The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes by Jack M Bickham Page A
Authors: Jack M Bickham
Tags: Fiction, General, Literary Criticism, Reference, Authorship, Language Arts & Disciplines, Writing Skills, Composition & Creative Writing, Creative Writing, Fiction - Technique, Technique
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"valleys." It follows, then, that if your story feels slow to you, you may need to expand your scenes and cut, or even eliminate, some of your sequels. While if your story seems to be going at an insane pace, with no characterization or logic, you may need to trim some of your scenes a bit, or expand your sequels to provide more breathing room.
If the idea of sequel is new to you, it may help you to study some stories by other writers. Work to pick out the sequels. Notice how the author is often inside the head of a character alone, feeling and thinking about the plot action or other story people. How is the emotion shown? How are the thoughts presented? How does a writer get from random feelings to increasingly linear thought to some firm—if desperate—final decision that will lead to new action?
Try to make every such analysis a learning experience. If it helps, make some notes in your journal, or elsewhere, about how sequels are handled. The analysis will help you enrich your own skills in handling these vital components of story.
25. Don't Wander Around in a Fog
"Wait a minute. I don't know what's going on here."
Did you ever read a short story or novel that gave you this feeling partway through? Worse, did you ever write a story where you suddenly started feeling that way?
It's a pretty bad feeling when it comes during a story you're reading. But it's far worse when it happens during your writing of a story. In that case, it probably signals potential disaster.
Of course all of us experience times during first draft when things do not seem to be going well—when all our careful planning seems to have failed us, and the plot no longer seems to work. Sometimes we can muddle through and fix things later. But even if we make a good fix and later sell the story or book, it's not fun to go through.
It just doesn't pay to wander around in a fog when you're supposed to be putting down a story that makes sense. At best it wastes time. At worst, it wrecks your project. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to minimize such times of confusion.
First, you should always begin with a brief statement, as precise as possible, about what your planned story is essentially about.
Second, you should remember always to follow the story, which is to say, the line of conflict growing out of the lead character's goal.
Third, you should beware of late-blooming ideas that seem to come from nowhere during your writing of the project.
Some writers would protest the first advice, saying they "write by inspiration," or "do the story to see how it's going to come out." I hope you're not one of those. The more planning you do before starting to write, the better. Some writers do a detailed outline or proposal; others make elaborate notes on the characters; some make do with a scribbled page or two out of a legal tablet, sketching in a synopsis of the plot. Whatever the individual procedure may be, however, there is a central idea in such planning: Be sure you know what your story is about before you start .
This is easy to say and hard to do. One of the reasons its hard is that all of us tend to imagine a lot more story than we can ever put down in the finished product, the limits of space and time being what they are. Another reason such summary is hard is that the creative imagination likes to freewheel, and detests being forced to boil its ideas down to the ultimate direct simplicity. "If I write down the idea as succinctly as possible," some will cry, "then I won't need to write the story!"
Pardon me while I disagree. As a teacher over the years I've seen far too many stories—shorts and novels alike—founder in midstream because the author simply lost her way—forgot what the original wonderful idea was, in its essence. Writing a novel, for example, is a long and arduous task, and during the composition no writer can keep all the projects aspects in mind all the time. We forget a subplot for a while, or we get overly
If the idea of sequel is new to you, it may help you to study some stories by other writers. Work to pick out the sequels. Notice how the author is often inside the head of a character alone, feeling and thinking about the plot action or other story people. How is the emotion shown? How are the thoughts presented? How does a writer get from random feelings to increasingly linear thought to some firm—if desperate—final decision that will lead to new action?
Try to make every such analysis a learning experience. If it helps, make some notes in your journal, or elsewhere, about how sequels are handled. The analysis will help you enrich your own skills in handling these vital components of story.
25. Don't Wander Around in a Fog
"Wait a minute. I don't know what's going on here."
Did you ever read a short story or novel that gave you this feeling partway through? Worse, did you ever write a story where you suddenly started feeling that way?
It's a pretty bad feeling when it comes during a story you're reading. But it's far worse when it happens during your writing of a story. In that case, it probably signals potential disaster.
Of course all of us experience times during first draft when things do not seem to be going well—when all our careful planning seems to have failed us, and the plot no longer seems to work. Sometimes we can muddle through and fix things later. But even if we make a good fix and later sell the story or book, it's not fun to go through.
It just doesn't pay to wander around in a fog when you're supposed to be putting down a story that makes sense. At best it wastes time. At worst, it wrecks your project. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to minimize such times of confusion.
First, you should always begin with a brief statement, as precise as possible, about what your planned story is essentially about.
Second, you should remember always to follow the story, which is to say, the line of conflict growing out of the lead character's goal.
Third, you should beware of late-blooming ideas that seem to come from nowhere during your writing of the project.
Some writers would protest the first advice, saying they "write by inspiration," or "do the story to see how it's going to come out." I hope you're not one of those. The more planning you do before starting to write, the better. Some writers do a detailed outline or proposal; others make elaborate notes on the characters; some make do with a scribbled page or two out of a legal tablet, sketching in a synopsis of the plot. Whatever the individual procedure may be, however, there is a central idea in such planning: Be sure you know what your story is about before you start .
This is easy to say and hard to do. One of the reasons its hard is that all of us tend to imagine a lot more story than we can ever put down in the finished product, the limits of space and time being what they are. Another reason such summary is hard is that the creative imagination likes to freewheel, and detests being forced to boil its ideas down to the ultimate direct simplicity. "If I write down the idea as succinctly as possible," some will cry, "then I won't need to write the story!"
Pardon me while I disagree. As a teacher over the years I've seen far too many stories—shorts and novels alike—founder in midstream because the author simply lost her way—forgot what the original wonderful idea was, in its essence. Writing a novel, for example, is a long and arduous task, and during the composition no writer can keep all the projects aspects in mind all the time. We forget a subplot for a while, or we get overly
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