Fiction Basics
Writing fiction can be a fun and rewarding pastime; it can also be a rewarding career. The following sections will give you an idea about writing for this interesting and potentially lucrative market.
Genre
Much of today's fiction is written in a particular genre, like mystery or science fiction. Genres have special style considerations that make them appeal to a certain type of reader.
Each genre has its own rules to follow. Some, like romances, are very stringent; publishers expect the story to follow a certain structure. Others give you more room to move. A mystery, for example, must always have a crime to solve, but there is a great deal of latitude as to how the story progresses. Science fiction and fantasy are often lumped together, although there are different sets of rules for each.
There are a number of genre categories available in the current publishing market:
Action/adventure
Chick Lit
Horror
Mystery
Romance
Science fiction and fantasy
Thrillers
Westerns
Some have categories within the categories, such as the techno-thriller genre for which Tom Clancy is known. A solid market exists for all of these categories, although different categories enjoy different levels of popularity at different points in time. There's also a solid body of reference material dedicated to each genre. For information about specific titles, consult
Each genre also has its own rules about length. Some romance novels, for example, are relatively short, with as few as 56,000 words. Horror and mystery novels tend to be longer, on average, coming out somewhere around 80,000 words, while fantasy novels surpass 100,000 words. Consult publishers for current word length requirements for your particular genre.
Viewpoint
There are three basic kinds of viewpoints (also known as points of view or POV) that are commonly used in fiction:
First Person
Written in the first person, this viewpoint creates instant identification between the reader and the narrating character. It's more personal and intimate, but it can have its drawbacks. While it gives you the ability to climb inside your main character's head and share his or her thoughts directly with the reader, it also limits the interaction your reader will have with your other characters. It also places limits on the way you tell your story, because you can never tell anything to the reader that the character doesn't already know. In a mystery, for example, you cannot fill the reader in on clues without having them known by the main character. By contrast, with the third-person viewpoint, this is done by shifting the point of view from one character to another.
Third-Person Omniscient
With third-person omniscient, the reader is not limited to the thoughts of the narrator. Indeed there is no narrator, and the story is told in the third person, using third-person pronouns like
Third-Person Limited
The third-person limited viewpoint is like an amalgam of the previous two, and is much more common in today's literary marketplace. It limits the reader's exposure to one mind, as with the first person, but the story is simply told without a narrator. Romance novels were once limited to this viewpoint, told only from the heroine's perspective.
Second Person
Although the second-person viewpoint does technically exist, it is seldom used in fiction. Instead of using first-person or third-person pronouns, the second-person pronoun
You walk through the doorway into a dimly lit passage. Dusty air floods your nostrils as you slowly creep along the passageway, passing by the bare timbers holding up the soil. Your feet scrape on the rough hewn stone floor, creating echoes throughout the chambers. You find it spooky.
If you have an idea that would adapt itself well to the second-person viewpoint, feel free to use it, but remember that it's not often done. It is a hard POV to master, as the misuse of it will quickly alienate the reader (who would never do the things you're telling the reader that he or she is doing).
Plot
Your plot is simply the progression of your story. It is how the story develops. It starts at point A, progresses to point B, and then on to point C. Think of the plot as the building blocks for your story.
Anton Chekhov, master playwright and short-story writer, supposedly once said, “If you have a gun on the stage in Act I, it had better go off by Act III.” This is simply a short way of saying that your story must develop, and if you set up something early in the story, that setup must be essential to the story. Also, if you plan to use something toward the end of the story, it's usually more effective that you set it up early so that the groundwork is laid.
By thinking this way, you'll avoid plot inconsistencies that will jar the reader. Anything you try that isn't properly set up will seem out of place or contrived. Worse, the reader will think you're cheating by taking shortcuts like having the character win a lottery and never having a care in the world again. Don't be seen as taking the cheap way out.
Using an outline will help your plotting. Simply write yourself a list of what happens in the story. If you decide to change anything later, you can easily see how it will affect the flow of your story.
Some writers don't like to worry about plot when they first start writing. They'd rather see where the characters take them and see what kind of story unfolds. That's fine if you choose to take this route; it can be a very fun way of writing, as you're actively using your imagination as you write. Basically, you're playing “what if?” with yourself and recording the answers that come out of your mind.
This stream-of-consciousness process, however, requires extensive editing later. The odds are against your being able to write an entire novel off the cuff without putting any planning into the plotting or scheduling time for massive rewrites later.
The other way, of course, is to concentrate on the outline and figure out where your plot is going to go before you actually sit down and do any substantive writing. This way, you have a clear indication of what should happen and where you will be going with the story when you start writing.
Premise
In addition to your plot, you should always have a premise. While a plot is simply the progression of your story, the premise is the culmination of it. In a way, it's like the moral or the point of the story.
