The Wily Pronoun

Few parts of speech are as wily and confusing as the humble pronoun. Its function seems so simple--to stand in for one or more nouns--and yet pronouns are the source of more mistakes than any other type of word. Even journeyman writers have trouble with these from time to time.

Why do we need pronouns? The answer is because they are transparent. When you read a pronoun, you don't even really see the word itself. Your brain subconsciously and immediately substitutes the thing for which the pronoun stands: its referent. Take the first sentence in this paragraph for example. Did you pause to think about who "we" was? Did you even notice the word "we" at all? I'm willing to bet you didn't. You probably just intuitively understood that I was speaking about myself, you the reader, and other writers like us. That's a lot of work for a little two-letter word! It slipped all that information into your brain without you even knowing it was there. Pretty cool if you ask me!

Pronouns also help vary the pace and rhythm of writing. Writing the same noun over and over becomes repetitive; it feels like being clubbed over the head with words:

Bob Dole won't raise taxes. Bob Dole doesn't believe in higher taxes. That's just not the kind of man Bob Dole is. (Not an actual quote)

That kind of writing is best left to the politicians. Actual human writers use pronouns. Trouble is, a lot of us use them wrong.

To make sure you're using the right pronouns, it's helpful to know the different types and what each is used for. The following overview is adapted from this article. Check it out for a great quick reference.

Personal Pronouns

When you think of pronouns, these are probably the kind you think of first. They stand in for proper and common nouns, and they come in three flavors.

First Person (I, me, we, us): 

For a fiction writer, these are mainly used in dialogue or first person narrative. The main tip to remember is not to overuse them. First person stories can quickly get clogged with "I" sentences: 

I sat down at the table. I picked up my spoon. I turned to Jared and asked him to pass the salt.

Keep in mind that in first person, the reader always knows who the speaker is. It isn't necessary to re-anchor them very often. 

Also, phrases like "I saw" add narrative distance, and the point of first person is maximum narrative intimacy. To keep your reader inside your POV character's mind, write "A lamp glowed on the table" instead of "I saw a lamp glowing on the table"

Second Person (you): 

In fiction, "you" is typically only seen in dialogue. Novels like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy have made successful use of a conversational style, but keep in mind that this is a risk. Any direct communication between a character and a reader necessarily breaks the fourth wall. It should only be done for a very good reason, because by definition it knocks the reader out of the story. Overused, it makes a writer look desperate to get his point across.

Third Person (he, she, it, they, them, etc.): 

Far and away the most common pronouns in fiction (even in first person), third person pronouns are actually the most difficult, because you're almost always going to need several at a time. Unless you're writing about a single character standing in a void (which sounds awfully boring), your story is going to be filled with people, places and things, and at most one of them will be referred to with something besides a third person pronoun. 

Jack picked up the gun. It was heavy in his hand.

Here, "it" and "his" are both third person pronouns, standing in for "the gun" and "Jack's" respectively. When you're dealing with one person and one object, things are pretty clear. But the more people and things you throw into the mix, the more slippery those pronouns get:

Before Tom met Jack, he was just an ordinary kid.

Here, "he" could refer to either Tom or Jack. Granted, this is a simple example, and I think it's pretty clear that "he" refers to Tom (because of an issue I'll discuss later), but you see how a reader might get confused. It would be much clearer to say "Tom was an ordinary kid before he met Jack."

The more people, places, and things you involve in a scene, the more nouns you're going to have to use to keep things clear. Occasionally, this can result in passages that repeat the same noun several times, and it can be conspicuous. The only way to avoid this is to keep as few balls in the air as possible. Simplify scenes when you can. If there are people and objects around that aren't directly involved with what's happening, don't mention them. And if a character is interacting with number of people or objects, try to write sequential actions, not simultaneous ones (more on the difference in this article).

No matter how careful you are, you're still bound to struggle with this once in a while. It's worth taking the time to figure out your pronouns, for your reader's sake. They won't thank you, they'll just understand.

I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the issue of gender. When referring to unspecified persons (or persons of a non-binary gender), it's somewhat frowned upon to prefer a single gendered pronoun. In nonfiction (for example, here on this site) the most accepted practice is to vary between masculine and feminine pronouns, and to write around them when possible. 

For my part, I tend to favor first and second person, but I try to oscillate back and forth between "he" and "she" when referring to "the writer" or "the reader". In some cases (especially in my older articles), I even use "they" as a non-gendered pronoun, but that practice is frowned upon by much of the writing community. 

Grammar geeks within the LGBT movement have made various attempts to come up with a non-gendered third person pronoun. Some even prefer to be referred to as "they". Even before LGBT issues were a household topic, writers have posited their own solutions for situations where gender is simply unspecified. None of these efforts have gained traction, and in everyday conversation, "they" seems to be the most commonly accepted solution. Personally, I'm a fan of "they", since it's already being used every day. But I acknowledge the reasoning against it: "they" is a plural pronoun, and shouldn't be used to refer to singular subjects.

This issue will probably be in debate for a long time, and I won't presume to solve the world's problems, even ones as minute as this. But I will say that if enough people just keep using "they" in this context, it will eventually become accepted usage. Take that, Grammar Nazis!

...moving on.

Relative Pronouns

A relative pronoun does exactly what it says; it relates a following clause to the rest of the sentence.

The gun that he used to kill President Lincoln has been found.

Relative pronouns basically force entire clauses to function as descriptors. In the above case, "he used to kill President Lincoln" functions as an adjective modifying "the gun". What you'll notice right away is the pronoun "that" simply isn't necessary to understand the sentence:

The gun he used to kill President Lincoln has been found.

This is true of many relative pronouns. Instead of "the man who killed Lincoln", just say "Lincoln's killer". Cutting relative pronouns is one of the main ways I tighten my writing when I edit.

One issue that many writers struggle with is the difference between "who" and "whom", both of which can be used as relative pronouns. I personally didn't master this until I was in my thirties. Luckily, it's actually pretty simple. Anywhere you could use "he", use "who". Anywhere you could use "him", use "whom".

