Today’s post is written by regular contributor Susan Bearman.

A story either leaps off the page or it doesn’t.

Beatriz Badikian-Gartler once told our writing group that “Titles are a kind of promise you make to the reader.” Certainly, titles are important, but I think her point applies even more to the beginning of your story than to the title itself.

In the beginning, we establish our voice, invite the reader into our world, and tempt them to come along for the ride. We make a promise that the story to come will be worth their time and emotional energy.

And, attention spans being what they are today, we don’t have much time to get them hooked. In the age of the Internet, it’s estimated that a web page has three seconds to catch someone’s attention before they click off to another page. You can probably assume that you have a bit more time with fiction, since presumably the reader has come willingly to you. But you are still making a promise.

We can all think of famous first lines in literature, lines that continue to resonate long after the novel has been put back on the shelf. The classic “Once upon a time…” may be considered cliché, but it does a lot of work in just four words:

• It lets the reader know that a story is at hand.
• It eases the way for suspending disbelief.
• It sets the story in a different place and time.
• It awakens curiosity and raises questions.

These are the kinds of things you want your own beginnings to accomplish.

Change of Pace

It used to be that the writer had loads of time to get a story started, but in today’s fast-paced world, some celebrated opening pages might not hold up. Let’s take a look.

Most people know “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. But how many people remember the rest of that first sentence:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Brilliant writing, yes, but I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t be able to sell a 120-word first sentence today. And unless you are Charles Dickens, don’t even try. Can’t you just imagine a literary agent working with Dickens today?

“Hey, Charlie, you’ve got a lot of pretty words here at the beginning. I mean, it’s really good stuff. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ We get it. Stop there, dump the rest and start with the action scene in chapter 2. Sure, weave in a little backstory here and there, but stick to the plot. Tighten this baby up, cut out maybe 35,000 words or so and I think you’ll have a real winner.”

I’m kidding, of course, but today most stories don’t begin with such philosophical ruminations; they start in the middle of the action, or in media res. Author Patricia Lear once said: “The opening of a story is akin to an attack. It has to be strong.” Them’s fightin’ words, and they imply that you need to grab your readers by the throat, but what you really need to do is grab their attention.

Don’t Get Stuck at the Beginning

I want to take a minute here to reiterate that your first draft is not the time to hone your beginning. The job of a first draft is to get the story down. Sometimes, your first line may stand just as you wrote it. It may be that this first line was truly inspired—the inspiration for the story that was not yet completely formed.

More likely, though, you have the glimpse of an idea and you need to push through that first draft before the entire picture emerges. It may be that your first line is the last one you polish after all your revisions have been completed—that you find your true beginning at the end of the process.

The point is, don’t agonize over the beginning at the beginning. Save that particular angst for a later date. When you are ready to see if your beginning works, here are some suggestions.

Ask Your Beta Readers

This is a great task to assign to your trusted critique group. Presumably, these invited readers will give you the benefit of the doubt and read past even a terrible beginning. Ask them specific questions:

• When did the story get interesting?
• What was the hook that drew them in?
• What did they experience when they read the first line, page, chapter?
• What drew them up short?
• What questions did the beginning raise?

Look at the Words

Words are your paint box. The colors you choose for the beginning sentences of your story will set and light the stage.

The words you choose here tell the reader what to expect from you as a writer. Do you use language well? Are you gifted at your craft? Do you care enough to use rhythm and pacing and nuance in a way that’s never been done before?

Be specific. Specificity engenders trust. Name your characters. Set your story in a defined place and time. A telling detail can draw your reader in quickly by making your fictional world real. Words have literal meaning as well as emotional connotations. Think how a well-chosen noun can evoke setting, like parasol, palm tree, or rickshaw.

Though beginning with action is the current trend in fiction, delayed gratification has its pleasures. When you start with setting, you can draw the reader into your reality. Just don’t make them wait too long.

Find the Magic

Reading a great beginning is like falling in love at first sight. There is a certain amount of magic involved. No one can teach magic, but you can practice the tricks of the trade until your skills are so honed that the reader can’t see how you did it. You can’t see magic, you just believe.

Today’s post is written by regular contributor Sarah Baughman.

I’ll give you twenty seconds to skim these paragraphs and tell me which one exhibits stronger, more engaging writing:

Paragraph A

The hottest month in Ayemenem would certainly have to be May. Each and every day is long and exceedingly humid. The river starts to dry up and black crows, which sit in trees that are a dusty-colored green, eat golden, sun-ripened mangoes. It is a time when red bananas as well as plump, yellow, odd-smelling jackfruits are starting to get significantly riper. Flies buzz around and around in the sweet-smelling air. Then, because they don’t understand what glass is, they fly right into the windows and are killed by the impact. 

