The Setting Is Also Not the Story

Not every detail can be addressed in one blog post, so I wanted to write a quick followup to the post: Don't Write the Plot, Write the Story. 

That post didn't mention setting or world-building, mostly because posts have to be limited in scope so as not to become books in their own right. So let me be clear: regardless of whether you're using the real world as a framework or inventing an entirely new universe, setting is absolutely important! 

The balance of setting with elements like plot and character development varies depending on the genre. A contemporary novel still needs to be grounded in its setting, but a historical novel will likely need to devote more space to establishing the world (creating a fuller picture of the world for those who may not know that history, did not live then, etc.). High Fantasy requires more world-building than Urban Fantasy, and it will almost always need more space on the page to explain the world because you can't expect the reader to have a preexisting framework to rely on if you're inventing a universe from scratch. That balance will also shift based on whether it's the first or fifteenth book in a series.

But no matter how richly developed the world, the setting is also not the story. It is unquestionably an important piece, but it is ultimately the backdrop that facilitates our experience of the story. 

Consider plays. I often remind writers that a novel is not a script—a fiction writer is required to do the work of the director, the actors, the set designer, the costume designer, and even the lighting designer, to an extent. Plays are a very different form of storytelling because so much must be added by each team creating the version they perform. And undoubtedly the interpretations of actors and directors become a critical part of their version of the story.

But a traditional Elizabethan version of Hamlet in full costume, with full sets (etc.) is not a different story than that same company's performance in their street clothes on a bare stage. Theater companies have even done intentionally minimalist performances like this.

Because while the setting (including costumes) enhances the story, and certainly influences our experience of the story, it is ultimately not itself the core story.

On the flip side, Hamlet with a different director's and cast's interpretation may ultimately be a different story. Because as I wrote here, the plot is also not the story. 

Don't Write the Plot, Write the Story

When you're evaluating the trajectory of your story (whether that's before or after writing a first draft), it's important to understand what fundamentally makes a story compelling. Why does it draw us in, and why do we care to keep reading (or watching)? What makes the ending satisfying? 

Many writers, especially at the beginning, fall into the trap of believing that a story is the plot, i.e., the external events that occur. Things like:

• A heroine's friend is kidnapped.
• A romantic couple meets.
• The MC stumbles upon magic he's not supposed to know exists.
• The maligned hero escapes from jail.

Whatever your genre of commercial fiction, there is (in 99% of cases) going to be a plot, meaning an external framework of events that occur as time passes. And the plot is important! It needs to make sense, it needs to move at a good pace, it needs to be a complete experience (often called an arc), and so on. 

But the plot is not the story.

Love this design? Buy merch here!

The story is the main character's (or characters'—but I'll stick with one MC for clarity) growth arc. That is, how a character is emotionally impacted over the course of the story, and how they change (or choose not to) as a result.

The plot is a framework, but the character is the design and the substance. 

Even if your story primarily focuses on the action (like solving a mystery, or catching a criminal), the plot should be shaped by the details of your MC. What drives them? What knowledge, beliefs, and misconceptions do they have? The character's background and personality should influence what choices they make and what actions they take (or try to take)—otherwise known as the plot.

If your plot would be exactly the same with entirely different characters swapped in, you're doing something wrong.

What we connect with are the characters and their emotional journeys. Sometimes those journeys can be incremental (consider long-running TV shows like Bones and House), with the characters being nudged very slowly along their arcs. In such cases, individual episodes (or even entire novels, in action-heavy genres) don't necessarily have a full emotional arc for each MC. Often, stories like these rely on the emotional journeys of temporary side characters to draw us in and evoke that sense of fulfillment for individual episodes. Nevertheless, when you take the story as a whole—the entire series—the characters absolutely do grow and change over time. Or they intentionally and stubbornly choose not to, which can be the point of their story. But that journey is what draws us in. 

For example, with a romance, the story is never about the mechanics of how two people meet, or a list of what dates they go on. The story is how these people influence one another, leading to personal growth for each of them that allows them to come together as a healthy couple we can trust to navigate the future together. This is true for a positive romance arc in any genre.

A negative romance arc would result in the romantic relationship ending, but it's still not simply a list of conflicts or fights that happen. Rather, it's the emotional impact of those interactions on your characters, and the choices they make as a result.

Regardless of whether there's romance involved, nailing the character's arc—and how it's impacted by the plot—is integral to writing a satisfying story. Obstacles need to be engaged with (even if they're not overcome), and false beliefs need to be confronted, allowing the character to grow and learn as a result.

Sometimes, particularly with negative arcs, characters do refuse to change. To make such stories fulfilling, often the character must be left facing believable—even devastating—consequences. 

It is the seamless combination of external events (plot points) and compelling internal character arcs that creates engaging stories people can't put down—and will want to rave about and reread. 

So by all means, plan out your plot. Fill in the action beats in your favorite beat sheet or outline system. But remember to root those external events in the foundation of your characters. Because the plot isn't the story. Without those well-developed characters, a plot is just a sequence of events.

---

Not sure where to start with fleshing out your characters? Check out: What Do Your Characters Want?

Why You Can Ignore Most Popular Creative Writing Advice

With the proliferation of writing blogs nowadays, anyone can (and does) post their "secrets to better writing." While some are genuinely helpful, I frequently see certain tidbits that writers accept as gospel, even though they shouldn't. Many of these are derivatives of good, reasonable tips that have been twisted and transformed through a prolonged game of telephone until one day someone proclaiming themselves an authority shared the distorted version they'd accepted as truth.

Often the initially nuanced advice has been taken to a rigid extreme. So as you're improving your craft and applying various suggestions, how can you know if advice you're seeing falls into this category? By remembering there are very few absolutes in creative writing.

Conventions and style guides are undeniably important, but writers are constantly proving it's possible to convey their intended meaning to the reader while stretching those boundaries. Consider how commonplace fragments have become in literature, even though they used to be hunted down and eliminated. Nowadays we make many allowances for character voice and have even had books written entirely in list form or as multiple choice questions.

Basically, if something is effective, you can get away with it rather than strictly adhering to formal rules. If your work is having the impact you want, keep doing what you're doing.

This is not license to ignore your editor! But you should feel comfortable explaining your reasoning and intentions, while remaining open to the rationale behind their suggestions.

Unfortunately, it's often newer writers who discover and end up applying these tyrannical distortions of good suggestions. While there are more than I could possibly address in one post, let's take a look at some examples of twisted tips:

1. Twisted Tip: Eliminate adverbs.
• Underlying Good Tip 1: Avoid unnecessary adverbs.
• Meaning, if the adverb isn't adding anything to the text, don't include it.
• Underlying Good Tip 2: Don't use an adverb to modify a verb when there's a more precise verb available.
2. Twisted Tip: For dialogue tags, don't use speech verbs other than "said."
• Underlying Good Tip 1: Don't use unnecessarily complex speech verbs.
• If your narrator wouldn't use the word susurrate, then whisper will do.
• Underlying Good Tip 2: Don't overuse various speech verbs, as this can detract from your story and slow your pace.
3. Twisted Tip: Don't use words longer than 3 syllables.
• Ridiculous.
• Sure, I could have said absurd, but my choice made my point more effectively. That should be your goal with your writing.
• Underlying Good Tip: Don't overcomplicate your language in a misguided attempt to appear more intelligent/literary/etc.

