Many professional writers and editors love to hate narrative summaries—dubbing it “info dumping.” There’s good reason to be wary of the overuse of narrative summary, but people tend to overlook its applications. As with any writing technique, a thorough understanding of how and when to utilize narrative summaries can help you add depth to your stories.

Tread carefully, however. Misusing narrative summaries can have the opposite effect, leaving your story dull and lifeless. 

What Is Narrative Summary?

In fiction, “narrative summary” describes the process of providing a lot of information in as few words as possible. In order to achieve this, certain things such as dialogue, emotions, and overly flowery descriptions are cut out, leaving only a synopsis of the information the reader needs to know.

Narrative summary operates like the opposite of the principle of “show, don’t tell,” since the entire point is to summarize what you need to explain briefly and efficiently. 

Aren’t Narrative Summaries Boring?

Narrative summaries are often criticized for being dull, and that can certainly happen. However, there’s a (not so) secret trick you can employ to make your narrative summaries feel more like an integrated part of the story. 

What’s the trick? Narrative summaries need details. 

Spending a line or two to ground readers in a scene can help them imagine what is happening, and keep them engaged for longer. Even if a detail doesn’t seem important (such as a bird singing outside the window, the pattern of sunlight on the floor, or the smell of a musky cologne) including the right one can help establish the mood of the scene without stating it explicitly, and highlight the things that characters within the scene notice and/or care about. In this way, your narrative summary can achieve something beyond what you see at face value—namely adding characterization and humanity to the characters in the scene. 

Keep in mind that, although details are important, adding too many can slow the story’s momentum down too much and make the summary drag on. You want to make sure you include enough details to support the summary, but not so many that it ruins the pacing. This is where beta readers can really come in handy since it can be hard to grasp how well your story is paced when you spend hours and hours writing a scene that someone will read in ten minutes. 

How to Write a Narrative Summary

At its core, narrative summaries are straightforward descriptions. You should start with an objective account of what you want to summarize first, and build off of that. If you want to summarize a scene in which a person is followed home from their nightshift job, for example, then you should start by writing the essential points out.

I left work at 3:24 a.m., even though my shift was supposed to end at 3. When I left to go home, I noticed the only other car on the road following me home. 

In the example above, you have the bare skeleton of a narrative summary. You know what you want to happen, but there isn’t enough information here to make it interesting. At this point, you would start including details to make the summary more fun to read.

My shift got out at 3 a.m., but I didn’t leave until 3:24. A customer had spilled their soda across a display of single-serving chip bags, and I told my coworker I would stay behind to clean it up. The sticky beverage proved difficult to clean off the rack, so by the time I left, the roads were empty and quiet. Even the Taco Bell across the street had closed its drive-through. It wasn’t until I was almost home that I noticed the car coasting behind me with its headlights off, completely shrouded in darkness. 

Writing this same situation out as a scene instead of a summary could take several pages or even an entire chapter. As a narrative summary, however, it works to not only summarize the information quickly but also build suspense by reading more like a personal account of the character’s experiences. 

When to Use Narrative Summaries

Narrative summary is a vital part of writing fiction, and it is especially important in fantasy and science fiction genres. However, a story that consists of only narrative summaries tends to be a bit dry and uninteresting. Without emotional scenes and gripping dialogue, characters tend to be a lot harder to relate to, after all. As such, much of the challenge of writing narrative summaries comes from knowing when to use them, and when to utilize other techniques. 

Every story needs a balance of narration and scenic storytelling. The balance may be different depending on the story and the genre, but both are required for creating comprehensive and engaging stories. If there’s too much summary, the story will be boring and hard to relate to, but if there isn’t enough summary, the story could end up stalling and being pretty exhausting to read.

Although there is no perfect formula, there are several situations in which it makes more sense to utilize narrative summary than any other strategy. Remember that exceptions exist for all of these points. These situations are:

• Major transitions. When you transition between major scenes, you don’t generally need to draw attention to every little detail in the environment. You don’t need to focus on the characters’ emotions, the decor, or the mood of a scene that is coming to a close—you just need to end the scene and establish what readers need to know about the next one. 
• Prologues. Prologues provide information about a story before it begins, usually in relation to characters, world history, lore, or recurring plot points. As you can imagine, they are generally objective and informative, necessitating the use of narrative summaries. 
• History. When characters (or narrators) provide information about the past, it is generally told in a straightforward way. Only the information that is necessary to understand is shared, so characters (and readers alike) can get on with the story in the present. 
• Explanations. Whether you’re describing a character’s job duties or going over the properties of a specific herb, it’s usually best to do so quickly. 
• A complex setting. When it is important for readers to know specific things about a location’s layout or features, establishing the setting with a narrative summary can help. There will be fewer distractions to interfere with readers’ ability to understand and remember important details. 
• The “boring parts.” Every story has them. You can utilize narrative summaries to skip through parts that are important for context but not very interesting to read at length. 

When NOT to Use Narrative Summaries 

With that said, there are several situations in which it is generally ill-advised to use narrative summaries. Scenes that are intended to be meaningful or emotional should never be told in an objective, informative way. In these situations, it is better to utilize the idea of “show, don’t tell.” 

These situations are:

• Flashbacks
• Character introductions
• Character interactions and conversations
• Meaningful settings, objects, and actions
• Big events
• Emotional scenes
• Action scenes
• And more

Any time you feel inclined to tell readers how to feel about a situation, you should probably show them instead. With narrative summary and “show, don’t tell” being functional opposites, it can help to have a thorough understanding of how the latter works as well. Be sure to check out Show, Don’t Tell: What It Is and How to Use It (With Examples) next!

When it comes to writing a story, there are few things quite as challenging as giving it a proper title. A story’s title needs to be short, compelling, memorable, and appropriate to the genre and plot of the story. Not to mention, there’s a lot of pressure to pick a good one! If your title isn’t interesting enough, you might not grab the attention of potential readers.

If you write fanfics, your title is what will make your story stand out from countless other stories in a list. If you want to self-publish, a good title will make marketing your story so much easier. If you want to sell your book in bookstores, an eye-catching title will make people more likely to pull it off the shelf to see what it’s about. 

In short, titles are incredibly important. You could have the most interesting story in the world, but if it’s hidden behind a thoughtless title, it may never get the notoriety it deserves. 

Tips for Titling Your Story

First and foremost, it’s important to keep in mind that most titles are given to works after they’ve been written, not before. If you’re still writing chapter one of your novel, you don’t need to be worried about what the story will be called. You can be brainstorming the title through the whole process of writing your story, but you don’t have to decide on a definitive title until the end.

However, this changes if you are publishing your story one chapter at a time, which is common for fanfics and other digitally published stories. If this is the case, you may want to title your story after something that becomes clear in the first chapter, such as the main character, a setting, or an important object, or after an overarching theme that you know will be carried through the entire story.

Aside from that, here are some general tips for titling your story:

• Keep it short. Titles need to be memorable, and the more words you include in your title, the easier it will be to forget what it’s called. Longer titles also don’t fit as well on covers or book spines.
• Make it interesting. If you title your story “A Day in the Park,” most people would pass up that story for one titled “The Day Cedar Park Ruined My Career.”
• Make it unique. Before you decide on a title, make sure you remember to google it. If your story has the same title as another story, that can create a lot of problems for you.
• Don’t give too much away. Titling your story after something major that happens in the plot can be fun, but don’t spoil the plot point in the process. You don’t want to ruin the suspense, after all.
• Work within your genre. If you’re writing a love story, don’t title it “The Missing Sibling” or something. You don’t want readers to feel tricked if they pick up your story thinking it is a mystery or horror story.
• Make it memorable. Using alliteration or rhymes can help you create a memorable title. Just make sure not to overdo it!

Your title should tell a story of its own, almost like a little poem. You want to make readers wonder what the title is referring to. You want readers to have questions about the title that they’re willing to read the story to find answers to. 

Options for Titling Your Story

There are lots of options when it comes to titling a story. It can be overwhelming if you don’t have any ideas right away, so referencing a list like this can help get you started. Keep these options in mind while you’re brainstorming, and you may end up with your breakthrough idea!

A Character’s Name

Many popular titles simply name the book after their main character, such as Harry Potter or Coraline. If your main character has a compelling name, or if they’re some kind of “Chosen One,” then naming your story after them might be the most straightforward choice. 

If the name alone doesn’t feel right, consider adding more to it like with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Incorporating the character’s name into the title makes it feel much more personal, and it positions the character at the center of the plot before the story even starts. 

However, if your story isn’t particularly character-driven, then you might want to consider other options first. 

Setting

If the setting of your story is particularly interesting, it may make the most sense to include that in the title. Many stories use this strategy, like The Haunting of Hill House and The Count of Monte Cristo. This technique is especially useful if you’re writing in a fantasy, sci-fi, or historical fiction genre. 

If your story takes place in space, for example, you might want to mention that (or at least allude to it) in your title. The same applies if your story centers around a circus, a graveyard, the ocean, or the main character’s grandma’s house. If the setting plays a large part in the plot, then you should consider spotlighting it in the title. 

If the setting doesn’t stay consistent, you can pick from the most meaningful settings in the story, or the places in which something impactful happens (or happened). 

