Tell Me <How to Write> a Story E-Book

E.J. Runyon

• Herausgeber: WS
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 299

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Too many books tell you what you need to do during a round of editing...but they very rarely explain why that need exists. Without explanation and examples to help your understanding, craft basics can feel restrictive and unbearable.
You might have already begun writing something you’ve had a great idea for. But a great story requires more than the gift of inspiration. Tell Me A Story takes you through the first steps of what you need to know to write well, and how to improve your editing technique.

This book lets you learn with Hows and Whys, through writing examples from real novices. This will allow you to jump into storytelling with solid practices for getting your ideas from your mind to the page.

Praise for E.J. Runyon

"E.J. has done much more than prove to me that writing is a mosaic skill, worthy of a myriad of effort, but also that it is a sharp-bladed pillow from which we all draw a precise dream." - V. Pittsenbargar

“E.J’s done exactly what I wanted and been searching for. Help about storytelling and the English language. Not just as in punctuation and grammar, but about the craft. I wanted to get my readers more engaged in my story. In swoops E.J. to save the day.” - D. Chapman
“I'm glad I found E.J., she's a wonderful coach. It's like being a kid getting on a bike for the first time, and realizing what the pedals do. The revisions I'm doing now are helping me tell the story that I want to tell.” - C. Murphy

Leseprobe

Tell Me <How to Write> a Story

Good, Basic Advice forNovices Ready To Write

E.J. Runyon

Inspired Quill Publishing

Published by Inspired Quill: October 2013

First Edition

This is a work containing pieces of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The publisher has no control over, and is not responsible for, any third party websites or their contents.

Tell Me <How to Write> A Story © 2013 by E.J. Runyon

Contact the author through their website:

http://www.ejrunyon.com/

Chief Editor: Sara-Jayne Slack

Assistant Editor: Emily Gussin

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-908600-20-2

eBook ISBN: 978-1-908600-21-9

EPUB Edition

Inspired Quill Publishing, UK

Business Reg. No. 7592847

http://www.inspired-quill.com

Dedication

For NCG

Always

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the brave new writers who offered versions of their writings so I had real excerpts to show my readers. Good luck to each and every one of you in your writing careers.

This book is the result of two fantastic experiences in my writing life to date.

The first is my discovery and participation in the National Novel Writing Month event. NaNoWriMo is run by The Office of Letters and Light, an august 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Oakland, CA.

Three years into this annual event, I was 1 of their 5,000 participants in 2001. When this book was first begun, in 2008, I was 1 of 119,301 participants, and lucky to be 1 of their 21,683 winners that year.

The OLL and their program is one of the things that brought you this book.

The other fantastic experience involves the laughter and support I’ve received from two beloved, noble friends: Donna and John Hill of Las Cruces, NM.

No one creates in a vacuum. Friendship and those who believe in your creative visions are what every writer dreams of being offered.

Without these two lovely people in my life, this book would not be in your hands today.

Tell Me <How to Write> a Story

Good, Basic Advice forNovices Ready To Write

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

— Confucius

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

To The Novice Writer

A Note About Using Your Own Work In This Book

What You’re In For Here

Part 1: Thinking About Building A Story

From Premise To Story And Into Plot

What Do You Plan On Writing?

Why Ask Questions While Editing?

Lying, Stealing, And Cheating

Part 2: Finding Where You Can Better Your Story

Building Your Very Own Editing Kit

Other, But Not All Other, Elements

Wait, Why Haven’t We Talked About Plot Points Yet?

Why Change How You Write Your Exercises?

What To Do With All (Or Any) Of Your Writing Exercises

Bio Into Fiction: The Personal Into The Universal

Dramatic Tension in Memoirs

Sentence Structure For Your Shorter Lines

Why Bother With Sentence Structuring?

