Begin Writing Fiction by Shruti Chandra Gupta - HTML preview

Find your way to brilliant narration

You have a story in mind and you can visualize the characters in it. Now you have to put your thoughts and images on paper or the word processor. The general belief is that you shouldn’t edit your story until you have completed the first draft. I don’t follow it. I stop, edit, think about my story whenever I like. The point is: Rules can be broken. Do whatever suits your writing, not you. I hated to edit my 250-page novel five times, but I did it nevertheless, because my book was getting better with every edit. If your writing is gaining nothing out of your rebelliousness, don’t do it.

Learn to visualize

As soon as you start putting the first words on paper, you need to see what you are writing about. In your mind’s eye, include details in your character (if you are writing about him/her at the moment). Close your eyes and try to think of the color of his hair, the structure of his face, his eyes, nose, clothes, weight, height, color of skin, his way of walking and his peculiarities. Once you have his image in mind, you can include those details in your narration. The more details you include in your character, the better will the reader be able to visualize him/her.

Including details

How many details you include in your setting depends on the length of your work. If it’s a novel, you need to think of as many details as you can. For a short story, you can describe the setting through dialogues and a short narrative describing the world of the story. That much is enough to show the reader where the characters are. Here is an example from a short story of mind titled ‘A Twisted Tale’.

Even the tiniest speck of light was swallowed by the blind night. The forest merged into darkness, fading itself into such a scary black that it didn’t make a difference whether you kept your eyes open or closed. The narrow hilly road stretched down the middle of the forest like a surgeon’s incision. The wind had now slackened and the forest fell into a deep slumber. If you strained your ears, you could hear the sound of your feet lightly crushing the gravel on the road. When you stopped, the darkness and the silence pulled you inside the dead world. As if to break the stillness, a lone dead leaf hit the ground.

I wanted to create suspense, so I used a forest at night as my setting. I created a narrow hill road twisting its way through the woods. Then I made use of senses. Sound and sight. I made use of the wind, the leaf and footsteps to show how silent the forest is. The night is blind and swallows even the tiniest speck of light. That shows how dark it is. And lastly, I introduced a human touch by showing how you would have felt being there. It is important that the reader feels, not just reads.
Ask questions. What do I want to show the readers? If your story is an adventure, you might want a small isolated dusty town scarred with murderers. That is the tip of the pyramid. As you go deep into your story, you will need to include more details to make the base solid. If you work hard enough, it will be as strong and majestic as the pyramid.

The setting of your story or the world in which you put your characters should be as vivid as the city in which you live. When imagining your setting, ask yourself. What kinds of trees are there? Is the road narrow or wide? Is the region a desert, hills or plains? Is it a city or a small town? Is the room dark or well lit? What kind of people does one find in this place? What clothes are they wearing? Visualize only those details, which are important to the plot. If you have a small hilly town as your setting, then narrating their culture will distract and bore the reader. It works best to describe the scenery and weave the culture into dialogues.

It is never a good idea to describe characters. Never say: He had brown eyes. Instead, weave that characteristic into a dialogue or show it through another character’s eyes.

 

“You stood me up,” he said, his brown eyes burning like embers.

 

Or

 

She looked at his eyes. They were brown and intense. He looked like a no-nonsense guy.

Give the reader two or three things to think about instead of just one. He had brown eyes will not only bore him, but will also bring you into focus. Who is telling him that? You. When writing in third person omniscient, you should not come into the picture as far as possible.

Language

Language should be molded according to the genre in which you are writing. A critical reader can differentiate between a literary novel and a murder mystery just by reading the first few paragraphs. That is because the build up is different. In a literary novel, generally there is an action-packed beginning unlike a murder mystery.

In which way should you use language? Let’s break the language down and look at the words chosen to describe the atmosphere.

In a mystery, you use words, which show how dark, mysterious and dangerous the place is. A dark, narrow staircase is twisting up from the corner of the room. There is no sound except that of a creaking old door swaying from the wind. John walks over to the door and shuts it with a loud bang. The furious flutter of the bats strikes through the sullen night like a sword.

By using and correctly placing words, which give a creepy feeling, you can build up an image of a mysterious place.

When you read a book next time, notice the way the author uses words to create feelings. When tears roll down from your eyes after reading a paragraph, stop and re-read it. How has the author made you cry? What words has he used to make you feel that way? Learn from his experience.

Point of view (POV) will also change the kind of language you use in a story. Here is a paragraph from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

My first impulse was to get it into my mouth as quickly as possible, but I remembered where I was. I ran home, and on our front porch I examined my loot. The gum looked fresh. I sniffed it and it smelled right. I licked it and waited for a while. When I did not die I crammed it into my mouth: Wrigley’s Double-Mint.

This story has been told from the point of view of a child. Notice the way the author has shown us the psychology of a child. There are no difficult words. The action is cut into sentences according to the character’s thoughts, and there are no long sentences. The mystery of what he is eating is uncovered after the whole experience.

Here are some tips on what to avoid while writing:

• Avoid difficult words, which the reader might have difficulty in understanding
• Avoid moralizing
• Don’t force your point of view on the readers. In other words, let the characters say what you want to say
• Don’t inform, show
• Include the five senses (hear, smell, touch, see, speak) to rouse the reader’s emotions
• Avoid unnecessary details
• Be innovative
• Use active tense, not passive
• Read your text aloud and listen for jarring notes