The man who wrote to me. <=> He wrote to me. 

The man to whom I wrote <=> I wrote to him. 

"Who" is used to stand for the subject of a verb--the person or thing that does the action. "Whom" is used for the object of the verb--the person or thing being acted upon.

Another issue that trips some people up is the difference between "who's" and "whose". We'll talk a little more about this below, but basically all you need to know is that "who's" is a contraction for "who is", whereas "whose" is a possessive pronoun that can also be used as a relative pronoun:

The man whose arm was broken

Here, "whose" relates the idea of the broken arm to "the man".

Relative pronouns are clutter, more often than not. Make sure they're needed, or write around them.

Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns are basically like pointing your finger.

Tom grabbed the gun. "Give me that!"

Here, we know "that" refers to the gun. In situations where we know what object is being referred to, demonstrative pronouns work as a shorthand. Use "this" or "these" to refer to things that are close by. Use "that" or "those" to refer to things that are at a distance.

"That" is one of those overused words that trip writers up, perhaps because it can also be used as an adjective ("Give me that gun!"), adverb ("I wouldn't go that far"), and a conjunction ("she said that she was hungry"). "That" is a complicated issue, best left for another article. For now, just know the pronoun use is one of the acceptable ones.

Indefinite Pronouns

Indefinite pronouns refer to something unspecified. Did you catch that? In that first sentence, "something" is an indefinite pronoun. You probably use these pronouns all the time: "There's something in your teeth.", "Somebody is coming.", "Is anybody there?" "Is everybody coming?". Indefinite pronouns are nice and transparent, and are unlikely to cause you much trouble. Pronouns are mainly an issue when it's hard to figure out what is being referred to, But indefinite pronouns aren't really referring to anything specific, so you'll never be searching a previous sentence for their referents. Just make sure not to use too many of them, or your writing will seem vague.

Reflexive Pronouns

A reflexive pronoun refers back to the subject of the sentence, indicating that the subject of the verb is also the object.

He shot himself.

Remember, this is all reflexive pronouns do. If you aren't referring back to the subject of a sentence, don't use one. Some people misuse the reflexive pronoun "myself" in sentences like "My mom came to pick up Tom and myself". Because "mom" is the subject, "myself" is incorrect here. For a great look at misuses of "myself", check out this article.

Interrogative Pronouns

A pronoun is interrogative if it's used to ask a question.

"Who are you?"

"Whose candy is this?"

Interrogative pronouns are unlikely to trip you up much. Just make sure your verbs are in the right mood and tense, and you'll be fine.

Possessive Pronouns

Just like possessive nouns, possessive pronouns show ownership or belonging. The main difference, and the thing that trips some people up, is that possessive pronouns never take apostrophes.

I'll be the first to admit it: it took me years to master the difference between "its" and "it's". I got so frustrated with my inability to differentiate that I actually considered getting it tattooed on my wrist. "It's" is a contraction of "is is". "Its" is a possessive pronoun.

As mentioned above, "whose" and "who's" is a similar issue. Just remember; if a pronoun has an apostrophe, it's a contraction.

There is also the issue of possessive pronouns used before a noun:

Give me my socks.

Here, technically, "my" is an adjective! As confusing as that may sound, I'd be willing to bet you've never worried too much about pronouns in this sense. If you know who a thing belongs to, you know which word to use.

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Despite all the different varieties and uses of pronouns, the problems they cause all tend to fall into one category: vagueness.

In a recent editing project, I came across this passage:

Feedback from friends is valuable if your friends are writers. But they can be tricky to get feedback from.

To whom does "they" refer? Friends? Writers? Oddly enough, the first time I read this sentence, I actually had a split second where I thought "they" referred to "feedback". Obviously, "they" would be the wrong pronoun in that case, but it alerted me to an interesting fact.

When I read a pronoun in one sentence, I tend to assume that it refers to the subject of a previous sentence. In the above example, "feedback" is the subject of the first sentence, so when I saw a pronoun, that's where my mind went first.

I might be crazy. But still, I stand by what I told the writer: if you have a sentence where both subject and object are present, and then a following sentence with a pronoun, it's natural to assume the pronoun refers to the subject. This was the rephrasing I recommended:

Friends are a great source of feedback, especially if your friends are writers. But they can be tricky to get feedback from.

To me, that's much clearer. That passage went through a few more revisions before we both thought it was perfect, but I made a note of this one because I had never thought about it before.

Remember this example from above?

Before Tom met Jack, he was just an ordinary kid.

I might not change this sentence if it appeared in one of my stories. Because "Tom" is the subject of the verb "met", I assume that the next pronoun ("he") refers to him. But I may be the exception in this matter, and the revision I suggested above is definitely clearer:

Tom was an ordinary kid before he met Jack.

Another issue with pronouns is that they grow more vague the more distance you put between them and their referents. Even a single sentence can be too much.

The mountain towered over the treetops. A fierce wind whipped the leaves. Its snowy peak reflected the sunlight.

Obviously, neither the wind nor the leaves could have a snowy peak, so you know that "its" refers to the mountain. But the fact that several nouns appeared between "the mountain" and "its" made it momentarily confusing, didn't it?

Granted, the confusion isn't likely to last more than a second, if that long. Any reader can figure out what a pronoun refers to if they give it some thought. But passages like these are speed bumps; they may not knock the reader out of the story, but they certainly impede her progress. In this case, swapping the second two sentences is an easy solution, but it won't always be that clear. Just try to keep pronouns close to their referents, and keep as few pronouns in play as possible. If there's even a ghost of a chance a pronoun could refer to more than one thing, try to rephrase.

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Pronouns seem simple and innocuous until you realize just how many you use, and just how many ways you use them. Misused, they can rob your writing of clarity and frustrate your readers. But they're a necessary part of prose. They provide transparency, which keeps readers focused on the story, not the words. Use them well, and keep your readers reading.

Do You Really Read Your Writing Aloud?