Character Signatures (Tags)

Part 3: Going Deeper With the Craft of Writing

Craft Basics – The Big And Little Stuff

Metaphors and Similes

How Most Novices Write

The Bane And Joys Of Summary Narration

The Components Of Storytelling

Mixing Up What Is Doing And Done

Organizing The Story Fact Details In Your Work

Erasing Adjectives And Adverbs

Part 4: The Tools of Storytelling

Starting With Internal Dialogue

How Novices Can Edit

How You Can Do It

The Visceral, Physical, and Visual

Writing With Words That Aren’t Yours

When Your Words Don’t Fit

More On Turning Work Into Something Precise

The Last Adverb Search

Dialogue On A Diet

Finding Your Characters

Revision: Re-Visioning Means ‘Seeing’ Again

Reader Feeder And Information Dumps

Using Backstory For The Right Reasons

Part 5: A Dozen More Ways to Better Writing

A Dozen Ways To Start A Short Story

Short Stories And Endings

Change In The Novel, Choice In The Short Story

What Is A Story Arc?

Asking For And Dealing With Feedback

The Biggest Novice Pitfall

Overwriting

Underwriting

‘Absolutely’ Better Writing

Fixing A Clunky Sentence

Running On About Run-ons

Part 6: Putting It All Together And Putting It ‘Into Scene’

Narratives In Action

Character Work

Dialogue Work

Okay, Now Plots

Afterwords

Just In Case…

Index of Terms

Bibliography

Claiming One

To The Novice Writer

Do you know about the Deadly Serious Writers Club?

Who are the members? Name any of your favorite writers, the ones who reach you. Name an author whose work causes you to laugh out loud in a Laundromat or swallow back a real lump in your throat as you turn that last page.

What a group to aspire to! As a Novice Writer, I was at risk of failing the admittance test.

In March of 1996 I signed up for the week-long Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference, held annually each June in California. My fantasies ranged from the writing secrets I would learn through to whom I would meet and talk to, and onto the success I’d be greeted with at the end of the week when they all had a chance to see my work.

But I was the Novice Writer.

The conference coordinator said I could send in a sample of my work, it would be critiqued and returned before the conference began. I sent off nine pages. I was hesitant to hear what professionals would say. But I opened the response envelope anyway, expecting to see pages covered with polite margin notes echoing the suggestions that so many peer workshops had offered:

“Rewrite this in third person.” “That would never happen in real life.” “Your clauses are way too long.” “Pretty word pictures, but where’s the plot?” “People just aren’t allowed to get away with things like this.”

Instead I read a hand-written note that began; “This is really good stuff. I care about the girl, want to know what happened to her, what will happen to her. . .” finishing with the word “Congratulations!” I was floored. I was a Novice Writer—why was I given this great feedback? Stifling my fears, I printed out clean copies and drove up the coast to attend.

To make matters worse, after listening to ten minutes or so of a lecture early in the first morning workshop I had to pass a note to a new friend, asking ‘what’s an adjective and adverb?’ She gave me a strange look and wrote an answer to my note, adding ‘don’t ever let anyone know you had to ask this’.

Not only was I a genuine novice, without the jargon, but if I let it be known how fresh I was, I might also be scorned. Without that lingo, would I be allowed to be a part of the club?

Maybe you have this Deadly Serious Writer goal too. So you’ve selected this book. Plenty of good books sit on shelves offering advice on dialogue, point of view, conflict. In one excellent book I found at that conference, (Writing Fiction, by Barnaby Conrad), one chapter addressed how to handle the Obligatory Sex Scene. Everything is covered in one book or another. Except the things novices (like I was that June) might still need to ask about.

There are many novice fiction writers like you, who haven’t gotten the jargon down yet. You read the words of advice, but they don’t mean anything to you. For instance:

“Your writing should reveal the taste of a character in snippets and flashes of honesty.” If I found this in a how-to book I’d laugh, and ask myself, “Let me see my notes, where did I put those character snippets?”

Without starting with the fundamentals, your work may feel incomplete. You may feel tongue-tied on the page. Your chapters may not shine like the works you admire, or the visuals in your own mind. The helpful members of your weekly writer’s groups may counsel that the piece seems to be missing something.

The sad fact is that there are tangible, yet basic writing principles a novice writer may not realize they need to know. Tangible skills and concerns that are the very ones they expect themselves to already understand and utilize before their first page. These page one skills are what this book is all about.

