Dedicated to the classic books on fiction writing. Learn to write short stories, novels, and plays by studying the classic how-to books. I believe fiction writing is a Craft. In the hands of a writer who has mastered the Craft, it can become more than that. It can become Art. Art = Talent + Craft But the bedrock is Craft. There are fundamental techniques to be studied, unfamiliar tools to be mastered, tricks of the trade to be learned. And it all takes time. (Writing Mastery) (Writing Craft)
Many good writers go through a stage of using overwrought purple prose as they develop their own signature writing style. Fine writing is concise, and experienced writers aren’t afraid to cut a phrase or sentence that might sound pretty but in reality, is an extraneous ornament that doesn’t serve the overall piece.
When writing fiction, only give readers the information they need to know in the moment. Ernest Hemingway’s iceberg theory in writing is to show your readers just the tip of the iceberg. The supporting details—like backstory—should remain unseen, just like the mass of an iceberg under the water’s surface. This prevents readers from getting overwhelmed with information and lets them use their imagination to fill in the blanks.
Whether you’re huddled around the campfire, composing an email to a friend, or sitting down to write a novel, storytelling is fundamental to human nature. But as any writer can tell you, the blank page can be daunting. It’s tough to know where to get started, what details to include in each scene, and how to move from the kernel of an idea to a completed manuscript.
Writing great fiction isn’t a gift reserved for the talented few. There is a craft to storytelling that can be learned, and studying the fiction writer’s techniques can be incredibly rewarding—both personally and professionally. Even if you don’t have ambitions of penning the next Moby-Dick, you’ll find value in exploring all the elements of great fiction.
From evoking a scene to charting a plot to selecting a point of view, Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques offers a master class in storytelling. Taught by acclaimed novelist James Hynes, a former visiting professor at the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of Michigan, these 24 insightful lectures show you the ins and outs of the fiction writer’s craft.
More than just delivering lectures, Professor Hynes offers the first steps of an apprenticeship, showing you not only how fiction works but also how to read like a writer. Here you’ll find explications of novels and stories across the ages:
In addition to showing you how the elements of fiction work, this course is an interactive toolkit. Professor Hynes closes each lecture with an exercise to get your creative juices flowing. Only you know what story you want to tell, but the many examples and writing prompts in these lectures will get you from thinking about writing to the act of writing—often the toughest part of any project.
Begin with the Basics
William Faulkner once said that writing a novel is like a one-armed man trying to hammer together a chicken coop in a hurricane. That may be an exaggeration, but finding your way into a story can take an equal amount of creative experimentation. In the opening lectures of this course, you will learn how to:
Evoke a Scene: There is a fine art to selecting just the right imagery to bring a scene to life. Whether you’re heeding the old advice to “show, don’t tell,” or you’re seeking to create what novelist John Gardner called a “vivid and continuous dream,” scenic detail is the life-blood of good fiction. Professor Hynes shows you how to choose rich details while keeping your narrative uncluttered.
Develop a Character: When you create a fictional character, you’re creating the illusion of reality—suggesting a real person rather than replicating one. Four lectures on character development teach you how to build characters who think and act in plausible ways. See how novelists such as Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, George R.R. Martin, and many others develop their believable and memorable characters.
Craft Great Dialogue: Just as characters are illusions that suggest real people, so too does dialogue suggest authentic speech. Good dialogue serves at least one of a few key functions in a narrative, such as evoking character, advancing the plot, or providing necessary exposition. A two-lecture unit sheds light on balancing dialogue with narration, with examples from the work of Charles Dickens, Alice Munro, and Toni Morrison, as well as the professor’s own fiction.
Build the Story’s Structure
Literature creates order out of chaos. To do so, you need to provide structure to your story, which can be one of the most challenging aspects of writing fiction. Among the topics you’ll study are:
Story versus Plot: Whether it’s a novel, a short story, or a blog post, one of a story’s primary functions is to keep the reader reading. One way to achieve this is by creating a compelling plot. After exploring the difference between “story” and “plot”—as defined by E.M. Forster—Professor Hynes unpacks the many techniques of storytelling, and he concludes this six-lecture unit with some thoughts about keeping momentum in relatively “plotless” fiction such as James Joyce’s “The Dead.”
