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How to Write a Short Story: The Short Story Checklist

Rosemary Tantra Bensko and Sean Glatch  |  November 17, 2023  |  7 Comments

The short story is a fiction writer’s laboratory: here is where you can experiment with characters, plots, and ideas without the heavy lifting of writing a novel. Learning how to write a short story is essential to mastering the art of storytelling . With far fewer words to worry about, storytellers can make many more mistakes—and strokes of genius!—through experimentation and the fun of fiction writing.

Nonetheless, the art of writing short stories is not easy to master. How do you tell a complete story in so few words? What does a story need to have in order to be successful? Whether you’re struggling with how to write a short story outline, or how to fully develop a character in so few words, this guide is your starting point.

Famous authors like Virginia Woolf, Haruki Murakami, and Agatha Christie have used the short story form to play with ideas before turning those stories into novels. Whether you want to master the elements of fiction, experiment with novel ideas, or simply have fun with storytelling, here’s everything you need on how to write a short story step by step.

The Core Elements of a Short Story

There’s no secret formula to writing a short story. However, a good short story will have most or all of the following elements:

• A protagonist with a certain desire or need. It is essential for the protagonist to want something they don’t have, otherwise they will not drive the story forward.
• A clear dilemma. We don’t need much backstory to see how the dilemma started; we’re primarily concerned with how the protagonist resolves it.
• A decision. What does the protagonist do to resolve their dilemma?
• A climax. In Freytag’s Pyramid , the climax of a story is when the tension reaches its peak, and the reader discovers the outcome of the protagonist’s decision(s).
• An outcome. How does the climax change the protagonist? Are they a different person? Do they have a different philosophy or outlook on life?

Of course, short stories also utilize the elements of fiction , such as a setting , plot , and point of view . It helps to study these elements and to understand their intricacies. But, when it comes to laying down the skeleton of a short story, the above elements are what you need to get started.

Note: a short story rarely, if ever, has subplots. The focus should be entirely on a single, central storyline. Subplots will either pull focus away from the main story, or else push the story into the territory of novellas and novels.

The shorter the story is, the fewer of these elements are essentials. If you’re interested in writing short-short stories, check out our guide on how to write flash fiction .

How to Write a Short Story Outline

Some writers are “pantsers”—they “write by the seat of their pants,” making things up on the go with little more than an idea for a story. Other writers are “plotters,” meaning they decide the story’s structure in advance of writing it.

You don’t need a short story outline to write a good short story. But, if you’d like to give yourself some scaffolding before putting words on the page, this article answers the question of how to write a short story outline:

https://writers.com/how-to-write-a-story-outline

How to Write a Short Story Step by Step

There are many ways to approach the short story craft, but this method is tried-and-tested for writers of all levels. Here’s how to write a short story step by step.

1. Start With an Idea

Often, generating an idea is the hardest part. You want to write, but what will you write about?

What’s more, it’s easy to start coming up with ideas and then dismissing them. You want to tell an authentic, original story, but everything you come up with has already been written, it seems.

Here are a few tips:

• Originality presents itself in your storytelling, not in your ideas. For example, the premise of both Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ostrovsky’s The Snow Maiden are very similar: two men and two women, in intertwining love triangles, sort out their feelings for each other amidst mischievous forest spirits, love potions, and friendship drama. The way each story is written makes them very distinct from one another, to the point where, unless it’s pointed out to you, you might not even notice the similarities.
• An idea is not a final draft. You will find that exploring the possibilities of your story will generate something far different than the idea you started out with. This is a good thing—it means you made the story your own!
• Experiment with genres and tropes. Even if you want to write literary fiction , pay attention to the narrative structures that drive genre stories, and practice your storytelling using those structures. Again, you will naturally make the story your own simply by playing with ideas.

If you’re struggling simply to find ideas, try out this prompt generator , or pull prompts from this Twitter .

2. Outline, OR Conceive Your Characters

If you plan to outline, do so once you’ve generated an idea. You can learn about how to write a short story outline earlier in this article.

If you don’t plan to outline, you should at least start with a character or characters. Certainly, you need a protagonist, but you should also think about any characters that aid or inhibit your protagonist’s journey.

When thinking about character development, ask the following questions:

• What is my character’s background? Where do they come from, how did they get here, where do they want to be?
• What does your character desire the most? This can be both material or conceptual, like “fitting in” or “being loved.”
• What is your character’s fatal flaw? In other words, what limitation prevents the protagonist from achieving their desire? Often, this flaw is a blind spot that directly counters their desire. For example, self hatred stands in the way of a protagonist searching for love.
• How does your character think and speak? Think of examples, both fictional and in the real world, who might resemble your character.

In short stories, there are rarely more characters than a protagonist, an antagonist (if relevant), and a small group of supporting characters. The more characters you include, the longer your story will be. Focus on making only one or two characters complex: it is absolutely okay to have the rest of the cast be flat characters that move the story along.

Learn more about character development here:

https://writers.com/character-development-definition

3. Write Scenes Around Conflict

Once you have an outline or some characters, start building scenes around conflict. Every part of your story, including the opening sentence, should in some way relate to the protagonist’s conflict.

Conflict is the lifeblood of storytelling: without it, the reader doesn’t have a clear reason to keep reading. Loveable characters are not enough, as the story has to give the reader something to root for.

Take, for example, Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story The Cask of Amontillado . We start at the conflict: the narrator has been slighted by Fortunato, and plans to exact revenge. Every scene in the story builds tension and follows the protagonist as he exacts this revenge.

In your story, start writing scenes around conflict, and make sure each paragraph and piece of dialogue relates, in some way, to your protagonist’s unmet desires.

4. Write Your First Draft

The scenes you build around conflict will eventually be stitched into a complete story. Make sure as the story progresses that each scene heightens the story’s tension, and that this tension remains unbroken until the climax resolves whether or not your protagonist meets their desires.

Don’t stress too hard on writing a perfect story. Rather, take Anne Lamott’s advice, and “write a shitty first draft.” The goal is not to pen a complete story at first draft; rather, it’s to set ideas down on paper. You are simply, as Shannon Hale suggests, “shoveling sand into a box so that later [you] can build castles.”

5. Step Away, Breathe, Revise

Whenever Stephen King finishes a novel, he puts it in a drawer and doesn’t think about it for 6 weeks. With short stories, you probably don’t need to take as long of a break. But, the idea itself is true: when you’ve finished your first draft, set it aside for a while. Let yourself come back to the story with fresh eyes, so that you can confidently revise, revise, revise .

In revision, you want to make sure each word has an essential place in the story, that each scene ramps up tension, and that each character is clearly defined. The culmination of these elements allows a story to explore complex themes and ideas, giving the reader something to think about after the story has ended.

6. Compare Against Our Short Story Checklist

Does your story have everything it needs to succeed? Compare it against this short story checklist, as written by our instructor Rosemary Tantra Bensko.

Below is a collection of practical short story writing tips by Writers.com instructor Rosemary Tantra Bensko . Each paragraph is its own checklist item: a core element of short story writing advice to follow unless you have clear reasons to the contrary. We hope it’s a helpful resource in your own writing.

Update 9/1/2020: We’ve now made a summary of Rosemary’s short story checklist available as a PDF download . Enjoy!

Click to download

How to Write a Short Story: Length and Setting

Your short story is 1000 to 7500 words in length.

The story takes place in one time period, not spread out or with gaps other than to drive someplace, sleep, etc. If there are those gaps, there is a space between the paragraphs, the new paragraph beginning flush left, to indicate a new scene.

Each scene takes place in one location, or in continual transit, such as driving a truck or flying in a plane.

How to Write a Short Story: Point of View

Unless it’s a very lengthy Romance story, in which there may be two Point of View (POV) characters, there is one POV character. If we are told what any character secretly thinks, it will only be the POV character. The degree to which we are privy to the unexpressed thoughts, memories and hopes of the POV character remains consistent throughout the story.

You avoid head-hopping by only having one POV character per scene, even in a Romance. You avoid straying into even brief moments of telling us what other characters think other than the POV character. You use words like “apparently,” “obviously,” or “supposedly” to suggest how non-POV-characters think rather than stating it.

How to Write a Short Story: Protagonist, Antagonist, Motivation

Your short story has one clear protagonist who is usually the character changing most.

Your story has a clear antagonist, who generally makes the protagonist change by thwarting his goals.

(Possible exception to the two short story writing tips above: In some types of Mystery and Action stories, particularly in a series, etc., the protagonist doesn’t necessarily grow personally, but instead his change relates to understanding the antagonist enough to arrest or kill him.)

The protagonist changes with an Arc arising out of how he is stuck in his Flaw at the beginning of the story, which makes the reader bond with him as a human, and feel the pain of his problems he causes himself. (Or if it’s the non-personal growth type plot: he’s presented at the beginning of the story with a high-stakes problem that requires him to prevent or punish a crime.)

The protagonist usually is shown to Want something, because that’s what people normally do, defining their personalities and behavior patterns, pushing them onward from day to day. This may be obvious from the beginning of the story, though it may not become heightened until the Inciting Incident , which happens near the beginning of Act 1. The Want is usually something the reader sort of wants the character to succeed in, while at the same time, knows the Want is not in his authentic best interests. This mixed feeling in the reader creates tension.

The protagonist is usually shown to Need something valid and beneficial, but at first, he doesn’t recognize it, admit it, honor it, integrate it with his Want, or let the Want go so he can achieve the Need instead. Ideally, the Want and Need can be combined in a satisfying way toward the end for the sake of continuity of forward momentum of victoriously achieving the goals set out from the beginning. It’s the encounters with the antagonist that forcibly teach the protagonist to prioritize his Needs correctly and overcome his Flaw so he can defeat the obstacles put in his path.

The protagonist in a personal growth plot needs to change his Flaw/Want but like most people, doesn’t automatically do that when faced with the problem. He tries the easy way, which doesn’t work. Only when the Crisis takes him to a low point does he boldly change enough to become victorious over himself and the external situation. What he learns becomes the Theme.

Each scene shows its main character’s goal at its beginning, which aligns in a significant way with the protagonist’s overall goal for the story. The scene has a “charge,” showing either progress toward the goal or regression away from the goal by the ending. Most scenes end with a negative charge, because a story is about not obtaining one’s goals easily, until the end, in which the scene/s end with a positive charge.

The protagonist’s goal of the story becomes triggered until the Inciting Incident near the beginning, when something happens to shake up his life. This is the only major thing in the story that is allowed to be a random event that occurs to him.

How to Write a Short Story: Characters

Your characters speak differently from one another, and their dialogue suggests subtext, what they are really thinking but not saying: subtle passive-aggressive jibes, their underlying emotions, etc.

Your characters are not illustrative of ideas and beliefs you are pushing for, but come across as real people.

How to Write a Short Story: Prose

Your language is succinct, fresh and exciting, specific, colorful, avoiding clichés and platitudes. Sentence structures vary. In Genre stories, the language is simple, the symbolism is direct, and words are well-known, and sentences are relatively short. In Literary stories, you are freer to use more sophisticated ideas, words, sentence structures and underlying metaphors and implied motifs.

How to Write a Short Story: Story Structure

Your plot elements occur in the proper places according to classical Act Structure so the reader feels he has vicariously gone through a harrowing trial with the protagonist and won, raising his sense of hope and possibility. Literary short stories may be more subtle, with lower stakes, experimenting beyond classical structures like the Hero’s Journey. They can be more like vignettes sometimes, or even slice-of-life, though these types are hard to place in publications.

In Genre stories, all the questions are answered, threads are tied up, problems are solved, though the results of carnage may be spread over the landscape. In Literary short stories, you are free to explore uncertainty, ambiguity, and inchoate, realistic endings that suggest multiple interpretations, and unresolved issues.

Some Literary stories may be nonrealistic, such as with Surrealism, Absurdism, New Wave Fabulism, Weird and Magical Realism . If this is what you write, they still need their own internal logic and they should not be bewildering as to the what the reader is meant to experience, whether it’s a nuanced, unnameable mood or a trip into the subconscious.

Literary stories may also go beyond any label other than Experimental. For example, a story could be a list of To Do items on a paper held by a magnet to a refrigerator for the housemate to read. The person writing the list may grow more passive-aggressive and manipulative as the list grows, and we learn about the relationship between the housemates through the implied threats and cajoling.

How to Write a Short Story: Capturing Reader Interest

Your short story is suspenseful, meaning readers hope the protagonist will achieve his best goal, his Need, by the Climax battle against the antagonist.

Your story entertains. This is especially necessary for Genre short stories.

The story captivates readers at the very beginning with a Hook, which can be a puzzling mystery to solve, an amazing character’s or narrator’s Voice, an astounding location, humor, a startling image, or a world the reader wants to become immersed in.

Expository prose (telling, like an essay) takes up very, very little space in your short story, and it does not appear near the beginning. The story is in Narrative format instead, in which one action follows the next. You’ve removed every unnecessary instance of Expository prose and replaced it with showing Narrative. Distancing words like “used to,” “he would often,” “over the years, he,” “each morning, he” indicate that you are reporting on a lengthy time period, summing it up, rather than sticking to Narrative format, in which immediacy makes the story engaging.

You’ve earned the right to include Expository Backstory by making the reader yearn for knowing what happened in the past to solve a mystery. This can’t possibly happen at the beginning, obviously. Expository Backstory does not take place in the first pages of your story.

Your reader cares what happens and there are high stakes (especially important in Genre stories). Your reader worries until the end, when the protagonist survives, succeeds in his quest to help the community, gets the girl, solves or prevents the crime, achieves new scientific developments, takes over rule of his realm, etc.

Every sentence is compelling enough to urge the reader to read the next one—because he really, really wants to—instead of doing something else he could be doing. Your story is not going to be assigned to people to analyze in school like the ones you studied, so you have found a way from the beginning to intrigue strangers to want to spend their time with your words.

Where to Read and Submit Short Stories

Whether you’re looking for inspiration or want to publish your own stories, you’ll find great literary journals for writers of all backgrounds at this article:

https://writers.com/short-story-submissions

Learn How to Write a Short Story at Writers.com

The short story takes an hour to learn and a lifetime to master. Learn how to write a short story with Writers.com. Our upcoming fiction courses will give you the ropes to tell authentic, original short stories that captivate and entrance your readers.

Rosemary – Is there any chance you could add a little something to your checklist? I’d love to know the best places to submit our short stories for publication. Thanks so much.

Hi, Kim Hanson,

Some good places to find publications specific to your story are NewPages, Poets and Writers, Duotrope, and The Submission Grinder.

“ In Genre stories, all the questions are answered, threads are tied up, problems are solved, though the results of carnage may be spread over the landscape.”

Not just no but NO.

See for example the work of MacArthur Fellow Kelly Link.

[…] How to Write a Short Story: The Short Story Checklist […]

Thank you for these directions and tips. It’s very encouraging to someone like me, just NOW taking up writing.

[…] Writers.com. A great intro to writing. https://writers.com/how-to-write-a-short-story […]

Hello: I started to write seriously in the late 70’s. I loved to write in High School in the early 60’s but life got in the way. Around the 00’s many of the obstacles disappeared. Since then I have been writing more, and some of my work was vanilla transgender stories. Here in 2024 transgender stories have become tiresome because I really don’t have much in common with that mind set.

The glare of an editor that could potentially pay me is quite daunting, so I would like to start out unpaid to see where that goes. I am not sure if a writer’s agent would be a good fit for me. My work life was in the Trades, not as some sort of Academic. That alone causes timidity, but I did read about a fiction writer who had been a house painter.

This is my first effort to publish since the late 70’s. My pseudonym would perhaps include Ahabidah.

Gwen Boucher.

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Plot and Structure: How to Use Structure and Subplot to Add Suspense

by Joslyn Chase | 22 comments

You can't write a great story if you don't master plot and structure. But what is the best structure for a novel? How do you plot a novel?

Working on structuring a nonfiction book? Check out our nonfiction book structure guide here .

Figuring out your plot structure is essential for your story's success. Even if you have an exciting idea for a story, great characters, and a memorable setting, you still need to put your protagonist through events that have high and escalating stakes, and structure them for maximum effect.

If you want to write a great story, you need to include  the elements of suspense . You can do this by using writing techniques and devices like:

• engaging your reader on a deep level,
• making your reader care about your characters,
• sequence of events
• cliffhangers
• planting clues
• foreshadowing

But without a sound plot and structure, you risk failing to thrill your readers. Today, we’ll look at dramatic structure and learn how you can build an effective plan for your entire plot. By planning for success, you can create a story packed with suspense, with all the right twists in all the right places.

Definition of Plot and Structure

What is story plot? What is the best structure for a novel?

Plot is the series of events that make up your story, including the order in which they occur and how they relate to each other. Structure (also known as narrative structure), is the overall design or layout of your story.

While plot is specific to your story and the particular events that make up that story, dramatic structure is more universal and deals with the mechanics of the story—how the chapters or scenes are broken up, how conflict is introduced and amplified, where the climax is placed, how the resolution plays out, and so on.

You can think of plot and structure like the DNA of your story. Every story takes on a plot, and every piece of writing has a structure. While plot is unique to your story, an understanding of effective structures and devices can help you develop better stories and hone your craft.

Searching for Structure

From the beginning of my writer’s journey, I knew story structure had to be a vital part of creating successful stories. But I wasn’t sure how to best construct a story, which of the many models would produce the best results for me.

I started writing short stories using a nine-point, three act structure consisting of hook, backstory, and trigger in act one. Crisis, struggle, and epiphany in act two. And plan, climax, and resolution in the final act.

This worked fine. At first. But as I expanded into longer writing forms like novellas and novels, I realized I needed something more. And something better-suited to the types of suspense fiction I like to write.

I explored several models of story structure, including the Algis Budrys seven-point story structure of simply putting a character in a setting with a problem and then employing try/fail cycles until the climax where he succeeds or ultimately fails before ending with a validation.

I found a lot to like in Syd Field's model for storytelling. I tried the Lester Dent Master Plot Formula for dramatic writing and found it works quite well for writing an exciting short story. But again, these models weren’t a perfect fit for me. My search continued.

Hitting Paydirt

Just as I began writing my first novel, I stumbled upon Shawn Coyne’s Story Grid and I knew at once that it would be a game-changer for me. I wrote Nocturne In Ashes and Steadman’s Blind using Shawn’s Five Commandments of story to structure each scene and the overall shape of the books.

Following this pattern, I learned an incredible amount about how to hit all the right points in a three-act structure and make sure each scene is vital and has a turning point. But my writing process is still evolving. Though I would never trade my experience with the Story Grid structure which really helped me get a handle on the micro view of storytelling, I was still looking for something ideally suited for writing mysteries and thrillers.

Let me tell you about what I’ve been using lately!

Six Elements of Plot That Strengthen Story Structure

When Joe Bunting published The Write Structure , I purchased it right away. However, it sat on my virtual reading shelf for a couple of months before I cracked it open and began reading.

Once I finally got started, I was delighted to find that The Write Structure resonated with me in so many ways and I knew I could use this pattern to write anything from a short story to a full-length novel and make it shine.

The book is filled with great tips, techniques, and advice for writers, backed up by examples and Joe’s own experience as a best-selling author. He takes you step-by-step through the six elements of a plot that will guide you in writing a stellar story and shows you how to develop each element effectively.

These are the six plot elements, as set forth in The Write Structure:

The Exposition is where you introduce your hero and establish the story setting, your hero’s world. By focusing on the core value at stake from the very beginning, you confirm genre for your readers and introduce dramatic tension by setting up conflict and forcing your character to act on a choice.

In most types of suspense fiction, the story will turn on a core value of Life vs. Death or perhaps a Fate Worse than Death. Often, the internal value at stake is Good vs. Evil. Crime stories, on some level, usually deal with issues of justice and good guys vanquishing bad guys while lives are in danger.

During this exposition phase, use specific details and descriptive elements to sink your reader deep into the story and make them care about your hero and worry over what will happen next.

Inciting Incident

Once your reader is grounded in the story world and emotionally invested in your character, something needs to happen to interrupt the established pattern and rock your character’s world in some way. An  Inciting Incident begins the story arc that will eventually culminate in the climactic scene and ending resolution of your story.

The inciting incident should be inspired by, and reinforce, the core value at stake in the story. In a crime story, this event—whether coincidental or triggered by a story character—works best when it reflects a conflict between life and death or something worse.

The way you pace your story and deliver information to your reader is paramount to your story’s success, right from the very beginning.

Rising Action

Rising Action  is where you raise the stakes and ratchet up the tension in a buildup toward the dilemma. These are the try/fail cycles, the struggle to understand the antagonistic force and find a way to defeat it through trial and error.