There will come a time when you are ready to learn the steps it takes to write a powerful proposal or query letter, how to go about finding an editor or publisher. The steps of self-publishing and marketing your own novel may be in your future. Even the need to read something philosophical or spiritual about the art of writing might strike you. Before you set out to submit, publish or ponder your writing, you need to begin with the lessons here at Tell Me <How to Write> a Story.

A Note About Using Your Own Work In This Book

Your writing can be clear and genuine. It can be a replica of the images you see in your mind. Or it can be stiff material you feel hasn’t got an honest voice of its own yet.

If you’re familiar with my coaching website, Bridge to Story, you know how I structure things. I’ll introduce a topic to help your writing get better, along with examples and exercises.

The exercises make use of your own work where they can. Whether you want to tighten up your completed short stories or your finished novel chapters, or begin working from the writing exercises that I provide throughout the chapters, this book uses your own writing to teach these basic fiction writing skills.

This is done in an ongoing manner, using the same pieces throughout the book, growing them into sharp, focused, honest work that you can be proud of. I hate to sound like I’m giving orders, but throughout these chapters I’ll be using ‘I’ and ‘You’ a lot. Think of You and I working in a partnership to make your writing the best it can be.

I ask you to use your own work in all exercises and keep using the same pieces, exercise after exercise, to build up something new from your first drafts. I don’t want you to end up with a file full of exercises that you never look at again.

What You’re In For Here

I’m going to make you think a lot. And I’ll ask you to put the concepts you’re introduced to into action. Yes, I’ve built my own way of coaching and writing. It’s not based solely on writing theory & jargon; I’ll discuss the Whys and Hows. You’ll be shown examples and exercises. I’m not saying that this is the only way to learn about writing fiction. It is one way that works for a lot of novices who are just starting.

If you have something already written I’ll expect (and encourage) you to use the tools, as they are given in the exercises, on your existing work.

But, IF you are the newest of novices, don’t worry. All the talk ‘about writing’ is up front; there are examples too. No pressure. Use this book the way you need to; I offer suggestions and encouragements along the way.

If you are a very new beginner you can take your work through any one of these paths:

• Read all the way through the book first

• Read from section to section and exercise along with my examples

• Read and try the exercises with your own work

Part 1Thinking About Building A Story

You might begin writing straight from your mind. Something you’ve envisioned or dreamt. But a great story requires more than the gift of ideas. This section will take you through the first steps for understanding what a story needs in order to be complete. You’ll learn about Premise, Plot, and the ‘what if?’ questions you need to ask to make original ideas into fully formed story plans. Each section gives the Hows and Whys of what I show you; you’re never just told what to do. Writing examples from real novices are given, in both before and after versions, to help you see what I mean for most topics. Finally, this section will show you three sneaky ways to keep thinking of good story ideas.

From Premise To Story And Into Plot

There is a difference between Premise, Story, and Plot. You can find this info in many How To books and all over the Internet, but here it is again, as E.M. Forster writes:

Astoryis a series of events recorded in their chronological order.

Aplotis a series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance.

Maybe those definitions don’t work for you. So, here’s another way to look at it:

You start with theme (I want to explore what poverty can do to a person)

You move onto premise (What if Joey’s world of poverty warps him?)

You then plan what will be written in the story (I’ll write about what happened to Joey & Alice the summer their son is born)

You go through planning a plot (Here’s how Joey’s fall will happen, chapter by chapter)

If you just want to show how someone IS in a particular moment, you can paint or sculpt. But with words, we’re allowed to show how someone CHANGES. The best short stories are about choice, and the best novels about change. A premise or a theme is not an action on the page – they are the ideas that lie under the actions and motivations you give your characters.

If you can think of every chapter as a short story, use the choices made in each chapter to build a fuller, more developed character by your novel’s end.

Talking about your Premise is like saying ‘What if a married couple, a real guy and a cartoon girl, had to work through their personal problems one summer?’

