Shah's Fiction – Creative Writing Tips | Fiction Writing Techniques

For the last three weeks, I’ve been living on Egyptian time. The human drama and the twists and turns of this incredible conflict transfixed myself and millions of others, who stayed glued to their Al-Jazeera feeds as Egyptians rioted to topple their thirty year dictator. I literally woke when Egyptians woke, ate when Egyptians ate, and slept when Egyptians slept, intent not to miss a single moment of one of the most enthralling dramas in living memory.

Life mimics art, and art mimics life. What made the toppling of Hosni Mubarak such compelling news is the way it resembled a drama. Namely, it had characters with high stake goals, surprises, complexity, and a resolution — and no one had to suspend disbelief to enjoy any of it. Let’s go into depth:

1. Every story focuses on the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist – in this case, the pro-democracy protestors versus Hosni Mubarak. The protestors had a clear goal: bring the dictatorship that has oppressed them down. Hosni Mubarak and his regime also had a clear goal: stay in power. Because Egypt is the center of the Arab world, and change there not only affects its 80 million citizens but every country in the region, the stakes were high. Victory for the protestors could mean greater freedom for all the people of the Middle East, while Mubarak staying in power would only reassure the region’s tyrants, and this added an epic sense of history to the conflict.

2. And this conflict was full of surprises, with many twists and turns, the protestors staunch in their resolve to bring Mubarak down, and Mubarak staunch in his resolve to stay. The dictator’s first move was to dispatch thousands of police to douse the riots, which only emboldened the protestors. When the protest grew into the millions, Mubarak appeared on TV and offered a host of surprising concessions, including that he would not run for re-election. But the pro-democracy supporters continued protesting, because their goal hadn’t been met. And then, in one of the most shocking things I’ve ever witnessed live on TV, Mubarak sent plainclothes police to fight street battles with the protestors using rocks and knives. It was incredible to watch these plainclothes police, some on horseback and camels, launch themselves at the protestors. While the pro-democracy supporters never wavered from their tactic of non-violent resistance, Mubarak used a variety of surprising strategies. You can’t predict life, and you shouldn’t be able to predict good fiction.

3. Because this is the real world, there’s going to be inherent complexity. Aside from Mubarak and the protestors, there were other major actors involved, such as the Egyptian military and the United States. During the conflict, it was often pondered who the military would support, and whether Barack Obama would ally with the protestors. The complexity became apparent when the military made statements that indicated they backed the people, but acted in a way to defend the regime. It was clear that while the military did not want to erode their popularity with the people, they were comfortably in power anyway and didn’t desire a change of the status-quo. The best political thrillers will mimic the complexity of a standoff such as this, which gives them an aura of authenticity necessary to make fiction believable.

4. Many things in life don’t have a resolution, but this did. The Israel-Palestine conflict has been going on for seventy years, and we’re all jaded from it. The Egyptian Revolution, on the other hand, started and ended in seventeen days. The night before he stepped down, Mubarak appeared on TV as defiant as ever, stating he was the father of the Egyptian people and would not be told to go. You could feel the situation reach a climax as millions more took to the streets the very next day. A few hours after the largest Friday prayer in Egyptian history, Mubarak finally resigned. The catharsis was incredible. After seventeen days of intense, high stakes, and surprising conflict, a resolution had arrived. The protestors had won, and their jubilation was indescribable.

After suffering for decades under the boot of various dictators, it took the Egyptian people only seventeen days of struggle to win their freedom. In life, struggles don’t always pay off, but fiction has to provide hope that struggles are worth it and that people can change their lives in meaningful ways. We hoped and hoped it would end well for the protagonists in Egypt, and it did, and this is also the hope of every reader who picks up a book, and of anyone struggling for something.

Tagged with: conflict • high stakes • plot twists

Filed under: Creative Writing Tips • Plot

LOST is a train wreck.  The show’s train cars derailed, burst into flames, and piled on top of each other creating a maze of confusion and chaos – and this all happened in the first season. The level of convolution and the laundry list of unanswered mysteries makes you wonder if the writers had a clue what the show was actually about.

