Writing Modes: the Story-Teller and the Writer

There are two main modes of story-telling: the story-teller and the writer. The story-teller mode mimics oral tradition and predates the writer mode. There is much to be learned from each of these writing modes regardless of the type of writing you do.

There are several story-teller modes (Navajo oral tradition is quite different from, say, the Iliad). Modern story-teller writers include recorders of folk lore and comedic writers. Modern story-tellers have several traits in common. Modern story-telling writings are great resources for people who want to study flash fiction, short story, or longer narrative forms. This is partly because the story-teller writing style tends to be conversational, more concise, and have little description. Story-teller writing also tends to be very brief and yet holds true to story structure.

The writer mode also comes in many flavors. What I mean here is a writer who is trying to be “writerly”. For instance, lots of description, bigger words, and formal or artificial language. I tend to be write formally because that is my natural voice. This is fine for blogs but I work to tone it down for my books.

As a rule of thumb, short works (such as flash fiction and short stories) are typically done in the story-teller mode. This is because there is no room for the descriptions that are expected in longer works. (There are exceptions and I'd love to hear some of yours.)

In novels, there is more room for the writer mode. There, narrative voice runs the gauntlet from story-teller (like Terry Pratchett) with a very informal style to writer (like Terry Goodkind) with a richly descriptive and philosophical style.

I wouldn't say that one length of story is superior to the other, just that different traditions and conventions are in place. And isn't it fun to break those in works of any length?

Flash Fiction: Ending

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writing flash fiction can help you identify your audience. Because they are quick to write, you can easily test different types of endings and see which type of endings your target audience best responds to. Or work in reverse and write the endings you like in order to narrow down the identity of your target audience. Remember that the better you know your audience, the better you can satisfy their readerly cravings.

• Surprise: With such a short length, there is very little room for anything but surprises. A useful – if sometimes uncomfortable – skill for writers to develop. But the best surprise, the unforeseen logical outcome of all that came before, is in the end.
• Uncertainty: Some questions may never be answered, but enough information should be provided that the reader can create the answer alone. This approach has the added benefit of allowing different readers to come away with different impressions.
• Climax: Flash fiction is unusual in that there is not much room to build up to the climax. There are fewer obstacles and fewer characters. Typically, in flash fiction, only two characters (a group can be depicted as a character, remember) are involved. Sometimes the antagonist is absent or only implied, and is never fully characterized. I doubt a writer could get away with this for the climax of a full-fledged novel but it is one way to save space in flash fiction.
• Loose ends: Because there are fewer characters, points of view, and events in flash fiction there are fewer loose ends to resolve. Also, it is more common to leave the problems of other characters unresolved. I think this practice is more accepted in flash fiction because of the space constraints.

Flash Fiction: Middle

A possible benefit of flash fiction is that the middle is so short. Many people struggle with middles although for me the most difficult part is cutting my middles down to size. Flash fiction emphasizes techniques that can help me do this. But if you are the type who writes your middles too short, then flash fiction middles may be easy for you.

Off Camera Flash (Photo credit: nickwheeleroz)

• Inference: One way to cut down on words is to refer to well known events, people, or legends. Saying that a character is shaped like Marilyn Monroe saves a lot of words, as does simply saying “we were under old maritime law”, or “his life suddenly seemed a modern-day Hamlet”.
• Telling: A key phrase in the last point was “simply saying”. The flash fiction I have looked at so contains more “tellling” than I expected. This might be because “showing” takes more words. This is one technique that is frowned on in longer fiction but the conventions seem different in this medium.
• Obstacle: Most flash fiction I read only had one major obstacle. In long fiction, I can usually find three major complications or obstacles. Since there is only one obstacle, it is – of course – the major obstacle and needs to really count.
• Uncertainty: One way to save words is to not resolve or explain everything. This has the added benefit of keeping the reader reading to find the answers to the unanswered questions.

Flash Fiction: Opening

Okay. As part of my learning about flash fiction, I've decided to break down the short structure into its opening, middle, and end. While some of the advice will be true for any story, some is especially important for word-limited format.

