The Anatomy of Prose

12 Steps to Sensational Sentences

Sacha Black

The Anatomy of Prose: 12 Steps to Sensational Sentences

Copyright © May 2020 Sacha Black

The right of Sacha Black to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted, without permission of the copyright owner. Except for a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

First Published March 2020, by Atlas Black Publishing

Cover design: Andrew Brown, Design for Writers

www.sachablack.co.uk

All rights reserved

For all the writers out there with rebellion in their hearts…

I see you.

This one’s for you.

Be a Rebel

Where I ask you to whip out your inner diva, we discover Mozart and Metallica aren’t all that different, we pour ourselves a swift gin, build a castle of commas, and understand whether this book is for you.

Come now, my little wordsmiths. Let me wrap my inky fingers around you and pull you down my rabbit hole. Writers get awfully caught up in worrying about this rule or that rule. Which is exactly why I start the majority of my craft books talking about how important it is for you to chuck the rule book in the fuck-it bucket and move on.

The problem is, the more granular you get with craft advice the higher the expectation is for one to dish out “rules” like it’s candy on Halloween—and can you get a more granular topic than the art of prose?

Well, let me assure you, it ain’t Halloween, and I’m not the Candyman. Rules are for breaking. I don’t know about you, but rules have a nasty habit of provoking my inner rebel. I see one and have an instant need to break it, burn it, and dissolve it into ash and dust.

Prose is art. All art is subjective, you don’t need me to tell you that. Some of us might want to wear glitter-spangled pants on a Friday night whilst drizzling gin and popping candy on our nipples—what? It tingles. But the point is, whatever floats your boat is okay. One person’s Mozart is another’s Metallica. It’s all art, baby. You might like purple prose or the cleanest, most clinical sentences known to man. Honestly, that’s fine. No one’s going to scold you for an adverb fetish; I mean, I don’t want to read it, but there’s an audience out there for everyone.

I’m saying this here because as you read through this book, I’m probably going to throw out some “you should do this” or “doing that is bad because.” Let’s all be grown-ups—before you send me ranty emails, take my must-dos and must-not-dos with several pinches of salt and a dash of gin. My aim is to equip you with a giant bag of prose tricks. To show you how using various sentence-level devices can impact your prose. Whether you deem those as quality or trash is entirely up to your literary palate.

Now, understandably, I’m going to have some biases and naturally I’m going to tell you what I like and what I think works. But that doesn’t mean you have to like the same things as me. And if what I’m saying doesn’t gel with the type of prose you like to read and write, then feel empowered to whip out your inner diva and rebel, rebel, rebel. If you want to leave that particular tool, device, or piece of advice on the table and take the things you do like, cool. I’m all for that. If we all wrote the same stories reading would be rather dull.

If, for example, you like your work littered with adverbs—and I really don’t, did I mention that already? Then so be it.

Every rule can be broken. And I do mean every rule. But rebellion aside, there are some relatively useful rules that stop you looking like a wally. Like using a full stop at the end of a sentence. But it’s best I leave those pernickety grammar rules to the copy-editors and Strunk and Whites of the world and focus on prose instead.

Writing non-fiction requires a certain level of specificity. You see, most people come to a non-fiction book for answers. They have a problem or a question and they hope the book they pick up has the answer. But to answer a question, to truly get into enough detail and knowledge to properly answer a question, you have to know what you’re not answering. One of my remaining corporate scars is the phrase “scope creep.” This is when a project drifts from its original purpose to a wider more fluffy-bunny shaped project.

I’m not going to do that.

I don’t like fluff and I loathed the corporate rat race. So, before we start, I’m going to be absolutely crystal clear what I’m not doing here.

Reasons to put this book down:

You’ve come for grammar and punctuation lessons. This is not a grammar book. I don’t have stern glasses or a whiteboard, and I’m certainly not an expert in commas—you only have to ask my editor to know that.

I can hear the scratch of nails against scalp. You came for a book on sentence level quality, on prose, and the art of the craft. What is this book if it doesn’t focus on grammar? The title says “sensational sentences.” How can I teach you to create perfect prose without talking about commas?

Sure, commas are important—they help create the perfect pace and flow—and I’m entirely certain that the grammarians out there will have an aneurysm if they read this, but commas don’t make beautiful sentences, words do. Carefully sculpted phrases, choice positioning of metaphors and similes, and the precise choosing of synonyms, that’s what creates the quotable sentences, the memorable characters and the rich worldbuilding readers love.

You’re not interested in developing your craft. When it comes to craft, pushing yourself outside your comfort zone is the only way to develop. If you’re not willing to look at where your writing needs to improve, then you’re wasting your time reading this.

You don’t like dark humor or swear words. I have a potty mouth, a twisted sense of humor, and I like making shit up. It is what it is.

I should also point out I’m not here to preach purple prose or lengthy paragraphs of description. Brevity is just as much a technique as extended metaphors.

Okay, Then What Is this Book?

I’ve explained what this book isn’t, so I guess I should also be clear what it is. I wrote this book as an exploration—a narrative examining a range of the techniques and tools in writing. Is it comprehensive? God, no. How could it be? There are as many narrative and prose techniques in writing as there are authors. There are entire websites devoted to cataloging literary devices; if I wanted to capture them all, this would be an encyclopedia not a novel. But it’s a comprehensive starting point.

Hopefully, this book is a bank of ideas and a useful resource for you to grow your voice, expand your repertoire of technical craft skills, and improve your words, characters, and storytelling.

A builder doesn’t need to understand the history of architecture and brick creation to build a castle. He needs to know how to use those bricks to build the castle. He also needs to know why those specific bricks over a different kind will create the sturdiest, most magnificent castle possible. That’s the crux of what we’re doing here.

Why Write this Book?

I talk to a lot of writers, I hear worries about how to create the perfect character arc, concerns about plot problems, and fears that their tension is flatter than a pancake. But under all those big scale story issues are the building blocks that create them. I rarely hear the words and sentences that create the tension and plot being spoken about. But isn’t that what’s creating the tension? Of course it’s the sum of those sentences that make a reader fall in love with your characters, but what creates that reader bond is the specific word choices an author makes. What better way to improve your craft than studying the most basic building blocks?

Subtle tactics can make a huge difference to your writing. The nuances and individual word choices in a sentence can create vivid imagery, bring a reader to tears, or make them close the book in disgust. It’s not the big reveals that make me catch my breath and read faster, it’s the details and slow build to a reveal that makes it land.

But—and here’s the crux of this message—what I want you to leave this book knowing, is the effect using adverbs—or any tool—has on your words and on the reader. It’s important to know how each tool works, why sometimes telling is okay, and how to really deepen your characterization all the way from the sentence level to character arcs.

When a castle is built, it’s not the individual bricks you remember, it’s the finished whole, the shape of the turrets, the crenellations and the gatehouse. It’s the same for stories. It’s not the commas or semicolons you remember, it’s the poignant phrases that gave you an emotional epiphany; it’s the way the author described the villain’s mansion made of bones that will haunt your dreams; or the moment the heroine drew a breath, everything stilled, and you knew she’d fallen in love.

That’s what I’m going to teach you.

Examples in this Book

In this book I’ve used more examples from works I’ve written than in any other non-fiction book to date. I’ve done this for a couple of reasons. First, I know the reasons why I’ve constructed certain sentences and paragraphs the way I have. Second, while I love using quotes and examples from literary texts—and I have used them—for the sake of publishing the book this century, sometimes it’s easier to construct an example than it is to trawl through the thousands of books I’ve read looking for a specific example with specific words.

Right then, ready to dig deep and discover how to improve your prose?

Wicked.

Let’s get nitty gritty.

Step 1 Learning to Sing

1.0 Learning to Sing

Where we discover the meaning of life through Gestaltism, uncover dark hearts, and add a sprinkling of meliorism.

I spent a long-time grappling. Not the fun, half-naked, sweat-soaked, rough and tumble kind of grapple. The unwillingly blindfolded, crashing into table corners while searching for something as immutably difficult to find as the holy grail: my voice. Specifically, my writing voice.

Before we get to improving our sentences, we have to tackle voice. I know. Collective sigh. Honestly over the years, I lost count of the number of posts, quotes, and motivational spiels I read on finding your voice as a writer.

And did any of them help? Nope. But not because they weren’t right or helpful. But because I didn’t know what I was looking for; I was the blind leading the blind in a one-legged race for Quills R’ Us. And I hadn’t found so much as a single proverbial needle from an entire field of haystacks.

But why hadn’t I found it? I’d been writing a while—I was a studious little wordsmith. I’d easily racked up thousands of hours of writing time. So why did I still feel like the kid that never gets picked for the sports team?

Because I didn’t know who I was. And herein lies the gooey center of this voice mystery.

Who am I?

Who are you?

Actually, who the hell are any of us?

Maybe we’re just a seething mass of angry carbon molecules having a dance off. The winner gets a human body, the loser gets to be the asshole of a sniff-happy Shih Tzu.

Maybe not.

Because if we were just pirouetting carbon, we wouldn’t be haunted by the “who am I?” question. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 3 years old and figuring out you have a penis while Mary Sue over there most certainly does not, or if you’re 23 and realizing (when that first gas bill arrives) that being an adult sucks. At some point, we’re all afflicted by the “woah shit” moment of “who the fuck am I?”

I hate to break it to you, but I don’t have the answer. See, society is riddled with a disease of constant definition and redefinition. Tick box this, conform to that. Jock. Math Geek. Science Nerd. Goth. I mean woe betide being a fantasy writer if you’re a mommy blogger. And lest we forget, you can’t possibly be a writing craft author if you also pen memoirs. It’s all nonsense.

What if we’ve had our heads shoved so far up our tick-box asses, we’ve done it all wrong? What if, in defining ourselves by “type” we’ve missed the point of writing completely? When you meet a new person for the first time, you do the standard butt-sniff assessment and determine how likely you are to get on by your interests—maybe you both like fantasy books, or non-fiction history books. But that similarity doesn’t define your friendship. That doesn’t mean you’re a sure thing for the bookies in the lifelong friendship stakes. What about that friend of yours who is 20 years your senior (or junior) and a total oddball? You know the one. With crazy hair and a ragged look in their eye. They’re more likely to read a non-fiction book on the ancient art of burp capture. But you love them anyway because of what’s on the inside—because of who they are.

Because of their values.

Who we are isn’t a shopping list of craze-oriented likes and dislikes. Who we are, who we really are, comes from our principles. The values we live our life by. Our sense of right and wrong. Justice. Are you innately angry? Kind? Compassionate? Maybe you live a life of servitude for others. Or perhaps you think nothing of stealing because the world owes you anyway. This is your own personal philosophy.

1.1 How Do You Find and Develop your Voice?

Well now, that depends. Do you want to develop a character voice? Or your own author voice? If you’re looking for a distinctive character voice then it’s less about learning the craft and your preferences as a whole, and more about understanding who your character is, what drives them, and how they react in different circumstances.

Hate to shit on your parade, but I don’t have a quick answer for you here. Just as it takes a while for a person to find out who they are, it takes a while for an author to discover their voice too.

The largest part of developing your voice though, comes down to purposeful, intentional study of the craft. In part because you need to know what array of techniques are at your disposal, but also because you need to know how to use them and then whether or not you like them. This comes down to you. Your choices, your style. No one can teach you voice. It comes from your heart, your soul, the way your pen nib dances across the page a little differently than everyone else’s. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it’s a cliché, yes. But there’s also a heap of truth to it when it comes to author voice. When you study other writers’ work, you form opinions of what works and doesn’t work. And those opinions start to influence your voice.

Not just why are you telling this story, but why you write—what fuels it? And I don’t mean your poison of choice, I mean what’s in the core of your soul?

Is it love? Curiosity? Fear? Guilt?

But of course, life isn’t just as simple as “finding your voice.” Psht, please. We are writers after all. We must endure conflict and strife in order to bleed our masterpiece onto the page. Joking (you really don’t need to endure anything; writing is 68.4% fun—and I’m 79% sure that statistic is right).

No.

Once you’ve found your voice, you then have to accept it’s yours. That’s harder than finding it in the first bloody place. Once you peel that you-shaped onion, once you remove the bullshit front and who has the biggest car nonsense, what do you find on the inside?

Let’s work through this with an example. Any willing volunteers?

No?

Fine, I’ll be your sacrificial lamb then...

Have I found my voice? Well, I found two. I write non-fiction fueled by sarcasm, a dark heart, and an innate and utterly persistent curiosity. Curiosity is the value that drives it. But my fiction is totally different. The voices are unrecognizable next to each other. I write fiction fueled by a sprinkling of meliorism, unwavering hope, and an obsession with death. And these differences are reflected in my voice. Those are my whys, what are yours?

When you find the thing that’s uniquely you and combine it with your values, it permeates everything you do, all your choices, and your way of being. While I swear like an angry gremlin in these books, it’s not the case for my fiction. But that’s because in fiction, it’s not really my voice on those pages, it’s the characters’. More on that in a moment. Look at it this way. I could choose to tell you what voice is like this:

Your author voice is a cumulative sum of several aspects of literary craft including: tone, diction, style, POV (point of view), and tense. The sum of which produces a unique whole that’s identifiable to a single individual.

But jeeeeeezus that sounds boring. It pained me physically to write it. And it doesn’t get you thinking, it doesn’t make you learn or grow or find the secret pieces of yourself you’d tucked away in some nook or cranny of your mind. And, let’s be real, it’s not in the least bit entertaining. So instead, I dust the page with made-up words and naughty mutterings that would have my mother fainting. I let my curiosity spontaneously go off on a tangent and delve deep into the things I find fascinating. That’s how who I am impacts my prose.

What’s the secret ingredient to magic writing voice sauce? That’s the thing. There is no secret. No magic pixie dust. Just pure unadulterated you. You are your own magic sauce. You just have to find the core drivers that fuel your interaction with life. Find it and it will define your writing voice.

Find your why.

How do you go forward? Look at your words, look at your values, how do they match or differ? Scour your novels, find the paragraphs that make you feel like you wrote your truest self on the page. What do they tell you? What pieces of yourself can you see? It affects your prose, it affects your word choice, your diction, your very sentence level make-up. Hell, it is your prose.

P.S. Mom, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. I love you dearly, but your daughter has a potty mouth and there’s nothing you can do about it.

1.2 Don’t Believe the Lies

I’ve always had a flexible voice. When I was a kid, I had a relatively “posh” British accent. As a result, I landed an agent and did voice-over work. I loved it too because I got to play around and make silly sounds and strange noises. As a teenager, I spent a serious amount of time rifle training in Birmingham. My friends all came from there, I was there every weekend and all through the school holidays training. The result was a softening accent and a slight Birmingham lilt. As an adult, I moved closer to London for university—I’m sure you can imagine what happened. But under it all remained the native poshness of childhood and thankfully the flexibility for me to bend and change my voice as I see fit.

If you’re at work and you pick up the phone, does your voice change? I bet it does even if you’re not consciously aware. When you’re drunk on a Friday night with the girls, I can guarantee you that your voice doesn’t sound the same as it does when you’re presenting in front of your board of stuffy directors. Or what about when you tell off your child?

You can see how a voice can bend and flex depending on what the moment calls for. That’s why I find the “author voice” concept an interesting one to discuss. I often see the “author’s voice” being talked about as if it’s inflexible and rigid. You spend 10,000 hours searching for a singular voice and when you find it, you get a slap on the back and a congratulations: well done, son. You’ve earned a singular award-winning writing voice for the rest of your life.

Hmm.

Methinks someone’s been sprinkling bullshit and myth into the publishing system. Look at J.K. Rowling, study her body of work across both the Harry Potter and adult fiction she writes and tell me her voice doesn’t differ wildly. You can’t. Whether it’s across a career or across a series, one thing is ferrrshure, author voice can change. If one author writes erotica and then veers into Young Adult I sure as shit hope they’re not using the same voice… *whispers… someone arrest that author*.

1.3 It’s Not the Author Voice but the Character Voice

But… let’s clear something up. The majority of the time when you’re writing fiction people discuss “author” voice, but what they really mean is character voice. A character’s voice needs to be consistent in order to create effective characterization and believability.

Let’s stick with J.K. a minute. Hermione has to be one of the most famous know-it-all characters of all time. Her voice is so distinctive that I’m betting I could pull any line out of her dialogue and you’d hear her high pitched, slightly nagging, I-know-better-than-you voice. But when Rowling writes under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith in her Cormoran Strike series you hear a totally different voice—her first crime novel opens with a cold grumpy detective; a far cry from Hermione’s squawking.

A character’s voice is their personality.

My point is, an author’s voice can and should change depending on the book, genre, and/or story they’re writing.

It happened to me recently. I’ve spent a long time writing the Eden East Young Adult novels, but I recently started a new book called The Scent of Death. While it’s still Young Adult, the protagonist is so completely different from the characters in the Eden East novels, that when I read my chapters back, I didn’t recognize the words. It sounded like someone else had written them.

Does that Mean Author Voice Doesn’t Exist?

Well, no. It does exist, just not in the inflexible way it’s so often discussed. If you’ve read any of my other books, you’ll know I’m a fan of the Gestalt principle, a psychological theory from the early 20th century. The Berlin School of Experimental Psychology created a new philosophy of mind aka Gestalt psychology. They argued that to make sense out of the chaotic sensory input the world provides the mind, the brain creates a “global whole,” a holistic reality that’s more than the sum of the parts it’s made up of. A commonly used example of the principle in practice are illusions, for example two faces staring at each other. You can see the faces, or if you look at the space between them, the faces disappear and instead you see a goblet.

I use the concept of Gestalt to explain so many things in writing. Books are more than the sum of their parts and so too is the author’s voice. In simplistic terms, your voice is the sum of all the aspects of your craft. For example, some of the things that make up voice include:

Your choice of verbs and adjectives

The pattern of your punctuation and grammar (one author might choose to use Oxford commas, another might refuse)

Use or not of adverbs

Length of sentences

The balance of dialogue to prose

Accented dialogue or not

The quantity of descriptive prose

The style of your prose, is it full of metaphors or do you use a cleaner style of description?

The size of your cast of characters

POV

The list is endless—every mark and letter you put on the page creates an aspect of your voice. And yet, listing those things doesn’t quite capture the essence of what an author’s voice is. Sure, that list of things all affect and influence what an author’s voice sounds like, but it’s the way you smush them all together that creates the cumulative effect; and that effect is just a little bit more than the parts creating it.

When you pick up a new book from your favorite author, do you get that sense of being home? A little tingle in your southerly bits? It’s the itch of familiarity and the knowledge that even before you open the first page, you’re going to love the story. That’s the author’s voice.

I’ve been lucky enough to read dozens and dozens of manuscripts as an editor. There is a clear point at which an author develops a voice. I can’t tell you when that will be for you, but what I can tell you is that if you keep writing, you will develop it. It’s much like growing up. As a teenager we go through various phases *shudder*; it’s not until we’ve tried all these styles that we figure out which one feels most like our inner self.

Examples of Voice

If you’re in possession of a well-refined voice, you can hear it instantly. Even from the first line. Take this opening line for example:

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.” Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

You can hear the whimsical humor in just that single line. Adams draws out the sentence making it lengthy enough that it develops the tangential feel. He also mocks humanity in an utterly scathing way without ever actually mentioning us. It’s brilliant, genius and evocative of the humor to come.

Sometimes we don’t know what something is until it’s gone. So, let’s play. I’m going to rewrite Adams’ sentence and make it as clean as possible while still retaining the plot point: In the arm of a distant galaxy is a small sun.

By eradicating the tangential and technically unnecessary words, I’ve removed his voice entirely. It no longer sounds like the flights and fancies of Douglas Adams. It’s also removed all the humor and frankly, lost that little bit of Adams-sparkle.

This is why it’s important to understand that there’s no right or wrong way to write. Purple prose isn’t wrong and neither is clinical prose. Whatever your preference you can see from this example how the gestalt whole of Adams’ sentence creates something tangible, something more than just the words on the page. It creates a voice you can hear and when I meddle with the word choices, it eradicates it entirely.

Let’s look at another example:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

When you compare this voice to Adams you can see a distinct difference. The language is far more formal. The words are longer, the construction of the sentence is more academic. Of course, this is partly because the book is older. But you can hear from the choices of the words and the flow of the sentences that the authors’ voices are completely different. Adams didn’t use a comma for one, whereas Austen has two. Last, it feels more reflective and philosophical when compared to Adams and his whimsical tone.

Let’s play with Austen’s sentence and make it as clean and simple as possible:

Everyone knows rich men want wives.

You could make it even shorter:

A rich man needs a wife.

In both of these examples, you’ve lost the philosophical musing feel. Austen’s voice has gone, there’s no longer any luxurious word choices, no academic feel, and the language is more modern.

As you read through the rest of this book, dig deep and grab your opinions. Discover what you’re passionate about, what makes you want to hurl a book or burn it, and what’s uniquely you. Then sprinkle that baby all over your sentences.

Step 1 Learning to Sing Summary

Where we discovered the meaning of life through Gestaltism, uncovered dark hearts, and added a sprinkling of meliorism.

“Who you are” is at the heart of voice. Find the thing that is uniquely you.

Find your why. Find your core driver, be it hope or rage or redemption. Embrace it in your work.

Author voice is a misnomer. All of us—regardless of who we are—have different voices in different situations, whether it be the vocabulary a pharmacist uses at work versus the way she speaks to her kids when she gets home, to mommy dearest’s phone voice.

Don’t confuse author voice with character voice. Authors’ voices can change over time and even across genres or stories. A character’s voice is a fundamental part of who that character is and is unlikely to change.

Gestalt principle is a psychological theory from the early 20th century. To make sense out of the chaotic sensory input the world provides the mind, the brain creates a “global whole,” a holistic reality that’s more than the sum of the parts it’s made up of. I think Gestaltism is found at all levels of writing from the sentence all the way up to the characters, story, and even author voice.

The best way to develop a voice is to continue to write and read. Sorry, no easy wins here. Just hard work, a lot of words, and ass-in-the-chair-time needed. Intentionally study the craft, read consciously, try to understand how authors have created the things they have and the techniques they’ve used. Then replicate those techniques in your own work. Note I said techniques, not replicating sentences or their voice.

Exercises for you to try:

Take the opening sentence from one your favorite books and edit it. Can you make the sentence sound like your voice? Take another opening sentence from a different book, can you make this opening sound like the voice of the first author?

Have a look through your own work and pick out a couple of sentences that feel most like you’re embodying your voice. Deconstruct those sentences. Why do you think they’re the most you? What literary devices did you use?

Step 2 Learning to Learn

2.0 Learning to Learn

Where we commit sacrilege, create an Olympic pattern spotting sport, and get a little flashy with our fiction.

Malcom Gladwell is often misquoted. The misquote is as follows: it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill. But that’s not exactly what he meant. See, it’s not just practice you need, it’s purposeful, focused, intentional practice that creates a master in a field.

If you want to run a marathon, you don’t just pull lycra pants on and go for a jog hoping for the best; no, that will lead to a case of shin splints, runners’ trots and probably projectile vomiting three miles in. You create a plan, you know how many times a week you need to run and what distance each of those runs needs to be. You intentionally train and practice. You focus on a very specific mile goal and you work your way methodically towards the finish line.

The same is true for writers.

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

But what King failed to say is, it’s not just about reading words. Everyone reads. Even readers who only pick up five books a year read, but you don’t see them writing bestsellers or eloquent literary essays. No, it’s about reading consciously and purposefully with the intention of getting better. I watched a video of Gladwell clarifying what he really meant by this concept and in his own words, the 10,000-hour rule:

“Is a metaphor for the extent of commitment necessary in cognitively complex fields.” Malcom Gladwell, YouTube.¹

For anyone not reading this digitally, you can download the resource pack to go with this book where I include all the links to everything mentioned. Grab that here: sachablack.co.uk/prosedownload

Practice What You Preach

Rather than allowing this writing craft book to drift into your subconscious and out through your fingers, you’ll get the most out of it if you intentionally practice. I know, I know. None of us really like doing the “doing” in craft books, but hey, I didn’t make this stuff up, it’s scientific fact—blame Gladwell.

There will be some exercises at the end of each step in this book, but to fully embed the lesson here, I’ve created The Anatomy of Prose companion workbook too.

2.1 Read Like a Writer

So how do you read intentionally or intentionally develop your prose? I’m not here to be a dictator and tell you there’s one right method because that’s BS, there isn’t. We all learn differently and that’s just fine. But what I will do is share with you the method I use and hopefully it—or parts of it—will resonate and if it doesn’t, then rebel and do it your own way!

When you read, are you reading as a reader or a writer? Most readers will read at a surface level, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t help you develop your writing technique. When you read unconsciously, it’s a shallow level of reading. Your brain loses itself in the plot and therefore only gets to the “what” level of the story. You take in what’s going on, that is, the plot but nothing else.

As a writer, you want to get to a deeper level. For example, the “how” of how the author created the story, characters, and words. But you can go deeper still and understand the why behind their authorial choices too. That’s where you want to be as a writer. Digging deep into the author’s psyche and analyzing their technical choices.

When I first started reading, I’d tuck into a guilty pleasure and lose myself completely. I’d feel what the characters felt, smile at their wins and cry over their losses. I don’t know about you, but for me, after a few paragraphs my eyes switch off, my mind opens up, and the words disappear. I begin to watch the book unfold. Reading is akin to TV for me. I visit Neverland with Peter, or the Discworld with Rincewind, or any other of the infinite worlds I’ve read because I see and watch the action rather than consciously reading it.

I know that’s not how it works for everyone; I recall reading a blog post from an editor once that said she thought in words and not images. It blew my mind because I thought everyone read and ultimately thought in images. Regardless of how you think, when you’re in the throes of a good book, do you lose yourself in the story? If you answered yes, then we need a chat…

I think of the “lose yourself” phenomenon as unconscious reading. Your conscious brain is off making beautiful pictures (or words) and distracted. For a reader, that’s fine. But if you want to write and write well, you have to train a piece of yourself to either remain conscious or be able to consciously spot the good shit while the other part of your brain is playing.

When I say this to a lot of people, they baulk and shudder at me. “But if I read consciously, I’ll lose the enjoyment of reading.”

No, my darlings, you won’t. No one’s saying you have to always read consciously. Nor is anyone saying you have to read a whole book like that. What I am saying is that with a bit of practice, you can have your cake and eat it. You can retain your joy of unconscious escapism and flit into consciousness to capture the odd sentence or two.

If you want to retain your unconscious escapism reading, that’s fine. Another technique for studying craft technique is re-reading. The first reading of any story more often than not, is an immersive experience. Once you’ve read the story though, you can’t un-know it. Which makes you that little bit more conscious and aware of what you’re reading second time around, just like watching a film. The second time around you always pick up the subtle clues you missed the first time.

“How” and “why” are your friends. As you gather sentences from the stories you’re reading for analysis, keep how and why close by—they’re the basis of all good questions. Here’s some questions I like to ask while reading:

How did the author create this effect?

How did that juxtaposition create a secondary meaning?

Why did the author choose this point of view? Why didn’t they choose another?

Why did they choose that exact word and not another?

How does that repetitive use of alliteration impact the flow of the sentence?

And on and on.

Don’t Be a Thief

I want to be clear here, this is not about mimicking another author’s voice. It’s not about learning how to write in your favorite author’s voice or style. That’s not going to earn you brownie points with readers and ultimately, you’ll do your own voice and work a disservice. You’re the only person who can “do you” and your voice. This is about helping your voice grow in its technical quality.

For those of you who are worried you’re going to “sound” too much like someone else, you’re not. This is about breaking down an author’s prose in order to learn what technical aspects of craft they use.

This is not about taking a quote from an author and using a thesaurus to replace the words so you’re writing in their style. This is about understanding the possibilities of prose. It’s about understanding the methods and techniques you can use to flex sentences and create description and dialogue or punctuation etc. Then implementing those new methods and tactics into your own work.

2.2 Five Methods to Learn from What You Read

1. Read Every Single Word

I know lots of people like to read fast enough they skim patches. That’s fine if you’re reading for pleasure, but when you’re reading with intention and purpose, you can miss vital parts of sentences. If you can read fast and still take in every single word then have a gold star. I can’t do that.

The point of reading every single word is to get a better sense of the rhythm and flow of the sentences. You’re more able to pick up nuances of word choice and even examine whether grammar and punctuation are having an effect.

2. Commit Sacrilege

Before you send me a rage email or raise a bushy brow at me, just listen. I know that marking books is tantamount to treason for book lovers. But tough. There’s nothing worse than finding an amazing passage in a book or a fantastic piece of dialogue and then putting your book down and never being able to find it again.

I use a pencil to lightly underline the passage. Then add a sticky tab to mark the page so I can find it again. If the thought of putting pencil to paper is giving you hives, then buy some sticky tabs with a pointy arrow-shaped end and point it at the bit you like and hope you remember why. Or do what I’ve just started to do and every time you find something you like, go photocopy the page so you can mark the photocopy rather than the book. Remember to note the book title and page if it doesn’t appear on the photocopy—I learnt that lesson the irritating way.

3. Become a Hoarder

Fuck Marie Kondo, become a hoarder. Once you’ve reached the end of a book, I collate all the sentences I’ve underlined. Yes, this is painful and laborious, but there’s a reason why I do it. If you want to make it faster, then dictate the sentences. Otherwise, get typing.

I write each sentence followed by the author name, book title, and page number. The reason I do this is because I move the quotes around afterwards and if they’re separated from the collated book notes, I want to know exactly where it came from in case I have to reference the book or look at the contextual words around the sentence.

Quick Tip: When writing up multiple quotes from a book, I highlight and copy the author name, book title, and page number, and paste it at the end of each quote and just change the page number. Saves a load of time.

4. Olympic Pattern Spotting

Once you’ve written them all digitally, it’s time to roll your sleeves up. This is where you examine all the quotes you have and categorize them into groups. Once in groups, you can examine and deconstruct the patterns the author uses in order to draw out the technical aspects of craft so you can implement them in your own writing.

5. What to Sherlock

Like most things in this book, style, likes, and dislikes are down to personal choice. So I can’t tell you exactly what to look for, more give you a guide for the areas of prose you might find useful to study. The below is not meant to be exhaustive, but a short list of ideas to get you started. What I tend to find happens is I see something I like in a story and work out the “why” and technical “what” later.

Dialogue

Did a line or a section of dialogue make you laugh?

Did a line of dialogue make you cry?

Was there an amazing insult?

Did the back and forth between characters feel realistic?

Description

Did you find yourself drifting off and envisioning an amazing fantasy world?

Did it create vivid images for you?

Did a description evoke a memory for you?

Did a description of the world or building or situation give you an unexpected insight into a character?

Characterization

Did an internal thought show you a new insight into a character?

Did the hero or villain (or other character) make an insight into another character that made you stop and think or see that character in a different light?

Did a character make an observation or notice a detail that you found surprising or insightful?

Technical Observations

Here, this is mostly about the nitty gritty technicalities of writing. The functional structure of sentences, devices like metaphors and similes or juxtapositions.

Did you notice a piece of foreshadowing?

Did you like the way the author used a juxtaposition?

Perhaps they broke a writing rule like using an adverb but you love the way they styled it out.

Maybe you noticed some alliteration that you liked.

Did the author personify the weather?

Sentence Level Observations

Sentence level observations often blur with technical observations, though I’m separating them here so it’s clear that I do look for additional things.

Sentence level observations include things like:

The use of parenthesis in narrative

The intentional overuse of commas

The use of em dashes to add extra insight or break complex sentences down

The usage of footnotes or asides for either humor or worldbuilding or other reason.

Worked Example

I wanted to include a quick example of the kind of thinking I do when I take a quote and examine it. So here’s a quote I took:

“But already the edges were rubbing off the memory’s freshness. I could feel it degrading in my hands.” Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood.

I chose this sentence for a bazillion reasons, mostly it tickled my good bits. First of all, Albert takes an intangible concept—a memory—and makes it tangible. Hello device that we can all use *slides it in the literary knapsack*. Instead of memories, you could turn an emotion into a tangible thing by describing the texture of how it feels. Rather than stating your character feels angry, you could describe the flaming ball growing beneath his ribcage, the hot flickering edges singeing his lungs and boiling his blood.

Another way I use this method is to give an emotion a smell. I’m a total fangirl for smell in fiction because it’s such an underused sense—but also smell is closely linked to memory, so it’s super effective at creating imagery. This is a known cognitive phenomenon. The brain’s structured so that smell neurons pass messages to each other very close to the area where your brain processes memory. The resulting effect is that you smell something and it evokes a memory. You know, like when you smell home cooked food in the street and you think of Sunday dinners at your mom’s. I smell musty old books and instantly think of childhood. I’ll cover this in more detail later.

You could make your character’s anger tangible by describing the scent of ash and burning rubber or perhaps the taste of hot bile in your prose. The options are limitless.

The other reason I underlined this sentence is because it took a familiar concept—memory—and used it in a unique way to create characterization.

Some of the most wonderful characterization comes from the details that only that character notices. In this instance, the character (Alice), notices how memories fade. Of course we all know memories fade, but it’s the fact she draws attention to the detail of it degrading that shows insight into her character.

Albert also poses two juxtaposed words against each other: freshness and degrading. These two used in close proximity create a rich imagery effect in themselves.

Last, I wanted to pick up on the specific use of the word degrading. That single word choice created a picture in my mind where I could see a translucent orb in a hand with frayed edges and pieces breaking off in the wind. I’ll talk more about the power of word choice later. But I wanted to highlight it specifically here.

Holy shit balls guys, one quote created an entire page of lessons and reflections. This is why the exercise of reading with purpose is so important. If we can learn that much from a single quote, imagine how much we can learn from 10 books’ worth of quotes.

Wider Sentence Context

Sometimes I’ll write a quote down but then realize an individual sentence isn’t enough. It’s not a single sentence that created the effect the author wanted, but the previous sentence or paragraph combined with it. When that happens, I’ll go back and have a re-read and note around the quote what else was said or what other technical aspects they’ve used to create the effect or copy out the whole thing.

Finding Other Sources to Study

The beauty of words is that you can find them in so many places, not just between the covers of a book. Even better, studying other examples of words is just as valid as studying story prose. I often collect sentences to deconstruct and learn from a multitude of other places like:

Famous quotes

Song lyrics

Poetry

I also look for the moments of epiphany in films. You know, the moment when you can see the protagonist’s mind exploding on screen because they’re having a realization linked to the theme. When I spot those pivotal seconds, I’ll note down what they do, how they act, any dialogue spoken or narration and thought for later examination.

2.3 Learning from Reading and Writing Flash Fiction and Poetry

Flash Fiction

If you’re not aware of flash fiction then it’s the Sonic the Hedgehog of stories (yeah, I have a 6-year-old, my references might involve kids’ characters!). Flash is essentially extremely short fiction. That means rules. Yes, I know I said break all the rules, but put your diva away a minute and don’t break these; they make sense. There are a number of word count definitions and categories of flash, like flash, micro fiction, etc. As a general guide, anything under 1000 words is classed as flash fiction. Though you most often find competitions at the 250–500-word range and micro fiction under that. The key factor with flash, though, is that every story must be whole. Which means you need to create a beginning, middle, and end in those few words.

I’m a hysterical fangirl of flash fiction for a number of reasons—not least of which is its unique ability to develop your prose. Writing well over 70,000 words is hard. Writing well in 70 words and still capturing the reader’s heart, is significantly harder. Brevity doesn’t mean poor quality, if anything, the opposite is true. Likewise, reading a chunky novel teaches you loads about story structure and pacing and all that jazz, but reading a full novel also takes a long time. Reading complete stories under 1000 words is a hell of a lot faster and you’re still getting story structure and characterization for the price of ten minutes reading. Think of it as a shortcut. You don’t need long, flowery prose to tug on your reader’s heartstrings; a few little words can do the job nicely.

Sometimes the most powerful stories are those told in just a sentence. I’m sure you can recall a tagline that punched you in the gut and made you buy a book immediately.

When you only have 99 or 299 words to play with, you have no choice but to be creative with words. Every word counts—you’re forced to remove any toe-fluff and self-indulgent ramblings, and that gives you cleaner, bolder sentences. I’ll go into this in more detail later, but let’s look at an example:

Wordy Sentence:

But then, as I reached out for the glass of wine, my head throbbed as if warning me of the hangover the morning would bring.

Clean Sentence:

As I reached for the glass, my head throbbed; an omen of a brewing hangover.

It says the same thing, but tighter, neater, more effectively. That’s what flash fiction does, and when you go back to writing full-length novels, the effect is cumulative. All your sentences are that much cleaner, bolder, packed with tit-punching power words.

Flash fiction stories are complete stories. This means you get to examine story at both the macro level and the micro detail of how it’s created.

Here’s an example of a piece of flash fiction I wrote that won a Reedsy writing competition back in November 2018:

Love isn’t supposed to start with death. But nothing good ever started with rules. I don’t know what makes me move. Maybe it’s the fear etched into the furtive glances he gives the gravestone. Or maybe it’s the cold penetrating loneliness settling in my chest. But my feet betray me, abandoning my husband’s fresh grave to carry me through the cemetery toward him.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say.

I hate that phrase.

He stands, and a string of words tumble from his mouth, the sounds and syllables melding together like molten lava. I have no idea what he’s saying, but it’s beautiful. We skip through a handful of languages until we reach a broken Spanglish and establish our tears:

His wife, my husband. Both dead; both cancer.

In the end, we don’t need words to understand each other’s pain. It’s written in the slant of our shoulders and the weariness of our expressions.

 Love and death are spoken in heartbeats and silences, wordless promises and unspoken goodbyes. And sometimes, just sometimes, in the flutter of hope captured in the gaze of chocolate brown eyes.

 This might only be 186 words long, but it’s a complete story. All stories need a beginning, middle, and an end, as well as some kind of conflict that leads to a change.

Beginning: a woman mourning loss

Middle: she meets a new person also mourning loss

End: she is a little less lonely and leaves with the hope of a new friendship and maybe one day love

Conflict: they don’t speak the same language

Reading flash is a goldmine of usefulness on its own. But if you want to supercharge your words, you have to practice writing it. You can even push yourself to the next level by trying to trim your story down to as few words as possible. I managed to get the above story cut in half. I could have continued cutting, but I felt it was starting to lose the heart and tone of the story. Here it is at 96 words:

I abandon my husband’s fresh grave.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say.

