What are techniques necessary to write? Come on guys, teach the secrets to the plebs

CREATING SPECIAL CHARACTERS

>Step 1: Look at the character through the eyes of your protagonist. List three ways in which they are exactly alike. Find one way in which they are exactly the opposite.

>Step 2: Write down what most fascinates your protagonist about this special character. Also note one thing about the special character that your protagonist will never understand.

>Step 3: Create the defining moment in their relationship. Write down specific details of the place, the time, the action, and their dialogue during this event. What single detail does, or will, your protagonist remember best?

>Step 4: At the end of your story, in what way has this special character most changed your protagonist? At the story’s outset, in what way does your protagonist most resist the special character?

>Step 5: Incorporate the above into your manuscript.

>Special-ness comes not from a character but from their impact on the protagonist. What are the details that measure their impact? How specific can you make them? The steps above are just a start.

IMPROVING ORDINARY CHARACTERS

>Step 1: How is your ordinary character identified or defined? A friend? A teacher? A cop? Write down five stereotypes attached to such a type. Find one way in which this character is the opposite of that.

>Step 2: Find one way in which this character is inwardly conflicted. How strong can you make this conflict? Make it impossible to reconcile. Create a story event in which we will see this conflict enacted.

>Step 3: If this character is meant to be eccentric, push his eccentricity to an extreme. What is one common thing this character does in a completely uncommon way? What is the most dangerous thing this character can do or say? How does he look at things in a way that is peculiar or bizarre? Write a passage in which this character explains his unique habits and outlook. Make it so logical and convincing that anyone would agree.

EMPOWERING ANTAGONISTS

>Step 1: Find five ways and times at which your antagonist will directly engage your protagonist.

>Step 2: Write out your antagonist’s opinion of your protagonist. What does your antagonist like about your protagonist? How does your antagonist want to help your protagonist? What advice does your antagonist have?

>Step 3: How can your antagonist be summarized or defined? A boss? A senator? A mother-in-law? List five stereotypes associated with such a type. Find one way in which your antagonist is exactly the opposite.

>Step 4: Create four actions that will make your antagonist warm and sympathetic.

>Step 5: Assume your antagonist is justified and right. Find times in history when things ran his way and were good. Find passages from theology, philosophy or folk wisdom that supports your antagonist’s outlook. Choose one character whom your antagonist will win over. In what way does your protagonist agree with your antagonist?

HIGH TENSION

>Step 1: Find a scene in your novel where you have the moment of highest tension (typically around the end of Act 2 or 3).
>Step 2: Now, stretch your scene out, anywhere from 25 to 500%.
>Step 3: Analyze the scene for readability, trimming or adding as you see fit. Does this improve the scene? If not, discard the changes.
>Step 4: Find the next most intense scene. Repeat steps 2 through 4.
>Step 5: Repeat the process with yet another scene in your novel. Stop there.

>Example:

He twisted from the waist in a violent spasm and started a low sidearm punch aimed at the center of the Iranian’s chest. Chemical reaction in his brain, instantaneous transmission of the impulse, chemical reaction in every muscle system from his left foot to his right fist, total elapsed time a small fraction of a second, total distance to target less than a yard, total time to target another small fraction of a second, which was good to know right then, because the guy’s hand was all the way in his pocket by that point, his own nervous system reacting just as fast, his elbow jerking up and back and trying to free whatever the hell it was he wanted, be it a knife, or a gun, or a phone, or a driver’s license, or a passport, or a government ID, or a perfectly innocent letter from the University of Tehran proving he was a world expert on plan genetics.

>Whew! And the punch hasn’t even landed yet! When it does:

Two hundred and fifty pounds of moving mass, a huge fist, a huge impact, driving backward into his breastbone driving backward into his chest cavity, the natural elasticity of his ribcage letting it yield whole inches, the resulting violent compression driving the air from his lungs, the hydrostatic shock driving blood back into his heart…

>Can you write a whole book like this? Of course not. You pick your spots, and you don’t do it the same way all the time. The more intense the tension, the longer you can draw it out. But even a scene of relatively low tension can be expanded, even if it’s just by one paragraph.

HIGH TERROR

>Step 1: Find a moment of terror in your novel. If it’s a character-driven novel, you can find an inner terror that is meaningful to the Lead: terror of being exposed, of losing a love, of being ostracized, etc.

>Step 2: Write a page-long paragraph, stretching this tension out.

>Step 3: Now write a page of short sentences, one after the other, doing the same thing.

>Can you stretch the tension too far? Will it snap like a rubber band? Yes, but the length of the stretch is farther than you think. Go for it. You can always cut it back later. When in doubt, stretch it out.

>Example:

>One of the chapters in Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine has three women walking to a movie, then home again, in the dark. It’s a warm summer night, but the town is in the grip of a special fear. Someone they have dubbed the Lonely One has been killing women in the town. The chapter is all about the suspense—will he strike again at one of these ladies?

>Bradbury sets up the terror with the chiming of a courthouse clock. Sound becomes very important in creating the mood. Throughout the section the courthouse clock rings out the time, telling us it’s getting later and darker.

“Listen!” said Lavinia.

>They listened to the summer night. The summer-night crickets and the far-off tone of the courthouse clock making it eleven forty-five.

“Listen.”

Lavinia listened. A porch swing creaked in the dark and there was Mr. Terle, not saying anything to anybody, alone on the swing, having a last cigar. They saw the pink ash swinging gently to and fro.

>A little bit later:

The courthouse clock struck the hour. The sounds blew across a town that was empty, emptier than it had ever been. Over empty streets and empty lots and empty lawns the sound faded.

>Finally, Lavinia is alone walking home:

She froze again.

Wait, she told herself.

She took a step. There was an echo.

She took another step.

Another echo. Another step.

>Bradbury uses staccato line structure here to stretch the terror. You can, too.

stopping in to say thank you and please keep posting

SPARE DIALOGUE

>Step 1: Find a high-tension section of your novel that is dialogue heavy.

>Step 2: Make a copy of the scene and open it in as a new document.

>Step 3: Compress as much of the dialogue as you can. Cut away at words, use fewer complete sentences.

>Step 4: Compare the two scenes and rewrite your master scene utilizing as much of the new material as you deem appropriate.

