As with all activities, writing fiction involves getting to grips with professional jargon. The following are some of the more common terms you may come across as you learn your craft and market your writing.

POV (Point of View): the eyes through which the events of a story are seen.

MC: The main character in a story.

WIP (Work in progress): the thing you are currently working on.

Simsub (Simultaneous submission): submitting the same piece of work to more than one magazine/publisher at the same time.

Multisub (Multiple submission): sending more than one work to the same magazine/publisher at the same time.

MG (Middle Grade): generally speaking, readers between 8 and 12 years old.

YA (Young Adult): generally speaking, readers between 12 and 18 years old.

MS/MSS: MS means manuscript. MSS is the plural, manuscripts.

GL: Guidelines, describing what a publisher is interested in seeing.

DL: Deadline: the cut off-date for a submission.

Query Letter: A concise (one-page) pitch of an idea to an agent/publisher, to see if they are interested in reading a manuscript.

Bio: Biographical details as supplied to an agent or publisher, including, for example, any previous writing credits.

Slush/Slushpile: A pile, often large, of unsolicited manuscripts sent to a publisher or editor.

Beta Reader: A secondary reader (after the writer) who checks a work with a view to spotting mistakes or suggesting improvements.

Copy Editor: Someone who edits a manuscript for grammatical mistakes as well as spotting plot inconsistencies etc.

Proof Reader: A person who checks that the proof of a work (the version ready for printing) matches the original manuscript.

NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month – actually fairly international these days. Participants attempt to write a complete novel in one month (November).

The following are the definitions of the lengths of short stories, novels etc. employed by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Others may use different definitions.

Short Story: A work under 7,500 words

Novelette: A work of between 7,500 and 17,500 words

Novella: A work of between 17,500 and 40,000 words

Novel: A work of 40,000 words or more

Flash Fiction: Very short fiction. Definitions vary, but less than 1,000 words and can be as short as 100 words or even less.

Twitter Fiction : Fiction short enough to fit into a Tweet, i.e. up to 140 characters long.

Finally, the following are some of the abbreviations you may come across to describe the various genres of fiction:

SF: Science Fiction (or Speculative Fiction).

HSF: Hard Science Fiction

SSF: Soft Science Fiction

F: Fantasy

EF: Epic/High Fantasy

DF: Dark Fantasy

UF: Urban Fantasy

MR: Magical Realism

H: Horror

GH: Gothic Horror

Reference links:

Science Fiction Writers of America

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)

A reader writes:

I have all these great stories in my head, but no talent
what so ever … when it involves writing it down. Is there any advice you could give me or am I stuck?

Unless the questioner wants to become an oral storyteller and tell these great stories to a live audience, or record them as audiobooks, the answer has to be, “Yes, you’re stuck.”

However, I suspect that the person asking the question has made some attempt to put stories into writing, but is unhappy with the result.

Welcome to the tribe of fiction writers.

We all have great stories in our heads. Getting them out of our heads and onto paper is the hard part.

Talent is nice to have, but plenty of writers earn a living with a minimal amount of it.

Persistence is far more important to a writer than talent. A large proportion of the world’s population is made up of extremely talented writers who have been working on the same book, or thinking about working on a book, for years.

The word talent can mean simply “an inclination or a disposition” for something. Or it can mean “an innate aptitude.”

Anyone who has the inclination to write can do it. Writing is a craft. Like any craft, it can be learned, and it must be practiced.

Not everyone has the aptitude to produce a novel like Pillars of the Earth, War and Peace, or The Time Traveler’s Wife, but anyone who shows up at the computer every day will produce something. It’s in the rewriting that you’ll discover the extent of your talent.

The best advice I can offer to the questioner is, “Start writing.”

Pretend that one of the story ideas in your head is a movie that you’d like to tell a friend about. Pretend you’re writing a letter to that friend and then, start writing.

Since prehistoric times, when tales were told around fires and painted on cave walls, stories have been an essential part of our human experience. But what exactly is a story – and how can you write a great one?

A story is simply a tale of events that are linked by cause and effect. It can be true or it can be a work of fiction. We expect stories to have a beginning, middle and end; they involve at least two characters, and some events take place.