When thriller writer, Lee Child, was asked to divulge his recipe for creating suspense, he said it’s not so much about the ingredients as it is about making your family hungry, making them wait. This is where you spin out uncertainty and worry, making your reader hungry for the payoff.

I've written several articles about how to increase tension in a story's plot by focusing on the  elements of suspense. The writing techniques I've taught in these articles, such as how to create cliffhangers, write an action scene, and plant clues and red herrings, will help you develop rising action in your story. Learn more about how to use these powerful techniques in your stories by reading each article (linked in the previous sentence).

All of these writing skills will help you keep the story pace moving along through the middle, where many writers flounder.

Now we get to the crux of the story, where the rubber meets the road. The Dilemma boils down to a choice your protagonist must make—a difficult and crucial choice.

There are two types of choices that create the most conflict and drama. The first is often called the Best Bad Choice, where there is no happy alternative and your character is forced to choose from a menu of unsavory options.

For instance: Does Katniss cut down a tracker jacker nest and kill some of the tributes, or does she wait for the tributes to kill her?

The other variety of tough choices involves having to decide between conflicting goods, otherwise called an Irreconcilable Goods Decision. In this scenario, someone benefits while someone else is harmed. There is no win/win.

For example: Does Kramer hire someone to take care of his son in order to work a prestigious job, or does he step down from his career to be a reliable parent?

The dilemma is the heart of your story. It’s where your hero demonstrates his true character development. If you’ve created a sympathetic protagonist readers care about, they will be desperate to learn how he chooses and what happens as a result of that choice.

Your hero faces a difficult choice in the dilemma, but the Climax is where she acts on that choice and reaps the consequences of that action. This is the payoff you’ve been building toward since the beginning. This is the summit readers want to reach when they open a book.

This is also where your hero gains or ultimately loses what she seeks. In suspense fiction, that sought-after objective is usually solving a crime and bringing the perpetrator to justice. Or it might be revenge, rescue, or the acquisition of wealth or power.

Whatever it is, it centers on the conflict between the core values at stake—life or death. The events in your story have transformed and prepared your protagonist for this final confrontation.

Now it’s showtime.

Knowing your story's climax also helps to hone your skills of foreshadowing . You’ll be able to properly place your setups and readers won’t feel cheated.

It’s also a good idea to make sure you’ve honored reader expectations and delivered a story suited to what suspense fans crave.

Writers are sometimes tempted to skip writing the Denouement of the plot, or give it short shrift.

Don’t. If you want readers to look back fondly on your story and pick up your next book, give them the closure they desire.

Readers need a moment to savor the climax and feel the release of tension. If you’ve done a good job creating compelling characters, readers won’t want to say goodbye right away. Let them spend a little more time together.

This is where you validate your protagonist’s arc and reflect on how she’s changed. Even if the world around her is back to normal, she’s not the same person who started the story.

This is also where you wrap up any loose ends and it’s the perfect place to bring secondary plotlines to a close. Read below to learn more about subplots.

A Sound Structure for Suspense

The Write Structure addresses the complexities involved in putting together a story that works on multiple levels to engage an audience, and it does so in a user-friendly way. Instead of overwhelming, it simplifies the process so that you can actually create a plan for your own full-length book in just eighteen sentences.

In  The Write Structure, you’ll learn the nitty gritty details about how to craft these six elements in your story to develop your idea into a full-blown, living, breathing creation that readers will love. The process gives you the tools to create the right structure for your book while still leaving plenty of room for flexibility and creativity.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the process is how it can be geared toward a particular genre—in our case, that means mysteries, thrillers, and adventure stories. In my opinion, that makes The Write Structure an excellent model for writing suspense fiction.

Plot AND Structure: Don't Forget Subplots

If you use the six elements of plot, you'll develop a sound structure for your suspense story—or any story. However, these vital scenes in the structure won't uphold a story that can stretch the length of the novel. In order to develop the plot, you need secondary storylines, or subplots, too.

How do you use subplots?

What Are Subplots?

A plot is a series of linked moments, a chain of events with one leading into the next. In a short story , you’re better off sticking with a single plotline in most cases. Anything longer than a short story, however, is enriched by weaving in one or more secondary plotlines, or subplots.

You can see this clearly in just about any television episode. There’s an A plot and a B plot. The A plot is the main story. The B plot forms a supporting storyline that plays off the A plot and may highlight theme or act as a foil or contrast to the A plot.

Sometimes the plotlines tie together at the end. Other times, they simply run parallel and the secondary plotline has its own conclusion, usually in one of the last scenes in the book.

Here's an example of how a subplot may operate to support the main plot.

Mr. Monk Goes to The Circus

In the television show, Monk, there’s an episode where Monk solves the murder of a circus ringmaster. That’s the A plot.

The B plot is introduced when Monk and his nurse, Sharona, go to the circus to investigate.

Here’s a clip from the episode:

The B plot comes into play when Sharona encounters the elephant and freaks out. We learn she’s terrified of elephants due to a traumatic scene she once witnessed at a zoo.

• Monk is oblivious to her distress—his only concern is that she isn’t responding to his needs. Sharona gets upset because she has to deal constantly with his phobias and idiosyncrasies, yet he has zero compassion for her over her fear of elephants. He enrages her by telling her to “suck it up.”
• Sharona starts a campaign to teach Monk a lesson. This campaign manifests at various points throughout the A plot when she refuses to hand him a wipe, drinks from his water bottle, coughs in his face, and messes up his orderly magazines. When he protests, she tells him to “suck it up.”
• Monk sends her flowers. He calls her to talk about the issue and when she finally opens up and begins sharing her feelings, Monk gets distracted and hangs up on her to follow a lead from the A plot.
• Monk discusses the problem with his therapist, Dr. Kroger. Of course, Kroger understands why Sharona’s angry, but he refuses to explain it to Monk, insisting that Monk will have to figure it out for himself—the answer is inside him.
• Monk and Sharona continue arguing. Just as she’s telling Monk he’ll never get it, Monk tells Sharona’s son to put his bicycle away, saying, “Let’s give your mother a break.” She points out that he was showing empathy at that point. It’s a start.
• Monk arranges for Sharona to confront her fear by meeting with the elephant and his master, unaware that the killer plans to use the elephant as a murder weapon to eliminate a witness. Sharona watches as this event in the A plot plays out and the elephant crushes his master’s skull, killing him.
• This makes things worse and now Monk feels really bad. He pampers Sharona, tucking a blanket around her and trying to make her cocoa, but she ends up doing all the work, as usual.
• In the story’s climax— the A plot —the culprit tries to escape and is stopped by the elephant. Sharona comes face to face with the creature and Monk soothes and empathizes with her. Then over-empathizes and won’t shut up with the empathizing. Sharona remarks that she’s created a monster.
• Sharona feeds carrots to the elephant and tells Monk she’s over it—maybe there’s hope for him. But Monk is still Monk and we know he’ll be back next week, still victim to a thousand debilitating foibles, to solve another baffling crime. (This is the Denouement.)

Do you see how the secondary plotline plays off the main plotline, intersecting it in some spots, adding dimension to the story’s climax, and providing the perfect ending? This is what subplots do.

Including subplots will elevate the tension and create depth to your main plotline.

Do You Really Need Subplots?

You don’t need to include a secondary plotline in your novel. But if you don’t, you’re passing up a great vehicle for adding depth, interest, emotion, tension, and excitement to your story. That said, it’s essential that readers understand who the book is about.

There should be one main character—your hero—whose story carries the most weight and whose arc comprises the main plotline. Readers should not be confused about who this is, so take care not to overwhelm that main arc when developing your secondary plots.

A secondary plotline can center on just about anything, including a character, setting, theme, motif, or problem. It can enter the story at any point and leave at any point—no need for it to run through the entire story unless that’s what serves the story best.

Every subplot, however, should be tied up by story’s end. The only reason you might consider leaving a secondary plotline open at the end of the story is so that it can function as a lead-in to the sequel.

For example, in my thriller novel, Nocturne In Ashes, the main story arc about stopping a serial killer is wrapped up in the end. But one of my subplots involved a police detective’s efforts to gain entry into an elite private security organization. That story line left a dangling thread to be picked up in the sequel.

One more thing—secondary plotlines must relate somehow to the main plotline and not exist just to take up space or add complexity. They must have a valid story reason to be there.

Joe Bunting’s book, The Write Structure, also addresses how to handle subplots in structuring your story.

A Plan for Your Book Sets You Up for Success

Ultimately, the best way to structure your book is to find a process that works for you and the types of fiction you want to write. That may entail exploring and adapting, learning and growing as you move through your own writer’s journey and learn the craft of writing.

You may not want to use the same plan for every story. I still structure my short fiction differently than my full-length books and I decide project by project how I’m going to do it.

I do think it’s important to make some kind of plan before you begin writing. When all is said and done, if you produce a story with all the right elements to attract and hold readers all the way to the end, you have a well-structured story.

You can get there by making a plan to guide you—like signposts along your journey. Or you can stumble around through rewrite after rewrite until you finally arrive. Either way, structure is what you need to make it work.

Why not embrace plot and structure and make it your traveling companion on the road to success?

Want to learn more about plot? Check out The Write Structure which helps writers make their plot better and write books readers love. It's only $5.99 for a limited time.  Check out The Write Structure here.

How about you? Do you use the six elements of plot and subplots in your stories? Tell us about it in the comments .

Using your current writing project, formulate a possible secondary plotline for your story. Write a paragraph to describe how the plotline begins in relation to the main plotline, and another paragraph to explain how it ends. Write one more paragraph to outline some points along the way.

If you don’t have a work in progress, practice by watching an episode of your favorite television series and outlining the B plot, like I did with Monk.

Write for fifteen minutes . When you’re finished, if you’d like to share your work, post it in the comments. And please provide feedback for your fellow writers as well!

Joslyn Chase

Any day where she can send readers to the edge of their seats, prickling with suspense and chewing their fingernails to the nub, is a good day for Joslyn. Pick up her latest thriller, Steadman's Blind , an explosive read that will keep you turning pages to the end. No Rest: 14 Tales of Chilling Suspense , Joslyn's latest collection of short suspense, is available for free at joslynchase.com .

22 Comments

I plot using Scapple, a Scrivner product – 10 bucks. It allows me to make mind maps of my developing stories. After I decide to go forward I make a paragraph for each mind map spot. Usually I don’t end up actually keeping to the plan as the story takes off at some point and has a mind of its own, but the plotting before prevents mind boggling sequence of events problems in the editing phase.

While I do agree Scapple is ok – there is freeware and open source software for the casual or pro writer. I’ve always done brainstorming and mind maps physically. I’d rather spend money on an actual blackboard or even smartscreen, than purchase software that limits the visible map field to the size of your screen. Most advice giving writers are in it for the money, and when a fellow as me that is financially secure looks for advice, all I see are price tags on creativity. I’d rather smith them myself through trial and failure, as anyone who is passionate about the craft, should.

My WIP uses the narrative arc plot structure. The exposition is where the narrator (Alex) meets her new neighbor (Alicia) and the two discover a dead body. Rising action is the process of solving the mystery. Climax is when they identify the killer and confront her. The very brief falling action is the loose ends being tied up. And the resolution is when their friendship is cemented at the end of the adventure.

The two doors also works. The disturbance is when they discover the corpse and the first point of no return is when Alex decides to help Alicia investigate the murder. The second is a moment when they’re in the woods at midnight, making their way to an abandoned theater to look for clues, and they have to leave the path. Alex is apprehensive but decides to follow Alicia. The literal act of stepping off the path metaphorically represents the moment when Alex decides to leave her old self behind.

Taking a moment to actually think about the physical plot structure can help when you’re trying to sequence events. It’s something I’ll try to be more aware of when I’m planning.

I have a character, a girl who was kidnapped after birth from a king. She was kidnapped by a servant of the king 13 years ago from when my story is set. My story is set in a sort of modern dystopia in a fiction location but the main character is a detective who finds her only in convenience of her misbehaving on the streets. She doesn’t know she is the daughter of a king and the servant who is kept in hiding doesn’t tell her.

However there are multiple POV”s and I don’t know how to develop a simple plot where she finally finds out where she is from. Does anyone have any suggestions???

Hey, I don’t know if you realize this, but you posted this as a reply to my comment instead of making your own comment on the post. You might want to do that so more people see it.

And to give some advice, I would say reexamine which POV’s you’re using in your story. If you’re trying to tell a narrative about this girl’s birth, the narrators should be people who are somehow related to her life or the kidnapping. You may have to sacrifice some of your narrators if they’re getting in the way of telling the story. Kill your darlings, as they say!

Personally, I like to let the story offer hints on how to tell it. I’ve done multiple pov tales where the story’s scenes come alive with great dialog and interaction. I’ve been told by a smart person, he said get out of the way and let the story flow. It’s sometimes hard to get out of the way, wanting to control the story that wants to be written. If the story is inspiring, exciting and you can’t wait to share it… get out of the way and let it out. I’ve been told by so many all these restrictions… don’t do this, you can’t do that, you should do this or that isn’t how it’s done.

Have you read the great literature from the masters? Even Tolkien was long winded with descriptions and details. It would have been impossible to make such grand movies without all of it. But it isn’t the sort of writing you’ll find today by the modern masters. King,Rowling, Brown, and many more are of a different type, their writing is more urgent and filled with emotions and actions.

So find the voice inside, the one that’s uniquely your own and tell the story within raging to be born… set your mind free and let your story take wing.

Well I won’t be sharing my practice today, which was option one, because I plan on doing this idea for NaNoWriMo and don’t want to spoil it. 😉 but I will share how I began developing my plot for another WIP First I started with a first draft. I wrote the whole thing without a care about character development, grammar or other things you worry about in the editing process. That draft SUCKED. I can tell you as much. For a while I let it simmer not looking at it and content with the fact that I had completed a book even if it was only a first draft. After about a month or so i picked it up again. I laughed and laughed like there was no tomorrow. there were errors all over the place and It was simply hilarious to me at the time. I set it down again for about a year but that dint’ stop me from thinking about it. Unknowingly i went through the processes mentioned in the blog post. That first draft has nothing to do with the novel I have now, besides the fact the some of the characters are the same. Well there’s my experience with this post. Thanks for sharing it with us Matt Herron!

Number 3, I choose you!

My character, Jade, has to make a decision between life and death. Not for herself. The main villain is a fallen angel called Dark, and has a kind of traumatizing back story. Jade feels pity toward him, but he’s the main villain, and doing destruction and causing mayhem.

At one point, Dark goes out of control, and starts planning to kill everyone Jade loves. Jade get made, like anyone else would, and get confused on what to do. So she decides to talk to him, and see if he’s willing to stop. (Jade prefers the kind approach, or is at least trying it.) The conversation goes terribly wrong, including it getting interrupted several times, due to another group of bad guys destroying thing.

Jade then actually has to make a choice between killing Dark or letting him live. For an entire chapter (In its rough draft state), she just thinks about her options, and then talks to her friends about it. Of course they say kill him, but what’s right isn’t always popular, and what’s popular isn’t always right.

Jade thinks that killing Dark would be wrong, but Dark isn’t the most stable or good thing in the universe. At all. And there’s really no way to fix him, or help him heal. Jade would end up looking for information of Dark, to get a better feeling toward what he’s feeling, but finds that his record aren’t clean. He’s as bad as it gets.

But Jade actually wants him to live, even to understand him. Understand the pain, and the sorrow. She looks up his back story, finding it’s full of terrible stuff. She feels pity toward him, and wants to help him. One problem; she doesn’t know how.

Yeah, I know. I probably wrote this terribly. But, we all did at one point.

If you ever wrote this story I’d like to read it. It sounds interesting. What’s the title?

You know, they tell you a script is linear. You go with that cause you’re green. And these people appear to be experts. There’s all kinds of them. Turns out a script is not linear at all. It resembles the graph representing Google stock. Not only that, but you can put your own graph line in there and loop it back to the second scene. And you can explode a line on the rebound. So, to all you experts, you are hindering creativity. There’s no absolute way to write.

Yep. Because reality usually doesn’t follow a simple line. I think this is helpful to some degree though.

It’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly scripts wiptsy, really….

And a bit of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff

I agree, but there still needs to be structure. I learned that the hard way.

I think the three act structure can be fatal especially if you don’t understand it (like how I didn’t!) There can be multiple turning points in a story, and it might look like a cubic graph–or sin or cos–or maybe the stock exchange. The three act structure is just a very rough template for the main climax, but there can–and should be–many.

This is the simplest explanation I ever read about plot structure. It gave me a better understanding of the subject matter. Well done!

Hears some advice for you kids: the bad writers borrow, the great writers steal!

Here’s my advice, kids: the bad writers borrow, the great writers steal!

What is the series of related events that gives the story its structure? Plot, exposition, or setting?

Characters, Theme, Plot, and Genre are the elements of structure.

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50 Fictional Writers, Ranked

The best and worst from literature, film, & tv.

Everyone knows that writers love to write about writers. In fact, if an alien had to guess which profession was most common on earth based on our media alone—well, honestly it would probably be Detective, or Cop or something, but Writer would be up there too. So which fictional writers should we most avidly promote to our future alien overlords? I have no idea, but here I’ve taken a look at 50 favorite writers from film, literature and TV (and their many intersections). I’ve limited the list to fictional writers of literature—that is, I have excluded both journalists (yes, even Rory) and screenwriters. This is really only because I had to draw the line somewhere or wind up writing this list for the rest of time, and no one wants that, least of all my family. I also excluded biopics and other works in which real-world authors appear with their real-world names, though if a fictional character is simply based on a real writer, I found that to be admissible. As far as the rankings go, well, it’s not always easy to tell who is a good writer and who isn’t, especially when we’re talking about imaginary abilities. Besides, most fictional writers are either extremely bad or extremely good—at least according to their creators. Let’s just say I’ve gone with my gut.

Author bio: Tom Selleck is a crime writer who has had writer’s block for four years, and starts haunting local courtrooms to look for material. There he finds and falls for a young woman accused of murder and offers to be her alibi—and also starts writing about her, of course. Roger Ebert, who gave this movie .5 stars, sums up Blackwood’s writing style this way :

One of the minor curiosities of the movie is why the Selleck character is such a bad writer. His prose is a turgid flow of cliche and stereotype, and when we catch a glimpse of his computer screen, we can’t help noticing that he writes only in capital letters. Although the movie says he’s rich because of a string of best sellers, on the evidence this is the kind of author whose manuscripts are returned with a form letter.

Representative excerpt: “Despite the dozens of ravishing creatures begging to be part of his life, Swift had lived alone since his wife . . . was incinerated several years before, when the microwave went berserk during a thunderstorm.”

Author bio:  The high school guidance counselor who is only semi-secretly writing the Next Great American Romance Novel during work hours: Undulating with desire, Adrian removes her red crimson cape at the sight of Reginald’s stiff and . . . Judith!

Literary wisdom: “Quivering member. I like that.”

Author bio:  Spike goes through a hell of a transition over the many years of his life and undeath—and I don’t just mean the vampire thing, or the soul thing. As a youth, William the Bloody was mocked for his “bloody awful poetry.” Later, he worked out his feelings by killing a lot of people. But in the very last episode of Angel , facing destruction, Spike finally gets his standing ovation. It’s . . . surprisingly touching! If only that made the poetry better.

Classic slam poem:

My soul is wrapped in harsh repose Midnight descends in raven-colored clothes But soft. Behold! A sunlight beam Cutting a swath of glimmering gleam My heart expands, ’tis grown a bulge in it Inspired by your beauty . . . effulgent.”

Author bio: Of course Riverdale ‘s resident misfit gets the job of being the writer—a charming little meta-intrusion. Jughead claims that he is writing “Riverdale’s very own In Cold Blood .” Well, as you can see from the excerpt below,  In Cold Blood it ain’t , but his hat is cute.

Opening lines: “Our story is about a town, a small town, and the people who live in the town. From a distance, it presents itself like so many other small towns all over the world. Safe. Decent. Innocent. Get closer, though, and you start seeing the shadows underneath. The name of our town is Riverdale.”

Author bio: Jimmy is a British writer and extreme narcissist living in Los Angeles and working on following up his poorly received Congratulations, You’re Dying  with a new project, “the first truly literary erotic novel since Portnoy’s Complaint .” Apparently, it has a few too many descriptions of semen on stockings.

Literary wisdom: “Writing is very seldom actual writing. Maybe on the outside it looks as though I’m drinking and playing darts and eating craisins out of a bag in my pocket, but this is part of the process. It’s all writing. And I need you to respect my process.”