A string of words tumble from his mouth, the sounds and syllables melding together like molten lava. I have no idea what he’s saying, but it’s beautiful. We reach a broken Spanglish:

His wife, my husband. Both dead; both cancer.

We don’t need words to understand, pain is written in the weariness of our expressions. Love and death are spoken in heartbeats and silences, wordless promises and unspoken goodbyes. And sometimes in the flutter of hope captured in the gaze of chocolate brown eyes.

We could go cray-cray here and cut the story down to just one sentence. Think of it as creating a tagline or hook for your book or story, if you like. But make sure it still captures the story. I managed to get this one down to just 14 words by using one of the sentences:

Love and death are spoken in heartbeats and silences, wordless promises and unspoken goodbyes.

I don’t think I’ve ever been able to use a whole sentence for this game before, I’m just jammy on this occasion because that sentence tells a story in and of itself. Love is the beginning, death the conflict, and goodbye the ending.

Poetry

Poetry is another one to consider reading, writing and examining. Sure, it’s not for everyone. I have a very selective taste when it comes to poetry, preferring the short and sweet style of modern expressionist poets like Rupi Kaur or Atticus. But the reason I mention these particular poets is because they are masters of saying a thousand things in very few words. You can learn a lot from the way they construct their sentences. But I will talk more about this in Step 9.

Step 2 Learning to Learn Summary

Where we committed sacrilege, created an Olympic pattern spotting sport, and got a little flashy with our fiction.

Malcom Gladwell is misquoted. It’s not 10,000 hours writing practice you need. It’s 10,000 intentional and purposeful hours of practice you need.

When you read, be sure to highlight, underline, or put sticky tags in where you find sentences that jump out at you, whether it’s dialogue, characterization, description or something else. Don’t second guess yourself while reading, leave the analysis for later. Just highlight the sentences you like so you can come back to them.

When you come to analyze the sentences you’ve underlined, these questions are useful to ask:

How did the author create this effect?

How did that juxtaposition create a secondary meaning?

Why did the author choose this point of view? Why didn’t they choose another?

Why did they choose that exact word and not another?

How does that repetitive use of alliteration impact the flow of the sentence?

Remember, it’s not always novel prose you can learn from. Be aware when you’re engaging with the following, you can also pick up neat tips, tricks and tactics: famous quotes, song lyrics, poetry, I also look for the moments of epiphany in films.

Exercises for you to try:

Try flash fiction, even if you’re resistant, just have a go. You’ll be amazed how much your writing will improve when you’re constrained by a word limit. Write a story in less than 250 words. Your prompt is: death.

Step 3 Where We Cock Up in Style

3.0 Where We Cock Up in Style

Where we fuck up in style. That’s it.

I’m loathe to write this step because I’m not here to prescribe one style or another. When I started writing this book, I was determined not to say definitively whether something was right or wrong. I don’t believe in right or wrong; I believe in breaking the rules and singing ooh rah while dancing on your English teacher’s desk and wafting your latest essay: “colons are for fuckwits and dullards” at him.

So, despite the title of this step, I’m going to do my best to avoid telling you that you can’t do something. But there are some basic craft techniques that more often than not hinder an author from creating the effect they’re after. So pay attention to those.

3.1 No Scene Anchoring

A lack of scene anchoring is one of the fastest ways to disengage a reader. I had the pleasure of speaking about scene anchoring with Kristina Stanley, author and CEO of the story editing software Fictionary. If you want to listen to the episode, it’s episode four of my show: The Rebel Author Podcast. To listen to the show, search for “Rebel Author Podcast” in your pod catcher app or visit my website: sachablack.co.uk/rebelauthorpodcast.

Kristina explains scene anchoring:

“When a reader starts a scene, they need to know whose point of view they’re reading, where they—the characters—are physically and the time in which the plot occurs.” Kristina Stanley, CEO of Fictionary and author of the The Stone Mountain Mysteries series.

In other words, one of the first things you need to do when you open a new scene or chapter is to orient the reader. It’s no good hauling your reader into a scene without any locational info. You might as well blindfold the poor sod and then hand them your book. Hint: that’s not going to end well.

The problem is that you don’t know if a reader put your book down at the end of the previous scene or not. If they have, you have no idea how much time has passed since they read your book. Sure, it could be just a night, but more likely it could be a day or a week or worse, even longer.

What does an anchored scene look like?

Anchored Scene:

“The Guild of Investigations always smells of explosions and fish. The fishy waft is because the Guild is so close to the Blood Ocean. But I’m never sure if the aroma of burnt materials and ash is as a result of the Guild’s experimental research or because Sorcerers, in general, have a thing for blowing stuff up. Someone’s obviously been trigger happy today because as Trey and I exit the Guild, the acrid stench is spreading into the street.” Sacha Black, Victor.

This paragraph is from Chapter 7 in Victor, the second book in my YA series. I chose it as an example because it’s far enough into the story that someone could have plausibly put the book down by then. In this opening paragraph the two primary characters are identified—yes, don’t be a smart alec, I know this is first person POV and therefore inherently more obvious—but regardless of the POV, you need to identify the point of view characters early in a scene.

The reader is located geographically by the mention of the Guild of Investigations and the secondary mention of the Blood Ocean—two key locations in the books. We’re located in time through the very next sentence:

“Once the wounded were attended to in the glade, Arden asked us to come straight here to drop the marble off to the investigations team for analysis and deconstruction.” Sacha Black, Victor.

This references the action that happened in the previous chapter and therefore indicates that a short amount of time has passed since then as the characters came straight to the Guild.

Let’s flip that on its head and un-anchor it so you can see the difference:

Non-Anchored Scene:

The air smells of explosions and fish. I’m never sure if the aroma of burnt materials and ash is as a result of experimental research or because Sorcerers, in general, have a thing for blowing stuff up. Someone’s obviously been trigger happy because the acrid stench is spreading into the street. Once the wounded were attended to, Arden asked us to drop the marble off.

This paragraph is jumbled and confusing. You have no idea who is speaking or where they are. The smell of fish and ash seem irrelevant because it’s not connected to anything. You’ve lost all the locational information to give what the character is saying context. You’ve also lost the sense of time. In the first version, you know that “today” is the same day as the event in the glade and therefore you subconsciously reason it’s later in the day. However, this version has lost “today” and all time references.

Go back and read the paragraphs again one after the other. Which one makes more sense?

Who the Hell Are We Talking about Anyway?

Anchoring’s cool, makes sense even. But let’s grab a shovel and dig a bit deeper. One point I need to make clear is the need to identify the subject; both of the paragraph, the scene, and the individual sentence. Especially when you start a new scene. Let’s keep the same paragraph but move it into the third person point of view:

The air smells of explosions and fish. She’s never sure if the aroma of burnt materials and ash is as a result of experimental research or because Sorcerers, in general, have a thing for blowing stuff up. Someone’s obviously been trigger happy today because the acrid stench is spreading into the street. Once the wounded were attended to, Arden asked her to drop the marble off.

This paragraph reads like a drunk in a fog-filled disco. This is the opening of a new scene, and now it’s in the third person POV, it doesn’t identify the subject. Who the hell is “she” anyway—the cat’s mother?

I need to bleach my fingers, I sound like my mother.

Moving on. If this paragraph was buried in the middle of a scene then using “she” as the pronoun would make more sense. You’d have identified the subject earlier in the scene. It also works when you’re trying to reduce the number of occasions you name drop your character. But, to do that, you need to identify your character before you revert to using pronouns.

If you have a large cast of characters and the action chops and changes between them, you need to ensure that each new character is named or it gets confusing rather rapidly.

She picked up the sword and swung it around a few times.

“Give that here,” he said.

“No, I’m practicing.”

He stepped between them and said, “I think I’ll take that.”

Hold all of the horses, the carts and their riders, who the hell is everyone? Are there two chaps in the scene or three? Make sure all action is clear by identifying the subject:

Lisbeth picked up the sword and swung it around a few times.

“Give that here,” Edward said.

“No, I’m practicing.”

The man in the cloak stepped between them and said, “I think I’ll take that.”

Much better, you may release the horses.

3.2 A Word on Changing Character Names

As authors, we know our book worlds intimately—I mean we did birth these demonic torture puppies from our word-loins. But our readers did not and therefore don’t know our worlds like we do. I’ve heard it said that it takes a reader four books before they remember an author’s name. FOUR.

Trying to keep a host of characters in your head as a reader is hard, especially if the book you’re reading is long and the characters are many. And what about those readers who don’t read a book in a single sitting? They have to deal with life admin and drama and look after mini-me monsters. All those things get in the way of remembering whatshisface from that really good book you just picked up.

Changing a character’s name is always a dangerous game to play. In order to get a grip on your story and the world you’ve built, readers assimilate the characters, their names, and their descriptions as soon as they’re introduced. If you start changing how a character refers to another, you’re going to confuse the reader and make it hard for them to follow your story. This goes for nicknames, changes of identity, or how one character refers to themselves. If you want to change a character’s identity, rip the band aid off. I’m not saying you can’t change a character’s name. What I’m saying is be careful. Do it once and stick to it, unless of course you’re trying to create a gimmick or “in joke” in your story.

When Can You Change a Character Name?

Of course there are times when changing names is necessary. Let’s say you write crime and your character is a police officer. Sure, at work she’s probably going to be called Sergeant Millins. But at home when you’re writing scenes in her personal life, you’re not going to have her husband or brother calling her that, she’d be called Karen.

But what’s unrealistic is having the husband or brother chop and change how he refers to her. In life we have nicknames and pet names but keeping those to a minimum in your story helps the reader keep track of who is who.

But What about a Growing Sense of Familiarity?

Another exception to this is bonding and building relationships. As you get closer to a person, the way you refer to each other naturally changes. Spreading these changes out over several chapters allows the reader to develop their understanding alongside the developing relationship, so the transition is less jarring. For example, you could go from Sargeant Millins to Mrs. Millins to Karen to Kay and on and on over the course of thirty chapters or so.

3.3 Repetition, Repetition, Repetition…

Did you see what I did there…? Okay, that was poor. I’ll get a coffee…

I’ll be honest, repetition is my personal pet hate. I’m sensitive to repetition as a reader, so it pains me to say—like all writers—I repeat myself too. I’ll confess my sins shortly, for now though, let’s talk about repetition and its multitude of forms. I’ll cover several here because removing it is key to improving your prose. That’s not to say I’m the repetition police. I won’t come and smack your bottom for using it. In fact, there are times where purposeful repetition can create great effects or emphasize a point. It’s the sly repetition we don’t notice that causes problems and lessens the impact of our writing.

Repetition is a crafty bastard because it’s not just the obvious crutch words or repetition of a word in a sentence you need to watch for, there are subtler ways you can repeat yourself without realizing. Some examples include:

Sentences that convey the same information written differently

Repeated descriptive sentences, phrases, or parts of description that sound similar despite using different words

Multiple characters with similar traits or personalities

Or multiple characters performing the same function, such as two mentors

Multiple paragraphs, scenes, or chapters establishing the same plot point

Characters with similar names or similar sounding names

Repeated words used in a different contexts

Unintentionally using different words to describe the same thing, that is, describing heat with warm, hot, molten, lava, sweaty

Repeated scene openings, that is, always starting with dialogue or a description of the environment.

I love this quote on repetition:

“On all scales, it’s better to do it once and do it well than to do it twice.” Renni Brown and Dave King, Self-editing for Fiction Writers.

Say Ma Name, Bitch

I figured I should take the advice I give and sweet literary mercies this is awkward. I just ran an exercise on my YA Eden East series and reviewed my character list to check for repetition in the sound of names and letters they start with.

Of 56 named characters, 14% (eight) characters have a name beginning with A. I’ll have to watch that going forward and make sure I don’t name another character with a name starting with A. Worse though, 53% of my characters have names starting with the same six letters: E, L, C, T, A, and R. Clearly, I have a bias for those letters. Thankfully, the names don’t sound too similar when spoken so the impact is lessened. This is something to think about as having differentiated character names makes it easier for your readers to identify and remember your characters.

Crutch Words

First in is the most common form of repetition: crutch words. A crutch word if you’ve not heard of the concept, is any word or phrase repeatedly found in your manuscript. Usually the crutch word or words get sprinkled in without the author realizing they’ve done it. Which makes them exceedingly hard to find and weed out.

To find crutch words, I make a point of reading my manuscript on an E ink kindle type device or on paper—but a format that isn’t a digital screen. I find it’s only when I read my stories in another format or have beta feedback that I can pick up the repetition.

Other tips and tricks for identifying these words include a word frequency checker. You can find free ones online with a quick google. Word clouds also work; I use Wordle most often. Word clouds are frequency checkers but instead of spitting out a table of words and their respective frequencies, word clouds create a picture of your words. The larger the word, the more times it’s been found in your manuscript.

Examples of crutch words include things like:

Just

But

So

That

Look

Hand

Eye

Glance

Walk

For a more extensive list, you can download the resource pack that goes with this book: sachablack.co.uk/prosedownload

Opening and Closing Repetition

Chapter and scene openings and closings can be devious. You know the cliché of a husband who habitually comes through the door and shouts “Honey I’m home?” Well, if you don’t keep on top of your scene openers and closers, they become just like that. You don’t want to welcome your readers in a new scene in exactly the same way as the previous eight. It might be alright for your husband who likes a kiss and a cheeky bum tickle as he walks through the door, but your readers don’t need a word-related grope—unless you write erotica, in which case, as you were. Of all the mistakes here, this one is the easiest to make because your plot will inevitably have moved on from the last scene, so how could you possibly open or close a chapter in the same way? Believe me, you can. And it’s an easy thing to forget to check because new scenes equal new action. On the surface your story can feel different, but you could still be creating subtle repetition.

Openings

Have a look through your opening lines in each chapter. How do they start? Check for repetition from one scene to the next. It might seem laborious, but this is a quick job if you only check a couple of opening lines.

Are 70% of them opening with dialogue?

Do you always describe scenery?

Do they open by answering the question from the scene before?

Is the same character opening each chapter? Though this is less relevant if you write in first person POV.

Do you always reference the time of day or location?

Are your characters always traveling at the start of a scene?

That list isn’t comprehensive by any means, but hopefully it gives you an idea of the things to look for. Inevitably there will be some repetition in style of openings, some is fine. Four back to back chapters of the same character speaking the first line is repetitive.

Closings

Cliffhangers, much as readers complain about them, are an unavoidable tool in a writer’s sandbox. Occasionally, you gotta give those readers a cliffhanger, even if they bust a ball herniating over how much they hate them. There is a line, though. A sprinkling of cliffhangers dropped sporadically throughout your book is a good thing. Repeatedly bashing your reader over the head with “and then he fired the gun… *fade to black*” is going to be an exhausting read. That’s not to say you shouldn’t hook a reader through to the next chapter, you absolutely should. The art of hooking though, is variety. You could, for example:

Open a new subplot

Bring a mysterious new character in

Have an important question asked but not answered

Reveal a secret

Allude to a secret

Give away something to the reader but not to the characters

Close off a subplot

Kill off a character

Repeated Description

Repetition is easy to do, especially when you’re throwing down words like a pro wrestler in a smackdown. We all have our go-to phrases for description and when we’re mid-flow stopping to create gorgeous similes slows progress. However, when you come to nip and tuck your baby into shape, looking for repeated forms of description is one fast way to tidy up your prose.

Examples of repeated description:

Humming like bees

Humming like hornets

Two things: first, check for instances of repeating the active word, for example “hum.” Second, make sure you haven’t substituted the comparison word for something relatively similar, such as hornets for bees. Oh, and there’s another pesky repetition gremlin to look out for too—repeated uses of the active word but in a different context, for instance:

The car hummed in the driveway.

I hate to be a pedant… Actually, that’s a complete lie, that’s precisely the purpose of this book. But if you’ve already used hum in a simile, using it in a different context but still as a descriptor is needless repetition. I’ve already mentioned one quick method of checking for repetition like this: free online word frequency checkers. Rather than examining the most common words “and,” “like,” and “the,” scroll to the section where there’s only a handful of repetitions. There you’ll see where you’ve used any descriptive words more than once that shouldn’t have been.

Repeated Words

I’m a word vomiter. When I go for it, I’ll burst write and vomit a ton of words down which invariably need a jolly good edit. I always do an edit on screen. But one of the reasons I like to read my manuscript off the computer is because my eyes go blind to the digital white. Which is why I read my manuscript at least once on a Kindle to pick up those pesky errors.

When I do, I pick up sinful gremlins like this:

“It takes me a while to find the right section in the library. This one is so much bigger than Keepers school. Parchment scroll after parchment scroll litter an an entire section of the library.” Sacha Black, Trey.

True story: the first time I wrote this paragraph I’d only highlighted the duplicated word library. I nearly didn’t read this manuscript on the Kindle in my haste to get it done. But the studious little nerd that I am, I decided to do a quick skim before it went to the editor. Lo and behold, I had to come back and edit this paragraph because not only did I realize the intentional repetition of “parchment scroll,” I also spotted the accidental repetition of “an.”

In summary, read your manuscript off screen. It prevents you looking like a doofus. Word vomit gets stories written, but it does not make them tidy. Okay, to the analysis.

Clearly, there’s no need to duplicate the word library. The purpose of the word library is to anchor your reader in space. But they’re anchored after the first use, the second is redundant. That’s even more the case because I’m intentionally repeating the phrase parchment scroll. When you overuse any literary device, you lessen its impact. So instead of parchment scroll seeming intentional, it becomes annoying and repetitive because there’s so much repetition surrounding it.

I’ve tweaked the paragraph to this:

“It takes me a while to find the right section. This library is so much bigger than the one at Keepers school. Parchment scroll after parchment scroll litter an entire set of racking.” Sacha Black, Trey.

Redundant Words

I feel like an aging English teacher jabbing my finger at the chalkboard and spouting the same ol’ shit I’ve been teaching for two decades. But the reason this one is still around is because it’s a fundamental of writing: use the fewest words possible to convey your point.

I use this quote a lot, but it’s because it holds so much truth and is applicable to so many circumstances. Einstein is famed for saying “if you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t really understand it yourself.”

While you might not be writing for an audience of six-year-olds, the point is a good one. If your reader is having to flick to the dictionary every other sentence because you’ve used unnecessarily obscure words when simple ones would do, you’re going to shunt your reader out of your story.

Think of it as the ultimate efficiency goal. I love nothing more than being violently efficient. It saves time, money, effort, words, and needless deaths!

Let’s cosplay: you be the Texas Chainsaw murderer; this book will be the chainsaw. Swing the chainsaw around like a serial killer in a disco. Hack those words away. Sever the dialogue tags, pincer the passive, cut the clichés, slice the… Okay, you get it.

The point is, when you’re drafting, your voice often gets lost in the word vomit. In the excitement of a first draft, the words gush in an impressive exorcist-style vomit fountain. Your voice is in there. But it’s buried in the sticky lumps and crusty crumbs.

But Sacha, how do I know what words to lose and what words to keep? You eliminate any word that, when removed, doesn’t impact the meaning of your sentence. For example:

Wordy:

Somewhere in the darkness behind me, I thought I heard twigs crunch underfoot.

You don’t need “behind me” in this sentence for several reasons. First, darkness generally surrounds a person which means they lose their sense of direction. You also have a directional explanation in the word “somewhere”—the protagonist doesn’t know specifically where. So to then say “behind me” is contradictory to the “somewhere.” Last, because darkness is symbolic of danger the reader will assume that whatever the danger is, it’s creeping up on them. Readers are clever like that; they extrapolate a lot of this stuff subconsciously. I thought and I heard are filtering words which need removing but I’ll cover that in a jiffy.

Concise:

Somewhere in the darkness twigs crunched underfoot.

The original sentence was 13 words, this one is 7 and says the same thing, except more concisely and with sharper imagery. Arguably, you could remove the word “underfoot” but I kept it because I like that it implies the crunching is coming from the footsteps of a person. If I remove it, I think you lose that implication and the sentence meaning. This is the beauty of writing, you get to choose what meaning you want to keep and what to lose.

3.4 Clichés

I nearly didn’t include this section as removing clichés is common advice. But I wanted to explain why you should remove clichés.

A cliché is an over-used phrase. For example: fit as a fiddle, brave as a lion, head over heels.

With Cliché:

She picked up the sword and sliced through his armor just in the nick of time.

Without Cliché:

She picked up the sword and sliced through his armor.

The reason you need to remove them—other than making your reader’s eyes roll out their head—is because clichés are redundant. You can remove a cliché and not lose any meaning. It’s also lazy description. Like weak verbs, clichés are bland forms of description. Your reader is a queen, queens don’t deserve bland words. For a list of common clichés in fiction, download the companion resource here: sachablack.co.uk/prosedownload

3.5 Filtering

I still remember the moment I learnt what filtering was. It’s such a quick easy fix and removing instances of filtering gives your work more immediacy and closeness with the reader. Filtering is when you, the author, add in unnecessary narration, causing the reader to be removed one step from the character, for example:

I heard

I saw

I felt

I thought

While there’s nothing wrong with these words, you want the reader to see your story from the eyes of your protagonist. That way they witness the action first hand as if they actually are the protagonist. However, when you filter instead of the reader looking through the eyes of the protagonist, they look at the protagonist observing the scene, for example:

With Filtering:

I heard an owl hooting in the trees and a moment later I saw the canopy leaves rustle as if replying.

The reader doesn’t need to read the word “heard” or “saw” because it’s implied in the description of the sound.

Without Filtering:

An owl hooted in the trees and a moment later the canopy leaves rustled as if replying.

As with the redundant words above, you don’t have to remove every instance of filtering, especially if removing it will affect the meaning of your sentence. But this is one quick way to tighten up your prose, keep your reader close to your protagonist and reduce your word count.

3.6 Matching Language Style to Era

Historical fiction writers or writers creating stories where there’s some kind of linguistic difference will be more attuned to this, but for those of us who are writing modern set stories, matching language style to time and location is a biggie.

One of the more common occurrences I see in client manuscripts is the lack of contractions. Contractions are shortened versions of words. For example, “don’t” is a contraction of do not.

The use (or not) of contractions is a stylistic choice; however, given the changing rate of language and the number of new words added to the dictionary like “txt” and “lol” I think the use of contractions is becoming more and more necessary. Of course, you can choose not to use contractions if you’re trying to create an effect, like a pompous royal or an overly conservative “proper” character. But for modern set books, the use of contractions is more or less a requirement. Look at any casual day to day conversation, I guarantee you you’re using contractions.

You don’t hear people saying: “Oh, I could not possibly go to the shops today.” They say “I can’t go to the shops today.” This isn’t the Victorian era, chaps. We’re efficient with speech now—or is it coz we’re lazy? —either way, our brains find the shortest way possible of saying what we want. Contractions shorten sentences and give more pace to your dialogue and prose.

3.7 Incomplete Sentences

Incomplete sentences are something I see a lot as an editor. Often what happens is a character will perform a series of actions like dialogue and laughter. But the writer will break up the sequence by separating one action from the other in a different sentence. For example,

“No way,” Jo said. Laughter and smiles.

While you can have valid sentences that are extremely short, what you can’t have is disembodied actions. In this instance, laughter and smiles are not attached to the subject (Jo) because the full stop separates them. To attach the action to its owner, simply remove the full stop.

“No way,” Jo said, laughing.

Or

“No way,” Jo said, smiling as she laughed.

My preference is for the first version because smiling is inherent in laughter. It’s pretty hard to laugh without smiling. In fact, I dare you to try, and if you do, tweet me a video so I can have a giggle with you.

The word smiling in this second example is redundant, you can remove it without losing any meaning.

3.8 The Thing with “ing”

“Ing” is one of those constructions that can make writers and editors twitchy. The argument against using ing is much the same as the argument for removing instances of filtering. It makes the story all cold and distant from the reader, like inviting someone out on a date and then ghosting them. Awkward. Don’t ghost your dates.

When you create a metaphor or simile, you’re drawing a reader’s attention to that particular moment. It’s like shining a big ol’ thespian spot light on the action; it makes that scene or moment more significant to the reader. But the opposite is true when you create instances of filtering in prose. The consequence is those actions seem unimportant because you’re distancing the reader from them.

So how do you avoid using ing? One common substitution of ing is to use “as” but you’ll see in a moment this still leaves the reader one step removed.

Let’s put this into practice:

“ing” Example:

Pushing the door open, she smiled and pulled him inside.

With the use of “pushing” you—as the reader—are watching the character push the door open in front of you instead of seeing the door pushed open through the eyes of the character as though you were that character. This is a stylistic choice of course, and there may be occasions where you want to keep your reader further away from your protagonist. But for the most part, experiencing the action as though you’re the protagonist creates a deeper connection and deeper level of intimacy between your reader and your story. And we all want our readers to get snuggly wuggly with our heroes, right? That makes them come back for more.

“As” Example:

As she pushed the door open, she smiled and pulled him inside.

Even though we’re in the third person point of view here, we’re closer to the action than we were using ing. But, we’re still removed. And the word as is entirely redundant anyway.

How Many Is too Many?

Look, I know we don’t like rules, and I’m not saying this is a rule, buuut, it’s a solid guide… If you see more than a couple of instances of ing and as on a page, it might be worth removing a few. Failing that, there are other diversionary tricks you can employ like moving the ing construction to the middle of your sentence. For example:

She smiled, pushing the door open, and pulled him inside.

While this is a valid sentence, it feels clunky and the rhythm is off and the order of physical action doesn’t quite flow for me here. Logically, you push the door open first and then pull someone inside. Whereas in this sentence the action all rolls into one.

So How Do You Fix It?

Get your six-year-old self out and play with your sentence. There’s always another way to structure words. You could remove both the ing and the as completely. For example:

She pushed the door open, smiled, and pulled him inside.

In this example, I’ve removed the word as and an instance of she. So, I’ve shortened the sentence and tightened the prose. It’s also had the bonus effect of pulling the reader into the protagonist’s head and allowing the action to be viewed from inside their mind. I don’t know about you, but I quite like the flow of the sentence now—with the use of two commas it makes the smile more impactful, sultry almost, and that’s without any other context at all. Oh, the power of commas. Hmm, maybe Strunk and White had a point…

3.9 Conflicting Description

I’ll cover description more in Step 7 but conflicting descriptions crop up a lot in stories. A conflicting description creates an impossibility. For example:

The lion cub sat in the dawn light listening to her father’s roar softly drifting across the desert plains.

If something roars then by definition it cannot be soft or quiet. Which means this description has created an impossible occurrence and it’s not a believable piece of description. The difficulty with these kinds of descriptions is that at first glance they might read fine as a description. But it’s only when you examine the sentence level meaning of each word that you find the conflict of roar and soft don’t work logically. The impact of these illogicities is that you knock the reader out of the story. And that, my little word weavers, is a dangerous game to play. You never know when or if they’ll pick your story back up.

3.10 Taking Action Out of the Present

Here’s a brain tickler. Even when you’re writing in the past tense—for example, she went to the yard to get the scrap metal—the action the character is taking actually happens in real-time for the reader. Think about it for a minute.

The shitter is the temptation to take the reader out of real-time because you’re writing in the past tense. But that’s a form of telling. And sure, if you want to use narrative summary to skirt over issues or a time period it’s a worthy device. But, doing it too regularly creates a disconnect with the reader. Instead of seeing the action happen live, they’re merely being told what went on. For example:

Example 1:

Julie replayed her argument with Frank so much that night she didn’t get more than two hours sleep.

If you’re trying to create pace in your story, then there’s an argument to leave this as is. But doesn’t it sound clunky to you? Go on, admit it. Be honest, it’s only me and you here.

The reason it’s clunky is because past action is being described in the past tense. This has an increased distancing effect. But fear not, there’s a quick fix. If whatever is replaying in Julie’s mind is of significant consequence to your story, just show the reader Julie’s thought process.

This creates a closeness with the reader. It allows the reader to get cozy and spoon Julie, and we all know Julie’s a dirty bitch and loves a good spooning. It also has the bonus of deepening Julie’s character because we see into her thought processes. So instead of writing that she replayed the argument, have her actually replay it like this:

Example 1 Edited:

Julie rolled over for the eighteenth time and kneaded her pillow. She huffed as Frank’s words rolled through her mind—again. Frank was such a softie, he’d never spoken to her like that. That’s what made the fight hurt so much. His words awoke something cold and sharp in her chest. Would he really leave? She glanced at the clock. It was 4:45am. She’d have to be up in two hours and he still wasn’t home. She rolled over, scooting her knees into her chest as if that would stop the ache and stared at Frank’s empty pillow. Her fingers stretched out; she wished she could stroke his hair instead of a cool patch of cotton.

In this edited version we see exactly what’s going on in Julie’s head. The reader knows the pain she’s in because they see her processing the argument. They see her worry that she went one step too far and he might leave. This shows the reader so much more than taking the reader out of the present action. And all for the price of a single paragraph. Bargain.

Example 2:

Julie enjoyed university and thought about how it had changed her life.

The reader can’t connect with what Julie is saying or her life change because there’s no emotion, history, or context linked to it. Does anyone really give a shit if university changed Julie’s life? Didn’t think so. If you want readers to care you need to give them insight into Julie’s personality by showing how her past impacts her in the “present” of the story.

Telling the reader Julie is thinking about her past and that she enjoyed it doesn’t show the reader how Julie really feels. What does “enjoyed” even mean. Did she love it? Or was it just mediocre? Did she have banging sex and meet the love of her life? Did she find her soul’s passion while there? HOW DID IT CHANGE JULIE’S LIFE, PEOPLE? The reader wants to know. Instead of giving a précis of Julie’s past, show her thinking about the past and the emotional impact it had on her.

Example 2 First Edit:

Julie smiled to herself. She still remembered how angry she was with Frank for smashing the professor’s conical flask. But if he hadn’t smashed it, life would be so different. She wouldn’t have seen the look in his eye after he followed her to the store room. The way he’d gazed at her had given her flutters. She smiled again. He still gave her those flutters.

In this example you have the reason why she enjoyed university. It’s this context that makes the difference to the reader. Anyone can enjoy university, but meeting the love of your life there is clearly going to have a bigger impact than someone who stayed single.

Note though, the above example is still narrative summary. It doesn’t show the reader exactly what happened during the memory.

If you prefer using flashbacks in your prose, you could do something like this:

Example 2 Second Edit:

Julie smiled to herself. At the time, she’d been furious with Frank for knocking the professor’s conical glass off the lab table. She was always picked on to do the professor’s bidding despite the fact it was Frank’s job as Teaching Assistant. And she could have sworn he’d done it on purpose.

“Could you get me a box of conicals please, Julie?” the professor said.

It took everything Julie had not to eye roll her way out of the lab. She trudged to the store room cursing but it wasn’t until she arrived that she realized Frank had followed her.

He held the door open; she held an eyebrow up.

“Er, thanks?” Julie said.

When the door closed, Frank had a funny look in his eye. Of course, Julie knew the look now. It was the way Frank always looked at her, like she was the sun and the universe and the light of a thousand stars.

“I like you,” Frank said.

Julie had smiled then too.

This is a short flashback and you can return straight to the present story. But like the other examples, it’s a device you can use to keep the reader in real-time action while deepening the back story and without information dumping.

3.11 Adverbs

Adverbs have a bad rep. Hell, even I slated them in the opener of this book. I was joking, ish. But I’ll bet there isn’t a single writer out there that hasn’t heard Mr. King’s famous quote:

“I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops.” Stephen King, On Writing.

King’s aversion aside, adverbs, like any other word used in moderation, are fine. The problem is that they tend to get overused, and usually to speed up the prose. Adverbs predominantly tell rather than show but in a lot of those circumstances, you’d create more impactful prose by showing instead.

Adverbs modify other words. They tell the reader how a character is doing a particular action. For example:

She placed the glass firmly on the table.

And sure, there’s nothing wrong with that sentence. But you could remove the adverb firmly and the sentence wouldn’t lose its meaning:

She placed the glass on the table.

Which begs the question how do you show “firmly” without using the adverb? Well you whip out the proVERBial thesaurus and up the ante with your verbs. Picking a stronger verb will show the action more accurately, with more finesse and with sharper imagery than telling the reader how the glass is placed. For example:

She slammed the glass on the table.

The action of slamming is stronger than the concept of “firmly.” The word slammed is vivid— we all know how therapeutic slamming a door feels. The action of “slamming” is a hard, crashing-into-something motion. Which is why it creates a more vivid picture. Using the word slamming also creates an opportunity to continue painting the picture. Why? Every action has a reaction. You can tease out the consequence of slamming the glass down. For example:

She slammed the glass on the table. Whiskey sloshed over the side and splashed her hand.

This little additional phrase brings the description to life by completing the action with a consequence. Perhaps the character will deepen her fury because of the spilt whiskey or perhaps that will end their conversation completely. The point, though, is that removing the adverb gives you a chance to show more action and therefore create a pretty wittle picture in your reader’s head.

Adverbs as Dialogue Tags

Okay, look, I’m going to have to be moderately hypocritical now. I know I said I wouldn’t give you any black and white don’t do this’s or don’t do that’s but… I implore you—for the sake of my barely surviving sanity—not to use adverbs as dialogue tags.

What’s an adverb tag? It’s an adverb used to describe dialogue, for example “she said courteously.” However, just like with description, when you use an adverb tag, you’re telling the reader how the character is speaking rather than showing the reader through their words. Let’s see an adverb tag in action:

Example 1:

“Don’t you dare,” she shouted angrily.

Example 2:

“How wonderful,” she said, vivaciously bouncing out of the room.

I’m hoping you can tell just by reading them how ridiculous and over the top these examples are. In Example 1, the tone of the dialogue is implied in the words themselves. I mean, have you ever heard someone say don’t you dare without some kind of growl or malice or exaggerated tone wrapped around the words? I haven’t. Even when it’s said quietly it’s still a threat. The thing is, you can remove the adverb and not lose any of the meaning, like so:

“Don’t you dare,” she barked.

Example 2 is even more ludicrous. First of all, you don’t need both “bouncing” and “vivaciously”—while they don’t mean the same thing, the two descriptors are over the top. You can imply the character is vivacious from her words and actions. Like saying:

“How wonderful.” She winked.

Or

“How wonderful,” she said, flinging her arms around my neck.

3.12 Describing Characters after We Meet Them

Just a short note on this as I’ll go into more detail in Step 7 Descriptive Prose.

I read a lot of manuscripts where characters are introduced. They bundle onto the page, engage in some action, and then disappear, reappearing after a few scenes only to be described in delightful detail.

The problem is that by the time they reappear, the reader had already decided what they look like. We’ll explore how to fix this later, but for now, be on the lookout for any instances where you introduce a character but fail to describe their appearance and personality.

3.13 Passive Voice

Passive voice receives as much hate as adverbs do. But like anything in writing, there’s always an exception or time and place when its use is appropriate. Besides, just like adverbs, using the passive voice is a stylistic choice on the author’s behalf.

In the active voice—the opposite of passive—the person doing the action is also the subject of the sentence. The person receiving the action is the object. Having the subject of the sentence also be the action taker makes the language direct and stronger.

In the passive voice, you flip this around making the recipient of the action the subject and the person or agent doing the action the object. For example:

Active Sentence:

The dog chewed the bone.

Passive Sentence:

The bone was chewed by the dog.

Where you know who is performing the action—here it’s the dog—then it makes more sense to have the dog as the subject of the sentence.

When Would You Use the Passive Voice?

If you don’t know who did the doing, that is, you don’t know who completed the action spoken about, then the passive voice is a great way to mask that anomaly. Like so:

The samurai sword was forged in the 1700s.

The streets were roamed by a cloaked figure.

The house was burgled yesterday.

Or, if the doing is more important than the person doing it, then you could have this:

The king was crowned in the summer.

Of course, you don’t have to use passive voices in these examples, but I wanted to give you some occasions to break the rules and where the passive voice isn’t as jarring. Typically, you find passive voice more frequently in corporate or legal documents and we all know what I think about anything corporate…

Step 3 Where We Cock Up in Style Summary

Where we fucked up in style.

Eliminate any word that, when removed, doesn’t impact the meaning of your sentence.

Use word frequency checkers to find and replace your crutch words. Examples of crutch words include things like: just, but, so, that, look, hand, eye, glance, walk.

Check your scene openings for anchoring. Readers need to be located in time and space.

Where possible, try to keep character names consistent throughout your story. If you need to change a character name, rip the plaster off. Do it once, do it well and move on.

Try not to repeat yourself, I mean, really try not to repeat yourself… ho, ho, ho. Repetition can be found everywhere from the crutch words you sprinkle at the sentence level to the character traits and archetypes you repeat all the way through your story, to repetitive descriptive phrases and metaphors, and repeated styles of opening and closing scenes and chapters.

The best way to pick these up—other than having someone else read your work—is to read your work in a different format. I like using my e-ink Kindle, but you might want to try paper, changing the font or something else.

Keep a list of character names to make sure you’re not overusing names beginning with a certain letter.

Check for redundant words. On one of your read throughs, scrutinize every sentence. Ask yourself if you could say the same thing in fewer words.

Remember to remove instances of filtering. Filtering pushes the reader one step away from the protagonist creating an unnecessary and often unwanted distance.

Check for any incomplete or dangling sentences. Make sure all action is attached to a subject (character).

Where possible, look to remove overused instances of ing and as.

Try not to confuzzle your reader with conflicting descriptions like quiet roars. These logic errors are jarring and push your reader out of the story.

Like filtering, whenever you take action out of the present you create distance between the reader and your characters. If you need to use it, make sure there’s a reason or purpose for doing so, like narrative summary. Where possible, limit the uses.

Adverbs. Everything in moderation is fine. But bear in mind you can usually remove them without losing any meaning from your prose, and likewise, you’re usually telling instead of showing when you use them.

And for the love of my sanity and neurotic eyeball twitching, please don’t use them as dialogue tags, or so help me literary gods, “I will smack your word-bottom,” she said crossly.

The passive voice was called stuffy by Sacha and banished to corporate nightmares.

Sacha was also forbidden from talking about herself in the third person.

Exercises for you to try:

Take each mistake from the last chapter in turn. Write a paragraph and purposely make each mistake.

