Tips on technique 1: Characters
Extract from: The Writing Book by Kate Grenville
Personally, I resist the idea of 'characterisation' as if it's something that you can smear on a bit of writing and
produce characters. Characters are not people, but they are like people in being, finally, mysterious. Their
delicate mechanisms can't be summed up neatly in formulas or rules.
Characterisation is all the things writers do to build up the characters they want. Characterisation is the process
that transforms real-life people into characters in fiction.
On the subject of characters, those voices from Chapter 1 may be heard again. They may be saying things like
these:
'Characters should be drawn from life'
As a writer, you're in the luxurious position of being able to take from life whatever you want, but to ignore life if
you want to. You may find that a real person makes a good basis for a character but you only have to use the
parts of that person that you want to. You can make up the rest, or combine elements from several real people to
make one character.
Characters that are drawn too closely and literally from life run the risk of not working as fiction, for several
reasons:
Writers drawing on a person they know are likely to assume a lot about them and forget to tell the reader;
Real life and real people are sometimes stranger and more interesting than fiction, but one of the reasons we
read books is that life is often a lot less interesting than fiction. Even if a person is fascinating in life, simply
transferring them to fiction is no guarantee that they'll be interesting on the page. Things that we accept in real
life we don't necessarily accept in fiction. It's not enough just to draw a portrait of an odd person from life and say
'but they're really like that'. Life can get away with it: fiction can't. So it's not enough for characters to be drawn
from life for them to work as fiction. But on the other hand, if nothing about them is drawn from life, other
problems can arise.
It's very hard to produce an interesting character completely out of your own imagination. The danger here is that
the character becomes a lifeless mouthpiece for the writer's ideas.
A writer might, perhaps unconsciously, be using second-hand characters - not using people from real life as a
basis, but characters from other books or TV. These characters have already been pruned and shaped to fit the
context of their original story and if you transfer them to yours they will be very thin and shadowy.
'Characters should be thoroughly described and explained'
Getting to know a character is similar to getting to know a person: the pleasure is in gradually finding things out
and piecing them together for yourself ...
'Characters must be lifelike'
What does it mean to be 'lifelike'? Life is like so many different things.
Characters do have to be convincing, which is a different thing. Characters can be unlike anyone we have ever
met and yet we can believe in them within the pages of the story. Characters in fiction don’t have to work as
people: they only have to work as characters in fiction.
'Characters must be consistent'
Consistent characters run the risk of being boring characters. People aren't consistent and characters don't have
to be either. Inconsistencies can make characters interesting, as long as they're inconsistent in a way that adds
something to the story.
While perfectly consistent characters may be boring, perfectly inconsistent ones may be frustrating to a reader:
they never add up to a coherent personality. Inconsistencies can add depth to a character, but they have to be
carefully controlled by the writer.
Extract from: Writing Feature Stories by Matthew
Ricketson
When can I put myself in the story?
The first of the 21 cautionary hints E.B. White offers writers is to place yourself in the background of the piece.
Feature writers sometimes ask, however, is there a time to put yourself in the foreground? They have rejected
the hard news model as restrictive; they may have read Hunter S. Thompson's wild gonzo prose or Danny Katz's
humourous columns and think feature writing is where they are going to unleash their hidden creativity. A hard
lesson for any writer to learn is that the principles of good writing and storytelling are sound and not in need of
overhaul. Harder still is the lesson that at the outset writers do not really know much about writing. Hardest of all,
learning to write well takes time, is essentially a solo journey and invariably includes numerous crash landings ...
The simple question to ask when considering whether to put yourself in a feature story is: will my presence
improve the story? If you cannot answer yes confidently, don't put yourself in. The most important thing is not you
but the story.
Extract from: Your Writing Coach by Jurgen Wolff
If you ask most people about their favourite book or film, usually they will talk more about the characters than the
details of the story. They remember Jack Sparrow long after they've forgotten the plot details of Pirates of the
Caribbean. They can tell you about Elizabeth Bennet years after they had to read Pride and Prejudice in school,
even if they don't remember what actually happened in the book. In non-fiction as well, it's the writer's ability to
introduce us to memorable people that makes an event come alive, especially concerning tragedies like (for
example) Hurricane Katrina. ...
Character analysis
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
7.
8.
a.
b.
c.
9.
10.
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12.
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Name
Gender
Age
Physical appearance
How does the character feel about his or her appearance?