A Key Item

If there’s an object that has particular importance to your story, that could also be an option for the title. One of my favorite stories ever, The Lord of the Rings utilizes this strategy in its title, but there are many other examples of this, including The Nutcracker, The Time Machine, and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. 

Many stories include an object of great importance. Think about the important objects in your story, and consider how you could write a title encompassing that. 

A key Theme or Motif

Many stories have an underlying theme or motif. Themes can be things like betrayal, love, loss, vanity, retribution, and more. Motifs, on the other hand, are elements that are repeated throughout the story, such as images, ideas, topics, phrases, colors, and more, in order to highlight the key themes of the story.

Some examples of stories that use the story’s main themes for their titles include Pride and Prejudice, Crime and Punishment, and Vanity Fair. 

If you want to use this strategy, consider what your story is fundamentally about. Beneath the surface, is your story about corruption, redemption, or independence? Does your story illustrate ills in society or human nature? Does your story highlight something incredible about the world in which it takes place? Is there an underlying message behind the story you’re telling? If there is, that might just be your best choice for giving it a title. 

Symbolism

If you want to be a little more subtle with how you incorporate the story’s theme into the title, try turning to symbolism. For example, Flight of Doves is a story about children fleeing their uncle, but doves are commonly used to represent children symbolically. Similarly, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the story isn’t about birds, but rather people who are locked up in a psychiatric ward. 

Try to consider what can be used to symbolically represent what your story is truly about. Roses symbolize romance, 4-leaf clovers symbolize good luck, fire symbolizes passion and destruction, lions symbolize strength and courage, and etc, etc. Different colors can even be fairly effective in evoking specific feelings as well.

Foreshadowing 

Titles can often foreshadow a major event that takes place in the story. As long as you don’t give too much away, this can result in a rather tantalizing title. Some examples of this are As I Lay Dying and Things Fall Apart.

If something goes awry, someone dies, the heroes lose, or something else major happens, you could consider teasing that plot point with the title. After all, movie trailers do the same thing—they highlight the most exciting parts of the movie to entice people to watch the whole thing. If your title teases something exciting, readers might just stick around to read the whole thing. 

Dialogue

Dialogue is a powerful tool. If your character says something significant, there’s an obvious catchphrase or recurring statement, or a line of dialogue sums up the story’s theme pretty well, then you could already have your title. Plus, readers will likely get excited to see the title spoken in the work itself, and to see what it means in the original context. 

When the title of the story is used in dialogue, that’s referred to as a “title drop,” and it can be seen in works like Catch-22, Brave New World, I am Legend, and Game of Thrones. 

How to Research a Title for Your Story

If you’re still stuck, you can try drawing inspiration from your own library (or, if you don’t have a decent collection of books, you can pay a visit to the local bookstore). Skim over a shelf of books and try to notice which titles stand out to you. If you didn’t know anything about these stories, which titles would be the most intriguing? Which book would you reach for first? 

Make a list of the titles that stand out to you. How are they similar? What do they each do well? If you used each title as a framework for titling your own story, what would those titles be? You don’t have to use any of those titles, but it can be a helpful exercise in trying to think outside the box. 

Regardless of how you decide to title your story, you should never rush. Picking the right title takes time, and the last thing you want is for your story to be stuck with a title you don’t like just because you were impatient in the moment. Give it time—the right title will come to you. 

Good luck, writers! 

Flashbacks are a common tool used by writers to give some context to the story they’re writing. It’s so common, in fact, that readers are accustomed to regularly getting glimpses of characters’ pasts, historical insights, and events that lead up to the beginning of the story. Not every story uses flashbacks; really, not every story needs a flashback. But when your story contains a rich history, deep lore, or complex character backstories, a flashback might be just what you need to keep readers in the loop. 

Writing a good flashback is easier said than done, though. A flashback needs to be clearly identifiable as being part of the past, and it needs to serve a specific purpose. A flashback that doesn’t support the plot or character development shouldn’t be included at all. Knowing when to utilize a flashback, how to format it, and how to make it effective can be hard, but those are skills that all writers should have. 

What is a Flashback?

A flashback is a scene from the past that interrupts the chronological progression of a story. Usually, these scenes are from before the beginning of the story, but in longer works, they can also be a retelling of previous scenes. 

Jumping right into a flashback scene with no exposition can be pretty jarring to readers, so you should give some indication that a flashback is coming up. Many times, flashbacks are written into a story using the characters’ behaviors, such as dreaming, reminiscing, or examining parts of the past. Other times, a flashback is justified through the use of secondary elements like diaries, history books, folk tales, and other things. A scene could also transition into a flashback when a character begins telling a tale of their past adventures or an event that they witnessed. 

It is important to remember that you cannot simply explain something that happened in the past and call it a flashback. In order for a scene to be considered a flashback, it needs to show readers what happened. Flashbacks should play out like any other kind of scene, allowing readers to experience it first-hand. Readers should feel as if they are being transported back in time to witness this scene.

If you need a more in-depth explanation of what showing entails, I recommend checking out Show, Don’t Tell: What It Is and How to Use It (With Examples).

What is the Purpose of a Flashback?

The point of a flashback is to give readers special insight into how an event from the past played out, so they can draw connections between that event and what is going on in the present storyline. Flashbacks should support the plot by contributing necessary context that the reader wouldn’t have had otherwise. 

With that said, flashbacks have many uses in fiction, so the purpose of a specific flashback depends on the story utilizing it, as well as the scene in which it takes place. You may need a flashback to show a particularly impactful moment of a character’s childhood, or maybe you could use a flashback to show how a crime was committed as a detective examines the evidence. You may even want to flashback to a previous scene to describe it from a different character’s perspective. 

When to Use a Flashback

When you choose to use a flashback in your story, you should make sure that is the most effective way of revealing that information. Flashbacks are inherently somewhat dramatic, so if you utilize one to show a relatively mundane situation, it could feel awkward, or even unnecessary. 

Consider why you want to use a flashback, and whether or not there is another way of revealing the same information. Some good reasons include:

• You need your readers to know about a past conversation between characters, word-for-word.
• You are showing readers a character’s specific nightmare, PTSD flashback, memory, or dream, and the details are important. 
• You want to show a sentimental, powerful, or otherwise relevant scene that doesn’t fit in with the present timeline. 
• You want to highlight a memorable event from a character’s past to contextualize elements of their personality. 
• You need to provide historical context in order for a scene in the present to make sense. 
• You need readers to know something your characters don’t know. 
• You want to highlight similarities between the past and the present.

Although there are many good reasons for utilizing flashbacks, you should be careful not to overuse them. Too many flashbacks can be jarring and confusing to follow, so use this technique sparingly. 

How to Write a Flashback

There are a few elements to consider when writing a flashback. The following sections will break down the process and walk you through the most important steps!

Stay On-Target

Before you start writing your flashback, you need to do a little bit of planning. Start by deciding specifically what you want your flashback to achieve. What is the point of this particular flashback? Are you giving historical context for a major event in the narrative? Are you revealing part of a character’s childhood to highlight why they behave a specific way in the present? Are you showing a past argument between two characters that explains the tension between them now? Decide exactly what you need the flashback to do now, and don’t deviate from that goal as you write. 

Once you have it written out, read it, reread it, and reread it again. You need to make sure that your flashback clearly communicates what you need it to, and doesn’t do much else. Avoid overcomplicating things, and don’t drag in any unrelated descriptions to muddle the point. 

It’s also important to make sure you aren’t forcing your flashbacks to do too much. Keep it simple and direct, and try to focus on one major revelation per flashback. 

Establish the Time Period

Probably the most important detail to get right is the time period that the flashback is revealing. The last thing you’d want is for readers to wonder when this scene took place (unless that mystery is part of your plan). 

One of the ways you can establish the timeline is with the characters that appear. If the flashback involves a character that readers will be familiar with, how old are they? If they’re a child in the flashback, mention some of their childish traits, like height, missing front teeth, or toys they carry around. Or, if the flashback goes back further, mention the name of a character’s grandparent or a historical figure who would be alive at the time.

Another way you can solidify the time period is with details, such as the music on the radio, the news, and the kind of technology that the characters can interact with. A character who uses an iPod Nano is going to be from the more recent past than a character using an 8-track player. 

If all else fails, it’s better to simply state something along the lines of “20 years ago” or “when I was a child,” rather than let your readers wonder.

Length

The next thing you’ll need to do is make sure the flashback is a digestible length. Your flashback shouldn’t be an entire chapter—unless each chapter is only a few pages long. Flashbacks should focus on a single event, interaction, or situation, so they shouldn’t be longer than a few paragraphs. If the flashback is giving context to something fairly complex, like a decades-long war, then maybe it would require a few pages. Just don’t drag it on, or your readers will get bored. 

If your flashback is on the longer side and you want to cut it down a bit, try examining the details. A lot of the time, writers can get caught up with describing the setting and other aspects in too much detail, when it doesn’t matter much to the overall goal of the flashback. A certain amount of detail can be helpful to establish the time period of the flashback, as well as make changes between the past and present more obvious, but you should still be cautious about how many details you use. 

