Hot answers tagged fiction
27
I felt this was best answered by examples. A lot of examples :P
"Sudden" does not guarantee surprising
This is fundamental "show, don't tell" - describing something as being "sudden" doesn't mean the reader gets a sense of surprise while reading it, any more than you'd laugh at reading the line "Bob is a really funny guy." So one key skill is, look out for ...
25
Everything has been done before. Seriously. I've taken two Ancient Literature courses and it's amazing how many plots are basically recycled versions of older plots. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Twilight, Harry Potter - their plots all model older books and plays from hundreds of years ago. Even parts of the Bible are found in manuscripts that predate ...
25
I think this is one of those areas where the 'show don't tell' rule really shines.
Instead of:
Bart sat back in his chair and let himself relax. All of a sudden,
there was a huge explosion down the street.
Try:
Bart sat back in his chair and let himself relax. He was almost
asleep when something made him open his eyes. There was just enough
...
24
Anyone who actively pursues publication can get published. Sometimes it can happen easily, other times it may take month or even years. Just because it's well written and is a decent novel, doesn't mean every publisher wants it. It may not be right for some publishers, and others may not think they can market a certain novel well. But if you keep trying, ...
23
To answer your question literally: most novels that are written will never be published. Thousands of people write a novel every year, and probably less than 1% of those novels are ever read by anyone other than the author's friends and family. Publishers and agents turn down many thousands of manuscripts a year.
However, it does not follow that publishing ...
21
Seems to me that consistency is a big thing. Internal consistency and external consistency.
External consistency: on Numb3rs, they use real mathematical jargon assuming people will not understand it and will accept it at the Wikipedia level of understanding. But I actually do understand many of the techniques they talk about and they simply cannot be used ...
19
As long as you approach it with good writing practices and treat it as you would your own real writing project, it can help you practice the art of putting words on paper.
What it will not prepare you for, however, is world-building, which is the other half of the battle when you write, and is just as important as your ability to write. You can be a ...
19
Normally the purpose of fiction is to let the reader immerse into your story - to get him caught deeply into the world you have created.
If the reader is wondering about the narrator's gender all the time, there will be no immersion. If he assumes a gender and it is wrong then he will be ejected out of your story when he discovers his error.
If you want to ...
17
On one side of the spectrum, some ways of describing have the particularity that, instead of describing all of the character, they define them little by little.
For instance:
I. You can highlight their body while they do something.
a) Indirectly:
I gladly helped her take the book from
the high shelf.
(Implying a tall character)
b) Directly:
...
15
Well, first and foremost - do you believe in the character? Do you think he/she is sympathetic? If so, you're already in a good position - because you have a believable, sympathetic character, you just haven't convinced your readers of that yet - meaning, if you get negative critiques on the point, you just need to figure out why you like the character, and ...
14
Don't explain, demonstrate. You can show the meaning of a rank by what people of that rank typically do, and by the way characters of different ranks react to each other.
If an Oberst berates a Feldwebel, and the Feldwebel reacts as if berating is within the bounds of their relationship, readers will understand that Oberst is a higher rank than Feldwebel.
...
14
Basically, anything that the reader considers implausible when he's already suspending disbelief, can spoil the illusion and break that suspension. The key issue to understand is that up to a certain point, your story is exposing the world of the story, and explaining what's allowed and what isn't. Anything you establish clearly, the reader will be willing ...
14
A lot of it is just convention. Most people seem most accustomed to reading past tense, so it tends to not be noticed by the reader.
There are exceptions to this, however. YA, especially, has a lot of present tense writing, and in that genre it seems to be totally unremarkable.
Fans of present tense often argue that it gives a sense of immediacy to the ...
14
Do you really want to bloat a chapter just to meet an arbitrary quota?
Besides that, till you haven't finished the book, you cannot tell how many words a chapter will have. Because you will rearrange, rewrite, and (most important) delete unnecessary stuff.
So don't sweat it, start a new chapter, keep writing and drop a quota for chapters. If your story is ...
14
TLDR: Beats are what you make scenes out of.
"Beat" is terminology that probably came backwards into writing from acting. Essentially a scene is made of beats for an actor. To explain: I used to be an actor and one thing that I think always blows people's minds is how an actor can learn the entirety of Hamlet's part in a matter of a few months and then ...