When I was a kid, my family went on frequent road trips, and our favorite way to pass the time was listening to random audiobooks we picked up at gas stations. They don't come on cassettes anymore (though I still call them "books on tape"), but audiobooks are more available than ever. Audible and other subscription services make it easy to absorb a new book a piece at a time--on your daily commute, or while you're waiting on an oil change.

There's something different about fiction when it's read aloud. A dull reader will kill even the liveliest story, but in the hands of a deft voice actor the music of words is infectious. It was the venerable David Dukes who first introduced me to Isaac Asimov, and if it weren't for his vivid reading of the Foundation books, I might not be the rabid Asimov fan I am today.

You've probably heard that it's good to read your own writing aloud, and my experience with audiobooks leads me to agree. Reading fiction aloud engages your other senses, and this means more of your brain is working on the story. It helps you enjoy a story more, and understand it better.

Still, it feels kind of silly, doesn't it? Do you really have to do it?

I wouldn't say you have to read every word of your manuscript aloud, but I definitely advise reading any tricky passages aloud. Any time you're not 100% satisfied with a sentence or any time you get stuck revising the same passage over and over, try reading it aloud. Yes, actually do it, and do it loud enough to hear. As Browne and King said, "The eye can be fooled, but the ear knows."

One of the biggest obstacles in revision is separating what you meant from what you said. As the author, you always know the intentions behind your words, so it's easy for you to bridge small gaps in clarity without even realizing you're doing it. If you read your writing while it's still fresh, you probably don't even see half of the rough spots, because your brain doesn't even really see the words themselves. You just perceive their meaning.

Time is the best way to distance yourself from your writing, but reading aloud is also highly effective. It forces you to see the words themselves, and to approach them in a different way. It also helps develop your voice--your artistic voice, not your literal voice--by allowing you to hear it when it sings to you.

Voice is a nebulous thing, and it's tough to have a meaningful discussion about it. But reading aloud helps you hear consonance, assonance, and alliteration, which will help you develop the music in your words. Listen for music, but don't try to put it in your writing. Let your voice develop naturally, or it will sound forced. If your writing is a cake, voice is the icing. You need to bake the cake first, and you need to make it delicious on its own merits, or the cake will suck, no matter how sweet and pretty the icing is. Still, reading your work aloud is a habit that will gradually foster whatever music is inside you.

On a more down-to-earth note, reading aloud helps you catch errors that the eye reads right past. A few things to be on the lookout for:

• Clumsy Phrases: Any time you stumble over your words, that's an opportunity to improve. You may not always be able to express an idea more fluidly, but it's worth a try. Ideally, you want words that never have to be read twice.
• Cumbersome Words: Any time you run across a word that's hard to pronounce, look for a more common synonym. Reading aloud is a great way to catch yourself substituting grad-school words for simple ones that everyone can understand.
• Vagueness: If you read a long sentence, and halfway through you've forgotten what you're talking about, that's an opportunity. Even if you like run-ons (many successful authors do), even if the sentence isn't technically a run-on, sometimes it's good to break things up. Vague pronouns are a big problem for me personally. Sometimes it's hard to keep all your him's and it's straight. (More on pronouns next week!) Any time you have to backtrack to remember who "he" or "she" is, try to rephrase with fewer pronouns.
• Character Voice: You want all your characters to sound different. Ideally, they'll each be so unique that a reader can identify the speaker from the dialogue alone (this doesn't mean you get to skip speaker attributions though!). Reading aloud is a great opportunity to hear the differences in cadence, word choice, and even dialect. If you can, and if you're not too embarrassed, go ahead and "do" the voices; try your villains in a cultured, Severus Snape accent, or speak your hunky hero's lines in an Oklahoma drawl. Even if you can't "do" voices, try to play the parts when you can. Speak the lines with emotion, and hear if your words actually sync up with those emotions, or if they sound horribly out of place.
• Author Voice: Again, author voice isn't something you can force, but you can listen for it and identify it. Any time a particular passage stands out to you, make a note of it. Do the same any time something just sounds ugly to you. Don't try to analyze it, or you'll lose the flavor of the experience. Just try to develop an ear for your own voice, and eventually you'll learn to coax it out at will.

Reading aloud is awkward and embarrassing, even if you're alone, but it can tune you in to many subtleties of your writing. Maybe don't do it at Starbucks, and maybe don't feel obliged to do it with every scrap of writing you ever put out there, but keep it in your writer's toolbox. Sometimes reading aloud provides the simple solutions that evade every other method.

The Seven Heavenly Virtues of Fiction Writing

You hear about the Seven Deadly Sins everywhere, but it's rare to hear about their opposing virtues outside of a church. Heck, even there, it's rare. I went to Catholic church and Sunday school for the first sixteen years of my life, and I found out about the Seven Virtues from Wikipedia.

I won't try to sell you on these virtues as a lifestyle (though most of them are pretty hard to disagree with), but when it comes to writing, we're all guilty of at least one of the Seven Deadlies, at least some of the time, and that means it's good to know the opposing stances. The virtuous writer is likely a happy writer, whether she is successful or not.

The Seven Heavenly Virtues of Writing

Humility

The opposite of pride, humility takes many forms for a writer. First and foremost, humility means never assuming you know everything, or even "enough" (what's "enough" anyway?). Language and storytelling are always changing, so a writer should always be learning, period.

Humility also means submitting to the will of an editor or publisher. While a writer has every right to defend his work, he must acknowledge that there is wisdom in the experience of overseers. A soldier on the ground may think it's wise to ascend the hill in front of him, to attain the high ground. But the General knows that there's an enemy army on the other side, and mounting the hill will invite disaster. 

The editor and publisher have the bird's eye view. In a good writer-editor relationship, there will be times when the writer is right, and times when the editor is right. But it takes a humble writer to see that.

Another form of humility is placing one's own agenda--be it fame, literati recognition, or a soapbox message--second to the desires of the reader. Don't forget: people read to enjoy themselves. I've never read a book because the author deserved it. I only read things that I enjoy. I love an author who makes me think, even challenges my worldview, but if you can't make me enjoy the ride, I'm getting off.

