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It’s been 18 weeks since the first time I wrote up a guild lesson/discussion post all the way back in June.

And now I have officially exhausted my internal list of things to cover under the guise of prose, so we’re going to move on to a NEW topic! Before that, I’m going to quickly recap everything we’ve done to do with prose so far. I have full confidence that if you can practice these techniques in your own novels, your prose will be vividly alive and captivating!

 

We started off with the most important part of strong, unique prose: Character Voice!

Character Voice = The unique style, tone, and personality of the Point of View (POV) character that comes out through the prose.

It’s their unique personality effecting the phrasing and wording of the sentences in between the dialogue.

 

There’s also a lot to learn about unique prose (and other aspects of good storytelling) by reading and studying published books. You can use questions like, why do(or don’t) I enjoy this style of writing? Is there long sentences and paragraphs, or short? Is it flowy, fancy descriptions, or more utilitarian? What is it about the prose that draws me into the story and how can I do that in my book?

 

Using thoughts is another tricky aspect that doesn’t have to be as hard as everyone makes out. There’s three different ways to do it:

1: Why did fast food places have to smell so much like hamburgers? (using character voice to smoothly weave the thought into the story)

2: Why do fast food places have to smell so much like hamburgers? he thought. (using a direct thought)

3: Fast food places always smelled so much like hamburgers. (mini info dump! which is frankly quite boring)

Using character voice to subtly weave details into the story to draw the reader closer into the character’s thoughts is often a far better method to use than info dumps, and even the direct thoughts. It avoids interrupting the flow of the scene and it mixes both description and character together into one sentence.

 

Sometimes subtle changes make much more of a difference than we realise.

e.g. The sentence “I felt scared” is very obviously boring in comparison to a sentence like: “My pulse was roaring in my ears and my hands were shaking like leaves.” Everyone can tell that “I felt scared” is a boring sentence. However it’s harder to realise that the second sentence only needs two words changing to make it way better too.

“My pulse roared in my hears and my hands shook like leaves.” That sentence is more active and in-the-moment, as opposed to the ‘pretty good but not totally good’ previous sentence. The previous sentence (an example of ‘past progressive tense’) was a lot better than the telling ‘I felt scared’ it still was much better when we tweak it just the tiniest amount and make the sentence more alive and really makes it easier for the reader to connect with the character.

 

Describing characters is a pain. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. xD

Luckily there’s a trick to making it slightly less of a pain. The trick? Show enough, but not too much. And show the right details.

The best rule of thumb is to describe only details that matter to the character and matter in the moment. However, you can also cheat just a little. When your character scratches his hand through his hair, is he really thinking about “scratching his hand through his black hair”? Nah. But he is aware that his hair is black, so you can almost always get away with sneaking that little descriptor in there. No harm, no foul—and readers have a useful detail to add to their mental image.

— K.M. Weiland

Different details about a character have different levels of importance in the reader’s imaginations. Things like basic build and hair colour are both fairly important. You should always be weaving in the details with action or purpose toward the plot.

Whenever possible, every detail you give about a character should be there for reasons other than showing the reader how to imagine the character. It should be there because the physical attribute tells them something about his personality or his emotions or his occupation even.

 

Describing settings is kind of along the same strain. You have to find that balance between too much description and too little.

With too little the readers will just imagine everything in a blur and they’ll be perpetually confused.

With too much they’ll have a very clear picture of the setting, but will have absolutely no clue what’s actually happening in the story.

Both options aren’t good. The key is to find the balance: root the action in the setting, so the reader knows where they are, and use the actions to show more glimpses of the setting, but don’t just reel out a massive description.

 

How do we do descriptions well? By showing instead of telling! I’m actually quite proud of the lesson I did on that, so if you haven’t read it, you can check it out here, or just read the summary below. 😛

Telling = summarizing. Giving the reader only the bare minimum without going into any detail.

Showing = expanding into more detail. Giving the reader information about what the character is seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, feeling emotionally, and thinking.

Telling is giving facts. Showing is bringing the facts to life. Personally, I don’t like to use the terms ‘showing vs telling’, I like to think of it in those terms: bringing the story to life.