You may have noticed a theme in these "rules" that are presented as the path to better writing: they each eliminate a portion of the vocabulary available to you. English is an incredibly rich, diverse language, but if every writer followed all of these "rules" (and others like them), the resulting stories would lose all variety and color.

Writing tips are there to help you, not hamstring you. Adverbs, speech verbs, and multisyllabic words are all colors on your palette. When used judiciously, these elements add variety and depth to your story, allowing you to create something compelling and evocative. When you pour them on without restraint, they mix together into a muddy brown. But when you eschew them entirely, you may find yourself with an unfinished sketch that doesn't come close to the complete picture you wanted.

So remember, whenever you come across an "absolute" rule, dig around for the helpful tip underneath. Apply only as necessary.

Mini Lesson: Avoid Talking Heads

Today's mini lesson is all about the phenomenon called "talking heads." This term refers to a long stretch of dialogue with only speech verbs and no description of the physicality of the characters, or of the setting, aside from occasional movements above the neck. If you're only describing eyes, lips, eyebrows, and heads shaking/nodding/tilting, you have talking heads.

This is a problem for one very simple reason: novels aren't scripts.

When a playwright creates their script, they only include the dialogue, attribution (who's speaking), and rare scene directions. But a script is intended to become a performance. Its final form includes set design, costumes, and actors bringing the names on the pages to life with blocking (movement) and the characters' quirks or mannerisms. When we have only the dialogue and attribution, the experience of the story is incomplete.

The same goes for your novel, so you need to ensure all of those pieces are happening on the page the way they would on the "stage" of your story. It's up to you as the author to create the set, the costumes, the blocking, and the character mannerisms—plus internalization. If you only include dialogue and head-related movements, that's all the readers get to see, leaving your scene incomplete like a script.

The good news is that people are constantly moving. It's not practical or necessary to describe every time a character moves, but you want to ensure you're grounding your readers in the physicality of both the space (setting) and the characters themselves. How are they interacting with the furniture and items around them? How are they physically reacting to what is being said? 

Examples include: crossing their arms after being accused of something; fidgeting with whatever little items are within reach; jumping out of their seat at hearing exciting (or infuriating) news; and pulling a blanket over their head and hugging their knees to their chest for comfort.

Including the elements aside from the basic "script" of your conversations helps to build a sense of your world, to break up stretches of dialogue, and to humanize your characters. Adding internalization does the last two as well, but you want to make sure to balance building the internal and external worlds of your story. If all we have is dialogue and internal reactions to what's being said, we still aren't getting a complete picture of your world or your characters, who in almost all cases will have bodies in addition to heads.

So if the only movements being described within long stretches of conversation happen above the neck, as if the bodies have disappeared or been paralyzed—and that isn't the effect you're intentionally creating—take another pass at your draft to help readers see the full scene.

Do you have any special tips or tricks for fixing "talking heads" moments? Share in the comments!

Is Your Editor a Ghost?

Love it or hate it, you probably know that ghostwriting happens. And that especially in recent years it's shifted from a practice primarily in the nonfiction world to a known factor in fiction writing. From creating premises and outlines to drafting fully fleshed out, ready-to-publish manuscripts, ghostwriting fiction has become an undeniable reality, even as many writers and readers consider it to be a less-than-ethical practice to publish something you didn't write under your name.

But did you know that ghost editing happens too? We've talked before about finding the right editor for your work. Now I'm adding another tip: if it matters to you, make sure the person you're hiring is actually the one who'll be editing your manuscipt. 

Unfortunately, authors working with traditional publishers may not have the clout to do this.

Because sometimes, your "editor" will be switched out for someone else, without you ever knowing. A few ways this can happen:

1. The editor you hire sub-contracts out to another editor, without telling you. The money is split between the person whose name/reputation sold the service and the person who actually performs it. Who gets what percent of the money you pay will depend on the individual agreement. The person you think you're hiring may look over the edits, or they may not, depending on their own morals, the time they have available, and how reliable they believe the sub-contractor to be.
2. A publisher assigns you an editor on their staff, but there's no way that person can handle all the books on the schedule needing to be edited. The publisher also hires freelancers. But they want you to have faith in the editor whose name you know, so they pressure the freelancer to perform the edits as "User" or "Editor," or even "Anonymous." Some may even ask that the primary editor's name is used (all of this is easily configured in MS Word), though I haven't personally seen the last happen.
   
   The edits are passed on to you by the primary editor, even if that person never actually provides any feedback. Again, they may or may not look over each round of edits done on your book. Sometimes they won't look at the notes you're given until they're evaluating the freelancer's performance, even if that's long after the book is published. 
• Psst, freelance editors: keep in mind, you can say no if you're asked to do this! 
• It's also possible that the publisher hires a freelancer who then sub-contracts out to another editor, without the author or publisher knowing.
3. An editor (whether they work independently or at a publisher) agrees to mentor someone who wants to break into the field. In order to learn, that person needs hands-on experience editing manuscripts. Depending on the circumstances, the author, publisher, or both are kept in the dark about the mentoring arrangement.
   
   In this scenario, the mentor editor is more likely to look over the edits, since the whole point is that they help the less experienced editor learn. Still, at least the majority of the edits on your book would be performed by the mentee. And while the mentor will likely provide feedback to the mentee, that feedback may or may not be incorporated into the notes you receive.

These are not hypotheticals, and these practices are more common than you may want to believe. I've seen all of these either happen or be discussed in editor groups, and I've been pressured by publishers to remove my name from my edits.

Now this post isn't about criticizing how other editors choose to work. And all of the options above may be perfectly acceptable with one little tweak: if the author knew this was happening. Some editors who sub-contract the work do let their authors know. Many publishers who work with freelance editors do not hide that fact from their authors, who work directly with the freelancer actually providing the notes. Some editors who mentor others have them perform the edits in parallel, providing their own notes to the author and separate feedback to the mentee on their edits. Or again, they simply let the author know ahead of time that the work will be done by the mentee.

For that matter, maybe you don't care. If you're hiring a company rather than an individual, maybe all you care about is that the work gets done for the price you were quoted, not the name of the person doing the work or developing a relationship with a specific editor.

This post is to help you be aware of what may be happening behind the scenes. So that if it does matter to you—if you've carefully selected an editor based on a recommendation, their reputation, a sample edit, or all of the above—you can take steps to be confident they'll actually be the person helping you with your story.

For the record: Touchstone Editing always connects you directly with the person actually performing your edits. If for some reason we do need to hand a project off to someone else, we'll get your permission first. We're committed to our authors, and we do not pass off anyone else's work as our own.

Mini Lesson: Punctuating Action Beats in Dialogue

Dialogue is one of those funny things: when you see it in a book, you're so busy "hearing" a conversation that you don't pay attention to how it's formatted on the page. Many writers know instinctively, just from reading a lot, how to format basic dialogue with he said/she said tags. But there's a lot of confusion about how to format dialogue when it gets more complicated, like when you add interruptions or action beats. Anya explained how to punctuate interrupted dialogue in a previous post, and today I'm going to clarify the correct way to punctuate action beats in dialogue.

Basically, the easy way to think about it is:

• If there is no speech verb (like "said"), it needs to be its own sentence.
• If there is a speech verb, use a comma before the dialogue or to close the dialogue. If the dialogue comes first, followed by something like "he said" or "she whispered" (etc.), lowercase the word after the dialogue.

