I Can See Clearly Now: Patterns in Long-Form Fiction

Sometimes writers don’t think much about the form a story will take because stories often seem to take on a shape of their own. But writers of long-form fiction should be aware that all stories have a shape, or pattern, and that they can craft and mold that pattern to suit their vision for the work. First, what do we mean by “pattern”?

In the classic reference work Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster refers to pattern as the shape a longer work takes because of the choices the characters make. Here’s an easily recognizable pattern.

Our characters meet, their lives converge, then their lives ebb and recede, with each going their own way. Whether or not we or our readers stop to note the pattern, it draws us in because it's recognizable, and familiar patterns enable us to feel comfortable with the story and the characters, as if we’re traveling a familiar road but with a new group of friends (or enemies).

Then there’s the story pattern Forster calls the "grand chain," where characters appear in short bursts then return for short bursts. Having our characters strut and fret their brief moments on the stage then repeat the action works well in humoristic pieces, where tone and timing are key.

No matter which pattern we writers create, we need to be aware of the following:

• Whether or not a story’s pattern is familiar, every story has one. Many stories have more than one.
• One way to know what our story’s pattern is and how we can discern it is to read the work and mark each major decision the main character(s) make, then track the results or effects of these decisions, asking these questions:
• Do the choices draw the characters closer to each other or disperse them?
• Do the choices strengthen reader engagement or distance it?
• Which of these effects do we want? Which work best for the story?
• Patterns can be shaped. For instance, maybe our characters make a lot choices early in the story but few later on. In a case like this, readers may engage with the work early on and lose interest.
• One way to avoid this is to recalibrate our characters’ choices and where they make them. Think of your car or cell’s GPS. Choosing a route that differs from the GPS’s instructions can alter your entire journey.
• Patterns make a difference—to the characters, the story, the reader, everything. To get a sense of this, we need to give our stories time and distance then come back and read them through, asking:
• Where does my story sag (low interest), lag (lose pacing), pick up speed (mover faster, maybe too fast)?
• To correct these common problems, consider what different choice(s) your character(s) could make at these crucial junctures and how the choices impact the rest of the story.

Patterns appeal to our aesthetic sense because they provide symmetry and enable us to discern the story as a whole. While we writers continually make decisions about what our characters do, the place to rethink our choices and theirs is in revision. Here, we can do what Nathalie Goldberg referred to Writing Down the Bones as “re-seeing” the work and making organic adjustments that enhance the story, maybe even raise the stakes.

So in the classic pattern noted above, what if instead of having the characters meet, converge and go their separate ways the writer decides that the characters never meet. Instead, the main character spends their life seeking the object of their desire. If the story is about someone with selfish motives, thwarting their efforts and showing how the character responds can reveal (show versus tell) just how self-centered they were in the first place. A classic film with this theme is All About Eve.

So how do writers work with pattern in long-form fiction? Consider these questions:

• Have you planned your story’s pattern or simply plotted the story?
• At which points in the story do your characters make life-altering decisions?
• What happens to the characters and the story as a result of these choices?
• How can you tighten the story to strengthen the pattern, for example, by eliminating an unnecessary character or plot thread?

Whether or not we writers plan our story patterns, we certainly have a plan for our stories. The key is knowing that patterns exist and how to shape those patterns for what we want to achieve. Like us, our characters make decisions, then their decisions make them—and more.

For questions, email Word for Words.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi is an award-winning writer, editor and teacher. Her new novel is What She Takes Away (New York: Bordighera Press, 2023). Adele was managing editor of Southern Literary Review and received her MFA from Fairfield University. She teaches for Westport Writers’ Workshop. Her website is Adele Annesi.

Yearning and an Impetus for Art

Fiction and nonfiction writers frequently push the boundaries of creativity, even those set by Pulitzer Prize-winning writers like Robert Olen Butler, author of From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction. Yet, Butler offers practical methods for going from craft to art, especially with the oft-missing element of yearning.

Some form of desire exists in most stories, real and imagined. But depictions of what a person or character desires often fall short because they’re rendered through unartistic forms, such as abstractions, analyses, generalizations, interpretations and summaries. These have their place in writing, but not so much in storytelling, where there are better ways to go from heart to art.