Describe the character's childhood in terms of:
relationship to parents
relationship to siblings (if any)
relationship to other key people from his or her youth
lifestyle while growing up
education
childhood activities (hobbies, interests)
location(s) where he or she grew up
Describe the character's education during and after the teen years, as well as any military service
Describe the character's current relationships with:
parents
siblings
other key people from his or her youth
Describe the character's romantic life (married? involved?) and any relevant background (eg, previous marriages,
affairs)
Describe the character's sex life and moral beliefs
Does the character have children? If so, describe his or her relationship to them. If not, how does he or she feel
about children?
What is the character's religious background? Current beliefs?
What is the character's occupation?
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
Describe the character's relationship to his or her boss and co-workers?
How does the character feel about his or her job?
What are the character's current hobbies or non-work activities?
Describe the character's philosophy of life
Describe the character's political views
Sum up the main aspects of the character's personality (optimist or pessimist? introvert or extrovert?)
What is this character proud of?
What is this character ashamed of?
What is his or her state of health?
How intelligent is he or she?
Summarise the character's relationship to the other major characters in your story
Tips on technique 2: Settings
Extract from: Writing Fiction by Garry Disher
Setting should never be taken for granted. By selecting and highlighting aspects of the setting, and using the
power of words to evoke atmosphere and sensations, writers can bring readers closer to the action and provoke
responses in them.
Some novels and stories are unimaginable without their settings or in alternative settings: the small towns and
farms of southern Ontario in the short stories of Alice Munro, for example, the Texas/Mexico border country in the
novels of Cormac McCarthy, the Louisiana bayous of James Lee Burke's crime novels, the grasslands and
imagined landscapes of Gerald Murnane, Martin Amis' London and the inner-city suburbs of Helen Garner. In
each case the setting influences not only characters, actions and milieu but also tone and style. For example,
Burke's characters and language are dark and sultry, in keeping with the steamy landscape.
Elements of the setting
A setting is composed of one or more of the following elements:
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Objects: e.g. trees, clouds, motor cars, tables, chairs, ashtrays
People: e.g. a newspaper boy shouting on a street corner; a child creating a cubbyhole out of chairs and
cushions
Ambience: e.g. sounds, shapes, colours, odours, the quality of the light, aspects of the climate
Atmosphere: e.g. menacing, joyful, gloomy, tense
Evoking the setting
Appeal to the five senses.
Stories and novels (and non-fiction, such as travel books) are vivid and easier to appreciate when readers are
encouraged to touch, hear, see, smell and taste aspects of the setting. Compare these two passages:
'I knelt and touched his face. It was clear that he was dead.'
'I knelt and touched his cheek. It was cold, waxy. The guy was dead.'
In the second passage readers are invited to imagine what it would be like to touch a dead man's face. They are
brought into the scene, closer to the action, and encouraged to respond along with the narrator; the sensual
detail evokes a more imaginable, and therefore vivid, picture. But note, too, the clipped, abrupt style: it adds to
the intended effect, and helps characterise the narrator. It's not unusual for more than one effect to be at work in
a passage of writing.
Here the other senses are engaged:
Sound
'He pulled his foot free of the mud with a sound like the tearing of a cotton sheet.'
The reader is being asked to hear a specific and recognisable sound in this sentence. Another important writers'
tip is also operating here: it's better to be specific than general. The writer might have written 'with a sharp
sound', but there are many kinds of sharp sounds; the 'tearing of a cotton sheet' is a much more precise
description.
Smell
'Anna bent her head to his little neck, closed her eyes and breathed deeply of the talc, the freshly laundered
blanket, his milky skin.'
This is better than 'Anna breathed in his baby smells', for it's specific, tells us something about Anna and shows
her reacting to her environment.
Sight
'Just across the field from us was an oak forest, no more than a grey smudge in the endless slanting rain.'
This tells the reader what the scene looks like, and also gives information about light quality and air temperature.
It appeals to other senses as well as sight: one can almost hear, smell and touch this scene.
Taste
Taste is not often evoked in fiction (unless the subject is food), but, like smell, taste is one of the most powerful
senses. A windy beach scene would be more vivid if readers could taste the salt spray, for example.
Sometimes a particularised absence of sensory details can be effective; for example, to emphasise the
barrenness of a landscape.