DIALOGUE TENSION

>Step 1: At a moment of high tension, find a dialogue exchange in which information is being revealed.

>Step 2: Can you stretch this section out so the information comes later, even in another scene?

>Step 3: Try adding an interruption to the scene so the information is held up.

UNEXPECTED DIALOGUE

>One of the surest ways to create instant conflict or tension in dialogue is to avoid the “on the nose” response. That refers to the statement >> direct response >> further direct response sequence:

“Hey Joe, let’s go to the store.”
“Great! I was just thinking of going to the store.”
“You want to go now?”
“I sure do.”
“All right! Whose car should we take?”
“Let’s take my car.”
“Good idea. Mine’s in the shop anyway.”
“Sorry to hear about that. What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I took it in!”

>You shouldn’t avoid all direct response in your dialogue, because it wouldn’t be real. We do talk this way, and so do your characters. Scenes like the above scene should be cut because there’s no conflict at all. You certainly can redo the scene with different agendas and so on. Direct responses can be full of conflict:

“Hey Joe, let’s go to the store.”
“I don’t want to go to any store.”
“How come?”
“That’s my business.”

>You get the idea. So there you have direct responses with conflict. Now let’s turn to the unexpected. Throughout your novel, look for places where you can insert “off the nose” responses.

>One way is through simple avoidance:

“Hey Joe, let’s go to the store.”
“How ’bout those Dodgers?”

>Seemingly innocuous answers can take on tension if they are avoiding what seems like a simple statement or request. Why would Joe not want to talk about going to the store? What’s going on in his mind?

>A stronger form of avoidance is to answer a question with a question:

“Hey Joe, you want to go to the store?”
“Why don’t you give it a rest?”

>Instant conflict. An interruption also creates conflict on the spot:

“Hey Joe, let’s go—”
“I’ve had enough, okay?”

y-you're welcome

MICROTENSION

>Step 1: Look for scenes where you have more than two pages of low suspense. It might be two people talking in a restaurant, or allies conversing in the workplace.

>Step 2: Make a list of potential obstacles that could be introduced, from large to small. Keep going until you have nine or ten. Don’t edit yourself. These can be other characters, sounds, weather, accidents (large or small), annoyances, and so on.

>Step 3: Choose one to insert into the middle of the scene.

OUTER AND INNER TURNING POINTS

>Step 1: Pick a scene in which your protagonist experiences anagnoresis. Identify its outer turning point, the exact minute when things change for your protagonist or point-of-view character.

>Step 2: Wind the clock black ten minutes before the turning point. Write a paragraph saying how your protagonist or point-of-view character sees himself at this moment.

>Step 3: Note three visible or audible details of the turning point in Step 1. Make one an oblique detail; something that would only be noticed upon a close look or a replay of the tape.

>Step 4: Combine the results of Steps 2 and 3 into a passage in which you delineate and detail your protagonist or point-of-view character’s inner turning point.

>Have you ever changed in a moment, such a when, say, shattering news came via telephone? At such a moment you realize that your life will never be the same. But if we readers are observing you from outside, how would we know that? We wouldn’t. An inner turning point can only be captured by going inside to detail the nuances of the change.

STRIPPING DOWN DIALOGUE

>Step 1: From your manuscript, pick any two-character passage of dialogue. Choose an exchange that is a page or so in length.

>Step 2: Strip out any attributives (he said, she said) and any incidental action.

>Step 3: Rewrite this dialogue as an exchange of insults.

>Step 4: Rewrite this dialogue as a rapid-fire change of lines that are a maximum of 1-5 words.

>Step 5: Rewrite this dialogue as an exchange in which one character speaks only once and the other character responds with a non-verbal gesture (say, an eloquent shrug).

>Step 6: Without referring to your original version, rewrite this dialogue incorporating the best results from the above steps.

>In reconstructing the passage, do you notice the dialogue itself getting tighter? Are you using fewer attributives? Are you cutting incidental action that chokes up the passage? Good. It is the spoken words that give dialogue its punch. Everything else gets in the way.

SETTING GOALS AND SETTING BACK

>Step 1: Write down what it is in this scene that your protagonist or point-of-view character wants.

>Step 2: Create three hints in this scene that your protagonist or point-of-view character will get what he wants. Also, build three reasons to believe he won’t get what he wants.

>Step 3: Write the passages that express the results of Steps 1 and 2. In rewriting the scene in the next exercise, incorporate those passages. Eliminate as much else as possible.

>Just as stripping down dialogue helps punch up a scene, reducing a scene to a few strong steps toward or away from a goal also lends force and shape. Many authors wander through scene drafts, groping for a point. You can do it differently. Instead, start with the point and enhance from there.

SCENES THAT CAN’T BE CUT

>Step 1: Pick any scene and work through Outer & Inner Turning Points, Stripping Down Dialogue and Setting Goals & Setting Back.

>Step 2: Close the original draft of the scene on your computer, or turn over your manuscript. Do not refer to your original draft.

>Step 3: Write a new first line for the scene. Write a new last line, too.

>Step 4: Write down five details of the setting. Go for details not normally noticed.

>Step 5: Without referring to your original version, rewrite the scene. Start with your new first line, and end with your new last line. Use the oblique setting details you just noted. Incorporate the inner and outer turning points, leaner dialogue, and steps toward or away from the goal you created earlier.

>Is this rewritten version of your scene better than the original? Scenes that are written in the normal flow of accumulating pages may be fine but often will lack force. Constructing the key elements first can, by contrast, give a scene shape, tautness and power.

THE TORNADO EFFECT

>Step 1: Choose a major plot event.

>Step 2: For each point-of-view or major character in your novel, write a passage that details the effect of this event. How does it change each character? How do they see themselves or others differently afterward?

>Step 3: Do you see this improving the event? Is there enough original information to spread around so that each character's experience of the event is unique, interesting, and lacks repetition? Then write the event not from one point of view, but from all. In each passage, incorporate the results of Step 2.

>The Tornado Effect is a powerful tool that can magnify the significance of already large plot events. For it to work, though, there must be an actual, transforming effect on each character who experiences it.