Point of View: As you’ll see in this three-lecture unit, much of a story hinges on the perspective from which it’s told. From the omniscience of Middlemarch to the free indirect discourse of Light in August, and from the double consciousness of Huck Finn to the unreliable narrator of The Aspern Papers, Professor Hynes surveys the range of narrative possibilities.
Time, Place, and Pace: A story’s setting is a powerful way to create mood. Think of London in Bleak House, or Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Time plays an equally important role in fiction—the era of a story’s setting, the sequence of events that occur, and the timing with which information is revealed to the reader are all pivotal elements. You’ll learn how to syncopate action and exposition, scene and summary, short scenes and long scenes, present-time narrative versus flashbacks, and more.
Drafts and Revisions: All stories must come to an end. In this course’s final unit, you’ll step back from the specific elements of scenic composition and consider the story as a whole. How do you build a complete draft? What are some strategies for revision? And what do you do when you’ve finished?
A Practical Toolkit to Get You Writing
As a working novelist, Professor Hynes is able to imbue his teaching of the elements of fiction with the wisdom of personal experience. He uses vivid examples from the history of literature as well as lessons and anecdotes from his own time in the novel-writing trenches. He shares his personal processes and techniques, and even examines specific examples where he struggled as a writer, revealing how he overcame those difficulties.
But this course is meant to be a toolkit, not an instruction manual. The beauty of fiction writing is that it’s a creative field. There are no right answers, no single way to tell a story. A wealth of exercises will get you writing so that you can practice the many techniques you learn. Along the way, Professor Hynes is an able guide, showing you what has worked for him and other novelists, and pointing out pitfalls to avoid. Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques is truly an exceptional course for anyone interested in storytelling.
Writer James Hynes
loves cats and has worked them into several of his publications,
including his collection of three novellas entitled Publish and Perish:
Three Tales of Tenure and Terror. A combination of horror story and
academic satire, Publish and Perish was the result of Hynes yearning to
create horror stories in the vein of Edgar Allen Poe and M.R. James.
Hynes first gained national attention in 1990 with the publication of
The Wild Colonial Boy. In addition, his essays on television criticism
have appeared in Mother Jones and Utne Reader.
Fiction writing is the process of writing stories or novels that are not based on real events. Fiction writers use their imaginations to create stories and characters, and they may use factual information to help them create a realistic setting. Fiction writing can be a fun and creative way to share your thoughts and ideas with the world, and it can also be a lucrative career.
If you want to write fiction, there are a few things you need to know. First, you need to come up with a good idea. You may want to think about what you’re interested in or what you know a lot about. Once you have a good idea, you need to come up with a story outline. This will help you stay on track while you write your story.
Next, you need to write a rough draft. This is just the basic story, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. You can go back and revise it later. Once you have a rough draft, you can start working on the final version.
Fiction writing can be a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of work. If you’re serious about becoming a fiction writer, you need to be prepared to put in the time and effort.
Great fiction writing takes dedication and hard work, but there are methods to make the process easier. Here are 16 tips for writing fiction:
It’s really amazing, if you stop to think about it. Readers will willingly suspend disbelief and subject themselves to the gamut of emotion, making themselves vulnerable to intense feelings.
Some readers read for the suspenseful ride. Like my husband and kids, who eagerly climb into seats on real roller coasters—they’ll even wait two hours to experience a two-minute ride just to get scared out of their wits.
Some readers are perfectly fine crying, feeling miserable, or aching in commiseration as they go on a difficult journey with a fictional character they love.
Fictional, not real.
Why do so many people love to do this? I don’t know. I can only speak for myself. There is something wonderful, magical, and sublime about being made to feel deeply about something outside my normal life.
Stories that remind me of what being human is all about, what love is, what loyalty is, what hope is, what being victorious looks like, lift me up, confirm my humanity, bring deeper meaning to my own life.
Seeing that we have readers willing to experience emotion when they turn the pages of our novels—no, not willing … expecting, hoping, and longing for an emotional experience—we writers need to become masterful wielders of emotion.
That’s not an easy thing to do. It takes thousands of hours of study, practice, and honing to become a master of emotion. And often that means we have to mine our own emotions.
