Month: February 2020

Thursday Technicalities: Introducing the Points-of-View

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

This week, we’re starting a new mini-series on Thursday Technicalities. We’re going to go over point-of-view. This week, we’re just going to cover the basics. Once we’ve done that, I’ll get into how to choose a point-of-view and viewpoint as well as some other specific, more advanced topics on point-of-view. Hopefully this will be helpful for you all!

First Person POV

Let’s start with the point-of-view that many beginners choose. First person point-of-view is often easier for beginners because it feels more natural to speak in first person. It’s what we use all the time in regular speech. Out of all the points-of-view a writer can use, this is the one that generally feels closest to the reader because the character is the narrator and they tell you how things happened. However, this does present its own difficulties, as we’ll see in a later blog post on point-of-view.

Second Person POV

This is rarely used, but it bears mentioning because some books can use it to good effect. The entire book, in this point-of-view, is written as though the character (you) is the reader. Of course, this usually has the effect of distancing the reader from the book because they balk at more things and their suspension of belief is challenged too greatly. After all, they might not do the things your character (the you in the story) does, and so they find that it is irritating to be addressed and asked to be the character for the duration of the novel. The best place for this point-of-view tends to be books that are of the Choose-Your-Own Adventure variety because it then allows the reader to make some subset of decisions on their own rather than having everything dictated for them.

Third Person POV

This is the second most common point-of-view used in writing and with good reason. It allows for more scope than first person does, but it also still contains some of the up close and personal feeling that first person contains. Often, this is used for adult books because it allows authors to have more than one point-of-view per chapter, which is often necessary for more complicated plots.

Third Person Limited or Omniscient

The final common point-of-view in writing is third person omniscient or limited point-of-view. This is usually best suited to humor and satire, though it can work in other instances too. Of note is the fact that this used to be quite popular during the days of Tolkien and Dickens. Both authors, as well as many of their contemporaries, used the point-of-view with wonderful effect in their writing. However, the days when readers were willing to read that sort of prose in a non-humor or satire setting have passed, and most readers will only put up with it for the sake of reading a classic. As such, generally, it’s best to avoid this unless it suits your novel in a very specific way.

As far as what omniscient point-of-view actually entails, the point-of-view is that of an all-knowing narrator. That narrator may be the older version of a character in the story or someone who is only observing the story (much as Death does in The Book Thief), but the narrator does not participate in the story. Instead, they tell the reader what has happened and provide interesting commentary to go along with it. The key to omniscient point-of-view lies in that interesting commentary and a narrator with an engaging voice, but this also makes it an extremely difficult point-of-view that I don’t recommend for beginners. Not for an entire novel at least. If you want to experiment with it, go for it! It’s a good exercise that will help to grow your writing ability, but start small because this point-of-view is tough, even for experienced writers.

Conclusion

These main points-of-view are the ones that have stood throughout writing history. Various authors use them to produce fiction that vastly differs in its style, content, and voice. You can use them too, but it requires some knowledge of how to choose and what is involved in each. I’ll be discussing that next time on Thursday Technicalities, so stay tuned for that! I hope this has been helpful.

As always, if there’s a topic you’d like me to cover in this blog category or another, feel free to email me or leave it in the comments. I’m always happy to get them!

Thursday Technicalities – Plotting Your Story

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Last week, we talked about plotting scenes. This week we’re discussing plotting for an entire story. Does that strike a little fear into you? If it does, don’t worry! I’m going to break it down as much as I can to make the process understandable and much less of a headache. But at the end of the day, my process is just that. My process. You may find that working with other methods of plotting, whether more or less rigorous, may work better for you. If so, go with it. You want to do what works best for you and makes your story the best it can be. But don’t knock it until you try it, right? So let’s take a look.

Where to Start

Many times, the main issues people have with plotting center around uncertainty over where to start or a fear that plotting might take away from the joy of writing. Of course, this doesn’t have to be the case for you on either front. But let’s start with giving you a place to take off from with plotting.

For me, I use a blend of Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method, Jordan Rosenfeld’s method for plotting scenes, and Rachel Aaron’s method from her book 2K to 10K: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love. Mostly, these different methods achieve the same end goal of having your novel plotted out in a way that will allow you to continue working without getting stuck. 

The place I always start is with a summary of my story. I boil the story down to the heart of what it’s about and write a one-sentence summary. Then I take that sentence and expand it into a paragraph, then a half-page, and finally a full page. You can go further and write a full four-page synopsis/summary if you wish, but I usually don’t go that far. Just doing the full page will give you what you need to know where the novel is going and will take you from a high-level view to a detail-focused look at the story. Even if you choose not to go any further, I highly recommend doing at least this.

Character Charts

Besides plotting out your novel or story using a summary and, later on, a scene list that you can use for plotting scenes like we discussed last week, I also enjoy doing character charts. These are a tremendous help because I can use them to really get to know my character, and, as an added bonus, I can use them as references for little details I might otherwise forget or accidentally change, like eye-color or hair-color. This is one part of plotting a story that’s lots of fun while also being very important.

