My Best Advice for Fiction Writers

by

In Today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* Awhile Back, a Young Writer
* My Best Advice for Fiction Writers
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” From Edgar Allan Poe’s “Eleonora”

Awhile Back, a Young Writer

emailed to ask whether I would copyedit a short story collection for him. Initially I said I would.

Then I read one of his stories via his Substack. It was a good story, but the presentation dragged it down:

  • I was not invited into the story as a reader, and
  • Author intrusion was rampant, not in description but in info dumps.

As a result, a perfectly good story was rendered less than authentic and therefore uninteresting. That experience served as the catalyst for today’s post. I hope it helps, which is to say I hope it speaks to some of you.

Other than my own fiction, fiction-writing advice is all I have to give you. But that advice is the result of 9 years of writing fiction almost every day and roughly 6 or 7 million words of fiction put on the page in 118 novels, 10 novellas, and over 300 short stories.

In other news, I expect my current novel to wrap today. Maybe tomorrow, but probably today.

My Best Advice for Fiction Writers

Almost three years ago, I wrote a wordy piece titled “My Best Advice for Fiction Writers” and uploaded a PDF of it to the Journal website for free download.

This morning I took it down and copied it into a Word document. I intend to eventually rework it, maybe even into a book.

But for now, here are the nuts and bolts:

  1. Write every day. To the degree you are able, sit down and write fiction every day. The best way to improve your fiction-writing craft is to practice it.
  2. Understand the difference between your story and your characters’ story. Trust your characters. They, not you, are living the story.
  3. Write authentic stories. You can’t plan or plot someone else’s (your characters’) authentic story. Authentic stories unfold in real time as they are lived and experienced. You are only the chronicler of your characters’ stories.
  4. Life happens. We’re all interrupted by minor and major life rolls. Doesn’t matter. Keep coming back.
  5. Heinlein’s Business Habits for Writers is invaluable. Heinlein’s Rules are ridiculously difficult to follow and incredibly fun and fulfilling to attempt. Adhere to them. When you fall off (and you will fall off) get right back on as soon as possible. (For a free annotated copy of Heinlein’s Rules, click here).
  6. Ground the reader (invite the reader into the story, chapter, major scene) with setting and character description. Nothing happens against a plain white background, and characters are more than talking heads.
  7. Every word of the story must come through the characters.
    1. Any description of setting must come through the POV character, and it must include his opinions. Any description that comes through the POV character can’t be “too much.”
    2. Conversely, ANY description that comes from the author is always too much because the source is external to the story. It’s author intrusion.
  8. Use all five of the POV character’s (not the writer’s) physical senses and at least one indicator of at least one emotional sense (fear, anger, irony, joy, hatred, etc.) in every major scene.
  9. Pacing, pacing, pacing. Sentence structure and paragraphing goes to pacing. Pacing dictates how fast or slowly the reader reads.
  10. Cliffhangers. Put one at the end of every major scene and every chapter, period.
  11. Hooks. The hook isn’t only for the opening of the story. Hook the reader physically and/or emotionally at the beginning of every major scene and chapter. Think of the hook is the other end of the cliffhanger.
  12. Believe in yourself. Defend your work.
  13. Writers are the worst judges of their own work: Always, not only when they think it’s ‘good.’ If you think something you’ve written is ‘bad,’ submit or publish it anyway. Judging the story is the readers’ job, not yours.
  14. To write a good opening, don’t start with the action. Something happened (one or more characters in a setting) just before the action started. Back up and write that.
  15. Write and edit (cycle) from the creative subconscious mind, never the conscious, critical mind. The critical mind can only construct, it can never create. Write the authentic story, not what you ‘think’ it should be.

Okay, that’s enough for today. Talk with you again soon.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 750

Writing of Blackwell Ops 48: Razor Edge

Day 1…… 2213 words. To date…… 2213
Day 2…… 1210 words. To date…… 3423
Day 3…… 1318 words. To date…… 4741
Day 4…… 2481 words. To date…… 7222
Day 5…… 1588 words. To date…… 8810
Day 6…… 2215 words. To date…… 11025
Day 7…… 4168 words. To date…… 15193
Day 8…… 2645 words. To date…… 17838
Day 9…… 1682 words. To date…… 19520
Day 10…. 3234 words. To date…… 22754
Day 11…. 1982 words. To date…… 24736
Day 12…. 3079 words. To date…… 27815
Day 13…. 3095 words. To date…… 30910

Fiction for October………………… 17045
Fiction for 2025…………………… 595583
Nonfiction for October.…………… 4170
Nonfiction for 2025……………….. 214280
2025 consumable words………… 802294

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 14
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 118
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 302
Short story collections……………………. 29