Modern storytelling spans many different platforms. Film, TV, music video, advertising, gaming, and social media are continual presences in the lives of all us writers, which makes it surprisingly difficult to filter out their influence, and to write using novelistic convention alone. As a manuscript assessor, I’ve read work influenced by all these things, mostly unconsciously on the part of the author. This has encouraged me to dig deeper into the conventions of written fiction, to convey a few simple but vital tips to help accelerate your route to publication. Here are four things I wish I’d know when I set out writing:
1 – Dialogue. Novelistic dialogue isn’t like film or TV, or the meandering conversations we have in real life. Novelistic dialogue is artificially truncated to make it vibrant. In written story, characters can’t chit-chat or talk themselves around in circles. On TV, this kind of writing works a treat, because viewers get a free visual. While the characters chat, a viewer can assess the backdrop, the time of day or night, the opulence or poverty of the setting, and whether the characters are in danger or at rest. Written story doesn’t have this luxury. Us writers only have words to paint a backdrop. Written fiction needs to be as economical and dramatic as possible, so every word (including speech) must matter. Keep dialogue truncated and punchy. Read my Writing Tips article ‘Dialogue’ here, to find out more.
2 – Special Effects. If you’re writing fantasy, horror, or a ghost story, written fiction needs careful building up in scenes which deal with anything magical or supernatural. Choose atmospheric or vividly descriptive words, and layer them up to show what the protagonist sees, hears and feels. Visual fiction is terrific for making us believe the weirdest of things in a heartbeat, thanks to special effects. Written fiction needs a bit more attention to detail. It’s one of the few places the forward motion of the story can afford to slow down just a little bit, so that things can be built up vividly in the reader’s mind. Read my Writing Tips article ‘Love, Death and Magic’ here, to find out more.
3 – Showing and Telling. Readers love to be caught up in the moment, watching what’s happening to their narrator in the here-and-now. This is ‘showing’. It gives an immediacy to the story – the character doesn’t know what’s coming, so the reader doesn’t, either. ‘Showing’ increases tension, which readers love. Anywhere things are explained, mulled over, or looked back on from a future point of relative safety, this is ‘telling’, and it’s where the tension can flag. Short stories are sometimes more forgiving of ‘telling’ than long fiction (which needs continual pace to keep the reader on board). It’s useful to be aware of how much showing and telling you’re doing. Working with clients over time has shown me that mastering a good balance of showing and telling is something which can be achieved with coaching and time. Read more about ‘Showing and Telling’ here.
4 - Clunky Prose. This applies equally to short stories and long fiction. Clunky writing tends to happen when a writer tries too hard to cram lots of detail into a single sentence. As a manuscript assessor, I see clunky prose mostly in the opening pages of a story. Usually, when a writer finds their feet and stops trying so hard, the clunky prose disappears. Fortunately, there are some simple fixes for clunky prose, the easiest being to split a long sentence down into separate shorter components before deciding which bits might be re-linked. Read more about ‘Clunky Prose’ here.
Written fiction may have its own unique conventions, but the good news is they’re learnable, especially with editorial help and/or coaching.
This article was written for the Jericho Writers staff takeover series in June 2024.