Paragraph B

May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.

Even though I wrote Paragraph A, I hope you hated it. It’s my decidedly unimpressive 91-word rewrite of Arundhati Roy’s arresting beginning to her novel The God of Small Things. Roy’s version, at 55 words, is undoubtedly cleaner, tighter, and more powerful.

A lower word count doesn’t always point to superiority, but wordiness is best avoided, and it’s the main culprit lurking behind my rewrite’s failure.

Are you wordy? Recognize the signs

Scan your writing for the following symptoms of wordiness:

• “Being” verbs. You’ll have to use them sometimes, of course, but they often slow the pace of a sentence. Compare “still, dustgreen trees” to “trees that are a dusty-colored green.” My paragraph contains seven “being verbs”; Roy’s just two. Highlight the “being” verbs on a page of your WIP and try to cut them in half.
• Passive constructions. Passive voice, which occurs when the subject of the sentence receives action rather than performing it, inevitably clogs sentences. Compare the flies that “are killed by the impact” versus the flies that simply “die.”
• Filler words. We writers love words…maybe a little too much. Are all of our words necessary? My rewrite quickly bogs itself down under the weight of ” would certainly have to be,”  ”each and every,” “around and around,” and “it is a time when”. Play a game with your WIP: take a few sentences and try to rewrite them to be half as long, a third as long, even just an eighth as long. Experiment with what words you can cut without losing meaning.
• Clichés. We’ve read these so many times that when they pop up, it’s easy to read right over them. Except for the unnecessary space they consume in our writing, it’s almost like they don’t exist for all the impact they have on readers. My rewrite’s description of “sun-ripened” mangoes and “sweet-smelling” air are not only longer, but lamer, than Roy’s.
• Unnecessary adjectives and adverbs. When it comes to description, sometimes less is more. My use of “exceedingly” and “significantly” doesn’t help readers visualize the gravity of the description, and the ” plump, yellow, odd-smelling” jackfruits might just have gone a bit overboard; Roy’s startlingly clear verb (“bursts”) packs more punch.

Stop wordiness before it starts

Editing out unnecessary words is great, but can we train ourselves not to include them at all? When meaning infuses each word, we’re less likely to use too many. Consider minimizing unnecessary words by regularly employing the following language devices:

• Fresh verbs. Roy’s river “shrinks”; her crows “gorge”; her jackfruits “burst”; her flies “stun themselves.” These verbs aren’t typical; they also require less elaboration than my ho-hum “starts to dry up,” “eat,” “starting to get significantly riper,” and “buzz around and around.” Yawn.
• Active voice. Roy’s repeated subject-verb sentence construction lends immediacy to her writing. Your sentence structure can vary from this, of course, but putting subjects in charge of their verbs trims the word count and reads smoothly.
• Stark contrast. Moving quickly from one opposite description to another or juxtaposing contrasting images economizes words and efficiently establishes action or setting. Roy’s days are “long,” but the river “shrinks.” Birds “gorge” in “still” trees. Those trees are “dustgreen” while the bananas are “red.” Her flies first “hum,” then “die.” All in 55 words.
• Varied sentence length. Achieve unique rhythm by alternating short and long sentences. We’re ready to digest Roy’s “Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air” in part because we’ve just been slammed with the fast– and effective– “Jackfruits burst.” In my rewrite, the sentences are all about the same length; there’s no break.
• Unusual description. When was the last time you thought of those flies wriggling on their backs on your windowsill as “fatly baffled?” A summer month as “hotly brooding?” Descriptions that make readers pause, think, and wonder need not be long; their strangeness carries the writing.

How do you avoid wordiness in your writing? What strategies do you have in place for editing wordiness out of your work, or for writing efficiently in the first place?

Today’s post is written by regular contributor Susan Bearman.

Editor’s Note: For a chance to win a copy of my eBook, The Busy Mom’s Guide to Writing, drop by author Jody Hedlund’s blog and leave a comment on her latest post, 5 Ways to Reduce the Working-Mom Whine Syndrome. 

I started my writing life as a business writer, compelled to try to improve the tortured, often incomprehensible language I found in operating manuals, annual reports, memoranda, and other formats that some bad writers tried to pass off as business “communication”. There seems to be a great misconception that passive voice, undefined acronyms and abbreviations, and loads of jargon make for good business writing.

Not true. All writers—whether writing for business, science, or academia, or those writing fiction and creative nonfiction—should strive for clarity.

But does that mean jargon, slang, and idioms are always taboo? Not if you do your job to make them serve your writing, rather confuse or bore your readers.