Author bio:  In the first season of  The Affair , Noah is a semi-successful (read: one okay book out) novelist who . . . has an affair. His first book is called A Person Who Visits a Place , to which I can only say . . . lol. In the second season, he publishes a novel, Descent , that gets him nominated for a PEN/Faulkner award, hailed as “the new bad boy of American letters,” and turns him into a bestseller—which is not even the most far-fetched part. The actual most far-fetched part is that he successfully gets a woman’s number with the line “Is there a green light at the end of your dock, Daisy?”, or maybe that his publicist drops the bomb that . . . Jonathan Franzen wants to meet him. Cool!

Excerpt from  Descent : “They were driving fast. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an old boat painted blue, resting on the side of the road, dilapidated, rotting as if the air itself was corrosive.”

Author bio: Shouldn’t really be on this list, because she’s a whiny newspaper columnist who writes one column a week and somehow lives a lavish, fashionista lifestyle. I guess she eventually turns her columns into a memoir-ish book (and at least according to Wikipedia, she goes on to write several more, with horrible, horrible names like MEN-hattan and I Do! Do I? ), and I don’t want to get emails about how I missed her, so here she is.

One of the many things Carrie wonders: “I used to think those people who sat alone at Starbucks writing on their laptops were pretentious posers. Now I know–they’re people who have recently moved in with someone. As I looked around, I wondered how many of them were mid-fight, like myself.”

Author bio:  Assistant professor of English literature at Brooks College, who hit the big-time with his second novel,  Old Custer . Literary legend has it that Anderson wrote Cash to be a sort of fusion of Cormac McCarthy and Jay McInerney. (Plus fringe, I suppose.) Grew up with a family of geniuses. Especially not a genius. No, she didn’t even have to think about it.

Elevator pitch:  “Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is . . . maybe he didn’t?”

Author bio: Rory isn’t here, so you’ll have to content yourself with Rory’s Best Boyfriend, who also happened to be a writer—coincidence? I think not. After escaping Stars Hollow, Jess writes a novel (which sounds suspiciously Beat-ish), and publishes it with a small press—years later, it is he who suggests that Rory write her memoir. A novelist  and  a muse!

Literary repartee: “Hey, I’ve read Jane Austen . . . and I think she would have liked Bukowski.”

Author(s) bio:  In middle age, Bernard is a writer gone to seed—but Joan is a writer on the ascendant. Needless to say, they get divorced.

Harsh but fair: “What is it about high school? You read all the worst books by good writers.”

Author bio:  Misanthropic, young, narcissistic Philip has sold his second novel, and is primed to become a Famous and Important writer. But waiting for it to get published is intolerable to him, and every person or responsibility making demands on his time drives him to anger. Enter his idol, legendary writer Ike Zimmerman, who offers him respite at his summer home. This is not a film that will make you like writers, but if you already know a few, you’re likely to laugh at them.

Advice from Ike: “You’ll need a country retreat if you want to get anything done.”

Author bio:  Former therapist and cultist who emerges to write a tell-all book about it (this being more or less the opposite of a vow of silence, I’d say). Her publisher wants more “feeling” but I think he’s probably just being sexist.

The bottom line: “They believe the world ended.”

Author bio: An American writer of pulp Westerns who gets mighty involved in his attempt to clear a friend’s name in Allied-occupied Vienna.

Telling exchange:

POPESCU: Can I ask is Mr. Martins engaged in a new book? MARTINS: Yes, it’s called The Third Man . POPESCU: A novel, Mr. Martins? MARTINS: It’s a murder story. I’ve just started it. It’s based on fact. POPESCU: Are you a slow writer, Mr. Martins? MARTINS: Not when I get interested. POPESCU: I’d say you were doing something pretty dangerous this time. MARTINS: Yes? POPESCU: Mixing fact and fiction. MARTINS: Should I make it all fact? POPESCU: Why no, Mr. Martins. I’d say stick to fiction, straight fiction. MARTINS: I’m too far along with the book, Mr. Popescu. POPESCU: Haven’t you ever scrapped a book, Mr. Martins? MARTINS: Never.

Author bio: A punk literary poet of the ’90s—or so everyone thinks, anyway. Willing to help out needy and deluded young writers by publishing their work in his new anthology:  Shit Poems: An Anthology of Bad Verse .

Literary wisdom: “Love . . . love until you hate. Then learn to hate your love. Then forgive your hate for loving it.”

Author bio: The totally together author of a “disturbingly popular” but soon-to-be-cancelled young adult series who—while on deadline, mind you—decides to jet off on a bizarre pilgrimage to her childhood home, hoping to win back her (married) ex-boyfriend and (presumably) her own long-past young adult life.

Key excerpt: “Just as Kendall hit send , a message from Ryan popped up like magic. It couldn’t be denied, they had textual chemistry .”

Author bio: All through  Girls , people wondered: is Hannah Horvath supposed to be a good writer ? She doesn’t  seem  like a good writer—but she gets into the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. She writes an e-book—but it disintegrates. She gets a job writing advertorials for  GQ —but she fails at that. She gets published in the Modern Love column, and in the end, she gets a pretty unlikely job! So, maybe?

So say we all: “My persona’s very witty and narcissistic.”

Author bio:  Your typical alcoholic writer type, who accepts a winter position at the Overlook in the hopes of fixing up his life—and (of course) finding time to work. It does not go that well!

Authorial compulsion:  “He would write it because the Overlook had enchanted him—could any other explanation be so simple or so true? He would write it for the reason he felt that all great literature, fiction and nonfiction, was written: truth comes out, in the end it always comes out. He would write it because he felt he had to.”

Author bio: Accidentally inseminated virgin with dreams of writing—who makes her dreams come true, getting an MFA, getting a job at a publishing house, getting discovered, and publishing her first novel, a historical romance based on her own life called Snow Falling , which (like several other fictional novels on this list) you can read (as ghostwritten by Caridad Pineiro)—Nicole Chung even reviewed it at The Washington Post .  But that first book was met with middling reviews in-world too, and in season four, Jane fixates on bad reviews and suffers from writer’s block. Life isn’t easy when you’re a writer . . . or when you’re constantly beset by telenovela-style drama at every turn.

The strangely familiar opening to  Snow Falling :  “Josephine Galena Valencia always did things the right way and in the right order. At the ripe old age of twenty-three Josephine had finalized her master plan, and nothing was going to keep her from accomplishing it: find a job as a tutor, finish a novel, and marry Martin. Or so she thought . . . ”

Author bio: An obvious alter ego for Louisa May Alcott herself, Jo is a strong-willed tomboy who loves to read and write. She writes plays and short stories in her youth, and later goes to seek success as a writer in New York City. In the end, she gives up writing and gets married (though to the man of her choice, not to the man she is “supposed” to be with, which I guess makes it fine), but then again, later, in Jo’s Boys , Alcott tells us that Jo “fell back on the long-disused pen as the only thing she could do to fill up the gaps in the income. A book for girls being wanted by a certain publisher, she hastily scribbled a little story describing a few scenes and adventures in the lives of herself and her sisters . . . and with very slight hope of success, sent it out to seek its fortune.” Well, it certainly found its fortune.

Words to live by: “I like good strong words that mean something.”

Author bio: Prolific but mostly unsuccessful writer of cheap sci-fi novels (including  Venus on the Half-Shell , which was adapted from the fragment in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater into a full-length novel by Philip José Farmer), named in homage to Theodore Sturgeon (who was much more successful than Trout), but whose personal details change mysteriously from book to book.

When the tupelo Goes poop-a-lo I’ll come back to youp-a-lo

Author bio: As the author of The Philosophy of Time Travel , she is probably the only person who truly understands this movie.

Essential wisdom: “Every creature on this earth dies alone.”

Author bio: A writer who always kills her main characters, but is suffering from writer’s block when it comes to how to kill her most recent one, is astonished to find that he is a flesh-and-blood Will Ferrell (however that works), but decides for the integrity of the novel—her masterpiece!—she’s going to have to kill him anyway. It is only after Will Ferrell accepts his fate, self-sacrificing in the name of art, that Eiffel loses her nerve and only seriously injures him instead—at the expense of her novel’s brilliance. His watch, however, does in fact die a horrible death.

On her murderous novel: “Like anything worth writing, it came inexplicably and without method.”

Author bio: Once a farm girl, Gabrielle ran away to join the mighty Xena on her travels, and eventually became a good fighter as well as a bard—telling stories, singing, and writing down all of their adventures on scrolls (when Xena doesn’t use her paper for wiping with)—though often with some amount of epic embellishment. Gabrielle’s scrolls were eventually rediscovered by the descendants of her, Xena, and Joxer in the 1940s, and then in 1996, were used to pitch a cool television show called Xena: Warrior Princess . . .

Notable excerpt: “I sing of the wrath of Callisto, the pain of Gabrielle, and the courage of Xena and the inevitable mystery of a friendship as immortal as the gods.”

Author bio: A 13-year-old girl who has elaborate fantasies about butts, making out, zombies, and her friends, and often writes erotic fan fiction (or erotic friend fiction) about one, or several, or all of these at once.

An excerpt from “Buttloose,” a piece of Erotic Friend Fiction: “It was lunchtime at Wagstaff. Touching butts had been banned by the horrible headmaster Frond. Suddenly, Tina Belcher appeared in the doorway. She knew what she had to do. She grabbed Jimmy Jr.’s butt, and changed the world.”

Author bio: An inmate in Litchfield Penitentiary, and author of a popular (in Litchfield) erotic science fiction series entitled  The Time Hump Chronicles , which stars a time-traveling robo-doll named Edwina, who must choose between that “wuss” Gilly and the dual-penised Space Admiral Rodcocker, whose semen is remarkably high in protein. It becomes so popular that the other inmates begin hounding her for more, and even writing their own fan fiction. And it’s not just the other inmates—real life writer Alyssa Cole recreated (created?) some of the  Chronicles  here .

Summary: “It’s not just sex, it’s love. It’s two people connecting . . . with four other people, and aliens.”

Author bio: Purvis is a home-schooled teenager who writes science fiction stories. When he goes to a youth writer’s conference, he gets to meet his literary idol, Dr. Ronald Chevalier. He even shows him his manuscript— Yeast Lords —which Chevalier promptly steals, rewrites, and publishes as his own. Two other kids he meets at the conference steal his story too—well, they buy it, but not without some shady business—and turn adapt it into a terrible low-budget film. After assaulting his one-time hero, Purvis is in jail. But never fear: his mom is on her way to save the day.

Excerpt from Yeast Lords : “The Nad Lab was a cold white room. Bronco, the last of the Yeast Lords, lay spread eagle, strapped to a medical pod. Someone had stolen his yeast and he had gone totally apeshit.”

Author bio:  A Very Sexy crime novelist who is being investigated for a murder that oddly parallels one from her fiction. She continues to write novels that very closely hew to the illegal and murderous events of her life, but no one really catches her because she is not wearing underwear.

The kiss-off: “I finished my book. Didn’t you hear me? Your character’s dead. Good-bye. What do you want? Flowers? I’ll send you an autographed copy.”

Author bio:  A rare human in this universe, who majored in literature and equine studies at Boston University. She is the author of Secretariat: a Life , The Rise and Fall of Strongheart , and Tracing Zippo Pine Bar , a New York Times bestseller, and was also the ghostwriter BoJack Horseman’s autobiography, One Trick Pony , which won a Golden Globe for Best Comedy or Musical, even though it was a book.

Explanation for leaking: “I know you’re mad and you have every right to be, but you gotta read some of these comments. People love you! And they’re gonna love you even more when they read the rest of my book!”

Author bio: We’ve heard it before: a celebrated debut novelist who can’t get his second book off the ground—until he goes to visit his old mentor and professor, who may or may not have killed a teenage girl! Marcus will solve the mystery and mine it for ideas at the same time.

Marcus on writer’s block: “My terror of the blank page did not hit me suddenly; it crept over me bit by bit, as if my brain were slowly freezing up. I told myself that inspiration would return tomorrow, or the day after, or perhaps the day after that. But the days and weeks and months went by, and inspiration never returned. . . I began to understand that glory was a Gorgon whose visage could turn you to stone if you failed to continue performing.”

Author bio: A professor in Pittsburgh desperately trying to write a follow-up to his award-winning debut, published seven years previous, but failing to kill his darlings—like, any of them. (Not to mention the fact that his private life is disintegrating, nor the surrealist crime with which he becomes involved.)

Fatal flaw: “Motivation, inspiration were not the problem; on the contrary I was always cheerful and workmanlike at the typewriter and had never suffered from what’s called writer’s block; I didn’t believe in it. The problem, if anything, was precisely the opposite. I had too much to write: too many fine and miserable buildings to construct and streets to name and clock towers to set chiming, too many characters to raise up from the dirt like flowers whose petals I peeled down to the intricate frail organs within, too many terrible genetic and fiduciary secrets to dig up and bury and dig up again, too many divorces to grant, heirs to disinherit, trysts to arrange, letters to misdirect into evil hands, innocent children to slay with rheumatic fever, women to leave unfulfilled and hopeless, men to drive to adultery and theft, fires to ignite at the hearts of ancient houses. It was about a single family and it stood, as of that morning, at two thousand six hundred and eleven pages, each of them revised and rewritten a half dozen times. And yet for all of those years, and all of those words expended in charting the eccentric paths of my characters through the violent blue heavens I had set them to cross, they had not even reached their zeniths. I was nowhere near the end.”

Author bio:  When we first meet Briony, she is a 13-year-old who likes to write; when we last hear from her, she is a novelist in her late 70s. What passes between first appears to be merely the story of her life and her family’s life, but in the final pages, all is revealed: it is she who is the author of what we have just read—and things did not turn out quite the way she said.

On her fixed-up autofiction: “I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair, to let my lovers live and to unite them at the end. I gave them happiness, but I was not so self-serving as to let them forgive me. Not quite, not yet.”

Author bio:  The very unhappily married true author of the novel-within-a-novel, about young Communist Alex Thomas (himself a science fiction author), which she published under her sister’s name—but won’t go to her grave without making the truth known.

On writing her abusive husband: “I’ve failed to convey Richard, in any rounded sense. He remains a cardboard cutout. I know that. I can’t truly describe him, I can’t get a precise focus: he’s blurred, like the face in some wet, discarded newspaper.”

Author bio:  Japanese-American Sam Sumida is investigating his wife’s murder after the attack on Pearl Harbor. But his world begins to unravel—as his creator, the novelist Takumi Sato, begins to revise it, bending to the demands of his editor, who wants the story to be more palatable to White Americans after the attack. Sato keeps making changes, to Sumida’s story and to the much-more commercial pulpy novel—with an anti-Japanese P. I.—that is replacing it, even from an internment camp.

Every writer’s nightmare: “If you were to consider revising your work to avoid the obvious issues, which would include cutting and replacing not only your Japanese hero Sumida but also the Caucasian villain, I would be willing to take a second look. Of course, I understand that this amounts to your writing a different book. But since you’ve completed only three chapters to date, your investment of time and effort have been relatively small and so re-envisioning may be a viable option for you, Mr. Sato.”

Author bio:  Every office has at least one guy who is secretly publishing short stories on the side. Ken Cosgrove elicits jealously when he lands a story in  The Atlantic Monthly , but soon he begins to write SF stories under a pseudonym, and a pre-Farrar, Straus and Giroux even wants to publish a collection. Plot of the title story, according to Ken’s wife: “There’s this bridge between these two planets and thousands of humans travel on it every day, and there’s this robot who does maintenance on the bridge. One day he removes a bolt, the bridge collapses, and everyone dies.” He’s also a great tap dancer.

Read his story: “ Tapping a Maple on a Cold Vermont Morning ,” in The Atlantic ( Monthly ).

Author bio:  Everyone says that second novel is the hardest—especially when you don’t have any ideas. But turns out this fellow is a very  evocative  writer at least, because he manages to write his dream girl straight into actual existence. Lots of issues with control and consent ensue, but it’s all fine, because in the end he figures out the right thing to do, and gets another successful novel out of the experience in the bargain.

An excerpt from the book about Ruby:  “This is the true and impossible story of my very great love. In the hope that she will not read this and reproach me, I have withheld many telling details: her name, the particulars of her birth and upbringing, and any identifying scars or birthmarks. All the same, I cannot help but write this for her, to tell her, ‘I’m sorry for every word I wrote to change you, I’m sorry for so many things. I couldn’t see you when you were here and, now that you’re gone, I see you everywhere.’ One may read this and think it’s magic, but falling in love is an act of magic. So is writing. It was once said of Catcher in The Rye , “That rare miracle of fiction has again come to pass: a human being has been created out of ink, paper and the imagination.” I am no J. D. Salinger, but I have witnessed a rare miracle. Any writer can attest: in the luckiest, happiest state, the words are not coming from you, but through you. She came to me wholly herself, I was just lucky enough to be there to catch her.”

Author bio:  Career bartender Nick Miller’s first book was an extremely bad zombie novel called  Z is for Zombie , in which he misspelled the word “rhythm” 38 times and also included a word search with no answers. His second  book,  The Pepperwood Chronicles , seems rather more promising —Schmidt described the main character, Julius Pepperwood, as “A hard-boiled Chicago cop turned New Orleans detective, racing around on fan-boats, drowning that two-faced DA in a bucket of jambalaya.” Nick said the book was a “New Orleans story about a guy fighting with the alligator within,” but also about “race” and “the sexualization of the American handgun.” Ok!

Notable passage:  “The sun baked down on Pepperwood’s back as he moved over to the St. Charles streetcar. The driver handed him a brown paper sack. Without opening it, Pepperwood knew what was inside: blood-soaked beignets.”

Author bio: Good writer, terrible person. Alcoholic, sex-addict, statutory rapist. Wrote a book called  God Hates Us All (which now, of course, actually exists , because marketing), watched it get adapted into a movie called  A Crazy Little Thing Called Love . Wrote a book called  Fucking & Punching , had the manuscript get stolen and published by the teenage girl—the one who punched him. Wrote the script for the film adaptation, after getting out of jail. Wrote a biography of a dead rock star. Wrote a book called . . .  Californication .

First sentence of  God Hates Us All : “Daphne loved speed.”

Author bio: A critically acclaimed novelist who can’t seem to get his most recent manuscript published—while Ohio-born Juanita Mae Jenkins’s debut We’s Lives In Da Ghetto becomes a bestseller. So he pens a rebuttal, entitled My Pafology (and published in its entirety within Erasure , under the pen name Stagg R. Leigh—and suddenly is awash in literary fame himself.

From My Pafology : “My name is Van Go Jenkins and I’m 19 years old and I don’t give a fuck about nobody, not you, not my Mama, not the man. The world don’t give a fuck about nobody, so why would I?”

Author bio:  The author of the beloved Victorian-set Misery Chastain novels, including  Misery’s Quest ,  Misery’s Lover ,  Misery’s Child ,  Misery’s Return ,  Misery’s Journey ,  Misery’s Paradise , and  Misery Unchained . These books must be really good, because his fandom is strong. And handy with an axe.

Literary wisdom: “Writers remember everything . . . Especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he’ll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels, not amnesia. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is that ability to remember the story of every scar. Art consists of the persistence of memory.”

Author bio:  It’s safe to say that Elizabeth Costello is Coetzee’s alter ego—after all, in this novel, she mostly goes around delivering lectures about literature and animal welfare. As David Lodge has observed , the main differences between Costello and Coetzee are gender and age. That, I suppose, and Costello’s most famous novel,  The House on Eccles Street , a retelling of  Ulysses  from the perspective of Molly Bloom.

A taste of lecture:  “Seen from the outside, from a being who is alien to it, reason is simply a vast tautology. Of course reason will validate reason as the first principle of the universe—what else should it do? Dethrone itself? Reasoning systems, as systems of totality, do not have that power. If there were a position from which reason could attack and dethrone itself, reason would already have occupied that position; otherwise it would not be total.”

Author bio:  The son of a successful memoirist (her  A Sexual Subject  makes her a feminist icon), T. S. Garp starts out as a tortured wanna-be and finally becomes a novelist in his own right, writing books that reflect his own less-than-ideal life ( The Second Wind of the Cuckold , for instance)—in fact, his literary success is really the only thing that is good that happens to him in this whole tragic novel!

Demonstrative passage: “Arden Bensenhaver took the three pieces of the bra from his pocket. He looked at the sow lying beside the men; she had one frightened eye, which appeared to be looking at all of them at once, and it was hard to tell where her other eye was looking. ‘Is that a boy pig or a girl pig?’ asked Bensenhaver.”