We have to dig deep to reflect on how we react, respond, and feel emotionally to events, people, and situations so that we can try to capture those feelings and transfer them onto the page.
That’s the advice Hemingway gave, and it’s the best advice I’ve seen on the emotional craft of fiction: “Find what gave you the emotion . . . Then write it down, making it clear so the reader will see it too and have the same feeling as you had.”
Hemingway’s advice gives us the first step to learning how to manipulate readers’ emotions. In addition to examining how you emotionally react to things you see around you or on TV, pay attention to those moments when you feel strongly while reading a novel.
Instead of thinking, “I want my reader to feel sad,” how much more masterful would it be to dig deep into the many emotional nuances we experience when any given event occurs.
Do what Hemingway instructed. When you feel something, write down what action took place that made you emote. Then dig into the emotions and learn not just why you feel this way but what exactly you are feeling. What thoughts led you to those feelings?
If you can nail the thoughts, which are words, you can put similar thoughts (words) into your narrative and character’s voice.
That’s the first step toward evoking emotion in readers in a masterful way.
I usually can’t put a name to the composite emotion I feel in a given situation. I can toss around a whole lot of words. But, to me, trying to name complex emotions is like trying to catch the wind with chopsticks.
Think of it this way. You might not know what to name a particular color shade, but if you have a few tubes of paint and play around with the quantities, you just might be able to re-create the color perfectly.
That’s what you need to do with words on your palette to create the same emotion.
If you consider yourself an unemotional person, not used to examining into your feelings, this aspiration to become an emotional master is going to kick your butt.
I’ve had numerous editing clients tell me they really struggle with this. They say, “I’m just not the emotional, introspective type. I rarely get in touch with my feelings.”
Let’s face the facts: since readers read to care, to be moved, if you want to write the kind of novel that will move them, you must find those emotions within you.
Here’s one thing that might help: music.
I don’t know about you, but music is very powerful to me. It can evoke tremendous emotion in me. That’s why movies can move us in such emotional ways—they not only show (rather than tell) scenes in which characters are emoting, there is a soundtrack that overlays, designed to stir emotion.
Who can explain why certain musical scores make some people weep? Or want to cry out in joy? We can feel nostalgia, poignancy, love, peace, awe when we listen to music. It’s hard to name the emotions we feel when we listen.
Certain instruments might move us a certain way. Some are moved by opera. Or a sweet folk song.
The first time I heard Pharrell Williams’s song “Happy” on YouTube, I got so happy I started dancing around the house just like all those people in the music video. That song was so powerful that people all over the world got hooked on it.
Even Oprah had Pharrell on her show to talk about that one song. If you haven’t seen it, take a minute and watch. It shows ordinary people of all ages, races, classes, stature dancing to the song in locations around the world.
Music is powerful. Music and dancing are universal. Joy is something everyone wants to feel. Emotion is powerful, infectious.
Pharrell’s music and lyrics, along with showing people dancing and moving to his song, gets people in touch with that place inside that feels joy in life. And that’s magical.
We also bring our past to our response to music. What are your favorite songs from when you were a teen? Music sparks intense memories.
When I hear certain songs, I’m instantly transported to specific times and places in my life. Not only that, I can almost taste and feel as if I were back there, thinking and feeling the way I did when I was fifteen or twenty.
Music sparks memory. Memories spark emotion. Emotions lead to more thoughts and memories, and more emotion.
If you know you need your character to feel something and you’re not sure how to tap into that feeling, try to find some music that will take you there.
I have a playlist of hours of soundtrack music. And I often choose a particular piece to listen to when I’m writing or plotting a scene in which I need to feel something specific. I may not be able to name the emotions, but I know what feeling I’m searching for.
Music can free you up; bypass your resistance or writer’s block. If you need to write an exciting high-action scene and you put on music that is exciting and stimulating, it can get your creative juices flowing and drown out your inner editor.
Emotional mastery is one of the hardest skills for a fiction writer. While there are many techniques to help you get there, music is one tool that will help you mine your emotions.
Did you know ProWritingAid can help you show emotion in your writing? The Style Report will point out emotion tells, so you can turn those into more poignant descriptions.
