Editing is a process, and an important part of that process is the editor—or editors, as is usually the case. Hopefully, over the course of preparing a piece for publication, others (whose feedback you value) review your work. Sometimes, though, it’s unclear what advice you should take and what you shouldn’t. If you’re workshopping a story with a big group, you’ll probably get more feedback than you know what to do with—and some of it might be contradictory. In this case, it’s always good to know what you want from the advice. What are you looking to improve in your story? Of course, you may not know that, especially if this is your first venture into crafting a story. To help with this, we’ve asked Brink staffers to share the most memorable, helpful, tired, and useful feedback they’ve received over the years—and what to do with it. 

Q: What’s a piece of feedback you have received that has stuck with you over the years? 

Nate, Communications & Marketing Director: Everybody Knows That (EKT). My dear friend Antoine hit me with that feedback years ago in relation to worldbuilding in a science fiction book I was writing. Basically, whenever you’re writing exposition or dialogue, you apply EKT to decide if people living in the world would already know what you’re describing, which means they wouldn’t talk or think about it. For an on-the-nose example, you generally wouldn’t say, “I’m going to brush my teeth with toothpaste and a toothbrush” because the toothpaste and brush are an implied part of living in your world. 

Dominic, Content Creator & Staff Writer: “Not everyone knows what is going on in your head as the writer.” When working on a piece, I can live in the world of it, but it’s my job as the writer to transcribe that experience onto the page to the reader and help them walk around in that world. The experience of looking at another person’s vacation photos isn’t as riveting as hearing an engaging travel anecdote. 

Kaitlin, Internship Supervisor & Senior Editor: To be hyper aware of how frequently we rely on pronouns to reference characters. There’s an obvious time and place for using them as identifiers, but often they function more like filler than anything. It’s something I noticed in everything I read and when I edit my own work. 

Ari, Junior Editor: Unfortunately, the most memorable piece of feedback I’ve ever received was negative. I had a creative writing teacher in college who intensely disliked me and she once told me my work was “over dramatic, over emotional, and overly descriptive.” Which is, frankly, all the things I love best about my writing style, so thankfully this motivated me via spite to lean into these elements even more. 

Maribel, Internship Assistant & Junior Editor: “What does your character want?” Before hearing this for the first time, I never realized while reading that what drives a story forward are the characters’ desires. Without them, you have no conflict, drama, or motivation. I now look for what characters are truly striving for in everything I read, watch, and listen to. The best stories always have multiple layers of this, and clear desires in every scene. 

Q: What’s a piece of feedback you’ve given that you remember well and why did you provide that specific feedback? 

Nate: Don’t assume the reader knows what you know. When we enter that writerly flow state it’s very easy to get wrapped up in the experiences and emotions that we’re tapping into and channeling into our characters and their choices. And because we tend to feel what we’re putting on the page, we sometimes fail to write that feeling in, and that means that readers will miss out on invaluable context. I share this feedback a lot, but probably the first time was after reading a friend’s love story. Love is this universal thing that we all (hopefully) know a bit about, but each love is vastly different, so I recommended that my friend spend time really talking about the love in their story and why it was so special. 

Dominic: “Show, don’t tell.” Dialogue is fun to write, and it fills up the page count quickly to give a sense of accomplishment, but does the reader want to receive all the information that way? Will it immerse them in the story? Think of which is more receptive by the reader: going through the entire process with the characters or overhearing some recap via talking heads. 

Kaitlin: In a more general sense, why is [XYZ] character doing something? I think as writers we’re so aware of all our characters’ motivations that we sometimes forget we need to be more explicit with our readers so they understand as well. And it’s a fine balance between informing your reader vs. info dumping on them, but I often read work and am left wondering why characters do a certain thing or have a particular response to something. 

Ari: It was less one specific piece of feedback and more of a thank you I received from a writer I had been friends with for a long time, explaining how my faith in her abilities and my encouragement helped her to strive towards the type of writer she wanted to be. I always try to balance my constructive criticism with what I love about a piece, and I was over the moon to hear it had genuinely inspired her. 

Maribel: I’m always looking for fantastical or strange elements in perfectly normal stories, so I once told someone that I loved their use of magical realism in a story where it seemed to me that the increasing smell of burnt food was caused by the character’s anger. The author then told me it was because the character had left a pie in the oven, and due to their distraction forgot about it. I was kind of sad and said I liked the magical realism aspect better! 

Q: What’s feedback you’re tired of hearing? 

Nate: “This is great. I really like it.” I love praise, of course. We all do! But positive feedback without any details or deeper digging doesn’t help any writer improve. 

Dominic: “Who is the audience?” The market is changing year by year. For example, the romance genre, which was associated with monthly Harlequin mass markets, now has multiple sub-genres, trade paperbacks, and bookstores which focus mainly on that audience. The horror genre is growing in the comic book industry but when “The Walking Dead” was first pitched, Robert Kirkman said that the zombies were only going to be in the first storyline. 

Katilin: “I don’t like this character, can we make them more likable?” No, the point is for them to be complex and unlikable. 

Ari: There’s been a trend lately to encourage action-oriented plots, quick pacing, and writing shorter. Which isn’t inherently negative, but it is anti-anthem to the type of “over dramatic, over emotional, overly descriptive” prose I prefer to write and read. Sometimes you need to indulge yourself in decadent metaphor and syrup-thick interiority, baby. I think the industry would be very boring if we only prioritized one type of writing. 

Maribel: Any feedback that is critiquing something the story isn’t actively trying to do. For example, critiquing a story for not including magical realism when it never meant to. There’s no point. Also, “Write what you know.” I actually think it can be very good advice, but I hate that it gets so misconstrued and over used. 

Q: What’s feedback everyone probably needs to hear at some point? 

Nate: Don’t try to write like anyone else. In high school and college, I really wanted to emulate the authors that I was reading, especially when it came to postmodernists. The trouble was, as one professor told me bluntly, I was creating out of parody rather than out of my own experience. Trying to be the next Pynchon or DeLillo means connecting with your own present day understanding, rather than doing an impression of an author from a previous generation. 

Dominic: “What is the story? And what is the story about?” These two questions were the best writing advice I ever received from a teacher. One is about the through line that the plot is hung on, and the other is the theme that works as the guardrails for the characters’ actions. Jaws is the story of a shark terrorizing a summer resort community as much as it is the story about duty and Chief Martin Brody’s commitment to protect everyone. The character motivation of what the story is about is shown through the actions of Brody going out to hunt the great white shark even though he is terrified of the ocean. 

Kaitlin: Stop burying the start of your story with lyrical language and conceptual posturing. I’m always more engaged with a story when it jumps straight into the meat. 

Ari: All writing advice is shit unless it works for you. What I mean by this is—any writing advice can be good or bad, depending on your personal process, project, or story. Just because something works for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you, and just because something is traditionally classified as a writing “no-no” doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Be true to your needs. 

Maribel: Own your own voice. Even if one or two people don’t like it, someone else will. The greatest storytellers of all time each had a distinct voice that made them memorable and interesting to read. There are so many stories out there—there is certainly a place for yours. 

The Final Step 

Taking your work to the next level, and getting it closer to publication, always requires editing and other sets of eyes. Other people can really help bring your piece to life and help you iron out any odds and ends with it. That said, know what kind of advice you’re looking for—everyone’s going to have their own opinion after all! As long as you consider every piece of feedback you receive and how it may or may not actually fit into your story, you’ll have done good work. 

The Facts of Fiction series is almost at its end—can you believe it? We’ve reached a point in the great journey of storytelling where you are at a natural ending. Take some time to reflect on all you’ve done in the process. What have you learned? What have you written? Where will you go next?

Congratulations! You’ve successfully completed a FIRST DRAFT. You should feel PROUD, GLEEFUL, and CREATIVE. But now what? 

Well, I hate to break it to you, but a first draft of any piece of writing (or art) is just half the battle. In fact, it may only be about one-quarter of it. The rest of that battle lies in the editing process.

Editing is a battle all on its own. It takes time, usually more time than the actual writing does, and it requires more than just one person. It’s more of a mountain than a molehill, so to speak. But no matter what kind of story you’re telling, whether it’s through a poem, podcast, film, TV show, novel, or short story, it is going to need editing. Nothing is born perfect, after all. 

Don’t let that scare you. Just because the journey isn’t over yet doesn’t mean you haven’t gotten somewhere. In fact, your final destination should be clearer than ever. Before your first draft, you may have had only a vague idea of where you were going. Now, you have a story. And you can do anything with that. 

This blog exists to get you from first draft to second draft and beyond with as few tears and headaches as possible. And although everyone approaches it differently, editing is a process and there are steps you can follow to make it easier on yourself. Here’s our guide to help storytellers improve the clarity, coherence, and impact of their stories in seven steps. 

1) Shift your mindset from creator to editor.

First of all, take a step back and take a deep breath. You’ve just created something! You should be proud. And like a good oven-roasted beef tenderloin, it needs some time to rest. Set your finished first draft aside for a couple days, or even a couple weeks—be careful of letting it rest for TOO long, though, lest you overcook the meat!—and take your mind off it so that when you do return, it’s with well-rested, fresh eyes, ready to chop it up.

Putting it away for a period of time will also help you shift your mindset from creator to editor. Creators are not concerned with perfection. In order to get words on the page, writers need to cast aside the idea that initial drafts can be perfect. Strive for greatness, not perfection—only then can innovation flourish. Then, once you have completed a draft, you can refocus your energy on editing. 

Editing brings you a step closer to “perfection”—whatever that may look like. But don’t see it as a chore. Editing your own work can be just as fulfilling and inventive as drafting it was. It is where you can play with the small details and take your time with each scene, character, narrative arc, line, and word. Editing is where you ask yourself questions like, “Do I need that semicolon or should it be a period?” and, “What exactly am I trying to say by using the word expeditious twice in the same paragraph?” 

More than that, editing is a time for you to fully appreciate the scope of your work. Enjoy it—and be prepared to brutalize it. In a fun way, of course. 

You also have to be prepared for others to critique your work. No piece is complete without input from other creatives or editors you trust. Depending on who you share it with and how you choose to share it, you may have a lot of feedback to get through. Don’t let this bog you down. You don’t have to take every piece of advice (and you shouldn’t, as some will be contradictory), but you should consider all feedback with an open mind. And whatever you end up using or not using, have a good reason for doing so. 

2) Read your work aloud.

It cannot be overstated: Nothing will help you edit more than reading your work aloud. It sounds simple. It even sounds obvious. And if you hated reading aloud in school, perhaps it sounds dreadful. But this isn’t that. This isn’t stuttering words in front of a classroom of bored, judgmental middle schoolers. This is your own work, in the privacy of your own space. You don’t have to read this aloud to anyone (though you can if you want; my cat, Cleo, for example, has provided a beautiful set of ears for many a story). 

Reading aloud will help you catch moments of awkward phrasing, repetitive language, and pacing issues that reading silently won’t even catch. As you read aloud, you will naturally stumble over areas that don’t make sense or have grown uncomfortably slow. Rhythm and cadence are a big part of what makes a piece flow well. If the words sound good when spoken aloud, then you know you have a good cadence going, resulting in an easier and more pleasant reading experience. This is true for all types of work, not just poems—though it tends to be especially important with those. 

One way to make the most of a read-aloud session is by recording yourself. Even if you hate the sound of your recorded voice, being able to replay a recording of your work can help identify potential improvements. Plus, you get to imagine it as an audiobook!

3) Tackle the big picture first.

The first step of editing any first draft is to look at the big picture. It’s not worth editing at a line level until you can see how the story comes together as a whole. This will help ensure you don’t waste time editing details of paragraphs or scenes that will ultimately be cut. So, while it can seem overwhelming at first, here are three steps to help you get started with making big picture edits: 

1. Read through the entire work without editing. Don’t leap into making changes right away. Instead, take your work as it is and, as you read, note down anything that stands out to you as an overarching issue or problem area. It’s tough to do this, especially when you find a spot you feel you can fix right away. Resist—in the long run, it will be worth it.
2. Identify the core themes and messages. Reading through your work should reveal what it’s really about, which you may have known before starting or may have formed during creation. A big picture edit looks at how your themes, overall plot, and internal message work throughout your story. Are they consistent? Anywhere they’re not, make note of it. What is the message of your story and is it getting through? If not, why and where can you improve it? Be ready to think through these questions as you read—without immediately fixing anything you discover to be not working.
3. Check pacing and tension. If you find your story difficult to get through at any point, it will be even worse for new readers. Note areas where it feels slow, as they often benefit from tighter writing or added tension. This also goes for anything that feels too fast—there may be places that require more building out. 

At this point in your writing/editing journey, the big picture is the most important part. If there are issues with your story at a base level, they’ll be much easier to fix at this stage in the process than, say, ten more rounds of edits down the line. We also call this developmental editing, because it looks at what needs to change with the story’s basic elements. So take your time and don’t be afraid to read through more than once. Of course, reading it on your own is only going to get you part of the way there. But once you have an idea of the areas that need fixing most, you have a better chance at getting closer to a final draft with the next steps. 

4) Engage with other readers for feedback. 

The best way to get good, objective feedback is to share your story with others. This may feel scary at first, especially if you’re not totally satisfied with it yet. But, really, this is the best time to bring in other readers who can tell you what they’re seeing in the story. Sometimes, our love of our own work—the characters we’ve created, the scenes we’ve written, the lines of beauty we’ve formulated on the page—makes us too close to it. Other times, we’re too critical of ourselves and everything seems wrong—even the things that are very right. Asking other readers to provide feedback will help you sort through it all.

To find other readers, you can: 

• Ask friends to lend an eye. 
• Join a writing group with the goal of sharing work.
• Search for beta readers online. 
• Sign up for a course dedicated to first draft editing. 
• Engage with an editor you’ve worked with before. 

All of these options have pros and cons. Friends may be the easiest to ask, but they may not provide the clearest feedback because they’re not totally objective towards you. Joining a writing group is definitely the best option, and it means you’ll be able to lend your own editing skills to others. Trading work so that you’re both invested in the other is a great way to make this productive for everyone. 

Beta readers can also be helpful, though this route will likely require you to pay for services. In this case, we recommend taking the next steps first and then paying for beta reading. GoodReads has a group that provides access to beta readers offering free services. There are also some Discord communities dedicated to such services. 

Signing up for a course, such as the ones offered through Writers.com, Novelry, Gotham Writers, or any other program, can connect you with writers who are also working on a novel (or other kind of story). The downside is that these courses can be expensive. But because everyone is paying for them, there is an added pressure to get work done and provide good editing to all. 

Another option is to work with an editor you have before. Editors who are familiar with your work know your writing style already and can speak to it specifically. 

How to Request Feedback 

It will be helpful to know what kind of feedback to ask for and how to request it. After your own read through of your work, determine what will be most helpful to you. Consider these elements: 

• Structure: Is there anything about the structure that bothers you? Remember, structure is how your story is organized. If there are issues with the story’s structure, it may be confusing or even boring for readers. 
• Plot: A question you should always be asking is: Does the plot of my story make sense? Does it follow the rules of the world you’ve built? Do the characters’ actions make sense in (and out of) context? Is it interesting enough to carry throughout the entire piece? Is the major conflict well laid out? 
• Theme: Are the themes obvious? Do they align with the content of the story? Can an invested reader see and understand their meaning in the text? 
• Voice: Does the voice that you’ve used for this work, as an author, tell the story best? Are the characters’ voices distinct and interesting? 
• Exposition: Is the background information built into your story working on the page? Is it difficult to get through? Do readers need to know more, or perhaps less? 
• Dialogue: How is the dialogue working in your story? Do the way the characters communicate make sense? Are the conversations they have necessary to the plot?
• Suspense and Tension: Is there a feeling of suspense as you read? Does the anticipation to get to the next scene build throughout? 
• Pacing: Were there any parts you struggled to get through? Anything that happened too quickly?
• Grammar: Are there any major grammatical errors, especially ones that consistently appear, throughout the text? 
• Emotional Impact: Did you feel something while reading this? 

The more specific you can be in your request to editors, the more helpful they will be. Don’t ask for all of this at once, but rather highlight what you think is needed most in their read through. 

5) Prepare to do line edits. 

Another important step of the editing process, and one which usually comes closer to the end, is line editing. This looks at the line-by-line of the text to make specific edits, fine-tuning language to adjust for pacing, grammar, and more. During line editing, you are looking at sentence structure and wording. You are asking questions about everything that appears on the page. It’s a long, drawn-out process, but one well-worth doing as it will heavily improve the quality of the work. 

Here are a few general rules to follow of line editing: 

1. Kill your darlings. All writers struggle with this essential aspect of editing because it means, as the phrase implies, getting rid of your favorite phrases, scenes, moments, or even characters. It means removing anything that isn’t strictly necessary to the story. It’s about making it leaner, clearer, and better paced. You don’t always know what these darlings are, either, until someone else points them out for you. But generally speaking, “darlings” refers to anything that you love, but doesn’t move the story in the direction it needs to go.
2. Show, don’t tell. We’ve talked about this at length in our Show, Don’t Tell blog, but showing the reader what characters do in the story rather than telling them about it will always be more engaging. To find places where you’re unintentionally telling, look for filter words and anywhere the narrative slows down. 
3. Strengthen dialogue and description. Look at each line of dialogue and read it aloud to yourself. Does it make sense, spoken aloud? Are the conversations your characters have moving the story forward somehow? Refer to our blog all about dialogue for tips on ensuring the way your characters speak to each other is natural, necessary, and interesting. Along with this, make sure that your descriptions make sense, feel natural to the story, and don’t fall into the pitfalls of poor exposition. 