A useful exercise for new writers attempting to develop their powers of observation is to follow the advice of
Dorothea Brande, as given in her writers' handbook, Becoming a Writer, 'turn yourself into a stranger in your own
street'. In other words, take nothing for granted but view a familiar setting with fresh eyes.
Tips on technique 3: Point of view
Extract from: Word Power: a guide to creative writing by
Julian Birkett
In writing any piece of fiction, the question of who is to tell the story needs to be thought about. Is it to be you, the
author, who knows everything about all the people and all the events in the story? Or is it to be one of your
characters, describing what happens to him or her? Are there more ways than just these two to tell a story? The
answer to the last question is yes. This chapter looks at the range of possibilities available to you, and the
advantages and drawbacks of each. The three most common ways are:
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in the third person, where you the writer tell the story
in the first person, where the narration is done by one of the characters
in the third person, with the focus on one character, from whose point of view the events are related.
Extract from: The Writing Book by Kate Grenville
What is 'point of view'?
Point of view can become a confusing technical problem. Points of view can be endlessly categorised, from 'first
person limited' to 'dramatic third-person omniscient' and everywhere in between.
A more practical way of thinking about point of view is to ask these questions about the piece:

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
who's telling the story
how much do they know
are they telling the truth?
Point of view is the voice a story speaks with, so it has to be the right voice for the right story. That's where it's
useful to look at the range that's possible, because the point of view in which you first write your story might not
be the most dramatic point of view for it. Point of view can go on changing through different drafts as a story
reveals itself more fully to the writer.
It's tempting, when writing stories about things that happened to you, to write in the first person. The stories might
come out that way the first time, but as finished pieces they might be more powerful told from another point of
view.
Consistent point of view
Point of view is the frame within which the story happens, so if the frame suddenly changes shape to include
more or less of the story, it can be disconcerting. You may wish to use that as a deliberate effect. But if you don't,
you should check that it is just one frame, not several, that you've placed around the story.
Third-person narrators of the God-like kind are free to be anywhere and to be in the minds of all the characters.
But 'limited' points of view are based on the idea that the narrator is speaking out of one particular mind.
Problems in consistency can arise with a limited point of view; the reader becomes used to seeing the story
through one mind but suddenly the story 'hops over' into another mind and starts telling it from another point of
view.
Ask the questions: who is telling this story, and would they know what they're telling us at this moment. If they
don't know from their own direct experience, but are just guessing, how can I, the writer, let the reader know
whether the narrator is guessing correctly?
Extract from: Writing - a user's manual by David Hewson
Every scene of every book is defined and in some ways shaped by the position of the voice narrating it.
Sometimes this is obvious. In a first-person book the voice of the tale comes directly from the character relating
what happens. But sometimes POV is far more subtle. Popular fiction is usually divided between first-person and
third-person stories, and third-person fiction sub-divided into three distinct sub-categories. Before embarking on
any book you need to think about the POV you intend to use.
This decision is far from irrevocable. Sometimes it's worth rewriting an opening scene from different points of
view in order to work out which is best. What matters is that you're aware of POV as a writer, even if this
technical concept goes over the reader's head entirely. Without a defined POV your narrative is likely to flounder
around the place, meandering into byways where the story will become confused and lost.
The best way to envisage POV is to think of it as something Homer could never have imagined: a camera. In
every chapter there's a lens through which the reader experiences the narrative. It's a very clever camera too,
once that doesn't simply pass on an image of what's happening but also the words of those speaking and even at
times what's going on in their minds.
This distinction between speech and thought gives you a clue to one of the trickiest aspects of POV. In order to
function, that camera must understand its limitations and never range beyond them without good reason.
Tips on technique 4: Dialogue
Extract from: The Art of Romance Writing, fully revised
and updated by Valerie Parv
Writers generally fall into two camps: narrative writers and dialogue writers. I am among the later: I have to
remind myself to balance dialogue with narrative because I am not writing a script. I find dialogue far more
interesting and pacy than narrative, and much more enjoyable to write. But what if your inclination goes the other
way?
If you have to struggle to write dialogue, it may be because you’re overlooking the work the dialogue has to do.
Far from being idle chatter which breaks up the narrative, dialogue has to help to tell a story. In an old audio
cassette called And Then He Kissed Her .... , Mills & Boon said that dialogue had to do five things:
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claim reader attention and set the story in motion
allow the characters to reveal themselves
provide information
add pace and tension, create emotional mood
move the story along.
