How To Write Magical Words: A Writer's Companion
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There are a lot of ways to do this, and a lot of reasons to do this. First of all, you might be trying to describe something unusual—Argentine ants and their pheromones, for instance—so you compare it to something people are more familiar with. This helps them understand what you’re saying.
On the other hand, you might be talking about something very basic, like writing, and want to jazz it up. Writing in and of itself isn’t terribly hard; you’ve all been doing it since the first grade. But you want to make it more interesting, to catch people’s attention, so you might describe it using cooking terms. You might say that writing a story is like cooking a meal, and that if all you give people is meat and potatoes, they won’t go hungry, but nobody’s going to rave about your cooking, either.
If you want to present a meal that really satisfies, you’ve got to spice it up a little. You’ve got to throw is some oregano, some thyme, maybe a little parsley on the side. Well, okay, skip the side of parsley. Nobody likes that stuff. Using parsley as a garnish is like using clichés in your writing. Don’t waste people’s time.
Having said all that, I should also mention that you do have to be careful not to get carried away. As with herbs and spices in cooking, you want to make sure you don’t over-do it. A little salt makes everything taste better; too much and it overpowers the meal. Everything in moderation.
Another advantage of using metaphors, similes, and/or analogies is this: they help people remember your keys points. By using one of these comparative devices, you are subliminally telling the reader what your most important points are by placing extra emphasis on them. That helps to reinforce those points in their minds.
By way of (an admittedly silly) example, let’s say you’re writing a magazine article about gardening, and you’re trying to describe the perfect kind of soil to plant rosemary in. And say the perfect soil for planting rosemary is rich but pale and very dry. Well, that’s not terribly evocative. But if you say it needs to be rich, pale, and very dry—kind of like Bill Gates . . . Hopefully you’ll get a laugh. But more importantly, you’ve reinforced your point by drawing extra attention to it, making it one people are more likely to remember.
The last thing you want to remember is to make sure your metaphors and similes are appropriate to the subject matter you’re trying to describe. I remember a friend telling me about someone who came to his writer’s group with a mystery story, and in this story the author had portrayed a particularly gruesome killing. There was a key scene where the police at the crime scene were trying to figure out "who done it," when suddenly the author described the fingerprints the detective found like this: "Detective Spade studied the bloody print on the victim’s slashed throat and couldn’t help but notice how much the swirling pattern reminded him of the tiny whirlpool his toilet made when it was flushed." That doesn’t add anything; in fact, it’s a terrible distraction. It’s counter-productive. You have to make sure your comparative descriptions fit with the tone of the subject matter.
Metaphors. Similes. Analogies. You can call them word pictures if that makes you happy. But I would say that more important than what you call them or the differences between them, is remembering the power they have when used correctly. The power to clarify, the power to enliven, the power to reinforce. The power to make your writing really stand out—as if it were covered with Argentine ant pheromones.
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A.J. Hartley
Great point about distracting or overly numerous analogies/metaphors. I read a piece recently for a short story contest and every sentence was laced with these eye-catching metaphors. Some of them were very good, but used en masse it was like being bludgeoned by the writer’s cleverness: irritating and distracting. You got so caught up in trying to figure out whether the metaphor worked that you were utterly knocked out of the story. Using metaphors is like sewing seeds: they need space to grow . . . (okay, that was a simile)
David J. Fortier
What I really enjoy in writing, is when the figurative language (metaphors, similes, analogies and other devices) are character specific. For example, when a character with a nautical background compares things to sailing, boats, stars and other things familiar to them. Not only does it help you remember key points of the story, it also is a good way of reminding the reader of characters’ backgrounds. Done well, characters really come to life.
Scope
Stuart Jaffe
A week or so ago, I had the joyous experience of finishing the rough draft on my latest novel. And while it sits quietly resting for a few weeks, I’ve turned my attention to several short stories that I’ve agreed to write for various anthologies. Looking at the creation process has brought to mind the subject of today’s essay: scope.
The scope of your tale, if it is to be a short story, is extremely important. Many of my attempts at short stories failed because the scope was wrong. So, first off, what is "scope"?
Scope refers to the size or range of the tale itself. Not the word count or page count but the size of the story. A tale that covers seven generations of three families has a long, wide scope. A tale that covers the final three seconds of one person’s last breath has a short, narrow scope.
In my experience, the best short stories find a place nearer to the middle, but leaning toward the narrow side. This, of course, is easier said than done. Ideas pop in my head and I love the details of the conflict, the grandeur of the idea, the wondrousness of it all. Yes! I’ve got a Hugo-winner waiting to be put on paper. Slow down, my brain says. This won’t work in 5,000 words. Flesh it out and the idea might be a good novel, but it’ll never work for a short story. I lower my head and nod.