Jargon

jargon (noun) — specialized technical terminology characteristic of a particular subject; a characteristic language of a particular group.

To use jargon effectively, you must know your audience. Almost all industries use jargon to some extent, and that’s OK, because most practitioners of a particular profession have a basic understanding of the material and its associated jargon. Business and sports writers are notorious jargon users, as those in medicine and education.

For most writers, the goal is clarity. Unless you have a specific reason to use jargon, it’s best to avoid it. If you must include jargon, be sure to define it or make it understandable within the context of your story.

Bad writing is often the result of too much jargon. While jargon can be helpful when communicating within a specific group, too much jargon, or jargon that is not clearly defined can lead to muddy, confusing writing. If you find yourself having to reread a sentence over and over again, it is often because it contains confusing jargon.

Well-placed jargon in a piece of fiction can lend the voice of authority or the face of authenticity to a particular character. If one of your characters is a pompous Wall Street trader, using some insider jargon will help readers hear his voice on your page. Genre fiction, such as crime fiction, often relies heavily on the use of jargon. Here again, know your audience.

One way to help define jargon in your writing is to spell out acronyms or abbreviations the first time you use them:

Fuzzy: SCBWI announced on June 19 both the winner and runner up of the Don Freeman Memorial Grant-in-Aid.

Better: On June 19, the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) announced this year’s recipients of the Don Freeman Memorial Grants for picture book illustrators.

See if you can translate the following jargon into language that could be understood by a general audience (note, I did not make these up). You may need your search engine to help you. How many clicks around the Internet did it take you to understand the original jargon?

• Tender mooring area; please use a long painter.
• Eye of the Leopard managed to collar pacesetter Mr. Foricos Two U at the wire to win by a neck.
• The LNA is the “front end” of the block down-converter.
• The increasingly performative quality of art is becoming the paradigm for a multiplicity of aesthetic practices.
• The MVC (also known as a Mesoscale Convective Vortex (MCV) or a “Neddy eddy”) is best seen in a Java animation of visible imagery, appearing as a cyclonic spiral moving toward Saint Louis, MO.

Slang

slang (noun) — A kind of language occurring chiefly in casual and playful speech, made up typically of short-lived coinages and figures of speech that are deliberately used in place of standard terms for added raciness, humor, irreverence, or other effect.

Slang is the language of the moment. It’s especially common among young people and, therefore, a vital component in writing young adult (YA) literature or writing authentically in the voice of a teen. In a recent issue of TriQuarterly Online, Natalie Haney Tilghman explains: “Slang is a language of exclusion and makes the world of adolescence inaccessible to outsiders, including adults.”

But using slang effectively is tricky. First, by its very nature, slang is short-lived. Words or phrases that sound fresh today may be as moldy as week-old bread by the time your book leaves the presses.

If you do use slang, you have to define it in context and use it frequently enough in your text for it to seem a natural part of the telling of your story. It should sound right coming out of the mouths of your characters. This requires consistency and a good ear. If you’re going to use real slang from a particular community—the hip hop culture, for example—you better get it right or you will lose credibility with your readers.

One way to avoid misusing slang is to make up your own. It’s not that hard; teenagers do it all the time. Mix in a few evergreens like “cool” or “hot” that most readers will immediately recognize as slang, and your imaginary slang will take on a life of its own. Again, consistency and context are key. Who knows, your made-up slang may become the real slang of tomorrow.

Idioms

idiom (noun) — a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g. “on pins and needles”, meaning to be worried about something).

Idioms (or colloquialisms) are those turns of phrases that mean something entirely different than the actual words would indicate. Idiom is often synonymous with cliché (a saying or expression that has been so overused that it has become boring and unoriginal), but not all idioms are clichés. Used wisely in fiction or creative nonfiction, a well-chosen idiom can add color and flavor to your writing.

Since many idioms are regional they can be an efficient way of setting a character in a particular time or place. Speech from the American South is often riddled with colorful idioms, and English literature abounds with brilliant uses of idioms:

• Tennessee Williams’ classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof comes from a much older idiom, “like a cat on hot bricks”; both mean to be jumpy and nervous.
• Shakespeare coined many idioms that are still used today, including: wearing your heart on your sleeve, to come full circle, or to go on a wild-goose chase.
• The classic children’s book Amelia Bedelia, by Peggy Parish, is rife with idioms that confound poor Amelia, as she “dusts the furniture” by putting dust everywhere (why isn’t it “undusting” the furniture?)

Jargon, slang, and idioms are often the culprits on unimaginative and confusing text. But in the hands of good writers, they are just three more tools in your writing toolbox.