For example, a flashback may show that a character used to keep many houseplants, but their apartment is messy and plant-free in the present. That can be a good way to imply that they lost motivation to take care of themself, let alone other living things. 

On the other hand, however, if you include the color of the curtains, the exact layout of the room, or the exact number of papers on a desk, then chances are you can cut out some of those bloaty details. 

The Transitions

Now that you have your flashback written and edited, you’ll need to stick it into the story. Like with any scene, you’re going to need to transition to the flashback in a way that makes sense, so you don’t end up leaving your readers surprised or unable to follow. 

The way you choose to transition into the flashback is going to depend on a lot of different factors. The length and complexity of the flashback plays a large role, but you’ll also need to consider when the transition happens, the tone of the flashback, and the pacing of the scene around it. 

If you have a character who is reminiscing, then a transition can be as simple as “As he looked out over the familiar landscape, he remembered all the time they had spent together here.” The flashback can then start, revealing whatever the characters used to do together in this location. 

Another way you can transition into a flashback is with scene breaks. Scene breaks divide the page, usually with asterisks ( * * * ), to indicate that the scene has changed. You should still lead up to this kind of transition to let readers know what the flashback is about, but using scene breaks can make it really clear that the scene takes place at a different point in the timeline. 

A character falling asleep and dreaming of the past is one example that could lend itself well to using scene breaks to transition. Of course, there are other challenges associated with writing about dreams, so if you want to take this approach, you should also check out Writing about Dreams and Nightmares.

The most important thing to keep in mind when you’re writing a flashback is how you’re going to keep readers from getting lost. Flashbacks can be hard to follow because they disrupt the natural flow of the story, so make sure your transitions help readers to follow along.  

Formatting

Formatting for a flashback can be a difficult thing to figure out, and there’s a lot of disagreement about how exactly it should be done. 

One option for formatting the flashback is to simply use a scene break to separate it visually on the page, while also cleanly separating the scene from the rest of the narrative. Generally, that’s all you will need to do to format a flashback, and this works particularly well for longer flashbacks. 

Another option, especially if you don’t want to use scene breaks, is to italicize the entire flashback. As you can imagine, this type of formatting works best for smaller flashbacks, since reading too much italicized text can be fatiguing for a reader. In addition to that, if you use italics to emphasize something else in your story, it could be confusing if you also use it for flashbacks.

Another option for formatting flashbacks is to change up the tense. If your story is usually in present-tense, then simply switch to past-tense for the duration of the flashback. The same is true for if your story is in past-tense; simply switch to present-tense. This can help to set it apart from the rest of your story.

Finally, depending on the nature of your flashback, you can change your point of view. If your story is in first-person or close third-person perspective, then you can take up an omniscient third-person point of view for the duration of the flashback. Likewise, if the story has been omniscient so far, then writing the flashback in close third-person could be a nice touch. 

The entire point of altering the formatting for a flashback is to make it as obvious as possible that this scene is not part of the linear storyline. If you can do that without drastic formatting changes, then you should stick with that and keep it simple. If, however, you aren’t sure if readers are going to catch on to it being a flashback, then you should format it differently to make it clearer. 

Some Parting Thoughts on Using Flashbacks in Your Story

Some writers and editors argue that flashbacks should be avoided at all costs, but I disagree. Your story is your own, and only you know what’s best for it. Time and time again, readers have proven that many of the “rules” editors insist on don’t really matter. If you write an entertaining story with good characters and a thought-provoking plot, that’s all that matters. 

As long as you don’t make your flashback confusing, you can absolutely use this technique to add depth to your plot and characters. You can even give readers the opportunity to engage more with the way the story unfolds, by drawing their own connections between the past and present. Flashbacks can achieve a lot for your story, so don’t shy away from them just because some snobby editor claims you should.

If you’ve moved on to editing the first draft of your story, you may have noticed the word “said” comes up a lot. Using the word “said” is the quickest and easiest way to indicate which character is speaking in a story, so many first drafts are simply riddled with it. Though “said” is useful, it can become distracting if it is used too frequently. 

Moreover, the use of the word “said” is hotly debated in the writing community. Some writers advocate for never using the word at all, while others argue that it’s better to use “said” than some of its alternatives.

What if there was a better way? Well… allow me to introduce you to my all-time favorite writing technique: action beats.

What is an Action Beat?

Action beats (also called dialogue beats, action tags, or beats) are sentences that identify a speaker without using dialogue tags like “he said.” They often interrupt a character’s dialogue in the middle, but, just like dialogue tags, they can also come before or after a character has said something. 

Here are some examples of what action beats look like in action (the beats are the bolded sections):

Josh adjusted his glasses. “I’ve never seen anything like this before!” 

“Hm… I don’t know what to do with this information.” Marie fidgeted with the front of her shirt. “Maybe we should talk to a professional.” 

“This is bad news.” I let out a low hum, slowly swaying back and forth. 

Why are Action Beats Important?

Action beats accomplish quite a bit in a fairly short amount of space. Aside from their primary purpose of identifying who is speaking, action beats can help your narrative in other ways.

Action beats can help to establish the proper tone in a scene. By interjecting action, body language, and descriptions throughout the characters’ conversation, you can easily build up a specific mood. If you want to show that the characters are antsy or nervous, you can show that without saying it outright by having the characters fidget or glance around anxiously during the conversation. Readers will pick up on the mood based on how the characters are behaving. 

The way you describe a character’s body language can have huge impacts on the tone of the scene. Take a look at Writing Body Language: Bringing Your Characters to Life to get some advice on how to utilize that.

Similarly, action beats can help to establish the character’s tone of voice. Compare these two examples:

1. She said, “Wow, you’re so pretty!”
2. She rolled her eyes. “Wow, you’re so pretty!”

The action beat in the second example helps establish that the speaker is being sarcastic, without you having to write “she said sarcastically.” Here’s another example:

1. “You just don’t get it,” Mac said.
2. “You just don’t get it.” Mac clenched his fists. 

Here, because of the action beat in the second example, you can tell that Mac is angry. Using action beats instead of dialogue tags and adverbs can make your story flow more naturally, and readers will feel more involved in the story as it is taking place.

Action beats can also be used to break up large blocks of dialogue. When a character is monologuing, it can be exhausting to read a long series of paragraphs about what the character is saying. By interrupting the dialogue with little actions or descriptions, you can keep readers grounded in the scene by giving them things to imagine while the character drones on. 

Finally, using action beats instead of action tags means you can avoid the repetition of always using the word “said” (or the countless alternatives that are arguably much worse). Instead of every line ending in “he said” or “she said,” you can liven the dialogue up with much more interesting language and imagery. 

Action beats are one important way that you can utilize “showing” in your writing. If you want to learn more techniques like this, check out Show, Don’t Tell: What It Is and How to Use It.

How to Punctuate Action Beats

Thankfully, you don’t need to learn some funky new way of formatting dialogue in order to include action beats in your story. Action beats are just like normal sentences, so, unlike dialogue tags, there are no odd grammar rules that apply to them.

To make this clearer, let’s look at another example.

1. “Well, I don’t know,” he said quietly, glancing around. “It might be a bit dangerous.”
2. “Well, I don’t know.” He kept his voice quiet, glancing around. “It might be a bit dangerous.” 

The first line illustrates how you would format the dialogue using a dialogue tag, and the second one illustrates how you would format the same dialogue using an action beat instead.

Keep an eye on the punctuation and capitalization. In the first example, the first bit of dialogue ends with a comma, and the following tag is not capitalized. This is standard for formatting dialogue. 

In the second example, the action beat is treated as an independent sentence, which means the first bit of dialogue has to close with a period instead. Since the beat is a full sentence, the beginning of it is capitalized. 

When to Use Action Beats

Action beats are an awesome tool at your disposal, and they can do a lot to elevate ordinary scenes. However, as with any technique, you should be careful not to overuse it. If the dialogue jumps between several different characters or the conversation is particularly long, then it might just be better to use dialogue tags like “said” or “shouted” instead. 

Additionally, if what the characters are saying is important for the plot, or you want readers to pay extra attention to what is being said, it would be better not to distract them with action beats. 

Use your best judgment when deciding between dialogue tags and action beats. Remember, you can always rewrite something if you don’t like how it flows. 

Keep writing (and rewriting), friends!

If you’ve read a few of the other articles on this site, then you’ve probably seen me state “show, don’t tell” more than once. If that’s the first time you’ve heard that phrase, then you probably aren’t completely sure what it entails or how you’re supposed to apply that to your own writing. Without good examples, it’s hard to be sure what it really means. And, even if you’re familiar with the concept in theory, it can still be frustrating to figure out how to implement it.

What is “Show, Don’t Tell?”

“Show, don’t tell” is often uttered by teachers and editors alike, but what exactly does it mean? Basically, “showing” and “telling” are two different writing techniques.

Telling is the act of describing an action, setting, object, person, or other element in the story objectively. There is no room for the readers to make inferences about what is going on, and every piece of information feels like it is being spoon-fed to them. To borrow an example from a previous article (A Guide to Self-Editing Your Writing), this would look like “the house felt creepy.” Instead of describing the different elements of the house that make it feel creepy, you can just state that it’s creepy and let readers fill in the gaps with their imagination. 