I find that the best way to demonstrate this is with examples. So let's envision a scene. Say we have two characters, Bob and Steve, meeting for the first time.

Wrong:

"I'm Steve," we shook hands.
I opened my office door, "Nice to meet you. How's your first day going?"
"Okay," he shrugged. "I'm told I'll get my first big project next week."

Right:

"I'm Steve," he said. We shook hands.
I opened my office door. "Nice to meet you. How's your first day going?"
"Okay." He shrugged. "I'm told I'll get my first big project next week."

Because "said" is a speech verb, we use a comma to close the dialogue. And because "opened" and "shrugged" are action verbs, not speech verbs, those sentences get set off separately.

In a similar vein, actions taken by other characters generally also need to be broken onto their own lines. This is because whenever we see actions in the same paragraph or on the same line as dialogue, we assume that the actions and dialogue belong to the same person.

Let's look at an example. In the following scene, we've got Stacey agonizing over a decision and Greg being her sympathetic listener.

Wrong: 

Stacey just didn't know what to do. She sighed.
"I guess everything happens for a reason, right?" Greg nodded. "So maybe I should just let it go."

In this case, it's Stacey talking but Greg nodding. Confusing, right? Stacey's dialogue should go on the same line as her own action, but then Greg's action should go on its own line. It would get broken up like so:

Right:

Stacey just didn't know what to do. She sighed. "I guess everything happens for a reason, right?"
Greg nodded.
"So maybe I should just let it go."

Here, you can tell who's doing the talking and who's doing the nodding. Even though Stacey is the only one speaking, and even though Greg's action is in response to her dialogue, Greg's action should go on its own line.

So there you have it: how to punctuate action interspersed with dialogue. Let us know if you have any questions about this or if there are other dialogue scenarios you'd like us to clear up for you!

What Is a Story?

Happy November! How many of you are participating in this year's NaNoWriMo? With thousands of stories being written this month, it seems like a good time to take a step back and answer the question: What is a story?

In some sense, it's easiest to start with what a story is not. A story isn't simply plot. If "things happening" was sufficient for story, then anything and everything would make for a good one. Plot, of course, isn't merely a series of events—it's certain events with a specific purpose, moving pieces into place for the climax and then resolving any tension established.

But even a great plot isn't the core of what makes a good story. Recounting events, after all, is something most anyone can do. Weaving those events into a compelling story is a different skill entirely. Consider how some people at a dinner party will bore you to tears and others will have everyone on the edge of their seats listening, even if both are sharing something about their day in the office.

"Of course!" you may be thinking. "A story also needs characters."

Well, a sequence of events happening to a specific person (or character) still isn't enough. If it were, then anyone's diary of what they did that day would make for fascinating reading. Cultural anthropologists may disagree, but most of us wouldn't enjoy reading (most) random people's diaries. Let's be honest, many of us can't be bothered even when the person recounting the minutiae of their days is a friend. (Remember the early days of blogging?)

"But wait!" you may be thinking now. "The events have to be exciting."

Well, that's not quite it either. Exciting, dramatic events—even ones with inherently high stakes—still aren't enough to make a story. Every war that ever took place was filled with dramatic, important events with high stakes. But think back to your history classes. Did you always find learning history exciting or engaging? A lucky few may be thinking, "Yes, of course!" This means you had amazing teachers, and that's wonderful. Most of us probably experienced a range—some teachers wove stories out of historical events that captivated us, while others recounted events and made classes drag on. Even if they were teaching the same events, our experience as the audience was drastically different.

Writers with a little more experience will have encountered the advice (or critique) that in a story, we only need to see the events that matter. But matter to what? To whom?

"To the character's goal!" you may be tempted to respond. And yes, we are indeed getting closer. Your character's goal is what they want to achieve (or avoid). Obstacles in the way of that goal help make the sequence of events in your story more interesting. But the goal and even the obstacles your character faces still aren't the main thrust of the story. Or else a "good" story could be said to be one in which the goal is achieved, a "bad" story one in which it isn't. Readers know that this isn't the case. It's also not about how big the scope of the goal is (e.g., getting a promotion vs. saving the world—both can make for compelling stories).

At its core, a story is how pursuing the goal impacts your character internally. 

While plot certainly matters, and the character does need to have a goal to pursue, a story is what allows us to experience the effect of the plot on the character. We invest emotionally in the journey not simply to find out what happens, but rather to vicariously navigate the obstacles alongside the character for the sake of learning how the consequences of the plot influence them as a human being. That is, how the character changes from the opening scene to the closing image.

The balance of plot (external goings-on) vs. story (internal change) can shift depending on the genre. Literary fiction will focus more on the internal, whereas a thriller will likely devote more space on the page to external events. But even an action-heavy story featuring a character who isn't in some significant way impacted by those events will end up as a disappointing read at best. Sure, she beat the bad guys and saved the world. But if she's the same person the day after the plot as she was the day before—if her internal status quo wasn't challenged in some way by the events—why should we care?

So as you're working on your NaNoWriMo (or any other) projects, don't forget to ask: How does your main character change from the first page to the last?

How and Why to Write Flash Fiction

Last time we talked about the differences between a short story, a flash fiction, and a microfiction. To recap, microfictions are a subset of flash fiction, which is itself a subset of short stories. But why would you want to write a tiny story in the first place?

From the reader’s perspective, we tend to have short attention spans nowadays. Some days we love to sink into a novel, but other times we just want something quick and bite-sized to digest. Maybe your reader is in the middle of ten other projects and doesn’t have the mental energy to devote to a longer story, or maybe they have three kids and only five-minute snatches of time to read. Whatever the reason, tiny, bite-sized stories fit that need.

From the writer’s perspective, writing flash fiction can help you sharpen your prose. To tell the same story in 500 words that you just told in 2,000 words, you’re going to have to make sure every word is that much more carefully chosen. Instead of describing the sky as “a pale blue flecked with green like a Caribbean sea when the light catches it,” maybe you’ll simply use the word “turquoise.” You’ll have to figure out which parts of your story can be condensed and what can be figured out from context rather than being explicitly stated. Maybe that entire subplot with the twin sister isn’t necessary; maybe we don’t need to see the scene where the character is at the hospital, and this can just be mentioned in passing. In short, it’s a good exercise in learning to be intentional with each word you put down.

I don’t mean to imply that with longer fiction you should use that extra space to convey superfluous information. The truth is, you want to choose each word with care in any piece of writing, regardless of length or genre. Maybe that subplot with the twin sister is absolutely vital to the plot, or maybe it tells us something about our main character that we wouldn’t know otherwise. My point here is that the brevity of flash fiction can be helpful in forcing yourself to be more deliberate with your prose.

That’s why someone might want to write flash fiction. The how of writing it is a little harder to quantify.

Many of the same things that apply to writing longer fiction will still apply. You’ve probably heard the oft-repeated edict: “Show, don’t tell.” One common mistake is thinking that in flash fiction you have to resort to telling in order to summarize large chunks of story that you aren’t able to show. But with a story of any length, showing rather than telling is still good advice. Similarly, you’ll still want to make sure you have good characterization, conflict, setting, etc. And like I mentioned last time, flash fiction stories still need to be complete, with their own story arcs of a beginning, middle, and ending.

Another common mistake is “running out” of words and rushing the ending. A helpful tip here is to write the story out as long as it wants to be, and then figure out how to make it fit within the 1,000-word limit once you’re revising. Especially for writers new to the shorter form, trying to write a story that will hit a certain word limit in the first draft can feel impossible.