Author bio:  In 1985, after nabbing his dream girl with the help of one Calvin Klein and a mysterious alien, George McFly published a best-selling science fiction novel, based in part on their love story. In 1989, it was adapted into a movie, which USA Today called “a creative misfire as well as a box office bomb,” (maybe because of all the “martial arts elements” and “country western songs”) but as of 2015 , Robert Zemeckis was planning to remake it, with a script co-written by McFly himself, who hoped he could convince Zemeckis to cast Christopher Lloyd—as the alien.

Literary advice from the past/future: “Like I’ve always told you, you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”

Author bio:  As a child, Richard Castle hung out at the New York Public Library (where a mysterious man once handed him a copy of  Casino Royale ). As an adult, Castle is a massively popular, best-selling crime novelist and sometime consultant for the NYPD and later, a PI. Pro tip: You can actually buy Richard Castle’s books—they even have Nathan Fillion’s photograph on the back (but they are probably actually written by Tom Straw).

Explanatory Voice Over:  “There are two kinds of folks who sit around thinking how to kill people: Psychopaths, and mystery writers. I’m the kind that pays better.”

Author bio: Meg Wolitzer’s novel opens with Joan and her husband (once her creative writing professor) on the way to Helsinki, where he will be awarded a prestigious literary prize. For her part, she’s been subjugating her own career for years to support his. Because spoiler alert: Joan is the one who has written all those famous books.

Bitter description: “You might even envy us—him for all the power vacuum-packed within his bulky, shopworn body, and me for my twenty-four-hour-access to it, as though a famous and brilliant writer-husband is a convenience store for his wife, a place she can dip into anytime for a Big Gulp of astonishing intellect and wit and excitement.”

Author bio: Handsome physician and war hero; best friend of one highly neurotic and cruelly dispassionate “consulting detective,” and also his biographer. Arthur Conan Doyle, you see, is only Watson’s literary executor. In the world of Sherlock Holmes, everything was actually written by the good doctor.

The spark of inspiration: “Your merits should be publicly recognised. You should publish an account of the case. If you won’t, I will for you.”

Author bio: William Forrester won the 1954 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and then became a recluse, staying holed up in his Bronx apartment. He only pops his head up years later to engage in this white savior narrative! The character is clearly based on J. D. Salinger— and a little John Kennedy Toole

Sage advice:  “No thinking—that comes later. You write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is to write, not to think!”

Author bio:  Basically Philip Roth, but from Pittsburgh.

On that pesky Nobel Prize:  “Blazer! You were robbed!”

Author bio: A retired English teacher who can’t drive becomes a wildly successful mystery novelist—and a top notch amateur sleuth, always besting the police in figuring out the truth behind the many, many crimes in her small Maine town (the only explanation that makes sense is that . . . Jessica was a serial killer the whole time ).

Wily understatement: “Lieutenant Ames, I don’t know who or what you think I am, but I assure you, I’m simply a mystery writer from Cabot Cove, Maine.”

Author bio: A celebrated poet (“one oozy footprint behind Frost”) who may or may not have been recently murdered by one Charles Kinbote, annotator of his works and self-styled King of Zembla. If you need something to argue about at cocktail parties, try this: while Shade’s poem is no doubt important, and meant to be taken seriously, is it supposed to be good—or supposed to be bad? Or try this: is Shade even real, or “real”?

The first stanza of the eponymous poem:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain By the false azure in the windowpane I was the smudge of ashen fluff–and I Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky, And from the inside, too, I’d duplicate Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate: Uncurtaining the night, I’d let dark glass Hang all the furniture above the grass, And how delightful when a fall of snow Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so As to make chair and bed exactly stand Upon that snow, out in that crystal land!

Author bio:  A writer so beloved and mysterious that academics, catching a whiff of him, might try to follow to Santa Teresa (to no avail). Nobel-nominated, secretly Prussian, born Hans Reiter, obsessed with seaweed.

Bibliography: Extensive .

Author bio: It has been pointed out to me on Twitter , which is apparently good for something, that I forgot all about Elena Ferrante’s alter ego Elena Greco. Lenù is a hardworking student who is starry-eyed at the natural brilliance of her friend Lila—but it is Elena and not Lila who will go on to college, and who will write a story about her life, which becomes a well-recieved book—and leads to more books about her life, and her friend, and the hard world from which they came. Autofiction about a writer of autofiction? What else could it be?

Literary wisdom:  “Words: with them you can do and undo as you please.”

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Genre Tips: How to Write Literary Fiction

Ironically, the term literary fiction is often used in opposition to the term “genre,” which I guess means we have the “literary genre” and the “genre genre.” (And now that I think about it that way, it cracks me up. #sorrynotsorry :p ) Literary fiction is a somewhat contested term, used by some writers to indicate a “higher level” of writing and by others as a crack at elitism. Back in the day when what is properly considered “genre fiction” was classed only as lowbrow pop fiction for the masses, literary fiction was the domain of the “serious” writer. These days, however, when so many “genre” entries are themselves high art, the borders of what is literary fiction and what is not have become a bit mistier.

It also used to be (and still is to some degree) considered a rule that genre fiction focuses on plot (i.e., events happening to the protagonist), whilst literary fiction focuses more on character and theme (i.e., how the protagonist reacts to events). Although each of these approaches create significantly different reading experiences (both of which are legitimate and wonderful in their own right), this argument between “plot and character” has been largely responsible for creating the dualistic idea that story must be one or the other—and that one must be better than the other. Of course, the truth is story requires both plot and character. You can’t have one without the other. All stories have plot except perhaps the most wildly experimental novels (which, honestly, I would class as a genre of its own).

So if we can’t narrow down the strict definition of literary fiction as fiction that…

• focuses on drama
• offers existential themes
• is artistic
• emphasizes beautiful prose
• crosses over into no other genre
• values character over plot

…then how  can we determine what is literary fiction—and what is not?

5 Tips for How to Write Literary Fiction

Unlike genres such as romance and mystery , literary fiction is not defined by its beats. Nor is it strictly a milieu backdrop like fantasy and historical fiction . It can be set anywhere, anytime. It can focus on love stories, on murder investigations, on supernatural evil, on presidential assassinations, on slices of life. It can feature characters who are human, animal, or even inanimate.

It’s kind of like that old saw: “You know it when you see it.” For my money, literary fiction is primarily defined by attitude and  perspective.  Any story could be told as literary fiction; what makes it so is  how it is told.

Although literary fiction contains all the same structural pieces as any other type of story, it is more intent on the journey than the destination. It looks around.  It wants to see and observe; it wants to stop and ask questions. Usually, it does so from a slightly distanced perspective. Even if it utilizes a deep POV that puts readers right there in the characters’ heads, what is evoked is the sense of being one step back from the action, observing, commenting, noticing the deeper meaning.

Sound interesting? Then let’s take a quick overview of how to write literary fiction.

Story Structure in Literary Fiction: Understanding How to Intertwine Inner and Outer Conflict

Structuring Your Novel (Amazon affiliate link)

The notion that “literary fiction” is synonymous with “plot-less fiction” is a misconception. What’s true is that literary fiction is not as dependent upon or hemmed in by specific  beats  as are genres like romance and mystery. However, the basic structural arc underlying a story’s plot becomes all the more important in supporting and unifying the often sprawling and sometimes abstract events and motifs within a literary story.

What’s also true is that the plot in literary fiction is often less concerned with its story’s external conflict (even if it’s rip-roaring) and more concerned with the characters’ internal conflict . You might say literary fiction is more interested in character arc than structure. But (surprise!) that, too, is a false paradigm. Why? Because the mechanics of character arc are inherently structural.

Plot structure can be viewed as the emergent of character arc. The entire arc of what we recognize as story is merely the externalized structure of the natural and inevitable pattern of human transformation. In short, if a literary story creates a magnificent character arc, you can be sure it is also well structured.

The structural beats in any story will tell you what it is about. In a literary story, those beats will focus intently on the inner conflict and evolution of the characters. Even if you’re writing your story with a relatively loose focus on structure, just double-checking that the ten major structural moments are all focused on your character’s internal journey will help you ensure both plot and character are powerfully aligned.

Those structural elements are:

• Inciting Event
• First Plot Point
• First Pinch Point
• Midpoint (Second Plot Point)
• Second Pinch Point
• Third Plot Point
• Climactic Moment

For Example: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s beloved classic  The Great Gatsby is a pitch-perfect example of how external conflict (of which there is plenty, as Gatsby jets around NYC, causing and enduring all manner of havoc) can play out primarily through the lens of a character’s internal conflict (in this instance, through the observations of narrator Nick Carraway, who stands at a remove from the relational machinations of Gatsby and the other characters and who undergoes a Disillusionment Arc as a result).

>>Click here for examples of Nick’s Disillusionment Arc used in the series “How to Write a Negative Character Arc”

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (affiliate link)

Character in Literary Fiction: Backstory As the Origin of Motivation

Creating Character Arcs (Amazon affiliate link)

Genre fiction asks, “What will happen?” Literary fiction, however, is often more concerned with, “What did happen?” Its most urgent question is, “Why?”

Although sometimes this exploration may offer an external plot that is intent on uncovering revelations new to the main characters, it just as often focuses on diving deep into an exploration of the characters’ own pasts. Memories, feelings, events, old hurts, lost loves, delusions, and dreams—all are excavated and reexamined in the characters’ search for meaning.

Backstory and its motivating “Ghosts” are important catalysts for the character arc in any type of story, but in literary fiction the uncovering of how the past has affected the future is often of primary importance. Alternate timelines are a popular device in literary fiction, allowing backstory to be explored side by side with the characters’ current dilemmas. Even when a story is told in a linear fashion, it is understood that much of what we see is context for a final realization.

This emphasis on the causal effects within a character’s personal development doesn’t necessarily require a huge or shocking event in the character’s backstory. Rather, the emphasis is on the  why of how characters ended up where they did or are making the choices they are currently faced with.

For Example: Toni Morrison’s finely-wrought Beloved drops a horrifyingly shocking backstory bomb halfway through when it reveals what happened to main character Sethe’s “almost crawling” baby girl. In a different type of story, this revelation might have been played for all the drama it was worth. In this quiet exploration of the effects of slavery, the revelation is equally quiet, made all the more horrifying by its unflinching deliberateness in examining the reasons for and effects of Sethe’s choices. Although it is a huge plot moment, it is chiefly utilized as an exploration of character.

Beloved by Toni Morrison (affiliate link)

Theme in Literary Fiction: Theme as Message vs. Theme as Question

Writing Your Story’s Theme (Amazon affiliate link)

Although theme will emerge from any well-constructed plot and/or character arc , literary fiction is noted for its conscious exploration and execution of its themes. Heavy-handed themes that present themselves as “answers” to their readers are not welcome in any type of story, and this becomes all the more true in a literary story that very likely will be exploring its themes “on purpose.”

For example, a genre action story about a brave naval admiral may express themes of courage, duty, and honor merely through the external actions and outcomes in the plot . A literary story will go deeper in examining the character’s interiority, as he struggles literally with these questions in his own mind.

Ironically, this means literary fiction can easily come across as far more moralistic and “on the nose” than most genre fiction. The key to any successful exploration of theme is focusing less on the answers or “lessons” and more on the questions that are inherent within the character’s struggles . There is never any need to spell out a thematic premise for audiences; the outcome of the plot events will always present the author’s thesis on how certain causes lead to certain effects.

Particularly in literary fiction, which can sometimes be more open-ended than other types of stories, thematic emphasis should be less on proving a certain point and more on an honest exploration of how certain thematic questions affect the characters’ outlooks and choices. Arguably more than in any other genre, allowing characters to choose wrong and then showing the effects of those choices in the end can be especially powerful in literary fiction.

For Example:   The Remains of Day by Kazuo Ishiguro utilizes flashbacks to explore the choices of its protagonist, lifetime butler Stevens, who chose to remain loyal to his Nazi-sympathizing employer, not because he agreed with the politics but because he was so identified with his work. This raises questions he must explore in his present as he seeks to reunite with a woman he might have married, had he made different choices.

The Remains of Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (affiliate link)

Scene Structure in Literary Fiction: Controlling Pacing via Action and Reaction

That certain “attitude” of literary fiction, its focus on the interiority of is characters, and its leisurely pacing can be tricky to define, much less evoke in one’s own writing. One of the best hacks can be found in scene structure .

Scenes can be divided into two basic parts: action and reaction. These two parts are sometimes referred to as “scene” (action) and “sequel” (reaction), which can then be divided down further into three parts apiece:

Scene (Action) :

• Goal (character wants something)
• Conflict (an obstacle is introduced)
• Outcome (the initial goal is either obstructed or leads to a new goal)

Sequel (Reaction) :

• Reaction (character reacts emotionally to the previous outcome)
• Dilemma (previous outcome has created a new problem)
• Decision (character decides upon new goal)

Stories that emphasize external action usually put more weight upon the action half of the scene. In these stories, sometimes the reaction half may be summarized rather than dramatized to allow the narrative to return to the action as quickly as possible.

Literary stories, however, flip the script. In literary fiction, the reaction or “sequel” is usually more markedly emphasized. The action still happens , just as in any story. Indeed, literary stories can be just as full of war-time explosions, psychopathic murderers, and passionate trysts in the rain as any other type of story. The difference is that the action portion of the scene will not always be heavily dramatized. In some instances, the action may not be dramatized in the story’s “real time” at all, but rather looked back upon from the character’s reaction phase.

For Example: I first noticed the use of this technique when reading Kathryn Magendie’s  Sweetie , about a timid young girl who befriends a feral mountain child. The book’s leisurely emphasis of sequels over scenes takes nothing away from its potency or urgency.

Sweetie by Kathryn Magendie (affiliate link)

Prose in Literary Fiction: When Beauty Is Truth and Truth Is Beauty

Those who love to read literary fiction or want to write it often return to the genre again and again simply for the beautiful artistry of its prose. Although beautiful prose can be found in any genre, it is a necessity in literary fiction. Not only does it help pull readers into a story in which it’s possible that, strictly speaking, not much is happening, it is also an important tool for deepening the story’s thematic exploration.

Readers of literary fiction expect more from the genre than just a good story (although they expect that too). They expect a kind of truth from the prose that is found nowhere more strongly than in poetry. Literary novels are, in their way, like beautiful prose poems. Their word choices are exquisite—every syllable chosen not just for its efficacy, but for its symbolic effect. More than that, the prose creates a mirror that is held up to both our darkest and most beautiful parts. Those mirrors are only clear when the wordcraft has been honed to communicate not just to the readers’ conscious mind, but to the parts of them that exist beyond the words.

For Example:  One of the most gorgeous books ever written, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern evokes its fantasy worldscape through prose that is, as one reviewer put it , “seductive and mysterious.” This is also a wonderful example of a “genre” story that crosses over into literary fiction.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (affiliate link)

More than anything else, literary fiction is a style. It evokes an effect that allows it to explore life itself with a magnifying glass—to go deep in observing the tiniest details and the most tempestuous human experiences. It is a beautiful genre that can be melded with almost any other style to create unforgettable stories that appeal to many different types of readers.

Stay Tuned:  Next week, guest poster Oliver Fox will close out the series by talking about Horror!

Previous Posts in This Series:

• How to Write Fantasy
• How to Write Romance
• How to Write Historical Fiction
• How to Write Mystery

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! What are your thoughts on how to write literary fiction? Tell me in the comments!

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K.M. Weiland is the award-winning and internationally-published author of the acclaimed writing guides Outlining Your Novel , Structuring Your Novel , and Creating Character Arcs . A native of western Nebraska, she writes historical and fantasy novels and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.

Thanks for another wonderful post! This entire series has been helpful to me. I especially appreciate your clear and concise description of “Literary” fiction – a classification that has baffled and, at times, irritated me in the past.

So glad you’ve enjoyed the series!

I typically don’t read or write literary fiction, but I do recall reading some of Patricia MacLachlan’s books when I was eleven or twelve. Her writing style was full of prose, and it inspired me to use more literary elements in my own writing.

Yes, it’s hard to beat a book with beautiful prose.

This article has helped me to see that the elements of my two novels fit into this genre of literary fiction. I appreciate your clarification, despite the “misty” nature of the concept.

I love stories that sort of blur the line over into a more literary style.

Profound, thought-provoking, memorable. Wouldn’t these words all describe literary fiction? We all have our writing goals, and I think most of us want to write exciting best sellers. But I wonder which type of novels are read over and over and treasured on our book shelves, in our minds, and in our hearts? Which novels have we read over and over and passed on to friends and family? In my life there are few such novels. Personally, I think the literary novels create a world where you look forward to visiting everyday in your easy chair. To me, that’s something even better than excitement. That’s enchantment.

Oooo! “Enchantment.” I think you’re exactly right!

Beautifully said!

Thank you for your well thought out, detailed post. When asked what genre I’m writing in I say ‘literary fiction’ but until now I couldn’t have provided a succinct description of what that is. Now I can. 🙂 More importantly, you’ve given me a couple things to contemplate in depth and to use as I work on my novel. Many thanks.

That’s great! Happy writing. 🙂

This is the best article on literary fiction that I’ve found on the web. Seriously. I’m finally certain what “genre” to use when I query. Thanks.

Glad it was helpful! Good luck with the querying.

While I was reading your description of literary fiction, with the strong character focus, and the emphasis on `why’ they act as they do, I thought to myself `hey, maybe this is secretly my genre, and I never knew!’ Then I got to the bit about beautiful prose… Nope, my prose is strictly utilitarian. But I do have a deep appreciation for beautiful writing, and I love a strong focus on characters inner lives, the `why’ behind the `what,’ if you will.

This isn’t to say that only literary fiction emphasizes character. Any genre can choose to spend a lot of exploration on the “why” of things.

I didn’t write anything last week, but I meant to. I found your description of the various types of mysteries succinct and edifying. I am finding all of this series to be interesting and helpful. I usually try not to read literary fiction because in my experience (which I have to admit is limited) it leaves me feeling let down in the end. Maybe it’s way to close to reality. It’s usually ‘haunting’. In my opinion, literary fiction changes you, in a way that commonly called genre fiction does not. Having said that, I think that Daphne du Maurier borders on literary fiction, and I’ve read ‘Rebecca’ many times. I still find it haunting. I consider Anita Shreve to be literary, and her prose is beautiful, and I have re-read some of her books. I’m still angry with Donna Tartt over ‘The Little Friend’. I enjoyed the book, but I am still frustrated by not having a difinitive answer about how Robin died. You get my drift…

Terrific essay, as are most you write. Writers toss around the term literary fiction, claiming that’s what they write, when it’s clear they aren’t. This essay puts it in perspective. I’ve always thought the genre is more concerned with the beauty of prose, the paradoxes in life, the humanity of people with their flaws and near perfections than it is concerned with sales or fitting into a specific genre. A book on what constitutes literary fiction would make a great addition to my reference shelf. Any ideas Ms. Weiland? And don’t tell me to try it. I’m not up to it.

Glad you enjoyed the post, Dennis! I’m not familiar with any particular guide that discusses literary fiction specifically. Perhaps someone else will chime in with a resource?

I was implying you could write one 😉

Hah. You never know. 😉

Thank you so much for this post! I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what genre my WIP is because it mainly focuses on character, theme, and ‘stop and think’ moments though it has plenty of plot too. I now realize that it fits perfectly into the literary fiction category! You did an excellent job in laying everything out so clearly, thanks again!

Literary is such a beautiful genre. It can also be one of the toughest to write, because there are so fewer places to hide than in genre fiction. But when it’s done well, it’s simply magic.

The more I listen to these genre essays, the more I realize that, at least for me, writing is more a continuum than a particular genre. Writing can, and probably should, have elements of many of them. Maybe not all at once, but over the course of a career I think a writer should touch all these bases. That’s the adventure of writing!

Honestly, that’s my preferred experience as well. As I mentioned at the top of the series, I haven’t written much about specific genres in the past, mostly because I don’t really experience stories *as* genres. Genres are, of course, useful when you’re hunting down a particular type of book. But good storytelling is just good storytelling.

I think it was Matt Bird who said literary fiction is about “the workings of fate,” compared to genre stories that are about the hero’s agency. I don’t think this is a hard and fast rule, but an interesting insight nonetheless.

I’ve always loved stories that blend literary theme and style with genre plotting. It’s a spectrum in the sense that stories aren’t just one or the other, but it’s also a tug-of-war because pushing a story in one direction necessarily pulls it away from the other.