Rewrite the paragraph removing the mistake and see which version you prefer.

Step 4 Show Me the Money… I Mean Story, Baby!

4.0 Show Me the Money… I Mean Story, Baby!

In which we do our best Jerry Maguire impression, create books more appropriately sized as weapons, are as fast as lightning, and meet a grumpy sofa.

“Show, don’t tell” is one of the original debates in story history. The concept originates with the Russian playwright Anton Chekov. Though different to his original words which were sent in a letter to his brother. The bastardized and subsequently popularized quote goes something like this:

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

Regardless of what he said, I’m tired of this debate all together. “Show, don’t tell” started as a great piece of general guidance to err on the side of showing when trying to evoke imagery. In reality, what happened was myth and legend stuck its big oar in and made it a cardinal rule of writing to show not tell. SIGH, there are no rules, people. Even the full stop isn’t sacred. You only have to read Mike McCormack’s award-winning Solar Bones to know that; the whole thing—all 272 pages of it—is one single sentence. ONE! My point is that both showing and telling are valid techniques. They both have their places. We don’t need to be snooty and relegate one to never-never land. Besides, showing (usually) takes significantly more words. Employ it as your sole technique and you’ll find your books swell to tome-like sizes more appropriately used as weapons to throw at people who interrupt your writing time.

“Show, don’t tell” isn’t about discarding one technique for the other, it’s about understanding the differences between them and when you’re better placed using show rather than tell or vice versa.

In crude terms, the best way to know whether you should show or tell is to ask one question: is this moment, detail, or scene significant or important to the story, plot, or character? If the answer is yes, slow down and show rather than tell because the result will be a deepening of your plot, character, or reading experience. If the answer is no, you might be okay to use telling.

What’s the difference? I’ll take showing and telling separately in a moment. But for now, here’s a broad example:

Telling:

Sandy checked her watch, Mike was due back in five minutes. She was so angry with him.

In this example, the facts are told. There isn’t much context and while we know Sandy is angry because we’re told, we don’t feel like she’s angry because the emotion isn’t described in sufficient detail.

Telling plus Weak Showing:

Sandy sat on the sofa and huffed. She checked her watch, Mike was due back any second. Her jaw flexed, she was furious and would tell him too.

The actions of sitting and huffing and flexing jaw shows a more physical emotional reaction. We can all think of a time our jaws have flexed in anger—it’s a universal sensation. But still, we don’t dig into the emotion and there’s still telling involved, primarily the phrase: she was furious and would tell him too. However, we can take the weak forms of showing here and put more imagery into them.

Showing:

Sandy sat on the sofa with such force it groaned under her legs. She huffed and got back up.

“Never liked the sofa anyway.”

In fact, she didn’t like any of his furniture choices. Sandy paced the living room checking her watch. Mike was due back any second. Her jaw flexed, her teeth grinding on all the words she was going to throw at him.

In this example, the sofa suffers because of Sandy’s anger. There’s even a tiny bit of personification where the sofa groans as a result of her aggressive sitting.

I’ve also extended out the jaw flex description in this example. Jaw flexing is a great body language reaction, but you could make so much more of it. Instead of just grinding her teeth, she grinds on the words she’s going to throw at Mike, which feels so much more ominous of what’s to come. It evokes the sense that the words she needs to say are so big and tangible she can chew on them.

4.1 Telling

In technical terms, telling is a second-hand report where the characters report the facts to the reader. The reason this is so often deemed as a negative is because it’s disengaging. When you tell, you’re essentially waving a big glitter-covered rainbow hand at the reader while simultaneously bellowing “cooey look here.”

You’re saying to the reader “I’m writing and I’m telling you the story.” Instead of allowing them to sit back and enjoy the story. Telling draws their attention to the words themselves. It’s tantamount to reporting your story to your reader.

No one wants to read reports—not even report writers, it’s boring. The art of engaging a reader is to envelop them in the action and you do that through showing. When you tell a reader an emotion—such as, Fred was angry—it doesn’t allow them to experience that emotion. It’s not an immersive experience and that’s what so many readers come to fiction for: immersion and escapism. But it’s not just naming an emotion in narrative that catches writers out. Telling can be found in inner thought and dialogue too. You might also come across the term “exposition” in reference to telling. Exposition means a piece of writing intended to explain or convey information—in other words, telling.

Examples of Telling

Narrative Telling: Fred was furious.

Dialogue Telling: “You’re just bitter, Mary. It’s not a good look on you.”

Describing Telling: The car was old.

Inner-thought Telling: John was right, I didn’t like Sue because I’m jealous of her.

Setting Telling: The beach was sandy.

When Is Telling Okay?

In reality, whenever you damn well want. You’re the author and if you want to use telling to create a particular effect, then that’s within your pen-given right. But, like with any stylistic choice, most of them necessitate balance. I mean, sure, I’d like to eat four family-sized bars of chocolate for pudding—hell, I probably could too—but the result wouldn’t be pretty and neither is a manuscript littered with too much of any one technique; including telling. Good writers ensure a balance of all techniques, bending and weaving them to their whims. Once you understand what the techniques are for, it’s much easier to create that balance innately and manipulate them to your advantage.

The need for balance aside, there’s many a time and place where the art of telling is paramount. Most commonly:

Action scenes

Where there’s a need for pace

Shifting scenes

Younger protagonists

When it’s in character

Reader attention

Complex worldbuilding

Avoiding narrative repetition

Action scenes are usually fast paced. When you have a fight or battle, your body moves rapidly to attack or defend yourself. There’s rarely time for emotion because everything happens so fast. You’re hardly going to slow-mo punching a fella in the chops, are you? By the time your fist meets flesh he’s going to have gut-punched you and buggered off. It’s the same in fiction. To re-create the sense of speed, you can use a number of tricks like shorter sentences, more punctuation, substituting longer words for shorter ones, and of course telling. When you tell, it only requires one word. It takes a lot of words to evoke emotion or create a metaphor. So naturally, telling is faster, more economical, and elicits a sense of speed in your story.

I included pace separately because sometimes an author needs a sense of pace when there isn’t action. For example, when two characters argue or when you want to move your characters from location A to B. The same principles of creating speed apply here. Skimming over this and giving the reader a “telling” summary of the action helps to move the story on. If you’re in the middle of a physical fight, you’ll need pacey sentences to reflect the quick movements. Telling is a better technique here because it often uses fewer words.

Telling is also a useful technique when you want to avoid narrative repetition. If, for example, you have a character that does the same thing over and over again, unless you’re trying to create the sense of monotony, summarize some of their repetitive actions to pass chronological time in the plot quicker or increase the pace of the plot. For example, if your protagonist is a barman or doctor, you don’t want to bore the reader by describing the same daily surgery or pint-pouring routine. Not only is it repetitive, it serves no obvious purpose.

When you need to shift scenes, whether it’s to distract the reader from what’s happening, you’re swapping POV or because you need to move the characters to a different location, telling can help because it creates a faster transition than a swollen description of a four-hour train ride. Unless of course you’re Agatha Christie and you need a lengthy train ride on the Orient Express. What I’m saying is, you don’t always need five paragraphs of anchoring in the opening of a chapter. A line or two telling the reader where the characters are in time, space, and POV is sufficient.

Another occasion where telling is a useful technique is when you have younger protagonists. Understandably, a teenager of sixteen is going to be a) much more volatile than an eight-year-old, but b) have a deeper and wider range of emotions they both express and understand. If your protagonist is younger or you’re writing for younger audiences, using telling can be a more appropriate choice. Younger children tend to use simpler explanations even when the emotions they’re feeling are just as complex as an adult. For example, just this week we were going to one of my son’s friend’s birthday parties. I’d gotten dressed—wearing nothing spectacular, just black jeans, a white t-shirt and a black jacket—but my son scrunched up his face and said, “Why’d you look so pretty, Mommy?” Much as I’d like to have taken the compliment, I was too busy being mortified over the fact that I really need to stop working in joggers.

But it’s not only children who express themselves bluntly. Sometimes that’s totally in-character for a grown up too. Maybe you have a closed-off character or a character who’s so angry and indignant they’re shouting their emotions without considering other characters.

Or perhaps your character is processing mentally and thinking through how they’re feeling. Though be careful here, it’s rare anyone is self-aware enough they openly identify how they’re feeling, especially protagonists on a journey through their character arc. They spend half the plot lying to themselves about the real issue—their flaw. If your protagonist knows how they’re feeling from the start, it makes it harder for you to create any realism around that arc.

Showing can—but doesn’t have to—use a lot of words, which tells the reader that whatever you’re saying is important and you want their attention. Where you do use more words, be it from extended metaphors or spending more time on an aspect of story, it creates the same effect. More words equal a longer time spent reading. That tells your reader it’s an important piece of story. But when you tell, it lessens the importance of what you’re saying because you’re not digging deep enough to draw a reader’s attention into the detail of your story or characterization.

Now this point might create some controversy, worldbuilding lovers (me included) like to luxuriate over reams of detailed world-creation. That’s cool if it’s your bag. But it isn’t everyone’s. Easy places to reduce information dumping include anywhere where you’ve created something complex. It could be a government structure, a piece of steampunk machinery, bridge infrastructure, the inner workings of trains. You get the picture. If it’s not relevant to the plot, furthering the plot, or serving to highlight a characteristic in your protagonist, you could wash over it with a spot of telling.

There’s one last small point to make about telling. When a character regurgitates the actions or events that have come before or the things they’ve learned, it’s blatant exposition, a waste of words and an irritant to your reader. After all, your reader was there with your hero when they learned whatever they learned. Why do they need to be told it over again?

4.2 Showing

What then, is showing? How does one do it? And importantly, when should it be used?

As I’ve already mentioned, showing can use more words than telling because your aim is to create imagery in your reader’s mind rather than telling them the exact feeling the protagonist is having. But it doesn’t have to. You can be economical with your words, up the ante and choose more powerful verbs and all of a sudden, your sentence is shorter, more concise, and shows more than the longer telling sentence ever did.

But why would you want to show? Many reasons, not least of which is that it’s more immersive. I’ve talked about how reading is tantamount to watching TV for me. Without those pictures and imagery, I wouldn’t have the same experience. But more importantly, when you show, you create detail—it’s that detail that both deepens your characterization and also allows the reader to experience the emotion themselves.

Reading is a reflective experience. It’s not your characters making your readers feel things, it’s your reader’s self-reflection that evokes feelings inside them. Through your characters, readers see moments of their own lives, shared experiences that remind them of their humanity or memories. That’s where the emotion comes from.

Examples of Showing

Showing Description:

“The walls are the same faded mint green you find in an old people’s home. The paper peels at random intervals. Photos hang crooked along the wall, covered in so much dust I can barely see the people underneath them. There’s an eerie quiet in the house that makes my chest tight. The kind of quiet that appears after something dies.” Sacha Black, Keepers.

In this example, it would be so much simpler to just say the hallway was old and in a state of disrepair. But that doesn’t engage the reader, paint a picture or draw them into the story. Instead of saying the hallway was old, I’ve shown “faded mint” paper and described how it’s peeling. There are also little details like crooked photos. Instead of saying they’re old, I described the dust covering them.

Quick Tip: When you want to “show” instead of describing what something is, such as a photo on a wall, describe what you see—for example, a crooked frame covered in dust.

In addition, I’ve chosen this excerpt because one way to immediately evoke an image in the reader’s mind is to describe the impact something has on your protagonist, be it another character, a building, a memory, a piece of dialogue etc. The quiet atmosphere in the house has a physical impact on Eden, it makes her chest tight. Something she then likens to the quiet after something dies.

Using the same examples that were in the telling section, here’s how you can show them instead:

Narrative Telling: Fred was furious.

Narrative Showing: Fred clenched his fist, his neck flushed first red then deepened to a rich, plummy purple.

Dialogue Telling: “You’re just bitter, Mary. It’s not a good look on you.”

Dialogue Showing: “For Christ sake, Mary. Parading tea and scones out doesn’t hide the contempt. I can see right through you and so can she.”

Describing Telling: The car was old and rusty.

Describing Showing: The sun had bleached the red out of the car’s roof, it was more pathetic tangerine than sports car red. The hood was in an even worse state than the roof; it was blistered with such angry brown patches I swore the whole thing would flake away in a single gust of wind.

Inner-thought Telling: John was right, I didn’t like Sue because I’m jealous of her.

Inner-thought Showing: John was right, I didn’t like Sue. She was too busy slapping paint on her face and pouting her lips for the cameras to be a nice human.

Setting Telling: The beach was warm and sandy.

Setting Showing: My toes sank into the sand, the occasional shell fragment dug into my heel but I didn’t mind. The sun was streaming over my face with the kind of fresh warmth you only get by the ocean.

When Should You Show?

Emotional scenes

Important pivotal scenes

Areas you want to draw your readers’ attention to

To slow down the pace

Characterization

Worldbuilding

Foreshadowing

I’m going to be bold and say you can’t create a truly emotional scene unless you use showing techniques. Before you waft an award-winning literary exception at me, I’ve no doubt there’s an exception, there’s an exception to everything. But for now, let’s go with the fact you have to “show” the reader the emotion in a scene rather than tell it. Emotion is this wonderfully juxtaposed concept. It is both a deeply personal experience and also universal to all humans. What that means is, in order to recreate emotional resonance, you have to make the experience personal. You do that by using detail that’s personal to your character. Creating detail generally requires more words. More on this in the example below.

I’ve already mentioned how showing requires more words than telling. This has the added benefit of creating importance. The other impact that using more words in a scene has, is to slow down the pace. This “slowing” tactic can be used in a multitude of ways, not just things that are important or emotional. If you want to distract your reader, perhaps in a murder mystery and have them focus on the wrong clue, you can use this method to focus their attention away from whatever you’re trying to hide.

You can slow the pace in a number of ways, like longer sentences, longer word choices, and using more sentences to describe what’s going on. You could also highlight a particular moment or a single second in an action scene by drawing out the description and making time freeze.

For example, in a scene where my protagonist’s soul mate dies, I draw that single moment of his death out. It’s an action scene and so everything running up to that moment has been a fast-paced battle. But in the single moment of his death, I slow the story down and focus on details that only my protagonist would notice.

“They say that when you die, your life flashes in front of you. I don’t know what Trey saw as he stood there bleeding out. But as the knife sliced into his neck, and bright red spurted in thick gushes down his chest, that’s exactly what happened to me. I take a breath, time slows, and in the instant it takes for his life to slip away, our life, the one we’ll never have, flashes before my eyes. Our hands lace together as we kiss under a thousand sunsets. Glances stolen across hundreds of Council meetings. We stand on top of my home tower, me pirouetting around his arms under clouds of rain and thunder, the lightning dancing in the sky with me. Evenings spent by the Pink Lake, staring at a starlit blanket above us, blossom and petals falling from the trees and landing in our hair like confetti. Our family, two children with lilac and blue eyes, running by our feet as we smile and laugh and love. Growing so old, and wrinkled, and happy, that joy lines paint our ancient faces like smiles. Our essences age and entwine like the mat of a tree’s roots as we spend our lives together. All of that passed before my eyes in a single breath. When I exhale, it’s gone. And so is Trey.” Sacha Black, Victor.

In the above excerpt, Eden watches as the life she thought she’d live vanishes as Trey dies. But it’s the uniqueness of that life that makes the moment heart-wrenching. I specifically chose events that have either happened or have been alluded to in previous scenes and books. For example, they’ve stolen glances across meetings, so this will be a memory the reader shares too. They’ve also danced on the roof under the night sky—this is even more meaningful because Eden can’t dance unless it’s with Trey who is a great dancer and leads her. There’s also a key scene mentioned throughout the books that happens at the Pink Lake, so tying this in helps to highlight the significance. Toward the end of the paragraph I use experiences that are relatable to most people, be it children or growing old with someone you love. This is to augment any emotion by creating a shared experience between the reader and the protagonist. The last two sentences are purposefully staccato and choppy to juxtapose the previous metaphors against the brevity of a moment of loss and death. Using details like this create the effect of immediacy for the reader, it drills into their own personal life experiences and enables them to reflect on their life. It also lays bare the protagonist creating a sense of transparency in her emotional state. When readers read, they want to be inside the mind of the protagonist. They want to understand how the protagonist feels so they care about them.

Example: Fast Pace

If, however, I want to speed this paragraph up, I could strip out all of the future memories and have it much cleaner:

“They say that when you die, your life flashes in front of you. I don’t know what Trey saw as he stood there bleeding out. But as the knife sliced into his neck, and bright red spurted in thick gushes down his chest, that’s exactly what happened to me. I take a breath, time slows, and in the instant it takes for his life to slip away, our life, the one we’ll never have together, flashes before my eyes. When I exhale, it’s gone. And so is Trey.”

In this version, without the memories and observations about their life together, you lose a lot—if not all—of the emotional resonance. It feels like a butt cheek: bare and smooth, clean even. And sure, some people like clinically butt-cheeked writing, I mean clean prose is important for action scenes. But even in action scenes there are occasions that require acute focus and a reader’s attention because of their significance. Like the moment the protagonist has to smite someone they love with an axe.

Ultimately, as a reader, I’m not as connected to the significance of the moment in this second example. You can still tell something important is happening because Eden says their future life flashes before her eyes. But without her personal reflection on that life, you no longer feel like Eden “feels” anything about what’s happened. She’s witnessing the death of a loved one, but because she only describes the mechanics of “what” happened, you lose the resonance and meaning behind the death.

This is why you need to be cognizant of when you choose to use each prose technique. Otherwise you can create psychological dissonance—a state of mental discomfort when a person holds two contradictory beliefs at once—in other words, the plot is telling the reader something significant is happening, but they’re not feeling the emotion you’re trying to capture. That’s an icky feeling for the reader. Readers don’t like ick.

That’s not to say you have to “show” every single emotional event. Ask yourself what suits your character? Is your character emotionally restrained? Perhaps the effect you need is to create an emotionally restricted scene so your reader feels uncomfortable or awkward or perhaps because your protagonist is going to have an emotional revelation as part of his or her arc later in the story.

Example: Even Faster

Just for fun, let’s go one better and make this as short as possible. Now, of course, I could trim this down to “and then Trey died,” but that’s not good storytelling. So, I’m going to constrain myself by having to retain the essence of the original paragraph (and plot), but still make the sentence as short as possible.

“As the knife slices into Trey’s neck, bright red spurts down his chest. I take a breath, time slows. In the instant he slips away, the life we’ll never have together flashes before my eyes. When I exhale, it’s gone. And so is Trey.”

This is about as pared back as I can get it. Perhaps you can make it even shorter.

Putting my personal prose voice and style aside, which version of that scene did you prefer? There’s no right or wrong answer here, the purpose of identifying which one you favored is to understand your voice as an author, your preferences, and the type of fiction you want to write.

I’ve already mentioned how important detail is to create emotion, it’s also integral to good characterization. But seeing as we have an entire step on characterization later, I’m not going to go into any detail here. But whatever details you choose to include and show your reader should reveal something about your character.

Now, before you shout, I know I put worldbuilding in the telling section too. But I did say both showing and telling were valid and there are areas of worldbuilding that require showing as well as telling. In fact, a lot of worldbuilding is showing. When you want to create imagery, landscapes, and description of the location your characters are in, that’s when you show. But that doesn’t give you free reign to vomit ten back-to-back paragraphs of description on your reader either. That my darlings, is called an information dump and will see your readers shoving your book on the Did Not Finish pile. See, there’s an art to showing worldbuilding. It’s actually pretty simple. Only provide description when it’s relevant to the protagonist.

Is your protagonist journeying to somewhere? Awesome, provide a line or two about what they see. Does the lion head door knocker on the doctor’s surgery door remind your protagonist of something in their past that’s linked to the current plot? That’d be a good time to describe it. Of course, you always need to ground your reader in time and space. So some level of “showing” the world is essential. But above that, unless you have a super descriptive style, the best way to keep a reader engaged is to describe things only when they’re relevant or salient to the protagonist, plot, or foreshadowing.

Quick Tip: Here are some questions I like to ask myself:

Will describing this tell the reader something about my character?

Will describing it show new insight into the character’s personality?

Will describing evoke an image that anchors the reader in time and space?

Do you need your character to pay attention to whatever you’re describing in order to further the plot?

If you want to foreshadow something, then the moment the foreshadowing occurs should be significant to the reader, even if it’s in a subtle way. You can’t foreshadow by telling because you’d have to bonk the reader on the head with your telling stick and be all “Oi, mate, listen yeah, pay attention coz this knife here is important later.” I really hope I don’t need to highlight how wrong that is.

The description you use to foreshadow needs to be memorable so the reader can connect the puzzle pieces later in your story at the big reveal.

Step 4 Show Me the Money… I Mean Story, Baby! Summary

In which we did our best Jerry Maguire impression, created books more appropriately sized as weapons, were as fast as lightning, and met a grumpy sofa.

There is no debate. Showing is not on one side of this war and telling on the other. There is no war, there is no spoon… If you have no idea what I’m talking about go watch the Matrix… Good writers use showing and telling interchangeably. You should too.

Generally speaking, telling uses less words than showing (I said generally, there are always exceptions).

Telling identifies and names emotions—for example, “Fred was cross”—rather than showing the physical or visceral reactions of that anger like this: “Fred threw his hands up and stormed out of the room, slamming the door as he went.”

It makes sense to tell sometimes, especially in situations like this: action scenes, where there’s a need for pace, avoiding scene repetition, shifting scenes, younger protagonists, when it’s in character, reader attention, complex worldbuilding, avoiding narrative repetition.

Showing typically describes the actions a character takes, the emotions they feel and the world around them using imagery.

Remember, when you want to show instead of describing what something is, such as a photo on a wall, describe what you see—for example, a crooked frame covered in dust.

When should you show? Emotional scenes, important pivotal scenes, areas you want to draw your readers’ attention to or slow down the pace, characterization, worldbuilding, foreshadowing.

When trying to decide if you should be describing, here are some questions I like to ask myself:

Will describing this tell the reader something about my character?

Will describing it show new insight into the character’s personality?

Will describing evoke an image that anchors the reader in time and space?

Do you need your character to pay attention to whatever you’re describing in order to further the plot?

Exercises for you to try:

1. Rewrite one of your own paragraphs to see if you can create three versions:

One descriptive, slow version

One middling length paragraph

One short, sharp version

2. Try and write the following types of sentences in both a showing and telling format:

Dialogue

Setting description

Character description

Inner thought

Narrative

Step 5 Chinwag Central

5.0 Chinwag Central

Where we chat a lot, realize dialogue is not, in fact, like speaking, sing “say ma name bitch” from the rooftops, and discover said has magical powers.

Dialogue is a beast of a topic. There are entire books and courses devoted entirely to dialogue. Which means, I can’t cover every aspect of dialogue in one incy wincy chapter, but I’ve tried to capture a broad range of tactics and techniques in this step that will improve your dialogue and prose.

But first, what is dialogue? For a long time, I was happy in the knowledge that dialogue was “spoken”—albeit in fiction—language. But I read DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build your Community by Gabriela Pereira, and was taken with one particular quote:

“Dialogue is communication between characters, not communication between the writer and reader. Do not confuse the two.” Gabriela Pereira, DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build your Community.

This is one of those quotes that shattered my tiny little mind into a gazillion pieces. It changed the way I saw dialogue. You could argue that the majority of prose is the author communicating with the reader; it’s the author telling the story to the reader. But with dialogue, the only two people engaged in that conversation are the characters talking. Try to stay out of the way of your characters and let them have their private moment; we’re just the scribes.

The other important thing to note before we dig in, is that dialogue should always have a point. Yes, functionally, it breaks up chunky prose. But if your characters have a conversation that doesn’t lead anywhere, doesn’t uncover new information, reveal something or decide a plan of action, it’s pretty pointless. It will come across that way to the reader too. Make sure each line spoken is a knight in shining dialogue that’s earned its right to be there.

5.1 The Funny Thing about Dialogue: Realism vs Fiction

Dialogue is weird. See, we think it’s meant to be realistic. But realistic dialogue would read horrendously. This is how a real conversation goes:

“Darling?” I say trying not to sound whiny.

“Hmm...?”

“What do you want for dinner?”

“Oh, errr, I don’t know. Umm…I—” She’s not even looking at me.

“Come on, babe, I always have to choose…”

“Well… I don’t... I can’t think of anything. What do you want?”

‘For god’s sake, Jules.”

“Jesus, calm down… Umm, what’s in the fridge? Did you get cat litter today? The cat needs biscuits too.”

“I dunno, yes and yes. Can you—Hold on one second… Look can you just go and check? I’m trying to finish this email.”

If that’s half as painful to read as it was to write, then you’ll understand why you can’t write realistic dialogue. Real dialogue is full of interruptions, half thoughts, umm and erms and is horrendously convoluted. See, dialogue doesn’t need to be real, it just needs to appear real. But it’s actually speech on steroids. Dialogue in fiction needs to be so much more than dialogue in real life. For example, you could rewrite the above scene in three lines, like this:

“What do you want for dinner, Darling?”

“No idea, what are the options?”

“Can you check the fridge for me? I just need to finish an email.”

It’s the same conversation, only this time, it reads like it came from a book. And even though it’s far shorter and more efficient, it reads more realistically too.

5.2 Tag Simplicity

Dialogue tags are better kept simple. That shouldn’t be news to you, it’s one of those fundamentals of writing craft. Yet I still see so many manuscripts littered with as many dialogue tags as there are dialogue sentences. I’m referring to these little blasphemous atrocities: she chortled, she mused, she choked, she laughed, she cried.

Have you tried to laugh and speak at the same time? Seriously though, have you? It’s basically impossible and usually results in some contorted maniacal facial expression and incoherent garbled nonsense. Likewise, with choking and speaking. GUYS, IF YOU’RE CHOKING, SEEK MEDICAL HELP. That shit will kill you.

Where possible, use says or said.

That’s it.

“Said” is spectacular, it has magic powers. I shit you not. It’s the unicorn of grammatical spanners. It’s a word that readers are blind to. They skim over it, which makes it one of the only words you don’t have to worry about repeating—all hail the merciful repetition gods. The problem with using fluffy dialogue tags is that they like attention. Specifically, the reader’s attention which is drawn to the tag because it’s unusual and unexpected; it’s not their good ol’ buddy said. Whenever the reader’s attention is drawn in this way—like with exposition—it reminds them they’re reading, they become aware of the technical craft of writing rather than being absorbed in the flow of the story. Can you imagine being in the cinema and half way through the film the attendant comes in, pauses the film, flicks on the lights, and pronounces “You’re watching a film.” That’s not going to have a pretty ending. He’s going to have 100 bags of popcorn lobbed at his head at the least.

Now, of course sometimes we want to create a different effect with our dialogue. That’s fine, no one’s going to arrest you for dropping a “she gasped” in the middle of your dialogue. But bear in mind that the tone of your dialogue should be implicit in your sentence.

5.3 The Faux Tags aka Action Tags

There are other little beasties I like to call action tags. These blighters masquerade as dialogue tags because they’re adding in a snippet of action to your dialogue. These are not quite the same as dialogue beats which I’ll come to in a second. Action tags are short phrases added to your dialogue tag. Quite often, they describe the timing of the dialogue.

For example: Sally joined in or Joe chipped in. These types of dialogue tag are redundant because by the very nature of the dialogue being spoken, Sally and Joe are already joining or chipping in to the conversation. What this does is create a timing error. The chronological sequence of your events no longer works because you’re telling the reader Sally joined in after the fact of her joining in! It’s like saying:

“Sally’s joining in by speaking some dialogue here,” Sally joined in.

Do I need to say more?

5.4 Dialogue Beats

Dialogue beats are different to tags. They describe a physical action or movement a character makes while speaking or between bouts of speaking. Here’s an example from the third book in my Young Adult fantasy series, Trey:

“Hermia glugs the rest of the tumbler and takes the rapidly diminishing bottle of Mind Numb from me.

‘Well,’ she says, pouring herself another glass, ‘are you?’

I swill my glass, watching the liquid lick up the side. I raise it but pause. ‘No.’” Sacha Black, Trey.

The action of Hermia pouring herself another drink between the words “well” and “are you” is a dialogue beat.

Beats are great for keeping the pace of dialogue varied. It keeps the action going and brings depth and life to long sections of dialogue. However, there’s a temptation to over use beats. Just as interrupting dialogue frequently can be distracting and irritating for readers, so too can the overuse of dialogue beats.

Beats can be used to plant subtle pieces of action and foreshadowing. For example, the sly picking up of a tool or weapon that becomes relevant later. That said, the vast majority of dialogue beats are injections of body language: a head tilt, a glance, sitting, or standing etc. They’re important for bringing a character to life, but can distract from important dialogue if used incorrectly.

Another use of a dialogue beat is to change the emotion in a scene. If a character needs to stay calm in a situation, but something is said to ruffle their feathers, you may not be able to reflect their frustration in dialogue because it will alert the other character to their feelings.

“So, you don’t have the document anymore?” I say, my lips peeling into a broad grin. He straightens the papers on the desk and then looks me in the eye.

“You know I don’t.” He leans back in his chair, his eyes never leaving mine. “Did you really think you’d get away with stealing it?”

Shit. My smile tightens. “Of course not, I never planned to.” Beneath the desk, my hand curls around the lie, my nails digging into my palm.

Here, the first character goes from gleefully smug to an “oh shit I’ve been caught” moment while never letting on to the other character that their emotion has changed. Instead of vocalizing the “oh shit” he hides his feelings. Putting the lies into the narrative prose rather than dialogue is a great tactic for letting the reader into the secret truth of the protagonist’s emotions while hiding it from other characters. Tactics like this also lead to misunderstandings between characters and build tension. You can also use this interruption technique to depict character realizations.

5.5 Tag Frequency

The frequency of dialogue tags seems to cause a lot of issues for writers. The purpose of a dialogue tag is to identify a speaker. If it is obvious who’s speaking, you don’t need a tag. If there’s any doubt whatsoever, include the tag. It’s that simple.

If you have two characters in a back and forth exchange, it’s unlikely you need to use many dialogue tags, the reader will know from the fact it’s back and forth that the dialogue is between two characters.

If, however, you punctuate the dialogue with dialogue beats—a bit of body language or thought—then you may want to review the dialogue tags and insert one or two more for clarity.

When you remove them all completely, you no longer know who’s saying what. Like this:

“What do you want for dinner, Darling?”

“I have no idea, what are the options?”

“Check the fridge, will you? I need to finish this email.”

“You just asked what I wanted.”

“I know, because I’m hungry and you will be in half an hour. Just look in the sodding fridge.”

While it’s clear enough that there are only two people talking, you’ve no idea if they’re both male, if one is female or if one is a teenager. But if you flip this around and add too many this is what happens:

“What do you want for dinner, Darling?” she said.

“I have no idea, what are the options?” he said.

“Check the fridge, will you? I need to finish this email,” she said.

“You just asked what I wanted,” he said.

“I know, because I’m hungry and you will be in half an hour. Just look in the sodding fridge,” she said.

Having a tag on each of these lines is utterly pointless. There are only two people in this conversation so it’s patently clear who’s talking. Having that many tags just grates on the reader. So how do you get it right? Let’s try a more balanced approach:

“What do you want for dinner, Darling?” she said, rubbing my shoulders before sitting down with her laptop.

“I have no idea, what are the options?”

“Check the fridge, will you? I need to finish this email.”

“You just asked what I wanted.”

“I know, because I’m hungry and you will be in half an hour. Just look in the sodding fridge.” She looks up at me, her brow furrowed in a plea.

“Okay.” I sigh and walk into the kitchen.

5.6 Tag Order

What do I mean by tag order? I mean the order of the tag and the speaker name after the dialogue is complete, for example:

Name First:

“I don’t think so,” Becca said.

Tag First:

“I don’t think so,” said Becca.

There is no right or wrong answer here—except my preference is right, ahem—you’ll find that the more you write the more you decide on a personal predilection. I like name first: Becca said. I prefer this order because the purpose of a dialogue tag is to identify the speaker and or tone of speech. The fastest way to do that is to name the speaker first. Also, I have a six-year-old and almost all picture books use “said Becca” so I’m constantly reminded of Early Reader stories when I’m trying to write for an adult audience. That said, sometimes you’ll find with longer sections of dialogue or just with the natural flow of your prose that tag first works better. Like I said, no right or wrong answer. If you’re unsure, read a few sections of dialogue out loud along with their tags and see which one feels more natural to you.

5.7 Dialogue and Tag Inconsistency

Your dialogue should imply the tone of the speaker’s voice from the way it’s written, which means if you’re going to use a dialogue tag, it needs to reflect the same tone as the dialogue that’s just been spoken. When they don’t align, it creates a conflict in the reader’s head. For example:

“I… I’m really not sure,” she said eagerly.

There’s nothing eager about that dialogue, it’s apprehensive and unsure. It would make more sense to say:

“I… I’m really not sure,” she said nervously.

Here, you could happily remove the tag completely, one because it’s an adverb, but two because the phrasing of the dialogue makes it clear how the words should be spoken/read. Instead, I’d use description to bring the nervousness alive. For example:

“I… I’m really not sure,” she said, her eyes tight as she glanced at the exit.

5.8 Dialogue Pacing and Distribution

Pacing

You need to consider the pacing and distribution in dialogue. In natural conversation, we’re all arms and legs and witty jabs, interruptions and cut offs. This is a great technique to use to create both interesting dialogue and also a level of believability. But interruptions and cut offs as a technique are like unicorns—yes, I’m referring to unicorns again, I like the glittery but I’ll-stab-you-if-you-annoy-me demeanor. Anyway, interruption and cutoffs are like unicorns because they’re special and should rarely be seen (and for good reason). If you use as much interruption as you see in real life, your dialogue will be jerky and difficult for the reader to follow. But if you want to increase pace and tension, then adding a dash of this technique to your prose is a useful method.

Distribution

On each page, you need a balance of prose to dialogue. Yes, there are always occasions where you’re going to be dialogue heavy or prose heavy. But for the most part, five pages of dialogue without any beats or thought or action in-between is a bit much. Likewise, five dense pages of prose is going to be hard work to get through.

5.9 Say Ma Name Bitch aka Names in Dialogue

There’s one common mistake I see in manuscripts: characters using each other’s names or nicknames in conversation. Like this:

“Listen, James, I don’t think you should go in there…”

“Come on, Mike, it’s just a bit of fun. It’s been empty for years.”

“Yeah, James, that’s the point.”

“What are you, Mike, chicken?”

“No, James, I prefer realist.”

Are you screaming yet? Whenever I see a name in dialogue, it provokes a carnal desire to climb on my chair or bed or any other unsuspecting piece of furniture and belt out a cracking version of “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child. Sadly, you won’t be getting a karaoke version of that in the resource download. I’d prefer to keep your ear drums—and my dignity—intact. However, I’m going to ask you to do an exercise for me:

Go find your partner, or your child, or a random stranger on the street. If you don’t know their name, ask for it. Then use it in every sentence in your conversation. What you’ll find is that after a sentence or two, you’ll rapidly feel awkward. That’s how it reads in prose too. If you happened to pick a stranger, then accept my apologies in advance, you may well get a bop on the schnozzle.

When you use a person’s name repeatedly, it creates a patronizing and mildly aggressive tone of voice. Why? Well, if you’re talking to someone you know, then you know their name. Why do you need to use it? Using a person’s name is reserved for those who are unfamiliar with each other, when your mom is full-naming you, or if your character is being rude and trying to make a point.

I’m not saying you can never use a name in dialogue, of course you can. But this is one of those times when you need to kill those darlings.

5.10 Slowing Down or Speeding Up Dialogue

If you want to create specific effects with your dialogue like arguments, then you need to employ particular tactics to change how the dialogue reads. When someone is angry or shouting, they’re more likely to spit short sharp sentences, so using more full stops and shorter sentence lengths will help create that effect in your prose. For example:

“How could you?” she spat. “It had nothing to do with you. This was about me and her.”

“Sal, listen—”

“No. You’ve done enough. Don’t try and fix this. You weren’t there.”

If someone is thoughtful, in a less formal situation or more reflective in their argument, they’re more likely to have longer flowing sentences. In this instance, lengthen your sentences by using more commas to represent the flow of thought. Let’s change the tone of the above dialogue to reflect a more resigned despondent argument.

“It had nothing to do with you, it wasn’t your fight.” I knead my head trying to ease the dull thump that’s clawing at my temples. “This was about me and her and our inability to be honest with each other. How are we supposed to do that now? You told my truth before I had a chance.”

“I’m sor—”

“No. It doesn’t matter what I say now, she’ll never believe I was going to tell her.”

Having more flowing, lengthy dialogue not only changes the tone of the speaker but the tone and pace of the argument too. When you come to write dialogue, always consider the tone you’re trying to create and how playing with punctuation and sentence length can impact the prose.

5.11 Exposition and Dialogue

Exposition occurs when a character or the narrative explains something. Think of it as a sledgehammer tactic. It happens when you explain an idea, context, history, background, or prior plot points. Some level of exposition is usually necessary, but the trick is to limit it as much as possible to avoid sledgehammering readers. It also has a strange effect in dialogue too, resulting in unbelievable characters.

“Listen, Geoff, I know you know this, but after thirty years in this industry, I have to tell you, if you make that trade, you’ll crash the stock price.”

It’s much more efficient to just have your character say the key point even if your protagonist knows the information.

“Listen, if you make that trade, you’ll crash the stock price.”

Or even have your character show care. By turning the exposition into a warning, you allow the other character to react and process the statement. In the below example, it’s foreshadowing as the reader will assume Geoff will make the trade and the market will crash and there will be consequences.

“I really don’t think you should make that trade. Something’s off with the market.”

5.12 Contractions and Punctuation

Contractions

I spoke about contractions in Step 3 Where We Cock Up in Style. I’ll highlight them again here briefly because I think the use of contractions in dialogue is even more important than in prose. As I mentioned before, if you’re writing historical fiction or you’re trying to create a specific effect, like a stiff or pompous character, then this advice won’t apply. However, if you’re writing a story set in modern times or with modern language, then I urge you to use contractions in speech. We’re a lazy ol’ bunch of humans and despite our ability to endlessly waffle, our natural speech pattern is to reduce words, cut corners, and be efficient. The fastest way to do that is to use don’t rather than do not.