CONNECTING CHARACTERS TO PLACE

>Step 1: Select a setting in your novel. Note details that are particular to it. Include what is obvious but also include details that tourists would miss and only natives would see.

>Step 2: How does your protagonist feel about this place? Go beyond the obvious emotions of nostalgia, bitterness and a sense of “connection”. Explore specific emotions tied to special times and personal corners of this place.

>Step 3: Weave details and emotions together into a passage about this place. Add this to your manuscript.

>It is impossible to powerfully capture a place via objective description—at least, to capture it in a way that readers will not skim. Only through the eyes and heart of a character does a place truly come alive. Who in your novel has the strongest feelings about his setting? That character will be a good vehicle for bringing this place alive.

CHANGING THE LANDSCAPE

>Step 1: Pick an important setting in your story. Choose a moment when your protagonist or another point-of-view character is there. Using specific details and emotions, create that character’s sense of this place following the steps above.

>Step 2: Bring that character back to this place one week, or one year later. If you have other POV characters, have them experience it as well. Perhaps they have an opposite impression, one that's exactly the same, or something more nuanced. Does this reveal anything interesting about the two characters?

>Are the passages you created in this exercise different? They should be. Measuring the minute differences in characters' perception of a place over time is another way to bring that place alive. Remember, places generally don’t change much, but people do.

TIME AND SENTIMENT

>Step 1: What is your novel’s era? If it is our own, give it a label.

>Step 2: Write out your protagonist’s opinion of his times. What does he like about them? What does he think is wrong about them?

>Step 3: Note three details that are particular to this time. Go beyond the obvious details of news events, popular music, clothing, and hairstyles. Find details that your protagonist would notice.

>Step 4: Weave the above results into a passage that captures your protagonist’s sense of the times.

>How do you view our times? Are you optimistic? Pessimistic? One thing’s for sure: you have an opinion. The same is true of your characters. The times live in the brightly hued sentiments of your cast.

Keep doing it until you're not shit. Repeat until you're on your deathbed if that's what it takes.

SETTING AS CHARACTER

>Step 1: In the world of your novel, select a place of significance, or that you wish to make significant.

>Step 2: What has already happened here? Note one or more past events associated with this place that people remember.

>Step 3: In what way is this place mysterious or magical? Or, possibly, what makes it completely ordinary?

>Step 4: What is your protagonist’s personal connection to this place? Write it out. Make it specific. How was this place seminal in his personal history? What does he love about this place? Why is he afraid of this place? What stands out about this place? What makes it different from any other place like it?

>Step 5: Does an important plot event occur at this place? Find a second event that can occur here too.

>Step 6: Sorry if this sounds obvious but… incorporate the above results into your manuscript, right now.

>A place is just a place. It isn’t alive. It doesn’t do anything. Only people do things. In other words, making setting a character isn’t really about animating that locale. It is a matter of you building a history for it, making big things happen there, giving characters strong feelings about it, and, in their minds, making a place that is magical. That, in turn, brings life into the readers’ minds.

GIVING CHARACTERS VOICE

>Step 1: Find something in your story about which your protagonist has a strong opinion. Sharpen that opinion. Magnify it. Let your protagonist rant, sneer, demur, avoid, laugh at, feel deeply, hardly care about, or in any way feel even more strongly about whatever it is.

>Step 2: What are the outward, external, observable details of the world in general that only your protagonist finds interesting?

>Step 3: Find a passage of exposition in your novel; that is, a passage in which we are privy to the thoughts and feelings of a character. Whether we are working in the first person or third person, rewrite this passage so that it is more like how your protagonist or point-of-view character talks.

>Step 4: Take the same passage from step 3 and rewrite it in a way that is the exact opposite of how your protagonist or point-of-view character would speak.

HYPERBOLE

>Step 1: Choose anything that a character says or thinks.

>Step 2: Hyperbolize it. Exaggerate. Wildly. Go over the top, out of bounds.

>Step 3: Substitute the hyperbole. Does this improve the scene? Would your character think in this way?

>Step 4: If so, find twenty places to hyperbolize.

>Using hyperbole is not always about getting a laugh. It is a method of useful heightening in any work of fiction.

HUMOR

>Step 1: Whether using 1st or 3rd person narration, select a page.

>Step 2: Make the narration here dry, wry, snarky, acid, off-hand, loopy, easily-distracted, befuddled, paranoid, panic-stricken or gonzo in any other way that comes naturally to you.

>Step 3: In your story, pick a small or medium-sized event.

>Step 4: If it’s an ordinary event, make the response to it disproportionately huge. If the event is a little unusual or colorful, underplay the response.

>Step 5: If the above steps add something positive to your novel, find nine more places to do something similar.

>Even a novel as serious as a thriller can at times use a little levity.

TENSION IN DIALOGUE

>Step 1: Find any passage of dialogue in your manuscript.

>Step 2: Create antipathy between the speakers. Set them against each other. Use simple disagreement, a clash of personalities, a struggle over status, competing egos, plain loathing, or any other conflict.

>Step 3: Without looking at your original draft, rewrite the dialogue so the conflict between the speakers themselves is impossible to miss. Alternatively, if it is below surface level, pare it down to avoid a ham-fisted, obvious tension.

>Conflict in dialogue can be as polite as poison, or as messy as hatchets. The approach is up to you. The important thing is to get away from ambling chit-chat and get right to the desire of two speakers to defeat each other. If it’s strong on the page, it hardly will matter what they’re talking about. Even innocuous chatter can become deadly. For instance, “Would you like sugar for your tea?” takes on an entirely different meaning when one character suspects a poisoning. Or stir in acid a different way: “I suppose you’d like sugar for your tea? Never mind. Of course you do. Your type always does.”

TENSION IN ACTION

>Step 1: Find any action in your manuscript. It can be incidental, small, or high action.

>Step 2: From whose point of view do we experience this action? What is he feeling at this moment? Find a conflicting emotion.

>Step 3: Note visual details of this action which are oblique, that is, details that would be noticed only on second look.

>Step 4: Rewrite the action without looking at your original draft.

>High action immediately benefits from having torn emotions folded in. What about small and incidental action? Is it too much to add feelings to crossing a room? Maybe. But consider the difference. He crossed the room. Or, instead: He drifted across the room. Was he dreaming? Was he dead? A bit different, isn’t it? Small actions can be overloaded, certainly, but on the other hand there is little tension in plain, everyday action. True tension lies inside.