When you’re doing the character charts, try to write a short paragraph summarizing that character’s story arc and how they change in the novel too. This ensures that you won’t forget or get side-tracked on how they fit into the plot, especially if they’re secondary or supporting characters as opposed to a main character.

Scene Lists

Maybe after doing the other plotting stuff above, you decide you don’t want to plot out your scenes because it takes the spontaneity of deciding the little moments on the go. That’s fine, but I do recommend that you make a scene list. This is pretty basic and just involves jotting down the main highlights of each chapter that will comprise the one to two, maybe three or four, scenes in your chapter. If you decide to plot those scenes later, then you’ll already be all set to do so, but if not, they’ll just provide a general idea of where you’re starting on each chapter just so you don’t have to start with a blank slate.

Conclusion

Whatever approach you take, there’s a lot to be gained from plotting. Writers who haven’t tried it and are beginners often feel it may suck the fun out of it. Where’s the fun in planning, after all? Wouldn’t it be better to just jump in and find out what’ll happen as you go? And while there’s something to be said for too much plotting being a bad thing, blending the two approaches offers much more to those writers than choosing not to plot at all since plotting offers a road to avoid plot holes. If you’ve never tried it, I recommend that you do that. You can look up the authors I mentioned and see how they handle it or find others’ methods and blend everything to create what works for you. But give it a try before you decide it isn’t worth your time.

Thursday Technicalities: Plotting Scenes

Ariel Paiement
Publishing Advice

Introduction

Do you have trouble getting your chapters, let alone your scenes, to a word count or length that feels decent? Or maybe you feel that your scenes seem to be wasting space and fitting poorly in the structure of your book? These are only a few of the problems you may be having with scenes, and there is a simple solution to this.

Plotting.

Yes, plotting your scenes. I know, I know. To those of you who hate plotting or planning in any way, shape, or form, this probably sounds like a nightmare. A long time ago, I would’ve been with you. And I’d be having all the same problems you are too. So just hear me out on this. Give it a try and see how it can make a difference. If it doesn’t work, feel free to stop doing it. I don’t want you to waste your time. But you won’t know if it’ll help until you try, and my experience has been that most people I know (myself included) who have tried this, have found it useful.

So let’s take a look.

What Plotting Scenes Isn’t

First of all, I want to start by explaining that plotting scenes is not creating an entire path for your whole novel. While I often use the list of events that need to happen for my novel’s entire plot to develop a scene list and scene plots, it isn’t necessary to have it. Scene plotting is its own entity, even if it does work well with plotting the storyline.

Plotting scenes is also not a waste of time. Initially, when someone suggested I plot my scenes, I looked at them like they were nuts. Why would I want to do that? It took me extra time to sit down and think about it ahead of time like that. But as I started thinking about it, I decided, hey, why not give it a try? The writers who suggested it had mentioned it increased their scene length and made the scenes much more cohesive, so I figured trying couldn’t hurt.

And they were right.

I went from scenes that might be about 1,000 words max to scenes that could get to the 1,500 to 2,000 word range. My chapter lengths went from 2,000 words max to anywhere from 3,500 to 6,000 on the high end. So, I promise that it can work if it’s approached well.

What Is Scene Plotting?

Okay, so now that we’ve clarified what plotting scenes isn’t, we probably should know what it actually is. Scene plotting means figuring out what the scene’s main focus is, what the intention of the viewpoint character will be, and the main points of that scene that will get you from the beginning to the end. Sound like a lot of work?

Well, it can be. But I usually only spend fifteen minutes to get all of the scenes for two or three chapters done. And it saves me a lot of editing time later. How? 

It does so in several ways. 

First, it saves time because I already know what the focal point of the scene should be and can write it in a way that best shows that focus. Second, I also already know the main points of what will happen, so I just have to fill in the details. No more time spent staring at a screen wondering where I’m going next. I already know. Finally, I know who my viewpoint character is and what they’re attempting to achieve or what they want out of the scene. This saves time in editing later because I will have already included their motivations for the reader, and it will be clear what the character is driving at in the entire scene. No ambiguity or confusion left there as long as I actually pay attention to what I wrote down.

Handling Scene Plotting

There are a few ways you can handle plotting for scenes. Really, none of them are right or wrong. What you prefer to do will differ from others, and that’s fine. We all need different levels of detail and work to achieve our goals. However, there are some key things I have found that work, so I’ll go over those to give you a place you can start.

The first thing I always do is write down what chapter the scenes go to above the plotting. That way, when I go back to it later, I don’t have to try to figure out what it went to. After that, I always label my scenes with numbers in order so I never have to wonder where one scene ends and another begins.