Humility is about creating a path of least resistance for the reader. If you want to be read (and if you didn't, you wouldn't write), you need to make it easy, worthwhile, and enjoyable for the reader, or you simply won't have many readers. It won't matter how good your writing is.

Kindness

The opposite of envy, kindness is all about how you regard your fellow authors. Whether they are above or below you in skill and accomplishment, they deserve your respect.

I will admit, I struggle with this one. If you've read this blog for very long, you'll know. I make a lot of hot-headed statements about amateurs and hacks. They're mostly for comic effect, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit I occasionally believe what I'm saying.

Cultivating humility helps one be kind. We are all students of this mysterious craft, and we are all on different paths. There is no single trajectory from novice to bestseller. Heck, not everybody wants to be a bestseller. And some bestsellers got there by sheer dumb luck; Stephanie Meyer sold Twilight to the very first person she submitted it to. Meanwhile, Frank Herbert's Dune was rejected over twenty times, even though it had already enjoyed success as a magazine serial.

You can guess what readers will like, but you'll never know. Even the people in the crow's nest (editors and publishers) don't know. They just guess better. 

Fiction is a crazy, unpredictable game, and it pays to have good sportsmanship. That's what kindness is all about. Respect the people who aren't as far along as you. Help them if you can. And learn from the people ahead of you. Don't waste your life trying to be them, or hating them for being on top. When it comes down to it, we're all on the same team.

Charity

The greedy writer will write anything to gain fame or recognition. The charitable writer shares themselves with the reader.

Few people read a book because the author deserves it, but everyone who reads does want a piece of the author. Readers want a story first and foremost, but they want that story to come from a unique voice. They want the story to embody some kind of artistic vision, no matter how humble. To attain true fame and recognition, a story must feel genuine.

That's what charity is all about. The greedy writer writes so that she may take. The charitable writer writes because she has something to give.

Figure out what you have to give, then figure out who wants that thing, and give it to them. It's simple, really. If you look at the demand first, then try to become whatever fills it, the result will feel contrived and artificial. But if you find your audience based on what you want to write, then use the audience's desires to guide and hone your offering, it becomes a give and take. It's tough to strike the balance between writing for yourself and writing for the reader, but authors do it all the time. The key is charity; a willingness to give. Without that, you're just a beggar.

Temperance

Writing that indulges the author's poetic or descriptive whims is gluttonous. Temperance, then, is when you only give what is necessary, when it's necessary.

When you're in the trenches, up to your elbows in words, sometimes it's hard to know how much is too much. We're all guilty of a long-winded, tell-y description once in a while. But that's what makes editing so great. We aren't committed to the first words we choose.

Temperance, then, is your inner editor. No, not the negative one who says you're a hack. The other, reasonable one, who says "maybe you should tighten that up a little." It's perfectly fine, even advisable, to turn this voice off when you're writing a first draft. But once the draft is written, this voice should take charge and hone your writing down to its leanest, meanest self.

In this sense, temperance takes on another meaning. We temper metals by repeatedly heating, quenching, reheating and quenching again. This process removes the hardness and brittleness of a metal, and makes it tougher and more flexible. Your writing should be the same. Smooth over those rough spots. Rebuild brittle sentences so they don't shatter on first reading. You want your writing tough--assertive--but flexible enough that anyone can understand it. Tempered writing can withstand the test of time.

Chastity

That word is bound to bum a few people out, so let me be clear: chastity is NOT abstinence. Chastity is merely the avoidance of empty sex and violence.

In writing, this means only including graphic details when they really matter. There's no sense in showing a character getting their hand cut off unless that disability is going to change the way they behave. There's no reason to show two characters making love unless the act has consequences, good or bad. Either they fall in love, or they regret the encounter and that regret drives their choices from that point on.

Chastity is not avoidance of sex, drugs, violence, and cursing. Chastity means taking something "impure" and making it pure by imbuing it with meaning. Sex between loving partners is wonderful. Meaningless sex between strangers leaves them feeling cold. It's the same way with writing. A steamy sex scene, or a gruesome fight can fire our passions if it means something. But if it's just there for show, it will turn us off.

Even when the sex and violence do matter, there's something to be said for restraint. After all, reading is about stimulating the imagination, and the imagination is always more satisfying than reality. Think about it: a horror movie is always less scary once you've gotten a good look at the monster. It's the unknown that scares and tantalizes us. A woman clasping a sheer cloth across her chest is sensual. A woman with her ankles behind her head is just pornographic, and frankly boring. You can't give everything away right away. In writing and in life, Chastity is the art of savoring the reveal.

Patience

The wrathful writer crafts a story as a means to an end. The story serves his message. The patient writer doesn't feel the need to cram anything down the reader's throat. The patient writer understands that people change gradually.

I'll admit that sometimes it's good to be shocked out of your complacency. Sometimes we need the horror of war to motivate us toward peace. But if we're to sustain that peace, we must gradually change our attitudes toward our enemies, or history will repeat itself.

Writing with a message works the same way. Maybe you want to convince the world to go vegan. You can't just show people a cow in front of a band saw and expect them to convert on the spot. If anything, it will only make them dislike you for exposing them to that cruel reality. As a writer (or a speaker, for that matter), you are just a messenger. The idea you want to convey is bigger and probably older than you. Chances are you don't even own this idea you're trying to sell. So unless you're peddling one of the few new ideas in the world, people aren't going to hear what you're selling. They already know all about it. All they're going to hear is how you're selling it.

People are stubborn. They only change when they decide to. People rarely change for others, and when they do, they screw it up as often as not. To enact change through storytelling, you have to make people want to change. and that means being subtle. They have to think it's their own idea. That means planting a seed, surreptitiously if you have to, and waiting for it to grow. And that takes patience.

There's another kind of patience that wise writers practice too, and that's waiting for success. Successful writers will tell you that it doesn't come overnight, or even at all. The writer who claws and scrambles after success like a dog scratching at his cage is just wearing himself out. He'll quit before the gatekeeper lets him through. But sit and wait patiently, and the gatekeeper can be kind. And the writer will be wiser and happier for it.