TENSION IN EXPOSITION

>Step 1: Find any passage of exposition in your manuscript. Sometimes called interior monologue, this is any passage in which we experience a character’s inner thoughts and feelings.

>Step 2: Identify the primary emotion in this passage, then write down its opposite.

>Step 3: Look at what this character is thinking. Summarize the main idea in his mind. Now find a conflicting idea.

>Step 4: If the passage involves mulling over something that has happened earlier, identify something about the prior occurrence that your character failed to realize or notice. Raise a hitherto unasked question. What new reasons does your character have to feel uneasy, anxious or in danger?

>Step 5: Without looking at your original draft, rewrite the exposition incorporating the conflicting emotions or warring ideas. Make the contrast strong. Add fresh questions and worries.

>Many authors feel it is important to portray what is going on in their characters’ head, but they forget that much of that material has already been felt and thought by the readers. Rehashing what is already obvious does not heighten it. It merely saps tension. Exposition is a time for what is new: extra questions, fresh anxiety, unforeseen angles. Think of exposition as plot turns. It’s just a plot that plays out in the mind.

AVOIDING LOW-TENSION TRAPS

>Step 1: Find any passage in your manuscript that is a weather or landscape opening, backstory, aftermath, travel, description or foreshadowing.

>Step 2: Determine what your point-of-view character feels most strongly here. Write down the opposite of that.

>Step 3: Without looking at your original draft, rewrite the passage and fold in the conflicting emotions you’ve identified.

>Step 4: Find twenty places in your manuscript to repeat the above steps.

>Step 5: Without referring to your original version, rewrite the scene. Start with your new first line, and end with your new last line. Use the oblique setting details you just noted. Incorporate the inner and outer turning points, leaner dialogue, and steps toward or away from the goal you created earlier.

>Tension traps occur in every manuscript. I know because I skim those passages. You don’t want that. Generally speaking, it is best to start with action, cut backstory, avoid aftermath, limit description, and use foreshadowing rarely. But why not learn how to transform this material with tension? The range of tools in your story kit will be greater.

WRITING VIOLENCE

>Step 1: Find a violent action in your novel.

>Step 2: Deconstruct this violent action to its three, four or five most distinct visual pictures, the stills that freeze-frame the sequence.

>Step 3: Look closely at each still picture. For each, write down something in the image that we would not immediately notice.

>Step 4: For each picture, put your point of view character in a psychiatrist’s chair. Ask, what do you feel at this precise moment? Discard the obvious emotions: shock, horror, fear. For each step of the action, write down a secondary emotion.

>Step 5: Without looking at your original draft, rewrite this passage of violence using the results of the steps above. Pick and choose, of course, but draw heavily if not exclusively from your lists.

>Film directors take a lot of time to storyboard violent action. Each shot is carefully planned, then the shots are edited together to make a sequence. Novelists rarely spend as much time planning their violence. Violence in many manuscripts is rushed. Essential visual action is dry and objective, or sometimes buried and hard to follow. Focusing on less obvious visual details and unexpected emotions can make violence visceral and fresh. Breaking it down into steps, meanwhile, makes the action easy to follow.

WRITING SEX

>Step 1: Find a sex scene in your novel.

>Step 2: Deconstruct this sex sequence into its four, five or six most interesting visual pictures, the stills that freeze-frame the sequence.

>Step 3: Look around each still picture. For each, write down a visual detail that is oblique, that is not obvious.

>Step 4: For each picture, put your point-of-view character in the psychiatrist’s chair. Ask, what do you feel at this precise moment? Discard obvious feelings of desire, longing, lust. Capture secondary emotions.

>Step 5: Without looking at your original draft, rewrite this sex scene using the material created in the steps above. Pick and choose, of course, but draw heavily if not exclusively from your lists.

>Sex scenes in many manuscripts throw off little heat. Some authors feel it is better to draw the curtain. In some stories that may be true. Still, why not practice ways to make the act fresh and surprising? Oblique details and secondary emotions can create a sequence that is sensual, exciting and explicit without being pornographic.

TENSION FROM NOTHING

>Step 1: Find in your story a moment when nothing at all is happening.

>Step 2: Identify the point-of-view character. Write down whatever emotion he’s feeling at this moment. Also write down its opposite.

>Step 3: Note three or more details of the times and place of this dead moment. What objects are around? What exact kind of light, or darkness? At what pace is time moving? What mood is in the air? What is different now that a day ago?

>Step 4: How would your character describe the state of his being at this moment?

>Step 5: Create a passage in which this moment of action is filled with everything you created in the steps above, especially the contrasting emotions.

>Some experience is intangible, yet that which is not outwardly active can still be dynamic. Every minute has a mood. Every moment has meaning. Mood is built from environmental details, and meaning proceeds from emotions. Tension springs from the weaving of these elements into a passage that precisely captures small visual details and surgically dissects the enormous feelings that fill a silence.

THE UNCOMMON IN COMMON EXPERIENCE

>Step 1: Is your story realistic? Are your characters ordinary people?

>Step 2: What in the world of your story makes you angry? What are we not seeing? What is the most important question? What puzzle has no answer? What is dangerous in this world? What causes pain?

>Step 3: Where in the world of your story is there unexpected grace? What is beautiful? Who is an unrecognized hero? What needs to be saved?

>Step 4: Give your feelings to a character. Who can stand for something? Who can turn the main problem into a cause?

>Step 5: Create a situation in which this character must defend, explain, or justify his actions. How is the problem larger than it looks? Why does it matter to us all?

>Passion is expansive. It sweeps us up, carries us away. What is your passion? Get into your story, especially through your characters. What angers you can anger them. What lifts them up will inspire us in turn. Be careful though: characterization matters above all, not authorial projection. Do not give your characters certain ideas or beliefs if it will conflict with your setting, or if you are too attached to the idea. Is it plausible that your tertiary character would have that belief, given her upbringing, culture, and experiences, or are you self-inserting to prove something to the page? Don't get preachy.

THE COMMON IN UNCOMMON EXPERIENCE

>Step 1: Is your story about uncommon events? Are your characters out of the ordinary? Is your novel an historical?