When it comes to the actual plotting, I write a name for the scene next to my number so I have an idea of what the scene’s main point is. I also write in parentheses the name of the character who will be the viewpoint character. Under that, I also jot down what the character’s motivation is. Finally, I use bullet points and fill in the main points of the scene as it goes from start to end. This can be done with sentences or sentence fragments. Whatever will be enough to jog your memory later.

You can do this chapter-by-chapter or all at once. I usually like to have a good number of chapters all plotted out so that I don’t have to take time to do it at the beginning of every writing session, but whatever you prefer is fine. There isn’t really a right way or a wrong way on this one.

The last thing that you should make sure of in your plotting of scenes is this: every scene must reveal to the reader something they didn’t already know. It may only be a new angle on an old fact that will be important later, but some new piece of information should be revealed. Characters should grow closer or further apart. Evidence should turn up that wasn’t there before. Clues should be discovered. New enemies or threats might appear. These are all just a few of the types of new information that might be revealed to a reader. So skim over your scene and ask whether or not it serves a purpose and whether or not it reveals anything new. If it doesn’t do either, you need to cut it. If it serves a purpose but doesn’t reveal anything new, you need to add more and keep writing until something new is there.

Conclusion

Initially, plotting scenes might seem a bit over-the-top. However, it really does save time and makes sure your scenes aren’t filler material that doesn’t and shouldn’t need to be there. If you’re a pantser instead of a plotter, I understand why you might not want to do this. But I really do recommend it. I know pantsers who have effectively worked this method in with their other methods of writing and discovered it helped tremendously. Give it a try and see if it works for you. You never know!

Thursday Technicalities: bringing Flat Characters to Life

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

One of the things writers of all levels can run into is the problem of flat characters. Characters can be flat because they haven’t been characterized in a way that makes them stand out, or they can end up flat because they’re cliche and boring. This is especially concerning if your main characters are the ones that end up flat. So, how do you bring a flat character to life? Let’s take a look at some of the common issues and ways to fix them so the character has a life of their own.

Voice

Last week, we talked about voice as a method of characterization. This is one place where a character can go flat. If they sound just like everyone else in the entire novel, they’re not going to stand out. Obviously, if the problem runs that deep, other characters will also be flat. But the problem might only extend to one or two characters that readers can’t distinguish between because of their similarity in voice. This is still a major problem if it’s occurring with main characters.

I won’t go into great length about voice since it’s already covered in my last article here. Review that to see how you can effectively use voice to provide characterization that is solid and unique to each character.

Direct Characterization

The next thing that could happen is having no direct characterization for a character. Direct characterization is when the author tells the reader something about the character.

This is one that I personally recommend avoiding for the most part, but sometimes there’s good reason to use it. If it’s something we would never learn otherwise but need to know, for example, the author might choose to tell us that fact about the character. Note that this particular type of characterization won’t work for deep-point-of-view because deep POV focuses on eliminating the author’s voice and diving into the character’s point-of-view exclusively.

Indirect Characterization

This one is far more important than direct characterization for bringing a flat character to life. Indirect characterization focuses on all the things we learn about a character through little quirks, repeated actions, or recurring phrases and words. In this method, the character reveals himself or herself a piece at a time through concrete actions and behaviors, not through the author’s say-so.

If a character is feeling flat, there’s a good possibility this is what’s missing. The little habits, oddities, and nuances of a person is what makes them unique, and that’s equally true of a character.

This technique also has the added benefit of allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions and fill the character in with the broad strokes of their imagination, which often results in a more vivid picture for the reader than telling them directly does.

Another important note about indirect characterization is that it can include physical descriptions. Perhaps a character has a particular scar or marking on their body that bears significance to them and continually reminds them of how or why they got it. That can result in indirect characterization because that scar or marking acts as a vehicle to deliver information to the reader regarding that character.

Emotional Depth and Motivation

Another possible problem with your characterization is that they lack emotional depth and motivation. This problem can be the result of a cliche character. It happens a lot with books that focus on character types that have been overused. Think books with main characters like the bad boy, good girl, nerd, or any of the paranormal tropes such as vampires, werewolves, or witches.

Now, it isn’t that those character types can’t be given depth. They can. But often, writers slip into the cliche because it’s easier, and they forget to make the character unique. Emotional depth and motivation can help with this.

Revealing a character’s mindset and giving them just the right mix of emotional qualities can take a cliche character type and make it into an actual three-dimensional character that readers can relate to. Their emotional depth and how they respond to emotional stimuli provides the motivation for their actions in many cases. Even when people are at their most rational, emotion will factor in.

So if your character is feeling flat, check to make sure that your reader can connect to your character on an emotional level and can understand what motivates your character. Often, describing a character through their emotional state can be much more image-evoking than a physical one.

Change

This last one is the biggest problem that can lead to a flat character. If your character doesn’t change throughout the novel and is relatively uncomplicated, they are the definition of flat. The simplest way to fix the problem is to make sure they have a character arc. Make sure that by the end of the story, the character has changed, either for better or worse, and has learned something, ideally. There really isn’t much else you can do to fix this, but if you do that, then your character should be headed in a much more three-dimensional direction.