These tips should help bring your story to the next level: one more step closer to “perfection,” whatever that is! 

6) Smooth transitions and structure for clarity and flow.

How words, phrases, lines, scenes, and chapters transition into each other is an important part of how easy it is to read a piece. Although we’ve discussed how important overall structure is in a story, it’s also part of what happens at a micro-level. Here’s how to tackle structural issues and check flow in your own work: 

1. Check paragraph and scene transitions. The way a line, phrase, or scene flows should feel natural and make sense to the reader. Places with abrupt transitions will likely give you pause or cause a stumble during a read through. Ask yourself, “Why isn’t this working?” and “How did this character go from here to here?” 
2. Eliminate redundancies. First drafts often suffer from repeated information or added filler because the author was still working out the story while writing it. Look for these areas and eliminate anything that isn’t extremely necessary to the story. The shorter the piece, the less redundancies it can tolerate. In a very long novel, for example, it may be worthwhile to remind the reader at the end of something that happened at the very beginning. But generally speaking, repeated information is wasted space and slows the story down. 
3. Refine sentence structure. The first take on anything will result in long, overly complex sentences that need clarification. You may accidentally slip into passive voice where it’s not needed. Or else, you simply take longer to say something that you later realize is very simple to get across. Everyone does this, and other readers will help you catch these overly long sentences. Remember: unless there’s a good reason not to, try to convey everything you have to say as simply as possible on the page.

This kind of editing takes a lot of time because it’s so in-depth. But the end results will be worth it, and lead to a much more engaging and polished piece of art.

7) Proofread and polish. 

The final step of any draft is to proof and polish. Proofreading amounts to doing a spelling and close grammar check. It is essential to ensuring a piece is truly ready for submission somewhere, or for publication. Polishing your work in this manner will make you feel more professional and ensure that readers don’t write you off because of a silly grammatical or spelling error. 

Proofing your own work can be difficult, so if you have someone to do it for you, use them. But if you don’t, follow this checklist: 

☐Read the work aloud to check for sentence flow and clarity. 
☐Run spell check or sit with a dictionary and go over any words you’re not 100% sure about.
☐Check for any grammatical errors by following this list:

• Dialogue is formatted correctly. Check out our blog about dialogue for an overview of proper dialogue formatting in the United States. 
• All sentences end with the proper punctuation. 
• Proper nouns and first words of sentences have an up-capped first letter, unless you’ve made the stylistic choice not to do this. 
• Any stylistic choices you’ve made are done consistently. For example if you’ve chosen to use the Oxford comma, you use it every time. 
• Your use of em-dashes, en-dashes, and hyphens is correct—look this up if you’re not sure. 
• Your sentences don’t slip into passive voice where not necessary. 
• Your use of figurative language makes sense. 
• You don’t have any dangling modifiers. 

☐The work is formatted properly and according to guidelines, if available.
☐Check the vibes: How do you feel about your piece?

• Are you confident about sending it on? Would you be proud if it got published? If the answer to these questions is no, is it just nerves or is there something specific that’s worrying you? If the specific thing is something you can fix, easily, do so. If it’s not, perhaps it’s okay to let it go—for now.

Most importantly, recognize and celebrate the fact that you have created something. Completing a draft of a story, no matter what that story looks like in its first form, is epic and worth feeling good about. You did that!

Exercise

Take a (short) piece of writing you’ve worked on over the course of this series and read it once to yourself without doing anything else. Then, read it through again, this time aloud, and mark every place where you stumble over words or notice awkwardness. Go back and edit those sections to make them sound better according to the guidelines above. After doing so, read it again. Still notice places to make changes? Feel good about what you’ve written? It may be time to share it with others to get their thoughts and feedback. After all, the writing and editing process works best when multiple people weigh in!

Your Story, Your Voice

No one can write a story the way you would, not even ChatGPT. Or a ghostwriter. Nothing will feel like having created your own work from start to finish, so no matter where it goes next, even if that’s nowhere, you can still feel proud. 

Remember: read your work through, read it aloud, send it to other people, and work on refining every part of it. The editing process is as rewarding as the creation process is, and it’s all part of the same incredible journey. 

If you complete the editing process and feel really good about your piece, consider submitting your work to F(r)iction! Check out our submission guidelines here to see if your work falls under our purview. 

Dreams! We all have them. And we’ve all seen our dreams change throughout our lives. A childhood dream of being a rodeo cowboy might evolve to obtaining a computer science degree… Or even the other way around… Whether you’ve dreamed of jetting off to the stars or creating vast worlds that transport eager readers, these potent aspirations motivate and drive us.

That’s especially true here at the Brink Literacy Project, where we utilize the power of storytelling to affect the lives of people on the brink—anyone who is marginalized in society or otherwise lacks access to traditional means of learning about and employing the art of storytelling. We want to make dreams come true for our students, everyday.

But… what about our staff members? What have they dreamed about as wee storytellers?

Valerie San Filippo

As a young writer, what did you dream your future in publishing would be?
I dreamed of writing “the Great American Novel.” I’m really not sure what that means.

How did you think you would obtain that dream?
As a young writer, I truly thought a brilliant idea would strike me like a bolt of lightning. I would be so favored by the muses that a novel would flow from my mind fully-formed. Agents and acquiring editors would sense the birth of such an inspired work as if beckoned by the star of Bethlehem, and they would lay bids of six-figure book deals at my feet. I would be rich beyond comprehension! I would be the voice of my generation! I would be a guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson!

Has the dream changed or shifted? And if so, how?
Thank goodness the dream changed. I learned to love the process. I don’t write because I love being published, I write because I love writing. I’m living my dream every day. I write as much as I can. I help other people bring their ideas to life. On very rare occasions, a stranger will reach out and tell me they liked a story I wrote, and then the world feels cozier and kinder than it did before. That’s really special. That’s the dream.

How does actually being a writer compare to what you dreamt it would be like?
Writing involves a lot more work than I imagined, but I love the work more that I ever thought possible.

If you could meet any other writer, living or dead, in your dreams who would you meet with, and why?
This feels awkward to admit because we do sometimes work with him here at Brink, but, I would want to spend time with Pat Rothfuss. I read The Name of the Wind at a point in my life when I was starting to lose my sense of wonder, but the way Pat uses language changed the way I looked at the world. The thing is, when you render something with his measure of care, you can’t help but love that thing. I feel like he would be a great person to do absolutely nothing with. Like, dude, let’s sit in the world together for a minute and describe the sacred things we see. Everything is beautiful. Show me.

Dominic Loise

As a young writer, what did you dream your future in publishing would be?

As a young writer, I was self publishing a comic book with an artist friend right out of college. It was based on a newspaper strip from his college paper and the goal was for the book to help sell comic strips to newspaper syndicates or the comic would take off on its own.

How did you think you would obtain that dream?

It seemed very attainable. The independent comic book community was incredibly inviting. We traveled to the second APE(Alternative Press Expo) and met some legends in the industry at a bar after the convention. They were telling us how to take our zine to an actual comic book.

Once we had a comic book we sent around comic strip samples to newspaper syndicates and magazines to see if they were interested. We even went to the conference for newspaper syndicate artists in Columbus, which happens every few years, to talk with creatives and get an honest timeline for selling a strip.

Has the dream changed or shifted? And if so, how?

The dream shifted when the comic book market collapsed in the 90s. Marvel started self distributing their books. Many independent comic book distributions closed and soon a lot of the direct market comic shops were closing.

I remember we had a new issue about to go to press and that week Marvel announced they were going to self distribute and we held it back. We watched everything play out and never printed that issue. And getting a comic strip in a newspaper is hard work. Statistically, we were told it’s easier to get drafted into the NFL.

From there, it seemed life got in the way and I couldn’t get into the industries I had a foothold in so I got a corporate job.

How does actually being a writer compare to what you dreamt it would be like?

The reality of being a writer is much better. I started writing again as therapy and the people apart of my work have helped my healing. These supports have made me a much better writer than I have ever been.

Also, I have learned to joy of rewriting.

If you could meet any other writer, living or dead, in your dreams who would you meet with, and why?

If I could meet any writer, I would enjoy being in a room with Steven Moffat. His speeches on Doctor Who are what I play when I am having a hard day. And since we are talking about time travel, I would talk to myself as a younger writer and say it works out the way it should have for the better life.

Maribel Leddy

As a young writer, what did you dream your future in publishing would be?

I dreamt I would be a published author. At one point, I wanted to be the next Louise Erdrich—publishing a book before I turned 30. 

How did you think you would obtain that dream?

I thought I would go to college and write the next great American fantasy/sci-fi series, get published pretty quickly, and then have a miniseries on Netflix. 

Has the dream changed or shifted? And if so, how?

Well, reality has certainly reared its ugly head. Writing isn’t often that lucrative, nor is it as easy to break into publishing as I hoped it would be. I also haven’t actually written my novel/series yet, so there’s that. Being an adult, in general, takes more time and is much more difficult than I think I ever imagined as a kid. Enjoy your youth—you know, the one you have before you have to start paying an electricity bill every month! 

How does actually being a writer compare to what you dreamt it would be like?

In many ways, it’s just as wonderful as I thought it would be. I get to do what I love. How many people can say that? Not me, even a year ago (I quit my marketing job to pursue writing full time). Of course, it’s not as easy as I thought it would be either. It requires a lot of focus to get anything done, which I don’t always have. And sometimes you burn yourself out from overthinking things. That said, the communities I’ve built as a writer keep me going even today. There’s also a lot less sitting in coffee shops over a steaming mug of tea with the patter of rain on the window outside and a cat curled in my lap. That’s the kind of fantasy that truly only exist in dreams. Most coffee shops in NYC don’t have cats. Or good wi-fi. Or bathrooms.

If you could meet any other writer, living or dead, in your dreams who would you meet with, and why?

Definitely Shakespeare. I want to ask him if he actually wrote all those plays. And then I want to hit him on the head for some of the stuff in them. 

Why do we dream? Science has yet to fully answer this question, though many theories exist. Some suggest that dreams help us consolidate and analyze memories and serve as practice for real life situations. Physiologically, experts believe the forebrain generates dreams while the brainstem generates rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the cycle of sleep during…

Many writers suffer from a slump from time to time, especially while tackling a big project like a novel. After days or weeks of plugging away, you hit a wall and don’t know what the next word should be, much less the next few pages. Or else you encounter a part in your story that is more difficult to get through, like a B plot or lull after the climax. Whatever the issue may be, it’s easy to give up, put your writing project away, and hope for a day when you feel inspired again. But this is a trap—don’t fall into it! Use the tips from this blog for practical and creative strategies to push through writer’s block and rekindle your motivation. 

1. Prepare a writing prompt to answer for the day. 

Prompts can bring a fresh perspective and reduce that overwhelmed feeling you have when staring at a new blank page. Plus, they are fun to work with and can take your story in unexpected, but not bad, directions. Here are a few prompts to help you get started: 

• Describe a new setting in your story. Use as many descriptive words as possible, including those that appeal to the senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. 
• Write about a character’s back story that you haven’t explored before. What was their favorite food as a child? Describe a scene where they eat it. Who was their childhood hero? Explain how they learn about this hero for the first time. 
• Take a side character and develop a scene wherein they have a random, but funny, desire. Maybe they’re really hungry and want a freshly baked pie. Maybe they suddenly want to go for a swim. How do they deal with this desire and try to fulfill it? 
• Describe a scene where a character wears a new outfit—and they hate it. 
• Describe a scene where one character writes a letter to another character about something that has already happened. How do they describe this event? Why are they writing the letter? 

There are also a vast number of writing prompts available online, if none of the above work for you—or you’re looking for more. One fun thing I like to do is look up a list of 100 Writing Prompts, which usually has 100 individual words meant to inspire. Using even a single word to start off a new part of your story can get those creative juices flowing again. 

2. Draw inspiration from your real life and surroundings. 

You know those TV show moments where a character needs to lie about their identity so they glance around and come up with a silly name like “Iceberg Lettuce”? Well, as silly as it sounds, you can do the same with writing. Look around you. Who or what can you see that might inspire a story? One idea to help with this is to go to a public place, like a park or café and do some people watching. Observe those around you, see what they do, and when something captures your interest, write it down. How can you incorporate that into the story you’re already telling? 

3. Set a timer for 20 minutes. Write without pausing, and continue after if you feel like it. 

Timed writing sessions create manageable goals to reach. You know you only have to keep writing for 20 minutes, so it’s easier to plug away. And the writing doesn’t have to be good—it just has to be on the page. To make this writing session the most productive it can be, eliminate all distractions for as long as the timer is on. Turn off your phone (unless you’re using it as a timer), close all your tabs, and put yourself in a quiet place. Who knows, maybe you’ll feel so inspired that 20 minutes will turn into two hours!

4. Introduce a new character to stir the pot. 

Sometimes you’re stuck on a scene or at a particular point in a story because it lacks conflict. Adding a new character can bring a new energy and offer more avenues for drama and tension. Think about a character who acts as a foil to another character, or who is obviously working in opposition to them. Make your new character clash with the ones who already exist, ensuring that you’re furthering the drama of the story. Who knows, you may end up inventing your favorite person to write about!

5. Create a situation in which a character explicitly fails to do something. 

Another way to create drama and tension is through failure. When a character does not succeed at getting what they want, it automatically adds depth and tension to the scene. The failure doesn’t have to be anything big—it could be something everyday, like losing an important item, failing to keep a promise, or answering a question wrong. Whatever it is, it will add layers to your story by putting your character into a situation in which they don’t succeed. How they react to that, and the effect it has on the rest of the story, can motivate you to continue writing. 

6. Use a tarot deck (or other deck of cards) for inspiration. 

Tarot decks are not just fun and mystical, they’re often also beautiful, featuring art by talented artists to represent the different cards. For a fun way to get some inspiration, try using one to give a character a reading or take a description from a tarot book to determine a plot point. Other kinds of games, like Cards Against Humanity or Wingspan or a regular set of cards could also be used to inspire! Even playing a game like Scrabble can be a fun way to take a step back and use your brain in a different way for a while, which can get the creative juices pumping once again. 

Don’t own a tarot deck? Check out our Literary Tarot. It’s a unique take on a classic tarot deck that utilizes famous stories to unlock the secrets of the arcana. Learn more here!

7. Change your surroundings. 

Sometimes, we feel stagnant because our surroundings are. It may be time to mix up where and when you write. Put yourself in a space where the people and sights around you can serve as invigoration. Some of our favorites include coffee shops, museums, parks, libraries, and libraries. Hearing others’ conversations or even just putting yourself in a new environment can help turn on the part of your brain that gets you writing.

Just Keep Writing

Aside from all these prompts and ideas, the most important thing is to just keep writing no matter what. Even if you end up scrapping everything you write based on these or other prompts, using them will help you explore your characters and world more and hopefully result in further inspiration. Everyone struggles with feeling unmotivated sometimes, and so even if you do need to take a break from writing for a few days, don’t let it discourage you. Remember to celebrate even the smallest breakthroughs—like putting words on the page after a week—and find ways to inspire yourself. 

Your Guide to Completing a Long-Form Work From Start to Finish

Now that you know different ways to outline a story, how to build suspense and tension, how to write compelling dialogue, and more, it’s time to get started on a first draft of your novel (or other long-form work)! With the tips and tricks gathered from the Facts of Fiction series so far, there are plenty of tools in the workhouse to use when writing a longer, more complex story. But how does one even begin tackling the challenge of writing an entire novel? 

First of all, know you’re not alone. November is now widely recognized as National Novel Writing Month, and whether you’re participating in the challenge of writing a novel this November or just interested in dipping your toes into writing a longer story, plenty of people are on this journey with you. Writing challenges can motivate you to strive for a realistic, if challenging, goal—such as 50,000 words in a month. Having this goal can keep you on-track for writing a novel. Our goal is to provide you with tools, like the ones outlined below, to keep you on track in beginning and maintaining momentum throughout writing a first draft of a novel or other long-form story. 

Setting and Keeping Writing Goals

Setting goals is one of the best ways to get words on the page. For example, a goal of completing 50,000 words in one month to about 1,700 words per day. Knowing and striving towards this daily goal will be the first step in setting yourself up for success in completing the challenge. Plus, it will force you to get into the habit of daily writing. 

While not every writer writes every day, getting into a regular habit of writing will help you become a better writer—and will ultimately result in much more content. Depending on your schedule, setting aside time to write is the first step in tackling any writing project. You might follow a schedule that looks like this: 

• 30 uninterrupted writing minutes after breakfast. 
• 1 hour writing period at noon. 
• 30 uninterrupted writing minutes after dinner.

Or maybe it will look like this: 

• 2 hours writing period before work. 

Or like this: 

• 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM: Writing time! 

Or whatever works best for you. Some writers find it easier to break writing periods up into smaller sessions. Others like to settle in for longer periods of time to really flex their writing muscle. Either way, the important part is making it fit into your schedule and what feels good for you.

