Write well. Write often. Edit wisely.
You’ll find a lot of articles at this blog that encourage the new writer. Writers come to writing for many reasons, and not all will have a background in writing, fiction, or literature.
And while I will forever encourage writers to begin writing at any time and for whatever reason, I do want to further encourage writers who intend to publish and those who intend to write professionally.
If you want to publish, whether you’ll submit your manuscripts to agents and publishers or you plan to self-publish, you need to get serious about the craft. You might have decided to tackle a novel because you know you can tell a story or you know you can write dialogue—or maybe you’re a whiz with grammar rules—but writing a novel is about much more than one story component or one competency.
Being a fabulous plotter isn’t enough—novels are more than plot.
Having great insights into what motivates people isn’t enough—novels need more than character motivation.
Being able to craft clear sentences and grammatically perfect paragraphs page after page isn’t enough—there’s much more to storytelling than the mechanics.
The thing is, if you plan to publish, you should be learning everything there is to know about writing book-length manuscripts and you should be practicing with exercises and sample text. Whether we’re talking writing novels or creative nonfiction or even screenplays, you can’t just wing it. Yes, you’ve probably read many books and seen many movies and you are generally familiar with the setup of long fiction, but have you studied how novels come together page by page and scene by scene? Have you tried to write scenes that build on one another until you have a train racing inevitably toward a satisfying climax?
A writer needs multiple skills to write what will eventually become a book. Writing might look easy—and some types of writing will be easier for you than others—but writing a novel isn’t easy. It’s planning. It’s choices tried and choices rejected. It’s tearing up 100 pages that go nowhere and writing 100 new pages that incorporate all the elements that you’ve decided should go into your story.
It’s rewriting all the dialogue once you can finally hear your protagonist’s voice and understand her motivations.
It’s changing the point of view and shifting the setting. It’s turning the best friend into the antagonist, and it’s getting out of the head of the main character more often.
It’s a honing of word choices and developing an ear for sentence rhythms and scene pacing.
It’s rewriting again and again and again. It’s not settling for what might work but searching for what works best.
No one is going to get all the parts right in the first manuscript. No one who hasn’t done some study or research is going to get a quarter of the parts right the first time around. There are simply too many parts; you won’t be good at most of them when you’re starting out.
You won’t get better at any of them until you both learn and practice what you learn.
You’re great with humor, but do you know how to make a character humorous? Do you know how to ratchet up the humor and how to dial it back? Do you know when to dial it back so that a different story element can take center stage when it should? Do you know what that other story element could or should be?
Do you know how to pair humor with other story components and details in a way that enhances all of them? Do you rely on humor so much that your stories have no other strengths? sound too much alike? have little depth?
Allow your strengths and what you like about fiction to pull you into the writing world—you’re going to need something positive to anchor you when progress seems impossible and writing is a chore. But one competency isn’t going to be enough for you to create a decent manuscript. You need to develop a toolbox full of skills.
Topics to Study and Skills to Learn and Master
There are so many ways to mess up a novel. Conversely, there are many areas in which a writer can excel. Start excelling now. Start learning about all the components of long fiction and how they work together. Start practicing the skills necessary to be a competent and compelling writer.
You don’t have to take on every skill and topic at the same time, but you will be able to work on some together.
I’ve listed a wide range of topics that novel writers should develop competencies in, but I’m not going to go into detail about each in this article. For most topics I’ve listed only broad subjects; each can be separated into additional subjects. I’ve addressed the fiction elements and grammar rules often; in the near future, look for articles on story structure and other topics.
If you’re not particularly skilled in one of the areas—if you’ve never heard of one of the items on the list—start studying and practicing. There’s an abundance of resources—websites, podcasts, books, classes, writing groups, workshops and conferences—available to help you gain knowledge and experience. I’ll provide encouragement and support, and I’ll be one of those online resources. But if you’re serious about writing, you need to learn the craft and practice the craft.
Don’t settle on being skilled in one writing area—develop your skills in all areas. After a lifetime of writing you’ll probably still be stronger at some skills, but the more you know and the more practice you have with all areas, the stronger and more compelling your stories will be.
Foundational Elements
Genre
Narrative Tense
Narrative Distance
Point of View & Viewpoint Characters
Narrative Modes
Story structure
Inciting incident
Point of no return
First, second, and third turning points
First and second pinch points
Rising action
Falling action
Dark moment
Climax
Resolution
Denouement
Character arc
Story goal
Story question
Scene & sequel
Fiction elements
Character—protagonist, antagonist, secondary characters, background characters; goals and motivation
Plot
Setting
Dialogue—subtext
Action
Description
Pace
Conflict
Style—diction, syntax, poetic devices
Tone & Mood
Exposition
Symbolism
Theme
Mechanics
Grammar, punctuation, spelling (consistency)
Paragraphing
Storytelling
Do you know what makes a compelling story? Do you know how to create a gripping scene?