Yearning, per se, isn’t story, but it often drives story, or good stories anyway. When readers are invited inside a character, they start caring about what that person wants and whether she’ll get it. And the deeper the yearning (more in type than intensity) the more artful the story and the higher the stakes. So how does a story reach these goals?

Butler offers the example of James Joyce, who used "epiphany" to refer to the moment in a story when its essence appears. Butler suggests that stories actually have two epiphanies—one at the climax (the type of epiphany Joyce referred to) and one that should happen near the story’s start. Cluing the reader in to what the main subject of the work yearns for adds interest and momentum. And it can raise the stakes. Given these realities, here are two considerations:

• A person may yearn for one thing at the start of a story or novel and find out by the end that he has grown enough to want more; whether or not he gets it is another aspect of the story. The reverse may also be true.
• A character may start with specific desires, peruse them and get exactly what she wants. There is also the possibility of desire within desire, similar to what in journalism is called the "real story." So what a person may seem to want or thinks she wants isn’t what she really wants, and her journey of realization becomes part of the storyline.

Both of these considerations involve discovery and generate natural opportunities for conflict, the lifeblood of story, real or imagined. And the stronger the yearning, and the tougher the obstacles, the more tension and conflict.

One way to raise the stakes in a story and the level of writing is to reveal and explore a person’s intangible longings—for example, for respect, a sense of self as distinct from others, for recognition, permanence or legacy, a place in the world or in the heart of someone else.

Examining these deeper desires in a book or novel opens the door to artful writing. For this, Butler advocates tilling the soil of the writer's imagination and past experience. This allows events, turning points and discoveries—as well as imaginings—to emerge from the compost of memory or from sheer imagination into the light of day before they’re dismissed by the writer's internal editor or shaped by craft before they’re fully realized.

This is where Butler's “dreamstorming” technique comes into play. Here, Butler suggests that writers find a writing space away from distractions and let their minds wander within the context of the story. Instead of immediately stopping to write what emerges, Butler recommends that writers keep pen and paper handy and only jot down a word or phrase to describe what comes to mind so as not to stem the flow of what they’re remembering or imagining.

Later, writers can amplify their notes and recollections into scenes without worrying about what each scene means to the overall work. These revelations usually come in draft two anyway. This is where the writer sees a character's real yearning and can portray it more artfully because the writer’s vision of who the person is and what she wants is clearer. "The point of revision is to find meaning," Butler notes.

Revision also enables writers to recognize and remove the vagaries of abstraction and generalizations, as well as those enemies of story—analyses, interpretations and summaries—in favor letting the people in the story reveal who they are and what they really want, whether they get it all or not.

Happy writing!

Write to Remember, Discover and Learn

Sometimes we write to remember. Sometimes as we write and remember, we discover. 

A writer often intuits when a character in a novel isn't fully realized. And since characters are like actors in that there are no small characters, only insufficient depictions, it’s important to make sure all characters, especially main characters, are their fullest selves. With a little imagination and strategizing, writers can glimpse more of who characters are and render them more fully.

One way to flesh out a scantily drawn character is to put the person in two scenes back to back, the first facing a tough situation alone, then next with others who know the circumstances.

How the character acts and reacts, what they think and feel, in both settings reveals them. You don’t have to retain this order in the final version of the story; it’s more of an exercise to open the character to the writer and, ultimately, to the reader.

This approach also helps the writer determine which aspects and how much of the character to show through what happens internally and how much is better shown through how they act outwardly.

Striking a balance between internality and externality is important. Showing what’s happening to a person on the inside gives the reader insight into the character, sometimes even before the character reaches the same awareness.

When writers face the unknown in developing a story or someone in that story, they can think back to when they were in a similar situation and ask themselves these questions:

• How did they react?
• What did they reveal about themselves when alone?
• What did they reveal when faced with the reality that someone else knew?

Answering these more personal questions gives the writer a place to begin. From there, they can ask themselves how the character is similar and how the person is different.

If the writer decides to incorporate these personal experiences into their fiction, they may find the task difficult. One way to accomplish this is to write quickly through the memories and moments.

In situations like these, writers are free to break the rules, for example, in these ways.