Aside from time goals, setting a word count goal can also help. You should base this on your own writing pace. Someone who likes to write quickly might want to set a higher goal, whereas someone who takes their time should avoid overwhelming themself. Generally speaking, between 500 to 1000 words per day is usually doable. Add more to make faster progress. Take some away if you find you’re struggling to hit your count. 

There are also plenty of tools to help you do things like set a writing schedule and hit a word count each day or session. Here are three of our favorites: 

• Scrivener: This writing tool has templates for easier story creation, such as for novels, screenplays, short stories, and more. You can also track your word count or use pre-set templates for various novel writing challenges. Scrivener costs about $50 to $60 depending on what type you get, but once you have it it’s yours forever. They also have a 30-day free trial option. Tip: Ask around other writer friends to see if they have a Scrivener discount code lying around. 
• Word Count Trackers: Of course, word processing softwares like Microsoft Word and Google Docs also provide word count tracking. Other trackers include places like Writer, an online typewriter that offers a distraction-free place to get started and finish work. You can find different word count trackers online, so if you don’t want to invest in a program like Scrivener, it should be easy enough to find one that works for you.
• Notion: The organization software Notion provides free (and paid) templates that can help you track the progress of a novel or other story. Notion is free (though there is also a paid version) and can be an especially helpful tool in the planning process of a longer piece. 

You really don’t need anything fancy to write. These tools can be helpful if you find that you’re not getting as much writing done as you’d like, or if you need a place to organize all of your thoughts. But at the end of the day, it’s putting the pen to the page—or the fingertips to the keyboard, in this case—that will get you results! Other goals you might strive for are: number of pages written, story progress based on an outline, or chapters finished. 

Different Approaches to Revising Work

One question that writers always have to answer is what their editing process is going to be like. When tackling a challenge like writing 50,000 words in a month, we recommend just going for it and leaving the editing for later. But for regular writing, you may take a few different approaches. 

One option is to edit as you draft. The risk of this approach is slowing down your progress because you’re constantly going back to fix what you’ve written. This can sometimes feel like taking two steps back for every one step forward and may even have you questioning elements of your story to the point of frustration. If that’s the case, just remember that a first draft is a rough draft and you shouldn’t be striving for perfection with it. However, this approach can result in a more polished first draft, which can make further revisions feel less overwhelming. 

Another option is to wait until the end to edit anything. This will help you reach whatever writing goals you’ve set (especially if you’re working from an outline), but it may also give you more work for further drafts. Writers who enjoy this approach may find themselves with more content overall, which can either feel good or overwhelming. 

Finally, a third option is to combine the two. If you’ve set up a writing schedule that you’re trying to stick to, maybe once or twice a week you can build in a specific period for editing. This way, you’re not constantly editing, but you’re not leaving it all to the end either. 

Every writer does it differently. Our advice is to not let yourself get bogged down with the little details, whichever approach you take. Making the process of writing joyful is the best way to ensure you’ll make it a habit, from the first page of your novel to the last. 

If you decide to edit while writing, limit yourself to editing only a certain amount per day—and make sure you’re still hitting your word goals. If you prefer saving all the editing for the end, try highlighting places you know you want to fix so you have guidelines when you do dive into editing. Always remember that your first stab at writing something isn’t going to be the best version. Only through the process of revision can you land on a final draft that feels complete. So don’t be afraid to take risks with the first version of any story and just get those words on the page!

Wrapping Up Your First Novel and Beyond

When tackling a complex project like a novel, it’s important to: 

• Celebrate the small milestones. Each chapter you complete or each week you maintain motivation and write to your goal is worth celebrating. Decide how you want to celebrate these milestones ahead of time: maybe it’s a sweet treat or dinner out with a friend. Maybe it’s getting up and dancing at your desk. Whatever you decide, know that it’s worth a congratulations and you should feel good for getting this far!
• Reflect on your journey. Each week, ask yourself questions like: How did I feel while writing that? What do I like best about what I’ve just written? Where do I see areas for improvement in what I’ve just written? Are the goals I’ve set for myself working out? Reflecting will help you realize just how far you’ve come and adjust your goals as needed. 
• Plan the next steps. After finishing a first draft of a novel, what’s next? It may be time to dive into the editing process. Prep for revisions by rereading your work, finding critique partners, and potentially even thinking about what it will take to get your work published. Not all work is written with the goal of publication, but if that is your goal, it’s good to start thinking early about what you might need to do to make that happen. 

It’s All About the Journey

No matter what happens, taking on a complex project like a novel is a huge task. You should feel good about even considering it! Let us know what kind of novel you plan to embark on soon on our Instagram. And if you feel great about a short story, poem, flash fiction piece, or creative nonfiction work you’ve written, consider submitting to F(r)iction. We’re always looking for new voices to feature. 

It’s spooky season! You know what that means. Besides all the Halloween decorations in stores that have been there since August, and perhaps even some leaves changing colors on the trees, it’s the season of scary stories. The allure of such stories lies in how they evoke chills and keep the audience on edge. But what makes a story spooky? Does it have to be about ghosts or ghouls or other creepy things? Should it always take place somewhere scary—like an empty gas station at night? 

If you like all things Halloween or horror, this is the blog for you. But even if you don’t, you can still learn from how writers build suspense and tension—the key ingredients to all things frightening and dramatic—in their work. 

What Makes a Story Spooky? 

Mood, pacing, and tension building all contribute to a story’s overall spookiness. Horror and suspense come from the balance of all these elements. The longer you can keep an audience in suspense through these techniques, the more engaged they’ll feel in the story. 

Mood is a literary device that describes the feeling the audience gets while experiencing a story. In written work, it is carefully crafted through the words used in each sentence. In visual work, it is created through visual elements, like colors, lighting, and physical reactions. Moods can be anything—a poem about a lover may be praiseful and romantic, making the reader feel warm and loved; an action-packed blockbuster may be fast-paced and thrilling, making the viewer’s heart race. With spooky stories, mood is a key part of building suspense and making the audience feel fearful and uncertain. 

• Example of mood in action: Two similar sentences can evoke different moods depending on the words you use.
  • The broad expanse of the field, full of lush green grass and chirping critters, stretched before him.
  • The field loomed ominously before him, and a strange mist rose up from the dark grass, muffling and warping the noises of creatures trapped within. 

Pacing describes the speed at which the audience experiences the story—which may differ from the speed at which it takes place. For example, a part of a story that takes place over several years may be expressed in a paragraph or even a sentence. Getting pacing right can make or break how a story feels to its audience—or even if they finish it. Go too slow, and the audience may lose interest. Move too fast, and they may miss key details or feel overwhelmed. In scary stories, pacing can be used to build suspense by slowing things down and then speeding them back up at just the right moment. 

Tension boils down to the feelings of suspense and anxiety the audience experiences during a story. And it isn’t only used in spooky stories—everything from literary fiction to nonfiction and more benefits from and utilizes tension to keep readers engaged. Without it, the audience may get bored and stop engaging with the story. It is especially essential, however, in moments that seek to scare the audience. Without tension, the story will lack stakes to feel nervous about and look forward to ending. Tension asks the question, “What’s going to happen next?” 

None of these elements are unique to spooky stories; they appear in all kinds of storytelling. But getting them right in a piece meant to thrill and terrify is the difference between success and failure. 

Suspense in Action

Suspense boils down to isolation, fear of the unknown, and uncertainty.  Let’s take a look at Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” a famous poem that builds suspense masterfully using all of the techniques outlined above. It starts: 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, 
weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of
forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there
came a tapping, 
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my 
chamber door.
“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my
chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.” 

The first stanza of this poem invokes the image of a dark, late night, and a person almost asleep over their books, only to be abruptly jolted awake by a knocking sound. Poe’s language, in particular his use of repetition—”rapping, rapping,”—slows down the pace of the poem, leading to a building of suspense as the reader imagines who—or what—might be at his door. The mood is already set through the description of the night and the sleepiness of the narrator. And the tension comes from that word, “suddenly,” which seems to come out of nowhere and surprise the reader. 

The poem goes on at this slow pace, the narrator considering who it could be and even talking to them, only to discover it’s been a raven all along. This, however, does not comfort the narrator; having been wound up by the tension built within their mind, they see the raven as a beast and omen, watching them, without blinking, endlessly. 

Crafting Suspense in Short Stories 

Brevity can be a major factor in keeping tension high and focus sharp. Think about a spooky story told over a flickering campfire. If it goes on for too long, you lose interest. But kept quite brief, it will cause unease and fear even among the most stalwart of campers. 

Building suspense quickly relies on careful pacing—a gradual build-up followed by a sharp twist—and balancing the “Unsaid”—what you purposefully leave out versus what you put in. After all, sometimes the scariest things are those we can only imagine. 

In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” for example, Poe takes time unfolding the events that take place, allowing tension to simmer beneath the surface. The narrator arrives at the house and observes its unsettling environment, but nothing dramatic happens immediately. Instead, a sense of foreboding grows through small details—the gloomy weather, the oppressive atmosphere, Roderick’s strange behavior, and Madeline’s mysterious illness. 

As the story unfolds, Poe builds suspense through a combination of atmospheric details, psychological tension, and narrative techniques. The eerie mood he creates through careful use of language keeps readers on edge from the beginning, and the sense of dread only escalates. Setting is a big part of this. The gothic language used to describe the Usher mansion and its surroundings play a part in setting the stage for something truly creepy to happen. Also, the personification of the house as a character in its own right enhances the malevolent presence as its physical deterioration mirrors the psychological decay of its inhabitants. 

Read the full story here to learn more from the master of suspense and horror. 

Suspense in Longer Formats

In longer formats like novels or TV shows, it’s a challenge to maintain tension over hundreds of pages or minutes on screen. Some ways to tackle this challenge include: 

• Utilizing cliffhangers. End major sections, like chapters or episodes, with unresolved tension to keep the audience wondering what’s going to happen next.
  • Don’t overuse these, however, as it can become cliché and quickly bothersome if done too much. 
• Employing different perspectives. Prevent the audience from uncovering too much of the story at once and keep them on edge with unreliable narrators or a limited point of view.
  • For example, Dracula by Bram Stoker is relayed through a diary format, which limits what the audience can know—they can only ever know what the current narrator of the story tells them through written word. 
  • Additionally, in horror TV and film, the camera often intentionally limits what the audience and the protagonist can see as a way to limit perspective. 

Mood, pacing, and tension building will also play a large part in any long-form suspenseful works, of course. Check out our Study in Classics series covering Dracula for an in-depth analysis of successfully built suspense in longer form fiction. Shows like “The Haunting of Hill House” and “American Horror Story” also do this successfully. 

Setting the Scene for Fear

Atmosphere is a literary device that refers to the mood or emotional tone of a story. Unlike mood, however, it’s not the feelings evoked by that work but rather what is actually on the page. Atmosphere contributes to mood, but mood can change from scene to scene whereas atmosphere permeates a work entirely. 

Atmosphere is primarily conveyed to the audience through the setting. For scary stories, this might mean gothic influences like those seen in Poe’s work or in Dracula. Dark nights, decaying, ominous mansions, and isolated locations make for a scary setting. Think about almost every horror film you’ve seen—how did the setting affect the atmosphere? 

In the famous spooky tale “The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, the setting of a foggy, haunted town enhances the mystery. Everything, including plot elements, seem shrouded in that thick fog, keeping readers guessing until the very end. While the tone of the story remains light and almost whimsical for much of its length, over time, the supernatural elements coupled with superstition and fear culminate in the famous, suspenseful scene with the Headless Horseman. 

Another major way to convey the atmosphere of a work is through sensory details. The way that characters react to and feel in the world you’ve created will give your audience a sense of how they should be feeling as well. For example, if you’re trying to create a light, magical atmosphere, you might describe golden sunlight glittering over the ground, or a breeze fluttering playfully through the air. 

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

There are faux pas when it comes to suspense and tension. Bad horror movies come out every year, and the techniques we’ve discussed have even been parodied in films like Scream. To avoid an overwrought or clichéd work, keep these tips in mind: 

1. Don’t over do the jump scares. Tension is almost always best when it’s subtle. Let the audience feel it simmering just beneath the surface rather than boiling over the top. Sudden shocks can be exciting and scary when used sparingly, but too many big moments will turn an audience off. 
2. Don’t make the plot too predictable. Keep an audience engaged by subverting expectations. If they can immediately guess what’s going to happen next, they will lose any sense of suspense or tension you’re trying to build. Without the uncertainty of what’s going to happen next, why keep up with the story?
3. Don’t over explain. As mentioned before, the “Unsaid” is often the scariest thing about a story. Let your audience fill in the blanks; this will only add to their feelings of anxiety and suspense.
   1. Example: For all of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, he tends to label the monstrous things witnessed by his characters as indescribable or inconceivable, leaving only a few details among a lot of mystery. This way, the reader imagines something far more horrible than he could ever write down. 

A Suspenseful Ending

Crafting suspense is about pacing, atmosphere, and withholding information. Balancing elements of mood and tension are key to ensuring your story feels surprising, intense, and unexpected. With the techniques outlined in this work, you can create your very own spine-tingling story for Halloween or any time of year. Put your pen to the test and try writing a suspenseful scene or two—you may be surprised where you end up!

Hey, writers, guess what? November is National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, a time dedicated to challenging writers to complete 50,000 words—about the length of a short novel—in one month. The goal of the challenge is to get writers to write without thinking too much and just go for it without worrying about perfection. After all, the first step to getting any writing done is by writing! 

Typically during the month of October, writers who intend to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge complete an outline of some kind to make the writing process smoother and easier. Of course, not everyone does this—some people are “pantsers” who prefer to write stories “by the seat of their pants.” But whether you intend to participate in NaNoWriMo, or you just want some tips on getting started on your own outline for any kind of story, read on to discover different types of outlines and how to use them in this blog. 

*Warning: This blog contains major spoilers for The Hobbit by J R.R. Tolkien, as it is used for several examples!

The Importance of Outlining

Outlines help create cohesive, thematic narratives that make an impact with audiences. They are crucial to all kinds of storytelling. Although I have been resistant to utilizing outlines for years, I’ve come to realize just how many benefits they provide, including:

1. Providing structure. Outlines help form the general structure of a story, making it easier to put that story on the page. 
2. Tempering pacing. Because they provide structure, you can use outlines to make sure your story feels balanced between expository, dramatic, and action scenes. 
3. Aiding character development. Outlines can help highlight how your characters grow throughout the story, and then you can further work this into the overall plot.
4. Progressing the plot. Of course, the major benefit of outlining is to get down on the page the main elements of your plot. What happens first, next, and last? How do characters get from point A to point B? Outlines are a way to test out what’s going to work in your story and what you may need more or less of. 
5. Determining research areas. By crafting an outline, you can narrow down which areas of a story you may need to do more research for—which, as we know, is the secret ingredient to writing good stories. 

Outlines can be adapted for various types of writing, from short to long form pieces. Even poems can benefit from a short outline and, the longer the piece, the more likely you are to need an outline for it. But not all outlines have to look the same. Some people will benefit from extremely structured, detailed, and well-planned outlines. Others may even start writing first, without one, and then craft a loose outline based on what’s already on the page and adapt it from there. Others still will revise their outline as they go, adapting it to the turns the story makes as it unfolds. All kinds of outlines exist, so let’s explore a few and how to create them. 

Forms of Outlines

There are many types of outlines out there which can be adapted for many different kinds of storytelling. You can choose one of the below and work with it as is, or you can utilize a template and adapt it over time to fit your needs. Either way, here are a few standout storytelling outlines:

The Three-Act Structure

This loose outline form divides a story into three parts, each anchored around one or more plot points that drive the overall action. It’s often used for longer-form content, such as novels. Note that the below examples contain spoilers for The Hobbit by J. R.R. Tolkien.

• Act One: The most expository act, the scenes will introduce the story’s characters and setting. At the end of it, an Inciting Incident occurs which propels the following events of the story and sets the protagonist on the course of their transformative journey.  Finally, a Turning Point launches the story into Act Two.
  • Example: Act One of The Hobbit opens with us meeting the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, who lives a quiet, peaceful life in Bag End. Then, the Inciting Incident occurs, in which Gandalf appears and persuades Bilbo to join him and a group of thirteen dwarves on a journey to steal a jewel from Smaug, a dragon, for the dwarf king Thorin. The Turning Point is when Bilbo decides to abandon Bag End and leave on the adventure with the dwarves, thus launching Act Two.
• Act Two: Typically consisting of about 50% of the story, Act Two consists of rising action, development of the conflict, and a midpoint wherein the protagonist faces some kind of low—a defeat, injury, death, or other befalling experience.
  • Example: In The Hobbit, Bilbo faces many challenges along his journey, including being captured by trolls, meeting the elves at Rivendell, being chased by goblins and then Gollum, discovering The One Ring, escaping Wargs, encountering giant Spiders, escaping wood elves, and reaching Lake Town. The Midpoint of the story occurs when Bilbo successfully steals the jewel from Smaug, but in doing so, awakens the dragon, who burns Lake Town to the ground. This causes the humans and wood elves to march on The Lonely Mountain for aid and retribution. However, driven by greed, Thorin refuses them, thus starting a war. To avert this, Bilbo offers the jewel to the humans and elves as a peace offering but is scorned by Thorin for doing so. Losing Thorin’s trust is Bilbo’s low point.
• Act Three: This final act consists of the climax, falling action, and conflict resolution. At the end, the hero returns to their normal life but is changed forever. Act Three must start off with the most dramatic moment of the story and then wrap up all of the preceding events.
  • Example: In the climax of The Hobbit, the humans, elves, and dwarves are about to go to battle each other but are interrupted by the arrival of an army of goblins and Wargs. They ally together in order to fight off the evil forces, and in the battle Thorin dies. After the battle is over, Gandalf returns Bilbo to Hobbiton a changed hobbit.

