CWA: action.

Two flaws are common:

1. Lack of action: the story that relies too much on description or dialogue, or the play in which no one does anything but talk. The essence of storytelling is dramatizing conflict through action. You do not need sword fights or volcanic eruptions; action can be subtle, but something should happen.

2. Little or nothing but action: the story in which the only conflict is whether Johnny will score a goal and win the game. Sophisticated readers expect more.

CWP: plot and conflict.

A good plot is not easy to create. There must be questions the reader wants answered, logic to the sequence of events, a conflict to be resolved, and an element of the unexpected. A story need not have a surprise ending, but it should not be predictable either.

The idea that “character is destiny” is attributed to the ancient Greek phiilosopher Heraclitus (c. 535-475 BC). Literary critic A. C. Bradley applied the idea to Shakespeare’s tragedies, arguing that “The center of the tragedy” lies “in action issuing from character, or in character issuing in action.” The concept is not limited to tragedy. In much of the best fiction, there is a network of causality; characters are who they are partly because of their circumstances, and their lives unfold as they do partly because of the kind of people they are.

In Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, considered one of the greatest novels in the world, the final sentence is “He has just been awarded the cross of the Legion of Honor” (the highest award for military and civil merit in France). The entire novel has led to the final sentence, which, although unexpected, seems inevitable. In its context, the sentence is ironic in the extreme, and it leaves readers thinking, “This is the perfect ending.” To create such an effect is not an easy achievement for a writer.

CW.Ch: characterization.

Create real, complex human beings. Inexperienced writers often neglect three basic concepts:

1. Provide concrete details that distinguish each character. The way a character looks, walks, dresses and speaks should reveal inner qualities of the character; so should the decor of your character’s room. Give your character a name and a home.

2. Make each important character embody a set of attitudes, values and beliefs. Study the way excellent fiction writers reveal a character’s outlook on life, sometimes in a single line of dialogue.

3. Give your character a past. Most short stories narrate only one or two incidents, but good stories give us a sense of the characters’ entire lives. Why are they the way they are? Have they been affected by the place where they live, their upbringing, their work, their marriage? Good writers’ characters are three-dimensional; great writers’ characters are four-dimensional. Spend a night with your characters in their homes, keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, and listen to them, until you know them as well you know yourself.

CWD: dialogue.

Dialogue is harder to write than it seems. Look at an excellent story or novel and study the subtle ways the writer handles dialogue. Common errors:

1. Introduce dialogue grammatically. A verb like “said” is necessary. Some verbs require an indirect object:

WRONG: He told, “I’m leaving.”

RIGHT: He told his girlfriend, “I’m leaving.”

Not all verbs that describe manner or speech can introduce dialogue by themselves:

WRONG: “Your move,” he smiled.

RIGHT: “Your move,” he said with a smile.

RIGHT: He shrugged, “If you say so.”

WRONG: Shrugging, he said, “If you say so.”

2. Identify the speakers with a phrase like “he said.” You may know who is speaking in each paragraph, but your reader needs help.

3. Locate the “he said” phrases with care. You should vary the location of the “he said” phrase to avoid monotony. However, there are only three places the “he said” phrase can go: before the first sentence, somewhere within it, and immediately after it. Otherwise you keep readers wondering who is speaking.

WRONG: “I hate to disappoint you, but I think you’re making a big mistake. Are you sure you’ll feel this way next week? Or next year? Do you think can just walk back into your girlfriend’s arms if you should someday change your mind?” my sister asked.

RIGHT (beginning): My sister said, “I hate to disappoint you, but I think you’re making a big mistake. Are you sure you’ll feel this way next week? Or next year? Do you think can just walk back into your girlfriend’s arms if you should someday change your mind?”

RIGHT (middle of first sentence): “I hate to disappoint you,” my sister said, “but I think you’re making a big mistake. Are you sure you’ll feel this way next week? Or next year? Do you think can just walk back into your girlfriend’s arms if you should someday change your mind?”

RIGHT (end of first sentence): “I hate to disappoint you, but I think you’re making a big mistake,” my sister said. “Are you sure you’ll feel this way next week? Or next year? Do you think can just walk back into your girlfriend’s arms if you should someday change your mind?”

4. Vary the verbs that introduce dialogue. Avoiding repetition of “say” (“he said,” “she said”) is a problem all writers of fiction face. Any technique can sound monotonous and artificial if you overuse it, including adverbs (“he said tenderly”) and inversion (“said the butler”). Edgar Allan Poe used inversion in the famous refrain of “The Raven” (“Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore’”) because he wanted the poem to sound archaic and artificial.

5. Make dialogue count. Good dialogue reveals character and/or creates irony. If it does nothing but report action, use narration instead. The following dialogue is nine lines of wasted space.

Boring Dialogue

Sean phoned Mark. “Hey,” Mark said.

Sean recognized Mark’s voice. Sean said, “Hey.”

Mark said, “What’s up?”

Sean asked, “Do you want to go to the beach?”

“Okay,” Mark replied.

“When can you go?” Sean asked.

Mark answered, “In about an hour.”

Sean told Mark, “Get your stuff and I’ll pick you up.”

“Okay,” said Mark.

The writer would have been better off saying, “Sean and Mark went to the beach.” Thoughtful readers may wonder, “Does the writer want us to conclude that Sean and Mark are unimaginative people with monosyllabic vocabularies?” The names could be reversed, for there is nothing to distinguish Mark from Sean.

CWVT: avoid present tense in narrative.

Most stories and novels are in the past tense for good reason. It sounds natural. What do you say when someone asks about your day?

UNNATURAL: Last night I stay up late, and this morning I am in a rush. I am eating a bagel as I run to the bus stop.

Present-tense narrative is neither original nor innovative; it has been tried often. It is like walking with your legs crossed: a game that is amusing for a minute or two. It usually just calls attention to itself and produces tense shifts (when the writer unconsciously shifts to the natural past tense). Sometimes it leads to absurdity:

The burglar pulls the trigger. I duck, but I am too late. I am rushed to the hospital. While I lie in a coma, my mother sits at my bedside crying. I am recovering gradually, but my personality changes. I become a violent criminal. I am sentenced to death. I die. My mother is weeping while they lower my coffin into the ground.

You may use present tense, but (as with any stylistic technique) you should have a good reason. A writer who aims only at oddity for its own sake may as well use the future perfect tense:

Once upon a time there will have been a hare who will have boasted about his speed. He will have challenged a tortoise to a race.

CW.Cl: Avoid clichés.

Fiction writing has clichés too, like “beneath his mild-mannered exterior” and “in a flash it dawned upon her” and the illogical “he thought to himself.” Read your story critically. There are even overused first lines:

TRITE: “Beep!” the alarm clock blared.

TRITE: The gun fired, “Bang!”

TRITE: “Ring!” the telephone rang.

As an story-starting device, a ringing alarm clock is triter than “It was a dark and stormy night.” Even if it were not trite, the phrases above do not make sense. Noises are not dialogue; machines do not speak. The quotation marks are illogical, but so are the words “Beep,” “Bang” and “Ring.” What other sound would readers expect? It would be news if the alarm clock went “Bang” or the gun went “Beep”—or if the telephone quacked. The writer should just say “The telephone rang.”