>Step 2: Find for your hero a failing that is human, a universal frustration, a humbling setback, or any experience that everyone has had. Add this early in the manuscript.

>Step 3: What in the world of the story is timelessly true? What cannot be changed? How is basic human nature exhibited? What is the same today as a hundred years ago, and will be the same a hundred years ahead?

>Step 4: What does your protagonist do the same as everyone? What is his lucky charm? Give this character a motto. What did she learn from his mom or dad?

>Step 5: Create a situation in which your exceptional protagonist is in over his head, feels unprepared, is simply lost or in any other way must admit to himself he’s not perfect.

>While racing to save the world, it’s nice to know that your Herculian hero is human after all. Even the most rarefied or ancient milieu is, in some way, just like the world in which you and I toil. Including those details and moments makes your extraordinary story one to which all readers can relate.

MORAL OF THE STORY

>Step 1: Is there a moral or a lesson in your story?

>Step 2: When does your protagonist realize that he got something wrong?

>Step 3: Who in the story can, at the end, see things in a completely different way?

>Step 4: At the end, how is your hero better off?

>Step 5: At the end, what does your hero regret?

>Step 6: Who, in the midst of the story, is certain that there is no solution nor is there any way to fully comprehend the problem?

>Step 7: Why is the problem positive, timely, universal or fated?

>Providing something for the readers to take away doesn’t require lecturing or a teaching a lesson. Your story’s main problem itself is the lesson. The students are your characters. Make your points through them—simply. The more you hammer your readers with your moral, the less likely they are to acknowledge your point.

good tech homie
thx

POV ERRORS

>All of the below assumes 3rd person limited POV.

At a long creak from the attic above, Karen froze, heart pounding. Was that a footfall? Unaware, Karen’s hold on the vase of flowers relaxed, and she dropped it.

>In this simple example, Karen is the POV character and isn’t consciously aware that her hold on the vase slipped then it is a POV violation to mention that she dropped the vase until the very moment when she realizes her unconscious action. The segment could be rewritten like this:

Karen froze, heart pounding. Was that long creak a footfall in the attic above? She held her breath.

Cool moisture splashed her ankles as something cracked at her feet. Karen shrieked and jumped back.

She gazed down toward a tangle of bright blooms scattered amid shards of glass and splotches of water on the hardwood floor. Her heart sank. One out-of-the-ordinary sound and she'd dropped the vase of flowers Glen had given her.

>See how this sequence flows in a linear and logical fashion with only what Karen sees, knows, thinks, and experiences in the moment? We remain firmly in the now. We haven’t run ahead of events, lagged behind, or inserted information that could only come from an invisible narrator.

>Another type of POV violation I commonly see is something like this:

Bill turned away and didn’t notice Chet slip out the door.

>If we are in Bill’s POV, and he didn’t notice Chet’s sneaky retreat, then the incident cannot be mentioned.

Fists clenching and unclenching, Bill gazed around the kitchen. Where was that louse? He had to be here somewhere.

“Chet, I need to talk to you. Now!”

Silence answered Bill’s shout.

He strode toward the living room. A gentle whoosh of air behind him stopped him. Bill whirled. The screen door was settling back into place. The coward was on the run.

>Other basic POV violations could include phrases like the following:

Face flushed, eyes spitting fire…
>or
Gaze crackling, a low growl rumbled from his throat.

>Aside from being laughable, the POV cannot know that his or her eyes are “blazing”, “spitting fire”, or "crackling". The character can’t even know the color of his or her face. The character can, however, know how the flushed face feels or be aware of other telltale signs of anger, and that’s the angle from which to approach the description.

>as well as my own tips.

i'd like to know what you've written please, am genuinely curious

nothing so far, these are from various books

FLASHBACKS

>You’ve decided that a flashback scene is necessary. Then make sure it works as a scene—immediate, confrontational. Write it as a unit of dramatic action, not as an information dump. Not:
>Jack remembered when he was a child, and he spilled the gasoline on the ground. His father got so angry at him it scared Jack. His father hit him, and yelled at him. It was something Jack would never forget.

>Instead:
Jack couldn’t help remembering the gas can. He was eight, and all he wanted to do was play with it.
The garage was his theater. No one was home. He held the can aloft, like the hammer of Thor. “I am the king of petrol!” he’d said.
Jack stared down at the imaginary humans below his feet. The gas can slipped from his hand.
Unable to catch it, Jack could only watch as the can made a horrible thunking sound. Its contents poured out on the new concrete.
Jack quickly righted the can, but it was too late. A big, smelly puddle was right in the middle of the garage.
Dad is going to kill me!
Desperate, Jack looked around for a rag, anything to clean up the mess.
He heard the garage door open.
Dad was home.

>You get the idea. A well-written flashback will not detract from your story if it is essential to the narrative and works as a scene.

>How do you get in and out of a flashback, so it flows naturally? Here’s one way that works every time.

>In the scene you’re writing, when you’re about to go to flashback, put in a sensory detail that triggers the flashback:

Wendy looked at the wall and saw an ugly, black spider making its way up toward a web where a fly was caught. Legs creeping, moving slowly toward its prey. The way Lester had moved on Wendy all those years ago. She was sixteen and Lester was the big man on campus. “Hey,” he called to her one day by the lockers. “You want to go see a movie?”

>It's a simple example, but now we are in the flashback.

>Now how do we get out of it? By returning to the sensory detail (sight in the case) of the spider.

>The reader will remember the detail, and know that he’s out of flashback:

Lester made his move in the back of the car. Wendy was helpless. It was all over in five minutes.

The spider was at the web now. Wendy felt waves of nausea as she watched it. But she could not look away.

FLASHBACKS (CONT.)

>Watch out for the word had in your flashback scenes. Use one or two to get in, but once in, avoid them. Instead of:

Marvin had been good at basketball. He had tried out for the team, and the coach had said how good he was.
“I think I’ll make you my starting point guard,” Coach had told him right after tryouts.
Marvin had been thrilled by that.

>Do this:

Marvin had been good at basketball. He tried out for the team, and the coach said how good he was.
“I think I’ll make you my starting point guard,” Coach told him right after tryouts.
Marvin was thrilled.