Diligence

Alright, maybe you shouldn't just sit and wait. Be patient, by all means, but use your time to improve your craft.

Again, sloth is probably the most common and deadly sin for writers. It keeps great books from being written, and good authors from getting better. Whatever you write, whatever your goals are, there's always a way to grow. Anyone who doesn't believe that is prideful, but that pride is probably masking sloth.

I believe one of the deepest flaws in our society is that we go through a period of education, and then at a certain point we're "done". But that's not really how the human mind works. Humans always need to be growing. The minute they stop, they start dying.

So if you're a well-educated writer, whether you have an MFA, or just a stack of dog-eared craft books and a full RSS feed, get over this idea that you're "done". There's always more to do.

Even if you've accepted that learning is a lifelong process, there may still be a lesson for you to learn about diligence. You may be the best writer you can be, but each piece you write must go through a similar process of forging to become the best piece it can be. Just because you're a hardworking author doesn't mean you crap gold. Even successful authors need to edit. Every word should be questioned.

Forget "good enough". "Good enough" is for losers. Make your writing as good as you can, no matter how much work it takes. You can't expect devotion from readers if you don't plan to repay them in kind (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). People can tell when an artist is resting on his laurels.

Furthermore, diligence is about finding the writing habit. Figure out what your peak hours are in a given day, and try to use them for writing. Figure out what habits, settings, and motifs put you in a diligent state of mind. Writing is art, but it's also work. In fact, it's mostly work.

Get to it.

Bonus Virtue: Hope

Though it's not listed among the classical Heavenly Virtues, in my preliminary readings for this article, I encountered several mentions of the idea of hope.

Hope is a uniquely human phenomenon (as far as we know). Hope is a happiness that looks to the future. Animals, smart as they may be, are governed first by instinct. Instinct lives in the present. Instinct is either satisfied now, or it desires something now.

Humans, however, willingly sacrifice in the present to store up treasures in the future. Looking fondly to that future is what we call hope.

As a writer, you must always have hope that you will succeed. You must hope that you become the best writer you can be. You must hope that you will land a literary agent, or successfully market your self-published book. You must hope that readers see and hear what you're trying to show them.

And a good writer will instill hope in her readers. Sad endings and negative character arcs have artistic merit, but in the end, readers are unlikely to return to an author that makes them feel like shit. If you use a negative character arc to teach the reader a hard lesson, you should at least leave them feeling like they're better people for having learned it. If you make them feel like they're a shitty person living in a shitty world, they won't be lining up to buy your next book.

Maybe people deserve to feel shitty. Maybe you believe that. But even if they do, the don't want to, and that means they're not going to willingly subject themselves to something that makes them feel that way.

Is that the kind of writer you want to be? Someone who readers unwillingly subject themselves to? If that's you, you're probably not reading this.

Good books give us hope, even if it's bittersweet. Keep that as your goal, and you'll never stray too far from the virtuous path.

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Well? What did you think? Was I too harsh on the sins? Are the virtues naiive? Let me know in the comments!

The Seven Deadly Sins of Fiction Writing

Alright. I'm not the first to publish a blog article along these lines. You caught me. What can I say, it's a grabber!

Despite how often people trot out the idea of the Seven Deadly Sins, I still think there's some use in listing the worst things you can do to damage your writing and your career. What you don't hear about often are the Seven Heavenly Virtues, which oppose the better-known sins. That's what I plan to add to the discussion; not just the diseases, but the cures.

First, though, we have to take a look at the bad stuff:

The Seven Deadly Sins of Fiction Writing

Pride

For a writer, pride can take many forms, but it usually boils down to one poisonous thought: "I'm better than other writers".

Many who are stricken by pride may not even admit it to themselves, but deep down they labor under the pretense that they, above all people, know what they are doing. These are the amateurs who think they don't need to learn grammar, story structure, and self-editing skills. These are the journeymen authors that think their lengthy publication record exempts them from criticism.

Most successful people in the world agree that successful people never stop learning. Recently, I saw a video that highlights another disturbing facet of this notion: once you stop learning, you get old. When a writer decides he or she knows everything they need to know, that's the moment they begin their inevitable descent into irrelevance.

If life and history have taught us anything, it's that new ideas and innovations are constantly overtaking established methods. The person who balks at new knowledge refuses to accept this. Even if a writer really did know everything about writing, language is a living, changing organism, and there will always be new things to learn.

So never assume you've seen it all. They're coming up with new stuff all the time. And never assume you can't learn something from someone just because they're in an earlier stage of their career than you.

Envy

Writers are readers (at least they should be), and that means we all have our favorite authors that inspire us. Many of us feel indebted to a particular author for motivating us to start writing in the first place.

Envy is what happens when that admiration turns bad. Instead of learning from our idols, we hate them for their success, or we try to ape their style in an ill-conceived attempt to ride their coat tails.

The more time you spend talking shit on other writers, the less time you spend growing in your own career. That's the real sin of envy; by focusing your emotions and efforts on another person, you do yourself an injustice. Sure, some famous writers are hacks. Some of them didn't work for their success. Some of them don't deserve it. So what? How does that affect you? Are you under the impression that every writer deserves an equal share of the fame?

Be inspired by others, of course. That's part of how you learn. But don't focus on them. Work to improve your own writing instead of tearing down that of others.

Greed

For writers, greed can be related to envy. Greedy writers hop from one trend to the next, writing whatever they think will sell. They see a successful movement, and they drop what they're doing and try to write something that will fit in.

Greedy writing is devoid of theme. It lacks identity. Even if it's well written and edited, the writing is missing the spirit that makes true originals worth learning from.

In writing, greed is another perversion of inspiration. Greedy writers are posers. They're fickle. The moment something drops below a certain rank on Amazon, they're off to find the next trend. They have no ideas of their own, nothing original to say, and while they might occasionally entertain, their work is quickly forgotten. Readers, whether they're aware of it or not, can sense fluff. That's what greed produces: fluff.

