Seven Keys to Writing Memorable Genre Fiction

Seven key elements of writing genre fiction are character, conflict, dialogue, plot, setting, theme and world building. Here are points to ponder from sections of and contributing writers to Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, plus exercises, for speculative fiction and all genre work.

Credibility
Credibility, by Vincent M. Wales
“One of the most important aspects of a story (and of an author) is credibility. This is an important trait that’s not hard to gain, but easy to lose. And few things can ruin credibility like factual inaccuracy.”

Exercise: Select a favorite novel or short story that includes facts about the story world. Note how these facts impact the story world and help create it.

Creativity
Creativity on Demand, by Steven Barnes
“The key to brainstorming is that you must give yourself specific permission to come up with absurd answers. Otherwise you will think only in a direct, linear path, and miss the chance of a high-level breakthrough.” 

Exercise: Ask yourself which aspects of your story you’re grappling to present because they seem to fantastical to include. Then consider which characters the story elements impact and how. Begin weaving the realities into a plot list to concretize new directions for your story.

Beginnings and Endings
Begin at the End, by Michael Dillon Scott
“… in my experience, even those [writers] who do not plan their stories have an ending mind and will work toward that particular conclusion … All writing is a journey toward a destination, that final page in the story. Like any journey, it makes perfect sense to begin with a destination in mind. The entire story becomes a lot easier if the ending is written.”

Exercise: Your story may already have a beginning and an end. If so, ask yourself how the two inform each other. Then consider ways to deepen both. If you’re stuck for a beginning, ending or both, consider starting the story in the middle of a scene. To create the scene, sit for a moment, eyes closed, and allow yourself to imagine the scene, no matter how strange it may seem. Let it play out a bit before taking notes.

World Building
Humming the Sets: World Building That Supports the Story, by Melissa Scott
“There’s an old joke about musical theater that seems perennially relevant to discussions on world building … no matter how good a designer you are, no one leaves the show humming the sets … This is part of persuading readers to suspend their disbelief: the buildup of solid, consistent details that seem to follow logically from the choices you’ve made; and to make it work, you have to know your imaginary world inside and out. The other reason for knowing your world in detail is that it helps you learn about your characters … The more you know about the world, the more fine detail you can add to your picture, the better you understand how to shape your characters’ lives and choices.”

Exercise: Ask yourself which aspects of your story or characters is least clear. Then consider why this is and what might be missing that would fill in and clarify the picture.

Setting
Leaping into Landscape, by Wendy Mewes
“Take forest, with a dual personality fruitful for fantasy … Shelter also becomes concealment, and the forest’s semi-magical powers of transformation and regeneration challenge our very sense of self. Hidden from the sun, we literally lose direction and the balance of life suddenly shifts. [However] Forest is never destination, but a step on the path, a setting for adventure and challenge.”

Exercise: List the various aspects of your story’s setting. Next to each item note its metaphoric values. Keep the list handy as you revise your work.

Drama
Writing Is Seeing, by John Shirley
“Verisimilitude, believability—that’s a key to persuading a reader that what you’re describing is real. Where do you get it? From observation—from observing yourself, people around you, the world around you … Being ‘in the moment’ helps you see things as they are—and it may bring you insight into the human condition … A good writer can find the human dilemma, the human condition, in any situation, because it’s always there, if you’re really looking closely.”

Exercise: List the main character(s) in your story. Next to each list the dilemmas the person faces. Next to each dilemma note the possible outcomes that could result. Consider these realities as you revise your work.

Adele Annesi is an award-winning author, editor and teacher. For questions on writing, email Adele Annesi. Adele’s new novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, 2023).

Can You See Me Now: Effective Description in Long-Form Fiction

Throughout the historical fiction novel workshop I’ve been teaching at Westport Writers’ Workshop we’ve been focusing on the seven elements that appear in all fiction but are hallmarks of historical fiction: character, conflict, dialogue, plot, setting, theme and world building.

About halfway through our fall workshop series, one of our writers realized that after weeks of reading her colleagues’ submissions she didn’t know what the characters in the various stories looked like. Nor was she sure that she had rendered her own main character thoroughly enough throughout the story so that her colleagues knew what her main character looked like. We knew what the character was feeling and thinking, but as to physical characteristics—oh, my!

The more we considered the notion of how to depict a character’s physical description, the more we realized how hard it can be to get a sense of how our characters look, not just at the start of the story when we may still be working those details out but also in the key moments of their lives and over the passing of time. So, character descriptions, what to do?

First, to be fair, it has been a busy season for all our novelists, with some lack of continuity in workshop participation and submissions. This isn’t unusual with busy writers who have, well, lives. But one very real downside to lack of continuity is that we sometimes forget how our colleagues’ characters look. Since readers rarely read a novel in one sitting, this is a problem for them, too.

Second, if you’re working in long-form fiction — novel, novella, novelette — at some point you’re in the process of generating pages. This usually means placing a priority on moving the story forward. While this makes sense, one causality of word count and trying to get the plot down is description. Scant descriptions are a reality not only for characters but settings, too.

One way to address description is to consider in the context of two craft elements: characterization and setting. Both of these — who people are (and how they look) and what the story world is (and how it looks) — need to be established from the start of the story. It’s also important to describe characters and settings as they evolve over the course of a story in general and how they appear in key moments in particular. This will draw readers further and further into the story as it unfolds, a key point of reader engagement.

Ongoing description also enables writers to better understand and depict their characters, settings and stories. So, what if we find ourselves with scant descriptions? If we’re working on a first or an early draft of a novel, we can keep in mind that detailed descriptions are often more easily developed in second and subsequent drafts. By then, we’ve made progress in page and word count, and we know the story, setting and people better.

Given the realities of life and rather than break momentum, it’s sometimes best to make notes to ourselves about the importance of characterization and setting as we’re writing. We can do this right in the text as we’re writing or keep a separate list. Then as we revise our work, we can find those places where we need to amplify descriptions of people and places, as appropriate for that point in the story.

Last, we can recall what Janet Burroway said in Writing Fiction: Details are the lifeblood of fiction. To use this craft element well, we must remember two things. Details must be concrete, and they must be germane to what the story is about, its theme. This is why details are often easier to fill in after the first draft.

When it comes to developing our description skills, we can thank our colleagues for their attention to detail and their powers of observation. We can also thank them for not ignoring what may seem obvious but often gets back-burnered for the sake of expediency. This may be the right thing for a first or an early draft. But physical descriptions, especially throughout a longer work of fiction, are critical because they show the passage of time and its effects and the effects of events of the story as well. This will keep readers — and writers – engaged and learning the whole way through.