Dialogue Punctuation

I know I made a promise not to discuss punctuation and grammar in this book, but I lied. What you guna do?

Dialogue grammar is one of those weird niche bits of grammar not always taught in school. Plus, school feels like a lifetime ago and if you’re even half as senile as me—mine was maternally induced, WTF baby brain, I thought it left once they were toddlers—then you’ll have forgotten the grammar rules. I mean, dialogue seems like a full sentence, right? One person speaks, then you move on.

Not necessarily.

With dialogue, the easiest way to work out the grammar is to ask what the dialogue is doing to the action.

Dialogue and its tag denote a full sentence. Which means you need a comma inside the speech marks. Like this:

“Put a comma at the end of the dialogue,” Sacha said.

However, if you have dialogue and then a full sentence after, then you do need a full stop inside the speech marks.

“There’s no way I’m climbing in that.” She took five steps back and slumped to the floor.

What about complex dialogue that’s more flowing? When you have a dialogue sentence with a tag and action afterwards, usually the action and action tag are all part of the same dialogue sentence. So here, you’d use a comma instead of a full stop.

“There’s no way I’m climbing in that,” she said, taking five steps back and slumping to the floor.

Another common mistake is to use an ellipsis (…) to indicate an interruption in speech. But an ellipsis is actually used to show a trailing off of dialogue or thought. An interruption is indicated by the use of a dash. For example:

“There’s no way I’m climbing in that, you’re in—”

“Don’t you dare say insane. Get inside or I’m leaving you behind.”

5.13 Differentiating Character and Tone in Dialogue

Writers often worry that their dialogue all sounds the same, but there are lots of prose tricks you can use to differentiate between your characters. Your reader sees your novel through the eyes of your hero—or whichever character is leading the narration at that time. What this means is, you have the opportunity to reflect that character’s personality in their word choices, in the way they describe events, and how they speak. And once you’ve answered those questions it’s easier to show your character’s personality through their dialogue as you know what to show.

Remember, dialogue is no longer your voice as the author or narrator, dialogue is your character’s own voice. So it’s important to reflect that difference in the tone and style of dialogue.

Start by asking where your characters come from. Accents, while hard to write, can provide a deviously useful source of differentiation. For example:

“Say, who is you?  Whar is you?  Dog my cats ef I didn’ hear sumf’n. Well, I know what I’s gwyne to do:  I’s gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin.” Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade).

Twain purposefully uses contractions and misspelled words to accentuate the accent in Jim’s dialogue.

However, if you’re not a native of the dialect you want to write, it could be challenging. Remember too, it’s important to get your work checked by someone who is a native speaker as it’s easy to get inflections, word choice, and word meaning wrong and inadvertently cause offense.

Dialect aside, what type of background does your character have? This can have an effect on word choice. For example, someone from an upper socioeconomic background can often sound more formal and rigid in their dialogue. They tend to use longer words and sentences naturally; think of ol’ Lizzie Regina. Consider the upbringing of your characters, the situations they work in and even regional or geographical differences. Are they formal or colloquial in their demeanor? Do their jobs mean they have a more nuanced vocabulary? I’ve exaggerated the below example for effect, but you get the picture:

“I refuse to discuss the matter further. Whether or not you pulled your gluteal tendon during last night’s exploits or not is not appropriate dinner conversation.”

Let’s change the type of character entirely and have someone who uses lots of slang:

“Nah, mate, I ain’t sittin’ here chatting shit about yo’ ass cheeks cause ya banged a pussy an couldn’t handle it.”

It’s the same meaning but tweaking the accent has completely changed the character. Let’s continue with the first character who’s stuffy, formal, and long winded. Let’s progressively tweak the prose and word choice until we show his personality through the dialogue. Instead of having him say:

“I’ve been thinking about your offer, it’s a no.”

He could say:

“I’ve been pondering your offer, it’s a no.”

Or, you could choose an even more specific word and say:

“I’ve let your offer percolate, but I’ve concluded the answer is no.”

Here, the character chooses to use more words for “it’s a no” and uses a descriptive word to describe his thinking instead of just saying he’s thought about it and no. These little nuances are what differentiate one character from the next. If you have a character that’s always dry and sarcastic, reflect that in their dialogue. If they’re pompous, have them speak in a pompous way, if they’re slow and deliberate by nature, slow down their speech, have them use twenty words when five would do—as a side note on that particular trait, it can be laborious for readers to read overly long-winded characters. Here, you need to strike a balance rather than having them speak in a long-winded way throughout your novel. Choose a few key moments to highlight the trait. Another great trick is to describe the impact and consequence of a long-winded character’s speech pattern. If, for example, the long-windedness drives other characters mad, that can create humor and deepen the characterization for both characters. That goes for other personality types too. If your character is an arrogant schmuck, have them turn the conversation back around to them, or have them talk about themselves more often than other characters.

One game I love to play is to write a scene with only two characters and absolutely no description, dialogue tags, or narration. Only dialogue. This forces me to think about phrasing and the ways I can manipulate the words to sound different. Here’s a quick example:

“I beg your pardon, Ma’am? What do you mean he cut him up?”

“Exactly that babes. Proper cut him, he did. And you don’t need to waggle your fucking fingers at me neither. It’s the god’s honest truth.”

“You can’t swear at me, Ma’am.”

“Whatever you say, babes.”

“Now. What do you mean your partner cut him up? How exactly? On a roundabout or something?”

“He ain’t my ‘partner,’ Doug’s my friend with benefits, init. And I ain’t talking cars. He proper cut him.”

“Sorry, Ma’am. You’re going to need to explain clearly.”

“Look, sweetheart. The prick—that’s Mike—accused Doug’s mother of shagging his sister. So, Doug cut Mike…With…A…Knife… Got it? If you ask me Mike deserved it. And it was only a little stab, stab. Wasn’t like he’d die from it. But Mike went all psycho and wanted revenge. So the little prick cut my dog’s leg off and now I want him arrested. Got it, babe?”

“If you call me babe again I am going to arrest you.”

“Look, babe—”

“Ma’am, you’re under arrest.”

Quick Tip: One great exercise is to collect word banks for your characters. Collect words that match the kind of tone, meaning, and implications your characters are likely to feel. Then use the bank of words when crafting dialogue for them. If your character is an academic, collect words often found in academia like furthermore, however, and upon considering… Sprinkling just a few of these words in their dialogue is enough to make a stark differentiation between characters. If your character is long-winded, create a collection of words he or she is likely to use.

Here are just three examples:

Knowledgeable instead of clever

Pontificate instead of talk

Contemplate instead of think

I also use a specific set of questions to shape my thinking about character dialogue:

Does my character prefer long words or short words?

Do they explain things clearly or go around the houses?

Do they use slang?

Are there any unusual words that might be common to their life?

Do they think in long flowing sentences or do they interrupt themselves and think in short sharp sentences that circle around and around before getting to the point?

Do they have any particular personality traits that would impact their dialogue? That is, are they dry and sarcastic, nervous, or arrogant?

What words would they definitely not use (knowing this is just as useful as knowing what they would use).

5.14 Misunderstandings in Dialogue

Everyone loves a soap opera or reality TV show because of the drama. Fights, misunderstandings, and bickering are what fuel our desire to glue our eyeballs to trash telly. And that’s exactly why your characters should misunderstand each other once in a while too. Not only is it a very human trait to misunderstand each other, it creates tension and conflict and can throw obstacles in your protagonist’s way. Misunderstandings can come in a multitude of forms from:

A simple misunderstanding left unresolved at the end of dialogue

Disagreements

A lie

Talking at cross purposes

Speaking in code that’s misinterpreted

Purposefully leaving out information that leads another character to an incorrect assumption

A simple example of a misunderstanding could go something like this:

Speaker 1: “Hello is Mr. Smith there please?”

Speaker 2: “Yes"

Speaker 1: “Could I speak to him please?”

Speaker 2: “Yes”

There’s a pause on the line.

Speaker 1: “Oh. Erm. Are you Mr. Smith?”

Speaker 2: “Yes!”

Another one often found in romance subplots is the lie one lover tells to the other to mask their emotions. Or rather than an overt lie, they remove themselves from the situation. Let’s say a couple are falling in love but the girl finds a new photo of her boyfriend and his ex. She immediately thinks the worst even though there’s a simple explanation. That could lead to a situation like this:

“I didn’t… It’s not…” His hand inches towards mine, but all I can think about is the photo of him and Sarah.

I lean forward, reaching for my bag. “I should go.” My muscles are stiff from holding myself back. His fingers clench; for a second I think he’s going to ask me to stay, I think he’s going to tell me there’s a plausible explanation, that it was all a mistake. He doesn’t. He pulls away and I know I’m right. He’s a liar and a cheat and I’m a fool. I swallow down the three little words I was going to say. My chest clamps tight. I don’t know what to feel first: gratitude that I didn’t tell him I love him, or devastated because I actually do.

This minor misunderstanding and assumption on the girl’s behalf creates conflict and an obstacle for the hero to overcome later in the story. If you’re a devious little wordsmith, then misunderstandings are the perfect way to weave tension into your story. Key things to remember are:

Don’t let your hero hear the truth

Make sure your protagonist interrupts the dialogue or stops the other character from speaking the truth

Make sure your protagonist draws incorrect conclusions as a result of the conversation or actions

Quick Tip: Silence is a great trick to use. Rather than having a character respond, have them stay silent and allow their silence to drive the protagonist’s assumptions instead. Sometimes what’s not said is more powerful than what is. This allows a later conversation along the lines of “I never actually said X, Y, or Z,” letting the hero realize their mistake. *Cue meddling author cackle*

5.15 Inner Monologue

Inner monologue occurs when a character expresses their inner thoughts or feelings. Usually, you’ll find it formatted in italics to differentiate it from spoken out loud dialogue or narration. And while we’re talking formatting, you don’t use quotation marks for inner dialogue, EVER.

“He gets up but not before grunting at me first, then trots over to the girls, taking a position in front of the girl in pink. Don’t worry, Victor, take your freaking time. He sits there like a limp rag as the bully rounds on her victim.” Sacha Black, Keepers.

Interior monologue is a slippery beast, it can easily be overdone, not least because reading italics is hard going. When you read pages and pages of it, it’s grueling. There’s a reason books aren’t formatted in italics. That said, when you overuse any tactic it lessens the impact and besides, who sits around pondering every single detail in their lives? I suspect not many. There’s shit to do, grubby kids to bathe, demanding pets to feed, and day jobs to attend. In your novel, inner monologue is best served as a delicacy: rare and exquisite, not as your run of the mill, frequently occurring meat and two veg.

That said, there are occasions when more inner dialogue is useful; if, for example, your protagonist is in a highly emotional state or situation then their feelings would be important to that scene. But, as a reader myself, I’ve always felt like inner monologue when in chunky paragraphs rather than fleeting lines, is akin to a flashback. It interrupts the flow of the story and takes me out of the scene and moment. You might feel different and that’s okay too, there’s no right answer here; if you understand the impact and effect the tactics make, you can use them to your advantage.

Quick Tip: Inner monologue, like dialogue, comes from the character, not the author. It’s the character’s voice, the character’s feelings which means it should sound like them when read rather than sounding like narration.

Step 5 Chinwag Central Summary

Where we chatted a lot, realized dialogue is not, in fact, like speaking, sang “say ma name bitch” from the rooftops, and discovered said has magical powers.

Dialogue is between characters, not between the author and reader.

Dialogue tags are better left simple because said has magic powers and readers are blind to it.

Use tags sparingly and only when you need to clarify who the speaker is.

Tag order—much as it pains me to say it—is down to stylistic choice. But put name first in the majority of occasions just because I’ll hunt you down and feed you to my villainous minions if you don’t.

While we interrupt conversations a lot in real life, using the technique with the same frequency in stories makes dialogue hard to follow. Use the technique to make a point rather than reflect the reality of conversation.

So dear reader, do you know what’s super annoying? Well, reader, I’ll tell you. I don’t know about you, reader, but what I find annoying is when authors use names in dialogue. Or perhaps, not when they use the name, but when they overuse names. It’s awkward and weird, and frankly, rude. So, reader, try and avoid it, yeah?

Dialogue beats describe a physical action or movement a character makes while speaking or between bouts of speaking. They can change the mood or emotion between dialogue and also indicate small movements or foreshadowing.

Manipulate dialogue beats to your advantage, using more can slow down the pace either when you need a scene to slow or when you want to up the tension, but use fewer beats when you want to speed up a scene.

If you’re going to use a dialogue tag, remember to match the tag word to the tone of dialogue.

Avoid exposition in dialogue.

Match dialogue style to era, if for example you’re using modern language or writing in the recent past, current day, or future, use contractions in speech to more naturally match our speech.

Differentiating characters in dialogue doesn’t have to be done through an accent. Reflect your character’s personality through their dialogue. If they use formal language they’re probably going to use longer and more complicated words and less contractions. If your character is a gang member, use slang and made up/code words. If they’re a thoughtful character use long flowing sentences to mirror their thought processes.

Don’t overuse inner monologue, but remember that when you do use it, it should reflect your character’s personality.

Exercises for you to try:

Write a scene between two characters using only dialogue. Review the scene. Can you tell the difference between the characters without the usual narration and description?

Write a one-sided conversation—for example, a character is on the phone and the reader can only hear what one character is saying. Once you’ve written it, check to make sure you’ve not used unnecessary exposition to explain what the other character is saying.

Step 6 Word Delicacies

6.0 Word Delicacies

Where we hit, smash, and punch things, hate on tuna, find rain equally positive and negative, and clobber a man with a baguette.

I hate tuna. My son, however, loves it: like all things in life, one person’s love is another’s hate. Word choice creates the same love-hate feelings in readers. Some love flowery prose, others prefer a cleanly shaved sentence. But, and this is important, word choice is a writer’s bread and butter. Not only is it a core part of evoking your voice, choosing the right word can provoke a slew of emotions in the reader, both positive and negative.

Better verb and descriptive word choices create more intense imagery and often require fewer words too. Don’t assume if you use a verb and avoid adverbs, that you’re winning. I wish it were that simple. There are a lot of bland verbs that only evoke basic imagery. Let’s look at some examples:

Poor Words:

Even though his arms were weak, he held the baby and sang to her.

Strong Words:

Even though his arms were limp, he cradled the baby and whispered a dreamy lullaby.

Quick Tip: The more specific a word is, the stronger its impact. For example, held is a broad, weak word. Hug is a slightly better word because it’s a specific action. But cradle is a very specific type of action and therefore the strongest of these three words.

6.1 Gestalt Sentences

I talk about the Gestalt principle a lot. I like to wave it around, thrusting it under as many noses as I can because it’s one of my favorite psychological principles. If you skipped over Step 1, then go back and have a skim as I explain the concept in full there. The Gestalt principle works on sentences too.

You have individual word choices with their individual meanings all sat next to each other, but somehow, once you read that sentence as a whole, the meaning can change. It becomes layered and complex and a little meatier than just the sum of its individual words. That greater meaning is the Gestalt principle at work. If you think about it, it’s part of human nature to make connections. After all, our brains are quite literally a connected neural network of neurons and synapses. Every part of our brain is connected to every other part.

We derive meaning not just from logic, but from observation and from association which is assisted by the heuristics we develop in childhood. This is why word choice is so important because you can lead a reader down a specific path with your choice of words and the connotations surrounding it.

But how do you choose the right words? How do you know what words work best? Sure, you have synonym finders and dictionaries, but will those match your voice? Will they fit the tone of the chapter?

Let’s play a word association game. Here’s a word: rain. Write down the first eight words that spring to mind. Go on… I’ll wait. Done it? Cool, here were mine:

Cold, drenched, flood, soaking, wet, miserable, shower, thunderstorm.

Comparatively, they’re all pretty negative words. That might be because it’s a cold winter morning and drizzling outside as I type this. But it could also be because of the contextual history I have with rain. Let’s put the negative association with rain into practice:

Rain seeped into my shoes and squelched between my toes making a shiver climb deep inside my bones.

Here, the words: seeped, squelched, and shiver all link to cold sensations and feelings and therefore create a negative atmosphere around the rain in this scene.

But what if I asked you to write down as many positive words connected to rain as you could? Let’s try:

Spring, dew, buds, fresh, cool, breeze, green, plants.

When you choose a word, depending on the context of the rest of the sentence, your reader could associate it to positive or negative connotations. One reader may see rain negatively and the next associate it with positive words like the above. Let’s create a positively associated sentence:

I stepped outside and the soft patter of rain splashed my arms. It smelt clean. I took a deep breath and inhaled spring’s tang, forest garlic, and bluebells.

Here, the words soft, clean, fresh, and spring are used in a positive context together. They allude to the newness of spring and budding flowers.

Both excerpts use the word rain, but the words around it give it an entirely different meaning and context. This is how atmosphere is created—through individual word choices and the associated words and meanings connected to them.

Let’s put it into practice.

6.2 Strengthening Description through Word Choice

I am not a fan of detail. When someone pulls out a spreadsheet my eyes either fall out of my head or promptly shut and put me in a deep sleep. But this is one occasion where I’ve learned to love it.

Verbs, according to dictionary.com:

“…typically express action, state, or a relation between two things, and that may be inflected for tense, aspect, voice, mood, and to show agreement with their subject or object.”

I started this section talking about heuristics and associations. Here’s where we piece it together: verbs create movement in sentences because of the associations our brains draw from them. Verbs describe an action which creates movement in the story and prose because the brain makes associations with both the words in the sentences and the heuristics in our heads.

Choosing verbs carefully to achieve specific effects is tricky. Let’s examine these three words:

Hit

Smashed

Punched

Arguably all three could be synonyms of each other and any could be swapped for any of the others. But let’s take them in turn.

Hit

Hit is a pretty plain word. Even when you pop it in your mouth and roll it around like candy “huh-it” the “it,” although it comes to a sudden stop, is fairly weak. Let’s put it into a sentence:

She hit him in the ribs.

But what the hell is a hit anyway? Is it a flirty jab in the ribs? Or a proper wallop to the chops? The very fact it’s not clear is derivative of poor word choice and a lack of atmosphere. The verb “hit” in this instance is too vague. It doesn’t tell the reader enough to evoke a strong image or atmosphere.

Smashed

She smashed him in the ribs.

Here, the meaning is clearer. When I read the word smash, it evokes a shattering explosion in my mind; a collision of some sort that results in a breakage. If someone smashes a person, there’s only one intention: to hurt them. Explosions and collisions are very strong actions so the word creates a sharp image. But while this verb is stronger than hit, it doesn’t quite evoke the meaning I was going for.

Punched

She punched him in the ribs.

Punched—in this instance—is the right word choice. I wanted to create a short sentence where the meaning was clear without the context of anything else. That’s what you’re aiming for with good prose. Each sentence should be able to stand on its own two feet—though the combined effect of the sentences can create a bigger or deeper meaning too.

In this sentence, I wanted the meaning to be clear: two people fighting. The word punched is a specific action, far more so than “hit.” A hit could be a minor slap with a smelly, wet fish, it could be a soft thump tooshie against tooshie, or it could be a hard whack. Without either a more specific and descriptive verb or the context of the surrounding sentences, the “hit” sentence remains unclear.

A punch is a very definitive action. It describes a closed fist, and the action of said fist punching into an object, in this case, ribs. The action of punching is hard. You can’t punch something weakly. If you punch a child, you’re going to get arrested and the world is going to know you’re an asshole. If you hit an old lady, it could have been an accident. You could have been running past and your bag hit her or you accidentally shoulder barged her. A punch, however, is a definite action; it’s a choice to throw a punch and therefore the reader infers the intention of the action—to hurt or injure—and thus the meaning: it’s a fight.

Genius, right? I love a cheeky bit of word selection.

6.3 Strong Verbs vs Weak Verbs

I’ve given a couple of examples of strong verbs above, and there will be more in the resource pack I’ve created to go along with the book, you can download that here: sachablack.co.uk/prosedownload

Let’s continue with the above example of hit/attack and look at what other verb choices you could use to strengthen hit. You’ll need to grab a trusty thesaurus for this exercise.

The synonyms for hit include: bump, butt, bang, harm, jostle, knock, tap, smash, scrape, thump, crash, and clip to name a few. Unless you’re specifically looking for a light hit—which we weren’t—then you can immediately disregard several of these synonyms including: bump, tap, clip, butt, scrape, and jostle. Those words have a lighter energy, you can’t tap someone hard enough to hurt them. Sure, you can do a hard tap but the action of tapping is innately lighter than a smash or a thump. I love the word thump because there’s an audible sound connected to the moment of impact. Thumps have always had a hollow sound to me. If you give someone a ruddy good thump on the back it creates a hollow bang that echoes around their ribcage.

What of the other words? Harm is more of a descriptive outcome, so it wouldn’t work for us in this case. Bang is a good choice, though in my neural network, bang is much closer related to its sound and therefore I associate it to gun shots and door slams more than a punch.

Smash and crash are great word choices—smash was one of my original choices—and I might well have picked it if the word punch was weaker. However, we could get fancy and combine the word smash into the original sentence as an additional descriptive word. For example:

Her punch smashed him in the ribs.

The art, here, is to keep filling your vocabulary well so that you have as many choices as possible when trying to create vivid imagery. With the punch sentence, you could surround it with other attacking verbs like strike, beat, and hammer. This would really strengthen the type of punch she throws. Let’s go to town:

She struck him over and over, punching his ribs, head, and gut.

She beat him, punching his ribs and head.

Her punches rained down, hammering his ribs and chest with blows.

With the use of a single word, you could also turn this from a serious fight scene into something a little more humorous. Let’s remove the word punch and replace it with the word “clobber” to see what happens:

She glowered at him then clobbered him on the head with a floppy baguette.

Each of these verbs brings a slightly different type of action and movement. I love this kind of word play; it makes me giddy. You get to roll your sleeves up and slide into the trenches of sentence level beautification… That’s a word—probably—I chose it, so we’re going with it.

6.4 Complex Negatives

Sometimes, in a bid to make something sound right, we end up overcomplicating it. It’s the flow you see; we zone out, we let the muses drive our fingers over the keyboards slapping out words and phrases as the story becomes sentient and takes over the writing. But if we’re not paying attention, there are these pesky little phrases that creep into our work. Phrases like: it was not light, it was not tall, it could not talk.

But these phrases are overly fussy and complicated. Let’s take it wasn’t light. Doesn’t that mean it was dark? I mean, duh, of course it does. But for some reason our brains don’t always go to the simplest option. Let’s turn those previous examples into their simplest forms:

It was not light = it was dark.

It was not tall = it was short.

It could not talk = it was silent.

I was in the Army Cadets as a teenager. The more senior we got, the more responsibility we had, which meant teaching the younger kids how to “cadet.” My Sergeant Major used to say that to teach effectively we had to KISS: Keep it simple stupid. The advice works here too.

6.5 Specific vs General Word Choice in Description

Earlier in the chapter, there were three verbs that moved from vague to specific. The effect on those sentences was clear; the less specific the word the vaguer the sentence is. Vague sentences don’t give readers much to work with. It’s harder to create imagery with vague sentences and word choices and therefore harder to connect to the story. But equally, having paragraph after paragraph of detail and specific word choice can be a chore to read. A balance of the two—like all things in literature—is important.

If you want to describe something and create an image in a reader’s mind then using more specific wording will achieve that faster. Let’s look at two examples:

Example 1:

He was average height with brown eyes and a hard stare.

Example 2:

He slipped through the crowd unnoticed, his height allowed him to slide behind taller heads and bodies. I caught his intense brown eyes and faltered. They were so dark they were almost black.

You can use specificity and generality to create characterization. In example one, we say “brown” eyes, which is generalized and unspecific. But in description two we’ve said the brown is both intense and so dark his eyes are almost black. This gives a specific shade of brown for the reader to imagine as well as the descriptive word. His eyes aren’t just any brown but an intense brown. You can chop and change the amount of specificity or vagueness you use to create more or less detailed imagery depending on the tone and voice you want to achieve.

6.6 Foreign, Made-up, and Slang Words

Depending on the genre you write in, you might need to use foreign, technical, unusual, or made-up words. You often find these types of words in science fiction and fantasy, stories set in another country and with protagonists and characters from foreign countries. It occurs in nonfiction too; one of my favorite pastimes is making up swear words.

But, and here’s the big caveat, while adding them gives your novel a little je ne sais quoi, if I dropped a made-up swear word into every second sentence, I’d alienate readers. *slaps chalkboard*

Balance, balance, balance.

Why Do You Need to Limit Usage?

Adding uncommon words has two effects. The first is it adds texture to your story; clearly, a good thing. But it also has a less positive effect, it jars the reader out of the story. When the majority of people read, their eyes work in a skimming motion. Eyes don’t just view single words. Our peripheral vision jumps on the band wagon and our brains simultaneously assimilate the words on the left and right of whatever word we’re reading. This is one of the reasons our brains derive meaning from the whole sentence rather than individual words.

Unusual words are unexpected. The surprise stops your brain from processing the sentence automatically because it wants to focus on the surprising sex. And sure, your brain only slowed for a millisecond then—but I’d bet it was long enough for you to consciously acknowledge the fact I’d written sex in a sentence. If it’s long enough for that, it’s long enough to kick a reader out of your story world.

If you throw a reader out of your story, they’re liable to put the book down and who knows when they’ll pick it up again.

Techniques like this one are like diamonds. Anything the reader might deem unusual can be classed as a diamond. When you lavishly smother your manuscript in one particular technique or tool, the sparkle wears off. At best it becomes common. At worse, it becomes annoying.

Of course, you can add a glossary at the front or back of the book, but you can be assured someone will complain about it in the reviews. I put a glossary in the first of my Young Adult fantasy books, Keepers. Initially, I had it in the front, but someone complained in a review that it wasn’t fun to trudge through before the book started, so I moved it to the back and guess what? Another reviewer complained that it was a stupid place to put it because you needed it before you read the book, not after.

I agreed with them, so I moved it back to the front. But the point is you’re not going to win. Don’t be me, don’t listen to reviews. You do you and go with your gut. It’s your book and if you want a glossary, have one. It’s easier not to need a glossary, but if you’re using a lot of made-up words, it’s going to be unavoidable.

Region Specific Slang

The same need for balance is true for region specific slang. There’s a bit of an art to this because of course you could be writing a story set in Texas in the sixties or perhaps in China in the forties. Undoubtably, you’re going to have some linguistic differences. Some stories will be set somewhere with regionally nuanced dialogue; that’s fine, the difference is the reader goes in knowing that’s the case. But when you want to use just a couple of slang or era-terms to create the appropriate atmosphere in your prose, you need to make sure you have sufficient context in the surrounding sentences to make the words make sense.

If you don’t have enough context, your reader isn’t going to know what the slang terms mean. I’ve read manuscripts that use British regional slang terms, but even as a British person myself, I didn’t know them and had to look them up. This is jarring and knocked me out of the story.

6.7 First and Last Lines

First and last lines are, in a way, the most important lines you write. Other than the obvious hook into the book and onto the sequel, there’s an effect called primacy and recency. This effect means our brains retain the first and last pieces of information we received better than anything in the middle. It’s why we remember the start and end of books and why sometimes the middle gets forgotten.

But like writing a hooky tagline, writing first and last lines can be tricky. One trick I use to give me inspiration for first and last lines is to collect the good ones I find. For example:

“Joost had two problems: the moon and his mustache.” Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows.

Why do I like this opener? Because it’s unexpected and using the unexpected in a sentence (especially your first sentence) surprises the reader. It hooked me and I suspect using the unexpected will hook readers straight into your books too. Start your own collection of first lines and keep them somewhere accessible. Deconstruct them and work out why they’re good lines. Did they capture characterization instantly? Have they surprised you? Did they use a juxtaposition?

There are also hundreds of famous last lines, often capturing the theme of the book or giving a teaser hook into the next book, for example:

Last Line (Book Theme):

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” George Orwell, Animal Farm.

The final part of the last sentence, showing that the animals can no longer discern between their original human rulers and their new “thought-to-be-better” pig-rulers is the essence of the book’s moral, political, and philosophical debate.

Last Line (Series Hook):

“But now our friendship is gone, replaced by the one thing we still have in common. Our hatred for Maven. I don’t need to be a whisper to know we share a thought. I will kill him.” Victoria Aveyard, The Red Queen.

This line works because two people who hate each other team up because of their mutual dislike of a third party. Second and more importantly, the words “I will kill him” are a statement of action. As the reader, you’re now desperate to know if she succeeds.

Step 6 Word Delicacies Summary

Where we hit, smashed, and punched things, hated on tuna, found rain equally positive and negative, and clobbered a man with a baguette.

There is a difference between weak or poor words and strong words. When you’re trying to create vivid images in your reader’s mind, it’s important to choose strong verbs and word choices.

The thesaurus is your best friend.

The more specific the word, the stronger it is. For example, held is a broad weak word, hug is slightly better in that it’s a specific action, but cradle is a very specific type of action and therefore the stronger of these three words.

Think about the associated action and what meaning you’re trying to create; for example, is hit, smashed, or punched more appropriate for your sentence?

Remember Gestaltism impacts not just characters and overarching story but all the way down to the sentence level.

Words can have both positive and negative associations connected to them, use words in both types of situations to evoke interesting imagery.

Similarly, using specific words creates more detail than using general words. Bear this in mind when you are wanting to create a specific image.

Remove complex negatives from your sentences. Always choose the simplest option to explain your concept. For example, it’s clearer, simpler and easier to say: it was light, rather than: it wasn’t heavy.

Foreign, technical, localized slang or made up words are cool. They add a little spice, sometimes a little worldbuilding and other times a dash of culture to your story. However, do remember that every time you use an unfamiliar word, you’re likely jarring the reader out of the story. Balancing the positive impact it has versus the jarring effect is important to keep your reader gripped to the page.

Exercises for you to try:

Go to the dictionary and open it at a random page. Point to the page without looking. Whatever the random word is, do the same exercise we did in the chapter: write as many positive and negative associated words as you can.

Then pick three words from each list and write a sentence using them or a couple of sentences depending on the complexity of the words.

Step 7 Descriptive Prose

7.0 Descriptive Prose

In which we learn the art of balance (again), play with lenses, discuss smearing the plague over our readers, and discover who “The King” is.

I’m going to start with a quote:

“Rich, engrossing description is a mysterious combination of imagery, detail, and word choice.” Gabriela Pereira, DiY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build your Community.

I love this quote because it’s so true. The art of good description is somewhat mysterious. You can mix those things in a number of ways and sometimes you get cake and other times sunken soufflés.

Descriptive prose is one of my favorite things to write. This is where an author wields her wand and creates magic in a reader’s mind. I also love it because, like painters and artists, no two masters’ works are alike, no two styles the same. When I started writing, description and imagery were the two things I struggled with most. Consequently, I hated them. But through intensive, intentional study, they’ve become my favorite bit of prose and writing.

Description—because it’s honed through a writer’s voice—is a minefield. No two writers’ style description will be the same, which makes it a tricky little beastie to teach.

There’s a key principle to bear in mind when writing description: where possible, make your description work for you multiple times over. By that I mean, can your description highlight something more than just imagery? A piece of personality, perhaps something symbolic, maybe a character’s belief, their quirk, or a moral quandary.

7.1 When Do You Need to Use Description?

There’s an interesting piece of psychology at play with descriptive prose. See, our human brains are clever little bastards. As children they create little boxes in your brain called heuristics. Categories, if you like—they tell you that a square, no matter if it’s red or blue or covered in dots, is, in fact, still a square. We have thousands and thousands of these heuristics; it’s how we function and how we work out what’s normal and safe and what might be dangerous.

Writers can take advantage of these heuristics and choose when to write less detail and rely on a heuristic or when something is unusual and requires more explanation.

For example, if you have a bog-standard fluffy cat in your story, you might choose to only note that the cat exists. Thanks to heuristics, your reader will be able to picture a cat in their mind’s eye just from the mention of the word “cat.” We don’t need to be petulant pedants; it doesn’t matter if one reader pictures a tabby and one a black cat, the point is they picture a cat.

If, however, your cat was purple, or in the case of Salem and the original 1990s’ TV show Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the cat can talk, then you’re going to have to highlight and describe this to the reader, as it’s not something they’d think of as part of their heuristic.

If you’re unsure when to use heavy description versus light, the first thing to ask yourself is: what type of prose do you like writing and reading? There’s no right or wrong answer here; description lies firmly in the realm of author voice and stylistic preferences.

Quick Tip: When I was trying to work out my preferences on prose, I asked reader friends for recommendations of description heavy and light books. I read both and decided I lie somewhere in the middle, if a little closer to the description heavy end than light. I like clean prose but with a bend towards immersive description.

No matter your preference, there are some occasions where using description heightens the experience for a reader. For example:

Using description when you need to clarify something complex

When you want to show rather than tell

When you need to add detail

When something is unusual

An emotional scene

Worldbuilding

When you want to focus your readers’ attention on a particular scene, action or moment

When your protagonist is interested in something

7.2 The Hero Lens

I don’t like crossover material. I try hard not to include the same information from one book in another. However, the hero lens is far too important a concept for improving prose not to include it in this book. Though I’ll try to keep it brief. I talk about the “hero lens”—which is the overarching concept of characterization—in my book 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist. There’s a whole chapter dedicated to it there if you’d like more information. But briefly:

“Everything the hero does, sees, feels and thinks, encloses your reader into a tiny literary lens. Nothing happens in your book unless your protagonist experiences it. Everything is channeled through her. She is the lens your reader looks through when reading your story.” Sacha Black, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist.

Your hero’s lens is made up of four parts:

Actions

Thoughts

Dialogue

Feelings

Now, it’s not just about ensuring you write action or dialogue or thoughts for your hero. It’s about how you write them. You need to understand how and why your hero sees things differently to every other character. What makes their viewpoint unique?

“Often, we connect with each other because we either see the world through a similar lens, or our lenses are so different we learn something about ourselves from the other person. It’s these similarities and differences that help us connect. The way your protagonist describes her experiences—the metaphors and descriptor choices—tells the reader about their personality. It creates the nuances and quirks that separate one hero from another. It also demonstrates those traits in action.” Sacha Black, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist.

We authors need to butt out and let our protagonists take the lead. It’s your protagonist who should drive the style and type of description, not you. How have your protagonist’s personal experiences and histories colored their perception? Do they think turquoise is green or blue? Do they like the smell of roast chicken and therefore describe it as a rich succulent smell? Or are they a vegetarian who thinks it smells of sour flesh? Or perhaps they pay an insane level of attention to detail. If they do, they’re likely to over-describe compared to a character who is more aloof.

Your hero’s unique lens should drive your word choice when it comes to description. If you have an uptight rather formal character, he’s likely to describe his experiences with longer words, probably complicated metaphors with double meanings.

Are you writing from a child’s perspective? Then you’re likely to have a character that uses simplistic short words and metaphors that compare complex emotions to toys or items that a child interacts with regularly.

You might be frowning and shouting “duh” at the page. But back down fair wordsmith. You’d be surprised how many manuscripts I read where authors haven’t nailed this. Do you ever worry your characters sound alike? It’s because you haven’t nailed the hero lens. Every one of your characters will have a lens and it’s their unique perspective that should be driving your descriptions.

Once you embrace your character’s viewpoint, you can allow it to slather itself over your prose and influence your description. Perhaps your protagonist has a natural leaning towards being angry. If so, she might choose more onomatopoeic words and use shorter sentences. I use two examples in 10 Steps to Hero to demonstrate this difference. Let’s say that two people with two different emotions are viewing the exact same town parade.

Excerpt 1:

“They move like a current, each person flowing past the next. Supposedly united in their cause, but as they chant and sing for solidarity, it sounds like the melody of mourners. I see the tiny fractures, the gaps they leave between each other, the scattered looks, the fear of isolation. Each of them is drowning in a swelling crowd, and yet, despite the mass of bodies, they’re all fighting alone.” Sacha Black, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist.

Excerpt 2:

“The villagers weave through the street brandishing placards like rifles. They’re soldiers marching into their last battle. The war-drum beat of their feet grinds into my ears, rattling my teeth and making my blood boil.” Sacha Black, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist.

In both of those examples, I was a sneaky bitch and purposefully didn’t state what the characters were feeling or what their general personalities were. However, the emotions are implicit and although they’re both viewing the same parade, you can tell that each character views the experience differently and that influences how they’re describing it. Prepare yourselves for nitty gritty geekery, we’re going deep.

In excerpt 1, the character is depressed and has a certain malaise about them. This character uses longer more flowing sentences with more commas. The character’s choice of words like mourners, fractures, and drowning are all sullen descriptive words and words that are relatively long, averaging at eight letters.

In excerpt 2, the character is angry, the sentences—and the description as a whole actually—are shorter. This character chooses to describe the scene using choppy, explosive words like battle, war, drum, beat, blood, grind. Much shorter words comparatively, averaging at just five letters.

These might seem like excessively detailed things to examine, but it’s these choices that create powerful writing and evoke strong characterization. Once you understand the why behind these choices, the act of choosing words and creating this characterization will become subconscious and automatic for you.

7.3 Worldbuilding Description

Worldbuilding is a huge topic, but I wanted to cover a short section here on the description used to worldbuild. Worldbuilding according to Wikipedia is:

“…the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with a whole fictional universe… Developing an imaginary setting with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers.” ¹

The hero lens is key to worldbuilding effectively without smearing information dumps all over your reader’s eyeballs or using expository paragraphs.

Yes, you do need to describe how a world looks and sounds and feels. But better than describing those basic things is describing how those worldbuilding elements affect and impact your protagonist.

What’s better? Telling your reader the protagonist is in an abandoned building or describing the effect the empty atmosphere has on them? I don’t need to answer that, do I?

Describing the impact on your character simultaneously deepens your characterization and builds your world. Ask yourself how your protagonist experiences your world. How do the government’s rules mess with her? How do the scratchy fabrics she’s forced to wear make her feel? And on it goes. It’s also important to describe these worldbuilding elements as and when a character interacts with them—not before.

I mean, what’s the point of describing a market square unless your protagonist is in the square walking through it and engaging with stall sellers? It’s irrelevant until she’s there or the element is engaging with the story and characters somehow.

How Much Detail Is Enough?