Telling us about your Story is like saying ‘This story’s about the summer that Geoff Peterson and Winnie the Wombat learned to let go of preconceived notions and love each other.’

Outlining your Plot is about setting up scenes for your reader; scenes that show how these characters evolve during your story. Your story isn’t your plot: you should have two ideas about what you want to write. Story is one, plot the other.

The Why:

Plot is the progression your story will make as the reader moves through various scenes, from the opening line to the last page.

A story will have a Beginning, Middle, and End. A plot can have those three things in any order, plus all the steps it takes to get from one scene to another.

A plot doesn’t have to give the reader those three things in any particular arrangement. Holding back some information for a storytelling reason, giving some details out of sequence, or mixing those three things up on purpose can be used to heighten drama and tension.

Think of a detective mystery that begins with the line, “If I’d only known danger could show up at my door wrapped in silk stockings, I’d be a free man today.” This is definitely not an author starting at the beginning.

The How:

Premise dreams up a ‘what if?’ question. It poses a question that’s so interesting you want to tackle it and start writing. A premise has to have a drive to it, so that you’ll want to work at telling the story.

A Story idea answers the premise’s ‘What if?’ question. It brings it into a situation that you can plan, follow, and then write a short story, novel, or script about.

Plot tells your reader why stuff happened the way it did, step by step. Think of plot-builder words like: because, and so, meanwhile, and that’s why.

Premise leads to…↓What if cartoons could really interact with people?Story idea leads to…↓Who killed Jessica Wombat? Or: A real guy with a cartoon Wombat wife is crushed when she leaves him for a handsomely drawn Roadrunner. Or: Winnie Wombat’s head is turned by suave Ricky Roadrunner when Winnie’s workaholic husband, Geoff, spends too much time at the bank.Plot Points↓How would you set up a beginning, middle, and end for one of these story ideas? Try it now; list these three story elements.Notes↓When it comes to Plot consider starting small and growing it out from the basic: Beginning, Middle, and End.Those three points need the most attention. Stringing them to together with other lesser plot points is easier, if these first three points already exist.

Other storyline ideas might be:

What happens to a returning war vet who loses his son to gang violence?

Where can a young spy turn once he’s drummed out of Spy School?

When the war of the robots took its turn for the worst mankind stood and fought; this is their tale.

Why some good people turn their backs on the daily evil they see.

How I lost my innocence at band camp.

Plot, Beginnings, And Backstory

Knowing where to begin a story is not easy for novices. If you’re working with a character and you want to send them through a set of situations (plot points), think about where you want the first plot point to begin. Go ahead and write from where you feel comfortable beginning. But after your first draft is done you may find as you re-read it that you’ve got a lot of pages that aren’t needed to tell your story after all.

A useful writing term to understand is In Media Res (Latin for ‘in the middle’). Think of it this way:

You tripped in the parking lot and it was funny. You want to tell your friends about it. Are you going to tell them about you driving from the freeway off-ramp into the lot? About what was on your mind when you ate breakfast, before getting into your car? How about why you had a dentist’s appointment today? Why wouldn’t you tell them that stuff? It all happened this morning, right?

You might say: But that stuff doesn’t have anything to do with my tripping!

Exactly. It may have happened earlier, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the story.

You only want the events that are significant for the story’s plot points. Everything else can be edited out or turned into backstory, trimmed and used in small doses. The events that push the character to action are the ones to focus on using.

Once you have your first draft there is nothing wrong with shifting stuff around. Find, highlight, and move the extra stuff; turn that draft into a revision list.

In order to create a great plot when you are writing a character-driven story, begin with a list of three stages for your character: beginning, middle, and end. What is your character like at the start of your story? Where is she mid-novel (her change point)? And where does she end up (newer state of being)?

Now, run an inventory on your character’s attributes/characteristics/traits. For example: stingy, brave, sad, inarticulate, lonely, scared.

These are the things about your character that have potential to change over the length of a novel.

