Heroic Writing, part 1: Foundations

A couple nights ago, a number of the usual suspects and I were talking over in chat when suggested that someone ought to do a piece on how to write effectively.  We chewed it over for a bit, I lost control of my helium hand, and, before I knew it, I’d volunteered to take on the task.

Obviously, the first question anyone looking at this is going to ask is: is this for me?

In short, if you are a writer, then yes it is.  I don’t promise that everything will apply to you, but I’m certain that some things will.  I already have topics in mind, from basic writing and editing skills, to character creation, plot winnowing, and the use and abuse of plot twists.  If there is another topic you would like to see me address, please drop me a note- while I read and respond to comments, notes are the best way to be sure that I can find your suggestion again.

The next question you should be asking is: who is and why should I give a rat’s ass what he thinks about writing in general and my writing in particular?

That’s a good question.  In no particular order, I am a writing teacher and, more generally, an English teacher and I have been for the last ten years.  I’m a fan of heroic fiction, myths, legends, superheroes, comic books, and roleplaying games.  I am the author of a number of Angel Falls stories, including a number of shorts, When Angels Stoop, Rising Stars, On the Edge, and Leaderboard, which I cowrote with .  Finally, I am also the author of some moderately awful poetry and a bunch of FMG fiction under the alternate dA identity of .

So, now that you’ve gotten to know me, I’d like to talk about writing.  Specifically, I’m going to attack the basics, today, but I’ll try to do it in a way that doesn’t put you to sleep.  If you’ve ever felt that you had a great story but nobody wanted to read it, there’s a very good chance that a big part of the reason can be found over the course of the next twelve hundred words or so…

Fundamental Questions:
Just about every piece of writing needs to start with a series of questions.  These questions are, in no particular order: what are you writing?, who are you writing it for?, what form will it take?, and what purpose will it serve?

What are you writing?  The answer to this question could be any number of things, but, for our purposes, it is most likely to be a story.  It could also be a journal, an essay, or a guide, but the chances are pretty strong that what you are attempting to do is tell a story.

Who are you writing it for?  If you are writing it for this group, then the answer is simple: you are writing it for the members of .  That said, there are a number of different subgroups within Angel Falls.  Chances are pretty strong that no matter what you write, it will not appeal to everyone.  Decide who you want to impress, and write to them.  Are you writing for anime and manga lovers?  If so, your story needs to contain elements that will appeal to them.  Are you trying to appeal to technically inclined members?  Be sure to include a wealth of details to make an engineer blush.  Is it your goal to get your character involved in romances?  If so, then details about your character's emotions and appearance will take on paramount importance.  An awareness of your audience will inform the genre of your writing and improve your reception, overall.

What form will it take?  Is your story going to be a short story?  An epic poem?  A play or a dialogue?  A really, really ambitious novel?  Knowing the form in advance will help you to keep your writing from straying and becoming unmanageable.

What purpose will it serve?  This is, perhaps, the most overlooked of the basic questions.  Everything you write serves a purpose; an awareness of that purpose will help you to focus your writing and trim away the fat that obscures your intentions.  Most writing within Angel Falls is primarily for the purpose of entertainment.  In fact, very little writing that does not at least have a passing relationship to principles of entertainment is almost certain to flop.  Probably the next most common form of writing is intended to introduce a character or a group of characters.  This could be in the form of biographies or stories, but the main function the writing serves is to clarify someone’s or something’s position within Angel Falls.  Finally, on fairly rare occasions, things may be written with the intention of informing and clarifying something of importance, from the functioning of the city, to the way time travel or magic works within Angel Falls.  This form of writing needs to be clear and concise and, also, needs to be checked for consistency against accepted canon.  To that end, writing of this nature should probably be run by the various moderators and lorekeepers of Angel Falls, such as , , and .

Grammar, Punctuation, and Related Goblins
I can’t count the number of times I’ve read or been told that the reason a person’s writing is bad is because they had bad teachers.  Frankly, that excuse serves adequately through the end of high school, after which it’s simply passing the buck for the author’s inability to take responsibility for his or her own shortcomings.  No one expects college-quality writing in an online story community, but there are some basic things that everyone should be able to do which will improve the experience for everyone.

Run-on sentences and sentence fragments: A sentence consists of a group of words used to express at least one full and complete idea.  Punctuation and conjunctions may allow you to extend a sentence to encompass more ideas, but failure to use the correct punctuation and joining words will result in a run-on sentence.  On the other end of the spectrum, a sentence that does not include, at the very minimum, a subject (the thing that is doing an action) and a verb (either a state of being or an action being performed) is a fragment.

Homophones and word choice: There are really two major issues at work here.  The first is that not all words that sound the same in English are spelled the same.  There is a difference in writing between, for example, “there” and “their” and “they’re”.  Whenever you use one of these words, you need to make sure you are using the correct form of the word in order to avoid confusion.  The second issue is that similar sounding words and phrases create a situation known, in writing, as redundancy.  Redundancy is actually simply a case of repetition without purpose- it may be repetition of a sound, a rhythmic pattern, or even an idea.  If it no longer sounds fresh, chances are you’re starting to bore your reader.  At the most basic level, the best way to avoid redundancy is to pay attention to how many times you’ve used the same words and phrases.  If you notice, for example, the word “said” appearing more than two times on a page, it may be time to break out the thesaurus.  Microsoft word offers a pretty decent one, and there are hundreds of online resources that can serve to help add variety to your writing- just make sure that, whatever word you choose, you are using it correctly and in the right form.

Text-Talk: We live in an era of shorthand and text-talk.  When you are typing a text to your best friend, messages such as “lol” and “brb” have a purpose and are easily understood.  When you are writing for an audience, however, these abbreviations primarily translate to “I am a lazy idiot who can’t be bothered to type in complete words.”  Consider replacing any simple phrases of this nature with a complete sentence- instead of “lol,” try, “I laughed out loud.”  In addition, pay attention to how you use and abuse capital letters.  It has become very common to completely ignore capital letters, substituting “i” for “I” and using lower case letters at the beginnings of sentences and names.  This is a problem because the function of a capital letter is to serve as a place marker for the reader- it denotes something of significance and helps the reader to navigate the writing.  A similar problem is when the author writes everything in capital letters, or spreads them through the composition as if he’d loaded a shotgun with capitals and just fired it at the page.  If capital letters are used for everything, then they lose all meaning and we’re back where we started.

The Cardinal Rule
In math, the basic rule is always to show all of your work.  This allows people to examine your process and duplicate your reasoning and, in math and science, is absolutely necessary and imperative.  Writing, on the other hand, demands mystery.  Instead of showing your work, you are expected to hide it.  You should try and remove words that make it obvious that what you have produced is a written piece.  If you are not writing in 1^st person, you should also remove any references to the narrator that call attention to him being a separate entity from the reader.  In nearly all fiction, use of the pronoun “you” should be limited to direct quotes said between characters in the story.