It may be helpful to keep in mind that flash fiction always starts in media res, or in the middle of the conflict. This is common in most popular fiction nowadays, but until the past couple decades, it was typical for novels to start with a slower buildup, describing the scenery or the time period before centering on the main character(s). Even nowadays, some genres and writing styles still prefer this kind of measured, gradual opening. But in a shorter piece, we don’t have time to describe the countryside, then the farm where our characters work, then the field they’re standing in, before coming to rest on the characters themselves. We don’t have the space to describe the years of animosity between our characters, or the way Character A has always been jealous of Character B. Instead, our story is going to start the moment Character A flings a clod of dirt at Character B, and we’re going to have to figure out our characters’ long, complicated history together through the ensuing action or dialogue, while at the same time seeing how they handle this new conflict.

Another important thing with flash fiction, particularly microfiction, is that you need to hook your reader even more quickly. In a longer story, you have a little more leeway to build up to what’s interesting. (With the caveat that, in any story of any length, if your opening doesn’t intrigue your reader, they’re going to stop reading.) But in a tiny story, since each word carries more weight, your initial hook is even more critical. It’s also a bit more complicated, since the opening line has to not only hook the reader, but also still function as a necessary part of the overarching story because of your limited number of words.

It can be hard for novel writers to rein in their words and focus on brevity, but it’s a worthwhile challenge that can help you sharpen your prose. But be forewarned: flash fiction can be addictive! Some writers like the challenge so much, they get hooked on writing flash fiction and never go back.

So what do you think? Flash fiction: love it or hate it? Let me know in the comments!

What’s the Difference Between Short Fiction, Flash Fiction, and Microfiction?

If I asked you to explain the difference between a novel and a short story, you’d easily be able to sum up the difference: a short story is, of course, much shorter than a novel. But once writers try to drill down further, they often get a bit confused. Is “flash fiction” just another term for “short story”? And what in the world is “microfiction”?

Let’s start with the largest category. A short story can be as short as a few words or as long as 20,000 to 30,000 words—which, you may notice, is a huge range. But most literary magazines won’t publish short stories longer than 10,000 to 15,000 words, and many will want you to stick to more like 4,000 to 6,000 words. Back when magazines and literary journals were exclusively published in print, there was an economic reason behind wanting shorter stories: it cost more to print something longer. But even now that most publications are digital, readers’ attention spans are still only so long. Thus, when submitting to magazines, shorter is often better.

So what’s shorter than a short story? Flash fiction.

“Flash fiction” (sometimes also called “short shorts” or “sudden fiction”) is a term used to refer to particularly short short stories. Simply put, flash fiction stories are typically defined as stories under 1,000 words. You’ll find the odd exception here and there—publications that will allow up to, say, 1,500 words—but by and large, 1,000 words is accepted as the maximum length of a flash fiction story.

Within the category of “flash fiction,” there’s also “microfiction.” If flash fiction stories are typically under 1,000 words, microfiction stories are even shorter. Typically, these are stories under 300 words, though publications will often have their own limits (such as accepting up to 500 words, or only accepting stories of exactly 100 words).

Keep in mind that despite their brevity, these are complete stories with a full arc. The idea is to pack a lot of punch into a very small story.

Consider one of the most famous microfictions ever written: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” (This story is commonly attributed to Ernest Hemingway, but we don’t actually know for sure who wrote it.) With the first two words, the author lets us know that this is a newspaper classified ad. The words “baby shoes” seem innocuous enough until you get to the final two, “never worn.” The author succinctly delivers a gut punch here, immediately conveying not only that the writer of the ad is a grieving parent whose child died, but also that they could use the extra cash. There’s no cliffhanger here, no “but I want to know more”—they told you everything you needed to know, made you instantly aware of this down-on-their-luck parent, and conveyed such a somber tone in such a short space that you’re left feeling a little shell-shocked. It’s a hell of a microfiction.

So far, we’ve gone short story > flash fiction > microfiction. It might help to instead think of short story categories from small to large. The tiniest stories are microfictions, the slightly longer ones are flash fictions, and then longer stories are just plain short stories. Put another way, it’s like squares and rectangles: all microfictions and flash fictions are short stories, but not all short stories are microfictions or flash fictions. And of course, any longer than a short story, and you’ve got a novella or novel.

Hopefully this helps clear up some confusion about “short story” versus “flash fiction” versus “microfiction” for you. Are there any other terms you’re confused about? Let us know in the comments!

What Do Your Characters Want? (Part 3)

We’ve reached the top of the pyramid! Your characters have food, water, shelter, physical safety, emotional stability, a community, self-respect, and external respect. What else could they possibly want?

Missed the previous posts? You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

At the top of Maslow's hierarchy, there's fulfillment and self-actualization:

By Chiquo [CC BY-SA 4.0]

In a general sense, this means not having obstacles (external or internal) between your character and what they need to fulfill their potential. Some people seek to get rid of or overcome any remaining obstacles; others seek to minimize what they need to feel fulfilled, for example through mindfulness and meditation. Where one person may aim to attain more money than they can ever spend to "buy" the freedom to pursue what they want, someone else may work to find contentment with what they already have, or sacrifice luxury to pursue self-actualization (e.g., a writer working a lower-wage 9-to-5 job to have time to write, rather than pursuing a more lucrative but also more time-intensive career that wouldn’t leave space for creativity).

Because this builds on everything else beneath it on the pyramid, what your character needs to find fulfillment is far more complex and individualized than something as basic as "not starving." Still, once your character otherwise has their needs met, striving for this self-actualization will be part of their underlying motivation, whether they realize it or not.

Another thing to consider is that we don't want to just attain the things on the pyramid; we want to hold on to them. The fear of losing any of these needs will impact a character's behavior, and as you go down the pyramid, that fear will become a more pressing problem. Someone wouldn't be thrilled to be working at a dead-end job (for safety and stability) instead of following their dreams (self-actualization), but they would be terrified to lose access to food and water. A character's behavior will be significantly impacted by the extent of that fear, which circles back to the need to both be and feel secure, as we discussed in Part 1.

Also keep in mind that in all cases a character's motivations don't have to be rational. The motivation has to make sense to the character. Someone who believes their physical safety is in danger will fight to protect themselves, even if the threat is objectively small or nonexistent. Someone with depression may not feel loved and connected to their community, and act accordingly, even if externally that love and community is there. 

Pinning down a character’s motivations boils down to understanding that character's subjective perspective on whether their needs are being met. This is true for every character—villains and side characters are also the heroes of their own stories. One character’s decisions don’t have to (and may not) make sense to another. And don't forget: societies are made up of individuals whose needs and goals may or may not be aligned. 

• When a large enough group's needs aren't being met by society, we often see revolution, but when individuals are discontented, peer pressure may keep them quiet. Or they may choose to leave their community behind (if that doesn’t risk losing their other needs) and create/find another.
• Exiled characters aren’t given a choice, but usually someone choosing to leave a community with which they’re disillusioned (like in many dystopian stories) has a choice because there’s an alternative community waiting, so there’s hope of having their needs met elsewhere. But as I said in Part 2, rare characters (e.g., hermits and recluses) may be comfortable without a traditional community.

Once you've figured out which needs aren't currently being met for your characters, you'll have a stronger sense of what their immediate goals are, of what's driving their decisions and behavior. So it will be easier to know what choices they would make in every situation they face.