• Tell the story instead of showing it, and use awkward sentence structures.
• If you’re writing in first person and feel too close to the story, try writing what the character is thinking and feeling in third person.
• If you feel too far removed from the character or are writing in third person, try first person.
• To more fully realize scenes, add stage directions. You can remove the scaffolding later.

Once you’ve gone through these steps, put the work aside for a few days. Then, go back and chip away the plaster and dismantle the framework.

You’ll usually find clearer characters, scenes and even settings. And if the story has some basis in fact that is hard to write about, time and distance will help.

Realize, too, that there really is no such thing as going back to the past, even one’s own. It’s never the same river twice. Your story is going someplace new, with new people.

Remember also that the same principals apply in stories as in life. New relationships, especially deep ones, are hard to form. And they take work. And time. And, oftentimes, they're awkward.

Lessons like these harken to William Zinsser's Writing to Learn. In this classic, Zinsser addresses how writing helps people learn difficult subjects. The more clearly a writer can speak to a topic or depict a person or story the more clearly the writer reveals these elements to herself and her readers.

We writers often know when a character isn't fully realized and sometimes tell ourselves they’re only a small character who’s not en scene very often. But these are missed opportunities to enable characters to be their fullest selves.

We owe readers our best. We owe it to ourselves as writers, too.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi’s new novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, May 2023).

The Subtle Persuasion of Poetry in Prose

“I'm a failed poet,” wrote twentieth-century novelist and short-story writer William Faulkner, author of Light in August and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. Faulkner also said it might be true that all novelists start out wanting to write poetry and when they find they can't, they try the short story. Then failing that, they finally try writing novels. Regardless of a writer’s interest or genre, there’s much to learn from the precision, imagery and persuasiveness of poetry.

Like most people, writers don't have a lot of spare time, and when they do, they may not naturally gravitate toward poetry because they have other projects that take precedence. And for the writer immersed in prose, a poem can feel too much like an alien landscape, an inaccessible world. Yet, poems often have an elemental, Edenic quality that invites readers in and bids them stay a while.

On particularly harried days, writers can find the clean, spare language of poetry to be a balm. Yet, poems can also provide lessons and examples. For instance, one evocative noun can replace a string of adjectives and create a clear picture that opens the door of story for readers. A writer who makes deliberate word choices says, in essence, "I want you to know what this is about, who the people in this story are."

This isn't the same as giving away the entire premise or plot upfront. Instead, it creates an atmosphere of trust that engages readers and encourages them to read on.

Poets often say that poetry is all about imagery. At first blush, may sound like poets craft their pieces only for the senses, not for substance. But when an image accurately conveys what the poet intended, substance is implied.

The corollary for the writer is a well-grounded scene that reveals character and advances plot, preferably both at once. Even misleading scenes, when done intentionally and well, have their place. Where would mysteries and thrillers and thrillers be without them?

One surprising aspect of poetry that's just as useful to prose writers is the artful ability to persuade. Small, subtle words like "so" and "for" and "since", unobtrusive in their commonality, are woven into a poem’s fabric to draw the reader to the poet's perspective. From there, the message conveyed through language is conjured by words that rise gently from the page to form a picture in the reader's mind.

And for poets and prose writers alike, if there is no image, there is no scene, and if there is no scene there is no story.

Often accused of being inaccessible, poetry isn't always understandable. Neither are people, or life. Yet, even when understanding doesn't arise, images still appear, with the intentionality of the chosen words giving those images substance.

Whether we read or write poems, prose or both, less is often more, and in such simplicity one often finds rest. 

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
"Auguries of Innocence," William Blake

Happy writing! 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)

The Use of Braided Narrative in Novel-Writing and Memoir

Whether you write fiction or memoir, you’ll eventually need more than one person to help tell your story. Here are considerations for using a braided narrative approach to create a point-counterpoint storyline that’s informed by and greater than the sum of its parts.