So, how exactly can you tell if you’re on the right track with the scope of your story? Sadly, as a beginning writer, one of the best ways is trial and error. You have to experience it to understand where that sweet-spot is, so you can recognize it down the road. There are, however, some red flags to look for:
• Changing Viewpoints: One of the first shorts I ever wrote dealt with two guys holding up a diner. The story was told in steps by each of the five characters in the diner. Sort of a "Rashomon" thing but forward-moving. The problem is that in a short story there’s just not enough time to establish five main characters. Though the "time" aspect of the scope of the overall story is fine (a holdup in a diner), the method of telling the story created too large a scope (five main characters).
• Too Much Info: If you find yourself having to explain a lot of backstory, do a lot of worldbuilding, or perform a lot of writing acrobatics just to get readers up to speed enough to understand the story, chances are your scope is too large. A huge world with a complex magic system can be wonderful fodder for short stories, just narrow the one particular tale down so that the world and its magic don’t need full explanations to work.
• Filler: Most problems in scope fall in the "too large" category, but on occasion you can have an idea that is so narrow, it boarders on flash fiction. The biggest red flag is that you find yourself struggling for something to happen in order to fill out the tale or you’re putting in unimportant details to pad out the pacing before you get to the end too quickly.
• Sub-plots: This is a short story. Where did you think there was room for a sub-plot?
Of course, these are merely red flags, not hard and fast rules. I’m sure there are plenty of examples of award-winning stories that pull off these scope issues and thumb their fictitious noses at me. But the way they succeed is by knowing what the problem is and working around it.
So this post is meant to be nothing more than a way to help you identify potential problems. Beginners, if you see those red flags, start adjusting your tale and save yourself a lot of anguish. For the more advanced writers, if you see those red flags, you know the fire you’re playing with and the risks you take.
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Ryl Mandus
Stuart, you must be psychic—"scope" is exactly what I’ve been agonizing over for the last week. It seems that when
ever I get a nifty idea for a short story or a novelette, it wants to "grow up" and become a novel—or worse, a series. Makes it bloody hard to complete that first draft.
You’ve just shown me it’s a matter of mindset, not material, offering a way to possibly apply the brakes so I don’t have to go downhill like a juggernaut into the bay in a van full of beer: No point in steering, now, eh?
Thanks! I’ll be giving these boundaries a serious try.
Short Fiction Revisited
David B. Coe
I was recently asked to write the introduction for an upcoming fantasy anthology (Blood and Devotion: Tales of Epic Fantasy, edited by W.H. Horner, from Fantasist Enterprises Books). In writing the introduction, I spent a good deal of time thinking about short fiction and how writing it differs from writing novels. This has been on my mind anyway recently, because I’ve been asked to submit to two anthologies in the next couple of months and I’m working on the first of my stories right now.
Here’s an excerpt from my introduction:
Think of a novel as one of those towers of amethyst crystals that one sees in a mall nature shop or mineral store. It’s huge, it sparkles; looking at it, one can’t help but be impressed. But if a novel is such a tower, then a short story is a single crystal. It doesn’t need to be part of the larger piece; it shines on its own. It’s small, but multifaceted; simple, but brilliant and captivating.
I truly believe this. I’m awed by successful short-story writers. Most of the books I’ve published have been parts of larger projects—we call them extended story arcs, which is really just another way of saying that I take several hundred thousand words to create my worlds, establish my characters, and resolve my plot points. Writing a successful short story is, at least for me, far more difficult than writing a successful novel. I sold my first short story back in 2002, and I was every bit as proud of that sale as I was of my first book contract. In many ways more so. Until then I had felt that my failure to sell a short story reflected poorly on my skill as a writer. Selling that first short piece confirmed for me that I had finally begun to master my craft.
The clearest difference for me is that a short piece is simply more directed. The story focuses on one narrative conflict and follows it to its resolution. One also has to be more subtle and concise in conveying background material, be it for character development, worldbuilding, or the explanation of some dynamic in the narrative. For me, this might be the greatest challenge in short story writing. Worlds and magic systems need to be drawn with broad strokes—much of what the reader needs to know has to be implied rather than explicitly stated. In many ways, I believe that when I’m writing short fiction I wind up placing more trust in my reader, having faith in her/his ability to catch the subtle hints, the narrative breadcrumbs that I leave along the way as I write.
Other differences: I find that I write slower when I write shorter. Lately I’ve been shooting for 2,000 words a day when working on my novels; while working on a short piece, I’m satisfied with half that amount. I take greater care with each passage; I work harder to make the most of every sentence, every word. I think I also keep my characters on a slightly shorter leash. If a character begins to lead me in a direction I hadn’t anticipated, I’ll follow for a while. But I won’t be as indulgent as I would be in the midst of a novel or series. In part, this is because with the shorter work, I have a better idea from the outset of where I intend to wind up. But I also know that I don’t have the time or space for the more leisurely pace of storytelling that one can establish in a novel.
A lot of novelists I know don’t write much short fiction. There is far less money in it. Selling a short story can get you some exposure and help you sell a novel, but short story pubs are no longer the near-prerequisite for selling a novel that they once were. And there are fewer markets now, so selling the short work is that much harder.