Reader Appeal
Will readers care about characters?
Will readers care about the subject matter and theme?
Will readers care what happens?
Do you know how to influence reader emotions?
Writing Skills
Ability to write clearly and cohesively
Ability to vary sentence structure and rhythm
Knowing what to include and what not to include
Tags: encouragement Posted in: Beginning Writers, Writing Tips
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Write well. Write often. Edit wisely.
Your article could be off putting for novice writers intimidated by the vast array of new skills required, but many of those mentioned come naturally to the storyteller. Becoming aware of each over time brings them to consciousness. Once there can be honed and become part of your writers toolbox. Like with so many things, you need to learn the rules, absorb them and forget them.
Casper, I hope that novice writers would be challenged rather than intimidated. I’d also hope that they’d be happy to find a list of areas to begin considering. There’s a lot involved in writing fiction, and there’s no reason not to know from the start at least some of what’s involved; I can’t see making a writer wait until he’s working on his third manuscript to mention the need for conflict or a story goal.
Rather than be intimidated, some new writers might look at such a list and be excited to find that they’re already proficient in several areas. As you said, some storytellers are already skilled in some of these areas. Yet others might haven’t given such topics a thought.
Thanks for giving us something to think about.
What a brilliant list of Foundational Elements! Thanks so much, Beth.
Thanks, Gracie. I see that I left out world-building. I’ll have to add that one in. I’m sure I left out a few other items as well.
I have followed Beth Hill for years and believe she has the best site on the Web for fiction writers. This is a great article but I’m concerned about two or three things.
We might benefit from dropping back and look at the most basic things such as the essence of fiction and the use of the senses and elements.
Fiction is action. But it is two kinds of action: Enveloping Action and Action Proper. Some people call the Enveloping Action by other names such as the Universal or Archetypal action or the overriding theme of the story. I dismiss “overriding theme” as an adequate term because “theme” implies “idea,” whereas fiction puts the idea into action and there are many ideas in any story but only one Enveloping Action. Perhaps the best way to begin to grasp the term “Enveloping Action” is to think of story as a universe represented by a circle that encompasses all of the necessary actions to be included in the story. The boundary of the circle excludes all the actions not necessary to include in the story and includes all the actions pertinent. A writer may want to tell a certain story. As she explores the possibilities, she boils them down to the ones not only pertinent as probably but the ones necessary to create the story. The boundary of the circle envelops the universe of the story. I find no problem with “Universal Action” or “Archetypal Action” but I find those terms as too abstract for the average beginning craftsman.
The concept of unity in story was best expressed almost two thousand years ago by Aristotle who said that what gives a story unity is not as the masses believe, that it is about the person, but rather that it is about one action; i.e., not a person, the protagonist, but an action such as selfishness, love or some lack of love, loss of innocence, greed, or any action we all have done of do every day that is significant enough to make a story. When someone asks What is your story about? you can summarize it by listing some of the Actions Proper or by giving the Enveloping Action.
As for the senses, since we experience our days primarily, first and foremost, through the senses, if we want as writers to create an imaginary world (our story) that is as real as possible for the reader, we must make the reader, especially the attentive reader, see, smell, feel, hear, and taste as much as we can with words. Diane Ackerman has written the definitive book on the senses, A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SENSES.
As for the elements, I speak here of the natural elements. Again, an ancient Greek serves as a starting point: Lucretius in his DE RARUM NATURA or THE NATURE OF THINGS. Earth, Air, Fire, and Water are the four basic elements we subconsciously experience the world in terms of. A wise writer will check her manuscript to make sure that every opportunity to use those in some way is taken advantage of. Curiously enough, those elements were derived from the only possible combinations of hot and cold and wet and dry–the sense of touch.
It’s so very good to see you, Frank. I’m glad you’re here sharing your wisdom.
I agree wholeheartedly about the inclusion of sense details: I’d include those under the setting, description, and scene umbrellas (maybe a few others). I hadn’t considered the natural elements, however. That’s something to think about.
Studying different types—and different definitions—of action is useful for a writer—great for all of us—but that focus is more theoretically directed than what I’d intended for this article. My intent was to zero in on the need to learn practical skills—how to write dialogue, how to address genre expectations, how to manipulate conflict. I mentioned the different categories as a means of pointing out areas that writers need to consider as they write a novel, yet I didn’t include all possible topics.
Maybe I need to reword the article just a bit.
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I hope we get to see more of you soon.
Thank you Beth. Your blog always provides focus, encourages and informs. I’m excited again.
Helen, I’m glad to hear that you’re excited about writing. I hope that the excitement produces some fabulous writing for you.