LOST is also one of the best TV dramas of all time – attested by publications such as Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. It won its Emmy around the time “WAAALT!” was cryptically hyped as the great island mystery, only for his character to disappear from the show (because the actor grew too tall) and never be explained.

How did a show so shallow in its attempts at depth, a show so over-the-top its main villain is a smoke beast, attain mass popularity and captivate your immigrant grandmother?

Two things: An entire cast of sympathetic characters, and an endless barrage of convincing and shocking plot twists for them to suffer through.

A plot twist is an oft used device, and its main purpose is to shock the audience. Often, they don’t work, either because a) they can be seen from a mile away, or b) they come out of nowhere. Here’s how LOST makes them work.

1. It creates a smokescreen. In the fourth episode, “Walkabout”, we learn that poor middle-aged John Locke has a crummy life, and all he wants is to go on a hunting adventure in Australia. We learn that there are obstacles in his way, such as his jerk boss, and the leader of the hunting adventure. We learn that he bought his tickets in advance, packed his bags with hunting gear, and is super enthusiastic for the adventure. But this is all smokescreen to cover up what we aren’t told till the very end of the episode: John Locke is paralyzed and wheelchair bound.

2. It doesn’t ask the question. If the story posed the question “can Locke walk?” or “is there something physically wrong with Locke?” then over the course of the 45 minute episode, most people would’ve guessed the plot twist. This is a major problem with whodunits; the question of “who did it” is already asked and the viewer will suspect every character in the story (unless a clever smokescreen is used to cover up the real bad guy). Don’t ask the question, no one will discover the answer. The LOST creators cleverly avoided showing Locke walking, always showing him lying down or sitting, so that the idea of physical impairment wouldn’t enter the viewer’s mind. We cannot see this twist from a mile away, not even from a centimeter away. In fact, they made it absurd to even think it, considering how gung ho Locke is about hunting.

3. It embeds clues in the story. When we learn that Locke was in a terrible accident that caused his paralysis, everything clicks. We understand why his life is so crummy, and why he is so intent on the hunting adventure as a means of proving himself. The twist doesn’t come out of nowhere, and the clues littered in the story suddenly connect into an “ah-hah!” moment. The clues have to be so subtle that they don’t allow the viewer to figure out the twist, yet visible enough that the viewer realizes their meaning afterward.

The truth is, the writers of LOST had a vague conception for the show, and were pulling mysteries out of their smoke monster pit. But they knew how to make you care, and surprise you. Shock is a strong emotion, and its strong emotions that people seek in fiction – which is why plot twists are so energizing when done right.

Tagged with: LOST • plot twists • TV

Filed under: Creative Writing Tips • Plot

So you’ve got some complex and well-motivated characters. To really build a story, you’re going to have to define their relationships to one another. Compelling character relationships drive a story, the way relationships drive real life.

Let’s take a look at the TV show Psych, which offers telling examples of compelling character relationships. Those who’ve seen the show will know it’s about a gifted and eccentric detective named Sean who pretends he is psychic, and who goes about solving crimes for the Santa Barbara Police Department with his best friend Gus. So there’s the driving relationship of the story, the protagonist and his best friend – hero and sidekick.

When we think of our best friends, we think of someone who is similar, who we get along with, and who shares our interests. Sean and Gus couldn’t be farther from that. Rather, their relationship is full of disagreement, competition, derision, and more – and that’s what makes it so compelling. As we watch them solve cases together, we love the fact that they bicker on minor issues, disagree on how to solve the case, and mock each other’s quirks. It’s the conflict in their relationship that interests us, and you would do well to include an element of conflict in your character relationships.

Why do they conflict? Because rather than being similar, Sean and Gus are contrasts of one another – the differences of one highlight the differences of the other. Gus is a uptight and strict, while Sean couldn’t be more lax and whimsical. Gus is often cowardly and averse to risk, while Sean is brave and his life is one risk after another. The importance of character contrast cannot be understated; not only does it provide variety to the reading experience, it’s necessary to portray the uniqueness of your characters. When characters have different values, attitudes, and methods, they will clash even if they have the same goal, and this will lead to satisfying conflict.