If no significant action or thing begins your story in media res (in the middle of things), if it’s 20 pages of explaining backstory or character setup, then you have a chapter that is a candidate for revision. Something significant should happen in those opening pages. Each chapter needs to have a character’s state-of-being, but that’s best shown via the actions she takes. You can weave the backstory, bit by small bit, into the actions she’s taking in each chapter.

Theme

Premise

Story

Plot

Notes

Alienation in a time/place when all good things should be happening.

What if a damaged young woman fails at everything she tries as she makes her way through her first year at college?

Britt’s living on campus and even though she tries, a series of mishaps will happen because she has a profound sense of paranoia and no friends.

Britt gets locked out of her room and has to go for help in just her towel.She brings a beef stew dish to the Dwaili Festival potluck.That faux pas alienated the one friend she might make.

Sure, you wrote up all about the time she was seven and got hurt, and that’s led her to be so worried all the time. But look at Premise and Story: you’re writing about now, not then. So begin with the now.

Plot And Middles

Now make up your own chart or just take notes using the headings above. A good place to begin a revision of your first draft is to check if it has the following plot points, as they are usually in most stories.

Revelations — remember that revelation is different from explanation. A revelation comes from withholding a plot point from your reader and delivering it at a later point in your novel, out of its chronological order in the story.

Remember: Storyis a series of events recorded in their chronological order.Plotis a series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance.

Explanation is giving your reader more information about something you’ve already shown them, usually during some backstory.

A Revelation can also be about hidden motivations; mystery writers often use it that way. If you add a revelation to your work, write it as an action not as a narrated explanation for your reader.

Reversals — If we use the example in the earlier grid, our college student, what types of reversals can you imagine for her? We ran that inventory on her attributes/characteristics/traits: Stingy, sad, inarticulate, lonely, scared. What actions could reverse one of these character traits?

If you realize a reversal somewhere in your own work would make your story stronger, begin brainstorming ways the character can change and write that as an early scene. But don’t make up a reversal just to add one.

The Breaking Point — This is also called the turning point. And yes, as above, a breaking point for your character ought not be put in explanatory narration about their state-of-being or change of mind. That can be part of what is happening, but it has to be shown in an action they take, not just talked about as a decision or realization they come to.

The Choice or the Change — I’ve talked about choice/change a lot here. For a good reason. They both mean that something moves from states-of-being. Movement is the key. Readers want to see movement – in a character’s growth, in a story’s trajectory. Without a choice, a change can’t be made. Without a change, nothing moves. Short stories work well with just a choice. Novels are better suited – because they take longer – for showing a change in a character.

The Climax — Think of this as the final action point of your story, where things absolutely cannot get any worse. What? You didn’t have a point in your story were things got even a little worse? Don’t worry, that’s what first drafts are for. Your revisions are where you can correct this problem.

Plot And Ends

The Denouement — this is the area of the story where things are wrapped up, or looked back on, after the problem or goal has been set to rights, or overcome. Some novices think that their climax plot point (the action point of your story where things absolutely cannot get any worse) is the end of the story. But it doesn’t have to be. Yes, you can end abruptly at that point. Or you can take a final chapter, or scene, and write a denouement.

What Do You Plan On Writing?

When thinking of what to write, if you have already begun from a premise’s ‘What if?’ question, then you’re ready for the story and plot work: remember…

Story asks the broader question and explains what happened. Although, not in the order of events as you arrange them. That’s the plot’s job. Think of your own life. Birth to death is your chronological story. The time you went to college and remembered back to being a 10-year old is also your story. But, you can present it out of sequence, and leave hunks of it out of your plot.

Plot is the reasons the characters are doing what they are doing. Plot is driven by motivation. The ‘why’ of ‘Why will events happen this way?’ Plus the actions that lead to consequences and reactions.

Plot is the thing that cares about what the action, reaction, consequence, or motivation will be, when moving us from scene to scene.

Plot cares about why things are moving the way they are, and ‘what’ will show up ‘when’ in the story’s telling.

Are you great at making lists of ‘What if?’ questions for premises, but not so much at turning a premise into a story idea? Are story ideas easy to get down on paper, but then wither when you want to get some plot points from them?