• Character: Set up in two sentences. At least one of these sentences should be an active description. What is an “active” description? Other than it not being passive or static, the description should achieve more than one task at a time – which tasks are up to you.
• Setting: Start with a powerful, evocative image. For instance: a sunset can mean an ending, the coming of darkness, give unusual color to the story, is easily visualized, sets a time limit.
• Back-story: If you need a preamble, set it down in the first paragraph (not paragraphs). Become a master of the implication and unsaid. This will let you fit in more world building, back-story, and description.
• Story: If you have a large issue, break it down. Take small pieces of it. Start in the middle of things. This is true of all books and poems but flash fiction takes the process of breaking down almost to its most basic level. One conflict is probably all the room you will find.

Flash Fiction: Why Try It

Minolta Dimage 7Hi, digital camera, front left with flash (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe it is because my WIP is so long but I've recently become interested in flash fiction. Depending on who you ask, flash fiction usually runs between 300 and 1000 words. Micro fiction is even shorter! I am no good at short stories but maybe I will give flash fiction a try.

• Plot: One benefit to flash fiction is a quick way to test or encapsulate a story idea. If you can't think of enough to fill this many words, it probably does not need to be told in 80 to 120 thousand words. On the other hand, if you have3 an idea you can't use now, a flash fiction piece or three might provide the prompt that you need later when you come back to the idea.
• Characters: You can test characters you want to use in your WIP by cresting one or more flash fiction stories about them. Use the format to showcase different relationships, roles, flaws, and strengths. Experiment with dialogue and mannerisms, then give test readers finished products to compare.
• Scenes: Can't bear to let the material go to waste? Write and polish a flash fiction story! The piece can be offered as supplementary material later on your site.
• Practice: Dialogue is not the only skill that can be practiced. Setting, mood, voice, fight scenes, suspense, and more can all be practiced. And you can practice the skill of revision – something that people with long first drafts can have trouble with. The small word counts alone almost guarantees that words will need to be cut.
• Pitch: This might or might not work – I haven't asked any writer friends yet – but wouldn't the skills acquired and polished through writing flash fiction help during the submission process? A proposal and pitch should be engaging, touch on the crucial points of the story, and all in as few words as possible.
• Self-improvement: Why can't I write short stories? Because I think I can't – even though I can write poems and long fiction. I have no such barrier erected against flash fiction. By learning to write flash fiction, I can expand my writing horizons and maybe work my way around to the frustrating short story.

Guidelines for Writing Subplots

I'm hammering out the broad shape of two big subplots in my new book. Sadly, I don't believe that any book will help me with this. Subplots are unique to each story. But some elements are standard for subplots that span the length of most the book.

• Introduction. Characters may be set up in the Introduction or they may first appear in the Early Middle. Since major subplots typically do not start in the Introduction (common exception: major romance subplot), the characters and/or situation are often in stasis at this point, maybe feeling the pressures of the situation (or maybe not) but not yet pushed into doing anything about it.
• Arc. Subplots are structured very like the main plot with a set-up, inciting incident, crisis that makes the character(s) turn from reactive to proactive, a point that propels them into the final showdown, the show-down, and resolution (optional). These points may or may not occur at the same time as in the main plot.
• Timing. Subplots alternate with the main story. Long-term subplot are usually introduced in order of importance (the most important – like a romance – first). And finish up the least important subplots first. Subplots typically are resolved before the final battle of the main plot. A possible exception can be when the outcome of the subplot depends on the final battle's result.

