Types of Premises

Monday, October 31, 2005

There are three types of premises:Chain Reaction PremiseOpposing Forces PremiseSituational PremiseIn a novel with a Chain Reaction Premise, something happens to a character that initiates a series of events leading to a climax and resolution. Examples of Chain Reaction Premises are:Purity of heart achieves salvation.Passionate love leads to death.In a novel with an Opposing Forces Premise, two

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Literary Fiction, Mainstream Fiction, and Genre Fiction

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Publishers, critics, and academics classify fiction into three broad categories: Literary/Academic FictionMainstream/Popular FictionGenre FictionLiterary fiction, or academic fiction, is supposed to be character driven and is regarded as "highbrow." It has few other conventions (i.e., no formula). The story is almost always a character story, because other types of stories are regarded as

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Sympathetic Fictional Characters

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Our human sensibilities can be turned on and off like a light switch. For the most part they are off for people we don't know. This is adaptive. Can you imagine what life would be like if we became as emotionally involved in the death of a stranger as in the death of our mother? What if you lived in Africa, where there are a thousand ways to die and by the time you're twenty, dozens of people you

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The Importance of Character

Monday, October 24, 2005

One important reason people read fiction is to read about people. Daily we encounter people saying, doing, and experiencing things we don't understand. Human nature puzzles and intrigues us. The desire to get into other people's heads is universal, and fiction is a portal. This desire is more than curiosity. It is true interest, programmed into us by our genes. For, understanding human nature is

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Nonsexist Language: The Pronoun Problem

Saturday, October 22, 2005

The problem is English's third-person-singular personal pronouns: there's no gender-neutral one, except it.In the Nominative Case (when we use them as subjects), they are he, she, and it. In the Objective Case (when we use them as the objects of verbs), they are him, her, and its. In the Possessive Case, they are his, her(s), and its. Other languages, like French, have this problem too. But in

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Avoid sexist language.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Sexist language is language that gives priority to the male, usually disregarding the female. Since language is what we think with, and since language enters the brain to affect how we think, the widespread use of sexist language causes sexism. But notice the difference between using sexist language and being a sexist. By itself, writing in sexist language isn't sexism. Indeed, most writers using

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The Fictive Dream

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Though a novel is a commercial product, like a drug or the performance of a stage play, it provides a service. So, the writer should think of novel writing as a performing art and a service industry. The key to success in any service business is a keen sense of what the customer wants. What he really wants — which isn't necessarily what he says he wants. For example, a tennis pro knows that his

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The Power of Suggestion

Monday, October 17, 2005

The mysterious power of suggestion is the tool of the copywriter (ad writer), the con artist, the preacher, the propagandist, the magician, the hypnotist, and the fiction writer. The copywriter, the con artist, the preacher, and the propagandist or politician or fanatical pied piper use it ultimately to delude or persuade. The magician, the hypnotist, and the fiction writer use it merely to alter

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Keep It Simple

Friday, October 14, 2005

Prefer short, simple sentences and common words.Your sentences should average 14 to 20 words. In fiction with many short lines of dialog, the average sentence length is deceptively low, so aim low.This guideline doesn't mean that all long sentences are bad. In fact, you should vary sentence length. But long sentences should be infrequent and simply structured. For example, a long sentence

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Suspense

Thursday, October 13, 2005

In both criticism and ad copy, we often hear novels described as "compelling" and as "page turners." This is a novel's chief selling point. It promises readers a book they will not be able to put down.What makes the reader unable to put a book down? The desire to know what happens.So, your main goal is to arouse your readers' curiosity and anticipation and keep them aroused. You want to glue

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Don't smother verbs.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

A buried, or smothered, verb is a nominalized verb. It buries the action of a sentence in a noun. The examples below show how to resurrect them, making the sentence less abstract and more concise.We had a discussion about the matter with the staff director.We discussed the matter with the staff director.She issued an announcement that the program would begin at seven o'clock.She announced that

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The Rule That Your Main Character Must Change -- Part 2

Monday, October 10, 2005

As I said yesterday, what must change about your main character is his or her emotional state. This change is a natural result of rising conflict.The hero decides on a course of action to fix his problem. Obstacles frustrate his efforts. Each intensifies the conflict, causing him to choose a new course of action. In other words, "the plot thickens." If he gave up, you would have no story. So,

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The Rule That Your Main Character Must Change

We often hear that characters are changed by the events of a story. James N. Frey holds that your characters must "grow from pole to pole." These are often misunderstood statements. By them, we do not mean that a character's "character" must change in the same way we would mean that a person's "character" changes. A behavioral or attitude change may occur, but that isn't necessary.For example, in

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What exactly IS a premise?

Saturday, October 8, 2005

A premise is simply a proposition that serves as the basis for doing something. For example:Science is based on the premise that we can understand the world without recourse to supernatural explanations.You smile and greet a co-worker on the premise that doing so will win goodwill and regard in return.Notice that a premise serves as a mission statement, a statement of purpose, an end:The mission

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Why do I get asked what my story's premise is?

Thursday, October 6, 2005

Writing fiction isn't just fiddling with imaginary characters in an imaginary world till you stop. Writing dramatic fiction, for example, is composing a narrative of consequential events involving authentic characters whose lives are affected by them. It therefore has a subtext. That subtext is . . .Human nature is such that, with these characters in this situation, one thing will lead toanother

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Write in the Active Voice

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

Good writing is concise. There are many techniques for achieving conciseness, but the most powerful is writing in the active voice. Use the passive voice only when a particular sentence calls for it.For those of you who need it, here is a review of the active and passive voice:Active Voice: The shopkeeper called the police.Passive Voice: The police were called by the shopkeeper.Passive Voice with

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A Kind of Magic

Sunday, October 2, 2005

Fiction is a kind of magic, and a fiction writer is a magician. He creates illusions on a stage in the reader's imagination. Like any magician, his skill is the skill of getting an audience to focus attention where he wants it. If he can control their attention, he can create any illusion.His chief trick is to make things appear. He must keep the audience from noticing what he's doing. So, his

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