Extract from: Writing Fiction by Garry Disher
Function
Choose what information is best provided by dialogue and what is best given through narration, bearing in mind
that where there is dialogue there is a scene, and so flashbacks and passages of exposition will interrupt the
flow. As you re-read your novels and stories, ask yourself what the purpose of each conversational exchange is,
deleting those that serve no useful function and tightening those that threaten short-story economy.
Since the function of dialogue is to develop aspects of a character, dramatise scenes or provide information to
the reader (and to other characters), non-functional dialogue like 'Please pass the butter' may be wasted or
intrusive, even though people in real life say these sorts of things. Always ask how essential a passage of
dialogue is. If 'Please pass the butter' provides a little domestic touch at just the right moment, reminds the reader
where the action is taking place, relieves tension in an argument, or characterises a homely person or
atmosphere, then clearly it isn't wasted or intrusive.
Quirks of speech
Dialogue in a story or novel is never as random or tangential as it is in real life, where people ramble, use
incomplete sentences, stutter, mis-pronounce words and punctuate their utterances with ''m'' and ''er". It's best
simply to suggest, or say outright, that Michael stutters, Dominique is French or Ellen's sentences trail away.
At the same time, remember that the habits, mannerisms and difficulties of speech may do more than simply 'tag'
characters and help readers differentiate between them. It could be that Michael's stutter has long-term
ramifications for him and the action of the story.
He said, she said
Many beginner writers believe that the word 'said' is boring, especially if it's repeated, and so over-use variations
like exclaimed, intoned, declare and queried. There is nothing wrong with 'said'. It does the job well and is short
and unobtrusive. Often the context helps the reader hear the voice; for example, 'inquired' and 'exclaimed' are
redundant in the following sentences:
'How are you getting on?' he inquired.
When England won the World Cup, Jim and his mates hugged one another, danced madly around the room and
exclaimed, 'We've won, we've won!'
Indirect speech
Internal dialogue can be used to good effect. In the following passage, indirect speech conveys a sense of
distinctive voices speaking aloud:
Tom said that he wanted her to come to the football. He was getting sick and tired of the way she always made
excuses not to go. But she hated football. Why should she have to go to the stupid football just because they
were going out together? After all, she didn't expect him to go to her office parties, did she? He was getting too
possessive and she was sick of it.
Thoughts may also be written in the form of indirect speech:
Some deal, he thought. My mates will kill me if I grass on them, the cops will gaol me if I don't.
Or be conveyed in a less immediate way:
He thought that it wasn't much of a deal to be asked to choose between informing on his mates and being sent to
gaol.
Note that because thoughts are not uttered aloud it's not necessary to use quotation marks, and because they're
internal and private it's not necessary to conclude them with 'he thought to himself'.
Listen
Many new writers avoid using dialogue for fear of their characters sounding stilted and unnatural. Try to develop
an ear for dialogue by listening to people from all walks of life and making note of what makes their words and
expressions distinctive. Note also the context in which you heard them, hidden meanings, and the personalities of
the speakers, and as you write a passage of dialogue read it aloud to see if it rings true.
Tips on technique 5: Plot
Extract from: The Art of Romance Writing by Valerie Parv
What is the story about? What happens next? These are questions that you want the reader to
ask, so first you must be able to answer them yourself. This is where story structure, plot and
conflict come in. Plot is almost always where the new writer starts, but with a romance novel
so much of the plot is predetermined that you have more chance of writing an original story if
you start with your characters.
The previous chapters show how to get to know your characters thoroughly. By following the
steps, you will know what your characters are likely to want – their goals – and what actions
they might take to achieve them. This should lead you directly into the beginnings of your
plot, which you will then expand into an outline so you are ready to start writing the
manuscript.
Editor Anne Gisonny calls a plot 'a tightly integrated series of scenes set in motion by some
direction idea. Something like a line of dominoes falling one into the next.'
The heroine's goals will usually supply the directing idea. How the hero stands in the way of
her goals provides the conflict. Without a sense of direction and conflict, the book can
become a series of chance meetings and unplanned events where the characters argue
endlessly before falling inexplicably in love on the last page.
Some editors say that the developing romance is the plot of a short novel, with the story itself
as the subplot. However you describe it, the story must support and illuminate the central
love story. How the characters meet, what keeps them from giving in to the attraction they
feel, and how they resolve their differences form the core of your book. Everything else is
secondary.