The Three-Act Structure provides a simple framework to follow while maintaining focus on the main character, conflict, and major events of the story. Most stories following this format also include subplots—side storylines that don’t necessarily fit into the major conflict. Here’s a general outline for a Three-Act Structure that you can copy and paste into a document to fill out. To complete it, write a brief description or sentence for each section. Feel free to add more or eliminate as needed and remember that pretty much any kind of story, whether it’s a script, poem, or novel, can utilize this kind of outline. 

1. Act 1
   1. Setting:
   2. Protagonist: 
   3. Side Characters: 
   4. Major Conflict: 
   5. Inciting Incident: 
2. Act 2:
   1. Rising Action:
      1. Event 1:
      2. Event 2: 
      3. Event 3: 
   2. Midpoint Incident: 
3. Act 3:
   1. Pre-Climax: 
   2. Climax:
   3. Falling Action:
   4. Conclusion: 

Save the Cat!

American screenwriter Blake Snyder initially created this story structure for movies. However, it can easily be adapted for novels and other forms of storytelling. It applies the same idea as the Three-Act Structure while including fifteen plot beats that appear in many American Hollywood films. It is the standard for a sellable movie script in Hollywood.

1. Act I: Exposition — Build the world, introduce the major characters, and establish the major conflict of the story.
   1. Beat 1: Opening Image — A brief moment shows us who the protagonist is and what their current world is like. Here’s where the actual “Save the Cat” moment usually happens, too—the protagonist does a small good deed, like saving a cat from a tree, that establishes to the audience that they are the hero of the film. 
   2. Beat 2: Theme Stated — The story relays to the audience the life lesson the hero must learn over the course of the story, or the underlying theme that causes them to go through a profound transformation. 
   3. Beat 3: Setup — We learn the hero’s present circumstances, including what their current primary goal is, and get to know side characters.
   4. Beat 4: Catalyst — Sets of the major events of the story that will ultimately cause the transformation in the hero. 
   5. Beat 5: Debate — Before the hero embarks on their journey, they waver, asking questions like: Should I do this? Can I do this? Am I the right person to do this?
2. Act II: New World — The hero enters a new world, experiences ups and downs, faces challenges, and meets new characters who change them.
   1. Beat 6: Break Into Two — Act II takes off with the hero taking the action required by the Catalyst, thus launching them on their transformative journey.
   2. Beat 7: B Story — A subplot appears! Often, the B Story revolves around a new character, such as a love interest, mentor, friend, or nemesis who helps the hero learn their ultimate lesson. 
   3. Beat 8: Fun & Games — The longest beat of the story, this is a series of challenges that the hero must overcome in order to explore their new world. Although these challenges aren’t always “fun” for the protagonist, the point is that we see them struggle and change as they approach the story’s Midpoint.
   4. Beat 9: Midpoint — During this pivotal moment, the hero experiences either a false victory or false defeat which raises the stakes and pushes them towards transformation. In a false victory, the hero thinks their problems are fixed and struggles are over. In a false defeat, they may worry they are doomed to failure. 
   5. Beat 10: Bad Guys Close In — If the hero experienced a false victory, at the Midpoint things will start to turn bad, helped by the hero’s flaws and lessons they still have to learn. If the hero experienced a false defeat, things should start to get easier and the change in the hero should start to be more obvious.
   6. Beat 11: All is Lost — Regardless of which direction the Midpoint took the story in, at this point, the hero must experience their lowest point yet and feel utterly defeated. 
   7. Beat 12: Dark Night of the Soul — In this moment, the hero experiences their most rock-bottom moment—utter defeat that they won’t know if they can rise from.  The moment should spur from their own actions or flaws.
3. Act III
   1. Beat 13: Break Into Three — The hero realizes that all isn’t lost and has an idea of how to fix their problems. 
   2. Beat 14: The Finale — The hero proves they’ve learned their lesson, changed, and can successfully enact a plan to fix their problems. 
   3. Beat 15: Final Image — A final snapshot of the hero, paralleling the Opening Image, shows us how they have been changed forever over the course of the story. 

The Save the Cat structure emphasizes character development and plot progression, ensuring that you hit key story beats and create an engaging story. Tip: Watch a movie—any American Hollywood movie—and see if you can apply the Save the Cat structure to the movie’s plot points.

The Hero’s Journey

We’ve already discussed this story structure at length, but it remains an essential and oft-used storytelling tool for all kinds of writers. It is a surefire way to capture the attention of your audience and create a transformative journey for your main character. Go back and read our blog all about it for a refresher, and use this template to create a hero’s journey of your own: 

Act I

• Step 1: Ordinary World
  • Establish your hero and what their everyday life is like. 
• Step 2: Call to Adventure
  • Have your hero encounter an event, problem, or person that forces them outside of their comfort zone/everyday life. 
• Step 3: Refusal of the Call
  • Make your hero reluctant to leave behind their everyday life to embark on the adventure.
• Step 4: Meeting the Mentor
  • Have your hero meet with a mentor who will help them face the challenges ahead. 

Act II

• Step 1: Crossing the First Threshold
  • Have your hero officially depart on their journey and fully commit to entering the new world.
• Step 2: Test, Allies, Enemies
  • As your hero enters this new world, have them encounter obstacles, enemies, and allies to help them on their journey. 
• Step 3: Approach to the Inmost Cave
  • Have your hero approach the place where they will encounter their greatest fear or biggest threat/foe. 
• Step 4: Ordeal
  • Have your hero confront whatever it is they were approaching above and overcome it. 
• Step 5: Reward (Seizing the Sword)
  • Provide your hero with a light at the end of the tunnel: some kind of tool, belief, or resource that they need to finish their journey.

Act III

1. Step 1: The Road Back
   1. Take your hero on the journey home—but have them encounter more dangers along the way.
2. Step 2: Resurrection
   1. Make your hero face a final test before getting a happy ending. 
3. Step 3: Return with the Elixir
   1. Finally, have your hero return home, changed in some way and with some kind of prize—either an insight or physical object.

The Hero’s Journey as a structure provides a strong framework for character arcs and conflict resolution. It’s a great outlining technique to use for epic stories that span a lot of time. 

The Snowflake Method

Created by novelist Randy Ingermanson, the Snowflake Method involves starting with a brief story summary and then building on it, sort of like how snowflakes start small and build up on the ground. It is markedly different from other outline styles in that it’s as much a map for writing a book as it is for creating an outline. In the Snowflake Method, you start with a simple one-sentence summary of your story or novel, and then you expand on it, adding details in each successive round until you have an intricately detailed beat-by-beat plan for your characters, their myriad of interlocking conflicts, and the core are of the story. 

The Snowflake Method definitely isn’t for every writer, but it might help crack the code of writing a great novel if it works for you. Here’s how you can get started: 

The Five Steps of the Snowflake Method: 

1. One-Sentence Summary — Choose a central premise and distill it into a single sentence that outlines the main conflict or driving force behind the story. This sentence will serve as the foundation for your entire novel.
   1. Example: Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, is persuaded by the wizard Gandalf to join a quest to reclaim a dragon’s hoard of treasure. 
2. Expanded Summary — Take the one-sentence summary and expand it into a paragraph that explains the key elements of the story, including the core conflict, the protagonist’s journey, and the beginning, middle, and end of the narrative.
   1. Example: Set in Middle Earth, homebody hobbit Bilbo Baggins is visited by his old friend, the wizard Gandalf, who persuades him to join on a journey with thirteen dwarves to reclaim a dragon’s hoard of treasure and return the dwarf king Thorin to his rightful throne on the Lonely Mountain. In the course of this adventure, Bilbo faces many challenges, including trolls, goblins, Wargs, and a curious creature named Gollum from who he steals a mysterious and powerful ring. Bilbo’s adventure ultimately brings him to the Lonely Mountain, where a dragon lies sleeping underneath a pile of gold and jewels. But successfully stealing back the jewel that will give Thorin his power back awakens the dragon and has dire consequences, leading to a battle that could destroy the dwarves once and for all. 
3. Character Summaries — Begin creating brief profiles of the major characters in your story. Identify their core characteristics, roles, and how they relate to the main conflict. Keep these concise, focusing on what motivates each character and how they will help move the plot forward.
   1. Example: Bilbo Baggins
      1. Core Traits: Adventurous, fastidious, humble, kind
      2. Role: The protagonist of the novel, he starts off as a cautious homebody with a streak of adventurousness that leads him on a heroic journey.
      3. Conflict: Struggles to overcome his own cowardice and self-doubt and become the hero of his own story.
      4. Motivation: Genuinely wants to help the dwarves and go on an adventure.
      5. Arc: From slightly cowardly hobbit to bold and adventurous hero.
4. Full Character Profiles — Expand each character into a detailed profile. Include backstory, personality traits, relationships, and how they evolve throughout the novel.
   1. Backstory: Bilbo, a hobbit from Hobbiton, has lived in Bag End all his life. He enjoys puffing on a pipe and is familiar with the wizard Gandalf. He is a typical hobbit with an appreciation for a comfortable lifestyle and lots of delicious food. He is well thought of in his community, but is a bachelor and a bit of a loner. On his mother’s side, he has a streak of adventurous spirit that Gandalf plays into. 
   2. Personality: Bilbo is fond of the comforts of his home and loves good, simple food in abundance. He is humble, kind, and generous, but can also be fearful, grumpy, and forgetful. 
   3. Relationships: Bilbo starts the novel off only knowing Gandalf, who he considers a dear friend. He is initially put off by the loud, rambunctious dwarves, but ultimately befriends them. He becomes particularly close with Balin, an older dwarf, and Thorin, the king of the dwarves who he also has the most contentious relationship with. Ultimately, Bilbo values his friendship with all of the company.
   4. Arc: He starts off as a hapless adventurer concerned with cleanliness and food, but grows into a ingenious burglar willing to do anything to help his friends. 
5. Multi-Page Synopsis — Using the expanded plot structure and character profiles, outline the major scenes, key plot points, and character arcs. Break the story into its core parts (beginning, middle, and end) and flesh out the narrative.
   1. Example: Refer back to the synopsis provided in the examples for the Three-Act Structure; this is essentially what you would write here. The Three-Act Structure template can also be done as a part of the overall Snowflake Method, if you wish.

The Snowflake Method focuses on building complexity and gradually ensuring all elements work together coherently. It’s a great method to use if you have a concept in mind but aren’t sure where to take it. 

The Plot Pyramid

You probably saw this plot structure outlined in chalk on your English teacher’s blackboard, if you’re as old as I am. Also known as Freytag’s Pyramid, as it was developed by novelist Gustav Freytag, this simple, five-stage structure helps ensure a strong narrative arc. You’ll recognize some of the language used in other structures here as well. It’s a foundational structure type which can be used for all kinds of storytelling, from poems to short stories to novels and more.

The Five Stages: 

1. Exposition — We’ve talked about exposition before, at length, but this stage of the story introduces its major elements: setting, characters, tone, themes, etc. Most importantly, the major conflict must appear. 
2. Inciting Incident — An inciting incident launches the story from the expositional stage and into the rising action. 
3. Rising Action — This stage takes the story from conflict to climax, and it reveals more elements of the plot and backstory and introduces and expands upon the characters.
4. Climax — The peak of the story, the conflict must come to a head and the fate of the main character’s must be revealed. 
5. Falling Action — Whatever consequences the climax of the story brought on are resolved and all loose ends in the story must be tied up. 
6. Resolution — The story ends—how it ends is ultimately up to the writer, but ideally it ties in thematically with the rest of the story. 

The benefit of the Plot Pyramid is that it’s less character-focused, and more plot-driven. It’s a good, simple template to follow when you just need to get the major events of a story down on the page without overthinking them too much. 

The Scene and Sequel Method

This method is a great one to get at the minutiae of what makes compelling scenes within larger stories. It helps the writer think of scenes as action units within the story, and each unit must do something that moves the story forward and adds to its drama. Here’s how to use the Scene and Sequel Method: 

1. Craft a scene. Each scene must have three elements: a goal, conflict, and disaster.
   1. Goal: Your main character, but also every other character present, should have a goal—a desire, a want, an aim—in every scene they are in. Sometimes, that goal is the same scene over scene. Sometimes it changes. And the goal can be as big or small as it needs to be: saving a life or making a sandwich. Understanding your characters’ goals, how far they’re willing to go to achieve them, and how they intend to set out to achieve them is what will make for a compelling scene and get you through each of the following elements. 
   2. Conflict: Each scene must work hard to prevent your character from getting what they want. Drama is created through internal or external obstacles. Your character must actively try to overcome any obstacles in their way, these obstacles must be relatively to extremely difficult to overcome, and the best obstacles should play on your character’s weaknesses and flaws.
      1. For example, let’s say your character’s goal in a scene is to make a sandwich so they can eat, because they’re hungry. Now let’s put an obstacle between them and doing that: there’s no edible food in the kitchen. Thus, they have to go out to get food. But then they can’t find their keys. So they have to search for their keys and in doing so, they trip and break their nose. You can see here how a desire as simple as making a sandwich descends into the chaos of an injury. 
   3. Disaster: You create drama by doing mean things to your characters—putting them through rough situations that they’re supposed to overcome. In other structures, you can think of this as the rising action. But this is important to add in at an individual scene level as well.
      1. Throwing back to our previous example, a broken nose may seem like disaster enough. But let’s take it a step further. Your character is able to patch up their nose and go to the ER. But because they haven’t eaten and they’ve lost blood, their blood pressure drops, and they pass out. This also counts as a disaster and it could lead to any number of things in a following scene: they fall in love with the doctor or nurse taking care of them, they miss an important appointment because they’re at the hospital, they reunite with an estranged family member because someone needs to be with them when they’re discharged. By creating disaster, you create story. 
2. Craft a sequel. Countering a scene, an action unit, with a sequel, a reaction unit, will help create a complex character and journey, and can lead to a new goal. After all, there must be recovery from a disaster.
   1. Reaction: The character reacts to their previous disaster. How they react determines what they do next. 
   2. Dilemma: Because of the disaster, and perhaps even because of their initial reaction, the character now faces a problem. A great dilemma for a character will mean there are no good options for the character, only bad and worse ones.
      1. Your character’s dilemma is whether or not to call their estranged sister to pick them up from the hospital, or to risk a heftier hospital bill by spending the night. Neither option sounds very good. 
   3. Decision: Finally, the character makes a decision, ending the dilemma and marking the return to an active mode of being from a reactive mode of being. The character now has a new goal to explore in a new scene.
      1. Your character decides to call their sister. In the following scene, we get the goal-conflict-disaster sequence of this choice. 

This method of outlining really focuses on the smaller moments. It helps maintain tension and pacing by balancing the goals and outcomes of the characters in your story. It’s a particularly great method to use for something like a TV show. 

Adapting Outlines for Different Story Formats

Different kinds of stories require different kinds of outlines. Longer form work will need more in-depth, detailed outlining in order to ensure all the plot threads are connected, the characters have transformative arcs, and the storytelling remains cohesive. Shorter work on the other hand may just utilize a brief outline stating the purpose of the story to ensure it doesn’t get off track. Let’s consider what kinds of outlines might benefit what kinds of storytelling: 

Novels — Longer form works tend to require more detailed outlines that can really develop their complex narratives. The Hero’s Journey template is always a great place to start for a novel outline, but structures like Save the Cat, the Three-Act, or the Hero’s Journey may be the best way to go here. 

Short Stories — While these tend to be less complex than novels, in-depth outlines can still be a huge help with drafting short stories. The Three-Act Structure could help provide a framework to follow and beats to hit, or you could go for the Plot Pyramid to ensure you have all the major elements needed for an engaging work.

Flash Fiction — Not all flash fiction pieces will require an outline, but a condensed framework to follow, maybe a sentence each for the beginning, middle, and end could help get the words on the page. 

Poetry — Not all poems require an outline, and not all poets use them. But for structured poems like a sonnet or villanelle, they can be really useful to help you hit the formula requirements while still telling a story. 

Movies — For American Hollywood blockbusters and other films, the Save the Cat structure is the perfect outlining tool. You can use whichever outlining template you like, though, just remember that a movie needs a detailed, complex outline that considers its visual medium. 

TV Shows — TV shows tend to cover even more breadth than novels do, so they may require an extreme level of outlining. Generally speaking, however, each TV episode is first approached with a short two to three sentence paragraph covering the general gist of the episode. That is then taken and spread out into a beat sheet, which covers the general beats that should occur throughout the episode. This serves as the structure for the plot of the episode and ensures you’re creating compelling and cohesive storylines. Finally, you would take this into a step outline, which expands on the beats by fleshing them out into a paragraph or so for each scene that you imagine taking place in the episode. This is then taken a step further and fleshed out into a script. 

