Guidelines for writing advanced fiction

Writing advanced fiction goes beyond the confines of short stories but does not entail writing an
entire novel. This assignment includes the preparation, planning and revising of the start up phase
of a large writing project and the first chapters of the novel.

The preparatory stage is as important as the finished work, and compares with the analysis part of
the advanced essay.

Since fiction is more creative, personal and often more demanding, the process, especially if aiming
for higher grades benefits from more time than the essay. Thus those who have already started their
novel project are already in phase and will have a greater chance to finish the project and fulfill the
demands of the text. So, if you have not already been planning and beginning a fiction project you
are advised to do the essay.

1. Plan! Brainstorm and find inspiration: You need to plan and think before you write. Research
topics that is related to your chosen type of novel. Make notes and create a mind map and do pre-
writing. Pre-writing is where you sketch out your world, the characters, the main plot and the
important themes of your novel. If you write fantasy and are creating your own world and related
systems, these needs to be carefully arranged and expressed.

2. The Setting: You must decide where and when your novel takes place. In the present world,
which country, which time period? ”Write what you know” is a common advice so you may need to
research the area. if you write fantasy or science fiction you may want to create your own world,
which skips the research bit but instead brings on the need to make it up yourself, you can start like
this:

*Write a paragraph describing the world, like it would be in a travel brochure.

*Make your paragraph into a page by going more in depth into the most important aspects of the
first paragraph, making a little biography of your world. Then keep fleshing out this world-book as
you write and when needed.

3. Characters: The characters are perhaps the most important aspects of fiction. The classical story
telling includes a protagonist (hero) an antagonist (enemy) and supporting characters to both. A
good story is basically a problem getting solved (or not if you want to make it complicated).

Make sure to create characters that you can believe in, that has both good and bad sides and are not
”wooden” meaning they are flat, boring and unreal. Take inspiration from life and your own
experiences. It is generally more interesting to have a hero with flaws, rather than some superman
that the reader knows can do anything (no point reading on then is it?).

Look at famous books and see how the characters are described, how they talk and interact.

4. Dialogue: Read p. 241 in the book about dialogue. When you write dialogue try to read it out to
yourself. Does it sounds natural and convincing? I would advise you to create your dialogue by
speaking, record your voice talking and then listen back to it. At least until you get the hang of it.
Different characters should have different voices, different expressions and word, different rhythm
and pacing. A good writer makes the dialogue so that you can tell who is speaking even if you don’t
have the name assigned.

Observe how people talk in life and in films. Learn about different types of speak, formal, highly
educated speaking, street-talk, how some speak less, some speak more, some like certain words,
some swear a lot, some ask a lot of questions, others babble a lot, some choose their words wisely.

When creating characters, you could practice writing dialogue for each one, and see how they differ,
or make them differ if need be.

5. Descriptions: The classic advice is ”Show don’t tell”. This means that instead of saying: He is
angry, the wall is high or the meat was rotten. You could instead write, ”He looked down, clenched
his fists and began to breath heavily” or ”He came upon the wall and looked up, his neck strained
and he saw birds flying high up in the air.” Or ”After opening the package a foul cadaver-like smell
engulfed the room and he began feeling queasy.

Instead of saying ”there was snow” You could write ”His feet sank down and became cold and wet
in the ground”

View your descriptions like paintings. See what you want to describe and write what you see.

Use thesaurus - synonyms to make your descriptions clear and elegant. Look out for your favorite
words and change them here and there.

6. Structure:

Advanced writers may just write and worry about planning later, but it is very hard to get a readable
structure using this method. It is recommended to plan out the story at least a bit before beginning
to write. There are several methods how to do this.

1. Sum up your story in one sentence: ”A guy has to bring a ring into a fiery mountain, assisted by
his friends and a wizard, facing many dangers and adversaries.” (LOTR synopsis).

2. Enhance this sentence into a paragraph: ”A guy has to bring a ring into a fiery mountain, assisted
by his friends and a wizard, facing many dangers and adversaries. The journey goes through
treacherous forests that contains many mythical characters, dangerous orchs, legendary elves and
dwarves. 9 ghoul riders try to take the ring on a mission from the dark lord Sauron who desires it
above all else. Several great battles ensue and the world is divided into two fractions. Helped by the
ring-bound creature Gollum the main character and his friend finally manages to have the ring
melted in the fires of the mountain and the world is saved.”

3. Enhance the synopsis into a full page.

4. Find a certain number of key events. A key event is something that changes the story and that
cannot be removed from the story. Let’s say you have 10 great events. Then write these down on
post it notes, or any digital equivalent. Add 2 important events that lead to these 10 and attach them.
Now you have 30 important events of the story. You can also add to the 2 side events and get even
more detailed story lines. You can then see your story ”from above”. This is good to see if the story
follows the classical story line drama. 1.Problem appears 2. Crisis 3. Solution of crisis. You can
then move the events around until you are happy with the sequence. Let’s say you write 1-2 pages
per event, then you would have 30-60 pages, which is a good little book. And you will have full
control over the drama and story line!

7. Editing: When you have your finished first draft, you first check it out yourself and make sure it
is readable and expresses what you want to express. Next step is to let someone else you trust read it
and come with valuable ideas for a revision. If you send it to a published and they like it, they have
professional editors who will help you clean your book up and make it the very best it can be for
release. Lacking such professional assistance, you can make do with interested friends, or a teacher!