As soon as the reader sets eyes on your hero and heroine, they know the characters will end
up living happily ever after. Your job is to make them worry that this time the outcome could
be different. Your plot must answer three questions:
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Why are the hero and heroine attracted to each other?
What keeps them apart?
How will they resolve the ‘what’?
The first question will be answered by your character profiles, both internal and external.
Initially she will probably be attracted to his appearance. As they get to know one another,
they will find in each other qualities worthy of their love.
The answer to the second question – what keeps them apart – is the body of your story. It
provides the essential conflict without which there would be no need to keep reading. The
conflict is the obstacles the characters must overcome before they can give in to the attraction
they feel.
Old ideas, new plots
Pondering one of the more common plot situations can provide you with an idea for a new
story, provided you can come up with an idea for a new story, provided you can come up
with an original treatment of it. All of these situations have been used many times. How
could you treat them differently?
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Man and woman stranded together on an island.
Arranged or forced marriage.
Pretending to be engaged or married.
Woman or man seeking revenge on the other.
Woman assumes another identity (e.g. twins)
Unequal balance of power (e.g. a new boss)
Tutor or nanny to hero’s child
Secretary to an author
Hired to have his child (or she wants him to father hers).
Secret baby – hero is unaware he’s fathered a child
Royalty and commoner.
How can you turn these around? Perhaps the author is female and the secretary male. Better
still, is he trying to prove she stole his ideas? The tutor or nanny to the here’s child might
have been hired by his ex-wife (a close friend of hers) to prove he is an unfit parent. The
possibilities are endless, provided you keep the focus on the developing romance.
Plot checklist
Do your hero and heroine meet as close to page one as possible?
Does the reader share the characters’ immediate attraction to one another, shown through
their viewpoints and senses?
Is the conflict between them original, or given a fresh twist?
Do you show the conflict through their actions and dialogue?
Do you show how they resolve the conflict through their own efforts, leaving them free to
love?
Is there a balance of fast-paced scenes and quiet moments in your plot?
Is there a balance between narrative passages and dialogue?
Will you need to rewrite long paragraphs of narrative to make shorter ones, or can they be
rewritten in dialogue?
Have you started the book with a ‘hook’ and ended each chapter on a cliffhanger or question
so we’ll want to read on?
Does the plot follow the domino effect of each action leading to the next, which leads to
something else, and so on?
Is the focus kept on the developing romance throughout, with your hero and heroine thrown
together as much as possible?
Have you ‘charted’ the romance to make sure it develops steadily and convincingly from first
kiss to satisfactory ending?
At the conclusion, have you tied up all the loose ends, cleared up any misunderstandings and
followed through any foreshadowed plot points?
Is the ending romantic and worth waiting for? Is it long enough and sensuous enough to
reward the reader with a truly satisfying conclusion, leaving them uplifted by the experience?
Extract from: Your Writing Coach by Jurgen Wolff
The premise and the plot
Sometimes people object to the terms 'story' and 'plot' being used interchangeably. They suggest that the story is
what your book is really about, whereas the plot is the sequence of events that you use to tell the story. What
they call story, I call theme or premise. It is what you are choosing to explore or demonstrate with your book or
script or whatever else you are writing.
In The Art of Dramatic Writing, Lajos Egri suggested that the best way to formulate a premise is 'something leads
to something else'. For example, selfishness leads to downfall, or love leads to redemption, or wealth leads to
corruption. However, you can state a premise in other ways, such as 'love conquers all' or 'the child is the father
to the man' or 'your past always catches up with you'.
Reduced to such terms, a premise sounds trite. What saves it from being trite is how you embody it in a
fascinating, moving, intriguing, fresh-feeling book or script.
The premise of my novel Max Hollywood is 'it's never too late to be a hero' but the plot is about an over-the-hill
actor who has to decide whether he's willing to stand up for what's right, even if it means giving up his final
chance to make a comeback. If each person in a room full of 30 writers set out to weave a tale that embodies the
same premise, I'm sure they would come up with 30 different plots.
The advantage of having a premise in mind from the start is that it acts as kind of a compass. As you develop the
plot, you can make sure that the events do indeed embody the premise. The danger of having a premise to start
with is that it may incline you to come up with a story that feels preachy or too straightforward to be interesting. If
you're not sure what your premise but you have a plot that excites you, go ahead and start writing. Many authors
don't know what they meant to say until they've said it.