In this article, I’ll take you through three major contemporary types of written story:

• The short story
• The novel
• The life story (biography or autobiography)

For each, I’ll explain what it is, and how to write it successfully. I’ll end with tips about story writing which will help you improve your writing, whether you’re a beginner or a published author.

Three Types of Story

1. Short Stories

A short story is a piece of fiction under 20,000 words. More typically, a short story will be 1,000 – 5,000 words. (Pieces under 1,000 words are “short short stories” or “flash fiction”, over 20,000 and they’re novellas.)

Short stories are published in magazines, newspapers and book anthologies. Short stories need:

• A small cast of characters, with one main character
• A compact time frame, with the story taking place over the course of a few days or weeks
• A single plot without subplots, though longer short stories may have a subplot

The majority of writing competitions are for complete short stories, rather than novels or novel excerpts. If you do enter competitions, don’t be put off writing if you don’t win – judges have different likes and dislikes.

How to Write a Great Short Story

Like any story, your short story needs to have a beginning, middle and end:

• The beginning is where we’re introduced to the characters, especially the main character and his/her problem
• The middle is where the action and plot develops. The main character will face difficulties such as opposition from other people or a challenging environment.
• The end is where the main character triumphs over his/her biggest challenge (or fails, in the case of a tragedy). The resolution should be satisfying and conclusive for the reader.

Even in literary and experimental short stories, it’s important that something should happen. Much of the action might take place inside the characters’ heads, but there should be a real change as a result.

By the end of your short story, your main character should have experienced an internal change. This means that they’ve grown and developed as a person – perhaps overcoming a fear, or recognizing an unacknowledged truth about himself or herself.

2. Novels

A novel is a piece of fiction that’s 60,000 words or longer (shorter books are novellas). The typical novel is around 80,000 – 150,000 words, depending on genre.

Novels and short stories share similar structural features, but novels give the author a much wider scope. A novel might have:

• More than one main character (though attempt this with caution!)
• A large cast of characters
• A long time frame – potentially covering several centuries and several generations
• Multiple subplots

Novels tend to be much more popular than short stories with the reading public, and almost all full-time authors are novelists rather than short story writers.

How To Write A Novel

A novel is a much bigger undertaking than a short story. Even if you are able to write short stories without much planning, you’ll need to plan out your novel in advance. There are a number of ways to do this, but whichever you choose, ensure:

• You have enough plot to meet your word count target
• Your main character (protagonist) is sympathetic – readers of short stories will put up with a dull or unlikeable character, but novel readers are stuck with the character’s viewpoint for much longer. As the writer, you’ll need to be able to become your characters.
• You have an escalation of events throughout the plot. Things need to get worse and worse for your characters, until they finally overcome their problems or enemies.

3. Life Stories

A life story is a true story – though it shares features with fictional stories. Life stories are either “biography” (when you write about someone else) or “autobiography” (when you write about yourself).

Most biographies and autobiographies are book length, similar to a novel. Many writers draw on their own life experiences for newspaper columns and magazine articles, though. There is also a market for “true life” stories in magazines, which are told in a story-like way: writing about your own life is a simple way to write about what you know.

How To Write A Life Story

A life story needs to be engaging and interesting for the reader. Don’t include boring details just because they’re “true” – the reader doesn’t need to know everything that happened. In many cases, details of childhood or dull years can be summarized – or told through a few vividly-drawn incidents.

You will need to be careful when writing a biography or autobiography to:

• Structure your piece as a story, focusing on interesting events and incidents.
• Show the personality of the subject (yourself or the person you’re writing about), and making sure the reader will find them at least partly likeable.
• Be conscious of the other people involved – try to be sensitive to how they might feel (and avoid getting sued for libel – make sure you’re certain of your facts).

There is often a fine line between life writing and fiction. If you are writing the story of your life, you will need to make decisions about whether you will alter or make up lines of dialogue, for instance.

General Story Writing Tips

Whatever type of story or stories you’re writing, and however experienced you are, there’s always room for improvement…

Share Your Story Writing Efforts

It’s hard to write in isolation, and sharing your work with other writers is a great way to get feedback and suggestions. Look for a local writers’ circle, or join an online forum. You want to find somewhere that’s supportive but where people aren’t afraid to offer advice about things that aren’t working in your story.