Nobody asked for books suggestions but here they are anyway: anything and everything written by Michel Faber (my personal favorite is “The Book of Strange New Things”). He has such a solid, innate sense of structure, so his books *feel* well paced, but they’re totally literary. I think the reason they keep me engaged is because I love character change, and his characters are always changing on every single page. It’s not for no reason he’s my favorite author of all time.

I appreciate that insight as well! I think there is a lot more blurring of the lines between those two approaches these days, and those stories are often some of my favorites.

I went through a phase of reading literary fiction, which I loved. This article describes it so well, everything I appreciated about it but didn’t know how to say. I’m interested in character interiors, and in the truth and beauty aspect of literary fiction. Thanks for this wonderful series.

Truth and beauty. Always. 🙂

Thanks again for a most helpful and interesting post. I can now reevaluate my stories which didn’t seem to fit in anywhere. It’s now another new beginning for me. mikiel

Rise, phoenix, rise!

What makes a work “literature” has always been a bit of a mystery. You made it so clear that I now can’t believe that “what makes a work literature” was ever a question. Your books on writing and this podcast are great! Thank you!

Wow, what a great post! I’ve been struggling to nail down the genre of my current project. It’s heavy on character, theme, and those “stop and think” moments, but it’s got a solid plot too. After reading this, it’s finally clear to me that it fits perfectly into the literary fiction

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Whatever your chosen format as an author – novels, short stories, essays, etc. – trying your hand at others is an excellent writing exercise. Here are six writing formats to consider.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Table of Contents: • Different formats of writing – why try it? 1. Six Word Story 2. Poetry 3. Flash Fiction 4. Short Story 5. News Article 6. Opinion Piece

If you are an author accustomed to writing in one genre, having a go at another can yield useful insights. In the same vein, if you prefer one format, say novels, trying different writing formats, such as short stories, can recalibrate your creative compass and help improve your main focus format.

Are you far enough along in your writing career to know what length of work you excel at most? Trying a few different formats can be helpful and offer great practice if you want to build up to a book-length project.

Different formats of writing – why try it?

If you are set on writing your first book, even a brief foray into shorter format projects can be useful. Learning how to start a story and writing a great book is not at all about the number of words with which you fill your pages. It’s about packing a punch with those words and making readers wish there were more when they get to the last page.

One way to get a feel for how to pack a punch is to experiment with shorter forms of writing. You have no extra words in which to develop characters, unnecessary subplots, or long passages dedicated to atmospheric descriptions of setting. You have no room for tangents.

Especially if it’s not your primary creative writing format, just do some “short-work” as throwaways or exercises. They can be as short as six words – how hard could that be?

1. Six Word Story

Ready to develop your writing skills and learn what it takes to pack in meaning? Try writing a six word story. Getting across a point in so few words is a real challenge. While difficult, shorter can mean you can try more. The ability to experiment mentally like this is invaluable.

In this writing format you literally only have six words to work with. Along with your select words, you can use punctuation to its best advantage. This is a very special format that requires well-developed writing skill. Six-word stories are a lot harder than you think to write. You have to set the stage for a story in fewer words than the length of most sentences.

You need a beginning, middle, end, and ideally a lot of tension. You need to set up and resolve conflict – at least you do to create a memorable six word story. If you want to read some good samples, go to the Six Word Stories website . Even if you don’t write any yourself, reading a bunch of them can hit home for what works and what doesn’t. Any of these stories could be the most distilled versions of books – like yours.

Can you describe your book in six words?

Writing poems is notoriously difficult. Writing poetic prose is almost as taxing. It’s all about word choice, arresting concepts, and few lines.

Are you one for straightforward language that gets the job done, or are you more of a poet at heart in your choice of words? Poetic prose is painstaking to write, and luckily not everyone needs to. Trying a bit of poetry is one way to see the other extreme if you don’t usually work there.

Trying to convey an idea through enriched word choices, no glue words, and a metaphoric narrative that packs an emotional punch can give you a new view on writing the text of your book.

A good poem has a takeaway message. It leaves a wafting emotion in its wake. Poems are not just beautiful, touching, or evocative strings of words. A memorable poem is a verbally expressed concept full of images.

Can a concept in your book be recast as a poem? Do you have parts of your book that offer potential material for poems? That is likely a good thing.

3. Flash Fiction

Flash Fiction lives on the short end of the short story spectrum, defined as “short short stories” or stories between 50 and 2,000 words (some definitions even list it as low as 1,000 words maximum). While still well short of a book, here you can at least use complete sentences in prose writing format.

Nothing hones your sense of logical flow and word choice than trying to pack a complete story into so few words. You need to get across just the essence to make it work.

If you’ve tried to write something this short, you know how much creative information-packing you need to do to produce anything worth reading. You have to be super selective in choosing what ground to cover. You still need a start, middle, and ending, each of which sucks away your word count.

Can you get away with just hints at backstory? Can you let the reader fill in much of the detail? Try chopping down one of the scenes in your book into a short story. Does it work? How might you change it? Do you have a series of short stories in your book or are they all tightly linked together, as a good plot should be?

4. Short Story

A short story has more breathing room than flash fiction, but is essentially the same, just longer. Writing a short story hones the skill of knowing where to dip in and out of a story line. In a short story you really only have room for one key piece of the action. You might find your book idea isn’t weighty enough to carry that big a word count, but honed down, the idea makes a beautiful short story.

Many writers notoriously start with the short story format. Stephen King did, as did Ray Bradbury, and look where it took them. The arc of a short story is easier to keep in your head.

A short story is also good to give to beta readers for feedback. It’s less daunting than a request to read a book draft. It’s also much easier to write a number of short story drafts just as an exercise. Or you can write, polish, and re-polish in the same amount of time it might take you to look over just one chapter in your book.

5. News Article

You might question why fiction writers should try to write nonfiction (or vice versa), but the value of doing it just once is in the comparison of styles. Having to tell a factual story is very different from making one up. Getting the feel of working exclusively with facts can help a fiction writer develop complete details when creating a fictional environment. Plus, well-written news articles have a narrative feel. They often focus on a particular person or place, and the popularity of creative nonfiction is growing.

Another benefit of writing a news article is it forces you to fill in the “five Ws and one H” (the who, what, what, when, where, and how) of your story. Drop any one of them and you leave a pit for the reader to fall into.

While this is crucial in non-fiction, where your aim is to get across the facts, the same holds true in fiction. Though, fiction writers sometimes purposely hold back on one or more of the Ws or your H. Doing so in an artistic manner can be exactly what gives your plot its beauty and intrigue.

You’ll also be forced to flip your usual fiction writing style to put a one sentence summary, or lede (or lead) at the top of your article. Getting these right and still easy to read is an art form in and of itself. It’s basically your article in one sentence, in case your reader gets called away before they digest the whole article.

Can you write a lede for your book?

6. Opinion Piece

This kind of writing style forces you to find (and use) your voice. Opinions are what you want in your books. All your characters will need them, in their own flavors, and the overall book will have a feel to it that is an outreach of your beliefs as an author.

What do you think? What message do you want to send your reader? An opinion piece must be grounded on facts, but the message is all yours to sculpt. In that sense, they are the opposite of news pieces. Instead of withholding your opinion, you are making it the main show.

An opinion piece should be novel, or at least presented in a novel fashion, that is personal to you and not derivative of anyone else’s thinking. It must exhibit original thinking, just like a book or any piece of fiction.

What writing format will you try?

Now that you know some different types of writing formats, which one of these will you try first? There is so much to explore, and on the other end you will only come out a stronger, more diverse writer.

So get to it, you’ve got some writing to do.

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Related Posts Rethink Poetry And Evolve Your Writing How I Launched My Fiction Career By Writing Nonfiction The Fine Art Of Bad Writing Train Yourself To Be A Writer How to Start a Story That Captures a Reader’s Interest

A great place to write flash fiction is at http://www.flashfictionwriting.com . They have a great and growing selection and treat their writers with respect.

I am working on a historical fiction, where at times I use the characters for my “opinion piece” expressing my own opinions in dialogs with the characters becoming my ventriloquial puppets. This is nothing new, for all authors of fiction do it all the time. Only, I must be careful the opinion is convincingly brought out by the characters. Maybe routine work for authors, but a challenge for me!

Thanks, Dawn!

I enjoy the flash fiction listicle format. Writing fiction with headings for each section presents a new creative challenge, similar to the cognitive shuffle thought process used by some insomniacs to get to sleep.

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Five Prose Essentials for First-Time Fiction Writers

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When we discuss how to write fiction, it’s easy to skip over the part we usually learn first: All of the basic conventions for fiction text that readers, agents, and publishers expect. When I edit novel manuscripts, it’s not unusual to find ones with great plot structure but dialogue that isn’t formatted correctly. So, whether you’re new or brushing up on the basics, let’s look at five prose essentials that every fiction writer should know.

1. Well-Formed Paragraphs

The number one thing you can do to make your prose attractive is get your paragraphs right. Paragraph breaks divide the text into manageable, bite-size chunks. This helps readers assess the content at a glance and measure their progress while they read. As a storyteller, you can also use paragraph breaks to great artistic effect.

Marking Paragraph Breaks

It’s vital that readers can easily see where one paragraph ends and the next begins. To that end, you can choose between two different formatting conventions for your paragraphs.

The first convention is more traditional because it’s designed to save paper in print media. Mark when you’re starting a new paragraph by indenting the first line.

Past the trees, a unicorn stood in a sunlight glade. Its fur reflected the forest like threads of a mirror, camouflaging it in green. The unicorn lifted its head to gaze at Jerome.

Jerome paused, lest the slightest sound startle the beast. When it returned to lapping from a nearby spring, he took another step forward.

You don’t need to indent paragraphs that start a chapter, immediately follow a scene break, or don’t follow another paragraph for any other reason. But if you do indent these paragraphs, readers are unlikely to mind.

The second convention is from electronic media, where the cost of paper is not a factor. Instead of using an indent, leave an empty line between paragraphs.

Past the trees, a unicorn stood in a sunlit glade. Its fur reflected the forest like threads of a mirror, camouflaging it in green. The unicorn lifted its head to gaze at Jerome.

Judging Paragraph Size

Once you’ve chosen your convention for marking paragraph breaks, you need to choose where to put them! The most common mistake is letting paragraphs get too big. A medium-sized paragraph should be three to five sentences, but that assumes your sentences aren’t long. My recommendation is to keep paragraphs under 100 words. An average paragraph should be closer to 50 words.

Your paragraphs shouldn’t be uniform in size. Use short paragraphs to make important sentences stand out; this is often helpful during exciting moments. Longer paragraphs are better suited to more contemplative passages.

You can learn more about where to put paragraph breaks by reading Breaking Your Prose in the Right Places .

2. Easy-to-Read Dialogue

After paragraph breaks, the most essential skill is formatting your dialogue. During dialogue, readers have to keep track of which character is saying what, plus any actions a character takes while speaking. Once that’s covered, readers need enough spare brainpower to appreciate the unfolding story. That’s a lot at once, so they rely on dialogue conventions to make it easier.

Paragraph Breaks in Dialogue

The conventional wisdom for dialogue is to add a paragraph break whenever a new character speaks. Unfortunately, this rule is at best simplistic and at worst wrong. A better rule of thumb is to add a break whenever the focus switches to a new character, whether that means they’re speaking, using body language, or taking any other action.

This gives each character their own paragraph, alternating paragraphs between characters. That way, readers can easily tell who is doing what. It also makes the interaction feel more dynamic, especially when a character uses body language instead of speaking. Whether a character says “no” or shakes their head, they still get a paragraph.

I rushed through the door. “Robin, you will not believe what just happened!”

Over at the worktable, Robin glanced back at me. Then they grabbed a bag and shoved all the scraps on the table into it.

“Uh, did I interrupt something?” I asked.

“No.” They were wearing their best innocent expression.

I raised a skeptical brow.

“So what won’t I believe just happened?” Robin prompted.

Dialogue should use the same paragraph format you are using elsewhere, whether that’s indentation or empty lines.

Punctuating and Tagging Dialogue

In American English, the convention is to surround any words that are spoken in double quotes. Along with the words that are spoken, dialogue lines often have a dialogue tag or label. This is a little piece of narration that states someone spoke, such as “Mara said.” The tag should be in the same sentence as the dialogue, so separate the tag and the dialogue with a comma instead of a period.

“I have something for you,” she said.

He said, “What is it?”

In American English, the comma goes before the closing double quotes. Notice that the tag is not capitalized when it comes after the line of dialogue because it isn’t starting a sentence. However, the dialogue line is capitalized regardless because the character is starting a new sentence.

If a tag follows a line of dialogue that ends with a question mark or exclamation point, skip the comma.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Dialogue tags can feel repetitive if they’re used with every line. Luckily, they aren’t the only way to indicate who is speaking. You can also add some body language or another action by the same character. However, if it’s not a dialogue tag, it should be in its own sentence. Add a period and capitalize the next letter.

“I have something for you.” She smiled.

Above, “she smiled” is not a dialogue tag because smiling isn’t speaking. That means a period should go before the closing double quotes and “she” should be capitalized. In contrast, if “smiled” was swapped out with any verb that indicates speech, that would make it a dialogue tag. That includes verbs such as said, asked, replied, stated, continued, whispered, shouted, etc.

If the conversation includes three or more characters, you need to indicate which character is speaking each line. However, for conversations between two characters, you only need to indicate the speaker for the first two paragraphs. After that, as long as the characters alternate paragraphs, readers will know who is speaking. However, periodic reminders are still helpful during long conversations. If nothing else, it will help you keep track of who’s speaking!

For more on tagging dialogue and attributing it to a character gracefully, read Labeling Your Dialogue .

3. Consistent Narration

As a storyteller, you can narrate your story in a variety of ways, but readers expect you to choose a method and stick to it. This creates smooth, consistent narration. The first step in doing that is deciding what type of narration you want. Let’s cover some basic choices.

Choosing Your Narrator

Start by deciding whether you’d like to narrate as one of your characters or as the storyteller.

• Narrating as a character is the most popular option today. This allows for a more intimate look at the inner life of your narrating character. However, you have to be careful not to include any information your character wouldn’t know. They shouldn’t be able to see what’s on the other side of a closed door or read the thoughts of other characters. We call this option limited narration. The narrating character is your viewpoint character.
• Narrating as the storyteller allows you to impart whatever information you want. If you’re already in the habit of imparting factoids the characters are unlikely to know, it might be easier to stay consistent by narrating this way. You can also crack jokes or add commentary your characters wouldn’t make. However, this option keeps important characters at arm’s length, so it often dims the emotions of the story a little. This style is known as omniscient narration.

When done well, these two styles feel very different. To help you choose, let’s look at examples of each.

Limited Narration

Maya stepped into the dark little shop. The air was cool and musty yet smelled like burnt cedar and cinnamon. Shelves of leather tomes lined the walls, and huge cobwebs hung from the ceiling. Were those real, or did the shopkeeper actually make this place danker by putting them there?

The shopkeeper sat behind the counter. He held a book in front of his face as though he were reading, but his narrowed eyes stared straight at Maya. Oh, he had put the cobwebs there, all right.

Omniscient Narration

When Maya stepped into the magic library on Blanesdale Avenue, she believed it to be another gift shop for tourists. But something wasn’t right with this one. The air was cool yet scented with burnt cedar and cinnamon. The place held little more than old leather books, and, most of all, the cobwebs were unnaturally large.

Since the old librarian was failing to discourage her with his patented unblinking stare, Maya assumed he’d bought the cobwebs at a Halloween store. She had never heard of the creatures that actually spun them.

If you’re ready to learn more, you can read our tips on writing close limited or omniscient narration .

Choosing First or Third Person

If you’ve decided to narrate as one of your characters, you have the option to narrate in first person instead of third person. This changes how your viewpoint character refers to themself.

• First person: I wasn’t a fan of mushroom soup, but I kept my mouth shut to avoid angering my brother any further.
• Third person: She wasn’t a fan of mushroom soup, but she kept her mouth shut to avoid angering her brother any further.

Third person is the more traditional choice. It often feels more neutral or objective, whereas first person encourages writers to use a more casual and conversational style. However, both options can convey a wide variety of personalities.

If you would like to use multiple viewpoint characters during the course of the story, third person makes that feel more natural. However, it’s not out of the question in first person.

Choosing Your Tense

Finally, choose whether you’d like to narrate in past tense or present tense. Past tense is the more traditional option, and, because of this, it’s less likely to bother readers. However, present tense usually makes the story feel more immediate and exciting, and it helps keep prose concise.

I slipped on wet leaves and fell hard on the forest floor. My backside throbbing, I stared up at the tangle of tree branches and the darkening sky beyond them. If I didn’t find my way home soon, I would be stranded overnight.

Present Tense

I slip on wet leaves and fall hard on the forest floor. My backside throbbing, I stare up at the tangle of tree branches and the darkening sky beyond them. If I don’t find my way home soon, I’ll be stranded overnight.

Sometimes you’ll need to convey the past relative to the time of the story. If you’re using present tense for most of your narration, you can simply switch to past tense.

Relating the Past In Present Tense

I slip on wet leaves and fall hard on the forest floor. My backside throbbing, I stare up at the darkening sky. Why am I so bad at this? I grew up in these woods. I spent every summer of my childhood gathering herbs and mushrooms. Then I left for the city, and I guess I got rusty.

If you’re already using past tense, transition to previous events with what’s called the past perfect. This means adding the word “had” before the past-participle version of the verb. That sounds complicated, but, if you’re a native English speaker, you probably know the correct verb intuitively.

After you use the past perfect once, you can go back to regular past tense for the rest of the prior events you’re relating. Below, the past perfect tense is in bold.

Relating the Past In PAST Tense

I slipped on wet leaves and fell hard on the forest floor. My backside throbbing, I stared up at the darkening sky. Why was I so bad at this? I had grown up in these woods. I spent every summer of my childhood gathering herbs and mushrooms. Then I left for the city, and I guess I got rusty.

We have more for you to read on the benefits of present tense .

Whichever narration options you choose, work on staying consistent. If you accidentally change the conventions of your narration, it will disrupt the reading experience. For a deeper dive into point of view and narrative conventions, you can read Making the Most of Your Narrative Premise .

4. Clear Character Thoughts

One of the best things about working in a narrated medium is that you can include what your character is thinking. Writers have a couple of standardized ways to express character thoughts that you should use. This helps readers understand which statements are character thoughts and which are regular narration.

Using Direct Thoughts

Direct thoughts sound like lines of dialogue stated by a character in the moment. For this reason, they are always in first-person present tense. This may not match the rest of the narration, so it’s important to clearly mark these thoughts. If they appear to be regular narration, readers will get confused that the tense or pronouns are different.

The convention in fiction is to italicize direct thoughts. Thoughts don’t need to start a new paragraph or be on their own line; they can fit in a paragraph of regular narration.

Direct Thoughts

The sky was getting dark when Jerome started home from the lake. After about fifty paces into the woods, the path he was on disappeared. Crap. Molly is going to have my hide. He took a deep breath and looked for the lake.

Indicating which character is thinking is necessary in some cases. In particular, if you are narrating as an omniscient storyteller, you might narrate the thoughts of any number of characters. Adding a tag helps specify which character is thinking. Punctuate this just like you would with dialogue but with the line of thought in italics instead of quotes.

Direct Thoughts with a Tag

At the lake, Jerome lost track of time. By the time he left, it was already getting dark. Mistaking an animal trail for his path home, he soon found himself stranded in the woods. Crap, Jerome thought. Molly is going to have my hide. He took a deep breath and looked for the lake.

Even if you have a specific viewpoint character, adding a tag can be helpful for the first few times you use direct thoughts. That’s because italics are used for many purposes in fiction writing. A tag makes it unambiguous that they are being used for character thoughts.

Using Indirect Thoughts

If you’re writing from the perspective of a viewpoint character, they can also express their thoughts and feelings through the way they narrate. These thoughts blend seamlessly into the narration rather than calling attention to themselves. This allows writers to include thoughts frequently without interrupting the reading experience. It also allows for more subtlety.

Let’s look at a comparison between direct and indirect thoughts.

direct Thoughts

Maya stepped into the dark little shop. Shelves of leather tomes lined the walls, and huge cobwebs hung from the ceiling. Those can’t be real, she thought. Is the shopkeeper making this place even danker by putting them there?

Indirect Thoughts

Maya stepped into the dark little shop. Shelves of leather tomes lined the walls, and huge cobwebs hung from the ceiling. Were those real, or did the shopkeeper actually make this place danker by putting them there?

Indirect thoughts need to match the surrounding narration as much as possible. They should not be in a different tense or use different pronouns. If readers pick up on a change in style, it will make the narration feel inconsistent.