I hate to whip out a cliché here, but how long is a piece of string? This isn’t about me telling you the right answer. But if you’re curious, the correct amount of description is a singular metaphor with 78 words and 3 commas.

Just kidding.

Come on wordsmiths, be empowered, rise up, take that pen, and scribble to your heart’s content.

Here’s the big picture: the more detail you use to describe things, the more prescriptive and specific the imagery is. The less detail, the less prescriptive. Like your mama told you, everything in moderation is fine. A balance is what you’re after. You might have a scene where you want a really sharp and focused image in the reader’s mind. Cool, fill your boots baby, go nuts with description. Then, in the next scene, make sure you play it real chill, treat the reader mean, and you’ll keep ‘em keen. Pare back the description and let the reader do the work of creating imagery. This push-pull on the heavy-light description will allow the reader a mental break and give your prose more balance and flow.

If you find you’re describing every little detail—even if you are an epic fantasy reader—you might’ve gone over the top. Details are good—they create atmosphere, but a three-page monologue about the tension of fishing lines, not so much. Sometimes we describe the things we love in our books, but always ask yourself, is that what your protagonist would like too? If it’s not, then you probably shouldn’t be spending as many words describing it.

Readers like to engage with our stories, which means they want to be able to create their own images of your work. They want to bitch when the movie comes out and the hero looks nothing like they imagined. It means they’re involved and part of your world. It’s what gives them a whopping book hangover at the end of your series.

The consequence of over-describing is an air of condescension. Imagine if your mother told you how to boil the kettle. You’d raise an eyebrow at the very least.

The least amount of detail you need is just enough to activate an image in the reader’s mind; enough detail they can see through your hero’s rose-tinted lens. You then choose how sharp you want to focus the image. Give them a few hints to the action or description and let them fill in the blanks.

7.4 The Vague Plague

Now, there’s one caveat to everything I’ve just said. And that’s “vagueness” and generalizations. The problem is, humans speak in generalizations in everyday conversation. Which is why it’s easy to create prose filled with generalizations. And while they’re not as detrimental to your prose as being vague, generalities make your prose bland. And bland is boring.

When you’re vague in prose it’s tantamount to dipping your fingers in a necrotic ulcer and smearing a dose of plague over your reader’s eyes. It’s bad news. All the reader has are your words. Much as we can create TV-like images in our readers’ minds, books aren’t TV, so you can’t be vague. Ever.

A lack of detail doesn’t mean vague. Vague means unclear. Like this:

Sometime later, we arrived in the glade and set up camp.

*screams*

What is sometime? Four seconds? Four weeks? Four googolplexes? TELL ME AUTHORS, I’m desperate to know. This “sometime” doesn’t tell me shit. At best, it’s vague. At worst, it’s confusing. If you don’t want to tell the reader the time—and sure, I don’t like having to stick to precise times either—it doesn’t mean you get to be vague. Instead, you could describe the changing light, or the chill of the evening air. For example:

As we arrived in the glade, the sky burned blood orange and the sun yawned itself to sleep. By the time the tents were set up, my arms were bristling from the chill.

I’ve not told you the exact time, but it’s clear from the description that evening is turning to night time. Which means the reader can infer how much time has passed during the journey the characters have completed.

He walked over; something hung from his belt.

This is another example of the kind of vagueness that will induce an eye twitch in your editor. If you’re going to take the time to tell the reader that “something” is hanging from your character’s belt, then it either has to be relevant to the plot, be a form of foreshadowing, or have a purpose. Remember Chekov’s gun? Well, his point was that every element of story should have a purpose. If the “thing” hanging from his belt isn’t relevant to the story, you’re making a false promise to your reader about what will happen later. That’s setting your reader up to feel cheated. Likewise, if whatever is hanging from the belt is relevant to your plot, you need to make sure you describe it in enough detail the reader can appreciate its importance. Otherwise, you’ll lose the impact when the “thing” becomes salient to the plot.

He marched over; something dark and long hung from his belt. As it swung around his thigh I caught a glimpse of silver and swallowed hard: it was a blade.

Of course, you might be trying to purposefully divert the reader’s or protagonist’s attention. Sometimes we want the reader to know what’s hanging from the character’s belt, but not the protagonist. You can achieve that without being vague:

He marched over; something long hung from his belt. I couldn’t see it, but I swear I caught a glimpse of silver. Knots churned in my stomach; I knew whatever was hanging there, I wouldn’t like.

Here, combined with the churning stomach, the reader will infer the long item hanging from the belt is probably a weapon, and not a penis. That’s enough clarity for readers. You’ve not described the weapon, and yet you’ve made it clear to your reader what’s hanging there and without telling your protagonist. This is a great trick for making your reader feel included in conspiring against your protagonist.

7.5 Specificity Is King

So if vagueness is a plague, does that make specificity “The King”? Why yes, yes it does, thank you for asking. I won’t repeat myself, but for all the reasons I’ve already mentioned regarding why vagueness is a plague, specificity is a beautiful tool for the exact opposite reason. The more specific you are, the clearer the image you create.

As an author, you get to decide how much imagery you want to give your reader. Does a particular image mean something to you and therefore you want to force your reader to see something specific? Or do you want to use a few choice details and make them do the work?

Choosing the level of detail is a stylistic choice or a tactic for creating a specific effect. Giving a lot of specific detail means your reader will spend more time with that concept in your story. Detail—and I mean specific detail—slows the pace of your story. A valid technique, if you want to create a distraction or red herring. In characterization terms, when something is important to the hero they’d naturally spend longer on that subject. Let’s put this into practice.

“We’re done,” she said, putting her glass on the table and walking out.

Might seem innocuous enough, but likewise, it doesn’t evoke much of anything. There’s no emotion or tension in the sentence. So what about this instead:

“We’re done,” she said, slammed her glass on the table and marched out.

Here, we’ve swapped out “put” and “walked” for “slammed” and “marched”. Two verbs that evoke much more than their predecessors. Marching is a more powerful movement than walking, which is why it evokes more imagery in the sentence. Likewise, with slamming something down versus putting it down. We’re starting to pull all the techniques into place now. But still, this sentence—while more powerful than the first—could be better. When you add specific details to action—personal details with clear motivations behind them—it makes the action all the more powerful, bringing the argument to life.

“We’re done,” she said.

I hoped she’d put her glass on the table. But she cocked her head at it, narrowing her eyes. I lusted after those crystal tumblers for months before I could afford them. Instead of whiskey in plastic cups, it made the lads’ poker nights something special. She hated poker as much as she hated the lads. I reached for the glass, but as my fingers neared the rim, she looked me straight in the eye and dropped it.

“Oops,” she said, as it shattered on the floor. She didn’t even look down. She just marched out, the glass crunching under her heels.

This won’t be a useful technique all the time. Instead of a single sentence, we’ve written an entire paragraph and if you employed this technique every time, your novel would be a million pages. But by adding a story behind the glass, it created meaning and a reason why the protagonist cared about it. That made the action of smashing the glass all the more powerful. To stave off huge portions of detailed description, compare and contrast detailed sentences with more general ones.

7.6 Describing People and Characters

Describing characters is fun. You get to create quirky interesting humans (or aliens or fairies or any other wonderful creatures). But how do you introduce these characters effectively?

Introducing Characters

Readers want to get to know characters through gradual discovery, not slapstick captain obvious lines. When you bring a new character into a scene for the first time, readers need just enough information to picture them without an information dump. But how do you strike a balance?

Everything comes back to your protagonist and how he or she interacts with the other characters. If your protagonist gets to know the characters she meets gradually, your readers will too. The quickest and most direct form of description on introduction is something physical rather than a personality attribution. Once your protagonist gets to know the new character, they can notice something about their personality.

Start with one or two unusual physical details your protagonist notices that no one else would.

In the first example below, the traits I have for Dorian are as follows:

Physical: brown mop-like curly hair, watery green eyes with a black ring around the iris, wears green suits.

Unusual: When he uses his power, he has a silver shimmer to his skin, he walks with a cane, both of which become important to the plot.

Describing Physical Appearance:

“A hand pushes open the drapes and Dorian Oswald steps through. He’s young and has a mop of rich, brown hair that flops around his face. Somehow the soft waves make the lines of his jaw sharper. I scan him up and down, my gaze falling on his watery green eyes and perfect smile.” Sacha Black, Trey.

In the above example, Eden notices a juxtaposition: how the softness of his curls make his jaw sharper. This is a little detail that not everyone would notice. Most might just see curly hair and be done with it. It’s in these reflections that you build up a picture of your characters. Likewise, you could also describe the new character through the impact he has on your protagonist. Let me whip out my ol’ buddy the hero lens; everything the reader sees is through the eyes of your protagonist, so describing the effect another character has on your protagonist also builds up a picture of them both.

Quick Tip: For each of your main characters, have two or three physical points of description and two or three personality quirks or unusual aspects that you can use to describe them. Keep these details in a list or table with all your other characters so you can avoid duplication.

7.7 Describing the Impact on the Protagonist

“‘Fallon East,’ the stranger says, smiling at me. His teeth are straight and blinding white and his grin so perfectly wide I reluctantly find myself smiling back.” Sacha Black, Trey.

This is a simple example, but one that works. The stranger smiles at Eden and it’s such a big grin, she can’t help but smile back even though she doesn’t want to. Have you ever had a stranger smile at you and you’ve smiled back? It’s instinctive. Most people, if smiled at, can’t help but smile back.

You don’t have to use smiles. It could be any emotion like the feeling of intimidation and fear. You could have your protagonist react viscerally but not be able to identify the emotion they’re feeling. A protagonist lying to themselves is a great tactic for creating character arcs and realizations later in your plot.

He smiled and thrust his palm out, shaking everyone’s hand in turn. When he gets to me, I hesitate. I swear a sneer passes over his mouth but it’s so fast I can’t be sure. I reach out and shake. He feels icy, like the blue in his eyes. The rest of the village might be taken with the new mayor, but I’ve seen under his skin, there’s something dark there, something cold and I won’t be fooled by his silky words.

Here we set the scene for a character that could cause trouble. Often, character reactions to each other are far more telling than any narrative description we can write. The reader is there for the protagonist’s view point not yours, which is why I love this as a technique for sharpening prose.

Using this technique is also more engaging for the reader because they have to puzzle out the clues rather than being given a cut-and-dry conclusion about a new character.

7.8 Noticing Unusual Details

“…he walked, no, marched is more accurate, towards the local lunatic: Eliza. She’s an old biddie, proper ancient. One hundred and eighty, at least. She stinks of fermented piss and has an orange hue to her skin like she’s fake baked, although I have no idea why a one hundred and eighty-year-old would need to fake tan, but whatever gets her off, you know?” Sacha Black, The Scent of Death.

I chose this example because the voice is completely different from the first and also because the focus is less on description and more on the unusual details the protagonist notices. You don’t always have to describe hair color or eye color or what a person’s wearing. A reader can infer just as much imagery from a description that doesn’t include any of those things as one that does.

Here, the protagonist—Mal—is somewhat unreliable, claiming the character he’s looking at is a hundred and eighty, something the reader knows is an impossibility. But that in itself creates a form of characterization. It shows the reader that Mal is an unreliable narrator and also prone to exaggeration.

The next detail that Mal notices is the orange hue on the old lady’s skin. As readers, we know this could be medical, due to a recent sun tan or simply the perils of old age. But Mal likens it to “fake baking” something that’s unexpected given the woman’s age. But it’s this jarring comparison that makes the image of Eliza so acute. You only have three details about Eliza, she’s really old, she smells a bit off, and her skin is slightly orange. It’s enough for the reader to form an image without drowning them in details of everything from eye color to toenail length.

7.9 Describing Personality Traits

This is always extra interesting to me. Personality traits are huge giant beasts that need wrangling into the depths of a character. So how do you wrestle these massive concepts down into something vivid and descriptive enough so that readers “see” your character’s personality without actually slapping them around the chops with a telling statement?

Action darling, action.

You have a plethora of methods at your fingertips to show the reader a character’s personality from interior monologues, their reactions, and responses to situations, their dialogue, physical actions, and description.

Let’s make a character with a jealous streak. She wants to look and be “the best” as well as having a queen bee complex wanting to be the center of attention. Show it through her actions:

Josephine walks in and I swear the whole room stops. She’s wearing the purest white dress, the silk scooping low over her bust. When she turns to greet someone, I notice the dress cut out is right down to the small of her back; I swear if she made one sudden move you’d see her ass. She swore she wouldn’t outdo me tonight. My jaw flexes.

I glance at Samuel, his eyes are fixed on her bulging cleavage. Heat boils in my chest.

Lying bitch.

I stiffen, hesitate, then step towards her.

“Josephine,” I say, through tight lips.

“Terri, hey, you look lovely this evening.”

“Mmm. Can’t say the same for you.”

“Oh,” she says, her cheeks blushing.

“Didn’t anyone tell you? We only have red wine on the menu tonight. White’s asking for trouble. What if someone bumped into you?”

“Well I hope they wo—”

I pour my entire glass down her front and walk away without a backwards glance.

This is a very short example and usually readers will enjoy the slow discovery of character traits through an entire novel, but of course, I can’t plonk an entire novel in the middle of this book. I could have easily written a captain obvious: Terri was jealous of Josephine’s beauty. But that doesn’t allow the reader to discover the jealousy for themselves. Readers want to be detectives. They want to feel out the clues and make guesses. That’s part of the fun of reading.

Step 7 Descriptive Prose Summary

In which we learned the art of balance, played with lenses, discussed smearing the plague over our readers, and discovered who “The King” is.

Descriptive prose is the writer’s version of paint by numbers; we have a range of tools and techniques we can use to create visual masterpieces in the reader’s imagination.

You have the ability to choose whether to paint a richly detailed picture in the reader’s mind by drawing out descriptions and using highly specific words and phrases to create sharp images. Or you can use vague and more generic words to create less specific imagery.

A balance of the two is usually best. If you’re too vague, readers will get confused or disconnect from the story because they’re unable to picture anything.

This is also true of anchoring the reader in time and space, if you’re mentioning time in any way, don’t be vague; “sometime later” doesn’t give the reader any sense of how much time has passed. They could assume you only mean an hour when you mean weeks.

If something is important to the plot or to your protagonist, describe it.

If you’re not sure where your preference is on the descriptive scale, ask friends for recommendations of books that are across the spectrum of barely descriptive at all to overly purple. That should help you work out where you sit on the scale.

There are some occasions where using description heightens the experience for a reader. For example: describe when you need to clarify something complex, when you want to show rather than tell, when you need to add detail, when something is unusual, an emotional scene, worldbuilding, when you want to focus your readers’ attention on a particular scene, action, or moment, when your protagonist is interested in something.

Remember, when you create description it’s not about what you as the writer think or see, but how the hero or protagonist sees the action or scenery. Use the hero lens and the descriptions your character makes to tell the reader something about their personality. Are they a detailed person? Make their descriptions detailed. Reflect their personality in the prose choices you make.

When describing characters, you don’t need to describe everything. Just pick a couple of key aspects, something unusual about them and hone in on that.

Remember, it’s more interesting to your reader if your protagonist or key characters describe other characters than if you as the author do it in narrative prose. Their descriptions are a reflection of their personality and inner thoughts. It’s a faster way of connecting the reader to your protagonist and increasing the depth of their personality.

Protagonists should notice small unusual details that no other character would. These small details often become salient later in the story, but they also show the reader something about their personality. Like if your character noticed a sadness in a new person that no one else did, your reader would know your character is a thoughtful and observant person.

Rather than describing personality traits outright—such as, Olivia was always happy—show it through their actions, reactions, thoughts, and dialogue.

Exercises for you to try:

Write a descriptive passage as you would normally.

Now go back and make the passage as descriptively heavy as you can.

Now pare back the passage and make it as clean as possible while retaining the imagery.

Reflect on all three pieces and decide what sounds most like you.

Step 8 Sensory Schmensory, Emotion Potion

8.0 Sensory Schmensory, Emotion Potion

In which we put our lab coats on, delve into detail, things get a bit whiffy in our smell boxes, and we all go for a jolly in nature.

The books that have had the biggest impact on me aren’t the ones that made me invest in the characters, though of course, I loved those books. The books that had the biggest impact are the ones that made me feel, the ones that made me cry and reflect on life and have emotional epiphanies. They’re the ones that stick with me long after the story disappears from my memory. This is why creating emotion is so important. But how do you create emotions at the sentence level?

Well, one of the most important factors are including the senses.

Tickling the Senses in Sentences

Compare for a moment your story to a painting. The pencil sketch outline of your painting equates to normal sentences. But when you pour the senses into your prose, it’s like turning a pencil drawing into a mixed-media full color piece of art. It breathes life into your masterpiece. Take the simple example below:

No Senses:

As the night draws in, he puts his arms around me and kisses me.

With Senses:

I lose myself in his arms. The forest, the chirping of nocturnal insects, and the rustling of the undergrowth all disappear as his lips touch mine.

One of the quickest ways to get to grips with using the senses in your description is to… wait for it… calm yourself, it’s going to be okay… LEAVE YOUR HOUSE and go be at one with nature. Yes, I know. It’s hard to peel yourself away from the computer—or is that just me? I want you to go for a walk without your phone. In fact, take an analog notebook and pencil and yourself and just go be. Sit in a wood or by a river or in a field. Lie on the ground, touch the dirt, run your fingers through the water, and then sit. Write down everything you see and feel and touch and hear. Write as many descriptive words as you possibly can. I suspect most of you won’t do this, but put your rebel away and go do it because your description will be all the richer for it, I assure you.

Quick Tip: Right, let’s assume 89% of you aren’t going for walks—bloody rebels— there’s another exercise you can and should do with your backside planted in front of your desk. This time, I want you to get a big-ass piece of paper, big as you can find, and fold it or draw lines dividing it into five. Write down as many words as you can for each sense. Think out of the box. For example, in your smell box—er, is it just me or anyone else think “smell box” sounds terribly rude?—write down any memories you have associated with certain smells. Include important details about why that smell is connected to the memory. Write down as many descriptive words as you can for touch. I’ll start you off: rough, hard, sandy, gritty, coarse, hot, cold, ache, burn, and so on for each sense. This exercise will give you a catalog of words to choose from when you get stuck with description.

Quick Tip: Write a list of emotions. Then take each emotion in turn and write a passage using only taste to describe it. Build on the passage by adding another sense with each revision. Give the passage to someone else, can they discern the emotion without you having named it?

It’s a great exercise to get your authorly juices flowing. Try unusual combinations of tastes, mix those with smells and memories and you’ll start to layer up beautiful images.

8.1 Smell Sense

Writers need to exploit all of the senses in their writing. My personal belly warmer, however, is smell. If I smell old leather books and musty paper, I’m thrown back to childhood. If someone’s burning Nag Champa incense sticks I’m reminded of Nepal and my trip trekking in the Himalayas up to Mt. Everest Base Camp. The brain is a wonderfully complex thing, and you don’t need to smell a physical smell for this phenomenon to occur. When a person reads a word associated to a smell, the same areas of the brain are activated as if they were really smelling it, albeit to a lesser extent. The point is, you merely need to read a smell and your brain will evoke the scent of it and, similarly, any memories you have attached. This is key for authors wanting to create an immersive experience for readers. It’s an amazing effect for a writer to capitalize on, but why does it work and how can we transfer it into our writing?

Put your Lab Coat on for a Sec, Will You?

There are two parts of the brain most commonly associated with memory: the amygdala in the temporal lobe and the hippocampus. Now, cognitive neuropsychology lesson aside, smells are processed by something called the olfactory bulbs. These bulbs start in the nose and run under the brain—right next to the hippocampus and the amygdala. And what do they do? Control memory.

The result of these two perception centers being so physically close, is that their neurons cross over and get caught in each other’s paths.

The other senses: sight, sound, and touch sensory information don’t run near these parts of the brain, which is why smell more than any other sense is so closely linked to memory.

So How Do You Write Good Smells?

As with metaphors and similes, the point of using the senses is to evoke the familiar. There’s no point describing some obscure smell that only a chemist or perfumist would recognize. This is about relating the obscure to the familiar to bring a sense of clarity to the reader. For example:

“The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.” Neil Gaiman, American Gods.

I adore this quote; Gaiman combines two conflicting smells. Both are smells we can recognize but it’s the unusual combination of those two that make this a winning description. Don’t be afraid to experiment with pairing unusual smells. And remember adding a consequence or personal reflection from your character makes the smell come alive. If it weren’t for the character thinking the smells were like cookie ghosts, the description wouldn’t be as effective.

With a lot of the senses, describing them is one thing, but it’s the consequence to the character that’s the most interesting bit for the reader. Does your character smell the rich warmth of roasting chicken? Cool, but what’s the impact of that? Does he get all drooly? Or does his stomach gargle with appreciation? Here are some things to think about:

How does the smell make your character feel?

Does your character recall memories?

How is this smell important to the plot?

Do they like or loathe the smell?

Have you used a single word to describe the smell or have you layered it with more than one description and a consequence?

Have you used any other prose techniques combined with smell like a simile or metaphor?

Just like you did for touch, create a list of smells you can use at a later date. Do some Googling and wander around your neighborhood sniffing things—just don’t sniff kids, or animals, or old people… unless you want to get arrested. Maybe stick to your house. Oh, and carry coffee beans in case your sensitive little schnozzle gets over stimulated.

8.2 Sound Sense

Okay, so we’ve nailed smell. But what about sound? Sound is often underused in fiction too. I’ve always wondered why that’s the case when sound is used so prolifically in movies. Whenever there’s rising tension in a film, the music grows louder (or higher pitched) until it crescendos. Or what about when there’s no sound at all? That’s just as bad. It’s also usually the point I hide behind a pillow trying not to crap my pants as I wait for the boogeyman to jump out.

So why then, do we under-use it in prose?

Sound is a tricky little schmuck because it’s so often precluded by filtering—if you’ve skipped the rest of this book, then head back to Step 3 Where We Cock Up in Style, to find out what filtering is. Broadly, filtering is where you remove the reader one step from the protagonist. Instead of letting the reader see through the eyes of the protagonist, you show the reader the action the protagonist is doing. For example:

Filtering:

She heard the crunch of leaves.

Not Filtering:

Leaves crunched behind her.

When you filter, you remove the immediacy of the action. Conversely then, when you don’t filter you pull the reader much closer to the protagonist and the action.

Onomatopoeia is referenced in the devices section as a key tool for creating both sound and image pictures. Which is why I’m mentioning it here. Adding crashes, wallops, and booms create sound in your prose.

But there are also other more subtle ways to evoke lyrical sound. Alliteration (also referenced in the devices section) is another example. As too are other forms of alliteration, like repeating vowel or consonant sounds in a sentence:

Her heart ached and languished in the agonizing reality that he was gone.

Here, the “a” sound is repeated in many of the words. Sound in your novel can be evoked through the imagery you create but it can also come from the lyrical nature of your sentences. If you’re creating certain sounds with vowels or consonants or phrases, you’ll evoke a sense of sound in your prose anyway.

Sounds don’t have to be real either, our job is literally to make shit up. Your protagonist could get jumpy and hear what she wants to hear. If she’s afraid, she’s going to hear bad things or she’s grieving maybe she imagines her lost lover’s voice.

8.3 Taste Sense

Taste is also neglected, I guess in part because we can’t have our characters sitting around licking things all day long. But ahh, my little word monkeys, don’t think food is the only occasion where you can use taste as a sense in your writing.

Like sound, there are loads of occasions you can use taste that you might not think of at first glance. For example, tasting emotions is a powerful way to create imagery and evoke emotion in the reader. Have you ever been so angry your mouth dries and tastes poisonous? Or perhaps you bite your tongue and taste the metallic heat of blood. Or maybe in a banging shag fest your lover’s skin tastes sweet like honeyed milk—FYI, I don’t need the details of your food-play fetish.

Consider tasting the weather too, the air can be fresh and sharp. Sometimes it can be thick and wet with a brewing storm.

Taste, while predominantly its own sense, is connected to all the others. So where one sense is activated you might find activating another helpful to enrich your imagery. Smells come hand in hand with taste. For example, a spicy meal can be hot and so sharp when inhaled it makes your eyes water because you can practically taste the spice. Have a play and see if you can include more than one sense in a descriptive passage.

For example:

Ash and dirt fill the air. My eyes stream as I claw my way through brambles and shrubs. My arms sting staining red from thorny lacerations, but I keep moving. I have to reach the clearing. Smoke cloys in my throat as I gasp for breath. Instead of oxygen, I swallow acrid gulps of air; my mouth fills with grit and soot and it tastes like soured meat and death.

Taste also has texture but I’ll cover that in the next section.

8.4 Touch Sense

Touch is a personal act, when you allow yourself to be touched—stop it, don’t be dirty—even if it’s as innocuous as a handshake, you make yourself vulnerable. You allow someone in your personal space. This is why moments of touch in a novel can be so evocative and not just for romance. Equally, the cool touch of a blade’s edge can be just as effective at drawing a reader in, as a fingertip grazing a shoulder blade.

Touch is multifaceted and it’s the peripheral elements that are often neglected in writing. Touch, while mostly reflected in the connection our fingertips have with objects, can also be with our mouths. Taste aside, eating involves a plethora of textures. Food can be crunchy or squelchy or gritty or a range of other textures. Adding the occasional texture like this when your character is eating adds another layer of imagery. Food is universal; every human on the planet has to eat to survive. Like emotion, when elements are universal, it requires less written effort to bring it alive. If you close your eyes, I’m sure you can imagine the resistant crunch of an undercooked broccoli, or the fluffy inside of a roasted potato, or the tender bite of a juicy piece of meat.

The layering of touch doesn’t stop there, folks. Touch isn’t just about texture, such as coarse or rough. Within touch there are other aspects like heat, pain, pleasure, and vibrations—I said stop it, Christ you’re all filthy.

Here’s a quick example:

“Scarlet ran her fingers first over the blade. Its surface was smooth and icy, far colder than the air around her. Odd. Her fingers slipped to the cutting edge. As she examined the shape and lines of the weapon, she drew her index finger down the edge. It was so sharp it stung hot as it sliced into her finger tip. She smiled; she hadn’t pushed hard enough to cut her skin. The blade was obviously hungry for flesh. A drop of red rolled to the metal tip and she swore the blade vibrated in response: deep, rumbling. Almost as if it was greeting her: one weapon to another.

‘I’ll take it,’ she said and slung a pouch of coins on the counter.” Sacha Black, Murdering Magicians.

If you’ve ever struggled to incorporate touch, then consider how you can describe the textures of the following:

Buildings: buildings have an array of opportunities to describe textures from glass and brickwork and the structural foundations of the building to the furnishings and objects inside.

Weather and air: the sun can burn or warm, the wind can caress or ravage, the rain can patter on the arms or pound the body with hail and the air can be dry or humid.

Ground: the ground can squelch with treacherous mudslides, it can undulate or be rough and hard.

Skin: can be rough, brittle, leathery, or smooth.

Weapons: sharp blades, cool barrels, or the smoothed, polished wood of a mace handle.

Clothes: fabrics are a great way of including textures as there are so many from smooth silks to rough hessians, soft fleeces, and rubbery wetsuits.

Nature: nature is the ultimate texture haven, plants have thorns, rose petals are silky, some plants are furry.

Emotions: you might not think of emotions as having a texture, but they do! Think about the hot, throbbing of rage, or the cold, prickle of fear.

8.5 Diving into Emotions

The Detailed Devil

Here’s the thing. I’ve already mentioned how vitally important detail is for a number of literary devices to work. But detail is never so important as it is for emotion. It’s a paradox: the more detailed and smaller the imagery you create, the more universal and bigger the emotions become to readers. Go figure.

Small details work as shortcuts straight into a reader’s memory which promptly evoke feelings—a bit like gin then.

Emotion Is a Many Layered Thing

Humans are complex animals. We don’t just feel one thing, we habitually feel multiple emotions. For example, when a loved one has been in pain for a long time, we often feel relief as well as sadness when they pass. A dichotomy of conflicting emotions. I’m swinging this back around to Gestaltism because the sum of our emotions—especially in complex situations like a death—are usually more than the sum of their constituent parts.

Describing that gestalt of emotions is supremely difficult, but it’s also universally felt. How do you do it? Well, part of it is driven by the protagonist’s ability to reflect—or not, as the case may be—on themselves, their morals, and the situations. The below excerpt is from A Thousand Rooms by Helen Jones. For context, the protagonist is dead and has come back to visit her parents.

“…this is the worst. She’s so broken up, all hunched over. My dad has his arm around her, white hanky to his face and it’s so so awful, like a thousand times worse than the worst thing I could imagine and I want so much to comfort them, to speak to them one last time, to let them know I didn’t suffer, that it was quick, and that I miss them. And then it’s as though space bends a little and I am between them both, even though they are still clinging to each other and I turn my face to each of them, leaning on my Dad’s shoulder, then my Mum’s, kissing them both, tears running down my face as I wish with all my heart I hadn’t checked my damn phone and brought them to this place. The veil is still there and it feels strange and horrible to be so close to them yet not be able to smell Mum’s familiar perfume, or the mingled odour of wool and clean skin and warmth that is just Dad, and my heart clenches with pain and sorrow that I will never get to do this again and I kiss them over and over. 

Something happens. My Mum gets this strange look on her face. She lifts her head. ‘Graham,’ she whispers through her tears—her voice is all choked and it breaks me again. But then her hand comes up to her temple where I am leaning my head against hers, kissing her. Her eyes widen. My Dad looks at her and oh, his poor face, so tired and pained, so much sorrow welling in his eyes and it’s more than I can stand so I kiss him as well. His eyes widen like Mum’s.

‘Did you…?’ he whispers, and Mum nods at him.” Helen Jones, A Thousand Rooms.

There have already been a number of examples of emotional description in the book, but I chose this example for a number of reasons. First, I adore the use of smell to evoke such pain and regret in the protagonist. Second, the author gives ample context (she shouldn’t have checked her phone) to explain how the character ended up in this situation. It’s information without the dumping. The fact the protagonist’s parents comfort each other and the protagonist can’t share in that moment heightens the emotion for everyone, reader included.

Quick Tip: Instead of having your protagonist feel the obvious emotion—like sadness over the death of a loved one—have them feel something they shouldn’t. Flip the expected emotion on its head and feel something controversial like relief or joy or vengeance.

Layering emotional details in prose is a fantastic method of building up believable emotions.

Quick tip: “The more explosive ‘outer’ emotion should be shown through action and dialogue. The inner emotion should be shown through thought and body language.” Sacha Black, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist.

When you come to an emotional scene, if you want to truly capture the intensity your character feels ask yourself these questions:

What judgment is your protagonist making about themselves against their moral compass? The best person to torture a protagonist isn’t the villain, but themselves. We are usually our own worst critics and so self-judgment and self-criticism are an excellent way to torture a protagonist especially if they’ve broken one of their morals or values.

If they’ve done something wrong, what do they think they could/should have done differently?

Do they have any memories or experiences to reflect on that are salient at this time?

How can they justify one way or another what they’ve done? This will depend on what part of the story arc you’re in and whether or not they’re still flawed and lying to themselves.

Can you create a metaphor or analogy describing the emotion or layered emotions?

What detail, nuance or reflection has your hero noticed in this moment that no one else would?

It’s a lot, and it’s complex, but if you can capture the answers to these key questions in the most important emotional paragraphs, you’ll create a Hiroshima-sized explosion of emotion.

Quick Tip: Instead of having your protagonist say what she thinks, have them lie openly, or lie to themselves. For example:

Blatant Lie to Others:

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Of course, it was just a graze.” I swallow down the rest of the sentence. It was just a graze. It just wasn’t the bullet she thinks that hit me. It was Leon’s poisoned dart. I tighten the ligature around my thigh. Liberty’s shoulders sag, her face relaxing.

I give her a tight smile. How am I supposed to tell her I’m going to die?

Here, aside from the later sentences where she admits the lie to the reader, the body language including tight smiles and swallowing of sentences indicates she’s lying.

Let’s change it up to make the character lie to herself.

Lie to Self:

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Of course, it was just a graze.” I swallow down the rest of the sentence and give her a tight smile. It will be fine. It was just a graze after all. Even if it was Leon’s poisoned dart, there had to be an antidote. I tighten the ligature around my thigh and catch Liberty out of the corner of my eye. Her shoulders sag, her face relaxing. I decide I don’t care what Leon said about the poison. I’ll find a cure.

Here, there’s more self-assurance in the prose through phrases like “after all,” “I don’t care,” “had to be.” Humans aren’t dumb. When we lie to ourselves, we have to convince ourselves what we’re saying is true. This is why the prose is full of qualifying phrases. These phrases let the reader in on the protagonist’s lie, by allowing the reader to read between the lines without the character realizing she’s lying to herself.

Note though, if your character lies to herself, there should always be a reason why she’s lying, be it to protect herself, someone else, or something else entirely. Make sure the reason for the lie is clear. In the above examples it’s to protect the other character.

8.6 Creating Specific Emotions

While I will cover a couple of specific emotions, I’m not going to cover how to create and write every single emotion. This section is going to cover the principles of creating emotion rather than individual emotions. This is because the principles are applicable to creating any emotion in prose.

Emotion Is All Encompassing

The reason Step 8 starts with examining how to write using the senses is because emotion is both physical and sensory. If you think about the feeling of being in love, your whole body is alive. Your senses are mad high, they’re tripping on love acid. Everything is heightened, sharper, and more acute. The world is better, brighter even. When your loved one touches you, when their lips brush across yours, your stomach blazes with butterflies and tingles. These are sensory moments. This is why the quickest and easiest way to create effective emotions is to engage the senses when you write.

The two emotions I think you see most often in fiction are love and fear. Love, because even if you don’t write romance a good portion of books contain some elements of love, be it friendship love or romantic love in a subplot. The second emotion is fear. Most villains use fear as a tactic to torture the hero, be it fear of the villain themselves, fear of losing something they care about, or fear of having to change.

8.7 Creating Fear in Prose

Aside from the hero’s desire, fear is one of the key drivers in many novels. It drives the plot, pace, tension, and emotion. Which, when you combine those elements, creates the climax of your story.

But why fear when the hero’s desire is what makes him engage in the plot in the first place? Well, if the hero wants something like to save the day, to save a loved one, or stop the villain, then he has a goal. If he has a goal, he has something to lose: the world, his loved one, or innocent lives.

When you have something to lose—something the hero values—the thought of losing it creates fear and that fear will push your hero on through his plot and change arc until he can defeat the villain.

But how do you create fear in your prose?

Fear Is Sensory

I’ve hammered this point home but fear, like all emotions, is sensory.

“Writers are continually told to ‘show, don't tell’. Let readers see the picture unfold in their own minds. But the very best horror films don’t show—not at first. What does that mean for you as a writer? Embrace your other senses. What sounds fill the scene? A single creak on the staircase? The thud-thud-thud of a rocking chair in an empty upstairs room? How about touch—could your character notice it’s strangely cold in the room and hang on a minute, did they leave the window open? Fear doesn’t come from the monster jumping out, or the ghost sailing through a wall. Nor does it come from the gory description of a mutilated corpse. It comes from the threat that these things might happen. Even slasher films use sensory touches to build tension (and fear) before they throw in a jump scare. Question is—how can you use them too?” Icy Sedgwick, folklorist and author of dark fantasy fiction.

With each emotion, the sensory reactions are different. For example, when you’re afraid, the blood drains from your face turning it white, you blink rapidly, and beads of sweat run down your back tightening your muscles. Your villain—whether it’s intangible conflict, an inner demon, a monster, or otherwise—should provoke that sort of reaction in your protagonist.

Likewise, showing the reader rather than telling her to be afraid will also increase the sense of fear she feels:

“Don’t tell me the killer is standing in front of you holding a knife covered in blood. Show me the table where the knife used to sit, and a trail of blood droplets on the floor that finishes at your feet. Let me hear the creak of floorboards or the click of a lock that no one’s had a key to for a decade.” Sacha Black, 13 Steps to Evil: How to Craft a Superbad Villain.

Types of Fear

There are two main types of fear you can evoke in a story: psychological and physiological fear.

Psychological fear is about the emotional state your characters (and therefore your readers) are in.

But physiological fear is more about violence, gore, torture, or anything gruesome.

There is no right or wrong answer here, both methods are effective. Daniel Willcocks, dark fiction author said:

“Tread the line: play with the real, play with the impossible, never justify where you are choosing to create. Some of the best fear-inducing reads I’ve come across take place in the very reality we live. Others open doors and guide you to horrors you know would be impossible, but which your tricksy mind chooses to entertain. That’s the power of the human imagination. Overall, trust the reader. Always trust the reader.”

Insinuation Is your Knight in Shining Fear

If you’d like an entire chapter on creating fear, I talk about this more in Step 9 of my book 13 Steps to Evil: How to Craft a Superbad Villain. I had a pivotal moment in childhood when I realized the power of insinuation. The Blair Witch Project film came out in 1999, I was twelve—not old enough to watch it. But I’d seen enough trailers to be confused. There weren’t any monsters in the trailers, you didn’t “see” anything. What you did see was a lot of running, heavy breathing, and twig snapping. Yet everyone was raving about how terrifying this film was.

I asked my dad (who had seen it), what exactly he’d seen to make it so universally scary. He said, “You don't ‘see’ anything.” After a rather long silence filled with the sound of my brain shattering, I realized a reader’s or viewer’s imagination is far superior to any words or clever film trickery. All you need to do to set an imagination off is imply something bad is coming, and off the brain fucks filling in the blanks with spiders and bats and psychotic serial killers.

I asked Willcocks what his top tip would be for creating fear, he said:

“Hide the monster: whether it’s a physical, emotional, or mental monster, your best bet is always to hide the threat from the reader until the last possible moment. The greatest fear in our lives comes from the unknown. The things we can’t see, and the horrors we can’t describe. Let the reader create the horror from themselves. Guide the reader along, one breadcrumb at a time. What is fearful for you, may not be fearful for others, so let them go on their own path to discovery.”

To see how Willcocks creates fear in his stories, I recommend his short story collection, Twisted.