Gluttony

Speaking of fluff, gluttony is when a writer is so obsessed with words and clever ideas that they crowd out the story. Purple prose is a well-known pitfall, especially for beginning writers who have not yet learned the wisdom of restraint. Beyond the words themselves, though, there is a sort of violet-tinged aura that some stories take on when an author tries too hard to stuff them with whiz-bang, neato ideas.

Gluttonous writing is filled with unnecessary detours, either to flex the writer's poetic muscle, or describe some pet object, idea, or character in exhaustive detail. These are the writers who spend whole chapters describing the social machinery of a futuristic society, but somehow don't derive a plot from all that information. These are the info-dumpers. These are the people who include a list of the name of every crater on Mercury, even though the reader has no need to know them.

The fruits of gluttonous writing are ultimately distractions from the story. Everything in a story must matter; every object, idea, or character must advance the plot and draw the reader more fully into the author's world. You can't make a story "cool" by hanging a bunch of neat stuff on it. You can't make a novel poetic by tacking a bunch of florid descriptions onto every scene. Every addition must serve the whole, or else be cut out.

Lust

Similar to gluttony, lust is when a writer fills his or her book with lurid tales of sex and violence as a way of shocking the reader into paying attention. Don't get me wrong, readers love a sexy, violent story, and I'm no exception. But when those scenes are shoehorned in at moments where they don't matter, or when they go on so long it becomes obvious that the story is just an excuse to exorcise the writer's lust (for flesh or blood), that's a problem.

People love sex, drugs, violence, and swearing. But that doesn't mean that including those things will make people like a story more. Cheap thrills are just that: cheap. It takes no skill to toss in some debauchery just for the hell of it. Making the debauchery matter, however, can make for gripping writing. Don't shy from red-faced vitriol or red light district pleasure, just make sure they're in the story for a reason. And for God's sake, don't make us sit through page after page of that stuff. It gets embarrassing after a while.

Wrath

Wrath is when a writer creates a story only as a means of expressing some fiery political, religious, or philosophical view. Granted, narrative can be an effective means of elucidating a philosophy, but ultimately it does a disservice to the fiction itself.

The issue here is similar to gluttony and lust. A writer should not write a story as an excuse to do something else (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). If you want to be a poet, be a poet. If you want to write steamy love scenes, erotica is your game. If you want to spread your ideology, you should be writing essays. Why hide your true objective under a shroud of fiction? To me, it's a sign that the writer lacks confidence, especially when it comes to philosophy. If your ideas aren't strong enough to stand on their own, or if you don't feel capable of defending them, maybe you shouldn't be trying to sneak them into reader's minds by disguising them as a story.

Furthermore, when you write a book to espouse an ideology, you're spreading yourself too thin. You're doing two jobs; crafting a story and defending an argument.  I'm all for political and philosophical themes in fiction; my work is full of them. But a good story must be its own objective. If you're guiding inspiration is a message, and not the story itself, you will choose the message over the story whenever the two come into conflict. The result is a weak story, which in turn makes your message harder to digest. Ultimately, it's counter productive.

At the risk of sounding heretical, this is why I'm not a fan of so-called "literary" fiction. This is why I, an avid reader, was always the vocal dissident in any English class. Many of the books I was forced to read just didn't hold my attention. I read them, and I enjoyed more than a few, but I could always tell when a writer was just using a boring, barely-there story to bludgeon me over the head with some pet idea. I wish I could have put my finger on it at the time.

Sloth

Writing is a stationary pursuit, so perhaps it is fitting that the most common and most deadly of the seven sins is sloth. We all know our own capacity for laziness in writing, and it infects us at both the micro and macro levels.

On the micro level, we have lazy writing; common missteps like too many adverbs and adjectives, or empty words like "very" and "beautiful". Many of the articles on this website are dedicated to fighting lazy writing.

On the macro level, writers are often lazy in their approach to the task. We're all guilty of this sometimes; we don't always feel like writing, or we simply can't muster the energy to do another round of edits on our latest work. Even if we do find the energy, we half-ass the job sometimes. And who among us is immune to the dreaded writer's block?

Sloth is arguably the most deadly sin of fiction writing because no matter how it attacks, it prevents you from building your story world. Readers cannot read what we do not write (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!), and they cannot visualize what we frame in lazy writing. Either way, readers are left wanting, and we are left wallowing in obscurity and self-pity.

Unfortunately, there's no one-size-fits-all solution to sloth. Writing is a habit like any other, and it must be undertaken deliberately and repeatedly until not writing is more vexing than writing badly. We may die before we accomplish everything we want to, but if we write anyway, at least we will have done something.

I've always believed in lofty, even immodest goals. Set your sights on the mountain's peak. You may not reach it, but you'll get off the ground.

***

Next week, I'll take a look at the virtues that oppose these sins. If any of the above sound like you, hopefully my thoughts will be helpful!

The Long-Term Approach to World-Building

Writers who use contemporary settings often set their stories in places they've lived, because they know the little back-alley details that make those places come to life. They populate their stories with people they know, or alternate versions of themselves; look at how many Stephen King books are centered on novelists from Maine.

Historical fiction writers have the treasure trove of human history to delve into. They can cherry-pick people, places and happenings to fill their stories. Today, writers can even take virtual tours of places they've never been using Google Maps, or learn a foreign land's history on Wikipedia. Wherever and whenever a story is set, there's a ton of information on it at a writer's fingertips.

...unless you set your stories in the future, or in mythical lands that never existed. We always hear that you should write what you know, but that old adage takes on a very different meaning for fantasy and sci-fi writers.

Spec-fic authors must engage in thorough world-building. For every fact a contemporary fiction author can look up, spec-fic writers must invent one. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

It's a tall order even for the most imaginative person. I'm often asked how to go about world-building, and unfortunately there's no simple answer. I like to think I'm pretty imaginative, but the truth is world-building is a long, slow process of compiling tidbits of information, most of which will never see the light of day. But there are a few general strategic tips I can give that have made my world-building experience a little more fruitful.