What If?

There are many ways of looking at things all around us. Take a step away from the usual and ask: What if?

Do you know a brother and sister who are always fighting? Ask a ‘What if?’ question about them to get your story going for any genre.

• What if the always battling James and Emily both lost their voices for a week? (Middle Grade, Young Adult)

• What if Emily asks James to give her away at her wedding? (Romance, Chick Lit)

• What if James is abducted and Emily knows it’s her new college chum who’s involved? (Mystery, Thriller)

The How:

Read articles. They are good places to jumpstart your imagination in ways that you can turn into a theme, then a premise, and from that premise you can move into a story idea, then onto plot points.

Look for lists in magazines. It’s like finding a list of chapter titles that you can insert a character’s plight into. The ‘Finding Your Characters’ exercise goes into this in more depth.

Think of songs. Do they tell a story you can use as inspiration? The lyrics to any song might bring up a ‘what if?’ question or two for you. Especially if you’re not literal with those lyrics, but instead, take off in a new and different ‘what if?’ point of view.

What about bumper-sticker sayings?

People watch. Catching just a small hunk of a passing conversation is a great way to kick-start a story idea. You have no idea how that conversation ended, so think ‘what if?’ and take it where you want it to go.

Why Ask Questions While Editing?

Things To Consider While Reading Through This Book

‘Standard Questions’ can help the novice focus on what needs editing first. So when I mention these, I mean standard for the craft issues you know you need to work on.

Try to write the edit fixes you need in the form of a ‘How do I…?’ question – they’re easier to answer. You can answer them in several ways and then experiment with which edit works best.

Here is a list of questions one novice came up with. For her, craft issues in writing better dialogue meant more than those of structure problems or trouble with plot holes. So, her list looked like this:

• How do I mix narration into the dialogue so that not every line begins with quote marks? How often should I do that?

• How can I edit most of the un-needed speech-tags out? What if I get rid of too many?

• How do I show motivation without all those –ly words?

• How do I get my lines to use subtext in what folks say to each other?

• How do I convey motivation in action (in-scene narration)?

Think of the area of fiction that you want to sharpen in your own work: characters, dialogue, narration, and settings. Your list of ‘Standard Questions’ should be tailored to your issues.

The How

If you don’t know where to begin, here’s a short get-started list to give you some ideas. You can use this either to start writing, or to edit a first draft.

These are based on suggestions from The Magic Hamburger Method – used in workshops by Abe Polsky and Dale Griffiths Stamos; unfortunately, there isn’t a book for this method, which I learned at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference.

1. What’s the purpose of this chapter’s opening line?

State this in writing or on a 4 x 6 card, (you will need one for each scene).

If you have not [yet] thought about this, add a note to the card that you aren’t sure why your opening line is there. Then move on to the first scene you’ve got planned or written.

2. Who are you introducing (in the early scenes)? Have you planned or written this in subtle and visual ways?

If not [yet], add a note to the card (that you made for this scene) that you need to rewrite this in this way.

3. Does this scene move us into the next scene?

If yes, on the card write: “TRANSITION ___” and put a check next to it.

If no, plan or re-write the transition (end of scene) so that it does move us onward.

You’ll be doing this breakdown of your story for every scene you plan for or edit from here onward. Keep this list or set of cards and try your best to work out of sequence. Free your mind by allowing yourself to jump around to these fixes and blank spots. Plan, or write, or edit the ones that come easiest first, bring in all that information about a starting purpose, visual introductions, and strong transitions.

Characters

Even stories with an intense plot need strong characters to keep a reader’s attention. Plots are about characters in action.

The How

When writing characters, a start point (whether in narration, action, or dialogue), is best at a big change that’s happening to your main character.

Introduce the reader to them on the day or in the moment something new is happening.

Anything about your character before that ‘something new’ start point is the less interesting bit. Sure, it’s important to write those bits in your first draft, and you probably have. But during second and further drafts, save those sections for character introspection or memories that you’ve given them. Use them to spice up the story. Don’t use the less interesting bits to introduce your character right off the bat, even if that’s how her story starts. Instead, show her to us by the new things she does right now, not by what you want us to know about her past.