Developing new characters can feel daunting, but by traveling up the pyramid one section at a time, you can create layered but cohesive characters—and complex casts of characters—that your readers will love.

What Do Your Characters Want? (Part 2)

Last time we talked about the basic needs of our characters: food, water, shelter, physical safety, and emotional safety. For many characters, these will be a given. They may not be living a life of luxury, but they aren’t constantly worried about literally starving or being physically attacked. So we move up the pyramid to psychological needs:

By Chiquo [CC BY-SA 4.0]

The first of these is a sense of community and belonging. Rare characters may feel completely at ease when entirely separated from others, but most often people desire and seek emotional connections, with family, friends, or a larger community. Being entirely ostracized or physically cut off will impact your characters psychologically. So will feeling cut off, like in situations where they can't express themselves honestly to those around them, e.g., needing to keep a big secret, or even having to keep all their private thoughts hidden 1984–style. Your characters will seek out ways to connect (including but not limited to finding romantic love) and to maintain those connections, which plays a part in the drive to protect those they care about.

• Keep in mind: Once a community already exists, loved ones become part of the central “unit” discussed in Part 1, influencing how your character evaluates whether the needs lower on the pyramid are being met. But a character without those ties in place will think first about physical needs, then about security, and only then about developing emotional connections.

This is why people bond over things like following the same sports team—they're inclined to find a reason to connect. But it's also why peer pressure and patriotism can be so impactful. We don’t want to end up disconnected from our community, which can mean anything from family to country. So we do what those around us want, even if perhaps we don’t agree it’s the best choice. This impulse is partially driven by the lower levels of the pyramid since losing our community can also mean losing physical and emotional safety, or even access to things like food and water. This is why banishment is considered such a serious punishment.

• Similarly, in some cases characters will band together—form a community—for the sake of safety. Their community becomes a tool to ensure their security. In dystopian stories, for example, you’ll often see people who don’t particularly like (or even trust) each other forced to work together for survival. This is still about the physical need of security, and only after that security is assured will those characters consider the psychological need of community, in the sense of emotional ties. In some cases, they’ll have developed an emotional connection with others in the forced community—remember, people are complicated and inclined to connect—but the original community would arise out of the physical need, not the psychological one. This distinction will of course impact any given character’s choices.

In extreme forms, this need to belong can get dangerous—think hazing rituals, blind obedience, or participating in the perpetration of genocide. But this also plays into everything from giving to an office charity drive to choosing what to wear (e.g., no business suits on the beach; no bikinis in the office). This desire for community is also why people who feel disconnected from those physically close to them feel such joy when finally finding “their people”—in a special club, an online forum, or even with just one person who understands them.

Ostracized or isolated characters may also invent a surrogate connection to fill this need. This can mean everything from anthropomorphizing inanimate objects (think Wilson from Cast Away) to creating imaginary friends and overidentifying with fictional characters. Or developing long-distance connections (like a pen pal), if the option exists.

Overall, people need to feel understood and valued. Even characters who externally take pride in being unique or the “odd one out” will still try to find where they belong, as well as friendship and (platonic and romantic) love.

Next we come to self-esteem and self-respect, which are frequently but not always tied into external respect and recognition, as well as social definitions of achievement. This is closely intertwined with the need for connection and belonging, since often our markers of success and achievement—things that lead to both external respect and self-esteem—come from our loved ones’ and/or our larger community’s values.

So this, too, plays into things like peer pressure and patriotism, both because our community’s opinions can impact our self-esteem (easy example: body image issues) and because what our community has pressured us to do may not sit well with us, challenging our self-respect.

Self-respect being impacted by external opinions also explains why some characters will pursue goals set by someone else (like a high-paying career, or the more ambiguous ideal of honor) rather than prioritizing their own dreams. Or they may need constant adulation from large groups to feel valued. Others will intentionally work on separating their sense of self from external factors, on finding their own definitions of accomplishment. For example, a middle-aged character who lived their life according to society’s values (e.g., a home, a career, marriage, children) may feel driven to leave all that behind and reconnect with themselves, to figure out their own priorities so they can find freedom from social pressures and thereby improve their self-esteem.

• Ideally they would do this without losing their community and sense of belonging, or they would likely need to find a new community along the way.

In general, two needs being at odds like this is what creates conflict. Many stories explore the consequences of a character’s self-respect (adhering to their moral beliefs) being at odds with another need (food, safety, community opinion), but this is the case with any two needs (e.g., community opinion vs. food). Maslow’s hierarchy can help you understand why a character would make a specific choice when forced to decide. Remember: the lower on the pyramid, the more important the need. So a character may very well choose community over self-respect. Similarly, the more scared they are of starving, the more likely they’ll choose food and water over most anything else.

Next time we’ll discuss the last segment of the pyramid and some final tips. Meanwhile, don’t forget to check out Part 1 here if you missed it, and post any questions or comments below!

What Do Your Characters Want? (Part 1)

When developing characters, we often talk about understanding their motivation. While people—and well-developed characters—are complex and unique, when broken down to the fundamentals, the same basic things motivate all people, whether your story is set in our contemporary world, in another time, or even in another world you create from scratch.

Some fundamental motivations include: survival, fear, and desire. While the way your character acts as a result of a given motivator will depend on things like personality and ethics, being aware of these common underlying motivations can help you understand which choices your characters would make and why. It can also help your characters be compelling and relatable whether they're heroes, villains, or somewhere in between.

One easy way to put your characters' motivations into perspective is to consider Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

By Chiquo [CC BY-SA 4.0]

Today we’re going to focus on the base of the pyramid, labeled in the image above as “Basic Needs.” These basic needs will often take center stage with poorer characters, dystopian and post-apocalyptic scenarios, or any other situation where resources are limited. When these fundamental needs aren’t met, everything above them on the pyramid becomes irrelevant.

The foundation of the pyramid concerns physical needs: food, water, shelter. Without them, we can't survive, so if your character doesn't have access to these, their actions will be all about getting them. That could mean stealing, scavenging, finding whatever income source they can, or even revolution or war. Of course, it can also mean using or developing survivalist skills, and possibly making desperate choices (like drinking urine).

The way your character responds to a lack of basic needs will depend on the specific situation—on what obstacle stands between them and the nourishment they need—and what experience your character has dealing with scarcity. A city girl will make different choices than one who grew up fending for herself in nature, even if you strand them on the exact same island. Whatever the circumstances, if access to things like food and water is denied or threatened, getting those will be the priority.

Once their physical needs are met, your character can focus on safety, which includes both:

• Physical safety: reasonable certainty that your body is not in danger of injury or severe illness.
• Emotional safety: freedom from things like emotional abuse, but also feeling secure that your physical needs and safety will continue to be assured. 
• Financial security comes into play here in many societies, and so will things like knowing you have access to medical care if you ever need it.

Decisions made for the sake of establishing or holding on to safety can include things like taking self-defense classes, staying in an otherwise miserable job for the paycheck, hoarding resources (financial and otherwise), or literally trying to escape a dangerous situation.

Keep in mind that emotional security depends on the character’s perspective, not necessarily the reality of their circumstances. In other words, they have to both have (physical) and believe in (emotional) the stability of their environment.