But there are benefits to writing short fiction that all writers should consider. For one thing, they offer a venue for exploring themes, developing characters, and discovering more about one’s world that can prove enormously helpful in the writing of a novel. But even more important, those differences I catalogued earlier improve one’s writing for all forms. Learning to be more directed, more concise, more subtle in the conveyance of background information, more careful in the crafting of each passage, more trusting of my readers—all of these things improve my writing overall.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as I’ve written and sold more short fiction, my novels have improved. Nor do I think it’s a coincidence that as I’ve become a better novelist I’ve grown better at writing short work. The two skill-sets reinforce one another. And maybe that’s the best reason of all for writing short stories. Learning to do different things as a writer can only serve to make us more versatile, more comfortable with the written word. In the end, that’s the most important goal we can have. The market is unpredictable; what sells one month might languish the next. But good writing is its own reward, and so I’ll continue to write short work as long as it’s still fun, and as long as I feel that it’s making me better at the writing I do.
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Charles E. Dunkley
Every now and then I try my hand at short stories, but more often than not they end up being scenes instead, especially if they are related to my second-world fantasy setting.
I’d like to try to hone my short story writing skills, but as I’m concentrating on writing novels, it is hard to make the time. I find I need a very different mind set for short story writing than the one I have for novels.
My writing at the moment is all epic fantasy, and yet I’ve had this urban fantasy idea rolling around for about a year. I think the short story format would be quite useful there.
I think writing a short story to get to know the main character and his situation will be quite helpful. Now, whether I could shape that into a publishable short story is something else altogether. I have a lot of respect for the short story author. I’d love to be able to write with that level of focus and sharpness. All I can do is work at it when I can.
David B. Coe
CE, I understand completely, because I was exactly the same way for a long time. When we’re writing our novels it’s hard to shift focus to short pieces that a) feel like something of a distraction, and b) have little potential for making money. But I’ve come to love the time I spend writing short fiction, and I think it has improved my writing a good deal. Yes, do it when you can, when it doesn’t detract from the novel writing. My problem was always that I SAID I’d handle it that way, but then, even when I had the time, I avoided short stories because I found them far more challenging. I hope you’ll avoid that trap.
Juggling
Stuart Jaffe
Research. Plot. Character. Worldbuilding. Story. Voice. Theme. Scene. Conflict. Revisions. Rising action.
The list goes on and on. The question for today’s essay is: "How do I juggle all of this?"
Well, like everything in writing there is no one, simple, easy answer. We are all unique, and we all deal with the challenges of writing in our own unique way. However, there are a few things I can suggest that may help you at least get started.
For the supremely disorganized, I suggest a simple checklist. In fact, I suggest two simple checklists. The first checklist is for the work as a whole. This is not necessarily to be done in order, but rather to make sure you have included the crucial elements to a successful story. Here is where you list plot, protagonist, antagonist, worldbuilding, theme, etc. Most of the items on this list should be checked off before you actually start writing the work. Depending on your writing style, items such as plot may not get checked off until the very end. It will alter as you go. I’ve never had a story finish exactly as I envisioned it, but making sure you have the basics in place will make the exploration of writing a bit easier.
The second list is for your daily writing. Here is the checklist to handle your actual approach to getting words on the
page. Some authors like to warm up before tackling the actual WIP. John Steinbeck often used a writing diary in which he would lay down his thoughts about the WIP, the current scene, as well as the mundane events of the day. Others prefer a simple writing exercise, whether it be to describe the scene or character or moment. Still others warm up using a short story (this has the added benefit of producing a short story when you finish). If you’re a warm-up type, then make that the first item on your checklist. If you prefer to jump right in, then do so. The daily writing checklist also includes items after the day’s words are finished, such as reminding yourself to backup files, research that seafaring lingo you thought you knew, and plot revisions you’ve made along the way (and you will make them).
For the moderately organized, perhaps some computer software will help. As I haven’t used any such software myself, I cannot speak to their effectiveness. However, even a simple spreadsheet might help. The idea is simply to find a secure place to organize your thoughts so that they’re not bouncing around in your head all the time. You need to get that stuff out in order to make room for the new thoughts.
Finally, for those of you already organized or those of you who really like to fly by the seat of your pants, I return your attention to a suggestion made by David a short while back. Write some short stories. Write stories about events your characters have dealt with before those of your WIP. I tried this method with my current work and discovered it to be of great value. I learned more about my characters and the world they live in than in any world I ever created before. It’s not just the practical side of things either. Not just the names of flora and fauna or the placement of buildings in the town or the history of one of my characters. I learned about the textures, the aromas, the tastes of the world I had created. In writing a few short stories (I wrote three), I was able to take all the research I had been juggling in my head and stir it together in the cauldron of writing. When I actually began my novel, I had already lived in its world.