Showing is the act of appealing to readers’ senses to give them specific impressions about an action, setting, object, person, or other element in the story—without them having to be told. That means, instead of describing something objectively, you focus on the details that would give readers the impression you want them to have. To go back to the house example, try to think about the types of things that would make a house creepy. Maybe the house is dusty, run-down, or just old. Maybe the lights flicker. Maybe the characters inside hear strange noises, or there are stains on the walls and floor. What aspects of the house can you highlight to make readers feel that the house is creepy, instead of telling them outright?

Why is “Show, Don’t Tell” Important?

“Show, don’t tell” is a phrase that is said so often in writing classes, workshops, and while editing that it’s understandable that many writers are absolutely sick of hearing it. However, as frustrating as that is, it’s with good reason—it’s good advice. 

Showing is incredibly important in writing impactful stories. If you want readers to empathize with characters’ emotions and immerse themselves in your scenes, then you need to appeal to their senses. 

Simply “telling” readers everything they need to know is dull, and it can be difficult to give a scene any emotional weight when everything is stated objectively. 

Is “Showing” Always Better than “Telling?”

With that said, it’s important to state that showing is not always better than telling. There are many situations in which you don’t need to waste time and effort “showing” situations in your stories. In fact, it can actually be harmful to your story if you try to show absolutely everything. 

The entire purpose of “showing” is to emphasize emotions and draw readers in to the narrative. If you are describing a transition between scenes, or writing something for expository or informational purposes, then there is absolutely no reason to “show, don’t tell.” 

You don’t always need to show characters getting ready for something, going to sleep, or traveling. You don’t always need to dive into the emotions of background characters. You don’t always need to give intense emotional weight to everyday scenes and interactions between characters. If you “show” everything instead of using both “showing” and “telling,” your story is going to end up being too long-winded and exhausting to read. 

Sometimes, being brief and concise is more important than focusing on the details. It all depends on the context. 

When to Show, Not Tell

When it comes to writing a story, there are a few situations in which it is particularly important to “show, don’t tell.” 

In general, any time you are describing an action, item, character, or setting that is important to the plot or larger narrative, you should try to “show” as much as possible. 

However, more specifically, you should use showing when describing:

• A character’s emotions
• A character’s appearance
• Dialogue beats during a conversation between characters
• An important object
• An important setting
• A meaningful action
• A mystery (or clues)
• A big event
• Anything else of significance 

By utilizing this technique effectively, you’ll not only create more vibrant stories, but you’ll also be able to better control the pacing of your narrative and effectively establish a specific tone for any kind of scene.

How to Show, Not Tell in Your Stories

Learning how to apply this technique is easier said than done, so here’s a brief breakdown of the way you can think about “showing” before we move on to some more concrete examples. 

Any time you are describing a character’s emotions, you should avoid naming the emotion itself. Instead of simply telling readers “she looked angry,” describe how her expression and body language change to reflect her emotional state. If you’re writing in the first person, you can focus more on the physiological changes that come with different emotions, such as a rush of adrenaline, feeling warm, or getting nauseous. 

If you need some tips for how to use facial expressions to show emotion, check out my other article “How to Describe Facial Expressions in Writing.” 

Additionally, any time you feel tempted to describe anything with an adjective (fancy, creepy, bright, colorful, noisy, etc), you can use “showing” instead. Rather than say that a place is loud, describe what the different sounds are, and show other characters covering their ears or trying to move away from the noise. 

If something looks fancy, then describe the elements of it that give it that impression. If it’s a fancy book, describe how the cover contains an elaborate pattern stamped into the leather with gold leaf, how the edge of each page is lined in gold, or how it has an intricate buckle to fasten it shut. 

When trying to “show, not tell,” simply think of how you imagine something, and how you can describe it in a way that will help readers imagine the same thing. When you picture a cute dog, what elements of the dog makes it cute instead of ugly? When you think of a gross puddle on the ground, what makes it gross? When you think of an annoying person, what do they do that’s annoying? If you focus on the details, it’ll be much easier for you to “show, not tell.” 

Examples of “Show, Don’t Tell”

Here are some examples of “telling” and “showing,” to give you a better idea of how to use “show, don’t tell” in your own writing. 

I hope you find those examples useful! 

Now go out there are create something great!

Prologues are at the center of a lot of debate in the writing world. Many people claim that prologues should never be used under any circumstances, while others are proponents for using prologues to create a unique opening to their story. It is one of the most divisive debates in the creative writing sphere, but… what exactly is a prologue, and what’s the point of using or avoiding them? 

If you’re not clear on the definition of what a prologue is, or you just don’t understand the controversy, you’ve come to the right place. 

What is a Prologue?

To put it simply, a prologue is like an introduction to your story that comes before the actual beginning. It sets the stage for the rest of the story by explaining the things readers will need to know right away—such as the setting, a brief history of the world, the major figures, and the characters’ backstories. That reduces the amount of confusion readers are likely to experience when reading the first few pages of your story, but it can also pique their interest and entice them to read the rest of the story.

What is the Purpose of a Prologue?

Prologues are a quick and easy way of giving readers context to the world, the characters, or the events preceding the start of the narrative. For example, if your story is a post-apocalyptic one, you could include a prologue that briefly explains what happened before the end of the world, or how much time has passed since those events.

Prologues can also reveal important details about the characters in the story, and the roles that they will play. Many times, the prologue reveals (or foreshadows) the primary conflict, the main character, or the overall tone of the story. 

Prologues set the stage for the rest of the story, so it is imperative that they are written well. Writing a mediocre prologue is easy, but writing a good prologue can be much more difficult than writing a typical first page.

The Prologue Controversy

Prologues are universally despised by traditional editors and publishers. Many see prologues as a sign of lazy writing, and will discard stories before even skimming halfway down the first page. 

That sounds unfair, but generally speaking, that notion holds true. Prologues are almost always lazy writing. Any piece of information you put in a prologue can be weaved into the story in a much more interesting way if you’re willing to put in the extra effort to do so. For example, if you want readers to understand that a character comes from poverty, you can hint at that with subconscious behaviors, such as always taking sugar packets from restaurants or washing and reusing solo cups. You don’t need to explicitly tell readers what has happened in the story—show them instead. 

And therein lies the biggest problem with prologues. Prologues go against the principle of “show, don’t tell.” It is like a SparkNotes summary of the events leading up to the story, and it’s one of the most boring ways to share information with readers. If you want your story to be published traditionally, then you should almost never consider writing a prologue. 

If you want some ideas for writing the first page of your story without a prologue, you should read my other article: Writing the First Page of a Story: Tips to Make it Perfect.

Is Writing a Prologue Always a Bad Idea?

In short: no. Writing a prologue is not always a bad idea. It’s only a bad idea if you want to get your story published traditionally.

There are a few different situations in which a prologue wouldn’t hurt your story. The thing is, readers don’t always care about the strict rules and restrictions that editors force stories to abide by. Like I’ve stated above, you can write a really good prologue that not only covers the points you need it to, and adds to the story overall.

If you are writing to a smaller audience, or you plan to self publish or post your works online, you can get away with using a prologue to introduce your story. For some shorter fanfiction works, a prologue may even be necessary to get readers up-to-speed on how the Alternate Universe (AU) differs from the characters’ canon. 

In addition to that, prologues can be an excellent tool for subverting readers’ expectations—especially if the prologue is told from the perspective of a character recounting the events of the past. You can use a prologue to provide misleading information, then surprise readers with a twist later on in the story.

And of course, great writers can break any conventions and still end up with a great story. One of the most famous movie series of all time, Star Wars, makes extensive use of prologues in each of the movies—so much so that the opening crawl has become iconic to the franchise. 

In the end, you should look at the kind of story you’re writing, who your intended audience is, and what your goals are. In some cases, a prologue could end up working well in a story.

When to Use a Prologue

Prologues are most commonly utilized in fantasy or sci-fi stories, in which readers may need to learn a lot about the world early on for the story to make any sense. Post-apocalyptic or dystopian stories, which are fairly new genres in popular literature, also commonly require much more context than other stories. A brief prologue can help to establish the fundamentals of how the world works and what readers can expect from the story. 

If your story requires readers to have a lot of context from the beginning in order to understand what is going on, and you can’t find any other way to work the information in organically, then a prologue is going to be your best bet. 

How to Write a Prologue

There is no such thing as a perfect way to write a prologue, just as there’s no perfect way to write anything. However, there are a few tips you can follow to ensure you are writing the best prologue for your story. 

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you should make the prologue interesting. No one wants to read a boring synopsis of world events, even if they’re fantasy world events. Make your prologue catch readers’ interest from the very first line. You want to give readers a compelling reason to turn the page, so start with something exciting. Write a prologue that creates questions for the reader, and then make sure it doesn’t answer all the questions it creates. 

That’s the next tip: don’t let your prologue give everything away. Your prologue should reveal just enough information to give readers the context they need and to pique their interest—and then nothing more. Leave some discovery for the actual story itself; a little mystery can go a long way. 

