find out or too costly in time or money to do so.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: If you can’t find the exact data you need, get as close as you can and wing the rest.
Recently I was on a conference panel with other authors discussing intensive research, and after everybody shared exciting (or humiliating) stories about our quests for authenticity, we all agreed on one thing: When the chips are down, make it up.
Let’s say you need to present exact details about the innards of a nuclear bomb. Current atomic devices are top secret, but you can learn a lot online about outdated ones. Then, use common sense and your imagination to take it from there. What might be different today in a bomb? Well, you can bet the electronics are smarter and smaller. With the addition of fictional details, you can BS your way convincingly through the scene:
[...]
You might be surprised at how much you can make up in a convincing way. Maybe you need a recipe for the perfect poison and have no idea where to begin. Invent a character who’s a chemist, and have that character develop a poison that’s as lethal as cyanide, as innocent-smelling as strawberries and as traceable as water.
Be bold!
2. MY ACTION IN THIS SCENE DRAGS.
We’ve all been there: You’ve got an action scene that’s starting to bore even you. Granted, your story is moving forward, but it feels cumbersome.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Resist the urge to pile it on; rather, tighten what you’ve got.
You could spend hours—days!—trying to inject more life into a scene, but the best solution is often just the opposite. Usually a quicker pace will do the trick.
One of the easiest, most effective ways to tighten prose is to turn full sentences into fragments and opt for one-line paragraphs.
If you start with this, for example:
The thug was much taller and heavier than Jamal. Looking up, Jamal thought: If I don’t figure something out fast, we’re all dead meat. There was the pool cue, propped against the table, his only available weapon. He grabbed it, wound up as the big man began to react, and swung. It was with a tremendous sense of satisfaction that everybody in the bar heard a crunching sound.
Turn it into something like this (and be sure to drop the “dead meat” cliché):
Jamal looked up.
A giant.
Without thinking, he grabbed the pool cue and swung, eyes closed.
A satisfying crunch!
You shouldn’t try to write a whole book this way, but rat-a-tat passages like this will bring variety and movement to your fiction.
3. ONE OF MY CHARACTERS IS STARTING TO SEEM LACKLUSTER.
Sometimes you get too careful with a character, especially if you’ve based her on yourself or a close friend or relative. If this seems to be the case, consider adding weirdness.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Give her an obsession.
Obsessions are great because they’re simple to drop into a character’s personality, and you can use them repeatedly to spice up your plot.
[...]
An obsession gives a character a sort of schizophrenic point of view that can be used for comic relief, extra conflict, inner turmoil or all three: [...]
An added bonus to this strategy: It’s fun.
4. I HAVE TO COMMUNICATE A LOT OF INFORMATION, AND IT’S OVERKILL.
You’re at a turning point in your novel, and you’ve got one character revealing information to another, or making connections in his head as the puzzle pieces fall into place. Or your omniscient narrator is explaining a lot of stuff to the reader. And it doesn’t feel natural.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Turn narrative into dialogue.
Don’t underestimate the modern reader’s ability to infer, generalize and make connections. A professional’s first instinct is to cut exposition, but when you’ve sliced away all but the essential and you’re still looking at an awkward block of text, turn it into dialogue.
Scope around for a handy character for the first one to talk to. Then, give the two some back-and-forth, something to disagree about. Create a little conflict while delivering your basic facts. Or, if your character is alone, make him have an internal argument, as in this example:
I ought to confront Otto with what I know about Tim’s death.
Wait a minute, shouldn’t this be a matter for the police?
To hell with the police! They don’t know he worked for the bank five years ago. Plus—
Don’t get upset. Stay cool.
I’m cool, OK. I just want him to know I’m onto him,
and if he tries anything with Selma or Johnny, I’ll be in his face.
This technique has served me well in several of my books. (I stole the method after seeing Erica Jong employ it so well in Fear of Flying. Of course, she probably ripped it off from Shakespeare—all those soliloquies …)
5. I DON’T KNOW WHAT SHOULD COME NEXT.
You’re writing something new; perhaps you even have a rough outline. You’re galloping along, happy and breathless, and you finally bring a scene or chapter to a satisfying conclusion. Then you get that uh-oh feeling.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Have a 10-minute brainstorm.
I actually feel great in this situation: I love to brainstorm, and I know I’m about to have ideas I’ve never had before.
Flip to a fresh page in your notebook or computer notepad, check the time and give yourself 10 minutes to write down anything and everything that might come next. Record every idea that comes to you, even if it seems ridiculous or awful. Keep going. If you do this with a feeling of open exploration, you will come up with a good idea of what should come next.
[...]
6. I’VE GOT A COMPLEX PLOT, AND ALL MY FINAL UNRAVELING FEELS FORCED.
You’re proud of your plot, and you want to show the reader that you’ve thought of everything. This one’s as tight as a drum! But now it feels as if you’re ticking off boxes on a checklist, and the effect is artificial.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Choose some loose ends to leave loose.