5. A Good Balance of Scenes and Summary

Including every moment of our characters’ lives would be boring, so fiction writers have lots of conventions for skipping forward through time. However, fast-forwarding also dulls the emotional impact of our stories, so we have to go slow during important moments.

As a storyteller, you need to carefully choose which moments are worth experiencing in full and which should be abbreviated. Usually, you should abbreviate anything boring but necessary – for instance, a character driving between one location and another. Also look for mundane moments like small talk, entering and leaving, or repetitive actions and dialogue. Sometimes, these moments can simply be cut. When that’s unrealistic, you can fast-forward past them.

Don’t fast-forward through moments that are exciting, pivotal to how the story unfolds, or emotionally meaningful. Take your time with those.

Distinguishing Scenes from Summary

In storytelling, a scene is a section of narration that unfolds at a specific time and place. Most moments during a scene should unfold in what we call “real time.” This means the narration has enough detail that reading time is roughly equivalent to the time the event takes in the story. So if a character falls and then gets back on their feet in 10 seconds, it should take the reader about 10 seconds to read that sequence. Don’t worry, precision isn’t necessary here.

In contrast, if a paragraph takes 10 seconds to read and an hour passes in the story, that’s summary. It means story events are effectively in fast-forward. Let’s look at the difference.

The bell rang as the door to the diner opened again. I glanced over and sucked in a breath. That long brown hair, ragged coat… Agatha was here looking for me. I sunk out of sight in my booth and grabbed my things.

Agatha entered the diner looking for me. I grabbed my things and headed for the back exit.

Within a scene, you may still have moments you want to abbreviate. For instance, if your characters are bonding while they clean the house, you probably don’t want to describe every dish that’s rinsed and loaded into the dishwasher. But in general, narrating scenes in real time is how you make important events come alive.

A common mistake is writing prose that moves through scenes too fast. To get a better idea of what this looks like, see Six Signs of Over-Summarized Prose .

Indicating Time Changes

The easiest way to skip forward is to include a transition phrase to mark the passing of time.

• As the day grew late…
• Over the next several weeks…
• By the time they were finished chopping wood, the sun was down.
• He waited for another day but received no answer.
• I spent the next hour trying my luck, but…

However, if you’re only summarizing a few moments within a scene, this may not be necessary. Let’s say two of your characters are in a conversation. One of the characters needs to recount something readers have already witnessed. You don’t want to bore them by repeating it.

Skipping Over Dialogue

Maya rubbed her temples. “Not again.”

“What do you mean, not again?” Jerome asked.

Maya told him about everything that had happened that day, from missing the bus to fleeing a demonic goldfish.

“Wow,” Jerome said when she was finished. “That sounds miserable.”

Even when the time jump is small, it’s still a significant change in your narration. For this reason, you need to mark it with a break. Adding a break alerts readers that the narration will change, giving them a smoother experience.

If you are only skipping past 10 minutes, a paragraph break should be enough. If you are skipping more time or changing the location, a scene break could be called for. To mark a change in scene, leave three lines blank. Often, writers put three asterisks in the center of the middle line.

Scene Break

It was too late to pretend nothing had happened. Wiping away tears, Robin stepped out the door and shut it behind them.

The next day, Robin rose before the sun was up.

Chapter breaks are also a good way to divide up your narration. If you are making an unusually large time jump between scenes, considering starting a new chapter. Chapters in fiction writing are very flexible; they are typically as short as five pages or as long as sixty. Some books have much shorter chapters than others.

Getting the little things right will make your prose easier to read and help it look more professional. And when the prose looks good, readers are more positive about the story too.

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Comments on Five Prose Essentials for First-Time Fiction Writers

Note that rules for formatting a manuscript (e.g. for submission to a magazine) differ from the rules for the final version of that text (whether that’s in print or on a website). For example, a manuscript should always use tabs to separate paragraphs (not extra space) and even the first paragraph in a section should be indented. Section breaks are typically marked with a symbol (“#” or “* * *”) instead of just blank space.

Google “Shunn manuscript format” for a guide that applies to nearly every SFF magazine.

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The 14 Most Popular Types of Fiction to Write

POSTED ON Aug 29, 2023

Written by P.J McNulty

So you’ve decided you want to become a fiction writer. Congratulations! It’s one of the most enjoyable creative pursuits out there. The world needs more fiction, and it’s a better time than ever before to start, thanks to the ease of self-publishing. But there are so many types of fiction – so what if you don’t know exactly what to write?

It’s more common than you might think to have a desire to write a fiction book without knowing exactly what type. If that sounds like you, don’t worry! In fact, it’s great that you’re taking the time to stop and make a conscious choice.

Exploring the various types of fiction you may wish to write prevents you from one of the major writing sins – trying to write something that is aimed at everyone. If you attempt that, you’ll likely end up writing something confusing that pleases no one at all!

These days, there are more types of fiction than ever before, with a whole list of book genres and subgenres springing up seemingly all the time. That’s a good thing, as it provides readers with huge amounts of choice and exactly what they’re looking for. 

While it would be impossible to cover all the types of fiction out there, today we will cover some of the major types of fiction you can consider for your next novel. Before we get into the types of fiction specifically, let's make sure you have a good understanding of fiction books on the whole.

This Guide to the Types of Fiction Covers:

What does the phrase “types of fiction” refer to.

When we talk about types of fiction, we are talking about one of two major ways to categorize novels and short stories that aren't factual events. You can categorize types of fiction by genre, or the age of the reader they are intended for. Knowing both classifications is useful, as your story will most likely combine them.

For example, you might want to write sci-fi for young adults, or historical fiction for adult readers.

There are other ways fiction can be categorized, such as its mood and tone, the decade in which it was written, the geographical location of its author, or whether it belongs to a particular artistic movement. These are all valid but they won’t be the focus of this article. 

Instead, we’ll explore some of the most popular parent genres of fiction as well as the major age ranges writers choose to target. 

14 Popular Types of Fiction

As stated earlier, this list of fiction genres is by no means exhaustive. Instead, it is intended as an overview. If you find types of fiction that pique your interest, by all means jump on Goodreads or Amazon and delve deep into its more obscure subgenres! Here are 14 of the most common types of fiction you can write:

1. Contemporary fiction

Contemporary fiction refers to fictional stories that revolve around realistic events set in (or close to) the present. This stands in contrast to historical fiction or that set in the past. 

A contemporary novel is intended to be grounded in the real world, avoiding anything that could be construed as fantasy or sci-fi (see below). It will often refer to contemporary events, brands, and people and is usually easy to modern readers to relate to. 

2. Historical fiction

Historical fiction is exactly what it sounds like – a story set in a past time period. Historical fiction is often intended to shine a light on the ways in which societies and nations operated in decades and centuries past. Often, historical fiction will attempt to humanize a major historical event, such as love stories set during famous wars.

Historical fiction requires a good level of research and familiarity with the time period to be convincing and effective. It also requires writers to strike a balance between sharing historical detail and providing a gripping and moving human story. 

Readers have always had a taste for tales that terrify and scare. Some of the most-loved classics are horror stories, and horror continues to be very popular to this day. Just consider the colossal success of Stephen King if you need convincing.

Horror readers expect to be scared or the book simply isn’t worth it from their perspective. You should therefore know how to create and sustain tension as well as the types of events that are likely to induce a feeling of fear. 

Related: How to Write a Horror Story

Fantasy is one of the most popular genres of fiction out there. Fantasy readers have a long lineage of great writing to draw on, from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to the more recent success of the Harry Potter series.

Fantasy can also be broken down further into two types of fiction: high fantasy vs low fantasy .

Writing a good fantasy novel requires strong powers of imagination and the ability to create captivating worlds that live long in the minds of readers.

Related: Best Fantasy Book Series Related: How to Make a Fantasy World Map

5. Literary fiction

Literary fiction is a highbrow type of writing that tends to please critics more than the average reader. This type of fiction draws on literary techniques and artistic themes to create books that are as much about skill and intellectual showcasing as they are story and character. 

Literary fiction doesn’t sell as many copies as other genres of fiction. However, there will always be a readership for it, as certain readers and critics alike are satisfied by nothing less than writing with intellectual depth and substance. 

6. Mystery/Thriller

Books that take readers along for a gripping ride through murder and mystery will always do well. Classic whodunnits such as Agatha Christie novels through to contemporary, gritty Nordic noir stories please critics and readers alike.

There are so many subgenres of mystery and thriller that in order to learn how to write a mystery series successfully, you need to know exactly what type of mystery you are writing. This allows you to hit all the right notes and give the readers what they expect and want. 

Romance is one of the bestselling types of fiction out there and that probably won’t change any time soon. Romantic fiction can exist anywhere along the spectrum from sweet and family-friendly to spicy and steamy erotica. 

At its core, no matter which of the infinite subgenres it takes the form of, a romance story usually involves two people falling in love or lust and overcoming the obstacles that stand in their way. If you want the chance to carve out serious commercial success, mastering a subgenre of romance is one of the surest paths to take. 

8. Science Fiction

Sci-fi has always been a few steps ahead of reality, allowing readers to discover amazing concepts and mind-blowing technologies while also enjoying a gripping plot. 

Sci-fi has a huge range of subgenres, such as hard science fiction , military sci-fi, and sci-fi that borrows heavily from the world of horror or fantasy. If you are fascinated by the chance to explore the possibilities of technology and the universe, sci-fi could be the right type of fiction for you.

Fiction set during times of conflict has fascinated readers ever since the time of Greek mythology – and even before. War fiction is a great way of humanizing conflicts and exploring the personal and interpersonal impact such events have. 

War fiction can focus on real wars that took place, or imaginary conflicts. One major advantage of writing war fiction is that it has inherent levels of dramatic tension thanks to the possibility of death and loss. However, if you want to write war fiction, make sure to do so sensitively. It’s a subject that can easily offend people if portrayed inaccurately. 

10. Westerns

Books featuring cowboys are one of the iconic types of fiction. Although westerns are perhaps less popular than they were in their heyday, their archetypes and tropes are so firmly embedded in our culture that they’re unlikely to ever truly vanish.

Western books are often combined with other types of fiction, such as romantic tales, or even a sci-fi twist. 

11. Picture books

Now we will move into types of fiction not defined by fiction genres, but by reader age groups. Picture books are for the youngest readers who may be just grasping the concept of language and basic vocabulary.

Needless to say, your story should not contain a large number of words if you intend it to learn how to write a children's picture book. Simple stories suited to visual telling and age-appropriate subjects are essential here. 

12. Children’s books

Books for younger readers will always be popular. Sadly, many children end up losing their love of reading as they grow older. But thanks to schools mandating reading, and summer library reading challenges, many people will at least enjoy a period of time where they read regularly. 

If you want to write for children, make sure to research the level of language, length of book, and type of subject matter that is suitable for the specific age group you hope will read your work.

13. Young adult books

Some of the most exciting books of recent decades fall under the young adult fiction category and are enjoyed even by older readers. The Hunger Games is but one example. 

If this is the age group you’re aiming at, pick a genre and try and read at least ten books aimed at young adults. Choose a mixture of classics and contemporary favorites. This will give you a solid grounding in what this age group is seeking from a book.

14. Adult books

Adult books are often categorized as a single age category. On the one hand, this makes sense. A lover of horror is likely to enjoy Stephen King whether they are in the college dorms or the retirement home lounge. However, if you know the type of book you want to write is enjoyed by a younger or older subset of adult readers, you may wish to adjust your characters, language, and cultural references accordingly.

You can use more difficult language and themes of violence, drugs, and sex more liberally in adult books.

Choose the Type of Fiction Meant for You!

Now that you have an idea of the most popular type of fiction, it's time to get to writing! Read some books in the genre of your choice to get acquainted with the style, and then set your fingers to that keyboard. If you're still not sure what type of fiction is right for you, take our free Author DNA Quiz below to learn about your unique writing style.

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Fiction Writing Basics

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

This resource discusses some terms and techniques that are useful to the beginning and intermediate fiction writer, and to instructors who are teaching fiction at these levels. The distinction between beginning and intermediate writing is provided for both students and instructors, and numerous sources are listed for more information about fiction tools and how to use them. A sample assignment sheet is also provided for instructors. This resource covers the basics of plot, character, theme, conflict, and point-of-view.

Plot is what happens in a story, but action itself doesn’t constitute plot. Plot is created by the manner in which the writer arranges and organizes particular actions in a meaningful way. It’s useful to think of plot as a chain reaction, where a sequence of events causes other events to happen.

When reading a work of fiction, keep in mind that the author has selected one line of action from the countless possibilities of action available to her. Trying to understand why the author chose a particular line of action over another leads to a better understanding of how plot is working in a story

This does not mean that events happen in chronological order; the author may present a line of action that happens after the story’s conclusion, or she may present the reader with a line of action that is still to be determined. Authors can’t present all the details related to an action, so certain details are brought to the forefront, while others are omitted.

The author imbues the story with meaning by a selection of detail. The cause-and-effect connection between one event and another should be logical and believable, because the reader will lose interest if the relation between events don’t seem significant. As Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren wrote in Understanding Fiction , fiction is interpretive: “Every story must indicate some basis for the relation among its parts, for the story itself is a particular writer’s way of saying how you can make sense of human experience.”

If a sequence of events is merely reflexive, then plot hasn’t come into play. Plot occurs when the writer examines human reactions to situations that are always changing. How does love, longing, regret and ambition play out in a story? It depends on the character the writer has created.

Because plot depends on character, plot is what the character does. Plot also fluctuates, so that something is settled or thrown off balance in the end, or both. Traditionally, a story begins with some kind of description that then leads to a complication. The complication leads up to a crisis point where something must change. This is the penultimate part of the story, before the climax, or the most heightened moment of a story.

In some stories, the climax is followed by a denouement, or resolution of the climax. Making events significant in plot begins with establishing a strong logic that connects the events. Insofar as plot reveals some kind of human value or some idea about the meaning of experience, plot is related to theme.

Character can’t be separated from action, since we come to understand a character by what she does. In stories, characters drive the plot. The plot depends on the characters' situations and how they respond to it. The actions that occur in the plot are only believable if the character is believable. For most traditional fiction, characters are divided into the following categories:

• Protagonist : the main or central character or hero (Harry Potter)
• Antagonist : opponent or enemy of the protagonist (Dark Lord Voldemort)
• Foil Character : a character(s) who helps readers better understand another character, usually the protagonist. For example in the Harry Potter series, Hermione and Ron are Harry's friends, but they also help readers better understand the protagonist, Harry. Ron and Hermione represent personalities that in many ways are opposites - Ron is a bit lazy and insecure; Hermione is driven and confident. Harry exists in the middle, thus illustrating his inner conflict and immaturity at the beginning of the book series.

Because character is so important to plot and fiction, it’s important for the writer to understand her characters as much as possible. Though the writer should know everything there is to know about her character, she should present her knowledge of the characters indirectly, through dialogue and action. Still, sometimes a summary of a character’s traits needs to be given. For example, for characters who play the supporting cast in a story, direct description of the character’s traits keeps the story from slowing down.

Beginning and intermediate level writers frequently settle for creating types, rather than highly individualized, credible characters. Be wary of creating a character who is a Loser With A Good Heart, The Working Class Man Who Is Trapped By Tough Guy Attitudes, The Lonely Old Lady With A Dog, etc. At the same time, keep in mind that all good characters are, in a sense, types.

Often, in creative writing workshops from beginning to advanced levels, the instructor asks, “Whose story is this?” This is because character is the most important aspect of fiction. In an intermediate level workshop, it would be more useful to introduce a story in which it is more difficult to pick out the main character from the line-up. It provides an opportunity for intermediate level fiction writers to really explore character and the factors that determine what is at stake, and for whom.

Conflict depends on character, because readers are interested in the outcomes of people’s lives, but may be less interested in what’s at stake for a corporation, a bank, or an organization. Characters in conflict with one another make up fiction. Hypothetically, a character can come into conflict with an external force, like poverty, or a fire. But there is simply more opportunity to explore the depth and profundity in relationships between people, because people are so complex that conflict between characters often gets blurred with a character’s conflict with herself

The short story, as in all literary forms, including poetry and creative nonfiction, depends on the parts of the poem or story or essay making some kind of sense as a whole. The best example in fiction is character. The various aspects of a character should add up to some kind of meaningful, larger understanding of the character. If the various aspects of a character don’t add up, the character isn’t believable. This doesn’t mean that your characters have to be sensible. Your characters may have no common sense at all, but we have to understand the character and why she is that way. The character’s motives and actions have to add up, however conflicted, marginalized or irrational they may be.

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Guides • Perfecting your Craft

Posted on May 17, 2021

What is a Short Story? Definitions and Examples

A short story is a form of fiction writing defined by its brevity . A short story usually falls between 3,000 and 7,000 words — the average short story length is around the 5,000 mark. Short stories primarily work to encapsulate a mood, typically covering minimal incidents with a limited cast of characters — in some cases, they might even forgo a plot altogether.   

Many early-career novelists have dabbled in the form and had their work featured in literary magazines and anthologies. Others, like Raymond Carver and Alice Munro, have made it their bread and butter. From “starter” short story writers to short story experts, there’s an incredible range of short stories out there.

In this series of guides, we'll be looking into short stories and showing you how any writer can write a powerful piece of short fiction — and even get it published. But before we get into the weeds, let's look at a few examples to demonstrate the range and flexibility of this form.

What short story should you read next?

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Broadly speaking, you could answer the question of "what is a short story" in a few ways, starting with the most obvious.

A classic short narrative

Though short stories must inherently be concise pieces of writing, they often incorporate elements of the novel to retain a similar impact. A ‘classic short narrative’ is the most story-telling-by-the-numbers that a short story can get — the plot will imitate long-form fiction by having a defined exposition, escalating rising action , a climax, and a resolution.

Short stories do differ from longer prose works in some respects: they’re unlikely to contain a huge cast of characters, multiple points of view , or successive climaxes like those found in novellas and novels. But despite these cuts, if the author does their job right, a ‘classic’ short story will be just as affecting and memorable as a novel — if not more so.

Example #1: “Speaking in Tongues” by ZZ Packer

Tia, disillusioned with her strict Pentecostal upbringing in a sleepy Southern town, escapes her great-aunt’s clutches to find her mother in Atlanta. This story starts with a classic expository beat — Tia at school, flicking through a religious textbook, dreaming of another life. This is followed by a crisis: Tia travels by bus to the big city, befriends a man on the street, and goes to stay with him, only to learn that he is a drug dealer and a pimp. Eventually, Tia returns home to her great-aunt. In all, it’s a sensitive story about the vulnerability of youth and the longing for family.

As short stories go, “Speaking In Tongues” has a pretty impressive narrative. You can see how the premise and plot could work as a longer piece of fiction, but they pack even more of a punch in this shorter form.

A vignette is a short story that presents a neatly packaged moment in time, usually in quite a technically accomplished fashion. ‘Vignette’ is French word more frequently used to signify a small portrait, but in a literary sense, it means “a brief evocative description, account, or episode”. This could be of a person, event or place. 

Fleetingness is at the crux of a vignette short story. For that reason, it is likely to be heavy on description, light on plot. You might find a particularly embellished description of a character or setting, often with a strong dose of symbolism that corresponds with a central theme.

Example #2: “Viewfinder” by Raymond Carver

“Viewfinder” has a simple premise: a traveling photographer takes a photo of the narrator’s house, sells it to him on his doorstep, and is invited in for coffee. The story emphasizes feelings of loneliness that come to the fore in their interaction, captured brilliantly by Carver’s unadorned writing style. Tales like this that attribute importance to the mundane are arguably best served by a concise form as Carver's fascination with banal events could have become repetitive and rudderless in a longer piece of work.

Many critics agree that no one writes the American working classes quite like Carver. His stories chronicle the everyday experiences of Midwestern men and women eking out a living then fish, play cards, and shoot the breeze as life passes them by. It won Carver immense critical acclaim in his lifetime and is a great example of short-form writing that emphasizes mood rather than plot.

An anecdote

An anecdote recounted to friends is most successful when it’s pacey, humorous, and has a quick crescendo. The same can be said of short stories that capitalize on this storytelling device. 

Anecdotal stories take on a more conversational tone and are more meandering in style, in contrast to the directness of other short stories and flash fiction . It can have a conventional story structure, like the classic short narrative, or it may focus on a particular stylistic recounting of an event. Basically, an anecdote allows a writer to have fun with the way a story is told — though exactly how it unfolds remains important too.