>An alternative to the flashback scene (which you may be tempted to turn into an information dump) are back flashes.
>These are short bursts in which you drop information about the past within a present moment scene. The two primary methods are dialogue and thoughts.

>Dialogue
>In the example below, Chester’s troubled background comes out in a flash of dialogue:

“Hey, don’t I know you?”
“No.”
“Yeah, yeah. You were in the newspapers, what, ten years ago? The kid who killed his father in that cabin.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Chester A. Arthur! You were named after the president. I remember that in the story.”

>Thoughts
>We are in Chester’s head for this one, as he reflects on his past:

“Hey, don’t I know you?”
“No.” Did he? Did the guy recognize him? Would everybody in town find out he was Chet Arthur, father killer?
“Yeah, yeah. You were in the newspapers, what, ten years ago?”
It was twelve years ago, and this guy had him pegged. Lousy press, saying he killed his parents because he was high on drugs. They didn’t care about the abuse, did they? And this guy wouldn’t, either.

>The skillful handling of flashback material is one mark of a good writer. Using back flashes as an alternative is usually the mark of a wise writer.

Write until you can't write anymore, then take a night of and get wasted. The next morning you rail some adderal, drink some coffee, and continue writing.

TWO TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING BAD PASSAGES

>If I’ve been knocking out raw copy for a while and I don’t see any lightning on the horizon, I’ll stop and ask myself, “What does this person want?” They have to want something, otherwise I’ve got no story. Most often, I’ll brainstorm this on paper, writing the question across the top and then making a list of prospective desires. And much like the process above, I’m always surprised; what I thought my character wanted out of the scene is usually just a small part of a larger, more significant desire. "He wants to spend his vacation with his son" turns out to be "He wants to keep from losing the closeness he had with his family. As with any brainstorming, false alarms are part of the process. After finding out what my character wants, I repeat the process with the question, “What’s stopping this person from getting what he or she wants?” Everything above applies here, likewise. I’m sure there are some writers who answer these questions before they do anything else; I’ve found that the answers to those questions are born in the x-pages of raw copy that I put down before I consciously know what shape the story will take. Once more, every writer’s method is unique, and finding your own will take time.

>With five, ten or twenty (or more) pages of narrative that isn’t going anywhere, I’ll read through all of it and make a one or two word note in the margin about the subject of each paragraph: Resentment w/father; driving; nightmare #2; calls wife; hospital; talks to boss; etc. Articles, conjunctions and the odd preposition not withstanding, I never want to exceed two words; if I need more, I’ve got too much going on in that paragraph. Next, I’ll tally up how many paragraphs I’ve devoted to which subjects, and I’ll tell you what... I’ve been surprised every time. Without exception, what I thought I was writing about was, in fact, not entering into the story at all; instead, I’ll discover I’ve devoted far more words than I realized to a subject I hadn’t even set out to write about. Right about then is when the lightning strikes.

>Finally, read your dialogue out loud. This is mandatory. I've heard different schools of thought on whether or not a writer should read all of his work out loud and I happen to believe that a writer should do so, always. More importantly, I believe a writer should read his or her dialogue out loud without any narrative exposition, as though reading a stage play, at least once during the drafting process. Trust me, the flat notes, cut corners and unnatural phrases will sound like cartoon shrieks when they hit your ear.

oooh, this one's good. don't use it too often or exaggerate it too much, or you'll be in schlock mode. maybe for a tertiary character, and you probably want to think up something original. that's hard.

THE UHS, ANDS, AND ERS OF DIALOGUE

BY GLORIA KEMPTON

>I once had a Marine boyfriend with a bit of a speech problem. I was attracted to his dark looks and muscular build the moment I met him at a friend’s party, but then he spoke.
>“Would you like to go for a walk?” he asked. “To the thore? Ith’s cold outthide, but you can wear my jacket.”
>“Okay…”
>“Let me thee if Richard needsth anything at the thore.”
>Aaargh! How could this good-looking guy have such a horrible lisp? As much as I tried to get over it, every time he came home on leave and showed up on my doorstep, I just couldn’t cope. As I reflect on that time in my life now, of course, I feel terrible that it even mattered to me. But I was seventeen and needed a perfect boyfriend to show off to my friends. The point is, as much as I hate to admit it, and though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, the lisp was a deal breaker for me as far as feeling attracted to this man. That’s how important speech can be in a story, too. It can make or break relationships and business deals, and it certainly affects how seriously we take a character.
>With that in mind, let’s look at a few ways of speaking that will distinguish your character from the rest of the cast in your story while at the same time show us who he is and how his way of speaking will enhance his role. The challenge for us as writers is to find a way to show our characters’ speech on the printed page. Sometimes we can do it by formatting our words and sentences in a certain way; other times we need to use tags to indicate that the dialogue is being said in a certain way. For the sake of example, let’s use my boyfriend’s sentence above, “Let me thee if Richard needsth anything at the thore.”

THE TWISTED TONGUE

>Let’s start with this one—which would include my boyfriend’s lisping problem. But there’s also the stutterer, which in real life can be painful to listen to because you keep wanting to help the speaker get the words out. “L-l-let me see if R-R-R-R-Richard needs anything at the s-s-store.”
>This is something you don’t want to overdo. When a character has a speech impediment, you want to just show it once in a while, throwing in a line or two of lisping or stuttering so we remember how this character talks. Use it too much and the reader begins to find reading the story a rather annoying task. And remember, there needs to be a good reason for giving a character a speech impediment. Characterization isn’t enough; it needs to have something to do with the plot so it’s part of the piece of art that eventually becomes your novel

THE ROCKET
>This character is off like a rocket every time he gets a chance to talk.
>“LetmeseeifRichardneedsanythingatthestore.” This could be one way of showing the speed at which this character talks. Of course, if this is a major character in your story, it could be annoying to read much of his dialogue. Also, this could simply indicate not necessarily speed but that this character runs all of his words together.
>You could simply describe the pace at which he speaks the first time he appears and then just allude to it occasionally after that. This is sometimes the most effective way to work with speech patterns of all kinds—make sure the reader gets it the first few times, then simply indicate it here and there after that so it doesn’t take over the story or become so difficult to read that the reader puts your story down.
>What’s important with all speech patterns is what’s underneath. In some cases, like a stutter or lisp, it could be something physical, though I’ve learned that these particular disabilities can be corrected through therapy because they are often acquired in childhood when a person is traumatized.
>But most often, the way we talk emerges out of who we are. I can personally speak about the “rocket” because this is me a lot of the time. Unless I’m consciously trying to talk slowly, I’m off like a rocket. I just get so excited about whatever it is I’m saying. It doesn’t do any good for someone to tell me to slow down. I can’t seem to do that for long.
>I don’t just talk fast. I move fast. I think fast. I drive fast. If I could find a way to sleep faster, I would, because I’m always afraid I’m missing something. Keep your character’s entire personality in mind when giving him a distinctive speech pattern.

