Self-Editing Your Manuscript Series: How to Line Edit Your Manuscript

Line editing, by nature, requires the structure of your story to be solid and complete. Finish developmental edits first. It is not an efficient use of your time to perfect sentences that you may not need later. We’ve just wrapped up our series on developmental edits of short fiction. You can find them here:

6 Elements of Characterization
How to Assess Your Plot
How to Assess Your Pacing
How to Assess Your World-building
How to Revitalize Your Setting

We defined line editing in our initial post as working on a sentence level. It is digging into your craft to improve the clarity and reception of your manuscript.

These are some of the many questions line editing will ask:

Do the sentences make sense to a reader?

Did you use the right word for that scene’s mood, or does a different one have more impact? Do you need to make sure that you didn’t use overly long sentences in your fast-paced fight scene?

Everyone has a different writing and editing process. Some elements may cross over, but at the end of the day, use whatever method works for you. Let’s start off with some format elements that can benefit your line editing before we dive deeper into the process.

Change the format:

Some may suggest you even print the story out. However, if you are looking for zero cost to low budget ways to elevate your writing you can work around that.

If you have been looking at your manuscript on the standard 8.5in x 11in page that comes with word documents, and 12pt Times New Roman font, it may become difficult for you to start seeing any mistakes. This is specifically because the writer of the manuscript can go story-blind.

Story blindness is when you miss obvious mistakes, or subtle ones, in your own writing because you are overexposed to the material.

Change it up.

Use a smaller page size. Example: 5 in x 8 in.

Use a different font. Georgia, Courier New, even the oft-dreaded Comic Sans can make the manuscript look new.

It may also help to change the page color and font color. 

For example:

When I write I use white font on a black page.

When I edit I use black font on a white page.

Read the story aloud:

This age-old advice comes in handy for a reason. When the material is read to you by another person or a device, you can’t add in the tonal changes to help push your meaning to the reader. And while you may miss a double word, the computer will read it it aloud. Notice the previous sentence used it twice.

If you aren’t comfortable reading aloud or listening to the computer speakers blaring your manuscript, there are options–and they come with headphones.

Microsoft Word and Google Docs both have text-to-speech features that can read your MS to you. There are also online programs such as naturalreaders.com, and ttsreader.com

Common Mistakes (and how to fix them):

While the above is a way to see your manuscript differently, let’s look at some line editing examples and how you can apply that to your own work.

Please note: This list will not be comprehensive. You may or may not come across these depending on the strengths and weaknesses of your own manuscript.

Too many words:

For example, this is the process of using entirely too many words than the manuscript calls for at any given time, in a way that can cause run-ons.

Cut the fluff.

How many ways can you find to rewrite the above sentence? There is no one right or best answer. Use the version that best suits your manuscript and *relevant era.

*Relevant era: Some line editors and copy editors will take the setting into account when marking up a manuscript. Certain time periods have slightly different grammar rules for authenticity.

Pronouns for clarity:

You may have come across a sentence like the following either in your own work or in another’s.

He plunged the stake into his chest, and he screamed as black smoke poured from his gaping maw.

Bare with the lack of imagination, but can you see how the reader may not understand that there is both a vampire and a vampire hunter in this sentence?

Bonus! Did you also notice that this sentence needed to be split? There is simply too much happening…

Hunter plunged the stake into the vampire’s chest. The creature screamed, black smoke poured from his gaping maw.

Gerunds and when they hinder plausibility:

While the advice may be met with staunch resistance, let me show you what editors mean when they say gerunds and past participle phrases.

Action scenes, or when speed is necessary, the past participle phrase seems an easy answer to make things happen quickly.

This is, by far, one of the most common errors I see when working with authors.

Jumping up, he ran down the stairs and flipped the breaker.

Our brains are hardwired to see these as chronological events. First this, then that. However, that is not what has been written. In the above example, the character is running down the stairs while jumping up–something that the author clearly intended to be two separate actions.

A quick fix:

He ran down the stairs and flipped the breaker.

Unless the character’s jumping is relevant, it’s not an important word. The reader will know that in order to run down the stairs he stood in some manner. Keeping or cutting the phrase in the sentence is a matter of personal taste.

Make sure that, if you are using a gerund (an -ing word) to start a sentence, it makes sense.

The right emotional word:

The character and their emotions are how a reader experiences a story. It is true that you can show emotions by describing the way a character feels, and how it affects their body and mind, but you also have to make sure that you have utilized your narration properly. This is not to say that you should be using telling words like “angry,” “happy,” or “sad.” The right emotional word means, to ask yourself “Is this the best descriptor word for my character’s, or my scene’s mood?”.

Which of the following examples sounds more like the creature is dangerous?

Example 1:

Snow crunched under the weight of the creature as he trudged through the ice-laden briar patch. Wispy flakes of magic fell from his scaled skin and swirled in the air like campfire embers.

Example 2:

Snow crunched under the weight of the creature as he trudged through the iced-over thicket. Wispy flakes of magic fell from his scaled skin and swirled in the air like little fairy lights.