Just for Fun

If you’re in need of a few good laughs (or want to feel really good about your own writing), check out the winners of the 2011 Golden Bull Awards from the Plain English Campaign. If any of the examples sound like good writing to you, return to the top of this post and start taking good notes.

Today’s post is written by regular contributor Sarah Baughman.

I often read about the importance of spicing writing up with dialogue or description: a little show-don’t-tell language, a heated argument relayed with fast-paced exclamation points, a vivid image, an exchange whose subtext reveals more than the words themselves.

“Absolutely!” I always say. “I need to include more of that in my writing.” The only question is—when? How can I gauge when to give way to rich description, and when to let my characters speak for themselves?

Certainly part of the decision depends on balance. If we rely only on dialogue or description, challenging ourselves to develop the other at some point will surely benefit our writing. But assuming we strive to incorporate both in appropriate measures, are there any indicators available to help us see in which instances one might serve more purpose than the other?

Choosing Dialogue

Dialogue reads easily; it’s familiar, and its structure mimics regular conversations. It’s by nature colloquial and comfortable. Consider inserting dialogue when you want to:

1. Establish mystery or create tension between what’s said and what’s meant.

Readers can be just as taken with what isn’t said as with what is; suspense grows from reading between the lines. The following excerpt from Sara Gruen’s Like Water for Elephants (pg. 187) recounts an exchange between the protagonist and antagonist, and the fact that the characters don’t tell the whole story suggests a lot about their relationship as well as how the plot might develop.

“I need to arrange to get a doctor out here.”
“Why?”
I hesitate. “I’d rather not say.”
“Ah,” he says, winking at me. “I understand.”
“What?” I say, horrified. “No. It’s nothing like that.” I glance at Marlena, who turns quickly toward the window. “It’s for a friend of mine.”
“Yes, of course it is,” says August, smiling.
“No, it really is. And it’s not…Look, I just wondered if you knew of anyone. Never mind. I’ll walk into town and see what I can find.”

2. Accentuate a character’s voice or personality.

Think about the key relationships in your life and the extent to which conversation fuels them. Can’t we determine a lot about someone from the way they speak—their tone, vocabulary, syntax, use of humor or sarcasm?

In the following excerpt from She’s Come Undone (pg. 220), Wally Lamb expertly illustrates in just a few sentences of dialogue the differences between two characters. Marcia’s proper chiding, her quaint, chaste expression (“fry ice!”) contrasts perfectly with Naomi’s blunt, crass response, efficiently setting the two women at odds.

“Now you just watch your language and I mean it,” Marcia said.
“Oh yeah, your virgin ears,” Naomi laughed. “That’s probably your trouble, Marcia. Virgnity.”
A tremor passed over Marcia’s face. “You know, Naomi, I try hard to love a little something about every gal in this dormitory. But you can just go fry ice!”

3. Step back from interpretation; let characters reveal relationships.

In description, writers choose key details; they create metaphors that carry subtle connotations and paint images that might guide readers to a certain feeling about the subject being described.

Bare-bones dialogue leaves interpretation to the reader; it’s a pure form of characterization. In fiction, characters often take on lives of their own, ones the author might not have predicted at the beginning. In creative non-fiction, relaying a conversation ensures objectivity.

Consider how, in the following excerpt from A Thousand Splendid Suns (pg. 209), Khaled Hosseini creates an argument between two characters whose stark dialogue, unaffected by description, refrains from judgment:

“Where did you put it?” she said, wheeling around to face Laila.
“Me?” Laila said. “I didn’t take it. I hardly come in here.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Is that an accusation? It’s how you wanted it, remember. You said you would make the meals. But if you want to switch–”
“So you’re saying it grew little legs and walked out…”

Choosing Description

Rich description brings readers into the world we’ve created, making fictional settings and characters undoubtedly real. Consider inserting description when you want to:

1. Explore the significance of setting.

Writers know that characters, like people, are influenced by their environments. Using vivid description to linger on aspects of setting especially important to plot or character development is an excellent strategy.

In Snow Falling on Cedars (pg. 5), David Guterson assigns human qualities (optimistic, implacable) to his setting:

A few wind-whipped and decrepit Victorian mansions, remnants of a lost era of seagoing optimism, loomed out of the snowfall on the town’s sporadic hills. Beyond them, cedars wove a steep mat of still green. The snow blurred from vision the clean contours of these cedar hills. The sea wind drove snowflakes steadily inland, hurling them against the fragrant trees, and the snow began to settle on the highest branches with a gentle implacability. 

2. Create a close study of one character’s private thoughts.

We can carefully script and edit what we actually say out loud, but our thoughts run wild. Description reveals truths about a character that might seem unrealistically revealing or even disingenuous if spoken in conversation.