Tips on technique 6: Tense
Extract from: Writing - a user's manual by David Hewson
A question of tense
Now to a very simple decision. Do you want your story to take place in the past, the present or the future? Let's
deal with the last option immediately, since it really won't take long. Let me tell you the answer: probably not, if
you want to be published as commercial fiction. There's always someone out there who'll disprove the obvious
one day. But books are rarely set in the future. As a narrative tense it's too odd and too constricting. For a short
story that screams 'disconnect' from the outset... possibly. A full-length novel? Best avoided.
Which leaves us with two basic choices...
In the present
Few books use the present tense throughout. It's not as odd as the future tense for a narrative, but it's not far off.
It can also become distinctly wearisome after a while. Narrative tends to run to a rhythm, much like a piece of
music. It will have fast and slow passages, loud and quiet ones. At times characters will be ruminating on the past
or the future and giving the reader a chance to do the same in the context of the story so far. At other points the
book will be making the story happen, moving more quickly, furiously even. It's very hard to achieve that sense of
a changing tone if all you have to work with is the present tense. It's much like the first-person point of view in
that respect, which is one reason why first-person passages often work best when set in the present tense.
There's a clue to one of the most useful functions for the present. Imagine your novel is principally written in the
past tense. From time to time your protagonist has dreams or flashbacks which start to illuminate the mystery as
it's revealed. The sudden jolt of the present can make these interludes more gripping.
It's way past midnight and I'm walking down the alley to the pier. Butcher's Lane, they call it. Sally's round here
somewhere I think. Lost and frightened. Maybe. Or something else. Something I don't want to think about. ...
In the past
Most novels are written in what grammarians call 'the simple past tense'. Don't you love that word? Simple.
Books are meant to look that way to the reader. Authors are there to deal with the complexity, then hide it
underneath the carpet.
Grammarians also call it the 'preterite', which doesn't sound simple at all though it's exactly the same thing - the
tense used by most authors most of the time. Stories recount things as they happen. The reader's perspective is
that of a remote viewer witnessing a series of events.
Charlie went to the pier.
Sally ran away.
Later the two of them met by the railway station.
Simple past. Readers who don't even know what tense is, and probably think a preterite is something that falls
from the sky, understand instinctively what's going on when you write like this. ...
You will use other variations of the past in your book. There's the past continuous:
Charlie was swimming towards the pier when the wave hit him.
And the past perfect:
Sally had thought for a while that it was time to go back to the water. Then Charlie called and finally she knew.
...
The past simple is the predominant voice of fiction, one you've been listening to all your life if you're an avid
reader. My advice to the first-time writer is: don't buck the trend. Assume your book will be written in the lingua
franca. Play with the present from time to time if you feel like it. Drop into other forms of the past tense when the
demands of good plain English demand.
Tips on technique 6: Tense
Extract from: Writing - a user's manual by David Hewson
A question of tense
Now to a very simple decision. Do you want your story to take place in the past, the present or the future? Let's
deal with the last option immediately, since it really won't take long. Let me tell you the answer: probably not, if
you want to be published as commercial fiction. There's always someone out there who'll disprove the obvious
one day. But books are rarely set in the future. As a narrative tense it's too odd and too constricting. For a short
story that screams 'disconnect' from the outset... possibly. A full-length novel? Best avoided.
Which leaves us with two basic choices...
In the present
Few books use the present tense throughout. It's not as odd as the future tense for a narrative, but it's not far off.
It can also become distinctly wearisome after a while. Narrative tends to run to a rhythm, much like a piece of
music. It will have fast and slow passages, loud and quiet ones. At times characters will be ruminating on the past
or the future and giving the reader a chance to do the same in the context of the story so far. At other points the
book will be making the story happen, moving more quickly, furiously even. It's very hard to achieve that sense of
a changing tone if all you have to work with is the present tense. It's much like the first-person point of view in
that respect, which is one reason why first-person passages often work best when set in the present tense.
There's a clue to one of the most useful functions for the present. Imagine your novel is principally written in the
past tense. From time to time your protagonist has dreams or flashbacks which start to illuminate the mystery as
it's revealed. The sudden jolt of the present can make these interludes more gripping.