Example #3: “We Love You Crispina” by Jenny Zhang

Zhang’s 2017 short story collection Sour Heart chronicles the rough-and-tumble lives of recently immigrated Chinese-American living in downtown Manhattan. The stories in this collection are told from the perspectives of children, and the narrative takes full advantage of the impish, filterless way in which children relate their own experiences to themselves and others.

In “We Love You Crispina”, young Christina’s life in a crowded Washington Heights tenement block is refracted through her naive, contradictory understandings of the world. Her parents are struggling to get a leg up and are contemplating sending her back to Shanghai — but Christina is more concerned with how the bed bugs in their cramped apartment are making her itchy, and dissecting the interactions she has in the school playground. It’s a wonderfully nuanced exercise in contrast, as well as a reminder of what feels most important to us when we’re small, rendered potently through Christina’s 'anecdotal' voice.

An experiment with genre  

Short stories, by nature, are more flexible pieces of fiction that aren’t wedded to the diktat of longer-form fiction. It means they can play around with and challenge the expectations of a genre’s expected conventions, in a relatively ‘low stakes’ way compared to a full-blown novel. 

Oftentimes, an experiment won’t be a complete reinvention of the genre. Instead, one might find a refreshing twist on a classic trope — or, as in the example below, upping the ante and taking a genre to heights it has never been before.

Example #4: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor

This short story sent shock waves through the American literary establishment when it was first published in 1953. It follows a Southern family on a road trip to visit the children’s grandmother — who end up crashing their car and happening upon a mysterious group of men. I won’t spoil the rest for you, but one word of warning: don’t expect a happy ending.

“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” incorporates common themes of Southern gothic literature , like religious imagery, and — surprise surprise — characters meeting a gruesome demise, but its controversial final scene marks it out. The macabre detail was shocking to audiences at the time but is now held up as a stellar example of the genre (and also exemplifies how a well-executed bit of subversion can become the golden standard in literature!). You might want to sleep with one eye open after reading this, but that’s half the point, right?

An exercise in extreme brevity

How many words do you actually need to tell a great story? If you were to ask that to someone who writes flash fiction , they tell you "fewer than 1,000 words."

The defining element that sets flash fiction apart from the standard-issue short story — other than word count — is that much more needs to be implied, rather than said upfront. Flash fiction, and especially mega-short microfiction, perfectly embody this principle of inference, which itself derives from Ernest Hemingway ’s Iceberg Theory of story development.

Example #5 “Curriculum” by Sejal Shah

“ Curriculum ”, clocking in at exactly 500 words, is a great sampling of the emotional, personal language that appears frequently in flash fiction. A handkerchief, some cream cloth, and a pair of glasses become important symbols around which Shah contemplates identity and womanhood, in the form of a series of questions that follow her descriptions of the objects.

This kind of deliberate, highly considered structure ensures that Shah’s flash fiction makes a razor-sharp point, whilst also allowing for a contemplative tone that transcends the words on the page. When done well, this style of short fiction can be a greater-than-expected vehicle for thoughtful comments on a range of issues.

If you’re in the mood to read more around the form, check out our picks for the 31 best short stories .

As you can see, the short story is an art form on its own that requires deftness, clarity, and a strong grasp of how to make an economy of words compelling and innovative. If you’re feeling ready to write a short story of your own, proceed to the next post in this series.

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What does a fiction writer do?

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What is a Fiction Writer?

A fiction writer creates stories that are imagined, rather than based on real events or facts. They use their creativity and literary skills to develop characters, plotlines, settings, and themes that capture the readers' attention and emotions. Fiction writers may write in a variety of genres, such as romance, science fiction, mystery, horror, historical, or fantasy. They may also explore different formats, such as novels, novellas, short stories, or flash fiction.

To be a successful fiction writer, one needs to possess strong writing skills, including the ability to create compelling and believable characters, develop a captivating plot, and write in a style that engages and entertains readers. Fiction writers also need to have a vivid imagination, the ability to think creatively and critically, and a deep understanding of human nature and society. They must be dedicated to their craft, willing to spend countless hours researching, writing, editing, and revising their work to achieve their vision. Additionally, many fiction writers have a unique voice and perspective that sets them apart from other writers and attracts a devoted fanbase.

What does a Fiction Writer do?

Fiction writers shape our cultural and intellectual landscape. Through their works, they provide a window into the human experience, exploring complex themes such as love, loss, identity, and social justice. They challenge our assumptions, broaden our perspectives, and encourage empathy and understanding for people and cultures that are different from our own. Fiction writers also inspire and entertain us, transporting us to new worlds, and introducing us to fascinating characters that we may never meet in real life.

Duties and Responsibilities As a fiction writer, your primary responsibility is to create engaging and compelling stories that captivate readers and transport them to new worlds. However, there are a variety of other duties and responsibilities that come with being a fiction writer. Here are some of the most important ones:

• Crafting a story: Your primary responsibility is to craft a story that is engaging, interesting, and well-written. You need to create characters that readers care about, develop a plot that keeps them turning pages, and write in a style that is enjoyable to read.
• Research: Depending on the type of fiction you are writing, you may need to do extensive research to ensure that your story is accurate and believable. This can include everything from historical research to scientific research.
• Editing and revising: Once you have written your first draft, you will need to spend time editing and revising your work. This can involve rewriting entire chapters, cutting out unnecessary scenes or dialogue, and making sure your writing flows smoothly.
• Marketing: As a fiction writer, you will need to spend time marketing your work. This can include building an online presence, attending book signings and other events, and networking with other writers and industry professionals.
• Time management: Writing a novel or other long-form piece of fiction can be a time-consuming process. As a writer, it is your responsibility to manage your time effectively and make sure you are making progress on your project.
• Meeting deadlines: If you are working with a publisher or editor, you will need to meet deadlines for submitting your work. This requires a strong sense of discipline and a commitment to staying on track with your writing schedule.
• Continuing education: As a writer, it is important to continue learning and growing in your craft. This can involve attending writing workshops or conferences, taking online courses, or simply reading widely to improve your writing skills.

Types of Fiction Writers There are many types of fiction writers, and individuals can fall into more than one category. Here are some common types:

• Literary Fiction Writers: These writers focus on crafting complex prose that explores the depths of human emotion and challenges readers' assumptions. They may not fit neatly into any one genre, instead preferring to focus on character development and exploring themes such as identity, love, loss, and the human condition.
• Genre Fiction Writers: These writers specialize in specific genres, such as science fiction, romance, fantasy, horror, or mystery. They focus on crafting stories that fit within the genre's conventions and often have a strong fan base. They may use common tropes and archetypes but still create unique characters and worlds that appeal to their readership.
• Young Adult (YA) Fiction Writers: These writers create stories specifically aimed at a teenage audience. They often explore issues such as identity, coming of age, and first love, but can also tackle heavier topics such as mental health, trauma, and social justice. The stories may contain a strong moral or ethical message and are often told through the eyes of a young protagonist.
• Children's Fiction Writers: These writers create stories that are tailored to children's age groups and reading levels. Picture books for younger children often focus on simple themes and use colorful illustrations to engage young readers. Middle-grade novels may explore more complex issues while still maintaining a sense of fun and wonder.
• Historical Fiction Writers: These writers create stories set in the past, often focusing on real historical events and figures. They must balance historical accuracy with engaging storytelling and may use a blend of fact and fiction to create a compelling narrative.
• Romance Writers: These writers focus on crafting stories centered around romantic relationships. The stories may be set in any time period or genre and may have different levels of steaminess depending on the sub-genre. The focus is often on the characters' emotional journey as they navigate the ups and downs of falling in love.
• Crime Fiction Writers: These writers specialize in crime fiction and may focus on creating detective or police procedural stories, thrillers, or mysteries. The focus is often on solving a crime or catching a villain, but the stories can also explore the human emotions and ethical questions that arise in the pursuit of justice.
• Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers: These writers create stories set in fictional worlds and often include elements of magic, science, or technology. They may explore dystopian or utopian societies, alternate timelines, or parallel universes. The stories often reflect on the human condition and explore ethical questions related to the use of technology or magic.
• Screenwriters : These writers create scripts for film or television, often adapting existing novels or creating original stories specifically for the screen. They must consider the limitations of the medium and craft a visual story that engages the audience and fits within the constraints of the production.
• Short Story Writers: These writers focus on crafting shorter pieces of fiction that may be published in literary magazines or anthologies. The stories may explore a single theme or idea and often leave the reader with a sense of ambiguity or open-endedness. The focus is often on creating a powerful emotional impact in a small amount of space.

What is the workplace of a Fiction Writer like?

The workplace of a fiction writer can vary widely depending on their individual preferences and lifestyle. Many writers work from home, using their computer or notebook to craft their stories. They may have a dedicated workspace, such as a home office or a corner of their living room, where they can work uninterrupted. Some writers prefer to work in public spaces such as coffee shops or libraries, where they can people-watch and soak up the atmosphere.

Other writers may rent a dedicated workspace, such as a shared office or a co-working space, where they can collaborate with other writers and creatives. This type of workspace can provide a sense of community and help writers stay motivated and accountable.

Regardless of where they work, fiction writers often spend long hours alone, focusing on their craft. They may spend hours researching, outlining, and editing their stories before even beginning to write. Once they begin the actual writing process, they may work for several hours straight or take frequent breaks to refresh their creativity.

One of the biggest challenges for fiction writers is maintaining discipline and motivation. Since writing is often a solitary pursuit, it can be difficult to stay on track and meet deadlines without external accountability. Many writers use tools such as timers or productivity apps to help them stay focused and make progress on their work.

Despite the challenges, many fiction writers find the process of creating a story deeply rewarding. They have the freedom to explore their creativity and imagination, and to craft stories that resonate with readers on a deep emotional level. While the actual work of writing can be challenging, the end result is often a work of art that has the power to transport readers to new worlds and inspire them in countless ways.

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Pasco-Hernando State College

• Fiction - Types of Fiction
• The Writing Process
• Paragraphs and Essays
• Unity and Coherence in Essays
• Proving the Thesis/Critical Thinking
• Appropriate Language
• Glossary of Literary Terms
• History of Literature
• How to Read Literature
• Appropriate Language - Literature
• Fiction - Plot and Theme
• Fiction - Character
• Fiction - Point of View
• Fiction - Figures of Speech
• Fiction - Irony
• Fiction - Setting
• Fiction - Symbols

Terms Related to Types of Fiction

a style of writing generally used in a variety of settings for communication and record keeping and characterized by non-poetic elements; follows standard grammar and other conventions of writing

biography  –

a factual story written about a person by a another person

autobiography  –

a factual story written by a person on his or her own life

the actual events

narrative  –

a story or poem about a sequence of event

travel narrative  –

a narrative about a journey usually written by the person about his or her own journey

capture narrative  –

a journal kept by a person who was captured and held against his or her will and forced to live in another culture; generally associated with stories white people have written about being captured and living with the Indians in early American history

anecdotes  –

short, amusing, true events about a person that relate a bigger truth about life than the specific incident

parables  –

a short tale used for teaching a lesson

a short tale used for teaching a lesson which uses animals, objects, or nature

beast fable  –

a fable that has animals with human qualities as characters

folk tales  –

stories or legends that are about or from a culture or group of people (folk)

fairy  tales  –

stories that include supernatural creatures such as fairies or magicians

a narrative that involves conflict on a broad scale with humans of special stature or ability fighting a battle or having an adventure whose outcome will impact the world beyond the participants; often includes gods

a traditional story which explains the world and existence of humans usually as part of a cluster of such stories and which is a reflection of a religious belief system

picaresque  –

a story about a rogue

short story  –

a fictional story that is shorter than a novel; usually begins near climax; setting is generally limited, and characters are few and less developed than novel; often includes an epiphany (where a character has a flash of insight)

modern short story  –

a short story characterized by an apparent lack of action or conflict and/or without resolution

short-short story  –

a short story from a paragraph to a page or so in length; less than 1500 words; includes flash fiction and micro fiction; also called sudden fiction

flash fiction  –

a type of short story less than 1000 words

micro fiction  –

a type of short-short story ranging from a few words to a paragraph of less than 250 words

sudden fiction  –

a type of short story of less than 1500 words; another way of referring to the short-short story

a longer piece of fiction characterized by more plot and character development than a short story

a piece of fiction shorter than a novel and longer than a short story; usually thought of as a short novel

metafiction  –

writings about fiction

stream-of-consciousness  –

a style of writing meant to convey written-down thoughts

a fiction which includes some aspect or situation that does not fall into the understood rules of physics, scientific possibility, or reality

science fiction  –

a type of fantasy that includes unreal scientific technology or events

horror fiction  –

a type of fiction that includes an event or events that are very frightening and which may include fantasy or science fiction

crime fiction  –

a type of fiction whose plot revolves around solving a crime

as a literary genre, romance fiction began in the Middle Ages and involved high adventure of noble heroes often with super-human qualities pursuing a righteous quest, included some supernatural aspect, and did not necessarily involve a love situation. The modern usage or the term is a fiction which includes a romantic element.

pastoral romance  –

a romance which focuses on the pleasures of the simple, rural life

chivalric  romance  –

a romance popular from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance involving the romantic exploits of chivalric heroes, men who abided by the Code of Chivalry

pop fiction  –

a type of fiction with exciting or thrilling plots designed for popular audiences characterized by suspenseful plots, usually flat characters, and focus on a swift-moving action

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A Glossary of Fiction Writing Terms

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When writing a work of fiction, regardless of its length, it is important to include certain elements to make it more dynamic. Several of these fiction writing elements—fiction writing terms—are found in the following glossary. Although Scribendi has an extensive glossary of general writing terms, this one is specific to fiction writing terms and is therefore geared toward authors and writers. For an author, fiction writing terms are important because they provide the tools necessary to make the most out of a literary work. By being aware of certain terms specific to fiction writing, authors will be able to get a better idea of what they should include in their fiction writing, which will then allow them to make their stories more vibrant and appeal to a wider audience. The following is a glossary of terms specific to fiction writing.           

A | C | D | E | F | H | I | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | W

a narrative technique in which characters represent things or abstract concepts to convey a message or to teach a lesson. Allegory is usually used to teach moral, ethical, or religious lessons, but it can also be used for satiric or political purposes. An allegory is a symbolic representation, or expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions, of truths or generalizations about human existence. In fiction, an allegory is often a symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning and in which the characters represent moral qualities.

Example: In The Pilgrim's Progress , by John Bunyan, the journey of the main character is an allegory for the Christian life.

Alliteration:

a series of words in a sentence all beginning with the same sound.

Examples: Cassie casually caressed the carefree cat; the Wicked Witch of the West went on her way to work; she sells seashells down by the seashore; Tim thought that Tammy was tired today.

Antagonist:

the main character in a work of fiction who comes into conflict with the protagonist (hero or heroine). Note that the antagonist does not always have to be a character; it could be a thing or a situation (a monster, a storm, a flood, etc.).

Example: Bob Ewell, in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird , is a malevolent antagonist.

using words that have the same or very similar vowel sounds near one another (as in "summer fun" and "rise high in the bright sky"); vowels are repeated but consonants are not; popular in poetry and prose.

featured in a story and used as a medium to communicate/interact with the reader; he or she is given a specific attitude or attitudes, appearance, name, etc. to direct a storyline. Characters can be major or minor and static (unchanging) or dynamic (capable of change).

Characterization:

the method used by a writer to make a character in a story seem like a real person. Common ways for writers to illustrate characters is through their speech, dress, actions, and mannerisms.

the moment of greatest intensity in a work of fiction; the most exciting and important part of a story, usually occurring at or near the end. The climax is the turning point in the action.

Example: The climax of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet occurs when Romeo, seeing Juliet's body and thinking she is dead, kills himself; then, when Juliet wakes up and sees that Romeo is dead, she kills herself.

Complication:

a situation or detail of a character that complicates the main thread of a plot. A complication builds up and develops the primary or central conflict in a literary work.

a struggle, disagreement, or difference between opposing forces in a literary work, usually resolved by the end of the work.

Connotation:

in a literary work, an idea or quality that a word makes you think about in addition to its dictionary definition; an implication that goes beyond the actual meaning of a word. Connotations can be positive (childlike [innocent, happy], dove [peaceful] or negative (chicken [cowardly]).

Example: Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" A summer's day connotes beauty.

Convention:

a traditional or common style often used in literature, theater, or art to create a particular effect.

Example: romantic conventions (characteristics of romantic literature) include the following:

– Imagination and emotion

– A reliance on intuition

– An emphasis on nature and primitivism

– An idealization of life

– An emphasis on sadness, melancholy, psychology, and introspection

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Denotation:

the precise/actual meaning of a word outside of the feelings it evokes; the dictionary meaning of a word or phrase. In fiction writing, writers will play off a word's denotative meaning against its connotations or implied associational implications.

Example: A four-leaf clover, rabbit's foot, and wishbone are all considered things that can bring good luck, but they themselves are not luck. Likewise, unicorns, the color white, and white doves can all have the connotation of purity, but they are not part of the actual definition of the word purity. The dictionary meaning of purity is "free from contamination" or "free from immorality, especially of a sexual nature."

Dénouement:

the outcome of a plot; the resolution or final outcome of the main dramatic complication in a literary work. The dénouement reveals the answers to secrets/misunderstandings in the plot and comes after the climax.

a written composition in which two or more characters are represented as conversing; the conversations between characters in a literary work, typically enclosed within quotation marks.

the choice of words, especially with regard to correctness, clearness, or effectiveness, in a literary work. Writers will use words to reveal character, imply certain attitudes, convey action, demonstrate themes, and indicate values.

Dramatic Irony:

dramatic irony, which often shows itself as some type of miscommunication, occurs when the reader becomes aware of something important of which the characters in the story are not aware.

Exposition:

this also refers to the first stage of a plot, in which necessary background information is provided.

a narration intended to enforce a useful truth. Fables frequently involve animals that speak and act like human beings.

Example: The fable of The Eagle and The Crow : A crow saw an eagle grab a lamb and take it to his nest. The crow tried the same thing but was too weak, and his feet got caught in the lamb's fur. The shepherd took the crow and put him in a cage. The moral of the story? Thoughtless imitation is dangerous.

Falling Action:

the action in a story that occurs after the climax, thus moving it toward its resolution.

a story about people and events that are not real; literature that tells a story that has been imagined by the writer.

Figurative Language:

language that does not mean exactly what it states but instead requires the reader to make his or her own association from the comparison.

Examples: hyperbole, understatement, analogy, personification, euphemism, onomatopoeia, simile, metaphor, synecdoche, and metonymy.

when a relevant past event is brought up in the current time of the story. A common way for this to occur is through a narration or a dream. Flashbacks create complications within the chronology of the plot to help enrich the experience of time.

Flat Character:

Image source: Hugh Thomson/Wikimedia Commons

an uncomplicated character in a story who is illustrated by very few traits. A flat character is opposite to a round character. Although such characters are important, they tend to remain static in their temperaments and personalities throughout the story.

Example: Mr. Collins in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is a flat character.

a character in a story whose purpose is to bring out certain characteristics in either the main character or in other characters. Thus, the foil character will contrast with and parallel those characters.

Example: Draco Malfoy can be seen as a foil to Harry Potter, being placed in similar situations but making choices that highlight the differences between them.

Foreshadowing:

to give a suggestion of something that will happen in the story.

Example : In Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms , the line "the leaves fell early that year" foreshadows an early death.

Freytag's Pyramid:

a pyramidal diagram of the structure of a dramatic work; symbolizes Gustav Freytag's theory of dramatic structure. This "dramatic arc," as it is known, comprises five parts: exposition (inciting incident), rising action, climax, falling action (resolution), and dénouement.

a figure of speech that describes something as better or worse than it actually is by way of extreme exaggeration.

Example: She is as thin as a toothpick; I was so hungry, I could have eaten a horse!

a mental picture or representation of a person, place, or thing in a literary work. The use of images is a powerful literary tool, as images have the ability to convey states of being, feelings, thoughts, and actions.

the images collected and used in a written work to add to the ambiance; language used by a writer that causes readers to imagine pictures in their minds, which gives them a mental image of the people, places, and things in a story.

Example: He could never escape from the iron grip of desire.

Source: YourDictionary.com

incongruity between situations developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that are understood by the audience (but not by the characters); also called dramatic irony.

Example: In William Shakespeare's Macbeth , Macbeth appears to be loyal to Duncan, even though he is planning Duncan's murder. Duncan does not know Macbeth's plans, but the audience knows what is going to happen.

Literal Language:

a form of language in which the writer means exactly what his or her words denote.

a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in "drowning in debt").

He is the apple of my eye . In this example, there is, of course, no real apple in a person's eye. The "apple" here is referring to someone beloved and held dear.