Conclusion

Though there are many reasons why a character may end up feeling flat, I’ve done my best to cover the main reasons why it happens. Do you have other reasons you’ve found for why a character ends up flat or ways to fix flat characters? If so, feel free to share them in the comments below! If you have something you’d like to see on Thursday Technicalities that I haven’t covered yet, feel free to send me an email or leave it in the comments.

Thursday Technicalities: Voice as a Method of Characterization

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

This week, we’re shifting gears to talk a little bit about voice as a method of characterization. We’re going to go over how you can use a character’s voice in the novel to characterize them and how you can do it well. Too often, we see those authors who choose strange spellings and awkwardly phrased sentences to get across the idea that a character is foreign or has a unique quality to them. While we appreciate the effort put into characterization, we’ve all seen it go wrong when it becomes unwieldy and difficult to understand. My hope is that this post will help you to better understand how you can go about using a character’s voice properly to characterize them.

What is Voice?

To begin with, we need to understand what voice is and is not. 

First, what it is not. Voice is not your writing style in this case. While you do have a writer’s voice that develops with time as you write, that isn’t what this article is about. It also isn’t about the dialogue of a character, specifically, though dialogue is a part of voice.

Voice, in this case, refers to the unique way that the character thinks and speaks. If you’re writing in deep point-of-view, something I will discuss briefly next week when I go over bringing flat characters to life (and more in depth about a month and a half from now when I discuss the different points-of-view), this is a little easier to utilize because the character’s thoughts and unique phrasings or sayings will shine through even in third person. Otherwise, unless you’re writing in first person, you’re going to be using voice mainly in internal and external dialogue. 

Using Voice

Now that you know what voice is, how can you use it properly? This is a little bit more tricky to explain, but I’ll go over a few do’s and don’ts for you to make things a little easier.

  • As a general rule of thumb, don’t make a lot of changes to spellings of words for dialect. Dropping the ‘g’ on the end of a word here in there (endin’ instead of ending) is fine, but don’t go crazy. Use specific phrases or occasional changes to spelling to hint at a character’s dialect or nationality, but avoid doing so in a way that makes it difficult to understand them.
  • Don’t overdo on the unique phrases or catchwords. You want the reader to be in on the unique culture of the character, and the best way to include them is not to throw a bunch of phrases or slang at them that they can’t possibly understand just yet. Sprinkle things throughout, and pick some specific words or phrases your character is going to use a lot. Then stick with it.
  • Do be consistent. If you’re going to change spellings, make sure you do it everywhere in the same way. Otherwise, you’ll just confuse people.
  • If you’re writing in deep point-of-view, do include these little phrases or character-unique words in the narrative itself. The whole point of deep point-of-view is to allow the narrator to entirely disappear so that the reader will be so immersed in the character that they feel as if they’re right there as the character, experiencing everything. Using the character’s catch phrases in the narration here and there or narrating things in a way that shows character-unique mannerisms all contribute to the voice of the character and to that sense of immersion for the reader.

The Importance of Voice

Having characters with strong or memorable voices is really important. It makes the difference between an okay book and a phenomenal one. Why? Because long after the plot has faded from our minds as readers, we will remember characters and the impressions they left us with, the words they said that made an impact, and the voice they had in our heads throughout the story. We’ll remember them because they were memorable.

But that’s only possible if they have something about them, about their voice, that we can hold onto and store away in our memory for some other day. You want to do that with your characters so your readers can remember your characters long after they’ve parted ways with your novel.

So while it is work to write in a voice not your own (not to mention developing it and keeping it consistent), it brings your story to life in a way many other things can’t. It may be a technical aspect of writing, but it’s as important as the less concrete aspects of the craft.

Conclusion

Voice can be tricky to nail down for some characters. Others may come easy. What are some of your favorite ways to get yourself into the mindset and voice of your character while you write? Is it something you find hard or easy? I’d love to hear what all of you think. Leave your comments in the comment section below! And as always, if you have a topic you’d like to see me cover on The Fantasy Nook, feel free to email me with the idea. If it fits well, you may just see your blog post idea covered on here.

Thursday Technicalities: Punctuation Lifesavers

Ariel Paiement

So, last week we talked about how to paragraph for effect. This week, we’re going to change gears just a bit and talk about punctuation. Now, I assume that most of us are fairly solid on grammar rules, and if we aren’t, we can look them up quickly enough on Google. So I won’t bore you with long-winded explanations of that.

Instead, this post is going to go through some of the ways you can use punctuation both inside and outside of dialogue to get across the mood. This plays into having strong prose and dialogue that can stand on its own. A big part of that is choosing punctuation that can give the tone you want.

If you haven’t already, you should go back and read through the posts on sentence structure, dialogue do’s and don’ts, and paragraphing for effect. All of those Thursday Technicalities posts need to be combined with this in order for the whole piece to function. Once you’ve covered those, come back here, and add this week’s tool to your tool box.