Readers will know they’re in good hands if you pay off your suspense. This is key, and it bears repeating: Suspense is the most important aspect of a book to build and bring to a satisfying climax and conclusion. This holds true in any genre; even the most sedate literary novels are built on a foundation of suspense. In this way, Mrs. Dalloway and her flowers have everything in common with Hannibal Lecter and his fava beans.
It follows, then, that not every loose end needs to be tied up. Granted, some bestselling authors commonly knot theirs meticulously—Harlan Coben comes to mind—but others, like Elizabeth George, make a point of not doing so. Leaving your readers with a little bit of hmmm can be a good thing (especially if you’re writing a series).
[...]
Challenge your impulse to wrap up everything with a bow, and you might achieve a more natural result.
7. I NEED A BRIDGE BETWEEN TWO SCENES, BUT I’M AT A LOSS.
Transitions can be the bane of fiction writers. I think this goes back to composition teachers in high school, who insist that there “be a link” between every idea. Oh, the contortions we used to go through to satisfy that requirement!
Forget it.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Insert a chapter break, or use the magic word: "meanwhile..."
An excellent way to bridge two scenes is to actually separate them. A chapter break can eliminate the need for a bridge altogether. [...]
The magic word is meanwhile. Rather than a big-deal transition, meanwhile might be all you need.
8. MY ENDING MADE MY CRITIQUE GROUP GO, “SO WHAT?”
You’ve written your novel, you’re at the point of bravely hearing any and all criticism, and you’ve just found out that your ending leaves your writing buddies cold. You feel (understandably) frustrated, and maybe a little angry. Now what?
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Add passion, violence or both.
A weak ending, of course, may signify major problems with the rest of the book. But not necessarily. If you’ve built convincing characters and worked out a believable, suspenseful story, but things still fall flat at the end, this could be because you haven’t gone far enough. Some authors simply take their foot off the accelerator toward the end, either from fatigue or from an unnecessary sense of restraint. Whatever the case, if you discover you’re one of them, you’ve got to ramp up the emotion.
[...]
So try heightening the ending you’ve already got. A good way to do it is to add passion or violence—or both.
[...]
9. MY AGENT/EDITOR WANTS ME TO CUT 10,000 WORDS!
Many authors on the brink of getting published are told by a prospective agent or editor, “I love this novel, but it’s too long. If you can cut it by about 10,000 words (or whatever terrifyingly high number), I think I can sell (or publish) this.” They don’t want any specific cuts at this point; they just want the manuscript to better fit a common format.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Micro-edit your way to success.
You can spend lots of time rereading your manuscript and painfully strategizing what hunks to cut, but an excellent way to quickly trim it to size is to cut one word per sentence. This technique is pure magic. Or, you can divide the number of words you need to cut by the number of pages you have, and come up with an average words-to-cut per page. Of course you won’t be able to whittle down your whole manuscript in 10 minutes, but take it as a challenge: Time yourself, and I bet that once you get the hang of it, you can blow through 10 pages of a draft in 10 minutes. This is a job you can do in the interstices of your day; you don’t have to find large spans of time for it.
As a former newspaper reporter and editor, I got good at cutting excess verbiage early in my writing career. But every so often, for the heck of it, I challenge myself to cut one word per sentence. If I can do that too easily, I know I’ve gotten sloppy.
10. THE WHOLE THING STINKS.
Every author is stricken, at least once per book, by Creeping Rot Disease. CRD begins as a dark feeling that takes over your mind and heart when you least expect it. You look at your manuscript and the feeling creeps over you that all you’ve done is foul a perfectly good stack of paper. It’s lousy. It’s not original. It’s nothing any agent, let alone editor, would look at twice. I’m wasting my life, you think. I’m a fool.
10-MINUTE SOLUTION: Take a break!
Believe me, when CRD strikes, you are in plentiful, excellent company. Terrific authors have drunk themselves to death trying to self-medicate against CRD.
The better solution is to take a break. Turn off your computer, close your notebook, cap your pen (because the problem is not with your manuscript, it’s with you) and do something completely different, like:
• Walk outside. Pay attention to the first great-looking tree you see. Hang out with it for a while.
• Get some good coffee.
• Phone a friend and spill your guts.
• Prepare a mini picnic lunch and open the window.
• Make a sketch of a simple object, like a bowl or a bottle.
Or do anything else you can to break the stream of negative thoughts.
Can you become a great author in 10 minutes? No, but between careless abandon and paralyzing overanalysis, you can find a lot of solutions to help you move forward. The goal is to work past problems as they arise so you can keep writing. You can always go back and smooth over any rough edges later."
by Elizabeth Sims, from http://writersdigest.com/
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