Take it slow.

Don't sit down to your NaNoWriMo project on November first and start trying to build a fictional universe. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was Narnia or Ringworld. These things take time, and it's best to start long before you ever try to set a story in the worlds you create.

You won't be able to flesh out a setting all in one go. As James Scott Bell would say, you have to send it to "the boys in the basement". Even when your conscious mind is preoccupied, your subconscious never stops working. Let your world-building goals stew in your head, and allow tasty morsels to bubble to the surface a few at a time. One way to do this is to...

Keep a world-building journal.

I use Google Keep, but Evernote or a good old-fashioned Moleskine notebook might be the solution for you. Use whatever you're comfortable with, just make sure it's something you have handy all the time. You can't expect to keep a day's worth of ideas in your short term memory while your idea journal waits on your desk at home. You're going to forget something.

I have a terrible memory. I always have ever since I can--or can't--remember. For most of my life it was just a cross I had to bear; people were always getting hurt because I forgot something they wanted me to remember. Understandably, they thought I didn't care about their lives.

Now, I've outsourced most of my memory to Google Calendar, Keep, Mindly, and Any.Do. And every time some setting tidbit comes to my attention, I write it down. Sometimes these are ideas that come to me unbidden and without method--something the boys in the basement send up as a surprise. Other times, it's something I've been trying to think of for days. Still other times, I'll experience some piece of sensory information--a smell or an odd sound--that piques my interest. I keep a "Sensory Info" log where I dump all this stuff, and over time I gradually digest it into my setting notes.

Just today, for example, I noticed how the crawfish chimneys in my yard have become so thickly clustered that the dirt looks like brown cauliflower. Now that the ground is dry, they crunch underfoot like gravel. You can expect to see a description of that phenomenon in one of my stories some day. Only they won't be crawfish, they'll be some strange alien bugs.

Which leads me to my next strategy:

Tweak real-world details.

Just because you're a spec-fic author doesn't mean the wealth of information available to the modern human is useless to you. If you read or hear something interesting in the news, think about how a similar event might play out in the future, or the mythic past. How would the latest mass shooting have been different in the middle ages? In a police-state future, what additional hoops would shooters have to jump through to wreak their sad revenge on society?

If you see an object or place that catches your interest, think how it might be different in a spec-fic setting. Does the neighborhood coffee shop have a reason to exist in Middle Earth? If so, what would be on the menu?

Read history, and think how certain leaders would have acted differently in different time periods. How would World War II have been fought if Hitler was an evil wizard, or a genocidal AI?

Everything in today's world can be useful to you, if you get in the habit of asking yourself the right questions.

Set all your stories in a single fictional universe

This might be considered cheating, but it works for me. All my stories are set in the same universe, even if that fact is never advertized to the reader. Ideally, the reader isn't required to know that.

The main reason I do this is because I really admire writers--like Isaac Asimov or Frank Herbert--who developed a consistent story universe that spans multiple books or series. But as I've fleshed the setting out more and more, I've realized that it also makes it easier to build settings for individual stories. With an ever-growing story world, I never have to start from scratch, and every story adds its own cache of details to the whole. Keeping stories in a single universe might sound hard, but I've actually found it's easier than going back to the drawing board every time.

Another fringe benefit of this strategy is that when I flesh out one little corner of my story universe, it will occasionally throw light on some other corner that I never intended to discover. Developing the setting for a story often means coming up with imaginary histories, and sometimes those histories can inspire other stories, unexpectedly link up with other works in progress, or become new stories in their own right.

The one downside to this strategy is that I actually have too many ideas. I will surely die before I see all of them put to good use. But...so what? Even if some of this stuff never sees the light of day, its existence still makes my job easier. My own awareness of the story universe deepens and informs the little tidbits I show to readers. So long as I don't make my imaginary history a prerequisite for enjoying my stories, there's no harm.

***

Whether or not the above strategies are helpful to you, one thing is for sure; world-building is not a quick or easy job. It's going to take a lot of time and effort, so it's best to adopt a long-term strategy and not expect fast results. But if you're patient, and you pay attention, you can create a world as real--or more so--than anything in contemporary fiction.

How to Cut the Info-Dumps

Info-dumping is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in a first draft--especially if you're a pantser, and you're working out all the characters and settings as you go. Even if you've made careful, thorough character sketches ahead of time, you'll still discover new things about your characters as you write them. The same goes for your story world. If you're doing a good job of integrating your setting into your plot, you will find yourself exploring all manner of back alleys and sordid histories.

This is all part of the process, but some times the resulting text isn't terribly gripping for the reader, or is simply isn't necessary. Nobody enjoys reading long-winded blocks of characterization or exposition. Imagine if you met someone at a party and they immediately wrapped their arms around you and started whispering in your ear about their emotional problems. Or if you moved to a new apartment complex, and one of your neighbors cornered you and started spilling the last year's worth of gossip. It would be super awkward in real life, so why should it be acceptable in fiction?

Part of the problem is that info-dumps bring your story to a screeching halt so you can deliver a lecture (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). Nobody wants to pause a chase scene to consider some novel fact about the fruit stand the bad guy just crashed through. We want to get on with the show.

Furthermore, info-dumps are actually counter-productive. If you force feed your reader hulking blocks of information, they'll probably wind up tuning you out. Even if they don't, no reader is going to remember everything, so by the time a piece of backstory becomes relevant, they may have forgotten it.

The solution is to mete out your characterization and exposition in moderation. Give your readers only what they need, when they need it. In real life, we don't read a person's biography the day we meet them. We don't memorize maps and history books before we move to a new city. We just dive in head first and learn as we go. Make it the same way for your readers, and your book will start to feel real.

Characterization and exposition are yet another show and tell issue. Whenever possible, find a way to show us things about a character. Don't tell us the character is a lazy slob, show him tripping over a pile of dirty clothes while eating a slice of pizza that's been sitting out all night. Not only will the message come across clearer, but you will involve us in the story by inviting us to draw our own conclusions about this guy.