We can change our prose from the bland to the beautiful using a couple of simple steps.

1. Use the five senses to deepen the vivid experience of the scene.
2. Small details bring things to life.
   In a coffee shop, everyone knows there will be a counter and tables and chairs. But not everyone will know that there’s a quaint bell over the door, or scented candles set along the back wall.
3. Choose vivid words
   Use specific words to bring your scene to life. Instead of saying Das was walking back to the house through the muddy yard, say he was “staggering back through the clinging mud.” The words ‘staggering’ and ‘clinging’ give us two clear, vivid details to craft our mental image as we read.

Note that unimportant events can be summarised. Violent/unsavoury details can (and should) be skimmed. Recaps (e.g. when your character explains the events of a previous scene to another character who wasn’t there) can be mentioned in passing but not detailed.

 

Even the most simple little words can change the feeling and emotion in a sentence, and we need to make sure we’re making use of those simple tricks. Vivid and specific words can do so much to strengthen your prose and really breathe life into it.

Word choice like: glowing vs glaring, and waiting vs demanding can make such a big difference to the tone and emotion in the scene.

That’s what we want in every scene that we write. To have the emotion clear. To draw the readers into the story with our every word choice.

 

Dialogue, like everything in your novel should advance the plot. Obviously, dialogue should be true to the character, and be fairly realistic to conversations we hear in real life. It should hook the readers with the character’s personality and humour (not every single conversation, granted).

But subtext is an incredibly important and overlooked aspect of dialogue. Two tips to make your dialogue more interesting.

1. Don’t say what they mean
2. Don’t say what’s expected

 

While you shouldn’t drag your dialogue out too long, it’s always good to have a bit of dodging around the subject—because that’s realistic. Have your characters dance around the truth a little, implying things, using body language to suggest their meanings. People even say the exact opposite from what they mean.

Having a character answer a straightforward question in an unexpected way is a great chance to show something deeper. It could be a misunderstanding, a lie, an ironic understatement, dodging the question.

All of these can drop a hint at something—foreshadow a future plot development, reveal that not all is as it seems, show the reader a deeper glimpse into the character’s personality, or even just add a touch of humour in a dark patch.

 

Other things to learn/think about

– Taking breaks is good
– Try new methods of writing!
– Learn from your old writing
– I don’t think I need to summarise last weeks’ lesson. 😛
– I’m really bad at summarising things so this turned out to be a MONSTER OF A POST

 

Remember, all the topics are available to read over any time you want/need a refresher.

 

With that…introducing our new topic: Story Theory!

 

Story theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of story. It is derived from observation of, and involves hypothetical speculation about how writers make stories.

Or, to phrase it more simply:

It’s looking at the plotting, the planning, developing the theme, the characters, the world, the magic systems, doing the research, etc.

I was researching exactly what the definition of story theory was and I came across this great post from K.M. Weiland so you can look at that if you want the full expansive definition. I was slightly overwhelmed at the enormity of it, so I’m probably downplaying the definition by an enormous amount because it’s such a HUGE topic, but the subtopics (plotting, developing aspects of the story, etc) I’ve listed above are definitely going to be covered and it’s going to be a ton of fun.

 

I’m not going to write up another massively long lesson about story theory because this is already long enough. Sorry for that, but I’m really excited to plunge into it next week! I’m hoping to do it in the order that I would normally do it in when I am developing a new novel (initial idea – ready to begin writing) but I’ll probably get muddled up a lot and you’ll just have to bear with me. 😛

Note: these lessons might not apply directly to the WIP you are working on right now, though I will try to keep them as applicable as I can. However, I will definitely be aiming to make these new ideas and styles that you can use for your next novel and every novel coming!

 

This week I just want to ask you:
– Do you feel like you know more about prose now than you did before?
– Are you confident in your understanding of prose?
– Is there an aspect of story theory that you want me to cover but I didn’t list above?

 

Thank you SO MUCH for being an epic guild. I’m seriously so blessed by each of you. You’re all the best. ❤

 

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