Essays — Every good essay starts with a good outline. When it comes to writing them for school projects, it’s good to stay formulaic. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel with the structure since your argument should be unique. Every sentence of your essay should be dedicated to proving your argument. An essay outline might look like: 

• Introduction
  • Thesis Statement
• Body Paragraph 1
  • Topic sentence relating to thesis statement
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
• Body Paragraph 2
  • Topic sentence relating to thesis statement
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
• Body Paragraph 3
  • Topic sentence relating to thesis statement
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
• Conclusion
  • Thesis restatement
  • Call to Action

Blogs — Similar to essays, online blogs are all about making an argument or relaying information. Think about this blog. How do you think I created the outline for it? Well, each blog generally starts with an introductory paragraph that lays out the “thesis” of that blog. In this case, it’s that outlining is crucial for storytelling. With blog writing, you can be less formal than a traditional essay but the general idea remains the same. Figure out what’s needed to prove your argument in your blog and then add as needed to provide additional resources and information for your argument. Sometimes, the best place to start is with ideas for the headlines of each blog section as such: 

• Ways to Outline a Story
  • Introduction + purpose of blog 
• The Importance of Outlining
  • Benefits, why it’s crucial
• Forms of Outlines
  • Cover different kinds of outlines
• Adapting Outlines for Different Story Formats
  • Discuss different mediums
• Exercise
  • Help readers practice outlining structures for their own writing. 
• Conclusion
  • Recap the importance of finding the right outlining method for your story
  • Encourage readers
  • CTA  

Exercise

On a blank piece of paper, poster board, or notecard, create an outline for a story using one of the structures/templates shared above. Try out different ones for different kinds of stories and see what works best for you.

Outline Away!

All writers work differently, but finding the right outlining technique for you to write the best story you can is an important part of the writing process. Whether you’re the kind of writer who starts with a vague idea and forms that into your own sculpture of work, or the kind of writer who has a very specific image in mind from the get go, outlines can be used to give your story structure, form, balance, and life. 

Try out some of the outlines outlined in this blog to find out what works best for you!

Two writers converse about writing… and conversing

In the previous installment of this series, we revealed how dialogue is one of a writer’s most useful storytelling tools. But it’s tricky to get right. One way to practice writing dialogue is by listening to, and writing down, real conversations in real life. This can mean going to a café on a busy day and casually eavesdropping on others’ conversations (just make sure to keep everything anonymous if you do end up writing about them) or watching YouTube or TikTok videos and transcribing them—as long as you’re not plagiarizing. The point is to see what it looks like on paper and use that as inspiration and practice, not to copy others’ work. It can mean having a conversation with someone else, recording it, and then going back to write it down to see what the cadence is like, how you and your conversation partner interact, and the words you say—and don’t say. 

That last one is what we’ve done in this blog. I interviewed Brink’s Communications & Marketing Director and Senior Editor, Nate Ragolia, about how he tackles dialogue. Here’s how our conversation unfolded. 

Talking Back

The two writers sit in their respective homes with Zoom pulled up on the screens between them. As Nate flickers onto the screen, Maribel unfolds her hands and smiles. 

“Nate, hello! Thank you for joining me,” she says. 

After some small talk about Nate’s dogs and the weather, Maribel jumps into the interview. 

“So here we are, two writers, talking to each other as an example for our readers—to show them what dialogue can look like when taken from real life.” She clears her throat and continues. “What are some memorable examples of dialogue in any kind of media, whether novels, short stories, video games, movies, TV shows, or anything else that comes to mind for you?” 

“In the most recent episode of my podcast we talk about the first Quentin Tarantino movie Reservoir Dogs,” Nate says. “It’s a movie that, despite being a violent crime thriller, hinges almost entirely on dialogue because of its low budget. Tarantino is known for his snappy, plot-driving, character-revealing dialogue that’s ultimately just compelling. The way he approaches it, you get all the information you need for the story, but you also get more than that. It’s in conversation with previous exploitation films, the themes of the movie, and all of movie history. It’s like the dialogue is weaving small stories within the story of the film at large.”

Interlude 1

Let’s analyze this spiel from Nate from a storytelling perspective. As a piece of dialogue in a novel, what he says would perhaps feel a little long and rambling. The reader might lose interest along the way, even though what he’s saying is important and true. So how can we fix it? 

1. Create more character interactions:

“Quentin Tarantino’s first film Reservoir Dogs has some of the best dialogue I’ve ever seen,” says Nate. “It’s snappy, drives the plot forward, and shows you what the characters are like. It’s compelling.” 

“I’ve never seen it. All that violence,” Maribel shakes her head with a shudder, “not for me.”

2. Make it more dramatic: 

“Even though he’s controversial, I think Quentin Tarantino does some of the best dialogue I’ve seen,” says Nate. 

Maribel raises her eyebrows. “Really? How so?”

“It’s snappy, drives the plot forward, shows you what the characters are like… it’s compelling, especially compared to so many other movies.” 

“I feel like you’re slamming other movies,” Maribel says. 

Nate shrugs. “If the shoe fits…” 

3. Make it more subtle: 

“Good movie dialogue is compelling, only a few get it right,” says Nate. 

Maribel raises her eyebrows. “Like who?”

“Ever seen Reservoir Dogs?” 

Now, obviously this subject matter very likely wouldn’t appear in a novel, unless that novel was trying to give you tips on writing dialogue. The point is that each take shares slightly different information and has a different vibe. Rewriting dialogue that has inspired you to express different feelings is one of many ways to practice doing it. 

Back to the Conversation

Maribel and Nate continue the conversation, adding more examples of great dialogue in media and starting with the iconic 90s TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“It was one of my favorite shows as a kid—well, ages 17 to 24 or whenever it came out.” Nate laughs. “It was funny and smart, and the characters felt real. It grounded outlandish concepts—like vampires and a Hellmouth—in a teenage experience. It also utilizes slang that feels both real and unique to the show itself.”

Maribel nods, reflecting. She’s seen every episode of Buffy at least three times, though she watched it after all the episodes had already come out on DVD. 

“So true, like ‘wig out’ and, I don’t know, ‘vampy,’” says Maribel. 

Nate nods. “Exactly.” 

Interlude 2

In the interaction above, both Nate and Maribel’s dialogue gives us more insight into their characters—who they are. Nate, for example, is older than 24, and was about at that age when Buffy first aired. Maribel, on the other hand, we know is younger than that due to her reflecting on when she watched it. Thus, we discover more about the dynamics between these two people. We also know that they’re both huge geeks—we’ll learn more about that next. 

A Little More Conversation

Maribel moves the conversation forward. “What about literature? Who can we go to for great examples of dialogue there?” 

“Obviously, Shakespeare is a big one,” says Nate. “When you read it for the first time, you struggle just to understand what’s going on because it’s written in a cadence and way we’re just not used to anymore. But once you move beyond that, it’s so rewarding. Nearly everything has an additional meaning of some kind—a double entendre, a hilarious pun, a disguised joke.” 

Maribel nods along, smiling and thinking of her days performing Shakespeare in high school. How many disguised dick jokes had she accidentally said? 

He continues, “Almost all of Shakespeare’s dialogue, even in the tragedies, has this comedic underpinning where people are often saying one thing and meaning another. And you only really get that when you see it performed on stage.”

Further examples that Nate and Maribel agree on include: 

• Jane Austen — In a similar vein to Shakespeare, when you first read her it feels slow. But as you get older, see adaptations of her work, and reread her novels, you can see how decorated with meaning and quiet specificity each character’s dialogue is. 
• Cormac McCarthy’s The Road — In this post-apocalyptic novel, McCarthy breaks some of the common dialogue “rules,” such as by not using any punctuation. Instead, recognizing what is spoken aloud relies entirely on enjambment. This creates an effect that feels like the world is so dire that there isn’t even time for a quotation mark. Breaking these rules should only happen after you master them and prove you can follow them, and every time you break them it needs to be done with a clear purpose, both Maribel and Nate agree. 
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — In this irreverent, almost satirical take on science fiction, Douglas Adams constantly breaks the rule popularized by Elmore Leonard about only using “says/said” for dialogue tags. In this case it works because it plays into the tone and humor of the piece. 

On Monologuing

One thing Maribel wants to know is, “If you were a character in a novel, what would be your monologue moment?” 

Nate ponders this for a moment. “I think my monologues would be deeply existential. I would be talking about the insignificance of being an individual person in a point in time in an infinite universe, and how odd that is, how remarkably strange it is. 

“And then I also love to monologue about our shared social notions about what is established fact. For example, maybe we shouldn’t have to pay for necessities like housing or food. Maybe everyone deserves to survive.” 

“I love those,” says Maribel, smiling. “But my topic of choice would be about bad writing—particularly those in TV shows, like the last season of Game of Thrones. My sister has to listen to it all the time.” 

They both laugh. 

Interlude 3

Monologues, while most commonly used in script writing—plays, movies, TV shows—can be a great way to get at character. Even if you don’t include it in your final draft, sometimes having a character go off on a tangent can be a way to learn more about them and really live in their voice. 

For example, what do we learn about Maribel and Nate here? 

• Nate is an existential guy. He also cares about social issues. 
• Maribel can appreciate those, but at heart she’s a writing snob. She also has a sister.

Additionally, we also get some humorous moments in the interaction above. Bringing humor into your dialogue is an important way to keep it interesting for the reader. Try your hand at writing a monologue for one of your characters. What do they talk about? 

Character Growth and Storytelling Through Dialogue

Maribel checks her watch and moves on to the next question. “How do you think dialogue on its own can show how a character changes over the course of the story?” 

“Did you see the movie Poor Things?” 

Maribel shakes her head. 

“In that movie, Emma Stone plays a woman from basically toddler age—in the mind—through her 20s or 30s,” Nate says. “And the dialogue in the movie does a great job of showing this. She evolves from speaking in a very childlike manner to speaking like an adult person. Her size and appearance doesn’t change, but you can tell how she’s evolving over time because of the way she speaks.” 

He goes on to give two more examples: 

• Luke Skywalker in Star Wars — While, generally speaking, Star Wars isn’t the best example of high-quality dialogue, it does demonstrate how to show character growth over time. Luke goes from a whiny, immature young man concerned with trivial problems to a zen, confident Jedi set on saving the world. The way he speaks changes subtly throughout the movies to show this. 
• Bruce Wayne as Batman — Here we have two very different personas who are the same person. The way Batman speaks is so different from Bruce Wayne as a persona even in his delivery. This serves to protect Batman’s secret identity, of course, but it also demonstrates how Bruce himself changes every time he becomes the Dark Knight. 

Dialogue As a Craft

Maribel and Nate’s conversation throughout this blog is meant to demonstrate how dialogue can be used while also highlighting that real-life conversations can spur creativity. The next time you hit writer’s block, or just need a bit of inspiration, head to a public area and give yourself time to listen and observe. Then, see what stories come from it!

Dialogue is one of a writer’s most useful tools in storytelling. It helps a storyteller show rather than tell, establish character dynamics, provide exposition actionably, and keep scenes moving forward. But getting dialogue right can be tough. How do you get characters to sound like real people while making what they say relevant to the story? Crafting good dialogue can be a tricky balance between sharing important information, keeping in mind characters’ back stories and relationships with each other, and making it fun and interesting for a reader to keep reading. Bad or poorly used dialogue will stick out like a sore thumb, whether it’s in a novel, short story, film, TV show, or other form of media. 

Learn how to avoid writing bad dialogue and when to use it in a story. Plus, get some formatting tips and tricks to make your dialogue look clean and readable. 

Understanding Dialogue 

Firstly, what is dialogue? In storytelling, it is usually a conversation between two or more people. Sometimes it can be a single person expressing themselves. Monologues are also a form of dialogue. In general, dialogue has five major purposes in a story:

1. To communicate. The most obvious reason to use dialogue, communication between characters is essential to telling a good story. Dialogue should be used when you need characters to communicate with each other, to the audience, or even to themselves. 
2. To show rather than tell. Dialogue can be an effective and quick way to get across information like who a character is, what they do, where they’re from, and more. Screenplays and plays of all kinds use dialogue as the primary function by which to share information, aside from visuals.
3. To establish character relationships. In real life, the way that people talk to each other changes depending on their relationship with one another. You wouldn’t speak with a stranger with the same level of familiarity that you would a friend. You (hopefully) wouldn’t speak to your boss like you would your sibling. The world of stories is full of interesting characters who have relationships to each other, and so the way a character speaks to another character can show how they feel about them.
4. To provide exposition actionably. Dialogue can also be used to share things like character backgrounds, details about the setting, explanation of events that took place before the current narrative timeline, and to set up the world the characters are living in.
5. To move the scene forward. Sometimes when writing, if a scene feels like it’s stuck and dragging on as you craft the prose, a good way to get over this block is by writing dialogue between two characters. Whether or not this ends up in the final draft of the work, it should help move the scene forward. By forcing two (or more) characters to interact, you are creating action. That action can then help move the plot forward. 

Utilizing Dialogue Tags Effectively 

Unsurprisingly, not everyone feels the same about dialogue. Although of course there are some generally accepted rules, there’s also confusion out there about the proper use of certain aspects of dialogue. One of these aspects is dialogue tags. 

Dialogue tags are a part of a line of dialogue, specifically in prose writing, that indicates who is speaking. For example: 

“I went to the restaurant at seven, but you never showed up.” She said. 

The “she said” part is the dialogue tag. Dialogue tags can generally be broken into two types: 

1. Character tags: A pronoun or character’s name plus a verb of expression, like the above example. Examples: “He asked,” “Jonathan said,” “Winona informed him.”
2. Action tags: A description of an action a character performs attached to the dialogue that effectively communicates who says that dialogue. For example:
   • Mike opened the door. “Oh, hello, Dustin. Wasn’t expecting you.” 

When using an action tag over a character tag, it should be very clear which character is speaking. If it’s not clear, it’s best to add a character tag. But sometimes, using a character tag will feel redundant and weigh the narrative down. Best practice is to read back through any dialogue and search for places where character tags are missing. If it’s ever unclear who may be speaking a line of dialogue, you likely need a character tag to clear up any confusion. On the other hand, in areas where it’s very obvious who is speaking without a character tag, you can fall back on action tags or simply on nothing. This is the kind of writing that only gets better with practice, so make sure to check out our exercise below so you can try your hand at it! 

One thing to keep in mind with dialogue, and specifically character, tags is what verb you use with the character name or pronoun. American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter Elmore Leonard believed you should never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. This is because the sole purpose of these character tags is to indicate who is speaking. Within prose, you generally want the dialogue itself to stand out, not the character tag next to it. By using words other than “said,” you could be calling too much attention to the dialogue tag. 

Beyond this, there are usually better ways to express the kind of inflection a character may be using while speaking. Here are four ways to say the same sentence:

1. “You don’t know anything!” he shouted. 
2. “You don’t know anything,” he said, face turning red with anger. 
3. “You don’t know anything.” His booming voice felt like a slap to the face.
4. “You don’t know anything,” he said in a small voice.

All of these are different ways to say the same thing, but each one has a distinct vibe. The first comes off as redundant. The exclamation point and the word shouted are both expressing the same thing. It’s clear, but it’s also unnecessary. The second is a bit better. It shows a physical expression of rage that colors the words the dialogue is expressing. The third utilizes the concept of showing rather than telling and figurative language to not only get across that he’s shouting, but also to show how it’s affecting the other character. This takes it beyond just speech and into the territory of character dynamics. The final one reverses the initial idea that he shouted.

None of these examples are necessarily wrong, and while reading you’ll likely come across versions of all of them. The best way to determine what you should do in a story is to understand exactly what is necessary to your storytelling. Let’s say it doesn’t really matter how this character expressed what they said, only the content of their words was important. In that case, a simple dialogue tag should do the trick. Let’s say the most important part is how these words affect the narrator or other character in the scene. Then, the third way that dialogue is expressed above would be the most effective. 

In general, it’s best to lean on Elmore Leonard’s words as a good rule of thumb. Don’t stray too far from “said” when utilizing character tags. Mix up these tags with action tags to keep things interesting and flowing. Remember that punctuation can go a long way in expressing whatever it is you may be trying to express. For example, a question mark used at the end of a sentence is more effective and simpler than tacking on “she asked.” 

Writing Effective Dialogue

Now that we’ve established what dialogue can be used for, let’s discuss how to write it effectively. Just like how real people have different ways of speaking, characters too should have distinct voices. What they say and how they say it should reflect their personality and background. It should also sound realistic, to an extent. 

For example, a character who is a child should probably not use words they wouldn’t know or express themselves in ways only an adult would, unless they’re some kind of child prodigy or genius like Artemis Fowl. Additionally, in real life, speech is often broken up with hesitations and wanderings—“uhm,” “you know,” “like”—and these should only be used sparingly in actual writing—unless you want to drive your reader crazy. While most people aren’t as clear and concise as most written dialogue is, in a story, you’re trying to get across as much information as possible in as few words as possible, so this should generally be avoided. There are exceptions, of course. For example, let’s say you’re writing a character who is a stereotypical valley girl. To get this across simply, you may write:

Vanessa flipped her hair over her shoulder and popped her gum. “Like, exactly. Why would I want a Dior when I could have an Hermés?” 

In this case, the “like” at the beginning fits a certain personality trait you’re trying to get across. It’s a linguistic fingerprint, or speech habit specific to a character. 

Linguistic fingerprints can appear in many forms. A character might constantly trail off on the ends of their sentences, a sign of them being indecisive or overly contemplative. Or maybe they specifically do not use contractions as a sign that they dislike taking shortcuts or strongly value proper grammar (or, in science fiction, to indicate they are an android or robot). It can also be an indication of their general age or education level. 

