Story Sensei

The writing book, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King (second edition), suggests eliminating dialogue tags in favor of action beats. For example, instead of he asked, she said, he demanded, replace the dialogue tags with action beats whenever possible. I've mentioned this before, but I thought I'd use a few more examples. Sometimes we writers go overboard on the action beats. For example: “How have you been?” He tucked in his tie. “Fine. How are you?” She fidgeted with her necklace. He sipped some water. “Work’s been busy.” “How’s the new manager doing?” She wet her lips and glanced around at the other diners in the restaurant. He looked up. His eyes pinned her to her seat, while his smile reminded her of Hannibal Lector. “He’s doing fine, just fine.” Only keep in the action beats that do something for the scene. If an action beat indicates emotion, or if you’re trying to convey a character’s personality in the beginning of the manuscript, then le

This is a trick I learned from both Colleen Coble and the book, Writing for Emotional Impact by Karl Iglesias . Instead of naming an emotion, show the character under the strain of the emotion. Instead of writing, “Anger burned through her,” show the anger burning through her, without writing the word “anger.” A volcano exploded in the pit of her stomach, spewing gases up to sear her nose and make her eyes sting. She could barely breathe through her taut throat. Her hands shook with the strength it took to hold them back from slapping him. The strength of the imagery and the power of the emotional moment is heightened if you can show the emotion rather than naming it. When writing the rough draft, don’t think about stuff like naming the emotion or not. Just get the scene down. I even write notes to myself in brackets so that I can plow through without stopping to enhance my language or fix my typos. However, when you’re revising, go through each scene and look for places you might n

For every new scene, there’s typically some sort of description to ground the reader into the setting. Whether it’s a kitchen in a quaint farmhouse, or a Regency drawing room, or the wild Montana wilderness, or an urban police station. As writers, we strive for accuracy. Farmhouses typically don’t have crystal chandeliers, and Regency drawing rooms wouldn’t have a computer sitting on the Chippendale desk. But don’t just give your readers the visual descriptions—give them the experience of walking into the setting by stimulating their olfactory senses. In other words, smell. Our scent memory is incredibly powerful. We don’t necessarily remember the exact smell so much as we feel certain emotions triggered by a smell, or even the mention of a specific scent. Contrast a diner with the aroma of hamburgers and fries versus a Midwest farmhouse filled with the warm, spicy smell of Grandma’s apple pies in the oven. Or maybe walking into a New York high-rise office that reeks of the editor-in-

You don’t need a paragraph to describe your character, whether the Point of View character or any other character in the scene. A segment of descriptive narrative slows down the reading flow, and you want to keep your reader riveted to the page. Make character descriptions short, strong, and unique. Short—Again, you don’t need a paragraph. Start off with a short phrase or sentence at the beginning of the scene, and sneak in bits of description as the scene progresses. Strong—Use vivid and specific language. Don’t be wishy-washy and use words like nice car, lovely flower, short man. Instead, use richer language like firecracker-red Mazda RX-7, a crisply unfolding creamy orchid, a few inches above a fire hydrant. Unique—Avoid clichés. Period. Instead of dirty dishwater blonde, think up something more original and unusual, limp hair lying in strips like a paper mulberry tree. Read good writing to see good description at work.

Setting should be so integral to the plot that it’s almost like another character. Think about Gone With the Wind—Scarlett’s plantation, and the political, social, and physical landscape of the South played significant roles in both the plot and character development. Ideally, your setting should also play a vital role in the story, so that your story couldn’t happen anywhere else. You might want to brainstorm how key landmarks would play major roles in the storyline, in order to more fully integrate the story where you have set it. Update: As one reviewer mentioned on Writing.com, don’t take this to a cheesy, overused extreme—such as having it rain when a character is sad, thunder when a character is in danger, etc. I wasn’t talking about weather when mentioning setting. However, you don’t want your story to be set in Anywhere, USA, either. The most vivid stories tend to be deeply ingrained in their setting, so that the characters could only go through the story events in that partic

This article came out of the contests I've judged. These are some of the common things I see in most entries when it comes to hooks, description and backstory. Starting with description--pros and cons. There are two camps about starting a scene with description: 1) Most historical writers and some sci-fi/fantasy writers like the whole idea of the novel like a movie camera, panning into the scene and describing the setting in detail to place the reader there before anything starts to happen. 2) Most suspense/mystery writers tend to start with action, and to give details of the surroundings and what's happening through subtle hints in the dialogue or narrative. Each method can be done poorly. If you spend too much time setting the scene or if you don't do it well enough, an editor won't get past the first page because it's too boring--nothing going on. On the other hand, if you land the reader in the middle of action but don't do a good enough job orienting the re

The Larger Picture and the Smallest Picture, part 1 The Larger Picture: an Overview of Character, Setting, Story Let's look at the big picture. Each story has a few basic components. Focal Character: The focal character or Protagonist has something to lose or gain, something at stake. The reader cares about what happens to her, what choices she makes, what results from those decisions. Setting: The reader experiences each scene through a viewpoint person's senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, AND emotion. This creates richness, color, realism and mood in your setting. Viewpoint character is not necessarily the focal character. For example, the heroine (focal character) is Betty, with an abusive past. The viewpoint character is her friend Lisa, visiting Betty's parents' home for the first time: Lisa gaped at the tall columns flanking the double front doors, as white as sand on a tropical beach, reflecting the bright sunlight. Color burst from the fl

Beginning is three things: Desire, Danger, Decision. a. Where to start Start the story with Danger--trouble, change, a day that's different. You want to briefly show the character's existing situation--his normal life, what constitutes happiness to the character. This is his Desire. Then show a change in that situation, a new element, relationship, event--Danger. It should set off a chain reaction of events that influences or affects someone--and not necessarily the protagonist. Faced with the change and himself (or someone close to him) who is affected by the change, the character makes a decision to do something about it. It should be something the character can't just walk away from, something that spurs him to dedicated, focused action. This is his Decision. b. How to open There are many ways to open, and each has problems. You have to choose which one you prefer to tackle: If you open too far ahead of the initial change, or Danger, and you might bore th