Bringing it back around to the fundamental need for food: someone who’s always had to fight for every scrap will approach sharing very differently than someone who’s always had enough, even if they’re dropped into the exact same circumstances. One will approach the situation from a place of emotional security while the other will not. If they find themselves in a place of scarcity, the former character may seem naïve, reckless, or wasteful while the other seems practical. But if they’re in a place of abundance, the first will be comfortable and unconcerned, whereas the other may seem paranoid, e.g., hoarding food though there’s plenty to go around.

One more thing to keep in mind when developing your characters and societies is that human beings are complicated, and we’re influenced by our relationships. So it helps to think of a character and their loved ones as one unit: if their significant other or child doesn’t have enough food and water, that may be equally pressing to the central character’s needs, depending on the character. So when creating your characters, consider your MC and the people they love and/or for whom they feel responsible (if any) as one entity. If there isn’t enough to meet the entire unit’s needs, then there isn’t enough.

This need to provide for loved ones ties into the “psychological needs” categories, which we’ll talk about next time!

Click here to read part 2.

Your First Manuscript May Be Holding You Back

Speculative fiction author Alexander Mazin recently wrote a detailed post (available in the original Russian here) on how heartbreaking it can be to watch writers waste their potential on endlessly trying to wrangle their first manuscript into something worth publishing (or more importantly, worth reading).

The main upshot is this: it's important to know when to let go. Often, the first manuscript someone writes is the example used because it is likely to be in the roughest shape. This isn't to say that it can't have an interesting premise, or potential within the characters. Rather, the amount of work necessary to shape that first draft into a story that lives up to the potential may be better spent elsewhere. Sometimes the best way to bring that initial idea to life is to extract the few good pieces and start over with a blank page. And sometimes the best thing you can do is tuck it in a (possibly virtual) drawer and move on to something new.

There are exceptions, of course. A first manuscript can (with plenty of revising) go on to be a huge success. Indeed some writers actually give up too soon, unwilling to put in the work required to transform a first draft into a finished work. Instead, they keep writing first drafts, possibly polishing the grammatical/syntactical errors, and expecting the result to blow readers away—or giving up on writing entirely when that isn't the case. As with most things, discernment is key.

But as Mazin wrote, clinging to a specific manuscript may be strangling your potential as a writer. This is actually true whether the project is your first or your fifth, though it's a safe bet your fifth first draft will be in better shape than your first, especially if you're taking time to study your craft alongside drafting the stories. By the time you write your fifth project, you'll likely be better able to see if the story is worth pursuing—and have an easier time letting go if not.

It's more difficult to have perspective on your first project, especially when it's your only project—the bearer of all your hopes and dreams for your writing career. That first manuscript holds a special place in your journey, and therefore in your heart. Even after having written, revised, and published other works, authors can be drawn back to that initial idea, that first story. You want to make it work.

Nevertheless, it's important to take a step back and assess the scope of work a manuscript would require to reach both its potential and your potential as a writer, whether continuing to spend your limited resources of time and energy on reshaping this material will be worth it.* When your first manuscript is no longer your only manuscript, it's much easier to accept if the answer is "no."

* This is something an editor can help you evaluate.

It all comes down to not letting determination become blind stubbornness that traps you in endless revisions. Letting go, moving on to a new project when the current one just isn't working, is neither failing nor giving up. In fact, it may be the saving grace of your career.

Revitalize Your Revisions with One Easy Trick

It can be easy to grow discouraged while revising your story, whether novel-length or shorter. The elation of finishing the first draft wears off, and you're left with multiple rounds of critiques, followed by picking apart & reworking a project into which you've already invested so much of yourself. It can feel endless, or at times even hopeless.

When you're deep in that process, it is also easy to lose sight of the progress being made with each round of revisions. If you find yourself losing perspective, try this trick:

Use the "Compare Documents" feature in MS Word to see how far you've come from that first (almost certainly messy) draft.

Of course, this assumes that you're saving the various versions of your work in progress—which you absolutely should be doing. (If not on your computer, then in periodic backups. Seriously, when was the last time you backed up your manuscript? Do it now!)

Here's how to find this feature (on a Mac; PC versions of Word may vary but should be similar enough): 

1. Go to Tools -> Track Changes -> Compare Documents

2. This will open the menu below:

3. For the "Original Document," select your completed first draft.
• If you don't already have it open, click on the little folder or select "browse" from the drop-down menu. 
• If you do already have it open, you can select it directly from the drop-down.
4. For the "Revised Document," select your most recent draft.
5. Make sure to open the extra settings (with all the checkboxes) and to select "Show Changes in New Document"!
• This will leave your original files exactly as they are and open a brand new file highlighting the differences.

Why go through the trouble? Because seeing your progress highlighted in bright colors (depending on your settings) will help you appreciate how much you've done and how far your story has come! Whether you save this new document or simply scroll through to see all those changes, it's sure to help you find the motivation to keep working toward that compelling story readers will love.

Mini Lesson: Subjective vs. Omniscient Narration

It's been a long time coming, but as promised, here's a mini lesson on the difference between subjective and omniscient narration!

I first wanted to address this because I keep seeing people call any subjective narration "first-person" narration. In case you missed it, I covered the definitions of first-person and third-person narration in another mini lesson. The bit to remember for today is that "first-person" simply means the use of first-person pronouns: I, we, us, etc.

Subjective narration is when a story is told through the lens of one character's experience at a time. There can be multiple narrators or just one, but each perspective is limited to what the narrating character sees, hears, feels, knows, etc. In fact, another term for subjective narration is limited narration. It places the reader into the body & mind of the narrator, so we experience the story unfolding along with them. This is the more common type of narration seen in fiction nowadays.

Omniscient narration, on the other hand, is when the story is told by an all-knowing narrator. This narrator can dip into different characters' minds and also share with the reader things the characters may not know at all. Everything we may need to know about the world, the characters, and the plot, this narrator knows. While less common nowadays, it is no less powerful a choice, and both types of narration have their strengths.

Both types of narration can be either first- or third-person. However, it's extremely rare to have a truly omniscient first-person narrator. Such narrators often turn out to be unreliable, meaning the reader can't necessarily trust what they're saying and may need to draw separate conclusions about conversations and events. An unreliable narrator might simply misconstrue events and other characters' words and actions, or they may intentionally conceal information from the reader, misrepresent events, and even lie outright. They may also be suffering from mental conditions which affect their perception of events. But an unreliable narrator may still present themselves as an omniscient (or even objective) one.

One last thing to note is that narrative tense—whether the story is told in the past, present, or even (and extremely rarely) future—is independent from whether the narration is in first- or third-person and whether it's subjective or omniscient. So there are many combinations with which you can experiment in your writing!

Mini Lesson: First-Person vs. Third-Person Narration

Mini lessons have been getting a bit long lately, but luckily this one is short & sweet!

I've been seeing far too many advice posts for writers that incorrectly define first-person and third-person narration. So I'd like to clear things up.

First-person narration is narration that—unsurprisingly—uses first-person pronouns, meaning the narrator refers to themselves as "I." So you'll be seeing words like "my," "we," "our," us," etc. in the narration. It's how, most often, you would speak to a friend about your life experiences:

• I went to the store.
• My backpack fell on the ground.

Third-person narration uses, appropriately, third-person pronouns, meaning the narration describes all characters (including the perspective character, if any) as "he," or "she," (or "ze," or other pronoun preferences) or by name. So you won't see words like "I" or "my" outside of direct thought and dialogue. For example:

• Alex went to the store.
• Her backpack fell on the ground.