On that note, one thing you absolutely don’t want to do is fall into stereotypes or be offensive. Be as respectful to your characters as you would be to people in real life. One much debated topic that can fall into this category is accents. In general, it’s okay to say something like, “She spoke with a posh British accent,” or, “He had that distinct Southern twang.” Readers will know what this means and can apply it to the text themselves. Some authors do dive into changing the way the words look on the page to match an accent. This is done either to good or very poor effect. Unless you truly understand an accent and can speak it, or are VERY confident in taking this approach, it’s generally best to avoid doing this. At the very least, make sure to do your research on accents and writing them before going down this route. For some good examples of authors successfully writing accents, check out this list.

Utilizing Subtlety

Another essential aspect of writing good dialogue is employing subtlety, or subtext. Subtext is the implicit or metaphorical meaning found in writing or conversation. It’s what’s underneath the actual words on the page. In real life, people don’t always say what they mean or they say as little as necessary to convey their point because people also use body language to communicate things they don’t necessarily say out loud. They may exaggerate, hyperbolize, minimize, lie, embellish, or simply lack the words needed to express what they really mean. Societal and cultural norms can also sometimes prevent people from saying exactly what they mean to say. Mastering good dialogue will mean mastering imbuing the dialogue you write with subtext—the meaning underlying the words actually said. Here are some examples of what dialogue with subtext looks like in practice. 

How to Format Dialogue

One of the first ways to identify a writer who is just starting out versus someone with more experience is how well they format dialogue. It can be tricky and difficult to remember all of the rules, but it’s essential to getting right for the sake of readability. Some readers may not even bother with work if the dialogue is improperly formatted. And, if you’re trying to get published, you must get formatting right to show publishers that you know what you’re doing. 

So what are the rules for formatting dialogue? Please note that this is specific to American English and there may be other rules for other regions and languages. 

1. Quotation marks: Double quotation marks should surround any spoken words, as such: “I miss you.” In the case that you have a quotation within speech, use single quotation marks for the secondary quote: “Can you believe he told me that? ‘I miss you.’ What a jerk.” 
2. Dialogue tags: These should remain outside of the quotation marks, as such: “I miss you,” he told me. Dialogue tags can also come before the dialogue itself, in which case the same rule applies: He told me, “I miss you.”
3. Punctuation: Always tuck your punctuation. This means that any punctuation marks you may use in dialogue belong within the quotation marks. For example: 

“I miss you,” he said.

CORRECT

“I miss you”, he said.

INCORRECT

Additionally, dialogue tags following exclamation points and question marks (rather than a comma) should begin in lowercase. 

“Why haven’t you called?” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Em dashes, not to be confused with hyphens or en dashes, should be used to indicate interruptions and abrupt endings in dialogue. The dashes should also be placed within the quotation marks. 

He crossed his arms over his chest and said, “I miss you and I—”

I shook my head. “No offense, but I really don’t want to hear it.” 

Finally, when dialogue ends with an ellipsis, you don’t need any additional punctuation. Ellipses should only be used when the speaker is trailing off. 

“I miss you and I just thought…” he said, his voice trailing off. 

4. Action tags: Actions that occur before or after dialogue should be given their own sentence: 

I reached over to touch his hand. 

He started to cry. “I miss you.” 

5. New speakers: Every time the speaker changes, you need a new paragraph with an indent. The conversation will look something like this: 

He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, frowning at me. 

“I miss you,” he said. 

I scowled. “I haven’t missed you one bit.” 

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said, shaking his head. “I think you’ve missed me more than you let on.”

As you can see, when the same speaker’s line of dialogue is broken with an action (as in the final sentence of the example above), you can continue in the same paragraph without entering and indenting.  

6. Action interrupting dialogue: Along with not having to enter and indent as stated above, action that comes in the middle of dialogue should remain in lowercase, unless it’s an action unrelated to the dialogue. For example: 

“I always loved you, you know, he said, twirling his cigarette, “but you never loved me back.” 

VERSUS

“I always loved you, you know.” He stood up, took a cigarette from the pack and pointed at her. “But you never loved me back.”

7. Long speeches: Sometimes you’ll need a character to deliver a long speech or monologue. In this case, you may need to split up their dialogue into more than one paragraph. When doing this, you place a new set of quotation marks just at the beginning of the new paragraph without closing the quotation marks at the end of the previous one. Then, at the end of the entire speech, you put end quotation marks. For example: 

He told us the story of how it happened. “One day, I was walking along the East River when I saw him—the strangest man I’d ever seen! He wore a purple top hat and thick green coat, even though it was very warm and humid that day. He flagged me down, waving all crazy from the other side of the bank, and so I made my way towards him. Then, we had the strangest conversation I’d ever had. 

“He told me that he knew my mother—my mother who’s been dead for over twenty years! And that he knew me when I was just a young boy. I didn’t believe him of course. I wanted to, but I didn’t.” 

When in doubt about how to format a piece of dialogue, always fall back on these rules. Tucking punctuation, utilizing action and character tags correctly, and remembering to close those quotation marks will go a long way in helping your dialogue appear professional and readable. 

The Dos and Don’ts of Writing Dialogue

Let’s now make sure you know what to and not to do when it comes to even including dialogue in your text.

• DO keep it concise and purposeful. 
• DO make sure it serves the plot and/or character development. 
• DO make it sound natural and authentic. 
• DO format it properly. 

• DON’T include long, meandering conversations with no purpose.
• DON’T just dump info and exposition utilizing dialogue.
• DON’T make your characters all sound the same. 
• DON’T forget to add dialogue tags for clarity.

Practical Tips

Working on improving your dialogue skills? Here are a few ways to tackle this: 

1. Read dialogue out loud. This is a rule of thumb with pretty much all writing, but for dialogue in particular it is helpful to read out loud to check for issues of flow, sentence structure, and any oddities. 
2. Listen to real conversations for inspiration. The way that people talk and the things they choose to talk about are great pools of inspiration for your own writing. 
3. Partake in writing exercises to practice dialogue skills. Start with the one below!

Exercise

Write a scene between two characters wherein all of the important information of the scene is said through spoken dialogue. 

Teaching Characters Speech

In all, we hope you feel more confident and ready to tackle dialogue writing. It’s an important way to have characters interact and communicate, showing off their personalities, providing information to the reader, and moving the plot forward. With dialogue writing, practice certainly makes perfect, so make sure to take on the exercise in this blog as a way to get started. 

Looking for more writing tips and tricks? Check out the rest of our Facts of Fiction series.

If you’ve ever tried to write a story, you may have encountered the writer’s eternal problem: how do I get all the information that I know about these characters, settings, themes, and plotlines onto the page so that the reader has the context they need to fully enjoy the story?

What you’re grappling with is exposition, a narrative device that provides background information to the audience and helps readers understand the context of the story. It can be delivered through dialogue, narration, flashbacks, or a character’s thoughts. Effective exposition feels seamlessly integrated into the story. Ineffective exposition may overwhelm or bore the audience before they can get to the meat of the story. 

Despite it being so necessary for stories, storytellers often find delivering exposition effectively difficult because it’s the kind of information that is much easier to tell rather than show. That’s why one of the hallmarks of a good storyteller is how well they are able to get across expositional elements in their work. It’s all about balance: without the right amount of exposition, the audience will not have enough information to understand what is going on in the story and why. How much is too much depends on what kind of story it is. 

The good news is that you can effectively deliver exposition without info dumping, by utilizing  dramatization and making it feel necessary to the conflict. This can be done in a number of ways, including through dialogue, narration, internal monologue, and special devices. Continue reading to get a deep dive into these techniques and more tips on exposition!

Key Aspects of Exposition

Now that you know what exposition is, let’s explore more thoroughly what components make up expositional information. This will include: 

1. Character Backgrounds: Any information about the characters’ pasts, motivations, and relationships in the story. 
2. Setting: Any details about the time and place where the story occurs, including cultural, social and historical context. Stories that take place in a time and place familiar to the audience may require only a bit of exposition, but more fantastical or complex stories will require more. 
3. Plot Background: Any explanation of the events that took place before the current narrative timeline. 
4. Worldbuilding: As discussed in our Worldbuilding 101 blog, exposition for fantasy and science fiction work, among other genres, often includes descriptions of unique elements such as magic systems, technology, or societal norms. 

All creators of stories should know these details of their work inside and out. After all, you created these characters, this world, and the events that take place within it. The trick is determining what your audience needs to know in order to understand the story. 

Maribel’s Tip: One rule we know works here at Brink is EKT—Everybody (in the world of the story) Knows That. If you’re about to share something that everybody in the context of the story would already know, don’t. It takes away from the realism of the story. For example, an employee would never explain their own job to their boss (unless they were being really sassy or something), because the boss should reasonably know what they do. If you need to explain this information for some reason, it makes much more sense for the employee to explain it to a new hire who doesn’t have that same information. 

Types of Exposition

Exposition can be broken down into two types, which can be used by a storyteller depending on what’s needed in the story. These two types are: 

1. Direct Exposition: The storyteller explicitly provides background information, often through narrative summary or a character’s internal monologue. 
2. Indirect Exposition: The storyteller reveals background details through dialogue, actions, or events, allowing the reader to infer information. 

Both types of exposition can be dramatized and used effectively in a story. What’s important is determining which type best suits your story at any given moment. For example, although the general rule of thumb is to show rather than tell, sometimes doing so might slow a story down too much. Or, it may add to the suspense, tension, or dramatization of the story to actually have that information told. Whatever your choice is, the important thing is that you have a specific reason behind why you shared the information in that way. 

How to Dramatize Exposition

Now that you know more about exposition, let’s get into how you can make it fun and relevant for your audience. In general, there are four major ways to do this. We’ll outline each one and utilize examples, both good and bad, to show exactly how each of these work. 

Exposition Through Dialogue

By relaying exposition through dialogue, you can make it feel actionable, natural, and important. Conversations between characters offer more than just talk—it is a way to show characterization, move the plot along, and, in this case, provide background information. However, you still want to avoid blatant info dumping. For example, poor execution of exposition through dialogue can look like: 

“Alaina! My dear sister, how are you doing? Ready to pop?” said Maria as soon as she entered the room. 

Alaina gave her sister a brief hug. “I can’t believe you came all the way from Upstate New York just to see me go into labor.” 

Maria whipped out her cellphone to begin recording. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, are you kidding me? We are sisters after all. I’m just so sad that Mom can’t be here.” 

Alaina’s shoulder slumped. “I know, me too. Things haven’t been the same since the car accident.” 

This is obviously an exaggerated example, but it does work to show you what NOT to do when utilizing dialogue to relay exposition. Let’s break down why:

• EKT: Both characters present know that they are sisters, so why would they reference it not only once, but several times over the course of the conversation. This is something that could easily be portrayed not only through actions but also through the narration (said Maria, Alaina’s sister.)
• Lack of showing: Alaina is in labor, but rather than showing that through physical cues, she simply tells Maria that she is. Again, this falls under EKT: why would Maria even be there if she didn’t know Alaina was in labor? 
• Elephant in the room: This also goes back to EKT, but the elephant in the room is the mom not being there. While we have no additional context for this story, imagine that this is the opening scene. It doesn’t seem true-to-life that these two sisters, who would both be fully aware of an accident preventing their mother from being at the birth of her grandchild, would mention it in such an obvious way.

Here’s the same scene done with a little more subtlety while still getting across the same context: 

Maria flung open the hospital door so hard it bounced back and nearly hit her in the face. She rushed to her sister’s side.

“Wow, you got fatter,” she said. 

Alaina rolled her eyes, wincing as she sat up against the pillows supporting her. She put a hand over her swollen belly. “Gee, thanks.” Her eyes darted back to the door. “It’s just you?” 

Maria gave her a tight smile and sat down on the edge of her sister’s hospital bed. “Mom’s not feeling up to it.” 

Alaina blinked rapidly to clear tears from her eyes but nodded. “I understand.” 

Maria grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Don’t worry. You have me! Who else could you possibly need?” 

The side of Alaina’s mouth twitched up into a smile. Even if their mother couldn’t be there, at least she wasn’t alone. 

In this version of the scene, the audience gets a lot less information about exactly why the mom cannot be there. Nonetheless, they can infer that there is a reason and that it will be revealed at a moment in the story later on. Meanwhile, the mystery adds tension, keeping the audience engaged and ready to learn more. 

Exposition Through Narration

Narrators can be used to effectively express important exposition as well. It all depends on the narrative voice utilized in the story. For example, TV shows like Gossip Girl, Desperate Housewives, and Veronica Mars utilize voiceover to include narrative voice that exists somewhat outside of the story. Sort of like a third-person omniscient POV, although the voice isn’t always completely omniscient. This has the effect of providing important context and details for the story, such as giving us information the other characters don’t have yet, or allowing us to see inside their head. 

Narration is also used in other forms of storytelling, of course, and the type of narration utilized to tell a story is one important overall piece of your story. A strong narrative voice is an excellent way to deliver exposition by weaving it seamlessly into the narrative flow. The important thing here is to balance showing and telling in order to keep the reader engaged. Take a look at this example from the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives (mild spoilers ahead!). You can also view the video version of this scene here—make sure to read along!

What did you notice while reading and watching this scene? How did the voiceover (and the narration happening through the actions on screen) deliver effective exposition? What did we learn about the character of Mary Alice, where she lives, who she is, and what she’s doing? This is how exposition can be delivered while also building conflict and tension, hooking the audience in without giving away too much—but preparing them with enough information for the context of the story. 

Exposition through narration might also look like a typical fairytale opening: Once upon a time, there was a kingdom…—and then going on to describe the kingdom, who lives in it, and introducing our main character. This is a good way to start a story that has a lot of lore or background the audience must know to even get started. When done poorly, this kind of exposition through narration will really drag the narrative down and make the audience feel that they’re being spoon fed too much information. It’s best to use this technique with a specific purpose in mind, and sparingly. 

Exposition Through Internal Monologue

Internal monologue can also be an effective way to relay background information while keeping things dramatic. A character can reveal how they’re really feeling, what they think of other characters, and what their plans are to the audience only, perhaps thinking of private information that adds to the conflict of the story. The main benefit of internal monologues are emotional stakes. While a character may not express what they’re actually feeling openly, if the audience knows, then they may prepare themselves for conflict based around the character’s true emotions further down the line. A great example of this is found in the opening of “The Pillars of Creation” by Walter Thompson: 

No one’s told the bus driver about Dad, so we still get dropped off near the old house, at the corner of Myrtle and Patterson. We don’t mind. Nat and Ben get amped up on the drive out from school, squealing and shouting with their friends, bouncing on the worn leather benches. They need the walk, just shy of two miles, to settle into the cool dark side of their afternoon, so that Mom gets them when they’re at their lowest low, needing a hug and a Coke and two hours of ESPN. The whole way, they run circles around each other: pushing and yanking, pelting pinecones, kicking shins. Edward stays ten yards behind them, never looking up, as if the twins are tugging him along with an invisible string. He puts on his headphones and stares at the asphalt as he goes. The headphones aren’t hooked up to anything; he just tucks the end of the cord under his belt. He takes the “noise-canceling” thing more seriously than other people because his world is full of more noises than theirs. 

Here, the narrator’s internal monologue sets off the story for us by hitting us with the most important information in the very first line: the father’s death. Then, we meet the narrator’s siblings, whose actions as described by the narrator tell us more about their ages and personalities. These little details will come back later on as plot points. The audience is engaged from the get-go because of the implied emotional circumstances and we’re looking for signs of grief and drama throughout the text. 

Internal monologuing is perhaps one of the easier ways to get exposition across, but it can be difficult to get it right and not simply dump a load of information on the audience. The trick is to do exactly what the passage above does: dramatize the information and make it relevant and resonant later on in the story. 

Exposition Through Special Devices

Aside from these narrative tactics, there are other ways to express exposition in a story. This could be through a letter that a character receives, a journal entry they write, or flashbacks to a previous event. You can use these devices to break up the narrative and present background information in a more creative way. Plus, these devices can serve the story and character development. For example, let’s say you use a journal entry written by a character to share expositional information. This tells us that, at the very least, the character is self-reflective. We also get the chance to take a peek directly inside their mind and voice through their journal entry. 

The letters shared between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, and other characters, in Pride and Prejudice serve great expositional and character development purposes while also moving the story forward. For example, let’s take a close look at Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth after she (spoiler alert!) rejects his marriage proposal in Chapter 35. I won’t share the letter in its entirety here, as it’s very long, but will focus instead on a few choice moments. Firstly, Darcy writes:

“At that ball, while I had the honor of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas’s accidental information, that Bingley’s attentions to you sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. He spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could be undecided. From that moment I observed my friend’s behavior attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard; and I remained convinced, from the evening’s scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment. If you have not been mistaken here, I must have been in an error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probably. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable.” 

Here, he references Elizabeth’s accusation that Darcy was the one who stopped the romance between Mr. Bingley and Jane, Elizabeth’s older sister. We learn information that we did not know before: Darcy had a conversation with another character, who implied to him that Bingley and Jane would get married. This expositional information is important because it provides context for Darcy’s later actions, which he explains. We also learn several important things about Darcy’s character that Elizabeth and the audience didn’t necessarily know before: he is a loyal friend in trying to protect Bingley’s feelings and he is not afraid to admit fault. 