For those of you who have already read the previous posts, let’s get started!

Commas

In fiction writing, we have a little more leeway to do things that might not be precisely grammatically correct in other places. This isn’t to say there aren’t rules. There most certainly are. But the rules are a bit different, especially for dialogue.

Commas are a good way to show that there’s a pause in dialogue, a person’s train of thought, or narration. Periods can, at points, be a bit abrupt, so a comma might be a better choice so long as it doesn’t make the sentence too long or take the place of a period when a sentence should end.

Let’s take a look at some places where commas might be the better option for these areas.

Dialogue:

“I don’t like Freddy. He’s too loud. Too rude. Too stupid.”

Okay, so this person isn’t being very nice, but that’s beside the point. Notice that the last three lines sound choppy? Let’s use commas here instead and see how it improves the flow.

“I don’t like Freddy. He’s too loud, too rude, and too stupid.”

Maybe it’s a simplistic example, but this is much better with commas instead of periods.

Train of Thought:

Didn’t picture it ending like this. There had to have been a better way. Another way with more results. More finesse. And maybe more humanity.

Okay, so again, some of these sentences just feel choppy. That’s fine if you want a less flowing, more abrupt approach. But if you’re trying to give a more reflective tone to a character, this just isn’t going to work. With commas, it looks much better.

Didn’t picture it ending like this. There had to have been a better way. Another way with more results, more finesse, and maybe more humanity.

There’s a very obvious difference in feel and pacing here, so keep that in mind when you choose commas instead of periods or vice versa.

Narration:

Cora hadn’t planned for this. The flat tire threw all of her plans out the window. She was in the middle of nowhere. No help. Nothing. Not even a house in sight. So definitely a major setback. She didn’t even have a spare. Just lovely.

Okay, so this is fine. If you want the reader to speed through this paragraph, it isn’t a problem. If you want them to slow down and consider what they’re seeing more closely, it’s probably not so great. Looking at it with commas, you might end up with something like this:

Cora hadn’t planned for this. The flat tire threw all of her plans out the window. She was in the middle of nowhere–no help, nothing. Not even a house in sight, so definitely a major setback. She didn’t even have a spare. Just lovely.

Alright, I think I’ve belabored the point about commas for long enough. So let’s take a look at the next punctuation mark.

Exclamation Points

This one is overused all the time in amateur writing and even in some published work, depending on who you ask. Really, exclamation points are intended to give something a lot of weight and impact. So they should be used sparingly.

Let me show you why:

Read through this and think about what part of it stands out the most to you.

“I can’t believe you did that! You had no right to make that decision without me! Why would you even think you could give my kid away without asking first? I wanted her!”

Chances are that you have no idea what’s supposed to have the most emphasis here. And that’s because I used exclamation marks until they almost became like a period for all the good they’re doing. In fact, they’re not even as good as a period since they distract more from the writing than a period would.

So now look at what happens when I weed some of them out.

“I can’t believe you did that. You had no right to make that decision without me. Why would you even think you could give my kid away without asking first? I wanted her!”

Obviously, I could have placed that single exclamation point on a different sentence to place emphasis on a different point. But I chose to place it at the end for this particular example. The main takeaway here is to use exclamation points sparingly and only when someone is raising their voice (either out of excitement or anger, usually) to emphasize something.

One last side note is that you really shouldn’t have exclamation points outside of dialogue. It just isn’t necessary, and it makes your writing look sloppier and much less professional.

Periods

Next up, we have the period. This one is pretty straightforward. It forces the reader to completely stop before moving to the next sentence, so it has the power to either slow or speed up the pacing in a story. In the examples I gave earlier with the commas, you saw a little of that. But let’s look at one other example.

Phoebe wasn’t a particularly aggressive sort. At least, she didn’t think she was. But Arin MacLeod made her want to lash out, to punch his too perfect nose. Maybe to break a few bones in that finely-shaped face. He’d deserve it, and she constantly had to remind herself why she wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t let him goad her into taking that risk. He wasn’t worth it, and that was that.

Okay, that reads fine, but it’s a little slow. Tense, but not as tense as it could be if the periods were placed a little differently. So take a look at this version:

Phoebe wasn’t a particularly aggressive sort. At least, she didn’t think she was. But Arin MacLeod made her want to lash out. To punch his too-perfect nose. Maybe even break a few bones. He’d deserve it. But she constantly reminded herself why she wouldn’t do it. Why she wouldn’t let him goad her into that risk. He wasn’t worth it. That was that.

The feel to this one is entirely different. I had to reorder some things and add words here and there to make sure it still flowed, but with the shorter, choppier sentences, this feels much more tense and more like something she might be thinking about as she angrily tries to convince herself he isn’t worth her time.