In this excerpt from The Snow Child (pg. 3), Eowyn Ivey uses imagery to plumb her main character’s disappointment with a depth Mabel certainly could not bring herself to reveal through dialogue:

Mabel had known there would be silence. That was the point, after all. No infants cooing or wailing. No neighbor children playfully hollering downy he lane. No pad of small feet on wooden stairs worn smooth by generations, or clackety-clack of toys along the kitchen floor. All those sounds of her failure and regret would be left behind, and in their place there would be silence. 

3. Move plot forward quickly, using shifts in time.

Vivid description can quickly layer different plotlines to create an unconventional narrative structure. In Cold Mountain (pgs. 4-5), Charles Frazier uses an element of setting–a window–to trigger a character’s memory and build backstory:

Inman suspected that after such long examination, the grey window had finally said about all it had to say. That morning, though, it surprised him, for it brought to mind a lost memory of sitting in school, a similar tall window beside him framing a scene of pastures and low green ridges terracing up to the vast hump of Cold Mountain…The memory passed on as the light from the window rose toward day. 

How do dialogue and description complement one another? How do you determine whether to develop one or the other in a particular part of your manuscript?

Today’s post is written by regular contributor Sarah Baughman.

A talented member of my writing group once told me she couldn’t imagine writing a personal essay.

While the powerful description and plot development she employed throughout her novel-in-progress impressed us all, she said she would find it impossible to generate ideas for a nonfiction piece about her own life.

I think she’d probably be surprised. Creative nonfiction depends on many of the same literary qualities that make great fiction.

Describing this genre as embodying the “use of literary craft in presenting nonfiction,” Creative Nonfiction Editor Lee Gutkind says that creative nonfiction writers “make ideas and information that already exist more interesting and, often, more accessible.”

If you’re interested in writing a personal essay, some of the very tools you rely on most while crafting short stories or novel chapters are the perfect building blocks.

Conflict

Fiction writers know the importance of conflict in moving a plot forward, and outside the writing world, conflicts large and small move life forward! We all experience them, and these daily conflicts, even the trivial ones, can fuel a personal essay.

Track the internal and external conflicts you experience on a given day.

• Which ones get under your skin?
• Which ones teach you something about yourself you didn’t know before?
• Which ones make you feel more connected to your environment and the people around you, and which ones are isolating?
• Do any conflicts, in their resolution, give way to a heightened sense of peace?

Behind every conflict that causes further reflection, there lurks a story.

Example: “Just the Two of Us, When One Toddles” by Jennifer Baumgardner, The New York Times, 8/25/11. An annoying conflict in the airport parking lot gives way to reflection on the larger conflict, and benefits, of being a single parent.

Writing Prompt: Identify a recent conflict, internal or external, trivial or significant, that has led you to a greater understanding of yourself. Recall a specific moment that made you aware of the conflict and begin by narrating the scene (as in Baumgardner’s essay: “Our car, a 17-year-old red Honda Civic, shimmered in the heat. ‘This isn’t good,’ I thought.”)

Characterization

There’s a t-shirt floating around the web that writers will love: “Careful or you’ll end up in my next novel,” it proclaims.

Certainly the best characters in fiction feel like real people, and observing the details used to establish those characters—appearance, thoughts, dialogue, actions—can help us see people in our lives with new eyes. Unlike fictional characters, people we know can’t change according to our imagination, but they do have their own stories. A willingness to step outside our relationships and view people with a “writer’s eye” can actually lead to deeper appreciation because we’re challenged to pay such close attention to their characteristics.

Example: “Christmas Eve at St. Clement” by Amy Rosenquist, Literary Mama, 12/6/09. Rosenquist’s essay about her autistic son thrives on detail–past actions, small obsessions, statements, reactions, physical characteristics–and paints an engaging portrait of a complex, endearing boy.

Writing Prompt: Describe an important person in your life via an event you both attended that reveals the character of that person and holds significance for your relationship (like Rosenquist’s Christmas Eve service).

Setting

Places we know well provide powerful backdrops for personal essays. But “setting” doesn’t have to include a spectacular sunset or breathtaking mountain range–even noting the ordinary detail in our own homes (dishes cluttering the sink, dust on the windowsill, a quilt tossed over a sofa) is an excellent exercise for recognizing how place informs plot. 

Whether you choose initially to write about a significant experience, working place descriptors into the story as you go, or whether you use place as a starting point, you’ll find that your own ties to different settings can enhance a personal essay.

Example: “Not Like You” by Katherine Gries, Brevity, Issue #32, January 2010. In Gries’ compelling essay, peaceful settings—first in the woods, then in a house—provide stark contrast to the violence she suffers.