The premise is just a short way of encapsulating everything that goes on with your story. But it also provides you with a yardstick by which you can measure how effectively your story line is developing.
The premise need only be a one-sentence line about the outcome of your story, such as: “Drinking and carousing leads to a loss in career.” You don't need to include anything character-specific, as that will be addressed in your plot. The premise is there only for you to measure the effectiveness of your individual scenes, to make sure that they are contributing toward the plot.
Conflict
Conflict is the glue that holds your story together. Conflict is what causes characters to develop and change. It is these changes that are interesting to the reader, who likes to see character evolution from the beginning of the book to the end. It also creates more identification, so that the reader can relate to the characters better.
There is no magic to conflict. It is simply the challenges that your characters must face along the course of your story. Conflict is inextricably tied to plot; your plot will actually progress on the basis of conflict.
Your story will also have a major conflict, which is often known as the climax or the crisis of the story. This will be covered in a later section of this chapter.
Characters and Dialogue
Dialogue is important when one character is learning information from another. It's a great technique you can use to convey new facts and information to the reader. Rather than dumping a ton of detail into your narrative, you can introduce information gradually, while letting the reader participate in the action of how the characters uncover the information.
“What's this?” Roger asked, holding up a sheet of paper.
Dr. Harvey looked up from his work. “Those are the final lab analysis results.”
Roger scanned the list. The report meant nothing to him. “What's it say?” he asked.
“Well, it says that there were very high levels of lead in the water.” The doctor took the sheet from Roger and consulted the figures. “More than four times what is considered acceptable, actually.”
“Wow, that's a lot,” Roger said. “Any idea what might have caused that?”
The doctor shook his head. “Not yet. But we've ordered another series of samples. I've got technicians out there gathering them right now — from multiple sources all along the stream.”
“You think it's from the Axendale plant?”
The doctor nodded slowly. “I don't see where else it could have come from.”
This short little scene gives a lot of information to the reader. It shows that a chemical investigation is underway to try to determine why lead levels are so high. It also sets up the next part of the story, where the supplemental samples are obtained and analyzed. In addition, it reveals the doctor's suspicions about the origin of the poisoning. While much of the same could have been done using plain narrative, the use of dialogue engages the reader and lets him or her participate in the story, rather than just being told information. (This is part of that “show, don't tell” you'll hear about often from those giving fiction-writing instructions.)
Character Traits
You can use character traits to demonstrate quirks about your characters. For example, someone who always tells the truth will be put in an interesting position if he or she, through the course of the story, finds that he or she absolutely must lie (for a very good reason).
Any time you can pit a character trait against the character's need for change, you'll end up with gripping, emotional reading, because the reader can see the inner struggle that the character is going through. This is where reader identification comes from.
Speech Patterns, Not Dialect
As a cautionary note, be very careful not to make characters speak in dialects. If they speak in one, that's fine; you just should not convey that in the actual dialogue, that's all. It will do nothing but confuse the reader.
Keep your dialogue simple. If you're writing about country bumpkins, convey that in the words they choose to use, like short simple phrases, rather than trying to cut off the ends of words, which only serves to make the manuscript look choppy.
Setting
Your setting is where the story takes place. While your story can probably happen almost anywhere, you may want to evaluate how different settings will change the mood or the tone of your piece.
It's always a good idea to try to make your setting resonate with the other events in your story. This adds depth and also a layer of emotional texture to your piece, as the reader will experience the story on more levels.
For example, if you are writing about a character in a depression, it might be a good idea to set that character in a drab, dreary place to start out with. Later, as the character changes, you can place this character in more exciting surroundings to augment the emotional mood you're creating.
Flashbacks and Other Devices
When you want to fill the reader in on parts of the story that have occurred prior to the present action, you can use a flashback to convey the information. A flashback is merely jumping back in time to convey information.
Be careful not to use jargon that your readers won't understand. It's perfectly acceptable to have one of your characters be a rocket scientist from NASA, but if the reader doesn't understand anything the character says, the character probably isn't contributing very much to your story.
As a word of caution — never use a flashback in the middle of an important, exciting scene. You'll only detract from the emotional impact of the fast pace. Save your flashbacks and other literary devices for lulls and low points in the story, where they make the most sense.
Crisis
The crisis is the major climax point of your story. It's where everything you've been writing toward happens. In action-adventure movies, this is often in some dramatic location, where all the cards are on the table and the characters have everything to lose. The major conflict is the deciding factor (where good will triumph or evil will win out).
Crisis will usually cause the characters to undergo some sort of major transformation.
Resolution
The resolution is what happens at the end of your novel or story. After the crisis or conflict, the resolution is how everything gets resolved. This is where your happy (or not-so-happy) ending comes in. The resolution gives the reader emotional satisfaction in knowing that everything is nicely wrapped up (but not too much so).