So, where does the confusion come in? Well, I keep seeing people refer to subjective narration as "first-person." These are not the same thing! In fact:

• Both first- and third-person narration can be subjective (limited to the narrating character's point of view; also sometimes called "close" narration).
• Both can also be omniscient! (All-knowing, or unlimited.)
• The caveat here is that omniscient first-person narration is extremely rare. It is usually told in hindsight to explain how your narrator could know everything that happened and what other characters thought or felt. Often, the narrator turns out to be unreliable. 
• Look out for a future post on subjective vs. omniscient—and unreliable—narration!
• Some examples:
• Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn As Told by a Friend by Thomas Mann
• How I Met Your Mother (TV show)
• Both can be written in either past or present tense. 
• Or future, in theory, though I haven't seen that. If you have, please share an example in the comments!

Bonus: It's also possible to have second-person narration, addressing the reader directly using the second-person pronoun "you." This is rare, especially in longer forms like novels, but it does happen and can be quite powerful. Examples:

• You walk to the store.
• Your backpack falls to the ground.

So there you have a quick overview of pronoun options for your narration. Remember: the pronouns you choose do not affect whether your narration is subjective or omniscient, which is a separate choice you have to make for your story.

Still have questions? Ask in the comments!

Mini Lesson: Punctuating Interrupted Dialogue

I'll admit, today's mini lesson focuses on a pet peeve of mine: punctuating interrupted dialogue. I've seen so many different (incorrect) versions, and they do get quite inventive, but we definitely need to clear this one up.

As a foundation, I am assuming you all know how to punctuate basic dialogue—rules like using a comma in place of a period with a dialogue tag, not capitalizing the tag if it's after the dialogue, etc. For a simple example: "Hello," she said.

Today I want to focus specifically on what happens when something (or someone) interrupts a character who's speaking mid-sentence. There are three different ways to write this correctly:

1. Use a speech verb with a modifier. For example: "Look over there," she said, pointing to the corner, "over by the bookshelves."
• Because you're using a speech verb (said), you punctuate it like any other dialogue tag, with a comma before the closing quotation mark.
• In this case, the extra action (pointing to the corner) is added on following a comma because the modifier is subordinate to the main verb (still said).
• Because you're interrupting one sentence ("Look over there, over by the bookshelves."), a comma is also used to lead into the second half of the dialogue, and that second bit of dialogue is not capitalized.
• Keep in mind, the dialogue in this example could be two separate sentences: "Look over there. Over by the bookshelf." This is a different speech pattern, and if this is how you'd like your character to speak, then there would be a period after "corner," and the second bit of dialogue would be capitalized:
  
  "Look over there," she said, pointing to the corner. "Over by the bookshelves."
2. Use an em dash inside the quotation marks to cut off the character mid-dialogue, usually with either (A) another character speaking or (B) an external action.
• A: "Look over there—"
  "By the bookshelves," Jamie added before Sheila could clarify. 
• B: "Look over there—"
  A stack of boxes clattered to the ground.
• Including the em dash at the end of the line of dialogue signifies that your character wasn't finished speaking.
• Sometimes unfinished lines of dialogue end with an ellipsis. This is grammatically correct, but it signifies your character trailing off as if losing their train of thought or drifting off to sleep, not something or someone else interrupting their words.
• If you want to make a point of the speaking character's action interrupting their own dialogue, you could also use this punctuation, writing:
  
  "Look over there—" She snapped her mouth shut so she didn't give the secret away.
• Note that in most such instances a new sentence starts after the closing quotation mark, so of course the first word would need to be capitalized.
• If instead you're following the interrupted line with a dialogue tag, you would leave the tag lowercase, as usual. For example:
"Is everything—" she started to ask, but a sharp look cut her off.
3. Use em dashes outside the quotation marks to set off a bit of action without a speech verb. For example: "Look over there"—she pointed to the corner—"by the bookshelves."
• Do not merely use commas, because in such cases there is no speech verb, and therefore it isn't a dialogue tag and can't be punctuated like one.
• Wrong: "Look over there," she pointed to the corner, "by the bookshelves."
• Pointed isn't a speech verb, but this punctuation indicates that she is "pointing" her words to the corner. If we were to replace pointed with called, this punctuation would become correct, as in example #1 above.
• Do not put the em dashes inside the quotation marks if the line of dialogue continues after the interruption. 
• Wrong: "Look over there—" she pointed to the corner "—by the bookshelves."
• Also wrong? Putting em dashes half in and half out, or combining em dashes with commas. If you're segmenting a line of dialogue without using a speech verb, make sure to close the quotation marks after the first bit of dialogue, use two em dashes around the interruption, then open the quotation marks again for the second part.

• Bonus: If we're tuning into someone's dialogue in the middle, you can absolutely open the dialogue with an em dash or an ellipsis, making sure not to capitalize the first word. For example:
  
  Sheila found Jason leaning against the wall. "—why we'll never go to Starbucks again," he was saying.
  (Or: "...why we'll never go to Starbucks again," he was saying.)
• This does not work if we're catching a full sentence, in other words if there would have been a period (or question mark, or exclamation point) had we "heard" what came before. In such a case, the narration or tag can clue us in to having missed part of the dialogue:
  
  "So that's why we'll never go to Starbucks again," Jason finished explaining.

As you can see, there are many ways to punctuate your dialogue. Each option affects the speech pattern of your character as well as the flow of your narration, so make sure your choices are intentional. Words matter, and so does punctuation!

Have questions? Would you like to suggest a Mini Lesson subject? Share in the comments!

Mini Lesson: Hyphenating Compound Adjectives

I've written before on the importance of syntax and the nuances conveyed by minor shifts in wording. But words on their own are insufficient, and there's a reason we've developed all sorts of extra marks to augment them. Using punctuation correctly is important not simply because "that's the rule," as some might believe. Rather, slight differences in how we use punctuation marks can significantly alter meaning, and therefore a reader's experience. Ensuring we can all understand the intended meaning is why the rules exist in the first place.

Today, I want to focus on the hyphen, specifically when it comes to compound adjectives. More and more, I see authors (and their editors and proofreaders) forgetting or misusing these hyphens.

I can hear you thinking, "What does it matter? Readers understand it either way!" While I could go on and on about the richer picture writers can create with a fuller toolbox, I'll try instead to illustrate the value of that one little line (-).

First up: what is a compound adjective? Generally speaking, it's an adjective—a descriptor—made up of more than one word. The first word usually modifies the second one, and combined they describe the noun that follows. For example, in "a six-page document," the compound adjective is "six-page," with six describing the (number of) pages, and the whole thing together describing the noun document.

So why do we need a hyphen? Because the words making up the compound adjective need to stay together to retain their meaning. Examples below will illustrate this more fully, but the basic rule you need to know is that compound adjectives before a noun should always be hyphenated.

With that out of the way, let's dive in. Picture if you will: a light brown table.

Got it?

Now picture a heavy brown table.

That's right, light in the first example refers most correctly to the table's weight. (In theory, it could also be a table for light, or made of light, but let's keep it simple for our purposes.) I would feel comfortable betting that at least half of you interpreted the first use of light as referring to the shade of brown. Why? Because we're becoming so used to people forgetting hyphens that we're conditioned to read combinations like "light brown" and "light-brown" as interchangeable, even though they aren't.