Other tricks to showing fear include:

Describing visceral reactions

Describing body language changes

Pathetic fallacy

Missing items

Sudden changes

Fight/flight/freeze

Withholding information

As a hardened control freak, visceral reactions are irritating nasties. They’re the inappropriately timed reactions your body has that may not be under your control. For example, flushed cheeks, increasing heart rate, dizziness, goosebumps, sweat, tightening muscles, instinctively flinching. Describing these types of reactions in your prose is a fantastic sensory way to engage readers’ senses and pull them down the fear rabbit hole. Here’s a quick example:

Shane stumbled backward, his arms speckled with goosebumps. He stepped once, twice and hit a wall. The impact made a trickle of sweat run down his neck. Frozen in place, his rapid breath roared in his ears.

Body language is the sibling of visceral reactions. Though we have a little more control over our body language, much of it is still subconscious. Rather than being internal like the fluttering of adrenaline or the heart pumping, body language is more external. It’s the movement of arms and limbs, stiffening backs and fleeting glances.

Pathetic fallacy can be used to influence the atmosphere in a scene. Just like in the movies, when there’s a crack of thunder in a tense scene, you know it’s an omen of what’s to come. It doesn’t have to be as blatant as claps of thunder, you could have a chill in the atmosphere or unexpected rain.

Missing items are useful for psychological head play. If your character thinks she left a letter on the side and it mysteriously vanishes, that’s going to mess with her head. When important objects, weapons or items that your protagonist needs go missing, it can unsettle your protagonist, helping to up the tension.

Sudden changes can serve as a psychological nudge to unsettle a character. For example, the insertion of a new plot obstacle, a death, sudden weather or atmosphere change, the rapid change in mood of another character, etc. It’s unnerving to have things change that you didn’t expect. For some, change is frightening. Even if your character’s reaction is subtle, the impact is still effective. Fear doesn’t always have to come out guns blazing. Subtle fear can be just as chilling as a combination of these devices evoking big in-our-face levels of fear.

Fight/flight/freeze is a known automatic reflex. When in danger or under threat, our autonomic nervous system takes over and reacts for us. Our bodies move into protective mode and usually react in one of three ways: going into attack and fight for your life mode, fleeing and running away from the danger, or freezing and not reacting. These reactions—because they’re automatic—are very visceral, which gives you an opportunity to create a deeper level of emotion on the page.

Withholding information if you’re a devious little munchkin, then this tactic is for you. Knowing what a monster looks like creates one type of fear, but not knowing what’s coming creates a totally different type of fear. Another technique for creating fear is to make the reader—and the hero—know something awful is coming but withhold just enough information they don’t know what, why, or when. Can you hear my cackle? It’s the classic movie music crescendo put into prose. That drive to fever pitch and drop into silence puts me on edge every time.

At the prose level, to create the same effect you can use:

Ellipsis (…)

Cut dialogue off with em dashes (—)

Interruptions

Sudden changes in atmosphere

Fear is an intense emotion; let’s look at love, equally intense but arguably at the other end of the emotion spectrum.

8.8 Creating Love in Prose

Love, like fear and like any other emotion, can be done in as many ways as there are author voices. The important thing is to embrace your style, whether that’s lyrical and poetic or clean and sharp.

The other thing to note is, no one is saying you need to have full blown orgies in your book. A hand hold can be just as romantic as a fade to black or an R-rated erotic scene.

Love is the most sensual of all emotions so capitalizing on the senses in your prose is vital. As is using small details to reflect big emotions.

Love is huge, but when you break it down, just like fear, there are two key aspects you can describe to get big bangs for your bucks: the psychological aspect of love and the physiological aspect.

The psychological aspect of love is all about how the brain feels, the all-consuming mental emotions, the connection, the security; it’s also about the character processing their understanding of what love means. For example:

“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.

“I do love nothing in the world so well as you—is not that strange?” William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV, Scene i.

The important part of psychological love is to ensure your character processes it, whether that’s positively, negatively, or in between. There has to be a consequence of this love and emotion, which means it needs capturing at the sentence level.

Now, this isn’t technically a sentence level tactic, but there’s a pattern with most romantic subplots: slow build of the relationship that teases the reader, an obstacle that prevents your characters getting together and then their happy ending.

Think about how you can reflect the slow build both physically and psychologically at the sentence level. The longer the description, the longer the reader has to wait until they get to that kiss moment. Drawing out the prose and lengthening the psychological reflection and description in these moments becomes a tease to your reader itself. You can also subtly increase this effect by using longer sentences with more punctuation, using more specific verbs and increasing the number of metaphors and devices. You’ll see this reflected in the kiss-quote later on.

The physical aspect of love is connected to the senses and physical feelings the body has when around or touching the person your character loves. Think about the first time you met a lover. Did your belly flutter? Did your heart race and you become hyper aware of your body and fingers and entire being? Did you flush and get hot? Love and lust are very visceral emotions, so focusing your prose on the sensory side will help to create realistic love.

Let’s put this into practice, there’s no atmosphere to a kiss if you say: he kissed me. It shows the reader nothing about the sensations the kiss created or the emotions it made the character feel. Let’s improve “he kissed me.”

One Sense Added:

He kissed me and his lips were sweet like honey and flowers.

Okay, that’s better, but what about her other senses and what about how it makes her feel?

And then he kissed me; his lips were sweet like honey and flowers. My mouth tingled from his touch. It spread from my face to my hands, my toes, my everything. I’m consumed by a thousand happy moments, as if his kiss held the universe and all its happiness.

This might not be your cup of tea for a kiss description and that’s totally fine. This is about layering the techniques up so you can see how they change and improve the prose.

Let’s look at a famous kiss:

“He bent down, his lips against her cheek, brushing it lightly—and still that light touch sent shivers through her nerves, shivers that made her whole body tremble. ‘If you want me to stop, tell me now,’ he whispered. When she still said nothing, he brushed his mouth against the hollow of her temple. ‘Or now.’ He traced the line of her cheekbone. ‘Or now.’ His lips were against hers.” Cassandra Clare, City of Glass.

This kiss is such a tease. The point is, this is a key moment and Clare prolongs the buildup, dangling the kiss in front of readers until it’s tantalizing.

When describing physical love, remember to think about all the sensations, not just texture in touch but the tingles, the sensations, vibrations. Think about heat and temperature, think about what memories are evoked, consider taste and what the characters can smell and even what they can hear or perhaps not hear as the case may be.

Love, especially physical love, is one of the easiest places to practice your description-rich prose. It’s one of the most important places to describe the emotions and moment in detail so it’s a great one to practice with. In other words, go cozy up with your partner, spouse, husband, wife, or pull up a romcom movie, or dive into a romance book. Then when you’ve had your inspiration fill, come back to the page and vomit those words.

Step 8 Sensory Schmensory, Emotion Potion Summary

In which we put our lab coats on, delved into detail, things got a bit whiffy in our smell boxes, and we all went for a jolly in nature.

Emotions are sensory. Make sure when you have an emotive scene you capitalize on the senses.

Sight is always used, but good writers will pull imagery from the other senses too.

Think about how you could use the senses in unexpected ways like tasting the emotion or the smell of rage.

It’s scientifically proven that smells evoke memories. That’s why they’re a great tool for description.

Watch out for accidental filtering when you’re using sound sense in description.

Remember that sound doesn’t have to just be crunching or bashing. Sound can relate to the lyrical nature of your sentences and the sounds your sentences make.

With touch sense, remember that touch isn’t just about texture. Include temperature and heat, pain, pleasure, and other sensations.

Layer emotion and remember we don’t always feel just one thing. Often we’re feeling multiple emotions over one situation, like relief and sadness at the loss of a loved one.

The more explosive “outer” emotion should be shown through action and dialogue. The inner emotion should be shown through thought and body language.

When you come to an emotion scene, if you want to truly capture the intensity your character feels ask yourself these questions:

What judgment is your protagonist making about themselves against their moral compass? The best person to torture a protagonist isn’t the villain, but themselves. We are usually our own worst critics and so self-judgment and self-criticism are an excellent way to torture a protagonist especially if they think they’ve broken one of their morals or values.

If they’ve done something wrong, what do they think they could/should have done?

Do they have any memories or experiences to reflect on that are salient at this time?

How can they justify one way or another to themselves what they’ve done? This will depend on what part of the story arc you’re in and whether or not they’re still flawed and lying to themselves.

There are two aspects to both fear and love: psychological and physiological. Try to include each in your most emotional scenes.

Above all else, remember emotions need visceral body reactions, body language, and consequences that need to be processed mentally.

Exercises for you to try:

Name one emotion. Now write a paragraph with a character naming that emotion.

Now rewrite the sentence without naming it.

Write the most romantic kiss you can using a range of description and senses.

Go for that walk. Write shit down. You’ll thank me later.

Step 9 Philosophy, Poetry, and Quotable Prose

9.0 Philosophy, Poetry, and Quotable Prose

Where we get nichey, go deeper than we’re comfortable, get all philosophical and sing “we’re poets and we know it” from the rafters.

This is a niche chapter. Not everyone wants or needs to write quotable prose and that’s okay. If you write pulp fiction, for example, readers don’t care about remembering specific, beautiful sentences. They’re coming to your books for hard and fast story, wicked characters, and pure escapism. And that’s totally fine; someone’s favorite movie is Texas Chainsaw Massacre and another’s is The Shawshank Redemption. We all have preferences and that’s how we genre writers make a living. However, if you err on the side of preferring descriptive prose, and you want to intersperse your stories with the occasional memorable sentence or perhaps a line or two you can put on merchandise, then this chapter will help.

We’re Poets and We Know It

You know the expression “fell head over heels in love?” Well, forget head and heels; when I discovered expressionist poetry I full-body slam dunked my way into consuming every possible word, line, and book in the genre. Not only have I developed a stalker-like obsession for it, expressionist poetry has taught me loads about quotable prose. Some poets I’d recommend reading are Rupi Kaur, Atticus, Nikita Gill, and Amanda Lovelace. Check the recommended reading section for specific book recommendations. Of course, any form of poetry will teach you how to write more poetic prose, but let’s focus on expressionism.

9.1 Express to Impress

Expressionism as a movement spans art as well as poetry. It’s concerned with the meaning of emotional experiences. Expressionism in poetry specifically, looks at raw emotions in everyday life. This is one of the reasons I think it’s so useful for writers to study. Story is about the emotional change the protagonist goes through. Emotion is what hooks a reader and expressionist poetry distills those emotional experiences into single sentences. Expressionist poetry is like tequila on steroids, it’s like putting NASA’s rocket fuel in an old-skool mini. Silly analogies aside, my favorite way of thinking about it is as copy written poetry. Instead of flowing verses of lush language, expressionists distill all that meaning down into a single, pure power-packed sentence (can you tell I’m fangirling expressionist poets yet?).

But what does expressionist poetry look like? Don’t worry, I got your back, here’s one I made earlier:

“Love is the fire that burns when everything else is ash.” Sacha Black, Rebel Poetry.

Now, I’m no Rupi Kaur, but I do like to play with words and I do like to see how powerful I can make a single sentence and how much emotion I can distill into it. There are lots of methods of creating expressionist poetry; two such techniques include defamiliarization and juxtapositions.

Defamiliarization is the art of presenting something old in a new unfamiliar way with the purpose of enhancing perception and understanding. Imagine great-grandmother Ethel rocking life in leathers and leopard print. The unusualness of representation but with the familiarity and comfort of nanny underneath is what creates the refreshing prose.

Here’s another one I wrote using defamiliarization:

“She liked the way her scars looked. They reminded her she’d won.” Sacha Black, Rebel Poetry.

Usually scars are seen in society as a negative consequence of an injury. But I wanted to flip that notion on its head because I actually like scars. I think they’re part of us, memories, lessons learned, lines and curves that make us, us. Shouldn’t we love ourselves in spite of our scars? What if someone’s scars were the very thing that empowered them? And thus, the poem was born.

Quite often, creating quotable prose is about turning something accepted into something unusual or empowering. Here’s an example from another author I love, Sarah Brentyn:

“The drops of blood were so round and so red. She stared at them, thinking they were too perfect to belong on a thing that was broken.” Sarah Brentyn, Hinting at Shadows.

This is a gorgeous juxtaposition, pitting the perfect against the broken. Making the familiar unfamiliar again. Defamiliarization takes our numbed and overstimulated senses and reinvigorates them with an injection of freshness.

9.2 Aphorism

It might be a controversial claim, but I’ve always thought aphorisms are another form of expressionist poetry. They certainly create quotable prose and many become proverbs over time. Aphorisms are universal truths distilled into a clear and concise structure.

“If you want a thing done, do it yourself.” Napoleon Bonaparte.

“To err is human, to forgive divine.” Alexander Pope.

“If the shoe fits, wear it.” Unknown.

“If you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, it will spend its whole life thinking it is stupid.” Albert Einstein.

And one of my personal favorites:

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back.

See if you can create your own aphorism. Perhaps around your book’s theme, or even your protagonist’s revelation. Revelations are the realization of a truth for the protagonist which is why this is a great place to use one. Plus they look wicked on merchandise.

9.3 Making the Specific Universal to Create Quotable Prose

Part of creating quotable prose is about going deep. You have to strike a chord with thousands of people simultaneously, which seems impossible. But the amazing thing about going deep and specific on an emotion or topic is that it becomes universal. Emotions connect humanity. We all feel love and hope and loss and jealousy. And while we might think we experience them differently, there is something universally human about the sensations and feelings we have. At the end of the day, we all have the same squishy bits as each other. Can you feel the mental hug?

The hero lens is vital to creating deep prose. The lens is your hero’s unique (and specific) way of looking at a topic. There’s nothing more specific than a singular opinion or view on a topic. You need to know how your character sees an event or emotion and how that’s different to the way every other character would see it. The best way of doing that is by adding detail. What details does your protagonist see or feel that no one else does? That specificity is what makes their emotions and feelings relatable—universal.

If you want to deepen your prose by using specificity to create universality, consider covering abstract and philosophical themes or emotions like:

Love

Hope

Fear

Jealousy

Death

Loss

Religion

Faith

War

Sacrifice

Freedom

Power

Justice

If one of these topics particularly relates to your story theme, even better. Whatever your book theme is, create philosophical questions around it. If you can’t think of any questions, have a Google, there are lots of lists of philosophical questions online. Having a character ponder, ask, or answer one of these questions in your story forces them to look deep inside themselves. It pushes them to look at the heart of their emotions and values and the answers may not always be what they want to hear or what they expected. In fact, having answers they didn’t expect often creates a depth to both the prose and the characterization as it makes your characters vulnerable and the story surprising. Here’s a few to get you going:

Is it really love if it’s unrequited?

What does death mean for life?

If freedom is being able to do what you want, are wild animals freer than humans?

Does power corrupt?

If extraterrestrials exist, what does it mean to be human?

Can you really create a utopia?

Is it really justice if you’re inflicting pain and punishment on the perpetrator?

What are you most afraid of feeling?

Who actually holds power? The person in control or the person who allows themselves to be controlled?

You can even use these questions to relate back to the start of this chapter and create expressionist poetry from them. If you find a question that resonates, craft a story around it and distill it into the shortest amount of words possible, either flash or poetry. Here’s how I translated a question into a piece of expressionist poetry:

“Why do the dying always ask to hold your hand? I do it, of course. But when Mum’s hand slackens, my chest breaks apart; there’s no one left to hold mine.” Sacha Black, Rebel Poetry.

9.4 Symbolism

Symbolism according to dictionary.com is:

“The practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character.”

There’s a trick here for writers. The scenes you’ll find the best opportunities for creating beautiful quotable prose are the most emotional and significant ones. If you like working with symbolism, there are always opportunities to find symbolism or significance. Choose a moment in your book and examine the detail. Ask how that detail impacts your hero’s emotions and life. In your hero’s vulnerable moments, what is significant?

If your protagonist is next to their parent’s death bed, the overwhelming, crushing emotions are important, but it’s the details of the things that seem significant in the moment that actually evoke the most memorable prose. For example, a brown, dying plant in the hospital room next to a sick loved one. Scratchy bed sheets under where they clasp their parent’s hand representing the lack of comfort and indignity in death. Perhaps a character wears a chain-looped necklace or bracelet, but in reality, they’re in a mental chain or relationship they can’t escape. In The Emotional Craft of Fiction, Donald Maass encapsulates life and meaning perfectly:

“[Life and meaning] They do not happen in the predictable patterns that writers call plot template. They happen all the time, at odd moments, and in ways that only we can see. So it is with your characters. Their stories are happening always, and it is up to you to reveal how.” Donald Maass, The Emotional Craft of Fiction.

Questions to ask:

Ask yourselves these questions and use the answers to help you shape your word choice and the prose-level details of your story:

Why is this moment important or significant to your character?

What detail will they remember more than anything else, even if it seems insignificant?

What visceral reactions are their bodies having?

What can they smell, taste, hear?

How does this moment change your hero’s understanding of themselves? How does that subsequently affect their motives and drivers?

What realizations or deeper understandings about the world does this give your protagonist?

What does your protagonist wish she could do or change or say but can’t?

Another technique you can use is misunderstandings and assumptions on the part of other characters. The below is a gorgeous example of this:

“‘They want to make me feel better about dying. To make me feel better about dying gives them a purpose.’ You pause. ‘But I’m fine about dying. And they just can’t accept that. It takes away their purpose.’” Sarah Pinborough, The Language of Dying.

Here, the symbolic moment comes when the father (the speaker) makes a poignant observation about the hospice nurses. The nurses assume he’s not okay with dying, that he’s afraid or upset. But in contrast, he’s absolutely fine about it. This reflection about other people’s assumptions uses so many literary devices: defamiliarization, juxtapositions, contrast, and symbolism.

Step 9 Philosophy, Poetry, and Quotable Prose Summary

Where we got nichey, went deeper than we were comfortable, got all philosophical, and sang “we’re poets and we know it” from the rafters.

Read expressionist poets. That is all.

Okay, that is not all, but it is my biggest reminder here. Check out the recommended reading section, or download the resource download which has a printable version of the reading list.

Defamiliarization is the art of presenting something old in a new unfamiliar way with the purpose of enhancing perception and understanding. It’s also super helpful for creating refreshing prose, which consequently people quote!

Go deep. Explore your feelings and emotions.

Remember when you’re writing an emotional scene to look at the detail of the moment, what seemingly insignificant things around your character are suddenly important?

If you want to create symbolism, look to your most emotive scenes.

Like the creation of emotion, look at the details in a scene, what can you insert to represent something with a bigger meaning?

Exercises for you to try:

Create a list of abstract philosophical themes and emotions.

Based either on your list above, or on your current book’s theme, create a list of philosophical questions your characters have to answer.

Write an expressionist poem.

Step 10 Cracking the Character Code

10.0 Cracking the Character Code

In which we meet Stanislavski, discover the beauty of death, battle baby brain, and realize the devil is always in the detail.

I often liken novel writing to food related items. Whether that’s because I’m a sugar fiend or because I just like cake, we’ll never know. But I see characterization as the yeast of your novel ingredients. Instead of ending up with a flat pancake, your novel rises and your characters are captivating enough you keep readers up until their eyes bleed at 3 a.m. they’re so desperate to finish your book.

There are many aspects to good characterization, but three I hold more important than all others:

Emotion

Choice

Uniqueness

Many writers think characterization is borne from the traits they pick. But that’s nonsense. Lots of writers share the same traits—creativity, determination, imagination—and yet we’re all totally different and write different things. So, there’s more to characterization than just picking a handful of traits and hoping they sound unique. But we’ll come to that in a sec.

I like to draw inspiration from many a varied place and before we delve into the bits and bobs of prose-level characterization, we’re going to study good ol’ Constantin Stanislavski.

Stanislavski was a Russian actor, director, and all round smarty pants. He developed a model to train actors how to act more effectively. Specifically, he wanted to improve their characterization in order to make their portrayal of the written characters more believable. So why not reverse engineer this technique to improve our characters and, specifically, the prose we wrap around them?

Stanislavski’s system was built on the principle of actors embodying characters to the extent the actor became not the character, but himself, as though the character were real. There are three key aspects to his method: “experience,” “what if,” and “motivation.” We’re going to explore all three.

10.1 Experience

The most significant driver behind Stanislavski’s system was an actor’s emotional memory. Step 8 discussed emotion and why the emotional journey for the hero is one of the most important factors in hooking a reader and bringing them along for the journey. But in essence, every story is about the emotional arc your protagonist takes.

For actors, their ability to draw on their past experiences was paramount for Stanislavski. I mean, isn’t it for us word monkeys too? When you’re writing a scene, do you pull on past memories and experiences to create a sense of realism and depth in your characters? I know I do.

But, and here’s the kicker, memories fade and get confused. I mean, I can barely remember this morning, let alone the intricacies of an event I went to last week. And we all know there’s various versions of the truth in an argument.

Yet, that’s exactly what we’re trying to replicate when we write characters in our novels. If you’ve ever struggled to convey realistic characters then put the pen down and step away from the computer. You need to go out and have some experiences to draw upon. Or, if you can’t go out, then think about your past experiences, how they happened, how they impacted you, and the details in the situations. How can you draw upon those in your writing? This is one of those instances where “writing what you know” isn’t compulsory, but can add a little flavor to your words.

Start a fight, tell your partner you shagged the secretary at work, book a trip to a strip club, jump out of a plane, journal. Do whatever you need to experience a range of sticky situations and feel something, get out from behind the desk and jiggle your bits, shimmy those emotional cells.

Next time you feel jealous or excited or get that familiar bubbling of rage, stop—mid-fight if you have to—and take notes. I mean, fuck it. Everyone knows you’re a writer, call it research, it may even stop your row.

10.2 What If?

Writers use the “what if” question all the time to create plot ideas: what if the sky was really a hologram? What if my protagonist got hit by a car? What if her husband murdered her lover? But Stanislavski believed actors should ask themselves what if they were in the same situation as the character they were portraying. Although it’s a good question, it’s a little trickier for writers because we’re not trying to be our characters and most characters are not based on ourselves.

Okay, no one wants to admit they have an ego, but be truthful now, we all sprinkle a little of our best habits or traits into our fiction. We’re not our characters and yet, we create them. These wholly realistic three-dimensional beings made of nothing but paper and ink. Perhaps writers are really just actors.

When you’re sitting there writing scenes for your character, ask yourself the question, and answer as them. Maybe you do this subconsciously, but try it consciously. Your character’s reactions may surprise you. My point is, just stop and check, go ahead and ask yourself, would you really knife that person in the eyeball? Probably not. But if you wouldn’t, then would your character really do it? What do you know about them and their reactions, choices, and normal behavior to help you judge whether they’d react the way you’ve written?

I have a character called Kato. He’s the sweetest, cleverest total diva you’ve ever met. His mother, for reasons she justified to herself, left when he was young. I assumed when he met her again as an older teen, he’d be grateful and happy to see her. I thought he’d be “totes emosh” at the reunion. But something about the scene didn’t sit right. When I pulled Kato to the metaphorical side and said “listen, Bud, what’s wrong?” He told me he was pissed. He might be a nice chap most of the time, but he was pissed that she’d left and he needed to be angry about it. When I re-wrote the scene, it was so much more powerful and emotive and it brought far more depth to his character too. It showed a side of him readers hadn’t seen and it made the scene all the more realistic.

“What if” is a stop-and-check kind of question that we often forget to ask. And it serves to ensure your characters are realistic.

10.3 Motivation

For Stanislavski, the last and possibly most important aspect of characterization was motivation. He believed actors were influenced either by their minds or their own emotions. He would make actors analyze characters in the script to find the source of their motivation.

Motivation is at the core of every character. Readers see through characters without a motivation faster than they can close your book. Motivation is a character’s “why.” It’s the reason they exist. The reason they push the plot on to achieve their goal. Without it there’s no meaning to their actions. Stanislavski was right. It’s not just actors that need to know the motivation of their characters. We writers do too. Does your hero want to take down the villain for revenge? Is it because he’s fallen in love? Or perhaps he wants to protect his people. Whatever the motive, there must be one for every action and reaction he makes in your story. For a deeper look at motivation, check out Step 3 in 13 Steps to Evil: How to Craft a Superbad Villain.

10.4 Creating Uniqueness

One effective way of creating uniqueness in characters is through the use of quirks. But quirks are often confused with habits and there’s a distinct difference between the two:

Habits

“A habit is a routine movement, action or behavior often done in a repeated pattern. It’s automatic and something a reader would deem normal. For example, pushing your glasses up, checking the doors are locked before bed or always reading the newspaper in the morning.” Sacha Black, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist.

Quirks

“A quirk is unique and idiosyncratic to your character; it’s a deliberate behavior. Usually, it will stick out to your reader or other characters. For example, in the movie East is East, one character, a young boy called Sajid, refuses to take his jacket off, EVER. He wears it rain, snow, sun or sleeping.” Sacha Black, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist.

For me, habits are cute, but quirks are where the good shit is at. A quirk is something unique and nuanced and therefore unexpected, which is why it’s a crap load more effective at creating characterization than a habit. Quirks distinguish us from others. Habits identify our similarities and therefore blend us—and our characters—into the crowd. Don’t be part of the crowd, people. Rebel. You do you. Let your characters be outrageous.

Robert McKee in Story, discusses the concept of a character diamond. This is where you can identify a character based on hearing three aspects of their personality.

For example:

Addict

Genius

Socially awkward

There’s only one character that describes: Sherlock Holmes. When grouped together, these personality aspects filter down to create an array of Sherlock’s quirks. For example, his addict aspect creates the quirk of him smoking a pipe. His socially awkward trait means he enacts quirky behaviors others find odd, like sniffing and licking things and generally being unable to hold down effective relationships—unless they’re work colleagues. And perhaps a combination of all three aspects mean he’s wildly messy in life but his mind is a logical deductive mean machine.

There are two important aspects to creating believable quirks:

The first is to ensure it has a function in your story

The second is to show rather than tell the quirk

Quirks work because they’re unexpected. I’ve already talked about the heuristics and categories we build as kids. These heuristics help us “know” things. Things that are fundamental, like the red on a traffic light means stop, bones are white and shouldn’t be outside the skin, and cats are the fluffiest most adorable hell-devils on the planet. A quirk, however, flips one of those on its head and turns it into something unexpected. Sherlock’s socially awkward personality aspect could just cause him to have fewer relationships. But Doyle creates quirks too—the sniffing and licking of things. The art of the quirk is not to go nuts and turn your character into a cliché, but to focus on one small detail.

Quirk Function

Quirks need a function. Connecting them to a flaw or personality trait gives them a reason to exist, it gives them authenticity. For example, Sherlock’s a genius, and while his habit of licking and tasting things or bouts of manic thought are odd to the characters around him, he’s using his genius to pattern spot and join the dots in order to solve the mystery. His whole personality is a wonderful play on his traits and geared to solving mysteries.

You can also use a quirk to accentuate one of your character’s personality traits. Like Monica Geller from Friends with her cleaning habits. When under stress she’s prone to going into a cleaning frenzy, but those frenzies can also help her work things out: the quirk serves a purpose.

Arguably, Harry Potter’s lightning scar is a quirk and what did J.K. do? She made the scar cause Harry pain, it connected him to the villain Lord Voldemort, and it’s how other wizards identified him at first glance.

10.5 Describing Characters

Introducing Characters

I need to make an itty, bitty point about introducing characters. I can’t tell you the number of stories I read where characters aren’t described the first or even second time we meet them but much later in the story. But by that point, the reader has already established a picture of the character. If you delay a description, you risk introducing a conflicting one. What if the reader didn’t picture your character the same way? You’re going to create cognitive dissonance in the reader’s head.

Unless you’re purposefully avoiding describing a character for an effect, it’s important to describe their appearance the moment they come on “screen.” You only need a couple of physical details because readers are excellent at filling in the blanks.

I see a lot of manuscripts where writers only employ one method of description: describing what their protagonist “sees.” For example, a new character with blonde hair wearing a floor-length coat comes into the scene and that’s exactly what the writer describes. I mean… it works, and hey, perhaps the coat has some interesting features. But that doesn’t tell you who this new character is. It doesn’t get to the core of why they’re in the plot or what they’re going to do to the protagonist. What’s more interesting to the reader is how this character makes the protagonist feel. When you come to describe a new character, ask yourself a key question:

When the character leaves the scene, what one thing do you want the reader to remember about them?

Forget everything else, forget eye color and clothing. Yes, those things are important, and yes, you probably need to describe them at an early opportunity because it creates a picture of the character, but they don’t tell you about that character. They don’t give the reader anything memorable to take away or think about after they’ve put the book down. If a character comes in and makes the protagonist feel jealous or afraid or hot under the neck, then your reader is more likely to remember them because they’ve had an effect on the hero. Another trick is to have your protagonist notice the new character making another character feel something and describing that impact. Let’s use the blonde woman with the coat and expand it:

She didn’t walk so much as glide into the room, as if she owned it and everyone else in here. From the number of eyes following her, I’d say she did too. Even from the other side of the room I could smell the waves of perfume emanating from the folds of her long coat. It was exotic with a hint of smoky allure. My body moved automatically, hypnotized by her flowing hair and flapping coat, both of which were waving at me; calling me. Demanding I go to her. Somewhere deep in my brain was a hollow scream. Its pitchy reverberations rattling and clawing at the inside of my mind. Something was wrong. She was wrong.

Keeping the Baby Brain Away

Once you’ve described a character during their entrance, don’t forget to keep describing them. Give little descriptive reminders when a character re-enters the story so the reader can continue to picture them. You can’t expect a reader to hold every single detail about every character. As mentioned earlier, it can take a reader four whole books before they even remember an author’s name, let alone your entire cast of characters.

Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to describe every single character each time they appear on the page. But the occasional reminder is a good thing. Integrate it into beats or action. For example, let’s take the character Bob. Bob has blue eyes that your protagonist notices the first time he comes on the page. One day the sun shines, making his blue eyes even brighter. If Bob’s mood changes, his eyes darken to a deep ocean blue.

If there’s a hand touch while looking at maps, your protagonist could notice how soft Bob’s skin was. Perhaps she notices a change in outfit. There are an infinite number of options, just make sure you give your readers a small descriptive reminder so they not only continue to see your characters but connect with them at a deep level of characterization.

10.6 From Physical Description to All the Protagonist Feels

Let’s go deeper with describing the impact a character has on the protagonist. We’re going to continue with the example from step 6.5.

Description 1:

He was average height with brown eyes and a hard stare.

Example 1 is a perfectly valid description. It does the job of describing the character although I hope you agree with me that it’s dismally vague and boring and if we’re brutally honest, it doesn’t create much of a picture in your mind. It’s clinical and uses dull, vague words like “average,” which tells the reader the square sum of fucknothing.

Let’s continue with the physical description but elaborate, choosing juicier descriptive words.

Description 2:

He slipped through the crowd unnoticed; his height allowing him to slide behind taller bodies. I caught his intense brown eyes and faltered. They were so dark they were almost black.

Arguably, this description evokes more of an image. There’s more detail in the description.

Quick Tip: You can turn a distinctly uninteresting feature into something interesting by describing the consequences (good or bad) of that feature.

For example, in description two, I’ve put his—what could be boring—average height into action and shown the consequence of it. Instead of just being “average” height, he’s cunning and uses his average height to slip through a crowd like a ghost. All of a sudden, a boring feature is interesting. The reader is wondering why he’s slipping through unnoticed. Is it on purpose? Is he a spy? Is it magic or is he just so unimportant to society that he’s inconsequential?

We’ve still only described two aspects of this character’s appearance: height and eyes, and yet we’ve built up a better picture of him by giving the description context. Brace yourselves folks, we can dig even deeper than that.

At the heart of all story is emotion and the emotional journey the hero goes on. It’s the highs and lows your protagonist goes on that draw your readers in. So why not play on this when bringing new characters into your story?

Description 3:

He was of average height—average everything, to be honest. Except his eyes. They were such a dark brown they almost looked black. But what struck me was what they held, a knowing; he’d seen death. No. I glanced again. It was darker than that. His eyes called to death, clutching it like a play thing. I stiffened as he passed and vowed never to cross him.

Now, isn’t this so much more interesting than the first two? You’re allowed to say no, BUT DON’T, because I’ll haunt you when I die. What makes this character come alive is how the protagonist feels about him. He still has the same dark eyes and average height, but now he’s interesting because not only has the protagonist noticed him, she feels something about him. In this paragraph she has both a mental reaction: noticing that he harbors death in his eyes, but also a visceral bodily reaction, stiffening as the character gets close.

We’ve still only described the same two aspects of the character: height and eyes. Yet in this example, the character feels more real than in any of the others. The protagonist feeling something about this character and reacting physically gives meaning to the feeling. And meaning is depth.

Last is the detail. This particular protagonist chose to see death in this character’s eyes. Another protagonist might choose to see anger or cold steel. Whatever your protagonist chooses to see will reflect both on the character she’s describing and on her own personality too, in terms of what she’s noticed. I use a set of questions whenever I come to describe a new character. They might be helpful for you to think about when describing your own characters:

What is unique about your character or what could you make interesting?

What are the consequences, good or bad, of the physical description you’re describing?

How does this character make your protagonist feel?

What detail does your protagonist notice about this character that no one else does?

10.7 Family Names in Prose

In this context, I’m using the term “family name” not to refer to a surname, but to refer to names such as mom, dad, uncle, brother, cousin, etc. There’s this oddity in prose where Mom and mom can both be used. As can Dad and dad, Father and father, Aunt and aunt and on it goes. This means you need to know the difference and when to use which. I’m going to help.

If you’re using a family name to replace a personal first name, then capitalize that bad boy, e.g., Did you know Aunt was trained at a Michelin star restaurant?

Likewise, if you’re using the family name immediately before their first name, you also need to capitalize it, e.g., There was no way Sandra believed that. She hated Aunt Jane’s cooking; it was always burnt.

However, you don’t capitalize the family name when it doesn’t refer to someone specific, e.g., There were three sisters in the Johnson family.

You also don’t capitalize a family name when it’s used to describe a personal name. On these occasions, it’s typically preceded by the, a, an or her, his, my, our, your, their etc. For example, Sandra had to admit, this batch of her aunt’s cookies were pretty good.

10.8 Using Specificity and Vagueness to Create Character Voice

We’ve spoken about specificity and vagueness and how it helps to create your character’s voice. Let’s put it into practice. If you had a well-to-do character describing someone, they might choose to use longer words and more of them. Let’s tweak the description from 10.6 and change the character’s voice:

Everything about the gentleman’s demeanor was uninteresting. Except, that is, for his eyes. I stared at him passing through the crowd like a shimmering illusion. I suspect if it weren’t for his eyes, one would have lost him in the crowd. But his eyes were such a dark brown they looked like they were shadowed in black. What struck me though, was what they held. A knowing; he’d seen death. No, that wasn’t quite accurate. I glanced again. It was something darker. His eyes hadn’t just witnessed death, they called to it, and clutched it like a play thing. I stiffened as he passed and made a solemn vow never to cross him.

This protagonist’s voice is different again from the last one. He—and this time it’s a boy, though I can’t tell you why—chose to use more words in his description. Longer words too, like demeanor, illusion, shimmering, witnessed instead of seen. When using inner thought, instead of just saying “no” as the protagonist in description two did, this chap thinks in entire sentences: No, that wasn’t quite accurate. He’s clearly more concerned with the detail and getting things right than protagonist two. He’s also fancier, using words like gentleman.

Use the Unexpected

I talk about this more in my book on heroes, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist. I know I’ve mentioned this in a different context, but it’s relevant here too. Using the unexpected has a deepening effect on characterization. Readers don’t want to be able to predict absolutely everything that’s coming in your story. Half the fun of reading is trying to puzzle out how the protagonist is going to get his ass out of sticky situations.

I use this example in 10 Steps to Hero, but it’s so utterly relevant that I have to use it here too.

I was in Paris and wanted some macaroons. I entered a cute macaroon shop and the shopkeeper came to my assistance and asked me what I wanted. I managed to order a couple—lemon, caramel, rose (obviously)—but then I attempted to order a vanilla macaroon… This is what happened next:

“Me- ‘Can I have a vanilla one please?’

Shopkeeper- ‘Non.’

Me- ‘Huh?’ *looks at an entire rack of vanilla macaroons*

Me- ‘Sorry, umm, I meant one of those ones.’ *points at vanilla macaroons*

Shopkeeper- ‘Oui,’ she nods, indicating she understood which macaroon I meant. I jab my finger at the vanilla macaroons again, (just to make sure… I really want a vanilla macaroon).

Shopkeeper – ‘Non.’

Me- ‘Um. Okay? Why?’

Shopkeeper- ‘They no good.’

Me- ‘Riiiight?!’” Sacha Black, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist.

In the end, I had to order other flavors. But the shopkeeper did the one thing I didn’t expect—refuse to sell me her goods—I’ll never forget her. When a character does, says, or describes something in an unexpected way, it creates unforgettable fiction.

10.9 Death and Characterization

Death is a personal fascination of mine. It can be a huge turning point for a character and it enables writers to really delve deep into the psyche of their characters. And it doesn’t have to be the loss of a person. You could capture it in the “death” of the character flaw or a catastrophic event in your plot. I’m using death because it’s one of those events that provokes such different reactions in people. It’s in these differences that we can capture characterization. But what of the sentence level? How do we capture the beauty of death and get it to show our readers something about our characters?

“To make death poignant, make living beautiful. To make us miss characters who will die, make them the very best thing about being alive.” Donald Maass, The Emotional Craft of Fiction.

This comes back to the hero lens. If you truly want to make a reader understand your character and the emotional pain they go through when they lose a loved one, you need to dig deep into the detail of what they loved about that character.

Don’t tell the reader your protagonist’s chest hurts, tell them about the thing they miss most about the person that’s gone. Tell them about the way only one side of her mouth crinkled when she laughed, or how your protagonist will miss the smell of warm skin and fresh coffee in the morning or how she refused to call him by his name because she thought it was funny.

Allow your character to miss the quirks, miss the memories. Those are the things a reader can relate to. Like the ache of knowing that settles when you realize you’ll never make another memory and the edges of this one are already fading. What did the character who died do that made your hero’s life worth living? It’s the pain of losing these irreplaceably unique things that makes life beautiful. It’s not a dead girl’s determination or intellect. It’s the mark she left on your hero. The impact she has on your hero changes them; it changes their character and therefore your characterization. It is often said that a person shows their true colors in extreme circumstances. Characterization can be the same. When your characters go through intense, difficult, or emotional times, how they react to them tells the reader more than all the other scenes put together. The question is, how will those intense moments, be it death or something else, impact your characters?