A prologue exists both outside the story, and as part of it. It sets readers’ expectations for the rest of the story, so the formatting, tone, and style should be similar to the rest of the story. If it feels too different from the rest of your story, then readers might have a difficult time connecting the prologue to the story. Or worse—readers may end up surprised and disappointed when the story itself isn’t written like the prologue.  

However, you can still make a prologue stand out in some way, as long as it is thematically related to the content of the story. For example, you could write your prologue like a captain’s log, a radio announcement, a diary, a letter to a character’s family, a police report, or any number of different options. A prologue doesn’t have to read like a synopsis to be effective. 

Finally, make sure to keep your prologues digestible. Readers will get tired of reading a prologue, even if it’s the most interesting prologue in the world. Prologues can be anywhere from a few sentences to several paragraphs, but if your prologue ends up being more than a few pages long, you’ll need to rewrite it.

Write Your Story Your Way

The most important part about writing your story is that you do so authentically. You shouldn’t have to alter your story just to please an old editor who skims the first page of thousands of manuscripts a day. Your story, your characters, and your ideas are worth more than that. Stay true to yourself and your narrative, and if you feel strongly about the way it is written, then don’t change it. You’ll find people who will appreciate your story for what it is.

Your fans are out there! Good luck!

If you’re like most new writers, getting a professional editor to edit your story isn’t going to be feasible. If you write as a hobby, it won’t make sense to spend money getting your work professionally edited, and if you’re short on cash, it might be downright impossible. Editing services are not a luxury that everyone has access to, and even if you do, you should consider self-editing anyway.

Self-editing is an incredibly valuable skill to learn. It’ll make you a better writer over time, and your future first drafts will require less editing as you learn what to look out for. Even if you plan to hire an editor, you should consider editing your work yourself before sending it off to someone else. Self-editing first will help you develop this skill, but also, you’ll save time and money if you can catch mistakes early. Finally, by editing a story to the best of your ability before entrusting someone else with your creation, you will better preserve the authenticity of your unique author’s voice. 

You can refer to this table of contents like a checklist as you work through editing your stories.

Set Your Draft Aside

The moment you finish writing your first draft, you need to set it aside. Don’t look at it for several weeks—or longer. Don’t even think about it at all, if you can help it. 

A lot of writers will recommend this approach, and with good reason. You need to be able to approach your draft with a refreshed perspective. You need the words to feel new to you again, so you don’t have any expectations when reading over them again. Taking a break will help you spot mistakes that you may have overlooked before.

As both a writer and an artist, I can attest that staring at a piece (of art or writing) for too long can make you blind to the mistakes. Too many times, I’ve forgotten to color in a character’s eyebrow because I was so focused on drawing other details.

Write a Strong First Page

The first page of a story sets the tone for all the pages that follow, so you need to make sure you’re starting on a right foot. This rule also applies to the first page of a new chapter too.

Read the first page of your story as if this is the first time you’ve seen it, and you’re trying to decide whether it’s worth it to read the whole story. If the opening scene dramatic? Is it exciting? Does it make you want to turn the page? Or do you only care about the characters because, as the writer, you know what happens later? 

Sometimes, writers start their story with something mundane, or with a cascade of backstory readers just won’t care about yet. If you want to start strong, you need to open up with the action. Excite readers, make them curious, and you can make them care about the backstory later. 

For a more comprehensive explanation of how to do this well, I have another article on the topic: Writing the First Page of a Story: Tips to Make it Perfect.

Look at the Big Picture

Many writers nitpick about the structure of their sentences or their particular word choice, and although that can be a good strategy, you shouldn’t focus on that when you first start editing. Don’t think about the words in your story right now. Think about the story itself. 

Before you move on to the details, you need to make sure that your story makes sense as a whole. Search for plot holes, unanswered questions, and any parts of the narrative that don’t make sense. It takes you a lot longer to write a story than it would take a reader to read it, so you might forget things. Your readers will not. 

If you intend for your story to stand alone, then you need to tie up all the loose ends. If, however, you are planning a sequel, it’s better to leave some questions unanswered, to entice readers to read your next story. 

Keep Things Consistent

The next thing you’ll need to be on the lookout for is errors in consistency. If you change tense, perspective, or tone, that can be a jarring shift that will take readers out of your story. Likewise, if a character behaves inconsistently or goes against their morals, they’ll lose any authenticity they might have had.

Once you establish something in your story, you need to keep it that way. You can change tense to indicate a flashback or dream, but only as long as that change is deliberate and makes sense with the context. 

Show, Don’t Tell

Readers don’t like being told what to think. When you’re describing something, you should use cues to hint at how a character feels, rather than just saying it outright. 

For example, instead of saying, “she was angry,” try describing the character’s body language. She could scowl, slam her hands on the table, or steadily raise her voice as she is talking. Readers wouldn’t need to be told how she feels if her body language reflects her emotions. 

This applies to more than just characters, of course. If a setting is “creepy,” don’t just say that it “feels creepy.” Describe what aspects of the environment make it unsettling, and subtly hint at that creepiness with the words you choose to describe it. 

Compare “the house just felt creepy” with this:

No one had been inside this house for almost a decade, and as we busted open the back door, I could only assume this is what it would feel like to enter an ancient tomb. The air inside was still and silent, and it made our footsteps seem like the loudest sound in the world. As if that wasn’t bad enough, our flashlight did little to chase away the shadows in the corners of the room—shadows that seemed to reach out to us whenever we turned away. 

For a more in-depth breakdown of “show, don’t tell,” take a look at Show, Don’t Tell: What it is and How to Write it.

Read Everything Out Loud

Once you have a coherent draft and edited out any inconsistencies in the storyline, it’s time to start fixing the details. This is the beginning of “line editing,” which is the process of editing your entire story line-by-line. 

If you’re rolling your eyes at the idea of reading your entire story out loud to yourself, you’re getting ahead of yourself. This is another helpful strategy that will help you catch mistakes. By reading your story aloud, you can analyze each sentence’s flow by how it sounds when you say it. 

And mumbling doesn’t count; you need to perform it. Try to find an audience to read to, even if that audience consists of your cat or some houseplants. Reading it out loud like someone is listening will force you to take it more seriously, and the mistakes will become much more evident. 

Improve Word Choice

Improving your word choice is more than just using fancy words. You want each line of your story to communicate what is going on in the story clearly, but there are a few ways to do that. 

Here are some tips for improving the word choice in your story:

• Cut out adverbs. This goes back to the “show, don’t tell” premise. Why say that a character did something “angrily” when you can more cleverly convey how they feel?
• Simplify overly complicated words. You don’t want readers to have to keep a dictionary on-hand just to understand what is going on in your story. If you ever feel tempted to use words like “annunciated” or “remonstrated,” then just use “said.”
• Remove any redundancies. You might be surprised how often you say the same thing in more than one way. 
• Double-check the definitions for any words you aren’t entirely familiar with. Make sure you know you’re using the term correctly. If you aren’t, you need to pick a new word. 
• Look for any instances of indefinite pronouns. It’s not always clear who “he” is if you have a scene with multiple male characters interacting. 
• Revise wordy sentences to be more concise. Having too much “fluff” in your stories can bore readers and make them give up on your story. 

Locate and Fix Incorrect Punctuation

It’s not uncommon for writers (even professionals) to misuse semicolons, dashes, hyphens, and many other types of punctuation. If you’re going to be publishing or posting your stories anywhere, then you should double check to make sure you are using those marks correctly. 

The Punctuation Guide is an incredible resource on the different types of punctuation and how to use them appropriately. I highly recommend taking a look at the site! After all, editing might go a bit smoother after a quick refresher on grammar rules. 

Format Dialogue Correctly

Dialogue can be tricky for many reasons. For one, it’s difficult to create dialogue that sounds like something real people would say, but also, most new writers use quotation marks incorrectly when writing the dialogue on the page. 

I may write an article on this topic in the future, but for now, this PDF from Ursinus College is a useful resource to reference when writing dialogue. 

One more thing: when writing dialogue, especially if it is long, you can make it more interesting by interjecting with narration. Compare these two examples:

1. “I don’t know how we’re going to find her. It’s like she just disappeared,” he said, falling to his knees.
2. “I don’t know how we’re going to find her.” He fell to his knees. “It’s like she just disappeared.”

Notice in the second example that I don’t use the word “said” either. If you establish who is talking by focusing on that character’s actions or behavior, then you won’t need to use “said” or any weird synonyms for it at all. This is called an “action beat.” If you want to learn more about this technique, check out Action Beats: What They are and How to Use Them.

Check Spelling and Grammar

Most basic spellcheckers are pretty good at catching simple mistakes, but don’t put too much faith in your word processor. Most of them won’t catch regional spellings for different words (consider: “Color” in the U.S. but “Colour” in the U.K.), and many won’t catch words that are spelled correctly but used in the wrong context (“I am form New York” for example).

It is up to you to make sure that your spelling is correct, and that you are following all grammatical rules appropriately. If you are planning on submitting your work to a publisher, you should know that spelling and grammar mistakes are often enough to get an editor to reject a draft—even if the story is good! 