THE TURTLE
>“Let … me see … if … Richard needs … anything … at … the store.”
>This is the opposite of the rocket. My best friend happens to be a slow talker, and again, this is because of who she is. She moves slowly, thinks slowly, and drives so slowly that it’s often painful for me to ride in the car with her, given who I am.
>Are there other ways you can indicate a character’s slow pattern of speech? Be creative. Practicing will give you the opportunity to be creative with each of these speech patterns and consider how you might show each one in a page of dialogue.
>This character in your story is in no hurry and can’t be made to move or talk faster, no matter what. I think it might even be physically impossible for her.
>You could indicate her slow pace in narrative that describes her dialogue.
>Sue meandered from subject to subject while my soup grew cold. “You’re ...” yawn … “not … eating …” she looked around the restaurant… “your soup.”

THE CALCULATOR
>This character is constantly weighing his words, speaking very carefully and methodically. There is any number of reasons for this. Sometimes this character is concerned about his image, wanting to come off well to others, so he chooses every word. It could be that he wants power over another character and is weighing every word to make sure he’s manipulating the situation to his advantage. He could simply be scared and being careful not say anything that would put him in danger or bring on a threat of any kind.
>He seemed deep in thought, then finally spoke. “Let me see if … Richard,” he paused then continued, “needs anything at the … store.”
>Put yourself inside of your character’s head in order to get to the motivation behind the patterns of speech you give her. Being inside her head will help you determine what she says and how she says it. Sometimes a speech pattern is a permanent part of a character’s speech; other times it’s momentary and temporary because of the situation in which she finds herself.

THE ACE
>The ace simply doesn’t talk much at all and when he does, he gives one-word answers. Or he grunts. He probably wouldn’t even complete the sentence about Richard. “Let me see if …” His words may trail off. “Let me see if … Richard … needs …” You can’t always understand the ace because he usually doesn’t want to be talking to you anyway. A conversation with him might go something like:
“So, Joe, how’s it going?”
“It’s goin’.”
“You have enough work to do?”
“Yep.” (Or a nod.)
“How’s your family? June, the boys?”
“Fine.”
“You have a vacation planned this year? You taking your family anywhere?”
“Camping.”
>Somehow you’ll have to characterize this guy, and while the one-word answers help do this, you’re going to have to find other ways: his clothes, his mannerisms, his demeanor and his actions. This character just doesn’t have a lot to tell you about himself.
>That being said, he may open up far more in certain situations, or when speaking about certain topics, revealing depths to him that were unknown before.

THE SHIELD
>Have you ever talked to someone who, no matter what you’re talking about, is defending himself or whomever you’re talking about? His tone of voice shows this. It’s like he feels that he’s always under attack and has to ward off the next blow, so he’s always standing at the ready. To get into this character’s mind-set, you have to imagine what it would feel like to think that everyone is against you, trying to pin something on you, and working constantly to find the gap in your armor where they can zoom in and get you. This character’s face is often pinched as he waits for the next zinger he needs to deflect. He’s quick on the draw, as he has a lot of experience deflecting verbal blows and is used to verbal sparring. His answers in conversation are fast and his goal is to keep others away from him.
“Do you think—”
“No, of course not,” Earl quickly said. “I didn’t know anything about it. How could I have been there?” His voice was rising, growing shriller, then, “Let me see if Richard needs anything at the store.”
>Here Earl is deflecting what he thinks is coming before it can hit him and then quickly changing the subject. He has many strategies to keep others as far away from him as possible.

THE CHANNEL CHANGER
>The channel changer speaks in sentence fragments.
“See if Richard needs anything. At the store, you know.”
>This character is distracted and may not be altogether focused on the conversation she’s having. Or she may be thinking about another conversation she’d like to be having. Or many other conversations she’d like to be having.
>The channel changer talks in circles, so have to do mental cartwheels to make any sense of what he’s saying. This type of character may suffer from a mental illness that causes him to jump around a lot in his speech. Those with attention deficit disorder often use sentence fragments as do geniuses in social settings. This could be a character on drugs or alcohol, just saying whatever comes into his mind at any moment. Those who find themselves in a state of terror can begin to speak like this.
>This character may complete a thought but then make a gigantic leap to the next subject without waiting for a response. This is what marks the nonsensical speaker. He’s simply all over the map in conversation. He’s disconnected from himself and his own thoughts and isn’t often tuned in to those around him, at least not in a rational way. So you want to show his disjointed thoughts by showing his disjointed speech.
“I’ll see if Richard, you know, I was thinking that you and I should hook up—I wonder if Richard’s even here, I’m going to the store and, hey, he might need something.”
This character simply changes frequency more often than the other characters may be able to keep up with her.

nice posts, thanks for them

THE DIALECT
>This is one of the most difficult types of speech to do well just because if you use too much of it for any one character, the reader finds it tough going as far as getting through the story. And if it’s a novel, it’s a lot of pages of dialect. Every once in a while the author gets away with it, of course. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is an example of a dialect we all worked through because the story was so compelling. But I wouldn’t try that if I were you, unless you have an equally compelling story. And there hasn’t been a The Color Purple since, well, The Color Purple.
>The best way to handle dialect is to just sprinkle a few words of the foreign language or slang into the dialogue here and there. For example, if it’s a speaker who’s deep into hip-hop, you can throw a “yo” into the dialogue once in a while to characterize the speaker and make the dialect sound authentic. But you don’t want to write the dialogue exactly like a rapper would talk, as it just becomes too tedious to read.
“Yo, let me see if my man, Richard, needs anything at the store.”
>Sometimes dialect requires that the writer change the spelling of words here and there to show the character’s nationality and/or background. Again, don’t go overboard with this in the dialogue. A subtle change of spelling once in a while will remind the reader of this character’s background.