Hi Beth,
I’d like to quote one section from your post, above: “It’s changing the point of view and shifting the setting. It’s turning the best friend into the antagonist, and it’s getting out of the head of the main character more often.” All of which I would personally agree with & all of which I have certainly done in my own writing. But then so much of the ‘so-called’ advice we all get from the editorial community these days is (or at least, sounds like) the complete opposite.
Personally, I feel bludgeoned to death by editors who tell us all to write only from the POV of the main character – preferably in 1st person POV. Apparently, because that is the prevailing ‘fashion’ these days, despite my making the point (here & elsewhere – you may remember) that doing so destroys any sense the reader might have of sympathy or jeopardy on behalf of the protagonist, especially in a thriller/murder mystery/historical epic etc. where the protagonist is probably facing death every day. Not least because ‘dead men tell no tails’ to put it in a nutshell. There’s also the impossibility (fairly obviously) of being able to tell the reader anything to do with the story outside of the personal knowledge or perception of the protagonist if we are ‘hamstrung’ by not being able to leave the protagonist’s head.
Yet that is so much of what I hear all the time from editors & it drives me crazy. It’s especially perverse since I (and those of my generation in the UK) were brought up reading the ‘classics’, such as Dickens, at school & persuaded that ‘that was the way to write’. And so we adopted that ‘traditional’ style (and were praised by our teachers for doing so) in our own writing.
Yet today, the ‘omniscient POV’ used by Dickens is apparently sneered at by the publishing industry; despite his works still being in print & selling & never being off our screens in one adaptation after another! I even remember the Muppet version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ having Gonzo (with his sidekick, Rizzo the Rat) arguing over this very point. Gonzo is busy playing the part of Dickens, as the narrator of the story, telling us all about Scrooge’s character, whereupon Rizzo looks at him and asks how he knows all this stuff. Gonzo replies that it’s because he is the omniscient author (fairly obviously). Yet the irony is that such a basic point seems to need to be made for a modern audience who are, apparently, starved of such writing and find the concept totally alien! And personally, I share Gonzo’s frustration that Dickens’s writing style no longer seems to be allowed in modern publishing.
Because it’s effectively a case of the publishing community saying to us: “Don’t write as successful authors did in the past (and are still being read for, today). Write in a completely different way that undermines your ability to retain tension in the story & jeopardy in the role of the protagonist & that signposts how the story will end (with the protagonist still alive & well, to be able to finish narrating the story in 1st person POV). Oh, and don’t explain anything to the reader outside of the knowledge of the protagonist, so that they remain as ignorant of what’s going on as he/she is. Because you are now writing for the ‘computer-game’ generation, who expect everything to be an ‘immersive experience’ (even when patently NOT in the format of a computer-game). And if you can also dumb-down your spelling, grammar & punctuation into the bargain, that might resemble the kind of ‘text-speak’ which young folks use in their everyday communication with each other, and so make it more ‘accessible’ for them!’ At least, that’s how the modern ‘writing rules’ used by publishers read to me. Or maybe I need to practise by doing way more texting, myself, so can understand what they are really trying to tell us all (there might be some ‘hidden message’ which eludes me…) 🙂
Regards,
Steve
P.S. ‘Tails’ should be ‘tales’ 🙂
Admittedly, the typical writing style has changed since the time of Dickens. Omniscient is still a valid choice for POV, but the strengths of first person and deep third person have given readers a different kind of reading experience, one that many readers embrace.
There’s still room for all options, yet some POVs seem a better fit for some genres.
A lot of writing advice regarding omniscient is less about true omniscient and more about head-hopping. A lot of inexperienced writers don’t settle on a POV or on the viewpoint characters–or they don’t know how to switch between viewpoint characters in a single POV–and editors and writing coaches are tying to keep them from jumping in and out of viewpoint characters willy-nilly. Plus, as I said, some genres seem to call for certain POVs. An epic that covers 100 years or that features a large cast is perfect paired with omniscient. But a contemporary romance with the hero and heroine sharing viewpoint duties almost always is deep third person POV. For other genres, there are options.
I hadn’t heard anyone recommend “dumbing down” spelling, grammar, and punctuation for long fiction. I hope that’s not happening. Writers should be able to write at a range of levels and still find an audience. Yet publishers have their niches, and since they’re the ones buying the manuscripts, they have the say about what they produce.
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Don’t be discouraged. Keep writing. Maybe you’ll have to adapt some of your writing practices to secure a publishing contract–that wouldn’t be unusual. But on the other hand, you might end up introducing something new to the literary world.
I, as a completely new writer, am very inspired by your blog post. I really learned a lot from this blog post. I am sure this post will also inspire many other people like me to become writers. Thank you for sharing this article.