Use an Editing Program

There are several different types of editing software you can use to make editing easier, but I personally use Grammarly. I use it to edit my stories, my emails, and even the articles I post on this blog. It makes the editing process so much easier because it catches most of the problems outlined above, from correcting spelling and grammar errors to suggesting better word choices. And the best part of all? Most of its functionality is free. 

Using an editing program like Grammarly does not mean that you are an amateur or that you aren’t good at writing. Even the best writers make mistakes sometimes, and that’s perfectly natural. I’m personally guilty of accidentally typing the same word twice—and I do it often. Don’t feel bad about making the editing process easier on yourself. 

Don’t Go Overboard

When you’re editing a story, it can be easy to get overwhelmed. There are so many things to look out for, and so many things you need to know. You have to fix everything from story-wide plot holes to missing commas, and it’s difficult! It can feel like you’re never going to be finished. 

You need to keep a clear head, and you need to be realistic about what you can change, and what really matters. 

So, I’ll leave off with one last piece of advice: don’t go overboard. If you become obsessed with making your story perfect in every way, it will never truly be done. You should go through your story three to five times to edit out mistakes, but after that, you should feel confident that it’s good. You should be able to say that it’s finished.

Good luck! And keep your heads up, writers. I know you can do it.

Once you have a really great backstory for your character, you’ll probably feel like drawing a lot of attention to it from the get-go. After all, you worked so hard on it! Besides, it’s interesting, and it’s important for understanding the nuances of the character!

But hold on… 

Revealing a character’s backstory is a delicate process, and you can throw your entire story out of balance if you let yourself get carried away. In most cases, readers don’t need to know a character’s entire backstory—but especially not all upfront. You need to be thoughtful in your approach, and utilize the character’s backstory as a tool for progressing the plot. Just inserting information carelessly can bore your readers, even if you think your characters are interesting enough to highlight. 

Things to Consider When Writing a Backstory

First and foremost, before you get started, your character needs to actually have a backstory. Maybe you’re not like the example above, and you haven’t actually given the backstory much thought. Well, you’re in luck, because I already have an article on the topic: How to Create Compelling Character Backstories. Check that out first and come back to this article!

If you want a quick rundown of what to include, however, here’s a short list of things you should consider when creating a character’s backstory:

• Place of Origin
• Socioeconomic Status
• Family
• Circumstances of Birth
• Religion
• Education
• Work
• Travel
• Love Life
• Defining Moments

The Do’s and Don’ts of Revealing a Character’s Backstory

There are a lot of ways you can mess up revealing a character’s backstory, so you should take care to avoid some common mistakes. It’s easy to get carried away, but with a little mindful planning, you can keep your story on the right track. 

To be clear, this isn’t intended to control what you create or how you tell your stories. This advice details the best approach from my experience, but it is by no means the only approach. Not all of the points apply to every type of story, either. Only you truly know what is best for your story, and you shouldn’t feel like anyone can dictate how you share it. 

With that said, let’s get on to the do’s and don’ts of revealing a character’s backstory!

DO Write Everything Down About Your Character

When you’re coming up with the backstory for a character, be prepared to write absolutely everything down—even if you don’t think it’s important. If the character was in the boy scouts, if they were in the local newspaper once, or if they sprained their ankle walking up a specific hill, then you should keep track of all that. If you thought about the situation for a second, you should write it down. 

Although that sounds like you’ll be drowning in useless information, it can actually be quite helpful to you. Not only is it a good snapshot of the character’s life as a whole, but it can also give you a bigger-picture understanding of who they are and what they’ve gone through.

Finally, taking awesome notes on everything makes it easy to pull little details from their life to enhance their dialogue, flaws, personality, and much more. You can tease readers with little windows into the character’s past to keep things interesting and make them feel not just well-designed, but alive. 

DON’T Share Everything With Your Readers 

Although I just said you should write everything down, that doesn’t mean you’ll end up actually including every piece of information you wrote down. It can be really tempting to share everything about your characters and their history, especially if you’ve worked hard on it, but it’s important not to cross the line. 

The past can be boring, and your readers just aren’t going to care about every little detail. You should know everything your character knows to make it easier to write about them, but your reader only needs to know the parts that are applicable to the plot. That might seem disheartening, but your story will end up better off if you leave the little details out. 

This is especially true if you have many characters. The way you treat a protagonist’s backstory should be different from how you treat a minor character’s backstory. This article is mostly about your protagonists, but if you want to learn more about how to handle the other characters in your story, check out How to Write Minor Characters. 

Depending on how your readers react to your story, you might even be able to write a spinoff about a character whose past you didn’t have space to explore in the main story. 

DO Pinpoint the Defining Events that Impacted the Character

Some events stand out as particularly impactful in a character’s life. Whether it’s a sudden event that changes their life forever or a new opportunity that shapes their future, events like these have the power to influence the character’s behavior much more than other events. These can be things like:

• A fateful meeting
• A sudden accident
• A career change
• A spontaneous trip
• A difficult decision
• A new diagnosis
• A broken bone
• A promotion
• A new house
• The loss of a loved one

Identify the parts of a character’s past that influenced them the most, and focus on developing the details of those particular events—such as where they were, what was happening around them, and even the weather. If a character experienced something traumatic on a foggy morning, then they may associate fog with danger. Use those details to spark a reader’s curiosity about what the character has experienced. 

DON’T Get Carried Away

Large, life-changing events aren’t the only things that can impact a person’s life, but that doesn’t mean you should be obsessing over every little thing that your character has experienced. You need to stay focused on the big events, otherwise, your notes will end up being too long and cluttered. Take note of the little things, sure, but only dive into the details of the big events. 

DO Show Moral Conflict Throughout the Character’s Past

No matter how good or bad your characters are portrayed in the present story, there was a time when they questioned their own morality. Don’t be afraid to have your protagonists make terrible choices or struggle with doing the right thing, and don’t be afraid of showing some empathy in your villains. Everyone does good and bad things. It’s the way they feel about their past choices, not the choices themselves, that defines them.

A character’s past is interesting if it is complicated and riddled with internal conflict. This is especially true for villains. A villain that struggled to do the right thing and fell victim to their circumstances is going to resonate with your readers more than a villain who is simply bad for the sake of being bad. Likewise, a hero who makes mistakes is going to be more relatable than one who is perfect. 

Villains are fun to write, and they can have some of the most complicated pasts of any character. My other article How to Write Good Villains in Fiction goes into some other ways you can make your villains more sympathetic and memorable, so check it out if you want to make some lovable baddies!

DON’T Narrate the Backstory

Nothing will lose you readers faster than starting a story with a history lesson. No one wants to read a synopsis of the last few decades (or centuries, in some cases), even if that reveals vital context about the world and the characters in it. 

Prologues are tempting to write because they are easy, but that is a one-way road towards producing a mediocre story. The truth is, whatever context a prologue provides could be weaved into the story in other, more entertaining ways. 

Even flashbacks are on thin ice, but there are situations in which a flashback could work with the narrative, instead of as a crutch. 

DO Use Secondary Sources to Reveal Things

In almost all cases, it’s better to show, not tell, readers what happened before the start of the story. To do this, writers use what’s known as “secondary sources” to reveal information about something, rather than simply narrating what a reader should know about it. Secondary sources can be things such as:

• Diaries or journals
• Old photographs
• Notes
• A character’s scars
• Dents, scrapes, or other damages to rooms or objects
• Old newspapers
• Public records
• A character’s belongings

Secondary sources can be explicit, like written notes or old pictures, or they can be mere suggestions that there is more to something than meets the eye. While a journal could explicitly reveal information on a specific person, something like a dent in a doorway or holes in a wall could suggest that abuse was present in the house at some point, without spelling it out for your readers. 

DON’T Reveal Too Much Too Soon

If you reveal too much information too early on, no matter how emotional or gut-wrenching you think it is, you run the risk of your readers just not caring. You need to give readers time to get adjusted to your characters and to empathize with them before you start revealing anything too in-depth. Let your readers establish a bond with your characters first, and then they will start caring about the more intimate details of their lives.

Not only that, but revealing too much too soon can be overwhelming for a reader. Make sure you are pacing things well, or your story might move too fast. 

DO Create a Visual Timeline of the Character’s Past

Creating a visual timeline of events from a character’s past can help you keep your notes organized in a chronological manner. This can help you remember when things happened in relation to other events, as well as how things line up between different characters’ pasts. It can also help you identify any gaps or missing information in the character’s life. 

A visual timeline doesn’t have to be fancy. You could start by just drawing a line on a piece of paper and adding notches for each year or period in their life. Then, simply write an abbreviated explanation of the event near the line, and connect it to the appropriate notch for the year the event happened. You can, of course, use online software or other digital means to create a more refined look, but that isn’t necessary—you’ll be the only one looking at it anyway. 

DON’T Include Every Single Life Event in that Visual Timeline

It’s easy to get carried away when you’re making a visual timeline for a character, but keep in mind you want it to be easy to view and straightforward. Too much clutter will make it confusing and difficult to locate specific information. 

When you’re looking for information to include in a character’s timeline, look to the events that you previously determined were the most impactful. These events are things like starting a new relationship, moving to a new place, or losing a loved one. Make sure those big events make it on the timeline first. Then you can start adding in smaller events afterward if you have gaps to fill. 

