Category: Writing tips

9 Storytelling Blunders That Make You Look like an Amateur

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image of Riker facepalming

Image from Dark Uncle

 

You may be a grammatical black belt, leaping big vocabulary words in a single bound. But take care: you could still be making elementary mistakes that’ll leave your readers cringing, eye-rolling, and yes, even face-palming.

Protect your writerly reputation! Check out these nine storytelling mistakes that make you look like a total n00b—and learn how to fix them like a pro.

 

1. The Perfect Hero: Best We’ve Ever Seen

The problem: Your character is the Best at Everything, constantly impresses the other characters, and frequently breaks rules yet never gets in real trouble. This character is so cliché she has a name: Mary Sue. She’s amusing for awhile, but only as a daydream. She soon makes you look shallow and self-indulgent.

The fix: Give her fears and weaknesses. Trip her up. Relate to your readers by appealing to their vulnerability. As the Pixar geniuses remind us, we admire characters more for trying than for succeeding.

 

2. The Weak Villain: Foiled Again!

The problem: This mistake often goes with the one above. Your brilliant hero thwarts the villain yet again! Perhaps even single-handedly! But if your villain is that weak, you’re not challenging your hero, which means you have no conflict and therefore no story. It’s boring.

The fix: Give your villain multiple advantages over your hero. A bigger army, bigger guns, more political influence. Your hero should suffer greater and greater losses as he clashes with the villain throughout the story, until he reaches his lowest point, and finds some tiny advantage that helps him defeat the villain—probably an advantage you introduced near the beginning.

 

3. Instant Romance: Just Add Danger!

The problem: Contrary to action movie tradition, “we got shot at together” is not a valid basis for True Love, especially when your characters have only known each other for weeks, days, or even hours. Those stories can be titillating, but not moving.

The fix: Give your characters actual personalities, and something within those personalities that suits them for each other. Watch the first twenty minutes of Pixar’s Up or Wall-E to see how it’s done. (Or here’s more help avoiding shallow romance.)

 

4. Exposition: If You’re Just Joining Us…

The problem: Flat-out explanations for past events instead of hinting at them. You often see these in the subsequent volumes of a series to recap events from previous books, but you’ll also see it in standalone books to reveal heroes’ personal histories, or even to remind the reader what’s happened so far. It’s awkward and often boring.

The fix: This is a classic example of when you should show, not tell. Don’t say it, convey it. Here’s how to get rid of background exposition.

 

5. Laundry List Descriptions: Check, Check, Check

The problem: Describing every character with the same handful of features. Hair color. Eye color. And every article of clothing. You’re trying to give the reader a complete picture, but by the third or fourth detail their eyes are glazing over.

The fix: Pick a few details that inspire your readers to fill in the rest. What would strike you when you first met the character? What would you remember about him later? A unique mustache? A discoloration of the skin? An elaborately pocketed cloak? Focus on these details and give minimalist descriptions for the rest.

 

6. Surprise! It Was All a Dream

The problem: You coax your readers through some tragic or thrilling scene and then jerk them at the end by revealing it was only a dream. Unless you’re writing the next Inception, do not do this. It’s a poor attempt at increasing tension, which ends up feeling more like a broken promise.

The fix: If you must include a dream sequence, make it obvious from the beginning of the scene that it is a dream. Preface it with “I had another dream last night,” or fill it with surreal, dream-like qualities.

 

7. The Idiot Class: They’re All Like That!

The problem: Portraying a people group, often a religious or political organization, as nincompoops. In amateur YA fiction it’s common for all the adults to be idiots, while the kids cleverly fool them at every turn. Unless you’re writing farce, this makes you look shallow and bigoted.

The fix: A few fools are fine, but if you want to be taken seriously, include people with depth on both sides of the conflict. Don’t make your hero—or his cause—infallible.

 

8. Mini Morals: Holier Than Thou

The problem: The hero sidesteps from the plot onto a soapbox for some religious, political or ethical cause. It only lasts for a few lines of dialogue, but it’s spammy, like when you’re talking to a friend about your favorite movie, and he segues into all the reasons you should join the Church of the Lonely Potato. It’s annoying even if you already belong to the Church of the Lonely Potato.