Keep Learning

Writing is a craft that you can learn, like any other. There are hundreds of books on all aspects of writing, from the nuts and bolts of grammar and punctuation to writing in specific genres. You can also find free advice on the Internet (on blogs like this one). You can even take a degree or post-graduate course in creative writing.

Keep Practicing

As well as learning about writing, you need to practice. That means writing regularly – ideally daily. As you write more, your stories will get better – your characters are more “real”, your plots are convincing, and your endings are deeply satisfying to readers. You’ll also find that writing itself becomes easier: you’ll spend less time struggling to find the right words, and more time enjoying seeing the story spill from your fingers.

Always Revise

All authors need to revise their work. Your first draft might have a lot of problems – inconsistent characterization, scenes which don’t really fit, holes in the plot, incorrect pacing or tension. Don’t worry if this is the case: most published authors have to extensively rewrite their first drafts too. Always allow time to revise your story, and if possible, do several rewrites. Most authors recommend letting your story sit unread for a few days or weeks when you complete a draft, so that you can come to it with fresh eyes.

Good luck with your story writing!

Graham Broadley wrote:

If I am writing a short story in the first person are there any tips or tricks for avoiding the overuse of the word ‘i’? My usual writing style leans towards short sentences but this seems to increase the frequency of the word “I” popping up.  Are longer sentences a way round the problem? Also, I’m trying to avoid sentences starting with “I”.  Do you have any advice, tips and tricks for writing in the first person?

It is inevitable that writing in first person will require frequent use of I, me, and my–especially I. This should not present a problem.

In a first person narration, the pronoun “I” is probably as invisible to the reader as the word “said.” Besides, the point of writing in first person is to establish an intimate bond with the reader. The reader becomes the “I” of the story. Listen to your own words and thoughts during the course of a day. The word “I” is probably the most frequent word that forms in your mind and comes from your mouth.

Plenty of websites discuss the use of first person narration, but I think the best way to see what works and what doesn’t is to analyze a published work of fiction. You might want to analyze some of your favorite writers to see how they deal with the pronoun I.

For example, in preparing this post I took a close look at the way Laurie R. King handles it.

Laurie R. King is a prolific writer, averaging a book a year since the publication of her first novel in 1993. She has created not one, but two mystery series. One is set in contemporary California and features Inspector Kate Martinelli. The other is set in the era of Sherlock Holmes and features Mary Russell. King has also written several stand-alone novels.

So far I’ve read only some of the Mary Russell books. I find them intelligent, entertaining, and unputdownable. I’ll analyze a few pages to see how King deals with the problems mentioned by our reader.

In the first chapter of A Letter of Mary, about 2,000 words, the pronoun “I” appears 60 times.

Note: All of these figures are approximate.

Here’s the breakdown on how the pronoun I is distributed:
Mary 39
Holmes 7
Dorothy Ruskin (in a letter) 14.

The paragraph with the greatest number contains nine:

”Megalomania, perhaps; senility, never.” I stood and watched a small fishing boat lying off shore, and I wondered what to do. The work was going slowly, and I could ill afford to take even half a day away from it. On the other hand, it would be a joy to spend some time with that peculiar old lady, whom I indeed remembered very well. Also, Holmes seemed interested. It would at least provide a distraction until I could decide what needed doing for him. “All right, we’ll have her here a day sooner, then, on the Wednesday. I’ll suggest the noon train. I’m certain Mrs Hudson can be persuaded to leave something for our tea, so we need not risk our visitor’s health. I also think I’ll go to Town tomorrow and drop by the British Museum for a while. Will you come?”

Sentence length does not seem to have much to do with the frequency of I. King’s sentences tend to be long. Sentences that begin with the pronoun I don’t particularly jump out. In the analyzed passage, 14 of the narrator’s 39 subject pronouns begin sentences.

Bottom line: Write your first person story without worrying about the pronouns. You can always see ways to reduce them in revision, if you think it’s necessary.

This is a guest post by Ali Hale. If you want to write for Daily Writing Tips check the guidelines here.

The success of a story rests on its characters. We remember truly compelling, vivid characters long after we’ve finished reading a novel or watching a movie: I’m sure you can recall characters from books you read in childhood.

Great characters can compensate for a weak plot or a so-so writing style – but if readers don’t care about your characters, they’ll put your story down. That clever plot twist or beautiful passage of writing might hook them briefly, but without characters that leap off the page, readers won’t stay engaged.