If we really want to stress that light is describing the sturdiness of the table, we'd often add weight, using a distinct adjective: a lightweight table. However, remember that this is just one example and we don't always have the option of adding a clarification like that so easily.

Now consider if instead you were talking about a light jacket. If your main character (MC) grabs a light blue jacket on their way out the door, we should reliably know that the jacket is blue and that it's only a little chilly outside—the jacket is lightweight. If, however, your MC grabs a light-blue jacket, all we know is the color of the jacket, not how warm it is. And if they're grabbing a light-blue jacket that is also lightweight, you could say it's a light pale-blue jacket (or a lightweight light-blue jacket—grammatically correct, though awkward).

Of course, you can also substitute pale-blue for a more specific color, but remember that if the color is two words, it also needs a hyphen when preceding a noun. For example: a sky-blue jacket; a royal-purple robe.

If your head is spinning a little bit, try this little trick: if you can't split up the words describing the noun without changing the meaning, you need a hyphen. Let's look at some examples:

1. Our original example was a light brown table. If we split up the adjectives, we would get a light table that is brown, or a brown table that is light. It's a little awkward, but the meaning is clear. And if that's the meaning we want, we wouldn't use a hyphen.
2. However, the table in #1 is brown. If you wanted its color to be lighter, then it would be a light-brown table (hyphenated).
3. How about a purple skinned fruit? Splitting these adjectives, we'd get a skinned fruit that is purple or a purple fruit that is skinned. Makes sense, as would a skinned purple fruit. 
4. But what if you wanted to describe specifically that the fruit's skin was purple? I think you know the answer: a purple-skinned fruit, meaning it can be any color inside but the skin is definitely purple.
5. If the compound isn't made of adjectives, the need for a hyphen is even clearer. A sky jacket that is blue is very different from a sky-blue jacket. And "a blue jacket that is sky" simply makes no sense.
• If you're asking yourself what a "sky jacket" is, you're not alone. But I could imagine characters who fly routinely, whether in the future or on a different planet, having a "sky jacket," the same way we have water shoes.

Hopefully it's clear now why it's important to make intentional choices in your writing, even when it comes to something as small as a hyphen. But there's one more compound adjective type I'd like to touch on briefly: multiple colors. 

In some cases, one color modifies the other: a blue-green scarf. For many, it would be a no-brainer to use a hyphen if that read "bluish-green," but "blue-green" is correct as well. What color is this scarf? A bluish green.

Remember, hyphens are required when the compound adjective precedes the noun. If you're saying, "the scarf is a bluish green," no hyphen is necessary.

What if instead you wrote "a blue-and-green scarf"? Then we'd know the scarf is both blue and green (maybe striped, maybe polka-dotted, etc.). Note that the order of the colors is interchangeable, so we could write "green-and-blue scarf" and retain the same meaning.

So why can't you write "a blue and green scarf"? Let's go back to our tip of splitting the adjectives: "a blue scarf that is green" doesn't make sense.

Furthermore, what if we had more than one scarf? Imagine a store, selling scarves. What color are they?

• Blue and green scarves: some scarves are green; some are blue. 
• Another way to say this is that the store sells blue scarves and green scarves. Like before, if you can split the adjectives this way and keep your intended meaning, you don't need a hyphen.
• Blue-and-green scarves: all of the scarves are both blue and green.
• Note that it's correct (and necessary) to hyphenate multiple words in a row like this, even if it looks a little weird at first. A pet peeve of mine is seeing errors such as "black and white photos." If you have black photos and white photos, you might need a better camera, so make sure to add those hyphens!

It may seem pedantic, but words and punctuation are your tools for communicating with readers, for creating a vibrant world they can picture, and for drawing them into the story you mean to tell. The more dextrous you are in wielding those tools, the more nuance and impact your writing will have. Hopefully today we've sharpened one of the tools in your collection!

Questions? Suggestions for future "Mini Lessons"? Post them in the comments!

Dos and Don’ts for Interacting with Editors at Conferences

Photo credit: Foter.com

Later this month I’ll be attending Balticon, a science fiction and fantasy convention in Baltimore, Maryland, for the second time. Over the past decade, I’ve attended a number of conventions geared toward readers and writers, and I’ve had my share of both good and bad interactions with people who found out I’m an editor.

It can be hard to approach someone in any social situation, even more so when you’re an author who has poured your heart into your work and now fears rejection and/or harsh criticism. I get it—I’ve been on that side of the exchange before. In case you’re like me and worried about putting your foot in your mouth, here are some easy dos and don’ts for approaching an editor in person (at conventions or elsewhere).

Do:

• “My name is Author McAuthor. I write magical realism about blood-thirsty unicorns. Nice to meet you!”

Introduce yourself. Even if you have nothing particular to say, putting a face to a name is always nice, and if we end up working together later—or when sending a query—you can say, “We met at that unicorn convention in Pittsburgh in 2017!” Bonus points for being specific about what kinds of things you write, because that will make you stand out. (Extra bonus points if you really do write magical realism about blood-thirsty unicorns.)

• “Do you have a minute to chat? I’m working on a romance novel that I’d like to have edited, and I’d love to know what to do next.”

You don’t have to commit to working with someone, but after introductions, you can still pick their brain about next steps and ask them for advice. This is also a good way to find out what their schedule looks like if they are someone you want to work with in the future.

• “Hi, I saw you on a panel earlier and would love to chat more about the serial comma while we both enjoy our piña coladas!”

Don’t be afraid to approach us in social situations, like at a bar or at lunch. Most often, we’re there to interact with others in the industry—just like you. But don’t trap us for half an hour listening to you talk about yourself; engage us in meaningful conversation! (Piña coladas are an added bonus.)

Don’t:

• “Oh, you’re Editor McEditor. You rejected one of my stories once, which was a huge mistake.”

No good can come of this. If an editor rejected your work, I can assure you it was nothing personal. But if you introduce yourself to an editor for the sole purpose of saying something snarky or mean-spirited, you’d better believe they’re going to remember you from then on. And not in a good way.

• “I’m working on a story about a man who meets a woman and they fall in love and then she gets pregnant but the twist is he’s an alien, and then it turns out she’s cheating on him with a centaur-turned-villain whose name is Henrick…”

Unless we’ve asked you to, don’t pitch us your book on the spot. And then, if we do express interest, definitely don’t tell us the entire plot. Sum it up for us in a sentence or two (typically called an elevator pitch), and then, if we’ve requested it, email the manuscript for us to look at later, when we’re not surrounded by distractions. It’s not that we’re not interested in your work; it’s just that this is not the time or place to be getting so granular—again, unless we’ve specifically asked you to. (In that case, all bets are off: go wild!) One more thing: if an editor does invite you to submit materials, don’t forget to follow up and note when and where the connection was made.

• “OH HELLO LET ME INTERRUPT YOU FOR A MINUTE OR TEN”

If an editor is obviously in the middle of a meeting with someone, don’t interrupt. Sometimes this is the only time we’ll have to see clients from other parts of the country face to face, so this time can be precious to us. If you’re only available for a short time, try signing up for a pitch appointment to be sure you have our full attention. If you can be more flexible, a quick “hey, can you chat for a few minutes after your 4 o’clock panel?” will suffice—as long as you’re okay with hearing “no.”

These are just some basics, but if you have specific scenarios you’re wondering about, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below (or shoot us an email).

And if you’re going to be at Balticon in a couple of weeks, let me know! I hope to see you there.