A braided narrative is when more than one primary person is involved in telling a story. As with the concept of a braid, the number of people telling the tale usually is limited to two or three. This approach differs from the use of multiple perspectives in these ways:

• Each person’s contribution to the story is roughly the same length as the others’.
• Each person’s role in telling the story is generally equal in importance to the others’.
• There is a clear alternating pattern in who’s telling the story. For example, Person A may present the first three sections, Person B the second three, and Person C the third three. Then the pattern repeats.
• Although the perspective in memoir won’t change from first person, the story can still be structured based on who else besides the writer figures prominently in the work.

To use braided narrative effectively, consider these steps:

• List the individuals who will figure most prominently in the story.
• Next to each, note which part of the story the person will tell, for example, backstory, current events or future outcome, or a combination thereof.
• Also next to each, note how the person will relate to, compare with and contrast to the other individuals.
• For fiction, decide the perspective of each character—first, second or third person.
• For both fiction and memoir, decide whether each person is reliable.
• As a note, even in memoir, people may have a strong perspective but still be undependable in what they think, feel, say and do.

As you develop your story, consider how the overall function of your braided narrative:

• Will some parts of the narrative slow the story (pacing) to give the reader time to get to know the people in the story (progression)?
• If so, how and where will these points occur?
• How will gender figure into telling the story?
• For example, how will one person’s perspective and personality illuminate the others’ perspectives and personalities?
• How will the narrative braids draw the reader in and offer a more complex and satisfying reading experience?

Last, consider how and where in the story the narrators’ lives will intersect:

• At what points in the story will their lives traverse?
• What forms will these interactions take, for example, chance meetings, arranged unions or reunions, indirect connections?
• How will these interactions inform the story and reveal the other people in it?
• How will the narrators’ thoughts, recollections, emotions and plans effect each other?
• Where will they diverge, and what will the divergences look like?
• What will each person learn that wouldn’t have been possible to know without the others?
• How and where in the story will these revelations occur, and what will their outcome be?
• What surprises will there be, especially at the end of the story, that wouldn’t have come about without the narrators’ involvement?

For both fiction and memoir, the use of a braided narrative can heighten the contrast between one person’s perspective and another’s, especially when dealing with pivotal life events. A braided narrative can also add diversity in setting, theme, ethnicity, culture, social mores and identity to yield a story rich in nuance, texture and depth, and, most especially, a story that is memorable for the right reasons.

More on Adele’s new novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press), on the warp and weft of family and inspiration:

The weaver's shuttle turns when fabric designer Gia Falcini receives a gift from her estranged father in Italy that sparks a journey to Milan, her father’s hillside village and new stepfamily, and a local fabric mill that could shred Gia's aspirations or offer a legacy worth taking away.

For Adele’s new novel on Amazon, click on What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press).

The Art of Seeing

A chill winter morning brings a dusting of snow like ashes, a blush across the clouds, a roseate tinge to the bare branches of the maples, as if the world has come into being for the first time, in a long time.

These days are often lived in a fog of activity, a blur. Yet, the writer, as continually aspiring artist, is called not only to look but to see. What is the difference, and why does it make a difference?

Looking is the beginning of seeing, but only the beginning, the precursor, the prelude, as if looking were more concerned with the pragmatic than the soul, the heart.

Seeing takes in — the sting of winter, the dusting of snow on cartops and rooftops, the glow of sunrise — and transforms it into experience. This taking in enables the writer to experience. And experience, when inspired, can become aesthetic, can become art. Without experience, there is insufficient influence on the depths of the creative being.

During a recent meeting with a colleague on the privileges and perils of writing and publication, it quickly became clear we agreed. We don’t sell our wares. We offer our art to the world, however large or small, as a child offers a drawing that can speak more than words of the realities of life.

At the close of the meeting, my colleague and I agreed that despite the woes of bringing a book into today’s world, we will still do readings, seek reviews, attend festivals, speak at gatherings. But we will do these things not in the consumptive manner of today but with the mind and heart of the continual apprentice of the artists’ guilds that produced the master crafters and masterworks still esteemed after the passing of time.

In Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing, author and teacher Roger Rosenblatt noted, “For your writing to be great…it must be useful to the world. And for that to happen you must form an opinion of the world. And for that to happen you need to observe the world, closely and steadily, with a mind open to change. And for that to happen you have to live in the world, and not pretend that it is someone else’s world you are writing about.”