Research isn't only for nonfiction, my friend. If you want to know what readers are expecting from your genre, you need to read that genre. You need to have a good understanding of the tropes that work and the tropes that don't work. You need to know what's been done to death a thousand times and what's new and fresh. You need to love that genre and have respect for it. I don't care if you're writing books about seven-foot-tall blue aliens who are obsessed with finding their soulmates (hello there!) or if you're writing a thriller about a gritty navy seal who has to stop a military coup.
Great fiction writing takes dedication and hard work, but there are methods to make the process easier. Here are 16 tips for writing fiction:
Writing your first novel can be intimidating. In fact, most writers will attempt several novels before they get to the end. So what’s the secret? Unfortunately, there isn’t one—but, there are tips and strategies you can implement to keep yourself on track, get the draft done, and prove to yourself that you can do it.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:33 - Basic story building blocks
1:15 - Don't overcomplicate
1:50 - Get in late
2:12 - Accomplish something with each scene
2:48 - Use chapters consistently
3:34 - Set small goals
4:34 - Prepare to get stuck
5:47 - Return to the elements of story
6:25 - Find a writing community
Digging Deep: Strong characters are key elements in any well-constructed story. You may have clearly illustrated their history, occupation, likes, and dislikes, but to make them truly compelling you must have a basic understanding of these characters' psyches. Choose a story you've written and make a list of the characters you don't really know yet. Next to each name, jot down notes about what that character's aspirations and motivations are. How do these characters see the world? Who are the people they look up to, want to impress, or model themselves after? Where do these characters want to be in the next five years—or in the next fifty? Will they reach their dreams, or are they destined to get sidetracked? Let this information serve as a reference when you are deciding how a character should react in a situation, or how the plot should progress.
Also see:
Writing a book can feel overwhelming—especially if your genre is fantasy, science fiction, or horror. It’s almost like going on a quest. You have to create cities and villages, populate them with unique creatures, and figure out how to save the world—all while making sure your main character finds true love.
Hard, yes.
Impossible, no.
If it were impossible, literature wouldn’t exist.
This book can help you accomplish your writing goals and kick discouragement to the curb, where it belongs. It can also inspire you to write the best story possible, while creating believable characters and well-developed worlds at the same time.
You’ll discover:
• How organic writing can make your fantasy, science fiction, or horror seem more real.
• How to use the author’s secret world-building tips.
• How to create well-developed worlds by making one change in your writing.
• How you can improve your story premise by asking “What If.”
• Why adding an adrenaline rush to your story can both entice and satisfy readers.
• How genre-blending can strengthen your story and plot.
• How to hit tropes by first hitting your genre.
Discover how you can create the book of your dreams by making a few simple changes to your manuscript.
Multiple-award-winning author, Merrie Destefano, spent sixteen years in the publishing industry as a book and magazine editor, working for The Word For Today, Walter Foster Publishing, APG-Media, and Engaged Media. Her novels have been published by HarperCollins, Entangled Teen, and Ruby Slippers Press, and her books have won awards in both the science fiction and fantasy categories.
The basic plot work for most stories, novels and screenplays -- Here it is.
BUT
The Big Switch by Jack Bludis, not by Jack Burns. It's the first time he's using his true name on a piece. He wrote that he doesn't mind being known by both names, but if you look for The Big Switch at your local book store, check under the Bludis name. The Big Switch be available in July at bookstores, at Amazon and B&N on the net. (He'd prefer you to ask your local book stores about it before you buy it on the net.)
Every story spans a period of time. Story can be defined as conflict shown in scene, meaning that most writers will treat time in scene rather than in summary.
An example of a partial scene from Rick Bragg's memoir, Ava's Man:
Charlie felt the hot rush of shot fly past his face, and his legs shook under him with the boom of the gun. But it was a clean miss, and he started to run at Jerry, closing the distance even as Jerry fished in his pocket for another load.
Twenty feet...
Jerry cursed and broke open the breech.
Twelve feet...
He slapped in the fresh shell.
Eight feet...
He snapped the gun closed.
Six feet...
He threw it to his shoulder.
Four feet...
He saw a fist the size of a lard bucket come flying at his nose.
Every high point in a story must be played out in scene on the page, moment-by-moment in real time. The technique of slowing things down forces the stakes in a story ever higher. At the same time, the stakes also rise for the writer.