We're all guilty of overdoing things in first drafts. So how do you deal with it in editing?

First off, when you cut out long passages of characterization and exposition, don't simply delete them. They might contain insights you can use later. Keep all the parts you cut in a separate document. If you use character and setting sheets like mine, copy characterization into the relevant character sheet, and exposition into the relevant setting sheet. Long info-dumps aren't welcome in a story, but they make great notes that you can use to inform your decisions moving forward.

Look for any long, unbroken paragraphs. Anywhere you spend a lot of time in the narrative voice, you might be info-dumping. In general, I try to start a new paragraph every time there would be a camera cut if my story were a movie. Any time I see a long paragraph in my own work, chances are there's some info-dumping going on.

That won't always be the case, but it's a good rule of thumb to look for excessive characterization and exposition in passages of narrative. Dialogue and internal monologue will convey information about your characters, but they do so unobtrusively. In fact, dialogue and internal monologue are the best ways to get your characters across, so you don't really want to cut it unless it's just too much at once.

...and if you're going to show people doing things, why
not show them doing AWESOME things?

With settings, you should always try to show people doing things. Don't tell us about an environment, find some way for a character to interact with it. Don't give us a history lesson, make someone need information about a place's history. Make that information mean something in the present.

There are no hard and fast rules on how to write characterization and exposition, or on how to cut them out when they're clogging up your story. The result you're going for is characters and settings that come to life without you ever conspicuously throwing the "on" switch. You don't want readers to know about your characters, you want them to feel their emotions. You don't need readers to pass a quiz on your setting's history, you want them to feel like they've lived there. So just toss your readers into the fray and let them sort it out. They can handle it in their real lives. Assume they're intelligent enough to handle it in your story.

Can You "Just Write"?

When I first decided to seriously pursue writing, I didn't think much about what I needed to do to prepare for a career as a writer. I just decided to do it, sat down, and started.

Why is that?

Can you imagine starting any other career that way? You wouldn't say "I'm gonna be a fireman!" and start running into burning buildings. You wouldn't say "I'm gonna be a stockbroker!" and start...actually, I don't even know what you would start doing. Go to a stock exchange and start shouting?

Anyway, I find it odd that writing is a career that people think they can just do. I mean, in a sense it's true; there's no national writing organization whose dispensation you need, no training you must complete. There are organizations and schools you can go to, but nobody is going to make you. If you want to be a writer, nobody is going to stop you.

But just because you can jump in head first, doesn't mean you should. Most writers agree that writing well is hard. No matter how good a communicator you are, there's a lot to learn when it comes to crafting fiction.

Writing fiction is like coding. Your manuscript is your coding environment--a blank text file, or the HTML template of a blog like this one. And the mind of the reader is like a web browser; it reads and interprets the code. Whatever you do in your manuscript has an effect in the mind of the reader. Sometimes it's the one you want. Sometimes it doesn't matter if it looks exactly the same to everyone, so long as it's close enough. And sometimes, if your code is faulty, the browser simply can't understand it.

You wouldn't say "I'm gonna be a web designer!" and start writing websites without learning HTML. You might do what I did and get set up with a platform like Blogger or Tumblr, but you wouldn't go tinkering with the site's template unless you at least knew HTML and CSS. Hell, this website's template still intimidates me a little, and I've learned a lot in the last year.

The point is that writing, for whatever reason, seems to be one of the few careers that people think they can jump into without learning anything new. What is it about fiction that makes us feel like we can start messing around without learning the language first?

My best guess is that we think we already know the language because we speak in our native tongue every day. But it's important to realize that everyday speech is a completely different language.

A language is more than words and their dictionary meanings. Ask any linguist. A language is a complex system of rule-based information exchange. Language can exist in any of the five senses, and often it exists in more than one at a time. English is a language we hear and see, but when we talk to each other we also receive signals with our other senses. When someone smelly comes up and talks to us, it colors our perception of their words. If we still have the taste of our partner's lips on our tongue, it changes the way we hear their words. If someone says something while caressing your inner thigh, you're liable to interpret it differently than if they said it while punching your face.

In everyday speech, we have the entire lexicon of human body language supplementing what we hear (or see, if you're using ASL). A speaker's posture and gestures give subtlety and nuance to their words. Depending on the speaker's face, the same sentence might sound true, sarcastic, dishonest, or exaggerated.

In writing, however, words are all we have. There are a handful of tricks like italics to add emphasis, and punctuation to organize things, but we don't have anything as intuitive as body language to help transfer meaning.

Therefore, when we write, we must choose our words much more carefully than we do when speaking--and not just because we have fewer channels open. When we speak to each other, the words themselves are ephemeral. We rarely recall the exact words we say, or that were said to us, we recall their meaning. Not even that, we recall our own interpretation of their meaning, whether or not that was their intended meaning. All but the most profound words disappear like smoke in the wind once they're spoken.

One of my all time favorite quotes about writing actually comes from the 1982 Jim Henson masterpiece The Dark Crystal. When the main character is asked what writing is, he gives the best definition I've ever heard: "Words that stay."

Writing stays. Writing is permanent (or at least semi-permanent). A writer must make sure she wants her words to stay. She must make sure they deserve to stay. Which is not to say they must be some James Joyce-esque outpouring of the eternal human soul, but they must create the correct effect in the mind of the reader, or they don't deserve to stay. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

Many of us write every day, even if it's just a grocery list, or our name at the bottom of a receipt. We fill out forms, write emails, and post sticky notes. It's writing, but it's still a different language than fiction, because the information they transfer seldom requires much imagination. Fiction invites the reader to imagine things which don't exist, and may never exist. There's room for interpretation, but if you want to write fiction, you have to know the code.

Maybe you think you can "just write". Maybe you think your editor will just "fix it". I did, when I started out. But I was constantly frustrated by people misunderstanding or not understanding my stories. Eventually I had to accept that the burden of clarity was on me. So I learned the code.

Think you can make it as a writer without learning grammar and storycraft? Let's have an argument in the comments! Gimme your best shot!