The letter goes on to explain what actually happened between Darcy and Mr. Wickham, which is also expositional information. The delivery of this information is simple but telling. While it could be considered an info dump under normal circumstances, Jane Austen has set it up so that it doesn’t feel as such. Here’s why it works:

1. Set precedence. In Pride and Prejudice, the letter from Mr. Darcy explaining himself follows several others, setting the stage for letters to be important pieces of information within the story. If this were the only letter in the entire novel, it might come off as a deus ex machina and work much less well. 
2. Expand on characterization. This letter tells us so much more about who Darcy is as a person, unfiltered through Elizabeth’s point of view since the words are his own. We’re able to see firsthand how many of Elizabeth’s conceptions of him spring from his struggle to communicate with her—as well as, of course, their shared trait of pride and their personal prejudices against each other. 
3. Amplify existing tensions. The information provided in the letter adds additional drama to pre-existing relationships, making the reader eager to see what will happen next. This ensures that instead of feeling like an information dump and deflating the stakes, it raises them in anticipation of further scenes. 

In Summary: Four Tips for Effective Exposition

Now that you know different ways to dramatize exposition, here are a few general tips for tackling it in your story: 

1. Show, don’t tell. Incorporate exposition into the story through actions and dialogue rather than lengthy explanations. 
2. Keep it relevant. Ensure that the information provided is essential to the plot and character development. While you may know more information that the audience doesn’t, if the audience doesn’t need to know that information, you can keep it to yourself! As the creator, you’re always going to know more than your audience. 
3. Spread it out. Distribute exposition throughout the narrative rather than dumping it all at once. This prevents the audience from getting bored or feeling that the story is dragging. 
4. Engage the reader. Make exposition interesting by adding conflict, tension, or mystery, as we’ve outlined above. 

Keep these tips in mind as you approach writing exposition to help your story stay afloat!

Exercise

Write a scene in which you share crucial background information about a character only through one of the above tactics: dialogue, narration, internal monologue, or special devices. 

Get Off to a Great Start With Your Story

With these techniques to express exposition in your story under your belt, take a stab at each one when writing your next story. Remember, exposition is best delivered through dramatization and techniques that serve more than one purpose in the story. Of course, there will always be times when it is more efficient to share background information directly, but these are generally far and few inbetween. Don’t let exposition scare you away from writing your best story. In your first draft, let all the information you know flow free and then go back to see how you can better express it on the page. 

Looking for more writing tips and advice? Check out the rest of the Facts of Fiction series to learn about the storyteller’s journey from beginning to end.  

We asked writers, editors, and readers to teach us how they approach diversity in their works.

Before we dive in, let’s pose the question: What is diversity? According to the dictionary, diversity is “the state of being diverse; variety,” meaning to have “a range of different things.” It can also refer to the practice or quality of including people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, religions, ages, and more. In the real world, it appears all around us. 

When you think about diversity in storytelling, what comes to mind? Is there a piece of media you think of immediately? Does a specific author who you feel does “diverse writing” come to mind? Do you think of advice you’ve heard or read about approaching diverse topics? Does the thought of approaching these topics in your own writing scare or intimidate you? 

The truth is, there is no one way to write diversely, or to get diversity right 100 percent of the time. Don’t let fear hold you back from telling the best story you can tell. Using authentic, human experience and invoking through your writing (or other form of art) the emotions you have felt and understand will help you write about things that you may not have experienced yourself. You can be sensitive towards and fully embrace diverse topics within your story where it makes sense in an educated, articulate, and respectful way. 

To help you out, we asked a number of F(r)iction writers, readers, editors, and staff members to weigh in with their best tips for writing diversely and tackling diverse topics.

Meet Our Respondents 

Clayton Bradshaw-Mittal, a queer, previously unhoused veteran, wrote “West Texas Ghost Story” for F(r)iction, the Unseen Issue. Their fiction can be found in Story, Fairy Tale Review, South Carolina Review, and elsewhere. Other work of theirs appears in The Rumpus, Barrelhouse, Consequence, and other journals. They teach at the University of Cincinnati-Blue Ash and are the Managing Editor of New Ohio Review. 

Charlie Claire Burgess is a writer, artist, and tarot reader in Portland, OR who wrote “Fools and Believers” for F(r)iction, the Arcana Issue. They are the creator of Fifth Spirit Tarot, an independent tarot deck that centers around LGBTQ+ folks, the author of The Fifth Spirit Tarot Deck Guide, and the host of The Word Witch podcast. Their writing has appeared in Hunger Mountain, New Stories from the Midwest, Third Coast, and elsewhere, and their short fiction has received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention. Charlie received their MFA at Vanderbilt University. 

Exodus Oktavia Brownlow is the author of “At My Gynecologist, the Ghost Gloves Go to the Garbage and the Too-Green Girls Become a Little Less Green,” which is found in F(r)iction, the Bodies Issue. She is a writer, budding beekeeper, and rising seamstress currently residing in the enchanting pine forest of Blackhawk, Ms. You may find her, and more of her work, at exodusoktaviabrownlow.com. 

Audrey T. Carroll, author of “The Script Doctor” from F(r)iction, the Unseen Issue, is a Best of the Net nominee, the author of Queen of Pentacles, and the editor of Musing the Margins: Essays on Craft. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Prismatica Magazine, Miracle Monocle, Glass Poetry, Vagabond City, So to Speak, and others. She is a bisexual and disabled/chronically ill author who serves as a Diversity & Inclusion Editor for the Journal of Creative Writing Studies. She can be found at audreytcarrollwrites.weebly.com and @AudreyTCarroll on X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram. 

Patricia A. Jackson is a high school English teacher in Pennsylvania and author of “Unmasked” from F(r)iction, the Unseen Issue. Her debut novel Forging Nightmare is a delightfully heretical urban fantasy with a Black-led cast of fallen angels, infernal warhorses, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. She has also published in the Star Wars universe; her latest tale “Gone to the Winner’s Circle” appears in From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi. When not grading flash fiction, fighting right-wing book bans, or gaming, she is off spoiling her horses, Maya and Indy. Patricia is represented by Sara Megibow of KT Literary. 

Dominic Loise is a Content Creator and Staff Writer for Brink. He lives with his librarian wife Jenna, their rabbits, and many books. He met his wife one night over a shared love of reading Ray Bradbury. The rabbits love books too but aren’t readers. As a content creator for F(r)iction, Dominic writes book reviews, does interviews, and has a series of personal essays about pop culture and health. He is open about and advocates for mental health awareness. Dominic can be found at @dominic_lives on Instagram and X (Twitter), where he shares recently published work. 

Nate Ragolia is the Communications & Marketing Director and a Senior Editor at Brink. He is an author, editor, publisher, and podcaster who has published three books, There You Feel Free, The Retroactivist, and One Person Can’t Make a Difference. Nate co-hosts Debut Buddies, a podcast about firsts, and is co-founder of the indie press Spaceboy Books. At F(r)iction, he leads communication and marketing, writes grants, serves as a senior editor, and collaborates with the leadership team on a wide variety of projects and programs. He has also dabbled in webcomics, e-zines, and music blogging, and worked in community wealth development and nonprofit strategy. When he’s not doing the things listed above, Nate is a husband and dog dad. 

Calvin Shaw has many works published, including in Arts & Letters, Midsummer’s Eve, Blackout, Black Works, The Skewies Awards: An Award Anthology 2023, and A Year of Hygge (Fall). He loves listening to music, laughing with family, and watching sports. Calvin writes poems everyday, ranging from erotic to horror comedy. Calvin and his works can be found on Instagram at @1995calshaw.

Francis Van Ganson, author of “As Above, So Below” from F(r)iction, the Bodies Issue, is a bookseller, zinester, and organ donor. Their McDonald’s order is a medium fry and a large iced coffee with cream and sugar. Their work can be found in Cotton Xenomorph, Foglifter, and Triangle House Review. 

Here’s what they had to say! 

Q: What are some of the best examples, in your opinion, of diverse writing done well, whether it’s diversity in character, setting, theme, or other? 

In Short: 

Our respondents have a number of stellar recommendations for books, authors, films, and more that serve as some of the best examples of diverse writing done well. These include (but are not limited to): 

• Works by Bryan Washington
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Wild Meat and the Belly Burgers by Lois-Ann Yamanake
• Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone by James Baldwin
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele
• The Star Trek universe
• Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany

Clayton: Bryan Washington is probably the best writer at this right now. He manages settings (especially Houston and Japan) and the people who inhabit those settings with care, placing the individual concerns and struggles of characters within the container of the setting and allowing struggle and conflict to erupt out of these concerns. He does not create a monolith, instead representing the queer, multicultural reality of the working class. His characters are from all backgrounds, yet he manages to imbue each with a humanity and vulnerability that recognizes the varied experiences of the people they represent.

Charlie: When I read for pleasure, it’s almost always fantasy, sci-fi, or imaginative fiction of some sort, and I think these areas can be really generative spaces for a diversity of characters, settings, themes, and more. However, they can also be just as normative as the rest of the writing world, especially when it comes to queer characters and themes, with a few exceptions. The standout work that comes to mind for diverse writing done well is Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, which centers on “ambisexual” people who don’t have fixed genders or sexualities and who live in a society that hasn’t been shaped by gender roles, divides, and power dynamics. Another, more recent novel I’ve adored is Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg, which takes queer liberties with the legendary 18th-century English thief Jack Sheppard and a diverse cast of characters to explore (and explode) themes of gender and sexuality, race and class oppression, ecological destruction, authority and freedom, and the erasure of the marginalized from history. 

Exodus: What immediately comes to mind are the works “Wild Meat and The Belly Burgers” by Lois-Ann Yamanake, “Perfect Little Angels” by Vincent Anioke, and select works by Melissa Llanes Brownlee. Writers, who are unafraid of the poetry of language, of writing from generous perspectives (gender, ages), of immersing their readers within the setting that is often othered from an American one. Works that read as natural as to the breath. Never blocked. Never forced. 

Audrey: Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone by James Baldwin. I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Mac Crane. Bad Cree by Jessica Johns. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah. Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian. Cosmoknights by Hannah Templar. The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro.

Patricia: I am not certain anyone can find a better exemplar than Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Nor a sadder one. Pecola Breedlove, a wretched, sexually abused character in the novel, is on a quest for happiness by replacing her brown eyes with blue ones. In one instance of the story, she believes that if she consumes a Mary Jane candy, she will be transformed into the candy mascot with blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Only then can Pecola be truly beautiful—human and deserving of happiness. Morrison takes the readers through the great depths of Pecola’s sadness in the book because there is no resolution for her except madness. 

It frightens me to think that as a child growing up without seeing myself in film, TV, or books, that I was a Pecola, believing that heroes came in one default: blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. It is a familiar and damaging anthem played over and over again. 

Dominic: Some good examples would be how diversity in horror can show representation and resiliency from a cultural perspective in works since Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Us, and Nope, and seen in works like Antebellum. 

Nate: Often, I think science fiction storytelling like Star Trek can be an example of diversity writing done well, both because in far-flung futures we might dream of an era when people are no longer measured by their race, gender, or sexuality, but also because these stories can approach complex issues within all facets of diversity from angles that aren’t rooted in 21st century human experience. 

Calvin: Diversity in your characters helps the reader find the unique distinction of each character and how they can relate to that character. It could be something as small as a character having two children and a small stem-rose tattoo on their lower right calf and you may know that character personally or paint a depiction of them in your head. The setting cannot be stale, or the audience will not imagine where these characters are placed, which will ruin the story. The setting is the most important aspect outside of character development because a diverse setting provides the reader with an idea of what the tone/mood of the plot is for the specific chapter. Never use stereotypical or offensive speech when creating diverse characters because your audience will immediately turn off from the ignorance depicted for the character.

Francis: I think Dhalgren is a really wonderful example of a diverse book, because Delany is writing about the entire American project and the experience of living in an American city. The book has a big cast and all the characters feel like they’re based on real, recognizable types of people. The differing ways they talk, their beliefs, their actions, and their contexts reflect this. 

Approaching this question from a different angle, Alice Winn does a great job writing across time and difference in In Memoriam, which depicts a gay love story set during WWI. Her characters are all very distinct and their understanding of their world reflects the depth of primary source research she did for the book. 

I also want to draw attention to Anjali Sachdeva’s story “All the Names They Used for God,” which is a highly speculative take on the experiences of women kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria. In an interview, she says that she wrote it because she was reading an article and was disturbed that it had fallen out of the US news cycle. 

Q: What do you look for when you’re looking to read work that features diverse characters? 

In Short: 

Everyone looks for something a bit different, but when I read the answers all together, it feels like we’re all kind of looking for very similar things as well. What do you think? Here’s a preview of the brilliance our respondents shared: 

• Work that allows each character to enter into conversation with their environment and experience. 
• Work featuring characters who are fully fleshed, dynamic, and complex and more than just their “diversity.”
• Work that has connectivity and uniqueness, whether in setting, race, language, or culture. 
• Work that has nuance, avoids tokenism, and displays individual complexity.
• Work with fully formed, three-dimensional characters with depth and meaningful arcs. 
• Work that comes from a diversity of authors. 

Clayton: Typically, I am looking for work that allows each character to enter into conversation with their environment and experience. This does not necessarily mean making the work about the experience (there is incredible work that does this), but also showing how a character’s background informs their interactions with the world. 

Charlie: Just like with any piece of writing, I want to read stories about fully fleshed, dynamic, complex people who are so much more than only their “diversity,” which is usually just a nice way to say their marginalization. I look for characters who are driven by personal values, needs, and desires that may intersect with their marginalized identity but also go beyond it. For example, I love a trans character whose trans-ness doesn’t define them, who has more going on in their life and in their heart! Narratives of gender transition are important, but even then, a trans character will have more motivations in their life than just a weekly hormone shot. Or a character with a chronic illness whose disability is just a part of their life, not their entire motivation or a plot device. I also pay attention to the way a character is described or introduced. I love it when nonbinary characters are presented with they/them or neo pronouns in a matter-of-fact way, no need for explanation. I’m particularly sensitive to how trans, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming (TGNC) characters are physically described. Sometimes, I can pick up on a cisgender writer who just can’t let go of hinting at a TGNC character’s sex assigned at birth, which feels especially discouraging because this happens to us so much in real life too. 

Exodus: I am always searching for connectivity and uniqueness (be it found within that character’s setting, race, language, culture). I believe that the best way to treasure diversity is to honor the ways in which we are similar. We must also equally (and admittedly, I would go as far to say more) honor the ways in which we are dissimilar. In doing so, we get a greater understanding of the world, and how so many factors shape us. The similarities become the bridge, the variations become the opportunity to learn and to practice radical, unconditional forms of love, respect, and acceptance. 

Audrey: Nuance, avoiding tokenizations, and individual complexity. 

Patricia: I look for a story where the character represents me, and that does not always mean color. E.M. Forster referred to such characters as the ficelle. I enjoy character-driven narratives where the plot shifts as the protagonist evolves, not by the coming and going of events. However, I’ll be honest that as a Black woman, I am usually disappointed when heroes come in the standard default: blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. That is the world I have been raised in, so I’m not surprised. But when a protagonist moves from the ensemble to center stage and looks like me?! I am delighted to see myself in them and more eager to get into the adventure. 

Dominic: The work of Percival Everett is what I am looking for—American Fiction is a nesting doll of a family’s personal stories within the lies they tell themselves and the bigger lie the main character tells to hold up a mirror to what the publishing industry says it wants and puts out regarding diverse stories. Gene Luen Yang also achieves this in graphic novels. 

Nate: Fully formed, three-dimensional characters with depth and meaningful arcs. The hearts of characters, and how they face the conflicts in the story, will always be the most important thing. It’s also essential to avoid stereotypes because they’re both reductive and boring. 

Calvin: Authenticity, nothing more, nothing less. 

Francis: That’s not normally a metric I use when choosing works to read. I often avoid work where an author is writing across difference because I find failed attempts at best uninteresting and at worst very grating. I do enjoy reading work that comes from a diversity of authors—I love things in translation, in a wide variety of genres, by people who grew up in different places than I did, from authors who also have day jobs, fanfiction, highbrow and lowbrow work. I get the most out of all varieties of writing when I read with intent to understand and, to the extent to which it’s possible, try not to impose my own ideas on a piece. A lot of my thoughts about meeting written work where it’s at are put beautifully in Matthew Salesses’ Craft in the Real World. 

Q: Can you share some examples of good vs. bad writing when it comes to diversity? 

In Short: 

The Good 

• Lot by Bryan Washington
• Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love by Carlos Allende
• Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
• How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
• Works by Zadie Smith
• Work in which the author is also included or connected, in some way, to the piece. 
• Works by Aliza Mann
• Stephanie Williams’ contributions to Marvel and DC comics 
• Blacula: Return of the King (graphic novel)
• Writing which focuses on humanity and empathy, driven by the character’s choices.

The Bad

• “The Change” by Tony Hoagland
• Work written for the sake of writing about differences.
• Work in which a character’s marginalized identity is the sole reason for their existence. 
• Inspiration porn.
• The character of Finn from the Star Wars universe
• The American Society for Magical Negroes
• Work littered with clichés and worn out tropes and stereotypes.
• Work that seems more interested in providing “good representation” of a particular group or community than trying to say something interesting or tell a good story.

