10 Helpful Tips for New Fiction Writers

Need to beef up your fiction? Ever wondered if your writing is reaching people? Whether it is a short story or a novel, these 10 need to know tips are the key to writing a great story. Your story probably contains most of them already if you have a complete outline, and if not they could help give you the insight to finish it. Some elements come naturally, but some take a little more skill to artfully craft into your stories.

A spectacular story must have a amazing protagonist. The protagonist is usually the main character. They are always seeking to find or obtain something. When something comes between the protagonist and their goal, conflict is created. The protagonist is usually easily liked and rallied for, or cheered on. If you can make your readers fall in love with, feel sorry for, worry about, and be happy for your protagonist all in the same story, you have written something to be proud of.

Some people favor the bad guy, who most of the time is the antagonist. The antagonist creates conflict by standing between the antagonist and their goal. Don’t be afraid to create a ruthless character that the readers will hate. There are many villains throughout literary history that people hated. The Wicked Witch of the West probably wasn’t the most liked character in the Wizard of Oz, but she is one of the most memorable.

Every plot has to have conflict . If your main character’s life went along perfectly, how interesting would your story be? If there were never any obstacles to overcome, how would your character grow or evolve? There are two types of conflict , and most brilliant stories contain both. External conflict, is also known as man versus nature, or man verses man. Internal conflict, is also known as man versus himself. Pretty self-explanatory huh? Most of the time the main conflict of the story is resolved by the end, but some modern short stories leave the conflict unresolved. In short stories conflict keeps readers waiting for the big resolution, and in novels, it sets up the action and creates suspense.

All stories must take place somewhere. The setting of the story should drive the plot and create a pace for the story. If a person lived in New York, their life would likely be a lot more fast paced than someone who lives in Tennessee. Unless your entire story takes place without your main character moving out of their tracks, there’s a good chance that you will even use secondary settings in your novel. A secondary setting is a specific place inside the main setting of the novel. A secondary setting could be a busy airport, or a quiet coffee shop. Setting can be stated directly, or implied through a character’s dialogue. Use strong descriptions to create vivid settings. A few well-placed adjectives are more effective than a whole paragraph of descriptive words that tire the reader out before they even figure out where the story takes place.

Sizzling dialogue sells. Dialogue serves many purposes in fiction writing. Dialogue can suggest character’s motives. Give your characters a voice to communicate their intentions to the reader, and let them tell it like they want to. Dialogue can also reveal setting and background. Allow your characters to talk about where they are, or where they came from when they speak. Dialogue can also speed up or slow down the story. Insert a slow talking character into a scene and you can slow it to a snail’s pace or have a character talk through a scene instead of narrating it and you can speed it up as fast as you want. Just make sure what ever your characters have to say is interesting, and that it serves a purpose in the story. You don’t want to bore the reader with pages of meaningless dialogue.

You should always make a conscious effort to pace your story. You don’t want to leave your readers in the dust wondering where you went for the last four pages, but you don’t want to leave them yawning or nodding off while they are reading your story either. Try to keep a balance between fast paced and slow scenes. If you write a few fast-paced chapters (pages for a short story) slow it down a little in the next chapter (or for the next few pages) and give the reader time to breathe.

Good characterization creates believable characters. It gives the reader a clear mental image of the characters in the book. Readers want to know what your character looks like, how old they are, where they come from, and what they do for a living, but that’s only a small part of what makes up your characters. Readers are more interested in what makes up the character internally. They want to know about their personality, personal beliefs, what their likes and dislikes are, and more importantly, what they are thinking. Use dialogue and description to convey character emotion . Characters should be consistently inconsistent, and they should be complex and versatile.

So now that your readers know who your character is, the best way to deepen the reader’s bond with them is through character emotion . Even happy go lucky people are not happy all the time. Real people experience real emotions such as anger, sorrow and grief, so your characters should too. People want to see the dark side of life and the negative emotions a person can feel as well as the cheerful happier days. Creating strong emotions in your characters is what makes them feel real to the reader, it also strengthens the bond between the reader and the protagonist . Use dialogue and description to express character emotion in your writing. Don’t just tell the reader that the character is sad of happy, show them by having the character laugh until their sides hurt, or soak a tissue with their tears.

One of the biggest problems new writers face today is avoiding clichés . Clichés are words, phrases, or tag lines that have been overused to describe things. The old “ My heart jumped up into my throat” bit has been used to death. Try something new like, “ My heart was pounding like a wild jack hammer against my ribs and trying it’s best to find a way out of my chest.” Now you get a mental picture of how scared the person is without using the same tired old cliché. If there’s a popular new buzzword that people identify with use it now. Today’s buzzword is tomorrow’s cliché. Try your hardest to tell your story differently than writers have in the past. If your character must bump their head, I’d avoid having them see stars afterwards.

Consider your title carefully. What sounds like an interesting title to you may not seem so hot to the average Joe standing in the bookstore. Take time out of your busy writing schedule to go to the book store. Books are shelved with the spines facing out, so the graphics on the spine and the title are a reader’s first impression. A reader’s first impression is everything, because you never get a second chance. If the reader can’t get past your corny title, they probably won’t bother going any farther. Scan a row of shelves at the book store and read only the titles . Choose a few books based solely on the title . Consider the names of the books, why are they interesting to you? The think about why they may or may not be interesting to other people. The title of a story or novel must have universal appeal. It should be too interesting to pass up, or make a strong statement about the story itself.