DO Hint at the Backstory through Conversations with Other Characters 

Dialogue is a helpful tool for revealing information to your readers. Conversation is nuanced and can reveal a lot more than just what is objectively said. A different expression, a change in tone, a stutter, or a change in body language can all influence the meaning of a sentence. Heck, that’s the entire idea behind sarcasm: changing the meaning of a phrase by altering one’s tone. 

Characters can also crack inside jokes, poke fun at old insecurities, and simply talk about old times together. Your readers can pick up on the things being said (and being unspoken), and learn in a much more involved way than if you simply narrated the same information. For example, a character may joke about their friend’s taste in men to indicate that they have had multiple bad relationships.

By using dialogue to reveal information, you give readers the sense of being let in on the conversation, and it can make them more invested in the story as a whole. 

DON’T Let Your Characters Tell Everything

One mistake that many writers make is that they make their characters too talkative. It’s one thing to have characters talking about their personal struggles with close friends, but it’s a whole other situation to have a character pour their heart out to someone they just met. 

Most people are not inherently trusting, and on top of that, people generally don’t like to talk about bad experiences. If a character witnessed their mother die in front of them, they aren’t likely to be very chatty about the event—in fact, they would likely actively avoid discussing such a traumatic event at all, if possible. It will feel inauthentic to your readers if your characters open up about their personal lives too readily.

There is an exception to this rule, of course. Some people really are just incredibly open and eager to over-share, and some other people don’t fully understand social cues and what is or isn’t appropriate. If your character is like that, then you need to establish that early on. 

Why Revealing Character Backstories Carefully is Important

A character’s backstory is an important part of who they are, and being able to share that with your readers is really valuable if the situation is right. A good and carefully revealed backstory can:

• Make readers empathize with your characters
• Invest readers in the storyline
• Fuel conflict, both within the character and with others
• Keep readers entertained
• Enrich the world the story takes place in
• Immerse readers into the narrative

Needless to say, backstories are important, but revealing them carelessly can make even the best backstory feel dull. 

Take care, take your time, and don’t be afraid of rewriting!

Anyone who has ever started writing a story knows that the beginning is the hardest part. Whether it’s the first page, first paragraph, or even just the first line, starting a new story is tough. That is the page that convinces someone to read the rest of the story, so it’s important to get it right. Depending on your goals, you might even plan on sending your story to a publisher, and if you don’t have a strong opening, they won’t hesitate to toss it in the trash—even if the story as a whole is good.

With that said, the average length of a page is usually between 300 and 500 words, depending on how it is formatted. That’s not a lot of space to make a good first impression, and you need to fit a lot of information into those few words. Thankfully, there are a few different techniques that you can learn to make your first page (and the first pages of all your future stories) much more impactful. 

What Makes a First Page Good?

The first page of a story is undeniably the most important. That is the page that determines whether or not someone will take your story home or read until the end. There are several things that readers expect from a first page, and if they aren’t excited by the time they reach the end of the page, they’ll likely set the story aside. 

A good first page should:

• Grab the reader’s attention
• Establish the point of view
• Introduce the main character
• Establish the setting
• Create interest
• Make readers turn the page

Tips for Writing the Perfect First Page

Remember; readers owe you nothing. You could tell them how great the story is on the cover, but they won’t take your word for it. When considering a new book, most people open it up and skim the first page before making a decision, and if it doesn’t interest them, they’ll just set it aside and look for something with a better first page. You need to hook them in, and bribe them with a good enough reason to turn the page. 

Grabbing a reader’s attention and creating interest is definitely easier said than done, but there are some simple methods to improve the way you approach writing the first page of your story. 

Use Proper Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation

Grammar, spelling, and punctuation contribute to your work’s overall clarity, which is incredibly important for the first page. Simple mistakes can often lead to misunderstandings, but perfect control over grammar and syntax gives readers confidence in your abilities as a storyteller. Readers are more willing to stick around and read your story if you write confidently and without mistakes. Likewise, an editor or publisher is more likely to give your story a chance if you don’t make careless mistakes on the first page.

If you don’t have all the grammar and punctuation rules memorized, or you aren’t a very strong speller, then don’t fret. Most programs do have a decent spellcheck built in, but aren’t always great at catching grammar and punctuation mistakes. There are some more robust grammar checkers that can help you edit your story as you go, such as Grammarly (the one that I use). It has a lot of functionality for being a free program, so it’s generally what I recommend for everyone regardless of their skill level.

Don’t Make a Prologue

Prologues are a common technique that people use to start stories, especially fantasy stories with many worldbuilding elements or a lot of history. They are often used as a way of getting readers up to speed on the context of the story or the backstory of a character before any real storytelling begins. Although it is tempting, you really shouldn’t start any story with a prologue.

This mostly only applies if you want to get your story traditionally published. Publishers despise prologues, and with good reason—it’s really difficult to write a prologue well, so most end up terrible. However, if you don’t care about getting your story professionally published, and you believe a prologue is the best way to start your own story, then go for it. Writers break writing rules all the time and still end up with excellent stories (though it helps to understand the rules and why they exist before you decide to break them).

Prologues are ultimately the easy way out. They’re boring, easy to write, and they completely remove opportunities to selectively reveal information over time. It leaves nothing for the readers to discover about the world and the story. It’s a lazy way of writing. Worst of all, prologues are the opposite of the idea of “show, don’t tell.” Prologues tell your readers what to think, instead of letting them discover things for themselves. 

Don’t Start with A Mundane Situation

I mentioned this in another one of my posts, When and How to Write a Character Waking Up, but the idea is worth bringing up again. In that post, I discuss the challenges of writing a scene in which a character wakes up, because, like with prologues, it can come across as a lazy way of starting new scenes (or an entire story, in this case). Not only that, but there’s also nothing extraordinary about a character waking up comfortably in their own home. If your story starts like any other day, and the character simply goes about their mundane activities, you’re going to lose readers fast. 

You need your first page to excite readers. Reading a character waking up at home, going to work, or riding the subway is just not going to cut it. However, if your character is waking up in an unfamiliar place, that’s going to have a better chance of getting readers to turn the page. They’ll want to know what happened, where the character is, how they got there, and before you know it, they’re drawn into the story. The same is true for the other examples too. If the character is being followed on their way to work, or if they witness something weird on the subway, readers might just stick around to find out what’s going on. 

Create Some Mystery

When you’re writing the first page of your story, you want to make sure you are creating more questions than you are answering. You want to let your readers wonder, to entice them to read more to find answers. That doesn’t mean every story needs to be noir fiction that turns your readers into detectives, but you should definitely not explain everything that is happening. 

For example, you could introduce two characters that act like hostile opposites, but clearly care a lot for each other. That could make readers wonder why they stick together. Your story could include talking animals that aren’t immediately explained, you could state that the president has been missing for months, or you could just jump into a scene and give the context for it later. Make readers want to find the answers to their questions—just don’t wait too long to ground them in the story.  

The goal is to make readers wonder what is going on, but not make it so confusing that they give up on reading it. 

Create Some Action

Jumping straight into the action is a great way to start the first page of a story. It’s exciting, it draws readers in, and it can create its own mystery at the same time. If the characters are running away from something, in a battle, arguing, lost, or in some other kind of conflict, readers are naturally going to be curious about the context of the situation. 

However, “action” doesn’t have to involve swordfights or frightening monsters, so don’t think this doesn’t apply to your genre. You could jump into the story while a character is on an uncomfortable first date or clearing things out of their attic. Starting your story with some action just means the characters are doing something interesting. You can skip the introductions and just jump right into the story. Worry about describing the characters in-depth later on in the story. 

Highlight a Fundamental Aspect of the Main Character

Remember, however, that readers expect the first page of the story to introduce the main character to some extent. You need to be careful with how you approach this, because you absolutely do not want a character description to fill up your entire first page, but you want to give readers a good first impression of the character. 

You don’t need to show readers everything about the character from the get-go. It’s more fun to learn about them over time anyway. Instead, you should introduce them in a way that highlights a core aspect of who they are. For example, maybe the first time readers meet a character, he’s rigging an explosive. That certainly leaves readers with a strong first impression of what kind of person that character is. This lets them know what they can expect from him moving forward. 

Making your characters distinct and likable from the beginning is important! After all, readers will have to stick with them for dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of pages—so make sure that’s something they can look forward to. 

Some Final Suggestions

Not only is the first page important, but the very first line of your story is as well. You should be able to accomplish many of the things that makes a first page good in just one sentence. This is especially true if you are submitting your story to a publisher—sometimes, the first line is as far as they get before they make a decision about your story as a whole. A good way to do this is to start with dialogue, usually in the middle of a conversation for which the reader has no context!

Writing the first page of your story is difficult. It is one of the hardest things to write for a story, and most writers quote it as their least favorite part to write. However, you should never settle for mediocrity. Put in the extra effort to make it perfect, and it will be worth it in the end. 

Good luck!