THE CANNON
>In John Irving’s novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, I would call the protagonist a cannon because of the loudness of his speech.
“DO YOU THINK I CARE WHAT THEY DO TO ME? ”he shouted; he stamped his little foot on the drive-shaft hump. “DO YOU THINK I CARE IF THEY START AN AVALANCHE WITH ME?” he screamed. “WHEN DO I GET TO GO ANYWHERE? IF I DIDN’T GO TO SCHOOL OR TO CHURCH OR TO EIGHTY FRONT STREET, I’D NEVER GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” he cried. “IF YOUR MOTHER DIDN’T TAKE ME TO THE BEACH, I’D NEVER GET OUT OF TOWN. AND I’VE NEVER BEEN TO THE MOUNTAINS,” he said. “I’VE NEVER EVEN BEEN ON A TRAIN! DON’T YOU THINK I MIGHT LIKE GOING ON A TRAIN—TO THE MOUNTAINS?” he yelled.
>And this is the way Irving indicates it—in all caps. It’s very effective, and it’s not annoying for the reader, as unlike dialect, the words are all easily pronounced—they’re just loud. It immediately signals to the reader when Owen is speaking.
“LET ME SEE IF RICHARD NEEDS ANYTHING AT THE STORE.”

lemme reiterate that i think these should be used sparingly.

if it's a prominent character, i'd say it's smartest to do when they're in a specific emotional state. then, instead of them coming off as one-note, it's instead some added nuance.

for one-off characters or ones that have small parts, it's probably fine to use them as-is if handled right.

depends on the novel.

UNANTICIPATE
>Say you’re working on a scene where a husband bursts in to find his wife in the arms of his best friend. What does he do? One answer might be this: He goes to the bedroom to get a gun and shoot the two of them. We’ve seen that before. It’s a cliché. Readers anticipate something like this. What can we do to throw a little unanticipation into the mix? Let’s brainstorm on the reaction part. Instead of the usual, the husband might:

>>Welcome his friend. “Hey, nice to see you.”
>>Walk out without a word.
>>Calmly walk to the window and jump out, attempting to kill himself from the fall.

>Train yourself to make lists of alternatives when you come to major turning points. You can do this in your outlining or as you write. In either case, you’ll freshen up your plot. The point here is that a strong plot starts with an interesting Lead character. In the best plots, that Lead is compelling, someone we have to watch throughout the course of the novel.

hrm, i also remembered i had an example of this used well. i suppose i'll include it. from Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake. one of the POV characters, Flay, encounters Swelter, a cook in Gormenghast castle.

>"Woah, back there, woah! back there; watch your feet, my little rats' eyes! To the side. To the side, or I'll fillet you! Stand still! stand still! Merciful flesh that I should have to deal with puts!"

>A voice came out of the face: "Well, well, well," it said, "may I be boiled to a frazzle if it isn't Mr. Flee. The one and only Flee. Well, well, well. Here before me in the Cool Room. Dived through the keyhole, I do believe. Oh, my adorable lights and liver, if it isn't the Flee itself."

>Although Mr. Flay had avoided the cook whenever possible, an occasional accidental meeting such as today's was unavoidable, and from their chance meetings in the past Mr. Flay had learned that the huge house of flesh before him, whatever its faults, had certainly a gift for sarcasm beyond the limits of his own taciturn nature. It had therefore been Mr. Flay's practice, whenever possible, to ignore the chef as one ignores a cesspool by the side of a road.

>"Well, well, well," Swelter said in his most provoking voice that seemed to seep out of dough --"well, well, well -- your accomplishments will never end. Baste me! Never. One lives and learns. By the little eel I skinned last Friday night, one lives and one learns." Wheeling round he presented his back to Mr. Flay and bellowed, "Advance and make it sprightly! Advance the triumvirate, the little creatures who have wound themselves around my heart. Advance and be recognized."

>"Mr. Flee, I will introduce you," said Swelter, as the boys approached, glueing their frightened eyes on their precarious cargoes. "Mr. Flee -- Master Springers -- Master Springers -- Mr. Flee. Mr. Flee -- Master Wrattle, Master Wrattle -- Mr. Flee. Mr. Flee -- Master Spurter, Master Spurter -- Mr. Flee. Flee -- Springers --Flee -- Wrattle -- Flee -- Spurter -- Flee!"

>This was brought out with such a mixture of eloquence and impertinence that it was too much for Mr. Flay.

annnnd that's it i suppose. but if anyone happens to be writing fantasy, limyaael is the master at fantasy critique. pretty much all of these articles are excellent:

curiosityquills.com/limyaael/

Thank you so much.

no prob

Based Satan is based.

>tfw your imagination looks like an anime and you don't know how to turn it into words effectively

I wish we have a good brain-computer interface machine already so I can just imagine shit and it will appear as a picture immediately.

but in that case you imagine things as movies, not as words

>writing is some magical art it can't be taught either you 'have it' or you don't.

this is what faggots actually want you to believe.

Writing is a skill, you can improve it just like any other.

Start with the Poetics. Read some books on style, read about grammar, think about ideas, read some fiction. Start writing. That's it. Just treat it like learning any other skill.

Yeah, that's what I want. Making anime with my mind.

Hey, Veeky Forums since we're giving tips. Little style consult. If I use "these" to denote dialogue then do I have to use 'these' for normal quotation in narrations that isn't dialogue?

>heeding writing advice from retards who type like 14-year-olds in a chatroom

Boy are you people going to be in for some dissapointment.

McCarthy doesn't use any of them.

You don't 'have' to do anything.

But you can already do that.

It's called...thinking. Or daydreaming.

Some of that isn't bad advice but damn do all these writing examples sound like generic Stephen King, I don't know what it is but it makes the pleb alarm flare

i said at the outset take it as mechanical advice, not prose advice

the only thing that could be construed as good prose advice would be the "Description of Opposites" thang