Writing Prompt: When has a particular place served as a meaningful backdrop to an experience? Step outside the experience to provide a detailed description of the place. Consider exploring how the place either reflects, or contrasts with, the experience.

Dialogue

I always found dialogue tricky, but writing down interview quotes for freelance journalism assignments helped me overcome some of my reservations about using it.

While everyday speech might be punctuated with clumsy interruptions you don’t always want to include in writing, listening closely to conversations and mirroring actual speech patterns can aid the development of authentic dialogue. Readers like dialogue—it’s a nice break from solid description, moves plot along, and reveals character quickly. Try jotting down just a few interchanges from conversations you’ve had during the course of a day and seeing what might lead to a story.

Example: “Montana Soccer Mom Moment” by Laura Munson, The New York Times, 7/23/10. A conversation between mother and daughter, punctuated by description, forms the core of Munson’s heartfelt essay.

Writing Prompt: Recall a conversation you had that, like Munson’s, served as some kind of turning point. Use dialogue interspersed with description of your internal reactions to relay the conversation.

Do you write both fiction and creative non-fiction? What strategies do you use that apply to both genres? 

Today’s article is written by regular contributor Sarah Baughman. 

“Ugh, Mrs. B.!” my student groaned, rolling his eyes. “Why can’t this author just say what he actually means?!”

We were reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and my student wasn’t the only one in the class who seemed weary of reading about pythons that were really hoses, symphony conductors that were really firemen, an island that was really a face. They wanted clarity, not guesswork.

I don’t begrudge them their frustration—metaphors can be tricky. However, it’s helpful to think of them not as puzzles writers use to baffle us, but rather as keys unlocking more layers of meaning than we could possibly gain with a literal description.

Wait a second, I just threw a couple metaphors in there without realizing it. Puzzles? Keys? Seems pretty sneaky, but honestly, I didn’t mean to! They just popped out!

The fact that I made the comparisons subconsciously shows that the human mind, in an effort to make sense of its world, is already constantly linking people, objects, ideas, and experiences. Metaphors might seem convoluted, but they’re really outward expressions of the connections we already make in our daily lives. They add depth and insight to our writing.

Still, not all metaphors are created equal; some are more powerful than others. The best ones enhance our understanding of the topic at hand, helping us grasp associations and characteristics we might not have noticed before.

Finding the layers

“But he is saying what he means!” I told my skeptical student. “Look, the metaphors are actually efficient. Bradbury describes the fire hose as a ‘python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world’ (pg. 3). Sounds complicated at first, but think about how much you learn about the hose just by realizing that it’s like a python. A hose by itself is just an object, neither good nor bad. The metaphor, just one word, helps us know exactly how to feel about it.”

Metaphors work nicely when, despite their obvious connection to the topic, they have some key differences as well—when they compare, for example, a living thing (like a python) to an object (like a hose).

The python metaphor also works well because it contains both physical and intangible similarities that deepen our understanding of the concept. Sure, a hose is shaped like a snake, making the initial connection obvious. But there’s more to it than that– this is no garter snake. Pythons are the world’s longest snake, frighteningly powerful, carnivorous. They kill easily, squeezing their prey until it dies (interestingly, they aren’t poisonous, which makes Bradbury’s mention of “venom” an interesting discussion topic–but I digress).

In Fahrenheit 451, the larger-than-life dictatorial government invokes fear, dominating not only people’s lives but their thoughts, arguably “constricting” their instincts and feelings until they lose all sense of self, a spiritual “death” of sorts. I could go on, but what’s nice is I don’t have to—the metaphor does it for me. With one image, it conjures up a host of associations that enrich my understanding of the scene, and it ends up packing considerable more punch than “The fireman sprayed the house with a hose.”

How can we write metaphors as complex and meaningful as Bradbury’s?

Writing metaphors backwards

1. What are the defining characteristics?

Choosing meaningful metaphors can begin with recognizing the distinct characteristics of a character, object, or setting.

For example, let’s shift gears and imagine Bradbury’s character, Mildred. (Don’t worry if you haven’t read the book; the following description is all you’ll need. ) She’s emotionally detached and, while she’s not cruel to her husband, she’s not loving either. In fact, she doesn’t seem capable of really feeling much at all, and she responds to other people’s displays of emotion with fear and confusion.

2. Focus on a particular situation or scene that highlights some of the key characteristics you identified. 

In one scene, Bradbury’s Mildred attempts suicide. The main character, Montag, enters his wife’s bedroom to find her lying comatose on the bed. In this scene, her personality has reached its most extreme consequence, plus her physical state perfectly mirrors her emotional state. It’s a great place for a metaphor.