14
As a reader, I tend to assume a gender (often but not always the same as the author's). The only reason this would bother me is that it's jarring when I discover I'm wrong, as I have to reimagine the character.
As a writer I do try to clarify it early, and that's the advice I've heard from others as well. It's tricky in first person, especially if the piece ...
14
What has worked for me in the past is to simply concentrate on telling the story. I'm assuming you are on your first draft and have yet to complete even that. In that case, you need to spend less time analyzing and more time telling your story. If you spend too much time reviewing as you write, you'll end up with a case of paralysis by analysis.
Sometimes ...
14
There's two main techniques I use. Mix and match as appropriate for your story.
The simplest one: for a conversation between two people, don't give attributions like "he said", but just state it. If it's going to be a lengthy conversation, you can also throw names into their speech.
"Hey Sally, check it out - I found an important clue!"
"What's ...
13
Time is based on an Event. We are in the year 2010 because someone inaccurately took the birth of Jesus Christ as the base (hence b.c. And a.d. denominations). Other cultures have other years, I believe either the China or the Arabian countries have a completely different year.
In the Star Wars Extended Universe, the battle of Yavin is the base for their ...
13
An invented language can be a tool for exposing the traits of a culture. Different languages not only sound different, but they feel different. They shape ideas differently. They are also shaped by their environments. The way a language works can help illustrate the thought processes of the people who speak it.
As an example, I recently saw the Star ...
13
Use of trademarked names in fiction does not violate intellectual property laws. There are a couple of things to be wary of nonetheless.
Be careful with the light in which you depict real businesses. As explained here, if you have a character die from a bad hamburger at Burger King or hurt himself because of a defective pair of Reeboks, then prepare for a ...
13
too much dialogue.
too much information about what you want the reader to guess (that is, the suspenseful bit).
not enough information about the
characters to care.
The point of suspense is to leave the reader wondering what else is going on? what's going to happen next? This is talky without making us interested. We should get enough information to ...
13
A common mistake when people first try to work on setting or "space" is simply to add more description. This is usually the wrong thing to do, since lots of unfocused description is just clutter. What you need to do add descriptive notes that also contribute to other elements of the story. Having a small number of details that contribute to the overall ...
13
If the beginning is blocking you, start writing something else.
You have an outline, right? You know roughly what's going to happen when. So pick some point which is easier, and start there. My suggestion is to start near the beginning (If your intro is I. in your outline, start with II., for example), but start with whatever part makes you excited to be ...
13
Even though you notice the problem in the first words (in the subjects of the sentences), I think the problem is elsewhere: Each of the first five sentences has a verb that reminds that we're in Adele's head. But we already know we're in Adele's head, so these reminders are unnecessary, and they weaken the sentences.
Consider this edit, which removes all ...
12
In general, I feel that fanfic is a crutch that keeps a lot of people from honing their craft and moving on to original fiction. After years of NaNoWriMo and some side work with an editor, I've only seen one person start with fanfic and graduate to doing their own, thoroughly original work.
It's like they're just too scared to ever leave their comfort ...
12
In college I had a writing professor who was a published novelist, mother, and had worked in web design while getting her Masters of Fine Arts and writing. She told a story of another novelist who did most of her "writing" while doing chores. This novelist had a great memory and would come up with the next stage of her plot while folding laundry, on walks, ...
12
What's the most important thing that your readers need to know right way? What's the scene that will drag them into your story? The answers to those questions will tell you what should come first.
It's certainly possible to write a convoluted, insanely complex story, jumping back and forth in time. Kurt Vonnegut wrote: "Start as close to the end as ...
12
The standard initial market for a short story is a literary magazine. Famous examples include The New Yorker for literary fiction and poetry. For science fiction and fantasy genres, notable options include Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's, and others. As a general rule more prestigious magazines are able to be more choosy on what they end up ...
12
The Tennessee Screenwriting association lists all 20 plots. That's all there are. If you find a story, it will use one (or several of them) but for many centuries, this list hasn't changed.
For example, the nanobot story mentioned by Claudiu has the same basic plot as Golem (16th century) or Frankenstein's monster (1818) or Icarus (ancient greeks). There ...
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