Dashes and Elipses

I lumped these two in together because they’re both useful for endings or pauses, particularly in dialogue, but they work differently. A dash is a great tool to use if someone’s words or thoughts get cut off abruptly because of an interruption. An elipses, on the other hand, is best used for cases where the speaker (or thinker) has trailed off or is no longer holding the attention of a viewpoint character.

Let’s look at some examples.

“I can’t believe he did that…” Julia toyed with the pen on her desk. “I just— Well, why?”

In this instance, you have both an example of a speaker trailing off and an example of her cutting herself off abruptly.

This is, of course, just one example of how these two forms of punctuation can be used. They’re extremely useful in dialogue and, when used sparingly, can also be helpful in internal dialogue or even the narration.

Conclusion

And there are your punctuation lifesavers. They may, quite literally, make the difference between life and death for your sentence, paragraph, or page. How you use punctuation can entirely change the feel your writing has for the reader. So choose wisely!

Have questions? Leave them in the comments below, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Thursday Technicalities: Paragraphing for Effect

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Last Thursday Technicalities, I discussed the importance of sentence structure for your writing. This week, we’re going to take a look at paragraphing, which can be used in similar ways but also has a few unique aspects of its own that sentence structures don’t have.

Let’s take a look!

Paragraphing for Pacing

Much how sentence structure can either slow down or speed up your writing, paragraphing also affects pacing. Long paragraphs tend to slow things down just like long sentences do, while short ones speed things up.

In formal and academic writing, most of us were taught that paragraphs had to be at least three to four sentences long in order to be a paragraph. For fiction writing, throw that notion out the window.

Paragraphs can be one sentence.

But they can also be much more than the eight-sentence maximum advised for academic writing. It all depends on what you need for your writing. For pacing and for a few other reasons I’ll get to in a moment, you may wish to have a very short paragraph or a very long one. These are choices that depend solely upon what you wish to accomplish and how.

Paragraphing for Emphasis

This one’s relatively straightforward. If you have something that really needs to jump off the page at the reader, putting it into its own paragraph is often a great way to achieve this. It makes the information stand out and signals to the reader that the information is important, so they should pay attention to it. Especially if you do it after or between long paragraphs. The eye is just naturally drawn to it.

Another important aspect of paragraphing is knowing where to put information in a paragraph. If it’s important, stick it at the beginning or the end. Readers, even in fiction, tend to skip what’s in the middle of a paragraph or skim it quickly, especially if the paragraph is long. So book-end the not-so-important information with what you really want the reader to remember. (This goes for ending and beginning chapters too. Start and end with things that should be memorable and that grab the attention of the reader.)

Paragraphing with Dialogue

I’ll talk more about this in an upcoming post about dialogue do’s and don’ts, but I’d be remiss if I talked about paragraphing without at least mentioning dialogue.

The important takeaway with paragraphing and dialogue is pretty straightforward. You start a new paragraph whenever someone new starts talking, and you start a new paragraph if the actions you’ve written in don’t go with the previous speaker’s dialogue. For example…

Wrong

“Hey, Susan, d’you think you could pass me the ketchup?” Susan eyed her little brother. “You want ketchup on that?” Peter crossed his arms. “What if I do?”

Right

“Hey, Susan, d’you think you could pass me the ketchup?”

Susan eyed her little brother. “You want ketchup on that?”

Peter crossed his arms. “What if I do?”

Now, most people who have learned anything about writing know not to do the things I did in the first one. But many times, I’ll run across beginners who just struggle with paragraphing and formatting dialogue. Once you know the rules, it’s simple, I promise.

But most of the time, writers starting out on their own with no guidance or help, writers who just want to write and don’t know where to start, don’t know how to handle dialogue. That’s fine, and the goal here is to help everyone who struggles with it out.

Basically, stick with the two rules of paragraphing for dialogue, and you should be fine on that front. Start new paragraphs any time someone new starts talking and any time an action doesn’t belong to the owner of the dialogue.

Conclusion

That’s it for this Thursday Technicalities, everyone! I hope it’s provided some useful tips for those who hadn’t learned this information yet and a good refresher for those who had.

What are some of the ways you use paragraphing for emphasis in your writing? Share them in the comments below! If you have any questions, feel free to leave those in the comments too. Until next time, everyone.

Thursday Technicalities: Sentence Structure and Its Impact

Ariel Paiement1 Comment

Introduction

This week, we’re going to take a look at sentence structure. This is where we’ll start for our discussions on the grammar side of writing. If you haven’t already, you should go read my last Thursday Technicalities post on grammar and why it’s important. Once you’ve done that, come back and take a look at sentence structure with me in this article.

Types of Sentence Structures

Some of you may have learned this while others may not have. So, I’m going to briefly discuss the types of sentence structures. Then we’ll take a look at how those structures can be used to create various effects in your writing. That’s the really interesting part that everyone’s actually curious about, right?

First on the list, we have the simple sentence. This consists of a subject and a predicate (one subject, one verb). This would include sentences such as “I run.” or “He plays.” These sentences shouldn’t have a conjunction or a dependent clause.