3. Think of some other objects that share characteristics you identified in Step 1, also keeping in mind how the specific situation reveals the character. 

In this scene, Mildred is both emotionally and physically detached. She is completely separated from her husband, her home, her world. She’s isolated.

What else is isolated? An oasis in the desert? Fine, but the connotation of an oasis is wrong; it’s too positive (Mildred is hardly a source of refuge).

What about a tree shedding its leaves too early, rotted at the root? Or what about an island? Bingo! Bradbury ends up comparing her to just that.

4. Extend the initial comparison with a complete image. 

Saying Mildred is like an island doesn’t really feel like enough. Moving past a single word and creating an image to round out the specific characteristics you choose to emphasize is more effective.

Bradbury’s final metaphor comparing Mildred to an island is written as a simile: “Her face was like a snow-covered island upon which rain might fall, but it felt no rain; over which clouds might pass their moving shadow, but she felt no shadow…” (pg. 13).

It’s perfect. Immediately, we understand that this is an impenetrable character, someone unmoved by attempts at nourishment or warning. We imagine an island, icy and uninhabited, surrounded by waves nobody would want to cross. We might even shudder as we read it…which of course, when we’re dealing with metaphor, is exactly the point.

Do you enjoy using metaphors in your writing? What are some challenges and successes you have experienced as you work with metaphors?

Today’s post is written by Frederick Fuller. Thanks, Frederick!

In Anatole France’s story The Juggler of Notre Dame, Barnabé, the juggler, performs before the altar of the Virgin Mary as his gift to the Holy Mother.

He offers to the Holy Mother all he has, from what he is, a juggler. And the astonished Prior and other monks who are watching see Her appear and bless Barnabé.

Writer are Barnabés. We perform for our readers. Instead of copper balls and knives that Barnabé used, writers use words.

Choose Words that Engage the Five Senses

Using the premise from poet John Ciardi that poetry is a performing art as well—with poets juggling words in ways that astound and entertain their readers—I contend that fiction writers mount dramas on their pages.

And like poets, we choose words that engage our five senses. Take John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. In chapter three, he turns a casual observation of a turtle crossing a highway into a lesson on endurance.

A turtle slowly makes its way through the grass toward the highway. He doesn’t really walk, but drags his shell along, neck out-stretched with humorous eyes looking ahead.

Steinbeck does not force this lesson upon us, but allows it to seep into the Goads’ struggle to get to California and their determination to endure. He takes a snapshot that defines endurance and gives the reader the honor of figuring it out. He performs the scene for our entertainment and edification.

Consider How Personal Experience Affects Word Meaning

Words mean what they mean in direct proportion to our experience with them. When we encounter most any word, it effects a reaction in our psyches and we see, hear, smell, taste or feel what the word means to us.

Example: A father abuses his child. The child goes to church and hears the words Father God. Her experience with “father” causes her to reject the concept of God the Father.

To be successful, fiction writers must touch their readers with words they believe will call forth the five senses. Whatever a writer wants to do to his reader, sensitive word choice is essential, and it will take time and planning to achieve it.

Use Your Thesaurus Wisely

My writing coach, an accomplished published author, told me to not make my work appear made by thesaurus. Be careful, she warned, about using synonyms, especially “big words” that you think will show your great scholarship but only exposes you as an amateur.

She is right. So was George Orwell when he admonished writers to “never use a long word when a short one will do.”

Sound advice. Echos Mark Twain when he advised: ”Pick a worthy subject. Stick to that subject. And say what you have to say in as few words as possible.” I agree with all that advice, and it is always in my mind when I write.

However (always a however), my contention is that writers should read thesauri and dictionaries like non-fiction “how to” books. We are not called wordsmiths for nothing.

For we do “smith” words. We treat them with intimacy, we hammer them until they say what we want them to say, and we forge them by means of art into shapes that will intrigue, astonish, amaze and entertain our readers.

Be a Barnabé, juggling, dancing, singing, turning cartwheels–whatever we need to cause readers to come back for more. Writing is not just a craft; it is performance.

Break a leg!

Frederick Fuller is a writer living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. A retired teacher of English and Theatre Arts, he is the author of two novels, For the Heart’s Treasure and Children of Bast, both available in print and e-book formats. Catch him at his site Skimbleshanks, The Railway Cat, friend him on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter. Check out his books at Goodreads.

We’ve all heard the expression, “That’s so cliche!” But what does it really mean, and can it mean more than one thing?

A cliche can be described as:

• A trite or overused expression or idea ~The Free Dictionary
• A hackneyed theme, characterization or situation ~Merriam-Webster Dictionary
• Something that has become overly familiar or commonplace ~Merriam-Webster Dictionary
• A person or character whose behaviour is predictable or superficial ~The Free Dictionary

So, cliches don’t just include phrases we hear too often, but also ideas and situations, and even characters.