Strategies to Reach 50k: Concept

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

      Your story concept can emphasize characters , plot, or theme. Of the three, characters and plot are by far the most common. And to keep our story going, you need to develop plot and/or character obstacles, complexities, and backstory.
      An obstacle hinders your plot or character (not that the two should truly be separated but authors tend to emphasize one over the other). You will need a character and/or plot that is attracts obstacles like windows attract birds. You need obstacles that will slam into the character/plot so hard that one or the other will break. One way to do this is to adjust your character/plot so that it encounters people with conflicting viewpoints and goals. A second way is through rich settings that hinder or challenge the character’s personal journey or provide physical obstacles to reaching the goal. A third (almost fundamental) way is to develop characters who act as rivals, opponents, and deceivers.
      A complexity is a detail or cluster of details or hints that you can later explore either because you are stuck or because you want to enrich your story. This could be a character’s necklace or a beggar in the street who your character helps, avoids, or abuses. It could be ruins in an ancient forest or a scar. Any of these details can be brought back later and explored more in depth. They can become the source of new conflicts, goals, or revelations. Explaining details is also an excellent way to get unstuck.
      A particular type of plot and character complexity is backstory. Backstory is the past events before your story started – either in the plot or in a character’s life. Backstory helps you better understand character and plot because it explains why people and events now are what they are. Backstory can explain character motives and what plot paths are opened or closed. Relationships between groups (political, for instance) and individuals (animosity, perhaps) all have backstory. But so does the land, the nation, and cultures that your plot and character lives among. This is why so many writers advocate character and setting sketches and why writers of certain genres spend so much time on world-building. What happened before shapes and generates current (and future) characters and plots.

7 Point Plot: Hook and Ordinary World

Prickily Hooks (Photo credit: derekGavey)

      Beginnings are wonderful. They really are. Because a book doesn't really begin there. A book usually begins in the middle of action of some kind. Dialogue, a search, a chase, something that grabs the reader's attention.

It begins with a Hook.

       A Hook is usually the first hint of trouble – trouble the hero doesn't recognize or isn't willing to admit. The Hook relates to the main plot – either the internal conflict or the external conflict.

       A Hook's mood will set up reader expectations. A Hook's pace will set up reader expectations. A Hook's conflict will set up reader expectations. Expectations for what? For the rest of the book. So when writing a Hook, think about what is typical for your book.

       The Hook is your stepping stone to introducing your character and that character's Ordinary World.

       The Ordinary World is the setting, characters, tensions, and rules that surround your hero before the Inciting Incident. The Ordinary World shows your hero as he is before he begins to change. It shows the flaws he doesn't recognize or doesn't try to change (yet). It shows the inner conflict that he is doing nothing to resolve. It shows his relationships with supporting characters.

       The Ordinary World is the setting for all action from the Hook until the advent of Big Trouble. Often writers build on the Hook by 1) dropping clues about the Big Trouble, 2) having the hero make choices that make the initial situation worse and worse – eventually causing the Big Trouble, or 3) having the Bad Guy thwart the hero's goal no matter what the hero tries. And within the Ordinary World, the hero's balance of normalcy becomes more and more difficult.

       When you design your Ordinary World, keep in mind that it would be as different as possible from the Adventure World. Even if your character stays in the same town for the entire book, after the Big Trouble hits his world will change – inside and out.

Flash Fiction: Ends

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writing flash fiction can help you identify your audience. Because they are quick to write, you can easily test different types of endings and see which type of endings your target audience best responds to. Or work in reverse and write the endings you like in order to narrow down the identity of your target audience. Remember that the better you know your audience, the better you can satisfy their readerly cravings.

• Surprise: With such a short length, there is very little room for anything but surprises. A useful – if sometimes uncomfortable – skill for writers to develop. But the best surprise, the unforeseen logical outcome of all that came before, is in the end.
• Uncertainty: Some questions may never be answered, but enough information should be provided that the reader can create the answer alone. This approach has the added benefit of allowing different readers to come away with different impressions.
• Climax: Flash fiction is unusual in that there is not much room to build up to the climax. There are fewer obstacles and fewer characters. Typically, in flash fiction, only two characters (a group can be depicted as a character, remember) are involved. Sometimes the antagonist is absent or only implied, and is never fully characterized. I doubt a writer could get away with this for the climax of a full-fledged novel but it is one way to save space in flash fiction.
• Loose ends: Because there are fewer characters, points of view, and events in flash fiction there are fewer loose ends to resolve. Also, it is more common to leave the problems of other characters unresolved. I think this practice is more accepted in flash fiction because of the space constraints.

Flash Fiction: Middles

Off Camera Flash (Photo credit: nickwheeleroz)

A possible benefit of flash fiction is that the middle is so short. Many people struggle with middles although for me the most difficult part is cutting my middles down to size. Flash fiction emphasizes techniques that can help me do this. But if you are the type who writes your middles too short, then flash fiction middles may be easy for you.