With a wooden face, he watched the car approach . His face wasn't really made of wood, but the metaphor communicates that he had a still, stoic expression.

a figure of speech in which a word is replaced by something that is associated with it; it may provide a common meaning for that word.

Crown – in place of a royal person.

We must wait to hear from the crown until we make any further decisions.

Ears – for giving attention ("Lend me your ears!" from Mark Antony in Julius Caesar ).

a conscious state of mind or predominant emotion.

the reoccurring aspect (object, issue) in a story; can also be two binary elements in a piece of writing (e.g., bad versus good). A recurring salient thematic element, especially a dominant idea or central theme.

a collection of events featured in a story that are placed in a certain order and recounted to tell a story. The story may or may not be true, and the events are placed in a specific order.

the person or character who tells and explains a story; the person who says the words that are heard as part of a story; the person describing what is happening in a story; a person who provides the narration for something.

Onomatopoeia:

words that imitate, sound like, or evoke their own meaning; the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz or hiss).

Example: Words related to the voice. Sounds that come from the back of the throat tend to start with a gr- sound, whereas sounds that come out of the mouth through the lips, tongue, and teeth begin with mu-.

 Image source: OpenClips/Pixabay.com

– giggle

– growl

– grunt

– gurgle

– mumble

– murmur

– bawl

– belch

– chatter

– blurt

a short story that teaches a moral or spiritual lesson, especially one of the stories told by Jesus Christ and recorded in the Bible.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it" (Matthew 13:45–46, King James Version).

according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica , parody is "an imitation the style and manner of a particular writer or school of writers . . . so as to emphasize and thus satirize the weakness of the writer or the overused conventions of the school."

Example: Cold Comfort Farm parodies the style of other novels depicting rural life of the 1920s and 1930s.

Personification:

attributing human characteristics to something that is not human (a thing, an animal, or an abstraction).

Example: Lightning danced across the sky; the flower begged to be watered.

a the direction of a story's main events and incidents and how they relate to one another.

Point of View (POV):

the angle from which a story is told or narrated. Point of view can be first person, objective, limited omniscient, or omniscient.

– First person: the narrator is either a character in the story or an observer.

– Objective: the narrator knows (or seems to know) no more than the reader.

– Limited omniscient: the narrator knows some things about the characters, but not everything.

–  Omniscient: the narrator knows everything about the characters.

Example: Using the word "I," this sentence is written in the first-person perspective: "It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived" (Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird ).

Protagonist:

the principal or main character in a literary work.

Example: Bilbo Baggins is the protagonist of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Recognition:

the point at which a character acknowledges his or her situation for what it really is; the act of knowing who or what someone or something is because of previous knowledge or experience.

Resolution:

the act of finding an answer or solution to a conflict or problem; the act of resolving something.

the point in the plot at which the action turns in an unexpected direction; usually involves the protagonist.

Rising Action:

the set of conflicts in a story that lead up to the climax.

Round Character:

a character in a story who is complex, dynamic, and maybe even contradictory; a round character is the opposite of a flat character. A round character's personality, background, motives, and other features are fully delineated by the author.

Example: Harry Potter in the Harry Potter series is a round character, as readers are made aware of the intricacies and complexities of his background, motives, and choices.

a way of using humor to show that someone or something is foolish, weak, bad, etc.; humor or a literary work that shows the weaknesses or flawed qualities of a person, government, society, etc.

the time, place, and conditions in which the action of a story takes place and which establish its context.

a comparison of two different things using the words like or as .

Example: His eyes were like blazing coals.

the main topic of a piece of writing; what a story is about. A subject can be found in a sentence, a paragraph, an essay, or a book.

a subordinate plot in fiction that coexists with the main plot.

something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance, especially a visible sign of something invisible; an object or act representing something in the unconscious mind that has been repressed.

Example: Birds are often used as symbols of freedom.

Synecdoche:

a figure of speech by which a part is substituted for the whole (such as "50 sail" for "50 ships"), the whole for a part (such as "society" for "high society"), the species for the genus (such as "cutthroat" for "assassin"), the genus for the species (such as a "creature" for "a man"), or the name of the material for the thing made (such as "boards" for "the stage").

Example: The pen is mightier than the sword.

the way in which linguistic elements (as words) are put together to form constituents (such as phrases or clauses) in a sentence or line of verse or dialogue. The organization of these words and phrases creates prose, verse, and dialogue.

a story about imaginary events; an exciting or dramatic story; a story about someone's actual experiences; an exciting story that may not be completely true.

Example: Fairy tales, such as Cinderella .

the idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalization.

a particular pitch or change of pitch constituting an element in the intonation of a phrase or sentence; the style or manner of expression in speaking or writing.

Tragic Hero/Tragic Figure:

a protagonist whose story comes to an unhappy end due to his or her own behavior and character flaws.

Example: Shakespeare's Hamlet is a tragic hero.

Understatement:

saying that something is smaller or less important than it actually is.

Example: Be careful in the kitchen—the oven can get a bit warm.

Writing Style:

the ways in which an author chooses to write words for his or her readers, including how he or she arranges sentences, paragraphs, dialogue, and verse. Style also refers to how the author develops ideas and actions with description, imagery, and other literary techniques.

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Who Wrote This? The World’s Most Surprising Fiction Writers

Alice Nuttall

Alice Nuttall (she/her) is a writer, pet-wrangler and D&D nerd. Her reading has got so out of control that she had to take a job at her local library to avoid bankrupting herself on books - unfortunately, this has just resulted in her TBR pile growing until it resembles Everest. Alice's webcomic, writing and everything else can be found at https://linktr.ee/alicenuttallbooks

View All posts by Alice Nuttall

Celebrity authors have been part of the publishing world for many years, most often working with ghostwriters to produce their novels. Some, like chef and baker Nadiya Hussein, have published contemporary adult fiction, while others, such as Madonna and Tom Fletcher, have branched into children’s literature. While the rise of celebrity authors adding a published novel or two to their brand has caused controversy, in part because of the impact on traditional authors , there are some celebrity writers who are unusual even within their particular field.

As I mentioned earlier, the majority of celebrity authors work with ghostwriters to complete their novels — sometimes openly, as William Shatner or Nadiya Hussein did, but sometimes not. Tyra Banks, supermodel and author of the YA novel Modelland , is one of the few celebrity writers who doesn’t seem to have used a ghostwriter for her fiction project. Modelland is such a bizarre and delightfully strange book that it seems the only person who could have insisted that it was published in its final form is Banks herself. Modelland has to be read to be believed, but I’d also recommend experiencing it through two book-focused podcasts that have done read-alongs, Bad Author Book Club (hosted by authors Claribel A. Ortega and Ryan La Sala) and 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back (hosted by Mike Nelson and Connor Lastowka of RiffTrax).

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Most celebrity authors write novels that connect to the field that made them famous. Dolly Parton and James Patterson’s Run, Rose, Run is set in the world of country music, and “supervet” Noel Fitzpatrick’s Vetman is an animal-saving superhero. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s novel, written with Anna Waterhouse, is surprising because it doesn’t relate to Abdul-Jabbar’s background in basketball — instead, it’s a contribution to an existing beloved literary property. Mycroft Holmes follows Sherlock’s brother, who solves his own mysteries in his role as a powerful member of the British government.

Hugh Laurie

One of the major criticisms of celebrity authors is that, rather than being a labour of love or a chosen career, their publishing a book seems to be part of creating a brand; a celebrity might release a book to have another product connected to their name, like a line of clothing or perfume. Even if we dismiss this view as cynical, we can see that many celebrity authors bypass the traditional hurdles of publishing by using their famous names — it’s obvious that Madonna’s manuscript wouldn’t have languished in the slush pile before being picked out by an editor ready to take a punt on this first-time author. However, actor Hugh Laurie took the hard route to publication with his satirical novel The Gun Seller . He submitted the manuscript under a pseudonym, and didn’t reveal his true identity until it had been accepted by his publishing house.

Political Authors

Like actors, singers, and models, politicians have long been involved in the world of spinning fiction — and this isn’t just the build-up to a cynical joke. Bill Clinton has produced a political thriller in tandem with prolific author James Patterson, and in the UK, Jeffrey Archer is now better known for his potboiler novels (and his stint in prison for libel) than for his career as an MP. Politically motivated novels aren’t just the province of professional politicians, either — there are many non-elected pundits who have dabbled in fiction to try to get their points across.

Nadine Dorries

Like Archer, Tory politician Nadine Dorries is most likely to be known by UK audiences — an MP until her dramatic resignation in 2023, she is also the author of many romance novels. Unusually for a celebrity or political author, Dorries’s fiction is much more staid than her life as a parliamentarian. Dorries’s novels are period pieces, often set in 1950s Liverpool and inspired by her grandmother’s childhood. Her political career, on the other hand, has led to her being the subject of a huge amount of satirical work herself, from her stint on I’m A Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here! to her decision to explain online safety through the medium of rap .

Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh wasn’t a politician, but he was a notorious right-wing political pundit who certainly influenced the politics of his era. Like many other ultra-conservative figures, Limbaugh wrote non-fiction furthering the views he already shared on his radio show; however, he also wrote a series of children’s historical fiction starring a quasi-author-insert, Rush Revere. The Rush Revere books are another example of fiction best engaged with through the medium of a podcast — in this case, you can find out all about the first book in a highly entertaining episode of Behind the Bastards .

Bad Authors

Some authors are surprising because they are infamous rather than famous. We’re used to seeing novels by regular politicians on our shelves, but there are some works we won’t find in a casual browse through a bookshop because they were written by notorious, murderous dictators.

Benito Mussolini

Jarringly, the World War II era fascist dictator of Italy wrote a romance novel, The Cardinal’s Mistress. Written in 1909, long before he rose to power, Mussolini’s only novel tells the story of a torrid love affair while taking jabs at the Catholic Church. It was originally serialised in the socialist newspaper that Mussolini worked for before his political views did a 180° turn into fascism, and was mainly produced to keep people buying the paper in order to raise funds.

Saddam Hussain

Apparently, dictators have a soft spot for romance. Like Mussolini, Saddam Hussein published a romantic story, Zabibah and the King — however, he also wrote three other novels, which, like Zabibah , can best be categorised as political allegories with romantic themes. Hussein’s novels were published during his time as President of Iraq, and, although originally published anonymously, Zabibah and the King can be read as an example of political propaganda — the love story at the centre of the novel is supposed to reflect Hussein’s love of the people of Iraq (or at least, those he didn’t terrorise).

Celebrity writers are also known for their memoirs and autobiographies, many of which contain surprises of their own. Some of the best can be found on our list of 22 Must-Read Celebrity Memoirs . If you’re a sci-fi fan who wants to find some books by unusual authors, check out SFF Books by Unexpected Writers .

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John Barth, towering literary figure and revered mentor, dies at 93

Barth, a johns hopkins graduate who later taught at his alma mater for more than two decades, was known for his postmodernist, unpredictable fiction and his exacting, generous teaching.

By Rachel Wallach

John Barth, A&S '51, '52 (MA), groundbreaking and prolific author, revered teacher, and professor emeritus in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, died Tuesday. He was 93.

Image caption: John Barth

Best known for his postmodernist, unpredictable fiction and his exacting and generous teaching, Barth served on the Johns Hopkins faculty from 1973 until he retired in 1995. He is the author of 17 novels and collections of short fiction and three collections of essays. He won a National Book Award, F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Fiction, a Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.

"Not just a master of fiction and of the literary essay, John Barth was a rhetorician on the order of a Samuel Johnson," said Jean McGarry , A&S '83 (MA), Academy Professor and Barth's former student and then colleague in The Writing Seminars. "Well-read and deeply thoughtful, it was a pleasure to be in his company, whether as his student or colleague. Passionate about literature, and with peerless taste, he was full of wit and wisdom, and had an almost scientific gift for anatomizing the elements of fiction: bones, flesh, nerves, heart, and lungs. He was also funny, tall, and handsome, and never missed a trick. In a rare way, he epitomized his fiction in his own gallant and witty person."

Barth's upbringing on Maryland's Eastern Shore left a powerful echo in the coastal settings of many of his books as well as the understated, southern lilt to his voice. After almost embarking on a career as a jazz drummer, Barth stumbled into what was then Johns Hopkins' Writing, Speech, and Drama department. In a 1999 oral history with the Sheridan Libraries' Mame Warren that revealed a self-deprecating sense of humor, he credits his "a la carte" education (his job reshelving books from wheeled carts in the classics and Oriental Seminary stacks of the old Gilman library) with filling in much of the literary background he had not yet accrued.

After earning his master's degree at Hopkins, Barth served on the faculty of Penn State, SUNY Buffalo, and Boston University before returning to Hopkins as professor in what had then become The Writing Seminars with a joint appointment in the English department. He invited authors including Salman Rushdie, Grace Paley, John Updike, Raymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, and Italo Calvino to read from their work, and they did.

As a teacher, he was famous for never imposing his own style on his students, instead imparting to them a sense of both imagination and craftsmanship. His keen ear as a reader made him a deeply admired mentor; leading by example, he showed students how to dissect stories, listen for style and voice, and discern worthy storytelling—whether in their own writing or that of others.

"One of the delights of sitting in his classroom was hearing him X-ray a story, finding its hidden bone structure and energy source, and still be helpful in cutting away the fat," McGarry wrote for a festschrift for Barth in 2015.

John Barth, writer who pushed storytelling's limits, dies at 93

John barth, novelist who orchestrated literary fantasies, dies at 93.

Michael Martone, A&S '79 (MA), remembers driving to Cambridge, Maryland, for the viewing when Barth's father died. "What I remember is that he told us three stories about funerals he had attended with the usual perfect presentation of his storytelling. It was amazing," said Martone, professor emeritus in the University of Alabama's Department of English. "That even in the midst of that moment he was composing the narratives that would become part of his future narratives and mine. He was all about the story and the famous Freytag pyramid. Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends, and each part needed tending, revising, and amending. And each part is connected, entwined, and harmonic.

"He was my teacher but also my first and always 'outside' reader," Martone added, noting that Barth had pledged on the first day of class to read his former students' published work if they sent it to him. "I did for forty-plus years, everything I published in magazines and books. And he responded every time with a brief note of receipt and a message of thanks and 'keep going, don't stop.'"

Image caption: John Barth is seated at the head of the table in the old board room at Shriver Hall in this image from the 1970s.

Image credit : Courtesy of the Ferdinand Hamburger Archives, Johns Hopkins University

Barth's fiction has been described as striking a commanding balance between postmodern self-consciousness and wordplay, and displays the characterization and compelling plot more common in more traditional genres. In works described as playful and challenging, funny and deadly serious, his plots fragment and his points of view shift. He covered ground from the Chesapeake Bay to the Bronze Age city Mycenae to a generic housing development. His translated works found wide audiences in languages including Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, and Polish, and continue to make significant appearances in public readings, recordings, adaptations, reviews, and critical essays.

Barth's writing veered from the existential to comical nihilism to metafiction; in 1987's "The Tidewater Tales," a minimalist novelist and maximalist oral historian tell each other stories while sailing around the Chesapeake. "Lost in the Funhouse" features a 13-year-old boy exploring Ocean City, Maryland, with his family and simultaneously commenting on his own story, leaving readers reeling between the plot and the commentary as if visiting a boardwalk funhouse. Other best-known works include "The Sot-Weed Factor," "The Floating Opera," "Giles Goat-Boy," and "Chimera," for which he received the National Book Award for fiction in 1973

In 1995, Barth retired from Hopkins and became a senior fellow at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Hopkins in 2011, was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries hold collections of Barth's manuscripts and books from his personal library, acquired in 2014 . A 2015 exhibit introduced the collection to the public . Typescript drafts with Barth's handwritten corrections offer a glimpse into his writing process, while reviews and critical analyses reveal evolving attitudes toward postmodernism and meta-fiction. The Sheridan Libraries are also processing newly acquired materials, including a set of letters between Barth and his long-time friend and fellow writer Daniel Tamkus. Additional papers can be found at the Library of Congress .

Tagged literature , writing seminars , obituaries , john barth

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Origin director Ava DuVernay on grief and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author who inspired her latest film

Grief is complicated, says filmmaker Ava DuVernay (Selma; 13th).

"It is its own life journey that most of us will experience, unfortunately, and you know it has sorrowful moments, but there is also beauty in that journey," she says. "It's all intertwined."

DuVernay was grieving when the inimitable Oprah Winfrey handed her a copy of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson's non-fiction book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents in 2020.

"We were in the midst of a pandemic, I had lost some loved ones and we were dealing, in the United States, with the murder of George Floyd , which was a huge cultural and social event here; a tragedy," DuVernay recalls.

"I didn't feel like reading a 500-page book about some pretty heavy subject matter. I just wasn't in the headspace."

Wilkerson's searing treatise – one of former President Barack Obama's favourite books – posits that the great racial rift in America is as much about brutal caste structures as it is about skin colour. Drawing parallels with India's treatment of the Dalits, or "untouchables", and Nazi persecution of Jewish people, it's a confronting read. After two months, DuVernay picked up and was exhilarated by Wilkerson's theories.

"The idea of caste as being the foundational principle of so many of the -isms that we experience in our lives — whether it's racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism or whatever — the bedrock of all of that is this very fundamental idea that I'm better than you because of this set of random traits and that I will organise society and I will accrue power and status based on that," says DuVernay

"It sparked a fresh way of thinking about old things."

Blurred lines

Channelling her grief through the momentous text, DuVernay decided to turn it into a film. But she approached the material in a fresh way, crafting an intriguing biopic about Wilkerson's fraught experience writing the book.

"I wanted to tell a story about a woman who was a teacher, who is galvanised by this cultural phenomenon and wants to share these ideas with us," DuVernay says.

Three of Wilkerson's family members died while she tackled the thesis.

"This woman was going through great tragedy, the horrors of losing the three closest people to you in your life within a 16-month period. How do you endure?" DuVernay says.

And yet endure Wilkerson does. The remarkable Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor steps into the author's shoes, towering in the central role. She had worked with DuVernay before, starring as Sharonne, the mother of Yusef Salaam, in the director's powerful Netflix miniseries  When They See Us , about five real-life Black and Latino teenagers falsely accused of raping a white woman.

"I really needed someone who was going to be an intellectual partner with me, because the subject matter is pretty dense," DuVernay says.

"And if there's one word that I think of when I consider Aunjanue, it's rigour. She's a very disciplined actor, highly intelligent and she gives us a superb performance."

As we follow Wilkerson's inquisitive journey through America's south and on to Berlin and New Dehli, her interviews with experts give way to dramatic re-creations.

Origin opens with the goosebump-inducing last moments of teenager Trayvon Martin , played by Myles Frost. We meet Nazi Party member August Landmesser (Finn Wittrock), who fell in love with and married a Jewish woman, Irma Eckler (Victoria Pedretti), and is the subject of a famous photo in which he refuses to participate in the "Heil Hitler" salute.

Caste-confounding Dalit professor Suraj Yengde plays himself.

"As a documentarian, I like blurring those edges," DuVernay says of casting Yengde. "I was working in the narrative form, but there are some documentary-esque textures."

Love stories

Both DuVernay and Wilkerson make sense of the world through their work.

"This time that we're in, it feels intense to us. But there's never been a time when there has not been war, tragedy, sorrow and pain happening somewhere, whether we know about it," DuVernay says.

"Some of my colleagues, like [ Dune director] Denis Villeneuve, are futurists. They're thinking about what's ahead and the worlds to come.

"And I want to learn about what we've done and how we can learn from it."

While much of DuVernay's work tackles difficult material, she sees it from another angle.

"When They See Us is about five boys who Donald Trump relegated to being criminals, by taking out a full-page ad to demonise them when they were innocent. He wanted to throw away the key and at one point said that they should be killed," she says.

"But at the end of the four-part series, you see the triumph of overcoming that. That is a joyous journey, for me as a storyteller. It's not a weight. Selma is not a weight. 13th is not a weight.

"It's telling the stories of the triumph of the people who have survived."

To DuVernay, they are love stories.

"Colin in Black & White [about American footballer and activist Colin Kaepernick's high school years] is a love story between him and his parents. When They See Us is a love story about the families that stood by these boys through thick and thin and were ostracised. Selma is about the love of your tribe. Origin is a love story about human connection and addressing grief," she says.

Art connects us all, DuVernay argues: "Whether it's film, literature, music, painting, sculpture or the culinary arts, going home and whoever is there puts love into what they make for you, or what you make for yourself: That's art.

"Art is just the beauty of life, and these are the things that remind us of our humanity."

Origin is in cinemas from April 4.

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