Back in Step 4, I used the below quote as an example of slowing pace and extending a moment. It’s relevant again now because when Eden’s soul mate dies, it’s not the heart-wrenching ache in her chest that shows the significance of her loss, it’s the details from the life she thought she was going to live that cause her the most pain:

“They say that when you die, your life flashes in front of you. I don’t know what Trey saw as he stood there bleeding out. But as the knife sliced into his neck, and bright red spurted in thick gushes down his chest, that’s exactly what happened to me. I take a breath, time slows, and in the instant it takes for his life to slip away, our life, the one we’ll never have together, flashes before my eyes. Our hands lace together as we kiss under a thousand sunsets. Glances stolen across hundreds of Council meetings. We stand on top of my home tower, me pirouetting around his arms under clouds of rain and thunder, the lightning dancing in the sky with me. Evenings spent by the Pink Lake, staring at a starlit blanket above us, blossom and petals falling from the trees and landing in our hair like confetti. Our family, two children with lilac and blue eyes, running by our feet as we smile and laugh and love. Growing so old, and wrinkled, and happy, that joy lines paint our ancient faces like smiles. Our essences age and entwine like the mat of a tree’s roots as we spend our lives together. All of that passed before my eyes in a single breath. When I exhale, it’s gone. And so is Trey.” Sacha Black, Victor.

Creating pain in death isn’t really about losing the person. Of course, that’s horrendous and awful. We all know that pain. But what truly conveys the significance of loss to a reader is the intangible thing a hero can’t touch. Here, Eden’s lost a life she thought she’d live, that’s awful, but it’s deeper than that, it’s more than that. She’s lost hope. Eden only just found her soul mate, the one thing she wanted more than anything and now, he’s gone. And she’s lost all hope of living the life of her dreams.

When you convey the loss of the intangible, you punch readers in the nuts, you sock ‘em in the gut with a one-ton bag of feels and it’s going to hurt in all the right ways.

Step 10 Cracking the Character Code Summary

Where we met Stanislavski, discovered the beauty of death, battled baby brain, and realized the devil is always in the detail.

Good characterization requires a mixture of things, but the three most effective ones are emotion, choice, and uniqueness.

When writing an emotional scene, reflect on your past experiences and emotions.

Ask yourself the what if question if you get stuck. It works for characterization, plot holes, dialogue, description, and just about every other aspect of prose too.

Habits and quirks are different; habits are routine movements, actions, and behaviors done in a repeated pattern. But quirks are more idiosyncratic and a deliberate conscious behavior.

Remember to introduce your character as soon as they enter the story the first time. Then drop breadcrumb reminders about their appearance or personality throughout the novel to keep their image clear in the reader’s mind.

Often, it’s more effective to describe the way a character makes the protagonist (or other characters) feel rather than their outward appearance.

When describing characters, pick out something interesting about their appearance rather than just stating the color of their eyes or what they’re wearing.

You can turn a distinctly uninteresting feature into something interesting by describing the consequences (good or bad) of that feature.

The devil is in the detail; when your character is alive, they’ll notice little details about the world and people around them. These details should be meaningful. For example, connected to the emotion, the action, or the symbolism of the scene.

Try and sprinkle a few unexpected moments into your novel. Be it in the dialogue, descriptions or characterization. When something is unexpected, it’s memorable.

Exercises for you to try:

Create a new character and answer the following questions from section 10.6:

What is unique about your character or what could you make interesting?

What are the consequences, good or bad, of the physical description you’re describing?

How does this character make your protagonist feel?

What detail does your protagonist notice about this character that no one else does?

Step 11 Self-Editing

11.0 Self-Editing

In which we discover editing is not, in fact, editing, we cosplay our manuscripts, have a hot fire quiz round, and I give you a checklist of sorts.

Types of Paid Edit

A lot of writers when they start writing don’t necessarily realize there are different types of edits. While this step focuses on self-editing it would be remiss of me not to give a brief explanation of the different types of editing. Depending on where you’re at in your writing journey depends on the type of edit you’ll need.

There are several types of professional paid edits you might want to have. Each of them serves a different purpose and each of them has a different price tag attached.

The Developmental Edit (dev edit)

Broadly speaking the most expensive form of edit is a dev edit. It looks at story structure, your strengths and areas for development, story pace, characterization, plot, theme, setting, consistency. You’ll receive a lot of feedback both in-line on your story prose as well as an overall feedback letter.

Line Edits

Copy-editors look at the sentence level of prose and story. Checking for linguistic errors, be it consistency or grammar and spelling. They will look to identify areas of your prose you can correct like over- or under-description. They’ll spot clichés or bad habits like telling instead of showing or overuse of crutch words and adverbs.

It’s useful to know that some developmental editors will do a lot of this work too. That’s why it’s important to always check the terms and conditions of your editor’s website and make sure you’re clear about the type of edit you’re getting and what’s included.

I, for example, do developmental edits, but within that, I also do much of the copy edit—except the grammar! So always check the T’s and C’s so you’re getting value for money.

Proof Reading/Proof Edits

This comes down to error spotting. Is your formatting consistent? Are you using single or double speech marks, are you using an asterisk for a scene break in one chapter and then gaps or other symbols in another chapter? Other details like double spaces, typos, and inconsistent headings etc.

But before you get to paid edits, you need to make sure your manuscript is in the best shape possible. You do that through the self-edit.

11.1 The Self-Edit

In a way, much of this book is about the art of self-editing. It’s about hacking and pruning your words until they sing sweet, sweet prose. Which is why this chapter will share tools and techniques for editing as well as a round-up checklist of everything in this book you need to do to prune that prose.

When you tap away at a manuscript and finally write those gloriously shiny words “THE END” your brain tends to shit itself in an explosion of hysteria and manic screaming—just me?

Awkward.

See, this end-of-book-hysteria leads writers to forget that they have a whole can of editing worms that need ripping open. What happens next will depend in large part whether you vomit out a first draft or you edit as you go. But here’s the thing, editing isn’t just “editing.” Editing has different elements and to edit your manuscript properly, you need to cover all of them, but a lot of writers only do one. Let me explain, the two main forms of editing are: revising and editing. Together, they are the sisters that create prose perfection. But they’re different processes and they achieve different things.

Revising involves sorting out the big picture. It uses the big picture brain rather than the detailed brain. It involves making sure:

Your story flows

The pace and structure are right

Your characters have a solid character arc and sufficient depth

You’ve closed off all the story threads

The tension is solid throughout the story

We all have different ways of working, and some writers will do both of these things simultaneously. As long as you’re finishing books, that’s all that matters. But typically, it’s easier to revise first: fix the big problems then work down to the sentence level.

Editing, however, is nittier and grittier. Editing requires a more detailed brain and digs deep into your sentences enabling you to polish that prose to perfection. It involves:

Checking grammar and punctuation

Removing typos

Checking for consistencies and continuity

Fact checking

Correcting formatting errors

11.2 Top Tips for Self-Editing

Look, we all write differently, we all edit differently, so I’m not going to sit here and tell you the best way to get through your self-edits. Instead I’m going to give you lots of tips, tricks, and tools for editing; as for the what to look for, go back and read the book.

Read your manuscript on a different device. I know, I know. You like what you like and you don’t want to change. But believe me, reading on a different device helps you see your manuscript with fresh eyes. If you don’t believe me, try it! I go from drafting in Scrivener—with a yellow tone background—to editing in Microsoft Word with a white screen. Then once I’ve accepted all my editor’s changes, I download the manuscript and read it one more time on an eInk Kindle device. I know writers who like to print their manuscripts off and hand edit and even some who switch computers. How you switch device doesn’t really matter, doing it though, does.

Error Spotting aka cosplaying your manuscript. No, really. I mean it. Change your manuscript font to something very different from whatever you typed in and have a read. You’ll be amazed at how much more you can pick up.

Rap it Like Snoop Dawg. If you want to produce audiobooks, you can always narrate the manuscript aloud. Perhaps as a practice round for audiobook recording. It means you’ll have to make changes to your manuscript on the fly, but speaking aloud will help you pick up flow errors, punctuation issues, stilted awkward prose and a host of other issues like missing or duplicated words. If you really don’t want to read it aloud yourself try using some of the natural language processors out there. Google “text to speech” and you’ll find various free options.

Use word frequency checkers to check for duplicated words and crutch words. Don’t look for the words repeated eleven hundred times. They’re going to be words like “and,” “the,” and “it.” We’re not worried about those words. The words you need to worry about are the words repeated 10 to 60 times—or more if you have a real bitch of a habit. Check for instances in that range and you’ll likely pull out your crutch words.

Likewise, you can use a word cloud generator to make the word frequency checker more of a visual guide if you prefer that instead.

Use online editing tools like the Hemingway app or Grammarly to check for adverbs or obvious typos your tired eyes haven’t noticed. Remember, though, these are pieces of software and they may not always be correct, so take their advice but make sure you question anything you disagree with.

Last, I have a top tip for editing your characters from Rebel Author Podcast guest, Damon Suede. Check out episode 20 to hear the rest of the interview at pod.link/rebelauthor

“To bring your characters to life, check each page for instances of: is, was, were, has. These are passive verbs and states of being. Go through every page of your manuscript and look for occasions where you’re telling someone e.g., is something, was something or a group of people were something or they have something. These are all states of being and moods. But the minute you replace that with the character doing something actively and transitively your story comes to life in a different way. Even if it’s a feeling, even if it’s something related to the worldbuilding or the scene setting or the POV, by activating the language, literally activating the language, you bring your characters to life in a different way. Then every sentence actually characterizes your people. It’s driving the narrative instead of relying on sort of nouns and adjectives, which are kind of sexy, but concrete like bricks.” Damon Suede, author of Verbalize and Activate.

11.3 Editing Checklist

I’ve created a downloadable version of this checklist which you can get by joining my mailing list. You can get that here: sachablack.co.uk/prosedownload

Before you read the below, I don’t want you to get overwhelmed. Yes, the below is a long old list, but once you’ve written a few books and done a few sets of edits, a lot of this will become subconscious and you won’t need to refer to a checklist because you’ll automate checking for adverbs and strong verbs. There’s no summary for this step as the checklist below provides a neat summary of the whole book.

Manuscript Checks

White Space

Have you varied the amount of white space you have on each page? Or do you have pages of dense prose or pages of rapid-fire dialogue?

Sentence Length

Similarly, have you varied your sentence length? Do you have longer sentences where you want to draw out and slow down the pace? Have you shortened your sentences in action scenes? Are you varying the rhythm and flow of sentences?

Detail Variations

Are you varying the amount of detail in your manuscript? Do you have dense detail where things are important? Check the level of detail when worldbuilding, is there enough or too little? Have you information dumped? If you’re trying to draw a reader’s attention to one particular area, have you provided sufficient detail? Have you gone light on detail where you want to use narrative summary to move the story onwards or things are less important?

Foreshadowing

Have you dropped enough breadcrumbs in your manuscript and early enough for your reader’s subconscious to pick up on the clues? Have you used symbolism or other literary tricks to make the foreshadowing subtle?

Tense and POV Check

I made a grave mistake once. I didn’t check what tense I wanted to write a story in before I started pounding out the words. The result was an intensely painful month correcting the entire 67,000-word manuscript and checking every single sentence, rewording descriptions and paragraphs. It hurt. Like, really hurt. I didn’t make the same mistake again.

Before I get too far into a new series or book, I write out a few paragraphs in various tenses and POVs. You can’t really tell the best POV or tense for a story until you start writing it and read some of it back. Characters are demonstrative, they have their own voices and they wanna do what they wanna do. Just because you write one story in one tense and POV doesn’t mean your next is going to be the same. Don’t be me. Experiment, it will save you a lot of pain later.

When you’ve got your various POVs and tenses, decide which feels right to you through intuition. Feel for the flow, immediacy, and naturalness of your words. Which version sounds most like your character?

Consistency

One of your read throughs needs to check for consistency. Make sure if your main character starts your story called Bob, he ends it called Bob too. Check for continuity errors with height and weight and clothing and even time of day in each scene. It helps to keep a file with all your information on characters including spelling of names and locations.

Start and Ends of Chapters (Scene Anchoring)

Check the start and end of chapters to make sure the prose is different. Don’t always start with the same character or the same entry type, such as dialogue, time of day, or description.

Have you checked all your scene openings are anchored?

Character Checks

Character Names

Check your character list, make sure you don’t have too many character names starting (or ending) with the same letter or sounds.

Important Shit Is, Well, Important

Have you slowed down your prose when something is important to your protagonist or when it’s an intensely emotional scene? Do you describe those moments in detail? On the flip side of that puppy, do you skim over the things that aren’t important like transitions and elapses of time?

Character Image

Do you describe your characters within a few paragraphs of them being introduced to the story? Are you dropping breadcrumb reminders about their physical appearance and their personality throughout the rest of the story? Have you turned potentially boring features into interesting ones by describing the consequences of that feature? Have you changed a character’s name too often or given them too many nicknames?

Sentence Checks

Naming Emotions

When you read through your manuscript, check for any instances where you’ve named emotions. Where you’ve named them make sure you establish whether it was for speed or if you were vomiting words and actually need to go back and show rather than tell.

Verbs

In one of your edits, actively scan your verbs. Are they as strong as they could be? If not, up the ante. The more specific your words, the greater the imagery.

Sentence Starters

Check your sentences don’t always start with I, he, she, or a character name. You can switch these around quickly by starting with the action in that sentence.

Filtering

Remove as many instances of filtering as possible.

Lose the Meaningless

Check your sentences and see whether there are any words that can be removed without the sentence losing its meaning. If you can remove them without affecting the sentence, do. Are your sentences complicated? Is there a simpler way to say what you’re saying?

Repetition

Check for repetition at every level:

Sentence level repetition. Such as repeated words or the same word used but with a differing meaning or context

Repeated description or overused phrases

Repeated metaphors

Repeated plot points or personality traits

Repeated names or character name sounds and letters

Crutch words

Eradicate Crutch Words

Use Wordle or a similar word frequency checker to run your manuscript through. It will show you where your word repetition habits are. With a quick find and replace search in your drafting program, you can weed out those pesky crutch words and make your prose tighter.

ing and as

Check your manuscript for uses of ing and as. If you have lots on a page, try and remove some. It will strengthen your sentences and make your prose more impactful.

Passive Voice

Delete it. Delete it all.

Removing Complexity

If you don’t not have complex negatives, it’s best to remove them… I’ll say that again simply, if you have complex negatives, get rid of them. The simplest way to say something is usually the best way. Likewise, with technical, foreign, or made-up words. Keep these in balance and make sure the reader fully understands them.

Illogical Descriptions

Check for any descriptions that don’t make logical sense. Remember there’s nothing quiet or soft about a lion’s roar; they wanna eat you, they don’t want to pet you.

Dialogue Checks

Dialogue

Review your dialogue to ensure your characters aren’t naming each other too frequently. Check for overuse of dialogue tags especially adverb tags. Read through your dialogue and make sure your characters aren’t interrupted repeatedly. Do your tags match the tone of your dialogue? Do you have a balance of inner monologue in your prose? Have you differentiated the dialogue between characters? Have you removed unnecessary exposition in your dialogue?

Dialogue Tags

Check your dialogue tags. Are you predominantly using said or says? If you’re using lots of descriptive words try and reduce the number.

Action Tags

Are you using action tags when you shouldn’t? I see manuscripts filled with dialogue like this:

“I don’t think so,” she chuckled.

You can’t chuckle a reply, neither can you muse it, smile it, or choke it. I mean, guys, come on… have you actually tried to choke a reply? Try it, I dare you.

DO NOT TRY IT.

What are you doing?

Sit the fuck down.

Choking a reply is a life-threatening exercise for goodness sake.

*please do not try this at home*

Contractions

Where appropriate, make sure you’re using contractions. This is a handy trick for reducing word count too. Check for adverbs, do a search for “ly” and list them in the side bar or highlight them as you’re reading through. Where you see more than one in a short space, see if you can delete the word. If you don’t lose any of the meaning, then you didn’t need it anyway.

Step 12 Literary Holy Grails

12.0 Literary Holy Grails

Where we go to the theatre, Obi Wan and Asimov have a love child, we do our best Hansel and Gretel impression, and boom-bang our little bootie bang bangs.

We writers are lucky. There are lots of tools, techniques, and devices at our fingertips, ready and waiting for us to pluck their little demonstrative selves out of our literary toolboxes and dot their inky bodies onto the page. Whether it’s alliteration, metaphors, or an Oxford comma, there’s hundreds of the little fellas desperate to be used.

This whole book examines a range of tools and techniques, some more in-depth than others. But here, we’re going to whip through some of the most frequently used tools at our finger tips. Think of it as a pick and mix of literary pot luck. Come back here when you want to spice up your paragraphs and prose.

A small note, though, there are an inordinate number of literary devices, which if I were to cover them all in a single book, would look like a fifty-volume encyclopedia. So, I’ve cherry-picked a few of the ones I think have the most impact on writing and included them here. That’s why this chapter is last—think of it as a reference section to be read and then returned to when your prose needs a little spice.

12.1 Point of View

Book Level Devices

In the first part of this step, we will examine higher level devices, devices that affect the story as a whole rather than the sentence level, which we will come to next.

Point of View

Point of view (POV) is perhaps the most important device to consider before you start your novel. I say “before” because I learnt the hard way that deciding you don’t like the POV you’ve written your novel in after the fact is a bitch to correct.

Point of view describes the person or narrator telling the story in your book. That’s why POV is so important, you’re shaping the eyes your reader will view your story through. POV determines how close you allow your reader to get to your characters.

The four main points of view are:

First person

Second person

Third person limited

Third person omniscient

First Person POV

First person POV is the closest POV there is. The reader looks directly through your character’s eyes. The prose will sound something like this:

Blood smears Scarlet’s cheek in dark crusted lines. She pants, her shoulders rising and falling in the same rhythm as the blood dripping from the deep gouge in her forearm. A laceration splits her eyebrow, and despite the cuts and the blade dangling from her fingers, all I can think about is how she’ll love the scars. They’ll match her other ones. In a week’s time she’ll brag over a whiskey about how they complement her aged leather jacket and buckled boots. And I’ll tell her they also complement her permanent scowl and husky grunts too. But that will only encourage her. It will fuel her thirst for the warped life she’s drowning in. My chest shrinks as the words I know I have to say crawl into my throat.

“This has to stop.” I sound weak. So I stand straighter, faking the confidence I need to try and save her. “Don’t you get it? Killing doesn’t make you a hero.”

Her eyes narrow at me. I know this look so well. She’s stopped listening.

“I think you’ll find this is the very definition of heroic”—she raises her finger at me—“if you’re killing the bad guys, that is.”

“They’re still someone’s brother or sister or father.”

She snorts, “Who are you trying to save, Pen, me or them?” Sacha Black, Murdering Magicians.

The words “my” and “I” pull the reader into that character’s body and allow the reader to observe only what they see.

First person POV is a seemingly controversial one. It, more than any other POV has come under intense scrutiny over the years as it’s waxed and waned in and out of fashion. In the late 2010s, it grew in popularity again, particularly in Young Adult novels. But you can also find it regularly in memoir and autobiographies as well as some psychological thrillers, to name but a few examples.

The effect first person POV has is to make a story intimate. It’s deeply personal to the protagonist and therefore the reader. In a way, it’s easier to make your reader feel for your hero because everything is about the hero. But this also creates difficulties if your hero becomes too whiny or irritating. It also makes your story wildly biased because unless you have multiple first person POVs using different characters, your entire story is told purely from one character’s perspective and opinions. In the above example, we only have Penny’s opinion, which is clearly in contradiction to the other character—Scarlet—who believes her actions are heroic.

It also makes it difficult to convey events and conversations that happen without the protagonist being present. Personally, I love the first person POV because it enables you to go deep in the prose; every sentence allows you to go further under the skin of one character and the inner workings of their mind and emotions.

Second Person POV

Second person POV uses the pronouns you and your. For this reason, it’s rare to find an entire fictional novel written in the second person POV as it’s an uncomfortable way of both speaking and narrating. You is quite an accusatory word—it demands your attention because the sentence is being directed straight at you, the reader. That said, there are non-fiction books that use the second person POV as the author is speaking directly to you as the reader. I’ve used you in this book a number of times. There are examples of second person POV in fiction, though. And, in a case of supremely convenient serendipity, the last book I read happened to do just that:

“You try to speak but the words don’t make sense. They’re dry and rasping and confused. I try not to cry. For a second I wish you’d just come back or leave completely. This in-between is no good for anyone.” Sarah Pinborough, The Language of Dying.

In the Language of Dying, the story is told predominantly in first person POV. Interestingly, we never learn the protagonist’s name and despite that, the reader still feels so much of her pain and loss. When the protagonist talks about her father—who’s death the book is about—she refers to him only as “you.” I highly recommend reading this book if you’re interested in second person POV as a narrative technique or you’d like to examine the impact it has on prose at the sentence level. Or, indeed, the impact of not having a name for your protagonist.

Third Person Limited

Third person limited, also known as third person intimate, takes the reader one step away from the protagonist. The reader and characters are no longer spooning, but don’t worry, there’s enough closeness—they’re in the same bed and holding hands.

The narrative is “limited” to one person’s head—unless you’re using multiple characters to narrate. But because of the limitation, the reader retains a level of closeness to the protagonist. However, instead of looking directly through the protagonist’s eyes with “I” and “my,” you’re removed slightly by the use of he and she pronouns. I’ve rewritten the above example in the third person to show you the difference:

Blood smears Scarlet’s cheek in dark crusted lines. She pants, her shoulders rising and falling in the same rhythm as the blood dripping from the deep gouge in her forearm. A laceration splits her eyebrow, but despite the cuts and the blade dangling from her fingers, all Penny can think about is how Scarlet will love the scars. How they’ll match her other ones. In a week’s time Scarlet will brag over a whiskey about how they complement her aged leather jacket and buckled boots. And Penny will tell her they also complement her permanent scowl and husky grunts. But that will only encourage Scarlet. It will fuel her thirst for the warped life she’s drowning in.

Penny’s chest shrinks as the words she knows she has to say crawl into her throat.

“This has to stop,” Penny says, but her words are weak. She stands straighter, faking the confidence she needs to try and save Scarlet. “Don’t you get it? Killing doesn’t make you a hero.”

Scarlet’s eyes narrow.

Penny knows this look so well: Scarlet’s stopped listening.

“I think you’ll find this is the very definition of heroic,” Scarlet says and raises her finger at Penny, “if you’re killing the bad guys, that is.”

“They’re still someone’s brother or sister or father.”

Scarlet snorts, “Who are you trying to save, Pen, me or them?”

If you’re writing about difficult or emotionally traumatic topics, third person limited may be a good choice. Equally, sometimes the story flows and feels better in this POV than another. Much of getting the right POV is about experimentation. Sometimes a character’s voice demands one POV over another and there’s no way to know that without trialing a scene or three in the different POVs.

Third Person Omniscient aka Playing God

Third person omniscient is the most removed of all POVs. While it still uses the he and she pronouns, there’s one key difference between the omniscient view point and the limited view point: Omniscient narrators are god-like, they’re all knowing. This means they know everything the characters know and more. They’re a big fat chopper floating above the story and characters, seeing and knowing everything they do. But this also makes it a difficult POV to write as your story isn’t biased to any one character’s eyes. Here’s an example:

“Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

There are only four points of view, but it’s one of the harder decisions an author has to make as it shapes so much of the story’s voice. We’re moving on, but I’ll leave you with one final idea…

Quick Tip: Before you start your novel “proper,” take a passage or piece of dialogue or half a scene and write it in all four points of view. Read them back to yourself and decide which feels the most right. Sometimes it can take a few attempts and a few scenes before you settle on a POV but doing it in advance will save you serious time and money later.

12.2 Fourth Wall Breaks

Once upon a time, I had a mythical childless evening and the wife and I hot-footed it to the movies before my mother came to her senses and promptly handed the terror-tot back. We went to see the first Deadpool movie. When I heard about Deadpool I braced myself for some Marvel comic pornstar love fest between Obi Wan and Asimov. Though I loved the movie, the hybrid love child was not to be. Instead, I discovered the use of one of those literary techniques I’d always known about, but didn’t know I knew.

Okay, let me start again… Imagine you’re at the theater, sat in velvet red seats shoveling overpriced candy in your gob. The lights go down and you hear the first shriek from a glass-shattering soprano. You expect to be entertained. Not interacted with. This isn’t a “he’s behind you” Panto or an interview. This is theater, or in our case, the movies.

The point is, the actors are on stage, not you. There’s a barrier between you and the actors. Whether that’s a movie screen, the invisible line between the stage and the neck-breaking front row, or the page between the reader and the character. It’s there, and it has a name: the fourth wall.

Breaking the fourth wall means a character will acknowledge the fact they’re a character and speak directly to the audience.

The fourth wall separates the reader or viewer. The wall allows us to view the world through the eyes of the protagonist. In effect, we become the protagonist, seeing the story unfold through their eyes, opinions, and emotions.

When that fourth wall gets broken, we can no longer embody the characters in the same way. They become entities in their own right.

Now, you might be jumping at the chance to use a fourth wall break, and I wouldn’t blame you, there’s a lot of reasons to use them but know this: breaking the fourth wall is irreversible. It’s also jarring for the reader. That aside, it can be fantastic for creating humor, comebacks, insults, or satirical narration.

Fourth wall breaks are best used when readers least expect it. Deadpool, for example, uses it in the opening scene in the middle of an action fight scene. Something that’s supposed to be fast-paced and continuous until there’s a winner. It works as a fourth wall break here because the viewer (or perhaps in the comics, the reader) doesn’t expect it.

Just because you break the fourth wall, doesn't mean you then need to break it all the time. In fact, I’d recommend you don’t. Use it sparingly. It’s a shock tactic, which is great, but if you use shock tactics too often, the shock and awe decreases each time, making it a less effective tool.

Breaking the fourth wall is a narrative technique. Which means if you do break it, you need to ensure it’s broken for a reason. Comedy is great, but because of the jarring effect, a wall-break should serve a deeper purpose—for example, giving readers an insight into the protagonist’s mindset or character. This deepens the relationship with the reader and also gives depth to the character.

Examples of fourth wall breaks in literature include Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, and The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. You can also see several examples in movies and TV including Deadpool, Fight Club, and Spaceballs.

12.3 Allusion

Allusion reminds me a little of fourth wall breaks. It occurs when an author refers to another character or event or literary work within their story with the aim of adding depth and context—for example, if your character was shouting at another character and said something like:

“You’re not Peter Pan, Jim. Grow up.”

Though you don’t have to name a character for it to be classed as allusion. Your character could have easily said “This isn’t Neverland, Jim. Grow up,” and it would still be an allusion.

Be warned though, allusion is a slippery devil. If you refer to something unknown, you’re jeopardizing the prose you’ve just written. If your reader doesn’t know who you’re referring to, you’ll lose them and the purpose of the allusion is gone. If you intend to use allusion as a tool, try to refer to very famous texts or works.

12.4 Juxtapositions

One of my favorite quotes of all time is a juxtaposition. I think juxtapositions might be my personal literary obsessions; they’re so flexible and create a huge amount of depth in your writing.

“I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.” Yohji Yamamoto.

I adore this quote because “perfection” is a thing that’s meant to be inherently faultless and superior. But in Yohji’s eyes, it’s ugly. It flips what you expect to hear on its head and gives you the polar opposite and something unexpected.

A juxtaposition is when you place two things close together or side by side, for the purpose of comparison or contrast.

Juxtapositions are like all sexy and sultry like Marilyn Monroe, and they do a damn good job of it too. They create metaphors and similes and draw the reader in through stark imagery that brings depth to your words. More than anything though, juxtapositions give you conflict and resolution: goals and obstacles, heroes and villains. Pitting opposing, unexpected things against each other creates Yin and Yang. Something that should emulate disparity but actually creates harmony.

You can use juxtapositions on a macro or micro level.

Macro Juxtapositions

If you think about it, the hero in just about every book written is a juxtaposition himself. He starts out flawed, but by the end of the book is whole again. Likewise, when you create your hero’s goal, you normally juxtapose what they want with what they have to do to get it. Which creates the conflict that drives the plot.

Micro Juxtapositions

On the micro scale, you can use juxtapositions in description and worldbuilding, sentences, dialogue, narration, and inner thought. It’s also a handy technique for evoking emotion and deepening characterization. In fact, I’m struggling to think of a single place you can’t use a juxtaposition!

Here’s an example that I use frequently to explain juxtapositions:

“Beneath the beauty and the charm and the sharp sparkle of her personality, she had a core of steel. She was like a blade wrapped in a bouquet of orchids. I hoped to god whoever took her made the mistake of underestimating her.” Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood.

In this example, there are contrasting comparisons a-plenty. Beauty and charm are pitted against the sharpness of the character’s personality. There’s a weapon (a blade) which is then contrasted against the softness of petals and flowers.

Juxtapositions are particularly effective at evoking emotion because humans are complex. We often feel multiple emotions at the same time.

“For example, when a loved one passes away after a long and traumatic illness most are desperately sad, but some will also feel relieved that their relative is no longer in pain and the trauma is over for everyone.” Sacha Black, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist.

When you layer and contrast emotions in this kind of juxtaposition, it brings a sense of depth and realism to your character.

12.5 Foreshadowing

According to Dictionary.com, foreshadowing is:

“To show or indicate beforehand; prefigure:”

In other words, foreshadowing involves doing your best Hansel and Gretel impression. Successful foreshadowing drops tiny breadcrumbs in key places throughout your story for readers to pick up. If done correctly, it’s like really good foreplay. It preps and builds readers up for your climax. Which should… if you’ve primed them well enough, leave them wholly satisfied and… erm… breathless!

Bad foreshadowing though, is the death of a climax, it leaves readers feeling disappointed and cheated.

Loaded Guns

There’s a physical form of foreshadowing that Anton Chekov referred to as a loaded gun.

“One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.” Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev (pseudonym of A. S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889.

Every word you write, every sentence you type is a promise from you to your readers. Readers place their attention in your hands. If you show them something, they naturally assume it’s of relevance. If you describe a door, readers will expect your protagonist to walk through it.

The art of “loaded guns” is to make them seem insignificant at the time of noticing so that they recede into the reader’s subconscious. If you show a loaded gun in a draw or on a table it should be insignificant at the time. But later, it should become the gun that kills the villain, or wounds the protagonist.

The point here isn’t necessarily about a gun, but something tangible, be it a physical object, a person, or a piece of ethereal magic. For example, it could be drugs, poison, a weapon, or a phone. As long as the object seems insignificant at the time, it will sneak into your reader’s subconscious ready to give the wow factor upon reveal.

While we’ve talked about the concept of loaded guns as a physical object, the object doesn’t actually have to be present. The item can be missing and create the same effect. Perhaps a character thought she placed a magic stone on a mantel but returns later and discovers it missing. If enough chapters have elapsed, your protagonist and reader alike will doubt their memory. A delightfully devilish trick. This is especially good for ratcheting up tension.

For example, let’s say your protagonist, Sarah, is a competitive runner at school, but she also happens to be severely asthmatic. Perhaps her best friend, Jane, is also her biggest sports rival on the track team. What if the night before their big race Jane comes over for post-training dinner and gossip. They chat in Sarah’s bedroom and Sarah puts her inhaler on the bedside table. The tension is high between them. They both need to win the race the next day if they want to get the only scholarship to the college they both want to go to. What if Sarah left her inhaler on the bedside table and went to the toilet leaving Jane alone in her room? In the morning, the inhaler is gone. The reader will assume Jane took it even if she didn’t.

How Do You Foreshadow?

Warnings, advice, black cats, metaphors, similes, any literary tool you use to describe one thing when you really mean another, can be used to symbolize or foreshadow something else.

The white dove that flies past at the end of a battle scene: foreshadowing. Beauty and the Beast’s red rose? Foreshadowing. The red and roses represent love and the falling petals foreshadow the potential doom of the beast. Or what about this infamous example when Romeo says:

“My life were better ended by their hate,

Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene ii.

Here, Juliet is on her balcony. Romeo has snuck onto the Capulet property. Juliet is fearful of the consequences should he get caught on her land. But Romeo is indignant, he would rather die sooner at the guard’s hands than live longer but forever wanting her love. And of course, while he ends up with her love, he dies for it too.

That’s all wonderful, but how do you master foreshadowing?

Priming

Foreshadowing is best used as early as possible. Priming the reader before they know what your story is about sets them up to accept your ending subconsciously. The art of foreshadowing is telling your reader’s subconscious what’s coming, whilst keeping their conscious mind in the dark. Let’s look at some examples of how you can foreshadow.

I re-watched Spectre—the James Bond movie—the other day. Spoiler alert… It foreshadows by the book. The very first thing you see as part of the movie is a phrase popping up on the screen: The dead are alive…

Now, it’s a juxtaposed phrase—and you know how much I love a good juxtaposition, it made my bits all tingly. It got me thinking, how can the dead possibly be alive? Cue the movie panning to a festival scene: the Day of the Dead (Dia de Muertos) in Mexico. Most movie goers will then connect the phrase “the dead are alive” to the party goers at the festival and think nothing more of it. But us writers can’t help digging deep. Remember the movie’s title “Spectre” is also a synonym for ghost, or arguably something with a form of life even though it’s dead. The movie’s climax reveals the bad guy to be someone Bond thought was dead. *Mic drop.*

The

dead

are, in fact,

alive

Mr. Bond.

It was right there in the opening scene. It was in the sodding title for goodness sake. The lesson here is that it’s never too early to prime your audience. Be it in a quote above Chapter 1, in the blurb, the book cover, or even the title.

Breadcrumbs

J.K. Rowling is a master weaver of breadcrumbs. Right from the outset, Rowling dropped breadcrumbs in the early books that weren’t relevant until book six or seven. For example:

The locket found in Sirius’s house in book five ends up being a Horcrux in book six.

In Chapter 1 of the first Harry Potter book, Hagrid rides a motorbike and tells Dumbledore it’s borrowed from young Mr. Black—a character readers dismiss as irrelevant because we don’t hear from him again. Until we get to book three, that is. Then Sirius Black is highly relevant.

These breadcrumbs might be minuscule, but they all serve a purpose. They’re laid out for our subconscious to register, but inconspicuous enough that our conscious minds don’t pick up on them as clues. This is how the big reveal blows our mind and leaves us swimming in a puddle of “ohmygodohmygod” and “holyshitballs, how did we not see it coming?”

The other factor that’s important in creating good foreshadowing is to show rather than tell the reader. When you tell the reader, the clue you’re leaving doesn’t plant as effectively in their subconscious. For example, in Spectre, instead of showing childhood memories, the majority of the clues to the villain’s identity came from Bond picking up a photo and Franz—the villain’s—monologue where he admits to killing Bond’s adoptive father. But because we’re told rather than shown this, we aren’t emotionally invested—or I wasn’t anyway. A better tactic is to show flashbacks of Bond’s youth and have Bond recount memories before the big reveal. This would also embed the foreshadowing.

Another example is to drop repeated emotional breadcrumbs. Have one of your characters make a mildly underhand comment to another character, creating a subtle shift in body language or even having words left unspoken.

In Victor, book two of my YA fantasy series, Eden and her best friend, Bo, fall out at the end of the book; there are subtle clues throughout the story if only Eden had seen them. For example, early on in the story, Bo makes a comment about Eden’s new position at school as head girl. It’s not overtly harsh, but it’s clear Bo isn’t jumping for joy for Eden.

“‘I heard it’s a lot of governors’ board meetings and administration,’ Bo says, shrugging. As we rest our cases on the floor, I glance over to her, unsure of what that comment meant.” Sacha Black, Victor.

The plot moves on immediately. So readers (and Eden) dismiss it at face value, though the seed and subtext have been planted. Consider how these small details add up over the course of your story. It’s time to get your cookies out baby, what smaller foreshadowing-like or subtext crumbs can you add into your prose in order to hint at larger emotions?

Misdirection

Misdirection is like oxygen for foreshadowing. It’s essential. That said, you can’t misdirect everyone. Some readers know a genre so intimately it’s almost impossible to pull the wool over their eyes. But you do need to try and misdirect your readers enough they’re put off the scent of your true reveal. Word of caution, though, my little Sherlocks—this is about balance, misdirect a reader too much and they disbelieve your ending.

The reason I love the Spectre example is because it gives the clue “the dead are alive” but immediately misdirects the audience by panning into a festival for the dead. It works because the festival is still symbolic of the dead are alive concept, but not so close to the truth that you’d connect it to Bond’s family.

The Big Reveal

It might sound obvious, but… if you’re going to lay down breadcrumbs you actually need to use them. If you don’t, a reader’s subconscious can be an irritating little swine and make their conscious mind feel like strings have been left untied. The result? Readers feel like your story is unfinished. Remember Chekov’s gun? Don’t plant a clue if you’re not going to use it.

Quick Tip: It’s worth making a note of every breadcrumb you leave in your story as you create them so you don’t drop subplots or leave points open that should be resolved.

Emotional Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing with emotion is one of the more common forms of foreshadowing I see in manuscripts. We do it in real life too. You know when your back itches and you’re convinced someone’s watching you? Spoiler alert—they probably are. *Whispers* call the police. Or what about when your gut churns because you know you’ve been summoned to the principal’s office for a scolding? A protagonist with a dose of apprehension is another great way to foreshadow. Make sure you’re describing their visceral reactions though, show the apprehension in your prose through gut churns and cold sweats or whatever bodily fluid you choose to highlight. If the protagonist knows something is coming, the reader will too. The excitement comes from not knowing what is on its way.

Likewise, another character being concerned about the protagonist is a sure-fire indicator that shit is about to occur. You know, like when a character’s mom is all, whatever you do, stay off the farm road? Yeah, you sooo know the kid is going down the farm road and you know it’s gon’ be baaad. Wait for it… wait for it… Don’t say it kid, Don’t sa—

“I’ll be fine, Mom.”

*facepalm*

Kiss of death that, sonny Jim.