Next on the list, there’s compound. This sentence structure takes two independent clauses (these would be things that stand on their own as simple sentences), and combines them with a coordinating conjunction (ie: and, or, but, not, etc.).

Third on the list, you have your complex sentence. Here, you have your independent clause, but you tack on a dependent clause. It might read something like this: “If Stacy goes to the mall, I will come.” In this instance, If Stacy goes to the mall is dependent on the independent clause, I will come. So, it’s complex.

Last on the list, we have the compound-complex sentence. This one more or less combines the compound and the complex sentence structures, as the name implies. You’ll need at least two independent clauses and a dependent clause to form this type of sentence structure. The sentence contains both conjunctions and subordinators.

For example, “If Stacy goes to the mall, I will come, and Rob will too,” is a compound-complex sentence. If Stacy goes to the mall forms your dependent clause. I will come is an independent clause. And is the conjunction, and Rob will too is another independent clause. If, in this case, is the subordinator as it is introducing the dependent clause.

Using Sentence Structure for Impact

Now for the fun part. It hardly does much good to know what the sentence structure options are if you don’t know how to effectively use them. So, what does sentence structure do to your story?

Pacing

The first very obvious thing it will do to your story has to do with pacing. Imagine you’re working on a scene that’s tense. Maybe it’s a romantic scene where the couple has finally taken a leap and the guy proposed to the girl. Or, maybe it’s an action scene and there’s a car chase going on.

What kind of sentence structure do you think is best for this? What you choose will convey the urgency or take away from it. If you choose to use a lot of long sentences (such as your compound-complex sentence structure), you’ll bog yourself down. It doesn’t read quickly, and the reader starts to lose focus or interest without even knowing why.

Here’s why. Your writing may be good, but if you didn’t choose a sentence structure to convey the energy of the scene, it just feels off to the reader. It doesn’t grab their attention, and it quickly makes them fall asleep when they should be on the edge of their seat with anticipation.

As a general rule of thumb, you want to use more shorter and choppier sentences for fast-paced scenes and longer, smoother ones for the slower, richer scenes. This helps create a pacing that strings the reader along with you as you weave the story for them.

Changing Things Up

One thing that many beginning writers (and even more advanced writers, in some cases) struggle with is repetition in sentence structure. Maybe the writer prefers short, simple sentences or is prone to long-winded compound-complex sentences that span an entire paragraph. Likely, we’ve all seen authors who fall somewhere on that spectrum.

But there’s one thing that repetitiveness assures. Boredom and irritation. Sentence structure helps to alleviate that when used with variety and wisely.

If you’ve had a lot of short, choppy sentences all in a row, it helps the reader if you throw in a longer sentence to give them a minute to catch their breath. Going back to the earlier point about pacing, you don’t want to create the wrong feeling for the piece, but you also don’t want to entirely wear the reader out or put them to sleep.

Whether you’ve had long, elegant sentences or short, simple ones, using another sentence structure opposite of the previously used structure in the right place can help to give readers a chance to rest or keep them from falling asleep.

Sound and Feel

In a word, sentence structure affects your overall aesthetic. How you say things matters, and sentence structure is interwoven in the very fabric of what you’ve said and how.

This means that if you choose the right sentence structure, the piece will flow in the readers’ minds as they read. It will feel natural, not forced. It will be a beautiful thing, a work of art instead of some words slapped hastily on a page.

One thing I recommend to those who are wondering if their sentence structure feels right is to read it aloud. Doing this forces you not to skip words or try to insert things into the text mentally as you read. Your brain does these things automatically when you edit, so it takes time to train it not to. One of the easiest ways to do that is to read it out loud, either to yourself or to someone else.

It may feel awkward at first to do so, but I promise it helps. As a bonus, it helps you catch other problems or mistakes as well. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve caught a spelling mistake or grammar error simply because I was reading something to someone else. Don’t be afraid of it not being perfect. It won’t be. Never will be, in fact. And that’s okay. You’re not the first to write an awful rough draft, and you won’t be the last. It’s a rough draft for a reason.

Conclusion

Well, that’s it for today! I hope this post has proved helpful. Do you have any other ways that sentence structure has affected your writing? If you do, feel free to leave it in the comments below! If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments as well, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Thursday Technicalities: Grammar and Why It’s Important

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Hey, everyone! Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about grammar. I know, I know… It’s one of the least enjoyable things about writing for lots of people. In fact, I can’t think of any other area of editing or critiquing others’ writing where I’ve been told more times not to pay attention to it in favor of critiquing something else.

So, today we’re going to talk about it and why you need it.

Why Does It Matter?

Lots of beginning writers and even ones who have been writing for a long while seem to feel grammar isn’t as important as the story. In one way, they’re right. In another, they’re very, very wrong.

How can it be both at once? Simple. It’s true that a story with impeccable grammar but terrible plot and characters won’t go anywhere. But at the same time, it’s also true that how you use grammar to tell that story will either shoot your publishing dreams in the foot or make your book stand out that much more.