Rosenblatt’s challenge to the writer, the artist, is to not only love and care for the world, broken as it is, but to love the world because the world is worth loving. And for this to happen the writer must not only look but see, not only see but experience, even if experience brings pain, for, “Nothing you write will mater unless it moves the human heart…” [Rosenblatt, att. A.D. Hope]

Application:

• Go to a place that enables you to see — a window, park bench, lakeside log, backyard.
• Stop. Look. Wait.
• Stopping means taking time.
• Looking means opening the eyes and the heart.
• Waiting means allowing what is taken in to become experience.

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).

Use Techniques from Film to Enhance Your Fiction

If you watch movies on venues like Amazon Prime, you’ve probably seen the X-Ray feature that includes information alongside the film to help viewers understand the story and how the film was made. Paying attention to filmmakers’ techniques also can invigorate your stories, characters and scenes. Knowing a few basic film concepts will further enhance your viewing experience and your ability to use these same concepts in your writing.

Cutaway
A cutaway is a shot that steps away from the main action of the moment. The aim is to create suspense, add information and/or pose a question. To implement this technique in your work, ask yourself:

• At what point in a scene or the overall story can I organically use this technique to enhance the overall work and the reader’s experience?
• Did I remember to return to that moment at the right place later in the story to complete the scene and/or answer the question?

Double Reveal
A reveal is an insight, a revelation or new information that impacts the characters and the direction of the story. A double reveal propels plot and reveals characters the way a solid rocket booster thrusts a spacecraft from initial launch through ascent into orbit by allowing the protagonist(s) and the opposing character(s) to gain crucial insights into themselves and each other through direct conflict. To implement this technique, ask yourself:

• What kind of conflict do the characters in this scene need to spark a major revelation?
• What will they learn from this that they can’t learn any other way?
• How will these new insights change each person’s life and the overall story?

Dramatic
Arc Dramatic arc is the shape, path and direction of the story’s action and conflict. The aim here is to create a framework for the development of the story and the characters. To implement this technique:

• Chart the action of your story, and ask yourself what shape you see, for example, a bell curve or a sharp initial rise in action then a long, steady decline. Where is there a lag?
• Also ask yourself how the dramatic arc complements and/or contrasts with the character arc(s).

Jump Cut
A jump cut is a scene cut in two, with a section removed, that enables the story to move forward faster and/or smoother than if all the information were supplied. To implement this technique, ask yourself:

• Does the scene or section still feel complete, with all the essential elements?
• Is there still sufficient clarity to avoid confusing the reader?

Montage
A montage is an editing technique that orders a series of images to condense space, time and information to enhance drama. Types of montages:

• Metric montages sequence images to the beat of music, for example, to increase suspense.
• Rhythmic montages cut the images based on musical pacing.
• Tonal montages cut the images based on their emotional tone and the emotional tone of the overall scene to create a mood and/or spark emotions from the audience.
• Intellectual montages place different images together to prompt viewers to infer meaning from what they see and to respond emotionally.
• Overtonal montages combine all of the above to evoke emotions from the audience and compel deep thinking. 

Suspense
Suspense creates sense of excitement, fear or uncertainty about the events or characters in the story in a way that enhances viewer interest and sets up what comes next. To implement this technique, ask yourself:

• Where in the story can I organically enhance an existing scene by setting it up for one outcome and providing another?
• Where in the story or a scene can I create a concern or question in the reader’s mind and withhold the outcome or answer to the question?

If you enjoy films, you can enjoy them more and make better use of your viewing experience by learning how the film was made. Learning more about the craft and art of moviemaking can also give you new direction as a writer and breathe new life into your stories, characters and scenes.

To learn more about how film techniques enhance fiction, check out:
Cinematic Story & Character Techniques for Fiction and Memoir - Online and In-Person
With acclaimed director Joanne Hudson, founder of the Ridgefield Independent Film Festival, and award-winning writer and novelist Adele Annesi.

Cinematic Story & Character Techniques for Fiction and Memoir
Date: Saturday, February 11
Time: 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Venue: Hybrid in-person (at Westport Writers’ Workshop) and online (via Zoom)
Price: $80.00

For questions, email Adele Annesi. Adele’s new novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, 2023).

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).