Many beginning writers hide from the pressure of creating scenes by relying on summary. These same writers hold the mistaken belief that they can control things better by "telling" what happens rather than by "showing" what happens in scene. Consider, instead, the idea that by breaking down each scene to its smallest parts you retain control.
Essential Element #1: Time and Place
The first layer of every scene deals with time and setting. Often this layer is implied or understood from the scenes and summaries that precede it. Either way, be sure to ground your readers in the "where" and "when" of the scene. The last thing you want is for your reader to awaken from the dream you have so carefully crafted due to disorientation or confusion.
In the scene from Ava's Man, the time is established in the earlier part of the scene - "They were getting ready for supper just a few weeks later when."
Essential Element #2: Character Emotional Development
If conflict, tension and suspense drive the reader to turn the page or send the viewer to the edge of her seat, the character emotional development motivates them. Readers read stories and viewers go to the movies to learn about a character's emotional development. The word development implies growth or change. Therefore character becomes a layer.
Using the example, Charlie's character emotional development has deepened over the scope of the story thus far. "Then Charlie did one of the bravest things I have ever heard of, a thing his children swear to. He opened the door and stepped outside to meet his enemy empty-handed, and just started walking."
Essential Element #3: Goal
The protagonist has a long-term goal for the duration of the story and smaller goals for every scene. They may or may not reach the scene goal by scene's end, but viewers and readers who know what is at stake for the character are more apt to cheer for the character's successes and mourn his failures.
For example, in Ava's Man we know that Charlie's goal for the portion of the scene written above is to close the distance between himself and Jerry before Jerry loads the gun.
Essential Element #4: Dramatic Action
Dramatic action that unfolds moment-by-moment on the page makes up the next layer of scene.
In our example, the dramatic action intensifies because of the "ticking clock" - will Charlie stop Jerry in time or will he get shot?
Essential Element #5: Conflict
Embedded within the dramatic action lies a layer or two of conflict, tension and/or suspense. The conflict does not have to be overt but it must be present in some form. Fill a scene with tension or suspense or something unknown lurking in the shadows and you have yourself an exciting story. Remember that setbacks and failure create suspense, conflict and tension, not success or good news.
Charlie's dilemma has conflict, tension and suspense. Will he or won't he? is a simple and powerful set-up.
Essential Element #6: Emotional Change
Just as the action in every scene affects the overall emotional growth of your characters as a reflection of the entire work, the action also affects your characters emotional state at the scene level. In other words, the character's mood changes because of what is said or done in that specific scene.
In Ava's Man, Charlie starts the scene angry that Jerry hurt his friend, Hootie, "just for the sport of it." The more he thinks about "now this man had come to his house, bringing the treat of violence to where his wife and children lived," the angrier and more determined he becomes.
Anger consumes Charlie. Then Jerry says he is coming inside the house and Charlie becomes furious (an emotional change in intensity).
Charlie's anger gets him to his enemy in time to stop him cold only to see "a huge figure hurl itself at him from the shadows," changing his emotional state again, moving it even higher.
Essential Element #7: Thematic Significance
Thematic significance not only creates mood, it also creates the final layer of scene and the overall spirit of your story. Your reason for writing the story, what you want your readers to take away from having read it holds the key to your theme. When the details you use in scene support the thematic significance you have an intricately layered scene that provides meaning and depth to the overall plot.
The theme of Ava's Man could be that a man who drinks too much but is loyal and just inspires respect and becomes legendary.
Our example scene, Charlie's friend Hootie is accused of stealing Jerry's whiskey. Charlie is not drinking or drunk in this scene but the fact that alcohol is the object of the conflict creates thematic significance.
Early in the scene, Bragg establishes that Jerry has done wrong to Hootie. As much as anger motivates Charlie's actions, so does his deep sense of loyalty to Hootie. This reinforces the idea that Charlie is loyal and, by emphasizing the concept, also strengthens the theme.
At the end of the scene, in summary we are told that Jerry never came back, "maybe because [he] respected [Charlie]." Yet another of the thematic elements is highlighted, deepening the thematic meaning to the entire piece.
Creating a Scene Tracker
Create a Scene Tracker for your project using all seven essential elements for a scene that sizzles. Track each scene for the seven elements. The elements you locate right may very well be your strengths in writing. The missing ones may create more of a challenge for you.