The Why

Sometimes novices need to get a lot of stuff out of their heads in order to clear their mind and get down to the core of their stories. You might begin your story about a teen with the day she turned thirteen. And tell us about how she was feeling or what she did when her Mom made her do something she didn’t want to do, even though it was her birthday. You might give us a bit of feisty dialogue between her and her younger sister – to show us how that dynamic is going to work. And before you know it, your first ten pages exist of this girl at age thirteen, even if your whole story is about her at fifteen. You most likely did it to introduce us to the main character. You wanted to show us some of the background to her problems. And maybe these ten pages need to exist for you to ‘get her down on the page’ so you could see who it is you are writing about.

But, better storytelling gets the reader right into the pleasure of discovering a new character’s problems or pursuits on page one as they happen. Not by giving the reader ten pages of ‘what you need to know about this girl’s past before I settle down to tell you about her today’ info.

So, no matter what you do in your first draft, be prepared to move that backstory out of the way in the second and further drafts. Editing is about getting your character right into a moment the reader can be hooked by, so they can visualize it happening in front of them.

Narrative

We’ll be looking into this more later, but for now I’ll just introduce some basics.

The How

There is Introduction narrative, Development narrative, and Resolution narrative. It’s important to remember that different elements of storytelling go into these three different items. Summary narration is something else altogether. Here are some of the ways narration can occur in your work.

Introduction narration

That first scene where we get to see your character, setting, or problem in action is introduction narration. Here it’s best not to tell too much backstory. Instead, rely on showing the reader the characters and their problems, goals or needs, through what they are doing and saying, not through outright explanations. Introductions don’t need to sound ‘narrative-ish’ (where the writer is speaking to the reader from somewhere above); you can let some of this introduction slip into a scene you are showing, too.

Summary narration

This is the type of writing where you just want to get from one space to another, not go into too much detail about things that are less important. This type of narrative bridges things from scene to scene. We all know what it takes to drive a car, so summary narration skips things like: “She grabbed her keys and headed out to the garage. Unlocking her driver’s side door, she slipped in and pressed the garage opener’s remote on the sun visor. Glancing in her rear-view, she clipped the seat beat closed around her and slipped the car into reverse….” Instead, you might use summary narration to just say: “She grabbed her keys, got going, and in spite of all the traffic, arrived at his door in ten minutes.” Then, you can continue with the real action of your story.

Development narration

The parts where the plot is moved along with the actions, reactions, or choices that your character makes is development narration. But don’t get this confused with telling the reader story facts and thinking you are explaining developments. Giving too much information is spoon-feeding the reader. Let them discover for themselves. Development narration is free of this Reader Feeder (having too much exposition). It’s mostly scene work. Without these developments the story would stand still. These are the reversals and surprises that are around the corner for your characters. And the reader wants to see this stuff on the page, not hear the writer tell them about it. So try to think ‘scene’ when it comes to development narration.

Resolution narration

You might find that resolution narration is delivered at a much slower pace, because at this point the ‘quest’ has been satisfied. Another term from this narration type is denouement, a French word, said like dey-neu-mah. This is the area of the story where things are wrapped up, or looked back on; it’s written after the problem or goal has been set to rights, or overcome.

Writing By Accident

Because they have a story in them that they want to share, most novices just sit down and start to write. They write almost ‘by accident’. If they are lucky, that accidental writing takes them all the way to the end of the short story, chapter, or whole novel. There is nothing wrong in beginning this way.

But once you have done your first draft, then you need to think about how you are presenting the story, its plot, and characters. This means taking a look at the narration you employ. You may find you’ll need to change things in second and further drafts.

So, to re-cap:

Introduction narration can introduce characters, settings, dilemmas, or goals. Keep backstory to a minimum.

Development narration is used when the plot is moving, pumping along from beat to beat. Aim to write it ‘in-scene’.

Summary narration is used to cover a span of time quickly and it does this in brief detail.

Resolution narration is delivered at the end points a