The fix: If you’re going to have a moral or message in your story, the entire story should work to tell that moral, and you shouldn’t flatly state it at the end like in a Saturday morning cartoon. Instead, demonstrate it through the events and consequences of the story.

 

9. Pop Culture References: As Troubling as Justin Bieber

The problem: Modern pop culture references date your work and break your readers’ suspension of disbelief. In five years, is your Gotye reference going to make you look cool or out of touch? And blatant Blazing Saddles references do not help immerse me in your medieval dragon world, Mr. Paolini!

The fix: If your world isn’t connected to our modern world, avoid references entirely. If you’re writing about the future, you have more leeway, but stick with icons that have proven staying power (Bieber will likely follow Aaron Carter into obscurity, but The Beatles are safe territory). Bonus tip: reference your own made-up icons that are popular in your futuristic world.

 

Are you guilty any of these mistakes? What other amateur writing blunders make you cringe when you read them?

 

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riker facepalming

Whatever you do when writing your novel, don’t do these nine things.

How to Write Formula Fiction

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Image by J. Finn-Irwin

Image by J. Finn-Irwin

You’re probably thinking this entire post should consist of one word:

“Don’t.”

But it’s not going to. Because as it turns out, there is a right way to write formula fiction.

Let’s start with the preliminaries.

What is formula fiction?

Wikipedia defines formula fiction as “literature in which the storylines and plots have been reused to the extent that the narratives are predictable.”

Why does formula fiction usually suck?

“Predictable” is the operative word. If you’re in the first few scenes of a book or movie and are already able to predict who’s going to die, who is the murderer, or who’s going to fall in love with whom, that’s because it’s formulaic. Mac ‘n’ cheese. The same ingredients every time. The writer isn’t pushing anymore. The story is boring and unoriginal.

Why do we still like reading bad formula fiction sometimes?

For the same reason we like Easy Mac—those little plastic bowls of instant mac-and-powdered-cheese you’re horrified to admit you’ve eaten. Though it’s probably made of packing peanuts and crushed up beetles, and though a $10 plate of gourmet macaroni with gruyere and applewood smoked bacon tastes infinitely better, sometimes you just want some Easy Mac. Cheap. Fast. Cheese-ish.

How can I make formula fiction awesome?

Perhaps I should have titled this post “Wodehouse fills my heart with joy,” because I’m going to turn right around and tell you that one of my favorite authors is, technically speaking, a writer of formula fiction.

Since Anne informed me back in April that I had to read P.G. Wodehouse (or, presumably, no longer be allowed among the ranks of People Who Know About Good Books), I have devoured four Wodehouse volumes (20+ separate stories) and have started on a fifth.

P.G. Wodehouse is best known for his series about Bertram Wooster and his valet, Jeeves. These stories usually go something like this:

  1. Bertie or one of his friends either needs to escape from an engagement, or to convince a rich relative to let him marry a girl of questionable status.
  2. Bertie seeks advice from his brilliant valet, Jeeves.
  3. Jeeves coldly fails to offer help. Bertie surmises it is because he has recently bought some article of clothing of which Jeeves disapproves.
  4. Determined not to be ruled by his valet, Bertie elects to keep said article of clothing, and comes up with his own plan to get out of the bind.
  5. Bertie’s plan fails miserably.
  6. Suddenly, everything works out – and we discover it was all Jeeves’ doing after all.
  7. Bertie, overcome with gratitude, offers to let Jeeves dispose of the aforementioned offensive article of clothing.
  8. Jeeves informs Bertie that he has already taken the liberty of doing so.

Occasionally a plot involves betting on the fatness of uncles or on community sack races. But you get the picture.

Yet, with such predictability, I am never bored. Here’s why.

Wodehouse’s Points of Awesome

Hilarious Voice.