If you’re writing a story, then you’ve probably encountered this common problem before: you’ve gotten to a point in the narrative where you need to write about something you’ve never seen, experienced, or learned before. Maybe your characters venture to a part of the world you’ve never been, or they have extensive knowledge about something you really haven’t thought much about. If your characters are truly diverse, then they’re going to have hobbies, interests, and expertise that are outside the scope of what you’re familiar with. Although that can feel like a problem, it isn’t by any means a bad thing. 

Writing about something you don’t know can feel overwhelming, but with a little bit of research, you can write about it so convincingly that you can even impress readers that are familiar with the topic. By utilizing these 10 techniques for researching for your story, you can become a perceived expert on any topic in record time. Your characters will end up feeling more authentic, and your story will end up much more realistic and interesting as a result. 

Getting Started With Researching for your Story

In the early stages of conducting research, there’s no need to get overly fancy with your methods. This is the point in which you should strive to get a foundation of general knowledge on the topic, which is almost always easily accessible through the internet. 

1. Google

Google is always my first choice, simply because of its convenience, versatility, and scope. If your story takes place in a location you’ve never been, you could start by simply looking at google street view to get an idea of how the location is laid out. You could read up on laws, watch their local news, and get a sense of how people behave there. Even without physically visiting the location, you can get a pretty good sense of what it’s like to live there. 

No matter what you need to learn, you can start out on google. It might not provide everything you need to know, but you could learn about time periods, sword fighting techniques, different cultures, skills, locations, and professions, all from the comfort of your couch. However, you should approach everything you read with a healthy level of skepticism. Always try to verify the information with sources, cross-referencing, and gauging the authority of the author. The last thing you want to do is to put something in your story that isn’t true—not only could that spread misinformation, but you could get called out by your more astute readers.  

2. Listen to Podcasts

Podcasts can be a fantastic source of information, and there are options out there for just about any type of knowledge you’d need to learn. If you have a character who is supposed to be an expert on old crimes, space, or even gardening, you could find a podcast or two that can provide you with a good general introduction to the topic. As a bonus, podcasts are generally entertaining and brimming with good examples. 

Podcasts are perfect for introductory research for multiple reasons. For one thing, they are easy to listen to whenever, whether you’re running, driving, drawing, cleaning, or whatever else. You can simply turn them on and have them play in the background, while they immerse you in the topic. Because they are easy to listen to all the time, it is much easier to fit the research in around your busy schedule, and to really make the learning part of your everyday life. You can utilize all your free time to learn, without feeling fatigued from reading all the same information.

3. Watch Youtube

Youtube is a great opportunity for learning a multitude of different topics. You can learn anything from how to pronounce a particular name to what the social structure of 1500s China was like. You can watch lectures, illustrated cartoons, footage of life in different parts of the world, and even medical procedures. Regardless of what you’re looking for, you can feel confident knowing that youtube is going to have what you need.

However, you need to be careful about the validity of your sources. Unlike Google, youtube shows results for searches based on the popularity of the videos, not on the correctness of the content. Always make sure to check sources and cross-reference before you apply anything you learn in your stories. 

4. Watch Documentaries

There’s a little bit of overlap with this one since documentaries can be found on youtube, but it is notable enough to draw attention to this type of video specifically. Documentaries can give you deeper insight into a topic than most youtube videos would, and can provide a lot of useful context and additional information. 

Plus, most major publishers have already fact-checked their content, so you can trust in the information they provide a little more readily than you could with youtube. Anyone can make a video about birds and post it on youtube, but it won’t have the same credibility as a documentary about birds from National Geographic. The downside to this option, however, is that documentaries are generally a lot longer than youtube videos and are more theatrically produced, so you might not get the information as quickly—even if the quality of the content is better. 

5. Read Everything

Reading is one of the best ways to learn, as I’m sure you know as a writer. With millions of books being published around the world each year, there are topics that cover just about everything you could ever want to know. There are educational books, textbooks, novels, comic books… and you could learn something from each of them, depending on the story you’re writing. 

If you’ve never written a romance before, but that’s part of the story you want to write, then the best way to learn about the genre as a whole is to read other romance novels. If you study how comic artists pace their storylines through the pages of their comic books, you could apply that to pacing and visualization in your own story. There’s so much information in books, that to overlook them as a tool for learning in the modern age is foolish.

6. People Watch

If dialogue is what you struggle with, simply go to a public place and listen to the conversations of people around you. Take notes by writing down everything you can (you can do this into your phone so you don’t look like a creep), and try to get a range of different types of conversation. 

If someone is yelling at a store clerk, take notes about the way the angry customer phrases things. If someone is talking to their spouse about the right vegetables to buy, keep tabs on how they interact with each other. If two people look like a couple, you can probably assume that they’re comfortable around each other, and would, therefore, speak to each other differently from how they would speak to strangers. When you are taking notes, try to keep the exact phrasing intact, and even format it to reflect the natural pauses and inflections of how these people speak. 

Of course, you can utilize this technique to research things besides just dialogue. You can get a feel for the way people stand and move, the way they gesture when they speak, and how they shift around when they are waiting in line. You can take notes of how people’s clothes move, how they smile, and how they behave when they think no one is looking. Of course, just be courteous to strangers, and don’t draw a lot of attention to yourself as you are doing this, since you may end up upsetting someone if you watch them too obviously. 

Taking Your Research to the Next Level

Once you have a foundation of knowledge, it’s time to delve deeper into the specific topics you need to learn. Most writers skip this part, and simply finish their story with the information they’ve skimmed online—and for some people that’s fine. Storytelling doesn’t always have to be uptight and professional. If you’re researching a character for a roleplay, a game, or for fan fiction, there’s really no need to continue your research past the introductory phase.

If you are writing a story that you intend to publish professionally, however, you really should go above and beyond what other writers are willing to do. If you put in the extra work, it’ll show in every expertly crafted and well-researched line. 

As a bonus, deeper research can also allow you to craft some truly impressive characters. If you want to learn how to apply some of these techniques to genius characters specifically, take a look at my other article: Simple Tips for Writing Genius Characters. In the meantime, here are the more in-depth techniques for researching for your story.

7. Conduct Interviews

One of the best ways to gather some authentic information is by getting it directly from the source. If you need to write a character who’s an oncologist, then interviewing a real medical doctor is going to get you the most accurate and useful information out there. If your story takes place in Scotland, but you’ve never been, then you could ask a person who lives there about the holidays, traditions, and landmarks. You could really capture the spirit of a place by listening to people describe what life is like there. If your character speaks English as a second language and you want some accurate quirks for portraying that in your story, you could ask people who have learned English later in life to use real examples instead of relying on tired stereotypes. 

Now, this is obviously easier said than done. If you’re like most people, you can’t claim to be friends with doctors or people all across the world. You aren’t always going to have the right people on hand to interview when you need them. However, you can use internet forums and communities to track down individuals that meet your specifications. Many people will be willing to help if you explain what the interview is for.

When you conduct an interview, start with several questions prepared ahead of time so you can gather all the information you need, but leave some time to simply talk to the individual about their experiences. And, as tempting as it might be to do otherwise, you should conduct the interview in person, on a call, or via video chat. Being able to hear the other person’s voice is going to give you a more authentic understanding of the topic they are discussing. 

8. Read scholarly publications

Reading up on scholarly publications can be really helpful in a lot of different situations. If you have a character that’s a scientist, skimming different science papers can give you ideas about formatting their dialogue and the ways they think about things. It can also be helpful for understanding the terms that your scientist character should be familiar with, along with some of the content itself. You could even have your character site similar kinds of studies in your story.

In addition to that, you could learn all about psychology, history, and a range of other subjects that you could use to enhance your characters and setting. Even if you don’t have anything specific to research, skimming different studies can give you ideas for characters and their hobbies, their environments, and their personal development. 

9. Take a class

If you really want to commit to learning something, one of the most hands-on ways to do that is with a class. Depending on what it is you need to research, this could just be a one-time class or a several weeks long program. For example, if you have a character in your novel that does pottery for a hobby, then you probably wouldn’t need to go more than once to get a solid grasp of the different terms and techniques. If you have a character that’s a professional chef, however, you are probably going to need to take a much longer class—or several different ones—to learn about the variety of things your character would have to know. 

10. Travel

Traveling obviously isn’t a good option for many people, but if you can manage it, you should absolutely go and visit the place in which your story is centered. If you want your characters to visit New York City, the only way you are going to be able to perfectly describe what that’s like is if you have experienced it for yourself. 

However, there are ways you can travel on a smaller scale. If you want to capture the feeling of a graveyard at dusk, then you should go visit one in your city. Graveyards are everywhere, and many places have a variety of different ones, like military graveyards, small family-owned graveyards, church graveyards, and large funeral homes. If you want to know how it feels to get lost in the woods, then go hiking (but try to not get lost for real). You can still learn by traveling to different places within your own city or state. It doesn’t have to be an expensive or overly time-consuming ordeal.

Take Notes to Reference Later

Regardless of how you decide to research for your story, you need to make sure that you take detailed, organized notes. Consolidate your notes from different places together, but keep similar topics grouped together to make them easier to find. No matter what, never throw anything away, even if you think you won’t need it. After all, it’s better to have too much information than not enough. And who knows, you may end up actually using those obscure facts or tidbits of knowledge in a character’s dialogue later in the story.