We’ve now gone through the six Primary Elements: Character Viewpoint Plot Structure Pacing Setting As I noted earlier, if any of these things have changed, they are likely to cause changes to the secondary elements. So we will do at least one complete editing pass to address any issues that …
Tag: Writing
There’s more to setting than time and place
The other day I wrote about the importance of establishing your setting early. The location and date are key pieces of data for readers to have, but setting encompasses a great deal more. ☐ The culture and mood are evoked through description and character reactions. Culture is a vital piece …
When you want to conceal the setting
Last time we compared minimalist fiction with the failure to provide adequate setting details. But sometimes, a writer may want to hold back setting details to provide a plot twist later. Like minimalism, this is a difficult technique to do well. It’s also been done before—a lot—so you have to …
Avoid blank stage syndrome
If readers don’t have enough sensory detail to go on, they can fail to engage with the story. Not knowing the story setting is very frustrating for the reader. In The Art & Craft of Writing Christian Fiction, Jeff Gerke says a scene with inadequate setting details “is like one …
Ground Your Readers in the Setting
Setting may not be the most important aspect of a novel, but it is critical to a great reader experience. Some genres are almost entirely defined by their settings. Regency romances are set in England during the early 1800s. Westerns are usually set west of the Mississippi in the late …
Logical Flow Propels Pacing
As we look at this item about pacing, it may sound familiar, because it is related to plot: ☐ Events flow logically in cause-and-effect relationships. That is, each scene doesn’t just happen after the prior scene, it happens because of the prior scene. When events flow from one to the …
Tension Keeps Readers Turning Pages
Writing teachers often say there should be “conflict” in every scene. There’s a problem with this, because too many writers think this means everyone always has to be arguing with everyone else. As if no two characters can ever agree on anything. There’s a difference between conflict and tension. We …
Pacing is a matter of proportion
Pacing is one of the more difficult elements of fiction because it is so subjective. A reader who loves rich description will enjoy a scene that lingers over the setting details, while another reader will complain that it’s slow and boring. Nevertheless, there are some aspects of pacing we can …
Is your epilogue necessary?
Everything that’s true for prologues goes for epilogues as well. ☐ Epilogue, if used, is necessary and engaging. It’s not enough that your epilogue be sweet and show how your characters live happily ever after. It has to wrap up the story in a way that, if it were omitted, …
Editing is like construction: seal the joints
When you’re renovating a house and you put up new drywall, you have to seal the joints with putty so that when the wall is painted, the joins between the drywall don’t show. Sometimes our first drafts need a similar treatment. ☐ Vestiges of earlier versions have been edited into …