CREATIVE WRITING TIP: Plot all your characters on a diagram. Draw lines from each character to every other character, and along each line, write a few words that defines their relationship. This storytelling technique will help you keep relationships in mind.

Despite how much they fight, Sean and Gus are best friends because they care about each other. The combination of their conflict and caring makes the relationship endearing, not unlike the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Not all relationships should be designed like this, but as human beings, our strongest relationships are often filled with a mix of love and hate. We love those we care about, but sometimes hate the things they do. The most compelling character relationships in stories are like this too.

You’ll find when you create compelling relationships, the conflict of your story will naturally erupt, and dialogue will be easier to write. So use this storytelling technique to spice up your creative writing.

Tagged with: conflict • Psych • TV

Filed under: Characters • Creative Writing Tips

We read fiction because we seek an emotional experience. A novel or short story conveys emotion in three ways: through description, dialogue, and voice. The last is the hardest to understand, but writers who evoke emotion through voice often create an addicting reading experience. It is essential to learn to write with voice, because when we like the voice a writer employs and the emotions it evokes, we love hearing it in our head and are compelled to keep reading.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins did this for me. The moment I opened the book, I was no longer reading words on a page. I was listening to a human voice paint images and feelings. Since the book is written in the first person, voice is natural byproduct; but there are certain stylistic qualities to the voice that make it evocative. Check out the following passage, where the protagonist, Katniss, talks about her cat:

Sitting at Prim’s knees, guarding her, is the world’s ugliest cat. Mashed-in nose, half of one ear missing, eyes the color of rotting squash. Prim named him Buttercup, insisting that his muddy yellow coat matched the bright flower. He hates me. Or at least distrusts me. Even though it was years ago, I think he still remembers how I tried to drown him in a bucket when Prim brought him home. Scrawny kitten, belly swollen with worms, crawling with fleas. The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed. But Prim begged so hard, cried even, I had to let him stay. It turned out okay. My mother got rid of the vermin and he’s a born mouser. Even catches the occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me.

So what makes the voice in the above passage, and the entire novel, so strong?

1. A real human being is speaking, not your English teacher. When we speak, we often speak in fragments and disregard the rules of grammar. Notice the second sentence has no verb, and thus is a fragment. Still, it is clear, and does not draw attention to itself. If you are going to be ungrammatical at times, make sure both are the case. The simple yet colorful vocabulary and the varied sentence structures also resemble how a person would speak a story, not just write one.

2. The voice creates images (and other sensations). A common problem with first person stories is rambling. Writers fixated with trying to create the impression of natural speech tend to allow their protagonists to ramble about their opinions. Collins makes sure her protagonist speaks in images, sensations, and actions – incasing opinion in between. Notice how the image of the cat is evoked in our mind, using words that connote the protagonists feelings toward the cat. The cat isn’t just “ugly,” its eyes are “the color of rotting squash (image)” and “it hates her (opinion).” When strong images surround the protagonist’s feelings, the reader’s emotions are evoked.

3. The voice flows. The only way to know how to create flow is to develop an ear for it by reading. In general, flow is created by varying sentence and paragraph structure. Starting too many sentences and paragraphs with the same word, having them be the same length, with the same number of clauses destroys flow because it draws attention to the pattern of the words. You never want to draw attention to the words; the reader’s attention should always be on the music of the voice and the images and sensations the voice is creating. Notice how short and abrupt sentences are intermixed in the above example. “She hates me” comes after several long sentences. “He has stopped hissing at me” ends the paragraph perfectly because of its succinctness.

CREATIVE WRITING TIP: Even if you write in third person, everything still applies. When editing your third person story, try to hear the POV character’s voice narrating, and even replace “he or she” with “I” in your head for full effect. It definitely helps get out of the “English teacher” mindset.

The reader should be dreaming the words, lost in the story, and voice is a key component of inducing this dream. So, like The Hunger Games, learn to write with voice and make your readers dream!

Tagged with: emotional experience • novels • Suzanne Collins • The Hunger Games • voice

Filed under: Creative Writing Tips • Voice