Take it one layer at a time. Trust the process and good luck!
You know your characters inside and out. Their hair color, skin tone, clothes sense, shoe size and favorite foods. You know how they move and how they speak. You know everything there is to know about your characters. Now, the trick is to show the reader everything he needs to know without describing your hero's traits in a grocery list.
When it comes to characterization, use every thread on the loom, except straight narrative description. Don't describe your characters - show them. Challenge your readers to pick up the clues to characters you stealthily weave into your story. Each clue brings the reader closer to a full understanding of your characters.
There are several methods of characterization available - actions, appearance, habits, speech patterns, props, even smells.
1. Actions
"Jane
had brown eyes and limp hair that she tucked behind her ears. She wore a
blue housedress. She was very nervous as she sat down in the chair."
From this paragraph we know a little about Jane, but it's not interesting or even very enlightening. An easy way to make your character description paragraphs more interesting is to make them active. Show Jane's personality and mood through her actions. Describe her physically as a backdrop to what's happening in the scene. Use drama, not thoughts, to characterize.
"Jane perched on the edge of the wooden chair, eyes trained on the floor. She smoothed her faded housedress over her knees as if drying moist palms. One thumbnail found its way to her mouth, the nail already chewed to the quick. She lowered her arm, sending furtive glances to the other occupants of the room."
This example describes Jane through her actions. We know she's nervous by her moist palms, chewed thumbnail and furtive glances. She's also probably poor (faded housedress) and shy or has something to hide (eyes trained on the floor). Describing your characters through their actions shows rather than tells.
2. Habits
Another trick is to give your
characters memorable personality traits. Stroking a mustache, chewing on
the arm of a pair of eyeglasses, twirling hair and playing with an
earring all show something about your character.
For example, your protagonist might jingle his pocket change nervously every time he speaks to strangers or she might run her tongue over her bottom lip before she speaks. The reader may not remember the character's name, but he'll definitely remember the eye twitch or the tapping foot the next time that character appears. This is especially useful for characters who may only appear infrequently in your story, but who are important to the plot.
3. Props and Appearance
Props can tell a lot
about a character. Think of your immediate reaction to characters
wearing a feather boa, sweat pants, a cowboy hat or expensive jewelry.
Your readers will have a different emotional response between a
character with a tattoo and one with a cane. Use that response to create
characters that come alive.
"Ahead, teetering along the dark sidewalk on stiletto heels, her beehive hair swaying, her small round hips churning, her arms hugging two grocery bags, was Bernadette Mansaw, seventeen-year-old legend."
There's no doubt about what kind of person Mary McGarry Morris had in mind when she created Bernadette Mansaw in Songs in Ordinary Time.
4. Speech Patterns
What
your characters say and how they say it are important threads in the
fabric of your character. Run-on sentences, tight wording, polysyllabic
words, colloquialisms, or stuttering and pauses distinguish one
character from another without author intrusion. Mark Twain endowed Tom
Sawyer with speech that would illustrate his education level, his social
class and his sense of mischief.
"Confound it! Sometimes she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to geeminy she'd stick to one or t'other -- I can't keep the run of 'em. But I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn him!"
5. Sensory Information
Using
sensory information is often the characterization method most
overlooked. The sound of clicking dentures, the smell of aftershave and
the feel of a limp handshake are all effective characterization tools.
"Jenny wandered through the crowd, hiding behind a cloud of perfume."
What do we know about Jenny? She's shy and forcing herself to mingle. As a means of disguising her fear, she wears too much perfume.
"The fresh aroma of cut lumber clung to him like sawdust."
Would we expect to see this character in an expensive French restaurant? Probably not, and now the author doesn't have to tell that information.
You know your characters. Now, make sure they are as interesting to your readers as they are to you.
Don't describe your characters. Let them come alive by weaving their characterization through actions and use physical habits, speech patterns, props and sensory information to make them memorable. Your characters will emerge like the pattern in a loom.
Ruth Kohut is a teacher and Vice Principal in Ontario. She has written
two novels as well as several articles which have appeared in Learning
and Leading with Technology, Canadian Writer's Journal, ETFO Voice and a
Writer's Choice Literary Journal.