DeepGenre makes an interesting observation in that:

One of the standard Words of Advice that writers–new and old–get, is to avoid clichés. The advice itself is rather a cliché but, like all clichés, it is based in truth, and it would be wrong to reflexively ignore it.

But what’s so wrong about using cliches? Sure, maybe they sound a little tired, but how bad could they possibly be?

Oxford Dictionaries puts it well:

[Cliches] tend to annoy people, especially if they’re overused, and they may even create an impression of laziness or a lack of careful thought. Some people just tune out when they hear a cliché and so they may miss the point that you’re trying to make.

There’s the heart of the problem—no one wants to read something they’ve already read a thousand times. And, as a writers of integrity, none of us set out to look lazy.

As I mentioned before, the term ‘cliche’ can refer to a number of different things, but they all share the commonalities of being (a) overused, (b) meaningless, and (c) boring.

1. Overused expressions

Common sayings (or idioms) like “All’s fair in love and war” and “Blood is thicker than water” are cliched. They once held truth and meaning, but through overuse have become meaningless.

Other expressions you may find peppered through your writing include, “He was scared to death,” “It was my worst nightmare,” “She was as sick as a dog,” and “He sighed with relief.”

But even more insidious are the classification of expressions that are so commonplace, we don’t even notice them: “Needless to say,” “At this point in time,” “Each and every one,” “Off the top of my head,” “Mark my words,” and “I beg to differ.”

The list could go on and on (I think “on and on” might even be a cliche…), but you get the idea. These expressions are overused, meaningless, and boring.

[Check out this list of 500 Cliches to Avoid in your Creative Writing, and An A to Z of Cliches for Writers to Avoid Like the Plague.]

2. Hackneyed plots

We’ve probably all heard that there are only so many original plots in existence, and that every book in existence is simply a variation of one of those plots. That’s completely true. But, some plots have become so hackneyed, readers begin to think, “Ugh. Not again.”

How to Avoid Plot Cliches gives the example of the character who knows some terrible secret, but dies or falls into a coma before he or she can pass the secret on to the main character.

Or, how about this one: young city girl loses/quits her job and moves to small town which she hates at first, but soon comes to love for its quirky inhabitants and one very special male character.

No one’s saying you can’t make these overused plots fresh—in fact, writers do it every day and still manage to get published. But, if the plot or premise is hackneyed, the writer must do something else to make the story stand out. Maybe the characters or the setting are what sets it apart from the rest.

[Just for a laugh, check out this cool cliched plot generator.]

3. Stereotypical characters

In my opinion, the best books are those that feature characters who remain in my memory long after I’ve finished reading. That’s why it’s especially frustrating when I come across completely one-dimensional, stereotypical characters that ruin an otherwise okay story.

Within my reading experience, I’ve come across characters like these:

• a male love-interest who was fat in high school, but who turns out to be beefy and handsome when the leading lady meets him again as an adult
• a young professional woman who can’t seem to find love amongst all the frogs
• a handsome, brooding man whose wife died, and now he just can’t allow himself to admit his feelings for the new lady in his life

These are stereotypes. We’ve seen these characters again and again.

Again, that’s not to say you couldn’t take one of these characters and make them outstanding, while setting them within a not-so-hackneyed plot. It’s just more difficult to pull off.

[Helen Fielding managed to do it with the much-loved Bridget of Bridget Jones's Diary.]

The Cliched Writing Self-Test

Okay—moment of truth. (Another cliche, right?)

Print out one chapter or section of your work-in-progress, and work through it with a highlighter.

Each time you come across…

• a phrase you hear commonly used
• a too-obvious descriptive word (like describing the sun as ‘glaring’)
• a situation that seems unoriginal
• a character you’ve seen before, or one who behaves in a stereotypical manner

…highlight it.

Worse than you thought? Better?

You’ve probably found at least a few instances of cliched writing which would have otherwise gone unnoticed. If not, try digging out a piece from your earlier writing days. See a difference?

Now, before you go throwing out your novel or short story because you think your writing is hopeless, check out Oxford Dictionaries Action Points for Avoiding Cliches. There are some great practical ways to rid your prose of these impediments to excellent writing.

The odd cliche isn’t going to kill your work-in-progress. Sometimes they can be used to your advantage, but in general there are better ways to get your point across.

How cliched is your writing? Do you have a strategy for preventing or identifying cliches in your works-in-progress? Which cliched phrases, ideas, or characters do you find popping up in your work again and again?