• Inference: One way to cut down on words is to refer to well known events, people, or legends. Saying that a character is shaped like Marilyn Monroe saves a lot of words, as does simply saying “we were under old maritime law”, or “his life suddenly seemed a modern-day Hamlet”.
• Telling: A key phrase in the last point was “simply saying”. The flash fiction I have looked at so contains more “tellling” than I expected. This might be because “showing” takes more words. This is one technique that is frowned on in longer fiction but the conventions seem different in this medium.
• Obstacle: Most flash fiction I read only had one major obstacle. In long fiction, I can usually find three major complications or obstacles. Since there is only one obstacle, it is – of course – the major obstacle and needs to really count.
• Uncertainty: One way to save words is to not resolve or explain everything. This has the added benefit of keeping the reader reading to find the answers to the unanswered questions.

Flash Fiction: Opening

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Okay. As part of my learning about flash fiction, I've decided to break down the short structure into its opening, middle, and end. While some of the advice will be true for any story, some is especially important for word-limited format.

• Character: Set up in two sentences. At least one of these sentences should be an active description. What is an “active” description? Other than it not being passive or static, the description should achieve more than one task at a time – which tasks are up to you.
• Setting: Start with a powerful, evocative image. For instance: a sunset can mean an ending, the coming of darkness, give unusual color to the story, is easily visualized, sets a time limit.
• Back-story: If you need a preamble, set it down in the first paragraph (not paragraphs). Become a master of the implication and unsaid. This will let you fit in more world building, back-story, and description.
• Story: If you have a large issue, break it down. Take small pieces of it. Start in the middle of things. This is true of all books and poems but flash fiction takes the process of breaking down almost to its most basic level. One conflict is probably all the room you will find.

Flash Fiction: Why Try It

Minolta Dimage 7Hi, digital camera, front left with flash (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe it is because my WIP is so long but I've recently become interested in flash fiction. Depending on who you ask, flash fiction usually runs between 300 and 1000 words. Micro fiction is even shorter! I am no good at short stories but maybe I will give flash fiction a try.

• Plot: One benefit to flash fiction is a quick way to test or encapsulate a story idea. If you can't think of enough to fill this many words, it probably does not need to be told in 80 to 120 thousand words. On the other hand, if you have3 an idea you can't use now, a flash fiction piece or three might provide the prompt that you need later when you come back to the idea.
• Characters: You can test characters you want to use in your WIP by cresting one or more flash fiction stories about them. Use the format to showcase different relationships, roles, flaws, and strengths. Experiment with dialogue and mannerisms, then give test readers finished products to compare.
• Scenes: Can't bear to let the material go to waste? Write and polish a flash fiction story! The piece can be offered as supplementary material later on your site.
• Practice: Dialogue is not the only skill that can be practiced. Setting, mood, voice, fight scenes, suspense, and more can all be practiced. And you can practice the skill of revision – something that people with long first drafts can have trouble with. The small word counts alone almost guarantees that words will need to be cut.
• Pitch: This might or might not work – I haven't asked any writer friends yet – but wouldn't the skills acquired and polished through writing flash fiction help during the submission process? A proposal and pitch should be engaging, touch on the crucial points of the story, and all in as few words as possible.
• Self-improvement: Why can't I write short stories? Because I think I can't – even though I can write poems and long fiction. I have no such barrier erected against flash fiction. By learning to write flash fiction, I can expand my writing horizons and maybe work my way around to the frustrating short story.

Setting: Bind the Diamond to the Ring

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So you have your characters and your plot. Your characters are are multi-faceted, they are clear to the reader. Your plot is well-planned and connects seamlessly. Both have been polished to a sparkle and a shine. But the two won't fit together without a little help. The characters need a setting to join them with the plot. Just as with a diamond ring, setting joins the two elements into a whole.

Setting is more than just a place to stand. Just as the setting affects the final appearance of the diamond, setting also affects character. Your setting may be flashy or unobtrusive but it helps define your character's shape and limits. Your setting shows off your character. Your character shows off your setting.

As with a ring, the setting in a book is often the weakest point. It is easy to skimp on materials when creating your setting but if you do this, your project may not hold up in the long-term. A solution is to take just as much care with your setting as you do with your characters and your plot. The readers of your book will thank you.