12.6 Character Lies

Characters think. A lot. It’s how we get to know them. Characters also tell themselves lies, especially around their flaws. Nobody wants to be flawed. Ignorance is bliss. The lie protects them in the first act of the book from having to change and face their obstacles. When a character tells themselves a lie, it’s a form of foreshadowing because the reader will view the lie as an omen. Here’s an obvious example:

As I approached my childhood home my stomach furled into knots. It was probably just hunger, I’d missed breakfast after all. But as that familiar acrid scent of stale cooking fat and fried food drifted across the street, the memories I’d been suppressing for so long crashed into sharp focus.

Here, the reader knows the character is lying to himself about hunger because of the sentence that follows. Whatever the memories are the fact they “crash” into his mind in “sharp” focus provides the negative omen for the reader. We know nothing good comes in crashes and that kind of unwanted focus. However, you could make it subtler by removing the sharp focus:

As I approached my childhood home my stomach furled into knots. It was probably just hunger, I’d missed breakfast after all. But as that familiar acrid scent of stale cooking fat and fried food drifted across the street, my stomach tightened another notch.

We’re no longer giving the reader clues using memories, but a visceral reaction instead. There’s something universal about visceral reactions. We’ve all felt a gut-punching realization and all-consuming adrenaline kick. It’s universal because every human’s felt it. We all know the lies we’ve told ourselves in those situations. We know the omen it brings the protagonist because we’ve been there in real life. It’s carnal, protective, innate. That’s why it works. It’s a shared, knowing familiarity between protagonist and reader.

12.7 Prologues, Prophecies, and Quotes

There’s loads of writing advice that tells you not to write a prologue. But fuck that, it’s your book and if you want to write a prologue, do it. A well-thought out prologue, used intentionally for misdirection or seed planting can go a long way. It’s a J.K. Rowling style misdirect because the prologue is so far away from the big reveal that whatever happens in the prologue, will have long been forgotten by your reader’s conscious mind. Just make sure your prologue serves a purpose and isn’t an excuse for information dumping.

Name that Event

When a character mentions a significant event in a story’s future, perhaps a wedding, a family event, or a big ceremony, it becomes an omen: good or bad. Readers know everything goes to shit for a protagonist before it gets fixed. Which is why these events usually become omens of trouble or promises of happily ever afters. A classic example of this comes from Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games and the mention of the “Reaping” in the first paragraph becomes the inciting incident, drawing Katniss—the protagonist—into the games.

Prophecies

Prophecies are similar to prologues in the sense they usually come early in a book or book series and are a form of foreshadowing, albeit a more sledgehammer-to-the-face form. Prophecies tend to be used in fantasy-style books, but if you do use one, it needs to have a purpose and be integrated as part of the world you’ve created. A prophecy needs to be believable and credible and therefore have a justifiable reason for existing. Otherwise it can be seen as a tool for fixing an ending which more often than not leads to cheesy clichés.

Epigraphs, Quotes, and Chapter Blurbs

An epigraph is a quote from a previously published work placed under a new book’s chapter title or beginning of a book. Usually, it’s in italics and used to allude to something, symbolize a concept, or to help the reader understand a deeper meaning.

Quotes are something I love using. I unintentionally used intro quotes in my first fiction book and then fell in love with it as a tactic. But I never thought to use it in non-fiction until recently.

At the top of each step, I’ve included a summarized blurb of what the chapter entails. It’s written in a sarcastic, fun way on purpose. It’s meant to embody the most extreme bits of my voice as well as the essence of the chapter.

I write fantasy, so in my fiction, I include quotes, journal entries, proverbs, excerpts from books from the world my characters inhabit and more. It’s part worldbuilding, part insight, part quirk. I like it, I think it gives readers something more. But it’s not a tactic everyone likes or appreciates.

Here’s an example of one of the quotes in Keepers.

“Father always said not to trust a Fallon that can’t keep the Balance. I should have listened.” Sacha Black, Keepers.

Above Chapter 10 is the following quote:

“‘Binding—The moment two perfectly Balanced souls are joined for eternity.’ From the Dictionary of Balance.” Sacha Black, Keepers.

You don’t have to use them, they’re champagne and caviar—a complete indulgence. But I like the fact you get an opportunity to give your readers something else, a little snippet or insight. You don’t have to use them in this way, either. You could have quotes from real life poems or letters from characters or anything you can possibly dream of.

12.8 White Space

Readers like to see something called white space, aka the white or cream page the text is printed on. This “white space” phenomenon describes the layout of prose on the printed page and the desire for a balance between printed text and empty white space. Now, readers seeing white space may sound counterintuitive given they are coming to your book to see printed words. But the phenomenon of white space is more about keeping the flow of your prose, dialogue and action in balance and thus easy for your reader to consume.

If you have dense description without breaks or new lines you’re unlikely to have much white space. If you have new lines, asterisks (***) for scene changes or short spurts of dialogue, you’ll see more of the white page than text itself. Readers need a balance between white space and prose for a number of reasons.

Have you ever been handed a document at work and its page after page of dense text with no spaces? It’s intimidating and uninviting and honestly, it feels like a bollocking from your boss, right? No one wants to read reams of text. It looks boring before you even start. You don’t want your readers to go into your book with the assumption it’s boring. It also helps the flow of reading and makes your writing more appealing.

Now before you panic and review your entire novel and decide it needs scrapping, remember this is about balance. It also means this is a handy tool to have in your technique box because you can manipulate white space to your advantage.

If you want to slow down a scene, then use dense prose and less white space. It has a slowing effect on your reader as the denser the prose the harder it is to read. If you want to up the tension and pace, then use dialogue and get hacksaw-happy chopping up your sentences with new thoughts and actions. When we’re emotionally charged—particularly with anger or upset—we tend to speak in half sentences and punchy dialogue. Which is why breaking up paragraphing and using choppy sentences can work effectively because readers are able to skim down the page faster; thus, upping the pace and momentum.

What Does Balance Look Like?

Good question. There is no right or wrong answer and of course you might have a section of story that’s wildly intimate and detailed and needs two entire pages of prose without a break. Fill your boots, word monkeys. We all have those occasions, there’s always a reason or exception. But I suppose I try to go by a general rule of thumb to not have more than half a page of dense prose.

12.9 Sentence Length

Sentence Level Devices

In this section, we move to line-level devices. The thick of the novel warzone where there are devices and tricks a-plenty to paint pretty word pictures and stories.

Sentence Length

Playing with sentence length makes me giddy, it’s another of my favorite techniques. Varying the sentence length allows you to reflect the protagonist’s mood. For example, if you wanted to reflect a frantic, chaotic emotion aka my usual state, you could shorten the sentences, have single word sentences, cut speech off or over-use commas. For example:

My breath is hollow. It roars. Thunderous vibrations fill my ears. The gun is heavy; my finger though, is steady. My heart thuds. Once. Twice. Three times. Then I pull the trigger.

This kind of sentence structure is often found in action scenes where you want to increase pace or show fight-like movements. In a fight, everything is fast-paced with short, sharp movements. Make your sentences look like that too and you’ll reflect the mood you’re trying to evoke.

Another trick is to use increasingly shorter sentences to create a waning attention span. In contrast, longer sentences represent a flowing thought process, a wandering mind, or someone deep in conveying an idea. It also works well for description and layering imagery.

12.10 Chapter Length

Many writers assume having a similar chapter length makes them a consistent well-rounded writer. And I suppose, in part, that’s true. But it also means you’re failing to capitalize on a neat little trick.

Varying chapter length creates the same pacing and tension fluctuations as varying sentence length does. If all your sentences are of an identical length then your paragraphing becomes boring and the pace of your story slows. Interspersing shorter scenes naturally quickens pace because readers get through them faster and therefore it gives the feeling of turning pages quicker and making progress through the novel faster.

If you want to increase tension, start at the sentence level and continue reinforcing it up through paragraphs and into scenes and chapters. I’m honored to get to speak to some fascinating people as part of my show, The Rebel Author Podcast. You can listen by visiting pod.link/rebelauthor. In episode four, I spoke to Kristina Stanley, CEO of Fictionary.co and writing craft genius. She has some insightful views on pacing and tension and the tricks you can employ with chapter length. One particular quote from the episode explains pacing:

“If you’re trying to speed up to something pivotal, and your scenes are really, really long, that’s tiresome for the reader. No matter what you put in there, the reader is going to think your story slowed down. An easy technique is to break your scenes up. For example, start with your bigger scene, then go smaller and smaller, and the book will seem to get faster and faster. But if you’re trying to slow the story down because you’re having an emotional reaction to some event for the character, write a longer scene. But you need to do that all in the context of the story arc because if your inciting incident, your plot points, your climax are too short, your reader is going to feel ripped off. You can’t have a super short climax scene that doesn’t feel satisfying. And if you have a super long scene, that’s not a main point of the story, the balance is off.” Kristina Stanley, CEO of Fictionary.co and author of The Stone Mountain Series.

12.11 Metonymy

Metonymy is a form of symbolism on a grander scale. The word coined becomes the embodiment of what it’s representing. For example, “the Oval Office” represents the US government, the president and the constitution, law, justice, and morality. “The Crown” is a term that represents the queen, royal family, monarchy, and the institution around it.

You can use this tactic in a variety of ways from the micro sentence level to macro symbolism. A sentence level example could be, “England is tightening it’s drink driving laws.” England represents the country, but more specifically the government and the laws they make.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a great example of using this on the macro scale. In the story, “the Capitol” not only represents the capital city, it fronts as a faceless villain, the games themselves, and the institution President Snow created.

This is a great tactic for worldbuilding particularly in non-real-world settings. But equally can be used to represent several levels of society like the Crown and Oval Office.

12.12 The Great Metaphor/Simile War

Metaphors and similes are similar. They do the same job, and for the most part, we all live in blissful ignorance of the difference between them. But, there is a difference.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a metaphor as:

“A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.”¹

Which in plain English means that:

A simile describes something as like something else.

A metaphor says something is something else.

If you go way back—like Ancient Greek back—then metaphor actually means “transfer,” that is, one thing transfers to the other thing. Where a simile in Latin means “as if, seems or appears.”

But which one is best? Well, both are excellent devices to use in your prose, but if you’re asking which one packs a bigger literary atom bomb, then read the following two sentences and decide for yourself:

Simile: My child is like a monster

Metaphor: My child is a monster

For anyone that’s had to write blurb-copy for the back of their book, you’ll know how hard it is to pack powerful, hooky statements into a short space. Well, I like to think of metaphors as the copy-written version of a simile.

Saying your child is like a monster is one thing. It’s a throw-away comment. Every parent thinks they have a demonic hellion once in a while. But to say your child is a monster, is a far stronger statement. They’re not just like a monster, they’ve gone green and scaly, grown horns in the night, and breathed fire over the lasagna. There’s a big difference.

Quick Tip: Next time you write a simile, try and turn it into a metaphor instead. I like to play this as a game sometimes—yes, I play word games. What? I’m a word nerd. Turning your simile into a metaphor won’t always work, some similes will sound silly as metaphors. It’s worth having a go just to see if you can pack a bigger punch with a metaphor or if it sounds silly and a simile is the winner.

Why Use Metaphors and Similes at All?

The purpose of using these two image creators is to hone and focus the detail in your story. It’s like wafting a giant magnifying glass under someone’s nose and saying, “look here, dumb ass,” except politer. Anyway, the purpose of any form of comparison is to help us learn and understand. As children, we develop heuristics in our brains that place objects into categories to help us to better understand the world.

That’s why when you create a metaphor or simile, you need to make the comparison to something familiar. The art of a good metaphor is to compare your object to something familiar but in an unfamiliar way. The fleeting disorientation this creates gives our brains a moment of pause just long enough to realign our perceptions and look at the concept in a new way. The point of a metaphor and simile is to use the comparison to clarify the complex emotion or piece of story you’re describing. If you compare it to something obscure, it’s only going to get more obscure.

Metaphors are best used when you compare complex things to ordinary objects that readers are familiar with. This helps them utilize their heuristics. Last, as well as comparing the complex to the familiar, you need to make sure there’s some level of connection between the two objects you’re comparing. For example, you can’t compare Swarovski crystal to a football, there’s nothing similar about them.

Here’s an example of a metaphor that does work. The central metaphor in Dracula is blood. Blood is one of the forces that keep humans alive and in the case of ol’ Draccy himself, our blood is his life force.

“The blood is the life.” Bram Stoker, Dracula.

You can compare based on any aspect of the two objects. For example, their color, shape, size, geographical location, or philosophical symbolism. If you can see or find a connection, use it. Take fluff-ball clouds, they often cover the sky much in the same way a duvet covers a bed. Therefore, “a blanket of clouds” makes sense as a metaphor. A blanket of needles or a blanket of footballs doesn’t.

Here’s another example of a metaphor that compares the familiar in an unfamiliar way:

“The sun in the west was a drop of burning gold that slid nearer and nearer the sill of the world.” William Golding, Lord of the Flies.

Extended Metaphors

An extended metaphor is a metaphor but lanky. It’s the literal lengthening of a metaphor. Instead of using the metaphor just once in a sentence, it’s expanded and drawn out into an entire paragraph, page, chapter, or book using the same comparative concepts as the original sentence.

Instead of just comparing the objects once, there are multiple comparisons and parallels drawn between the items.

Here’s an extended metaphor comparing writing a book to having a child:

The first draft of any novel is like pregnancy. Morning sickness is simultaneously the vomiting of words and fear. As the belly swells, so too does the novel and the craving urge to write more. Whether it’s a child or book related pregnancy, we experience the same fears, the same anticipation of our baby’s arrival, the unknown, what will it be like? What will its face look like? Eventually, we experience a painful—because let’s face it, the first time we publish is a steep learning curve—emotionally taxing birth, and then we get to hold the beauty in our hands. Little do either kind of parent realize, the hard work of rearing a child and marketing a book have only just begun!

Granted that example isn’t what you’d want to do in fiction, but you can see how the technique works in principle. The difficulty with a lot of extended metaphors is that the two concepts you’re comparing rarely map onto each other completely. If you tried to compare building a house with publishing a book there would be some comparisons but not all the nuances align.

Some authors will use this mismatch of concepts effect for humor. A rather more famous example comes from Shakespeare himself…

“All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.” William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii.

12.13 Alliteration

For a six-year-old, my son has rapidly taken up the geek baton. One of his favorite word games is alliteration spotting. He’ll spot it on signs, on junk mail leaflets, in video games, and people’s names. Anywhere he spots it, he’ll proudly pronounce “That’s aliterwaation, Mommy.” *cue my rapidly melting coal-heart*

Dictionary.com describes alliteration as the following:

“The commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group.”

Alliteration, while commonly found in successive words, doesn’t have to be consecutive like “Colin’s Car.” Another example comes from my favorite slightly adapted tongue twister which we say faster and faster until we dissolve into giggles: “Peter Piper picked a piece of pickled pepper.” Yes, I know lots of you use “peck,” we don’t.

Alliteration is one of the more common literary techniques. It can be found in famous book titles like Gone Girl, The Two Towers, Black Beauty, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451, East of Eden, The War of the Worlds, the list goes on.

Arguably, you can also create alliteration by using several words in a sentence using the same letters or sounds but spaced a little apart. Here are two examples from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

“The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!” Bram Stoker, Dracula.

“…What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?” Bram Stoker, Dracula.

Alliteration used in moderation creates a beautifully flowing and poetic rhythm in prose. But it’s a thin line and if you overuse it you can make your text sound ridiculous. Shakespeare is known for his jab at poets with this line in A Midsummer Night’s Dream where he purposefully overuses alliteration:

“Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,

He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.” William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene i.

While it might be shocking to say, this is not Shakespeare’s finest prose. The overuse of alliteration makes the sentence sound silly—which was his intent, of course, and why it’s such a good example of keeping the balance with any technique you implement.

12.14 Plosive Letter Choices

Plosive letters, also sometimes called stop consonants, are explosive letters that block the air in your lungs, ceasing air flow. They quite literally explode from the mouth like a firework on acid. It creates an interesting effect in prose.

Plosive letters include: b, d, g, t, k, and p.

A quick succession of plosives can create a sharp effect. The most obvious example of this is swear words. For example: bitch, shit, bastard, fuck, twat, and dick to name but a few of my favorite oral delectables. While not everyone likes their usage, swear words tend to be used in highly emotive situations like when you hurt yourself or when you’re pissed; conveniently, those are great times to spit fireworky rage.

Plosives are more cutting, harsh letters because their sounds are short compared to the smoother, longer sounds created by letters like m, n, and o.

P makes the sound [puh] but m makes the sound [mmm]. You could continue writing m for as long as you wanted the sound to continue, but p has a definitive ending to the sound. To continue it, you’d have to repeat the letter, unlike the sound mmm.

You can use this effect to your advantage in prose. Consider when you might have the need for a colder, sharper conversation. For example, if you have two characters arguing, then you can emphasize the harsh nature of the row by using lots of words that start and end with plosives. For example:

“What the fuck?” she spat.

“I’m sor—”

“Shut up. You don’t get to be sorry. Not this time.”

You can really hear the characters spitting the words at each other. The fury comes from the explosive sounds.

12.15 Onomatopoeia—Where We Boom Ting our Bootie Bang Bangs

Dictionary.com defines onomatopoeia as:

“The formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent.”

In other words, a word that sounds like it’s meaning. Like crash or boom or bang. Onomatopoeia tends to be used innately because if you’re writing a fight scene, the impact of a punch is the same as the sound it makes, that is, whack, thump, crack etc. Likewise, explosions make onomatopoeic sounds like boom and bang. Onomatopoeic words are excellent devices for evoking both sound and image senses in your story.

Let’s take the word boom. When I read the word “boom” I hear a deep explosive sound that billows out, much like the visual of a boom. I always think of those infamous nuke testing images from the fifties and the giant mushroom cloud they made. Another example is the round cloud a sonic boom makes. All those images and sounds come from the use of just one word.

This is all swell, but you can go deeper with your word choice and make your prose work harder than just the sound and image it creates. Some onomatopoeic sounds can evoke a sense of time too.

Take boom and bang. Aside from the fact the words make me wanna twerk across the page to some devilish song… both words evoke a different kind of explosion. One much shorter and sharper than the other.

Bang starts and ends with plosive letters, meaning there’s a short sharp start and end to the word. This makes the sound much more concise than the word boom.

Boom starts with a plosive but it ends with both oo and mm sounds. Oo and mm sounds can be as long or short as the speaker chooses. Resulting in a word that’s naturally longer and often lengthened for effect. Let’s look at the two words in an example.

Bang:

The gun clicked once—a jarring rattle that ripped through my ears. Then I fired. One little bang; it was so fast it was almost disappointing. Before I could blink, the bullet vanished and a trickle of red oozed down his shirt.

But Boom Evokes a Different Feeling:

The sky is dark, the clouds swollen and ballooning across the sky in giant rolling surges. I grab Mike’s hand as the explosion hits. A rumbling boom billows around us. It thunders and roars as if the world itself is screaming as it tears apart.

When you’re using onomatopoeic words, you need to both consider the sound and image they create to ensure they align with the imagery you’re trying to evoke. If I swapped the words around in the above paragraphs, they could jar the reader:

Replacing Bang with Boom:

The gun clicked once—a jarring rattle that ripped through my ears. Then I fired. One little boom; it was so fast it was almost disappointing. Before I could blink the bullet vanished and a trickle of red oozed down his shirt.

Replacing Boom with Bang:

The sky is dark, the clouds swollen and ballooning across the sky in giant rolling surges. I grab Mike’s hand as the explosion hits. A rumbling bang billows around us. It thunders and roars as if the world itself is screaming as it tears apart.

Interestingly, I think the first example of using boom in place of bang still works albeit not as well. The sentence doesn’t “feel” right; the rhythm is out because booms aren’t “little.” However, the second example, boom to bang, does not. Bang’s don’t rumble or billow. They explode and rupture and burst. The image doesn’t work with the sound it’s creating which makes the sentence read weirdly. It’s always worth scrutinizing the onomatopoeic words you choose to make sure they fit the image.

For a bigger list of onomatopoeic words, check out the free resource download here: sachablack.co.uk/prosedownload

12.16 Anthropomorphism and Personification

Anthropomorphism and Personification are related siblings. Related, but different. Anthropomorphism occurs when you give human qualities to something that’s not human. For example, the weather, animals, or objects. Here, though, the meaning is literal. Examples include Winnie the Pooh and all his friends, Simba from the Lion King, and the Animals from Animal Farm. With all of these examples, the non-human thing behaves in a human way, be it by talking or by being jealous or otherwise.

Personification, while still giving non-human things human-like traits, is less literal and more figurative. “Money talks,” “lightning danced,” “alarm clocks yelling,” and “work calling” are all examples of personification. Work cannot call you unless your disembodied workplace spontaneously grows hands and a voice. I think not. Work can’t call you, but your living, breathing boss can.

Personification is not about the non-human thing displaying human behaviors but ascribing a figurative human-like comparison to form a description.

“The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter's Hill.” Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

Here, the personification is with Dover road. A road can’t possibly lumber anywhere; it has no legs to walk with. It does, however, create a pretty cool image in the prose.

12.17 Pathetic Fallacy

Pathetic fallacy is multifaceted. It’s a device in and of itself but it can be used as a form of foreshadowing. What is pathetic fallacy? Well, playing with the weather—you know, when it gets all dark and cold and thundery, and you’re all *pillow on face* summat baaad’s about to happen.

Ever heard the famous line… it was a dark and stormy night? It’s the infamous line written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in Paul Clifford. Well, that’s an example of pathetic fallacy. And it’s only mildly awkward that I used it, given that particular line is famous for being a cliché. Here’s a better example:

“Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East there were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts, that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs; and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages of wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the worst of all.” Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.

This is a great example of both pathetic fallacy and also using that pathetic fallacy to foreshadow Pip’s imminent problems as well as symbolizing his inner turmoil. In this example, the “heavy veil” is ominous and symbolic of not seeing the destruction to come. With furious gusts of wind and torn-up trees, shipwreck and death, the weather is creating a troubled mood indeed.

12.18 Don’t Be an Oxymoron

I love the word oxymoron because it almost sounds like an insult. Much like juxtapositions, oxymorons are about contrast. Oxymorons occur when you place two conflicting words next to each other to describe the same thing. For example, bittersweet, old news, lead balloon, living dead, perfect mistake.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene ii.

Just like juxtapositions, oxymorons create rich imagery. This is one to consider if you want to sprinkle a little word-spice on your story. But caution oh mighty word slayer, many oxymorons have become figures of speech that edge towards cliché. Before you rub oxys all over your paragraphs just make sure you’re not inserting a cliché. More on clichés shortly.

12.19 The Rhythm and Sound of Sentences, Landing, and Primacy and Recency Effects

Writing is often likened to music, though I think mosh pit of insanity, crazed emotions, and intense come downs more accurately describes the chaos of novel writing. If you’ve hung around writing and books long enough, I’m sure you’ve heard prose described as lyrical or rhythmic. Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials series recently translated into the BBC TV show of the same name, is famed for saying:

“When I’m writing, I’m more conscious of the sound, actually, than the meaning. I know what the rhythm of the sentence is going to be before I know what the words are going to be in it.” Philip Pullman, BBC interview.

For a link to the article, check the resource download here: sachablack.co.uk/prosedownload

There’s something in this as a practice for writers. When we speak sentences, the flow of words in our mouth changes from the way we read in our heads. We might use more expression aloud; we might have to breathe in different places or we might emphasize different words. Which is why primacy and recency effects I mentioned earlier are so important to your prose.

The primacy and recency effect is a psychological concept. Essentially, the concept states that in any learning episode, our brains retain more of the first and last pieces of information presented than what’s presented in the middle. Think about it… Let’s say you’re back at college, you go into the lecture hall all full of caffeine, gossip, and fist bumps from your buddies. You’re awake, alert even, your eight hundred and seventy-six-year-old professor hasn’t sucked the life out of you yet. So, you pay attention to the start of the class. Twenty minutes in, however, and his dulcet drawl and occasional nasal scratching has lulled you into a semi-permanent coma. It’s only as the class nears completion that you wake up again ready to reattach a new supercharged caffeine drip and listen to your mates for the next round of goss. You’re back to alert and therefore you retain the information better. Okay sure, that’s an extreme example, but you get what I’m saying.

I think the concept also applies to sentences. If you want the most bang for your buck, then put key words or phrases at the start or end of your sentences rather than letting the important part vanish in the middle.

In an interview on episode 23 of The Rebel Author Podcast, Jules Horne, author of Writing for Audiobooks: Audio-First for Flow and Impact: Author Advice from Radio Writing, talked about the importance of “landing.” Landing is a concept connected to the psychological effect of primacy and recency. Jules says:

“If you’re reading aloud, sometimes there’s a wodge of prose which is very dense. And somewhere in the middle of that is a knife which is the murder weapon. But the knife is buried within that text and all around it is really dense prose so you don’t notice the knife. But the knife is important. And if you don’t land clearly on the word that needs to be salient for the story, it just goes under. So beginnings and endings of sentences are really important because they’re places where you can help key ideas to land and resonate.”

If you want to ensure that a key word, whether it be a murder weapon, a piece of foreshadowing, or otherwise, stands out, then “land” it right. Capitalize on the primacy and recency effect for maximum impact.

12.20 Clichés

Ahh, cliché, we meet again… Did you see what I…? Never mind. Clichés are slippery little gits. Innocent looking words, phrases, expressions, or scenes. But not so innocent once you put them into your prose. These phrases have been overused to the point they’re predictable and unoriginal. Yes, I’m sure there’s an exception, but for the most part, they’re a kiss of death… Did I just? Moving on. Clichés induce the worst possible reaction in a reader: an eyeroll.

“Classic examples include: ‘Objection’ used in a court scene when the prosecutor is losing, a villain or a witch with a ‘muhahaha’ laugh or a cackle, ‘They all lived happily ever after’, ‘And then I woke up and realized it was all a dream.’ (If I read your book and it says this, I will burn it.) Clichés are cheesy, rotten, stinkin’, mold-covered fleapits. And I don’t mean the good blue cheese kind of mold; I mean the powdery mildew kind that would make you gag if you swallowed it.” Sacha Black, 10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist.

Clichés are slippery because you can slide them into any aspect of your novel from the prose to character creation without realizing it. A character, say a villain, who always wears black—a known cliché—can be forgiven if the rest of his characterization is well-rounded and believable. It’s easier to mask and forgive the higher-level, conceptual clichés like black clothes, than it is to forgive them in-line. Include one in your sentence and it’s tantamount to wafting a gone-off tuna sandwich under your reader’s nose. It’s smelly and unwelcome and vomit-inducing. Believe me, tuna is my son’s favorite food and I’ve had to deal with enough of it gone-off to know that no one needs it in their lives.

Imagine your villain meets your hero in a scene and it’s written like this:

“Wilhem, we meet again,” he says through gritted teeth.

Wilhem’s lips quiver as if suppressing a smile.

It reeks of cliché. Only Disney villains say things like “we meet again.” It’s cheesy and there are so many better ways to meet someone. Ways that, once you remove the cliché, will show far more characterization than the cliché did.

Look what happens when you remove the cliché:

“Wilhem… A pleasure. As. Always,” he says. His jaw flexes once, his teeth grinding into each other.

Wilhem’s lips quiver as if he’s suppressing a smile.

In the second version, you can hear how the character practically spits the greeting. Clearly, he’s unimpressed at having bumped into Wilhem. And likewise, with Wilhem’s lip quiver, it’s clear the malice is pouring off both of them.

12.21 Anaphora aka The Positive Side of Repetition

Much as I slated any use of repetition earlier, there are, of course, prose affects you can create with repetition that are pretty cool. Pretty cool? Who am I? God, Sacha, cool hasn’t been “cool” since… well, ever.

Anyway, let me throw a “cool” word around now: anaphora.

Anaphora is the intentional use of repetition. Specifically used at the beginning of a series of clauses or sentences. There are lots of famous examples in poetry and speeches. One such example is from perhaps the most famous speech ever made:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed… and I have a dream that one day on the red hills…” Martin Luther King, 1963.

This particular example is famous for its emotional resonance and the empowerment it inspired in so many people. This kind of repetition—if used with powerful (or emotional) phrases like “I have a dream”—can provoke that exact response in a reader. This is a handy tool to use in emotional or climatic scenes, especially in dialogue or narrative description. Be warned though, it’s easy to over use anaphora. The moment you do, it becomes plain old repetition and we all know how bad for business that is.

12.22 Isocolons

Isocolon might sound like a squishy internal organ, but it too falls under the “cool” repetition bracket. You create an isocolon when you repeat a phrase, sentence, or clause of equal length that also has similar rhythms to it. For example:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,” Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

Using isocolons in your prose has a balancing impact. The Dickens example creates an especially persuasive and powerful sentence because everything is balanced through opposition. Politicians often use it as a technique in speech writing. Take the infamous British Prime Minster, Winston Churchill.

“Come then: let us to the task, to the battle, to the toil—each to our part, each to our station. Fill the armies, rule the air, pour out the munitions, strangle the U-boats, sweep the mines, plow the land, build the ships, guard the streets, succor the wounded, uplift the downcast, and honor the brave.” Winston Churchill, Manchester Speech, January 29, 1940.

Latin also has a number of infamous isocolons such as “veni, vidi, vici,” which means I came, I saw, I conquered.

For your prose, there are lots of places where this is a useful technique. For example, creating elegant and persuasive arguments. Think villainous monologues, hero speeches, rows between couples, presidential speeches in dystopian novels, epic fantasy characters, and a million more.

12.23 Hyperbole

I like hyperbole, it’s fun and dramatic and a little diva-ish. Hyperbole is exaggeration. It’s not meant to be taken literally. You might notice a certain author uses hyperbole a lot… ahem. Whenever I think of hyperbole I mostly picture a teenager flinging her arms around while telling her friends about the latest drama.

“Oh my god, Luce. You won’t believe it, he kissed me like eight million times.”

Of course, she wasn’t actually kissed eight million times, that would have taken an awfully long time and I suspect she’d have gotten hungry before he even got to a million. But you get the idea. Dramatized exaggeration. It’s a playful tactic that can add to your characterization especially if you add it into dialogue or narration. This tactic in particular creates fun prose and characters who are loved because of their diva sides.

12.24 Malapropism

Malapropism is a nifty little comedic tool. Malapropism is the replacing of a word with similar sounding (but wholly incorrect) words. For example, “don’t upset the apple cart” would become “don’t upset the apple tart.”

Another example would be: “I’m not to be trifled with” which could become “I’m not to be truffled with.”

Malapropisms are lighthearted and funny because they create a faux pas in speech and usually at the most inopportune times. This tool is great for lighter stories with humorous characters. Not so good, however, for dropping into prose that’s more serious.

Step 12 Literary Holy Grails Summary

Where we went to the theater, Obi Wan and Asimov had a love child, we did our best Hansel and Gretel impression, and boom-banged our little booties.

This was a long chapter. Too long to summarize, ironically. Use it as a reference chapter to skim through the tools and devices as and when you’re trying to improve your prose.

Instead, here are some exercises for you to try:

Go through each and every tool, try and write a sentence, paragraph, or scene using it.

Think of as many onomatopoeic words as you can, then categorize them by length. Which words evoke a longer sense? Which are shorter and sharper?

Want More?

There’s just three more things to say before you go:

First of all, you can get your exclusive reusable self-editing checklist by signing up to my mailing list by visiting: bit.ly/sachaML

Don’t forget to download your FREE resource guide, the reading list, and a bunch more useful things. You can get that by visiting: sachablack.co.uk/prosedownload

Secondly, I hope you found this book helpful in your quest to craft better sentences. If you liked the book and can spare a few minutes, I would be really grateful for a short review on the site from which you purchased the book. Reviews are invaluable to an author as it helps us gain visibility and provides the social proof we need to continue selling books.

Third, if you’re looking for a supportive writing community, I run a Facebook group where I host a weekly accountability thread, writing prompts, and more. Join us here: facebook.com/groups/rebelauthors

From me to you, thank you for reading The Anatomy of Prose and good luck with your writing journey.

Further Reading

Read more of Sacha Black:

13 Steps to Evil: How to Craft a Superbad Villain

10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist

Read more on grammar:

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss

For more on literary devices:

The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth

Also a useful website is: literarydevices.net.

For more on writing craft:

DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build your Community by Gabriela Pereira

Activate by Damon Suede a thesaurus of actions and tactics for dynamic fiction

Verbalize by Damon Suede

The Emotion Thesaurus series by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition by Rennie Browne and Dave King

Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers by Barbara Baig

For expressionist poets to aid with quotable prose, I recommend reading:

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Love Her Wild by Atticus

Wild Embers by Nikita Gill

The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace

For flash fiction and micro flash fiction:

Hinting at Shadows by Sarah Brentyn

The Congress of Rough Writers: Flash Fiction Anthology Vol. 1 by Charli Mills et al. (you’ll find a very early piece of flash in there from me too!

For creating fear:

Twisted, a story collection by Daniel Willcocks

The Ritual by Adam Nevill

For onomatopoeia

Lots of kids book recommendations!

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

Most Dr. Seuss books

For more on POV

Writing the Intimate Character by Jordan Rosenfeld

For Second Person POV specifically

The Language of Dying by Sarah Pinborough

Note here that I also recommend this book for a look at creating detailed emotions and beautiful prose.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Acknowledgments

This book was a pleasure to write. It came at a time when I thought I might never be able to finish another book. I’d spent eighteen months struggling to finish a fiction project and transitioning into writing full-time. I’d burned out, the words were vanishing and I needed a passion project to bring the words back. Enter The Anatomy of Prose. So, my first thanks is to the book itself. Thanks for bringing me back from the brink, for reminding me that I can still finish books, and that my love of words will never die. 

Of course I need to thank my wife for supporting me in this crazy endeavor, for supporting me to quit my very well-paid job for a life of uncertainty. To my son—my constant inspiration—I will never stop showing you that if you follow your dreams they will come true.

Thank you to all the authors who let me quote their knowledge and wisdom: Dan Willcocks, Gabriela Pereira, Sarah Pinborough, Kristina Stanley, Damon Suede, Jules Horne, Icy Sedgwick.

Thank you to several writing gal pals who keep me going on a daily basis, Suzie Speaks, Helen Jones, Katie Forrest, Alison Ingleby, Meg Cowley, Paddy Finn, Dan Willcocks (yes, Dan and Paddy, you’re men, but you’re in my gal pal section!).

Always a deep gratitude to my accountability partner Allie Potts who makes sure—even if I’m a little late—that I deliver time and time again.

To my sweary soul sisters and Slack buddies, Jenna Moreci and Meg LaTorre, thanks for keeping me sane and giving me a lotta giggles.

To my Facebook Group, thank you for being so supportive and engaging, I love how it’s grown, I can’t thank you enough. 

My patrons: Aime, Alessandro, Alison, Arriane, Beth, Christine, Daisy, H.B, Icy, Julia, Katherine, Kelly, Matt, Meg, Orna, Patrick, Rachel, Shae and Tom. Thank you for your continued support; you make me feel like what I do matters and it means more than words can express.

And to you, dear reader, thank you for investing your time in my book. I hope that you’ve learned something, and it helps you along your journey to your writing dreams.

Also by Sacha Black

13 Steps to Evil: How to Craft a Superbad Villain (and Workbook) for Writers

Your hero is not the most important character in your book. Your villain is.

If you’re fed up of drowning in two-dimensional villains and frustrated with creating clichés, this book is for you.

In 13 Steps to Evil, you’ll discover: 

How to develop a villain’s mindset

A step-by-step guide to creating your villain from the ground up

Why getting to the core of a villain’s personality is essential to make them credible 

What pitfalls and clichés to avoid as well as the tropes your story needs

Finally, there is a comprehensive writing guide to help you create superbad villains. Whether you’re just starting out or are a seasoned writer, this book will help power up your bad guy and give them that extra edge.

If you like dark humour, learning through examples and want to create the best villains you can, then you’ll love Sacha Black’s guide to crafting superbad villains. Read 13 Steps to Evil and the companion workbook today and start creating kick-ass villains.

13 Steps to Evil: How to Craft a Superbad Villain

13 Steps to Evil: How to Craft a Superbad Villain Workbook

Also by Sacha Black

10 Steps to Hero - How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist (and Workbook) for Writers

From cardboard cut-out to superhero in 10 steps.

Are you fed up of one-dimensional heroes? Frustrated with creating clones? Does your protagonist fail to capture your reader’s heart?

In 10 Steps to Hero, you’ll discover: 

+ How to develop a killer character arc

+ A step-by-step guide to creating your hero from initial concept to final page

+ Why the web of story connectivity is essential to crafting a hero that will hook readers

+ The four major pitfalls to avoid as well as the tropes your story needs

Finally, there is a comprehensive writing guide to help you create your perfect protagonist. Whether you’re writing your first story or you’re a professional writer, this book will help supercharge your hero and give them that extra edge.

These lessons will help you master your charming knights, navigate your way to the perfect balance of flaws and traits, as well as strengthen your hero to give your story the conflict and punch it needs.

First, there were villains, now there are heroes. If you like dark humor, learning through examples, and want to create the best hero you can, then you’ll love Sacha Black’s guide to crafting heroes.

Read 10 Steps to Hero today and start creating kick-ass heroes.

10 Steps to Hero: How to Craft a Kickass Protagonist

10 Steps To Hero - How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist Workbook

About the Author

Sacha Black is an author, rebel podcaster, speaker and developmental editor. She has five obsessions; words, expensive shoes, conspiracy theories,  self-improvement, and breaking the rules. She also has the mind of a perpetual sixteen-year-old, only with slightly less drama and slightly more bills.

Sacha writes books about people with magical powers and other books about the art of writing. She lives in Hertfordshire, England, with her wife and genius, giant of a son.

When she’s not writing, she can be found laughing inappropriately loud, blogging, sniffing musty old books, fangirling film and TV soundtracks, or thinking up new ways to break the rules.

http://eepurl.com/bRLqwT

www.sachablack.co.uk

sachablack@sachablack.co.uk

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Notes

2.0 Learning to Learn

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uB5PUpGzeY

7.3 Worldbuilding Description

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldbuilding

12.12 The Great Metaphor/Simile War

1 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/metaphor