Although Wodehouse gives us plenty of situational comedy, very little (besides your serotonin levels) has changed by the end; the story serves more as a vehicle for wit than as an end to itself – wit which continually surprises when the plot does not.

Iconic Characters.

Wodehouse’s heroes are more iconic than cliché, and the contrast between Bertie’s bumbling lovability and Jeeves’ sophisticated stoicism is inherently funny, in much the same way the contrasts between Kirk and Spock, Holmes and Watson, and Gimli and Legolas are inherently funny.

Running Gags.

This is a case of Manuel explaining to Mycroft the difference between “funny once” jokes and “funny all the time” jokes. Some things are funny because they’re unexpected; some things are funny because “oh, that is so like him!” such as Garfield kicking Odie off the table, or the Earth getting blown up in the Hitchhiker’s trilogy.

Surprises.

While Wodehouse’s work usually follows a pattern, occasionally he still surprises you – like when Jeeves narrates instead of Bertie, or when a friend forces Bertie to masquerade as a mass market romance novelist. The patterns then serve to make the surprises all the more delightful.

Someone in an Amazon review called Wodehouse the Mozart of formula fiction; I’m inclined to agree. Wodehouse may always use the same ingredients, but they are quality ingredients.

So if formula is your forte, don’t use the stereotype as an excuse to be sub-par. Strive instead for the above four Points of Awesome. Strive to make the best macaroni and cheese ever.

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How to Fix Your Sagging Plot

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Does your story sag in the middle? Do you feel like you’re plowing through boring scenes just to get to the cool ones? Is your protagonist wandering around aimlessly, looking for the climax?

It’s not enough to have all the major events written down in a neat little list – what you need is structure.

An important distinction

Structure is not formula:

  • Formula is like having the same floorplan over and over.
  • Structure is a floor, walls and roof: you can organize them into whatever floorplan you like – but you can’t build a house without them.

Structure is the ebb and flow of tension and discovery that keeps you readers moving through the story. Structure helps you:

  • Keep the pace up
  • Know what’s important and what isn’t
  • Understand when to start and end the story

The following is a time-honored plot structure endorsed by Syd Field and others.

Structure of a Plot

setup, problem, confrontation, setback/decision, resolution

Photo by total13

Setup

In Act I, or the beginning of your story, you introduce the hero. We learn what he cares about and decide if we like him. This part should be relatively short. Keep the backstory to a minimum: it’s only an introduction.

Examples:

  • Bilbo celebrates his eleventy-first birthday
  • Luke buys some used droids
  • Passepartout starts a new job under Fogg

Problem

Within the first or second chapters, introduce the problem. Syd Field calls this Plot Point 1, which hooks the action and spins it into the next act. James Scott Bell calls it the first “pillar” of your plot “bridge,” or the first Door of No Return. This usually happens in a single scene – maybe at the end of the same scene you used to introduce the character.

Examples:

  • Frodo learns an evil something is coming to the Shire in search of Bilbo’s old Ring.
  • Luke’s aunt and uncle are killed, and he’s got the droids their killers are looking for.
  • Passepartout’s new boss bets some friends he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. Starting tonight.

Confrontation

Now we’re in the middle, or Act II of your story. This is the biggest chunk of the book. Your hero will face a series of obstacles, each more difficult than the last. As he overcomes each obstacle, the plot thickens, the tension increases, and the stakes are raised. In other words, new developments reveal that the hero stands to lose (or gain) even more than he originally thought.

Your hero should be getting more and more desperate; the pace should get quicker and quicker.

Examples:

  • Frodo and his friends face wraiths, orcs, trolls, giant spiders, etc.
  • Luke saves a princess, escapes the Death Star, loses his mentor, etc.
  • Passepartout and co. fight through bad weather, savage attacks, etc.

Setback/Discovery

Plot Point 2, the second pillar of the bridge, or the second Door of No Return. This is the worst setback and/or the major discovery that signals the climax. Your hero is now either armed with new information that leads him to a final showdown with the villain, or has been brought to his lowest point – he is betrayed, or he’s been shot, or the girl he’s been trying to save all this time gets killed, etc. The villain believes he has won.