Clayton: Bryan Washington’s Lot is among the best examples. It does a lot of work moving across borders to show the queer multiculturalism of the working class. Carlos Allende’s Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love is so much fun and also plays with boundaries across culture, class, and sexuality. Of course, Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties. Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go In the Dark is a speculative novel-in-stories that takes us across so many settings with an inclusive cast of characters. Oh, and anything Zadie Smith does. 

On the bad side, I can think of many examples. One that comes to mind first is the infamous Tony Hoagland poem “The Change.” It’s a persona poem executed very badly. Any time a writer from the dominant side of a power structure centers a character from a marginalized group around their own experience is bad diversity writing. This is common in war literature. Queer-coded villainy (which is different than villains who are queer). Disability as characterization. 

Charlie: I hate it when a character’s marginalized identity is the sole reason for their existence. That’s not diverse representation; it’s tokenism. I’ve seen a lot of writers insert “diverse” characters into their stories in order to tick a diversity checkbox, and the characters usually come across as stiff and one-dimensional, like cardboard cutouts. For example, a lot of my pleasure reading is fantasy and/or romance, and I’ve seen popular authors whose cis-het storylines I thoroughly enjoyed try to force queer representation in response to a perceived demand. While well-intentioned, the results tend to be comically bad! Usually, this looks like appling the same old binary gendered, cis-het relationship structures to queer relationships or romances, which in real life often function outside of masculine/feminine roles. (A lot of authors also seem to have difficulty imagining queer sex that doesn’t involve sticking something into something else!) 

Bad writing replicates mainstream norms and values (which is to say, white, cis-het, able-bodied, middle class, Western, etc.) in supposedly “diverse” characters and storylines, or, alternatively, it fetishizes the diversity of those characters so it’s the only thing the characters are about. Good writing, on the other hand, attempts to fully imagine and live in the perspective and experience of the body, mind, time, place, culture, and reality of that character. Good writing has diverse characters who aren’t defined by their diversity and whose presence in the work feels dynamic, vital, and fully realized as an integral part of the story. 

Exodus: For me, a good example of diversity would be one in which you’re also (fictional or nonfictional) included within the piece. Connected, in some way. A bad example of diversity in writing would be to write for the sake of writing about differences because one, you think it will warrant your popularity within publishing, two, you wish to shock people. As a writer, always ask yourself the whys. Within that why, and outside of your own ego, how would you respond to that potential piece? How would others? 

Audrey: Badly written diversity can come from a place where the writer acts like the expert on experiences that don’t match their own identities, and/or from a writer’s intended audience. So, for example, writing disabled characters to make abled people feel better (inspiration porn; see: Stella Young) is not well-written diversity because it lacks nuance and individual complexity, and it objectifies disabled lives for abled eyes/ears. 

Patricia: I’ll be honest. My peace is always under attack. So I do not stay in places where my borders may be breached. When I see something that bothers me, I tend to deviate course. But if I had to point to an example where diversity fell flat, it was the latest round of Star Wars sequels. John Boyega’s Finn suffers being not just a token, but a jester and a fool. He had the potential to be so many things, but I guess, in fear of a very toxic fanbase, he is left in a vapid storyline, with an incomplete character arc, and dashed aspirations. No Black person was surprised. 

As for good writing, I know the leaders are out there turning things around. African-American author such as Aliza Mann’s work in the paranormal romance and romance genres and groundbreaking territory for Black women and men to truly see themselves in roles not generally assigned by the mainstream and not enough can be said about the earth-shattering contributions to comics that Stephanie Williams has brought to Marvel and DC, despite the reluctance to continue tearing down walls. 

Dominic: A bad example is The American Society for Magical Negroes, which plays more like a romantic comedy than a satire, treating the message with white fragility to keep the audience watching. It does a lot of telling instead of showing when building the supernatural world of the secret society and the real world issues of white fragility.

A good example is the Rodney Barnes graphic novel Blacula: Return of the King. The original movie Blacula was drenched in camp and stereotypes from the first frame on, but the graphic novel presents grounded characters who you can relate to from the first page on. Both try to transcend stereotypes and replace diverse representation, but Barnes’ graphic novel is better at world building, character development, and showing rather than telling. 

Nate: Good diverse writing, like any good writing, focuses on humanity and empathy, driving the story forward not because of how a character looks or where they are from, but through the choices they make in the face of the challenges presented to them. Bad diverse writing is littered with clichés, worn out tropes and stereotypes, and may hinge a plot entirely on assumptions that a writer has (and believes a reader has) about diverse characters. 

Calvin: If I am writing about a holiday cross-country trip and the characters drive through Kansas to arrive in Missouri, it is best to do my research on the states involved and not offend the state by writing about offensive ideas I have or was told about the states. Find historical landmarks or hidden treasures about the area so the reader can be captivated by this state they didn’t know has hidden beauty, and allow the natives to feel a sense of pride from the story being told. 

Francis: I can only speak definitively about my own experience, but I find it very boring and distasteful when authors seem more interested in assuring me that they’re attempting quote unquote good representation of my community than trying to say something interesting or tell a good story. It’s usually very obvious to me if an author doesn’t actually know what they’re talking about when they’re writing about something I’m familiar with, which makes me feel like my time is being wasted as a reader. 

I hate to sound ungrateful, but I can usually tell when an author is trying to write a trans character but doesn’t know any trans people. I would much rather read an interesting story about cis people than feel alienated by a well-meaning cis person’s clumsy, fearful attempts at depiction. I know it comes from a good place, but that doesn’t make it any more enjoyable to read. 

Often the giveaway is not stereotypes, but the author imagining a type of trans person that wouldn’t actually exist because they don’t know our cultural signifiers, ways of speaking, paths of becoming, and what trans people in different contexts may believe, say, or do. Obviously I don’t know every possible experience in the trans community either. Even writing about people similar to yourself involves writing across difference. If trans people can’t write books without other trans people getting mad at them for representational choices, I don’t know why cis people think they’re going to be able to manage it. I would hazard that this is true for a lot of communities. 

For this reason, I worry that sensitivity readers are something of a false promise. There are easy pratfalls that a sensitivity reader will catch, but the idea that a sensitivity reader will keep the writer from making representational gaffes assumes that all members of a group feel the same way about how a character from that group should be depicted. I think we should be very wary of the desire to have someone speak definitively for an entire group of people or experience, particularly in a way that allows writers to wash their hands of the choices they’ve made. Like how translators are credited in a translation to make the work they do on the text visible, I think we should be cognizant of the fact that a sensitivity reader is just another person with opinions. 

There seems to be this underlying belief that the problem of “diversity in writing” can be solved if enough privileged writers can just successfully write every kind of story. To me, long-term, comprehensive funding for the arts at all levels is the only way we’re ever going to change what kinds of stories are told and by which people. Diversity in literature is an institutional and structural issue and should be treated as one. 

Q: In general, how do you approach writing diversely—whether it’s a character who is something you’re not, a setting you know little about, or a theme you haven’t explored yet? 

In Short: 

Everyone approaches this differently, but the top three tips we got from our respondents were: 

1. RESEARCH. Nothing will help you tell your story more, or to greater effect, than research, especially if you’re approaching writing about subjects you have little or no experience with. For more tips on research, check out our blog all about it!
2. ASK QUESTIONS. Think a lot about why you’re writing this story from this perspective in this way. Ask yourself: Why am I writing this story? How can I avoid stereotypes related to this topic? How am I connected to this story?
3. ACCEPT MISTAKES. You’re only human, just like everyone else. You’re bound to make mistakes throughout the writing process and even after you’ve published something. It’s okay to make mistakes—just make sure you listen and learn from them!

Clayton: I start by decentering myself and my experience. I need to inhabit the characters and consider their experiences, which are not necessarily mine. Then, I move into research, especially when I consider characters from backgrounds dissimilar to my own. I talk to people, explore the internet. Social media has become a tremendous tool in understanding different perspectives and experiences. There is a danger to creating a monolithic representation of people and places, one that is easily inhabited by stereotypes, and I work to find the small details or desires within that make an individual character tick within a given environment or socioeconomic structure. Their environment and background inform their interactions with the world, but there is more to a person (or character) than this. I try to think about their quirks, their kinks, the little details that set them apart from the rest of human civilization. Characters need to be written with parts that connect them to readers and parts that are unfamiliar and set them apart from the real world. Settings are the same. I think about what is familiar and a setting and then move into what sets it apart. A grain of sand is familiar but, as we zoom out, it creates a different texture in West Texas than in South Padre Island or in Iraq. 

Charlie: It starts with learning, of course. I read books by and about the people, places, cultures, or religions I’m interested in writing about. I read (or watch, or listen) to people who have lived experience. I spend time with those people or in those places, if I can. Later, I ask friends to be sensitivity readers, and I’ve also paid people to be sensitivity readers. Research is vital, but it also must be said that there’s no replacement for lived experience. As writers and as human beings, it’s so important to acknowledge the limitations of our individual experience and perspective. As a white, able-bodied person, I can never fully understand the experience of a Black, disabled person—though it’s important that I try. As a queer, trans, nonbinary person, I can’t fully understand the experience of a cisgender, heterosexual person (it’s mystifying!). Even with other queer, trans, and/or nonbinary people, my experience and perspective will be different from theirs. When we begin from a place of humility, awareness, and openness to diverse perspectives that may challenge our own, then we often find that we have more in common with each other than we previously thought. But I think it’s important to begin with that foundational understanding that we can’t totally understand—and resolve to try our best anyways. 

Exodus: I really like to root myself to that character, that theme, that setting, no matter how different it varies from my own identity. Not as means to claim it as my own, but as a way to back against the natural fear that often comes up when writing from a perspective that’s not ours. Often, I hear writers talk about not wanting to write from certain viewpoints (for instance, a female-identifying writer who does not want to write a story about a male-identifying character) because, “I don’t know what they’re thinking.” For me, rooting is the solution. It teaches us to listen. It teaches us to listen even when we don’t want to, when we’re nervous that something that is to be revealed may shake up our own personal narratives. This is a good thing to me, and in my opinion. As a writer, I don’t want my only perspective to be the focal point of my existence, when we all live in a world that is this varied. It’s impossible. Limiting. “I don’t know what they’re thinking.” Maybe not. But chances are, it’s some of the same things that you’re thinking about right now. How hungry you are. How afraid you are. How you want things to be different, better. How you wish you could change. Your mom. Your dad. Your siblings. And the biggest one of all—how you hope to find love one day, including self-love. 

Audrey: Being thoughtful feels like the best first step: Why am I writing this? (Why am I the one to write this?) How do I make this feel true and avoid stereotypes, especially harmful ones? What are my touchstones (ex: how the character is similar to me, for instance), and how do I weave that together with elements that are outside of my own particular comfort zone? 

Patricia: Research, research, research. Did I mention research? Respect, respect, respect. Understanding that if a quality is not yours, don’t touch it! In my debut novel, I had a Lakota character. I did my research. I spoke to people. I learned about the culture, the ceremonies, even the language. But in the end, my agent felt that because I was not Native American, I could not use the character. 

So I replaced him with a Tuareg boy from Mali. Initially, I felt like a vast hole had been left in the novel, but as I did my research and allowed the character to come into his own, the character arc worked right into the narrative, seamlessly, and even stitched up a plot hole or two. In the end, I feel more comfortable because I did not transgress in a way that might have upset readers. While I think authors should not be regulated to ‘their side of the road’ mentality, I do think boundaries need to be respected when dabbling with other cultures. 

Nate: We’ve all seen the memes about how male writers write female characters through the male gaze, posing absurdly and remarking on their own anatomies in character descriptions. When I write female characters, I always keep those words of warning in mind, and focus on the character coming to life with their own motivations, needs, wants, and inner life. I think that we fail in writing diversely most when we use diverse characters as “action figures” within a story, rather than imbuing them with the full breath of existence that we do with other characters by default. For any diverse character, it’s essential to know them, inside and out, and to check and double check your notions about who they are. When we ask ourselves why a character we’re creating is the way they are (with any character) we can only make them more real by answering that question honestly.

Calvin: I always try to write about what I know and provide an authentic representation of that diverse idea. I will loosely combine friends, coworkers, or family members and develop a character. Do your research when writing about settings or time periods you don’t have a point of view about. I am not a worldly traveler and haven’t lived in periods beyond the 28 years of my life, so it is important to research online or talk with family or friends who do have experience with the settings or time period I’m writing about. Doing so keeps the reader intrigued, helps them learn more about the setting, and feel a connection with the story. 

Francis: My number one rule for writing is that I don’t write about things I don’t know shit about, because I don’t have anything interesting to say about things I don’t know shit about. If I really want to write about something important to keep in mind the stakes of me being wrong about something like how taking a car apart smells versus the daily lives of child soldiers are very different. *Smokey Bear Voice* only YOU can decide if you have any business writing about something you don’t know or can’t learn firsthand. 

After asking myself if I actually have anything I could possibly bring to the conversation about the thing I want to write about, I do a bunch of research. I try to get a handle on what conversations people are already having about the thing I’m interested in depicting instead of relying on cultural osmosis. I like to approach it from a lot of different directions so I can get not only information, but also get a handle on how people at different vantage points see what I’m writing about—meaning I usually go for books (fiction and nonfiction), movies, Reddit, TikTok, and talk to people in real life. This helps me get a better idea of what I don’t know and what I actually might want to say from my own vantage point. 

I suspect that some writers want to hear that there are five surefire things they can do that will keep them from making embarrassing mistakes while writing about something they haven’t personally experienced, but that’s just not how writing works. If you’re writing about something you don’t know about, you’re putting yourself in a position to show your ass, and sometimes that means you show your ass in a way that makes your ignorance obvious, hurts someone’s feelings, or makes them make fun of you on X (Twitter). There is no way to avoid this, even if you mean well. It will be okay. 

Q: What’s your number one tip to writers when it comes to writing about diverse topics and characters? 

In Short: 

When it comes down to it, there’s no secret formula for getting diversity, and all that it encompasses, right every single time. Everyone approaches it differently, but there are things you can do to ensure you’re coming from a place not only of good intention, but also of good action. These are our respondents’ top advice: 

1. Decenter yourself. Your experience may inform your work, but you must write what is true for the characters. 
2. Challenge your own perspectives and assumptions.
3. Be vulnerable and, most importantly, be respectful. 
4. Read widely; listen and learn. 
5. Consider the repercussions of appropriation. 
6. Educate yourself and be thoughtful about research. 
7. Be your unique self and provide an authentic message to each diverse topic or character you write about.
8. Say something interesting about how you see the world. 

Clayton: Remember to decenter yourself. Your experience may inform the characters, setting, and theme, but you must write what is true for the characters. I subscribe to the idea that everything we write exists in an imaginary world, a world that borders and mirrors our own. This means writing a reflection of our world but not necessarily writing our world. You have to let go of yourself a bit and allow the world of your characters to develop to what is natural for that world. 

Charlie: If your perspectives and assumptions aren’t feeling challenged, you’re probably doing something wrong! You can’t write about people unlike you and topics unfamiliar to you and leave unchanged—and that’s a good thing. Stay curious, be respectful, ask questions, and be available to change. 

Exodus: Be vulnerable, and absolutely be respectful. Lean away from stereotypes unless they are ones that you personally share as well. Again, be respectful. When you write with respect, there’s less of a chance of hurting someone. You will know that your heart was in the right place during the creation’s process, and your readers will be able to pick up on that. If you make a mistake, learn from them, forgive yourself, apologize, and proceed forward as not only a better writer, but as a better individual as well. 

Audrey: Read widely in the spirit of listening and learning. This applies to fiction, but also to others’ realities–through creative nonfiction, poetry, social media, etc. 

Patricia: A cultural element might seem cool and pretty, but don’t pick it up. Consider the repercussions of appropriation. You may like a particular dance in a culture, and you may bend and shift it to make it fit in your story, but it’s still appropriation. Look for similar dances in your own cultural realms that might be of use to your narrative. The greatest marvels are usually right under our noses and in our backyards. Don’t ignore them. 

Fantasy makes appropriation too easy because an author can mish-mash and create a Frankenstein of multiple cultural items, but in doing so you assimilate those cultures and erase them, paying neither homage nor uplifting the elements that created your inspiration. Look for lines of similarity, research them, lift what you need for your narrative, but if you find yourself white-washing or revising a culture: cease and desist. 

Nate: Educate yourself—be thoughtful about researching and curious about learning, and talk to people with diverse backgrounds and experiences. 

Calvin: Be your unique self and provide an authentic message to each diverse topic or character you write about. We all have unique mindsets, and it is important to provide the reader with access to a piece of your brain by creating characters that have multiple layers like humans, animals, settings, and more that we interact with every day. 

Francis: Say something interesting about how you see the world! Do your best, work with the limitations of your own understanding, and keep it moving!

Other Resources for Writing Diversely 

Now that you’ve heard from a range of voices about diversity in storytelling, continue to expand your horizons! There are ample resources across the web that can help you learn more about approaching diverse topics. These are a few that stand out:

• Writing Diversely, which offers tools, guidance, and support for storytellings 
• WritingWithColor, a Tumblr blog dedicated to writing and resources centered on racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. 
• Writing the Other, a small collection of resources for creating inclusive fiction and other narratives. 

Most importantly, though, make sure to read work by a diverse set of authors—such as the ones recommended in this blog—and do your own research on the topics you’re interested in. We can’t wait to see what you dream up!