Grammar matters.

Plain and simple. Whether you hate it or not, it matters. If you can’t write proper sentences or follow the rules, you can’t break them. Or at least, you can’t do so in a way that makes anyone want to keep reading. A few grammar mistakes here and there may not cost you much, but if you decide that proofreading and grammar don’t matter, you’re going to pay dearly in readers.

In a way, grammar is the bedrock of your novel. You have to have it to form the structure and the framework that is the story. Sure, it’s not the part of the house everyone notices. It isn’t necessarily flashy or ornate. Maybe it’s not even fun to look at. But it is necessary or the house topples.

Conclusion

Take the time to really understand the basics of grammar. If you don’t already, do so. I understand that it’s difficult and can sometimes be a bit confusing, especially if English isn’t your first language. But if you’re going to write in English (or your native tongue, even) understand the rules for doing so. It’s going to be one more tool in your tool box, and it’s going to make your writing that much more pleasurable to read because the grammar won’t intrude on the story.

It will set the stage, just as it’s supposed to. But it won’t overshadow the actors on that stage because it is done correctly. That is the importance of grammar.

In upcoming Thursday Technicalities posts, we’ll go over some of the grammar rules that can have a big impact on your story. I’ll show you how these aspects can be used as tools to tell your story your way. Until next time, everyone! Have a great rest of your week.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments if you have them.

Thursday Technicalities: Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts

Ariel Paiement1 Comment
Publishing Journey

Last week, we went over dialogue tags and action beats. This week we’re going to talk formatting and the do’s and don’ts when it comes to dialogue! So let’s get started.

Dialogue Do’s

  • Do make sure your dialogue is paragraphed properly. Each time the speaker changes, the dialogue of the new speaker starts a new paragraph. Ie:

“I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn, Damien.” Lucy crossed her arms.

“Because I can be? Seeing you upset is too much fun to pass up.”

  • Do use proper punctuation for dialogue tags vs action beats. Ie:

Dialogue tags:

“What do you mean she isn’t here? She promised,” Evan muttered.

or

“I thought you were going on vacation. You,” Jane said, “have a serious issue with sticking to your plans.”

Action beats:

“I don’t understand. You’re leaving?” Maria toyed with the hem of her t-shirt. “Why?”

or

“What’s the problem? You didn’t object before.” Carson leaned against the car door.

The key is that dialogue tags use commas to end the last sentence of dialogue before the tag while action beats use periods.

  • Do make sure to use action beats and dialogue tags only as needed. They’re not for propping up weak dialogue. For further discussion of this, read my post on Dialogue Tags vs Action Beats.
  • Do make it sound as natural as possible. You want it to mimic how people speak in real life without including redundant or pointless information. The occasional uh or um is fine, but the key is not to overdo it. We’re simulating real life, not copying it word-for-word.
  • Do read it out loud! This is the quickest way to catch stiff or otherwise bad dialogue. Your mind might not catch it, but your ear most likely will.
  • Do realize that dialogue tells us a lot about the character. Make good use of this as a technique to characterize your various characters and differentiate between them.

Dialogue Don’ts

  • Don’t overdo it with the action beats or dialogue tags. It will make your strong dialogue look weak and the piece overall look like an amateur wrote it.
  • Don’t use it as a way to tell the reader everything. If you can show it in a scene, do so. Only tell things through dialogue when it’s essential to do so.
  • Don’t have every character speak in the same way. We should be able to differentiate between at least the main characters by the way they talk and act.
  • Don’t use single quotation marks for dialogue. As a general rule of thumb, double quotes are the appropriate way to denote something as dialogue.
  • Don’t italicize or bold individual words in the dialogue for emphasis unless it’s absolutely necessary. And it almost never is because you can usually find a way to word things that will make it clear what is important to the character speaking without the use of italics or bold words.
  • Don’t have dialogue that stretches over a page in length. As a general rule, readers will lose interest if a character is on a monologue for that long. Besides, pages of dialogue from one character or even a few usually indicates an imbalance in the writing and telling instead of showing, neither of which are good.
  • Don’t write it exactly how you or someone else would talk. The goal is to write something that sounds like it could’ve been said by a real person without all the extra fluff that often occurs in real, everyday dialogue. Basically, cut all the boring stuff and get straight to the good stuff.
  • Don’t use semi-colons or colons in dialogue. Just don’t. Dashes or commas work fine. Periods too. But not semi-colons or colons.

Conclusion

These should be enough to get you started on dialogue. There are more advanced concepts that I may discuss later on at some point, but if you follow the rules of thumb given above, you should be alright. Above all, writing good dialogue takes practice. It’s not easy, but it is worth investing your time into. So just spend time listening to how people talk and then translate that into dialogue snippets just to practice.

Have a question I didn’t answer? Feel free to leave it in the comments for me. I’ll do my best to help out!