It's way past midnight and I'm walking down the alley to the pier. Butcher's Lane, they call it. Sally's round here
somewhere I think. Lost and frightened. Maybe. Or something else. Something I don't want to think about. ...
In the past
Most novels are written in what grammarians call 'the simple past tense'. Don't you love that word? Simple.
Books are meant to look that way to the reader. Authors are there to deal with the complexity, then hide it
underneath the carpet.
Grammarians also call it the 'preterite', which doesn't sound simple at all though it's exactly the same thing - the
tense used by most authors most of the time. Stories recount things as they happen. The reader's perspective is
that of a remote viewer witnessing a series of events.
Charlie went to the pier.
Sally ran away.
Later the two of them met by the railway station.
Simple past. Readers who don't even know what tense is, and probably think a preterite is something that falls
from the sky, understand instinctively what's going on when you write like this. ...
You will use other variations of the past in your book. There's the past continuous:
Charlie was swimming towards the pier when the wave hit him.
And the past perfect:
Sally had thought for a while that it was time to go back to the water. Then Charlie called and finally she knew.
...
The past simple is the predominant voice of fiction, one you've been listening to all your life if you're an avid
reader. My advice to the first-time writer is: don't buck the trend. Assume your book will be written in the lingua
franca. Play with the present from time to time if you feel like it. Drop into other forms of the past tense when the
demands of good plain English demand.
Extract from: Rewriting: A creative approach to writing
fiction by David Michael Kaplan
Why revise?
In an interview in The Paris Review, E.L. Doctorow tells of the time he had to write a school absence note for his
daughter. He sat down, pen in hand, and began: 'My daughter Caroline . . .' and stopped. How silly, he thought,
why say that, of course they know she's my daughter. Again he began: 'Please be advised . . .' no, much too
formal. He started again. The paper around him piled up, his daughter fidgeted, the school bus arrived, and finally
his wife had to step in, snatch away his pen and scribble off a quick note, all to stop her husband from trying to
create, in his words, 'the perfect absence note'. Was he crazy? No - just a writer doing what all good writers do,
which is to devote themselves to revising their work, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by
page, draft by draft, in order to make it - school absence note or War and Peace - the best possible work it may
be. Mexican poet and essayist Octavio Paz has called revision 'the senseless desire for perfection'. Desire it is,
but senseless it's not, as this book will try to show . . . The third thing needed - and just as necessary as talent
and craft, especially if we take to heart the adage that art is ten per cent inspiration and ninety per cent
perspiration - is a devotion to revision, to a merciless re-working of your writing until it is the best it can be,
stylistically, conceptually and dramatically. The very sensible desire for perfection. Because believe me, talent
and craft will only get you so far ...
The key concepts
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Don’t worry about fine-tuning your prose until you’ve got the bigger problems of your story under control. You
can’t polish a silver bowl until it’s been smelted and cast. Just so with a story. Of course you can’t help doing
some fine-tuning at the same time you’re solving the other, bigger problems. That’s natural. But don’t make it
your focus in early revisions. You’ll start seeing trees instead of the forest. Map out the forest first, then start
trimming trees.
When you’re fine-tuning, every sentence, every word, counts. Everything has an effect. Words and sentences are
the building blocks of your fictional universe. They’re either working for you or against you. A weasel word here, a
passive construction there, and you’ve got a limp, mushy sentence. A few of those sentences, and you’ve got a
limp, mushy paragraph. Enough of those paragraphs, and you’ve got a limp mushy story—and a disinterested
reader. Just as you are what you eat, your story is what you write. If you think that’s a tautology, think about it
again.
So, when you’re fine-tuning, go over your prose with the idea of making each and every sentence as strong as
possible.
Go over it again.
Go over it again. A story is finished only when it’s perfect, each and every word. Don’t be in a hurry. Don’t ‘finish’
it before it really is finished. Remember what I said in an earlier chapter about the editor who complained that he
saw too many early drafts? Unpolished prose is a sure sign of an early draft.
Most importantly, start becoming aware of your own particular stylistic quirks and glitches, so that you can watch
out for them upon revision. You may be prone to overusing the passive voice, for example, or to overusing
adverbs. If so, you must become especially sensitive to these infelicities and watch out for them. Every writer has
stylistic weaknesses, and it’s no shame to indulge them in early drafts. But only bad writers live with them through
the final draft.