“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” —Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Description can create one of the great pleasures of fiction. It gives readers enough detail to imagine people and places they have never seen and experience moments that exist only on the page. But…
“In the usual form of suspense it is indispensable that the public be made perfectly aware of all the facts involved.” —Alfred Hitchcock A novel can have conflict, high stakes, arguments, threats, and complications and still feel surprisingly flat. Things are happening, but the reader does not feel enough pressure to keep turning pages. That…
“Dialogue is not conversation.” —Robert McKee, Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for the Page, Stage, and Screen Dialogue can be tricky to evaluate while you’re writing it. You know who the characters are. You know what they mean, what they want, and what happened before they started talking. That knowledge can make it harder…
“Grammar and syntax are kind of the skeleton of the sentence.” — Ursula K. Le Guin AI can make a sentence clearer, tighter, smoother, and more polished. That does not necessarily make it better. I’ve had AI suggest changes that were perfectly acceptable English but didn’t sound like something I would write. The sentence was…
“A writer must be aware of, have reason for, and be in control of all shifts of viewpoint character.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering the Craft Point of view can look like one of the simpler decisions you make when writing a novel. First person or third person? One viewpoint character or several? But POV…
“Scene is to time what concrete detail is to the senses.” —Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft You can usually feel when the pacing in your novel is off. A scene drags even though something important is happening. A major decision occurs so quickly that it barely registers. A chapter seems long…
“A scene is a story in miniature.” —Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting Sometimes a scene has everything you thought it needed. The right characters are there. Something happens. The scene contains information the reader needs. It may even include dialogue or description you like. And yet the scene feels…
“A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.” —E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel When you know your story well, you know things your reader doesn’t. You know why your protagonist makes a particular decision. You know how one character learned an important fact. You know what happened between…
“I think it’s important that subplots are related to the main plot in some way.” –Wesley Chu, Writing Excuses Subplots can be interesting and still weaken your novel. That was an important distinction for me to learn. I tend to enjoy developing relationships and secondary story threads, so coming up with material usually isn’t the…
“A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.” – E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel You can have interesting characters, meaningful conflict, and plenty happening in your novel, and still have a plot that does not quite hold together. I’ve run into this problem while developing my own fiction….