If you need more evidence that characters are crucially important, search Google for “fan fiction”. Many, many books, TV series and movies have spawned a huge amount of creative writing by fans – and this writing is all about the characters. The plots and sometimes even the settings are different from those in the original, but the characters remain the same.

Simply knowing how important characters are doesn’t help you much, though. You need to figure out how to create truly compelling characters who readers care about, laugh about, even cry about. Here’s how:

What Does Your Character Need?

All compelling characters have a strong need, longing or desire. They should have a problem to overcome. They may not recognise this need (and indeed, many stories are about person coming to understand themselves better – for example, learning that they need companionship).

I picked up a great tip on figuring out what characters need from Holly Lisle’s Create a Character Clinic. Use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Pick a level on the pyramid (you can find all you need to know on Wikipedia’s page) and then figure out what your character is seeking.

At the most basic, physical level, your character might be in a survival situation and need food and water. Going up a level, you might have a character whose security is threatened: perhaps she’s lost her job, or he’s facing a health crisis.

Quirks Don’t Equal Character

Many beginning writers make the mistake of thinking that giving a character a set of mannerisms or physical quirks is “characterisation”. It can be amusing and diverting, certainly. Sure, you can give your character a habit of whistling a particular tune, or jangling his keys, or peering over her glasses. But these alone don’t make your characters compelling.

When your characters do have unusual quirks, these need to be relevant to their back story – the things which happened to them before they appeared in your book. (Compelling characters need to be like icebergs: the reader has to have the sense that there’s a lot more under the surface: characters shouldn’t feel like they didn’t exist before page one.) For example, Harry Potter’s scar is an important feature because it relates to his history and to the broader plot of the stories. Giving your character a mysterious scar which has no relevance to your story, however, isn’t a shortcut to becoming as popular as J.K. Rowling…

In general, focus on who your character is rather than what they look like.

Draw From Life – But Not Too Much

So where do powerful, vivid characters come from? Often, the best place to start is yourself. What do you dream about, fear, desire? What secrets do you have? What are you most ashamed of – and most proud of? If you’re trying to convey a character’s internal thoughts, then you must be willing to draw on your only source of direct experience: the inside of your own mind.

Don’t go too far in drawing on real life, though. Beginning writers sometimes make the mistake of writing a version of themselves into their stories – often a perfect, flawless character who they’d quite like to be! While this might be emotionally satisfying to the writer, it’s either very irritating or very boring for readers.

Some other tips when drawing on your life are:

• We’re all complex people who may, at times, behave in contradictory ways. Don’t make your characters too one-dimensional
• Most of us have quiet, even boring, lives. Your characters need to do more exciting things in order to engage the reader.
• Don’t worry about describing your characters physically. Mention anything that’s important (eg. a character’s physical size may have a bearing on the plot and on their self-confidence) but don’t burden the reader with details.
• Watch people when you’re out and about, and make up stories about them.

Let the Reader Empathise

Your reader doesn’t necessarily have to like your characters, but they should be able to feel a sense of empathy for them. Even your villains shouldn’t be purely evil: there needs to be some explanation for why they’re such awful people – this often forms part of their back story.

On the flip side, your heroes shouldn’t be too perfect. We like to read about people with flaws, doubts and struggles – because when we read, we’re imagining ourselves in their place. Characters are compelling when we can share their struggles and cheer on their victories.

Some quick ways to build empathy are:

• Show a character suffering (either mentally or physically)
• Include a brief flashback to an unhappy childhood or traumatic incident
• Write about your character’s thoughts – especially if their actions might be hard for us to understand or treat sympathetically
• Use the first-person or third-person limited (”deep”) point of view
• Show a character being misunderstood by others
• Frustrate a character’s attempts to meet their need

Finally, have fun with creating your characters! If you find yourself writing about a character who bores you, then rewrite them – or recast them as a new character entirely. When you write characters that are truly compelling to you, they’ll be compelling to the reader.

Ali Hale is a writer whose posts getting more from life at Aliventures have been called “so true”, “exactly what I need” and “exactly at the right time for me” (click to grab the RSS feed here). When she’s not blogging, she’s working on her novel and other projects, including an MA in Creative Writing.