It’s at this point the hero must make a decision. The ultimate decision.

Examples:

  • Setback: an army of orcs between Frodo and MountDoom. They disguise themselves as orcs. Decision: Frodo decides whether to keep or destroy the Ring.
  • Setback: Luke, now a rookie rebel fighter, is the last armed fighter left against the giant space station. Decision: Whether to trust the computer or the Force.
  • Setback: After being detained, Fogg and co. believe the game is lost. Decision: Fogg decides to marry the girl he loves.

Resolution

The End, or Act III. The climax and conclusion are the results of his ultimate decision. Does he win or lose, learn a lesson, live to fight another day?

Examples:

  • We find out who survived, who married whom, and who leaves Middle Earth.
  • We find out if Luke succeeds or fails and what that means for the Rebel Alliance.
  • Passepartout sets out to find a priest to do the marrying, when he discovers they arrived in town a day early – and we find out if they make it in time.

So there you have it. Just follow the bridge to get safely across to happily ever after.

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When Editing Goes Too Far

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measuring tape

Photo by Ciara McDonnell

I preach plenty about trimming the fat from writing. Strunk, White and Zinsser command it, and I’ve learned it firsthand from dealing with limited space in ads, radio commercials and billboards.

Efficient writing is better writing.

But this isn’t some professional writing secret. You’ll read it on all the forums, hear it at all the conferences and even in your local writers’ group. Cut, cut, cut. Maybe it’s the growing popularity of flash fiction, maybe it’s the waning attention spans of the masses, but whatever the cause, the fact remains:

Skinny writing is in.

We’re all shaking our pages till the adverbs fall out, beating the paragraphs till the parentheticals flee, ever striving for that low, low word count.

The red ink flows in our lust for trim prose.

And what are we seeing as a result? Leaner literature?

Or malnourished manuscripts?

Are we perpetuating a healthy word diet – or an editing disorder?

There is a point when the art becomes emaciated, with wording so simple you can’t differentiate the work of one author from another. Cut too deep, and the voice will bleed right out of your sentences.

Cutting words is one of those rules you have to learn first, to break later.

First you learn how to make each word count. How to construct clear thoughts. How not to waste your readers’ time.

But then you have to find your voice: that special way of writing you have (or your narrator has) that no one else has. And that voice may require a few “unnecessary” words.

Once you know the mechanics of writing efficiently, you can start learning the art of writing uniquely.

What happens if you don’t?

I took the red pen to the three wordiest excerpts from the 5 fantastic examples of voice I posted two years ago. Here’s how they came out.

Mr. Dickens: A Christmas Carol

There is no doubt Marley was dead. The clergyman, clerk, undertaker, and chief mourner all signed the register of his burial. Scrooge Signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.

I don’t know what is particularly dead about a doornail; I might regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery. But our ancestors’ wisdom is in the simile; and I won’t disturb it, or the Country’s ruined.

WORDS CUT: 60

Mr. Adams: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

In the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small yellow sun.

Orbiting this at about ninety-eight million miles is an insignificant blue-green planet whose primitive ape-descended life forms still think digital watches are cool.

This planet had a problem: most of its people were unhappy. Most of the suggested solutions for this problem involved the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

WORDS CUT: 48

Mr. Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

You don’t know about me, unless you read “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but that doesn’t matter. Mr. Mark Twain made that book, and told the truth, mainly. He stretched some things, but everybody lies sometimes, except Tom’s Aunty Polly, Mary, and the Widow Douglas.

WORDS CUT: 55

Feel that? That something missing? How it seems rushed?

I could have cut even more: Dickens’s entire second paragraph; several of the adjectives from Adams’s piece. But honestly, would there be anything left?

Learn to write efficiently, by all means. But don’t cut so much that you lose yourself.

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Need help finding your voice? Sign up for Voice Week, November 4 – 8! You’ll have a chance to win a copy of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief!

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measuring tape

Are you over-editing?