We covered some common problems and solutions for line editing, however, you may have a more specific manuscript problem to address. Do you have any specific line editing questions that we missed? Drop them in the comments below.

Next Self-Editing Topic:

Next time we’ll continue our dive into prose and cover the big one everyone thinks about when they hear editing. How do you copy edit your own work?

Self-Editing Series: How to Revitalize Your Setting

Self-Editing Your Manuscript: Revitalizing Your Setting

The setting should be as essential to the manuscript as the character and plot. Without the setting, your characters would meander around an abyss of nothing with no discernible life, just floating people and an occasional pop of something like a dagger in their hands, or even a staircase. Have you noticed that that happens as you read back over your manuscript?

The setting should be intrinsic to the world. If characters appear in a place, there needs to be a reason for it, and if the characters are in a setting they need to interact with it. Otherwise, they have become floating bodies in an abyss of white with nothing to help ground the readers in their reality. The setting is more than what we see with our eyes. It should involve all the senses: sight, touch, sound, taste, and scent. Word count is precious in short fiction; do not let the eyes have it all.

Note: if your character is missing any of these senses, simply skip over it and think of how you can use the others to better let your reader imagine the world as the characters are experiencing it.

As you work through your manuscript, also ask yourself if you are using the right words to describe your character’s senses. A character’s personality and emotion will heavily impact the words used to describe the setting. Imagine coming upon a pond in the forest. That little bit of water is going to have a different description to a group of friends on a nature hike than it would to stranded travelers who are lost and dehydrated. In the same way, it would be different to someone who is afraid of the water as opposed to someone who loves it. The character(s) should help you define the word choice for setting your scenes.

Sight:

This is one not often forgotten when working through a manuscript. Many writers find themselves hacking away the words ‘see’, ‘saw’, and ‘seen’ like thorny brambles around a golden treasure chest. You are free to simply describe things that the characters are observing because it is your description that lets us follow the camera pan of their eyes.

Did you have a quick blanket-style description to start the scene before you focused on the more intricate details? This establishing shot is a quick view to place the main elements of your story so that the reader understands what to imagine. This makes it less confusing when your characters start interacting, as you’ve already established certain things were present.

Touch:

It can be easy to forget to include what things feel like when writing, as most of the feeling goes into the emotions. Rough bark on a tree scratching against someone’s hand, or how hot or cold something is as it touches the skin. That blade may be cold when pressed to your character’s neck by an enemy, or it could still be warm with the previous victim’s blood.

Did you make sure that your character was able to touch/feel things in the physical world of their setting? Patting someone on a shoulder in congratulations will feel different if they’ve freshly bathed, or they’ve just been covered in monster entrails.

This is not always another character, but their surroundings. If they do not interact with where they are, it may be time to consider why they are even in that particular place.

Sound:

Whether hearing the trilling of monsters closing in, the groaning of another character, a babbling brook, or the scratch of pencils on paper… Sound is just another way to breathe more life and immersion into your character’s world.

A note on filters. Heard and hear, while valid at times, do not always need to be used to describe the sound in one’s fiction. Simply being told that a piano played softly, or nails scratched against wood is more than enough for the reader.

Did you incorporate sound into your manuscript, in more than just dialogue?

Taste:

This is where food is always fun to play with in a manuscript, but with short fiction, what if you don’t have a scene where the characters eat? You don’t have to add those kinds of scenes just to fulfill this sensory element.

Maybe you have a character just wanting to get through the story so they can have a delectable piece of pie that they may or may not get by the end. If a character has their face pushed into the dirt, dirt has a taste. The grainy texture can make them overly aware of their tongue, and even bring bile–which also has a taste–to their mouth. Blood can leave a metallic flavor, and there’s a powdery substance on gloves.

Have you included taste in your manuscript, either through action or memory?

Scent:

Much like with taste, it’s not hard to want to toss in every delicious sounding word to describe the way food smells, or even someone–sandalwood is quite popular. However, scent goes beyond food and even people when it comes to setting a scene.

An unused and dusty room can smell musty, or if there is something old and decaying in the cellar, rot and death can choke your character. It is also easy to flip the script, as they say, and include appealing scents, a common one being the cleanliness of lemon, or freshly baked cookies, and have it at war with the scene–more disturbing for your reader.

Bonus Setting Tip: Weather.

One of the easiest ways to set the mood and even speak for a story’s theme is the weather. By nature, humans–readers–take cues from their surroundings. Dark clouds gathering in the distance can be an omen, and a storm with a torrential downpour when you finally enact your vengeance can be a visual theme of washing the old version of the character away. In that same way, your character can have a happy, shining day, with no clouds and blue sky when something tragic happens–the weather helps the irony of the concept of a perfect day hit a bit harder.

How have you used the weather to set the mood in your manuscript? You may notice that you placed everything organically. If you didn’t, consider ways to pull more depth of the world up for the reader. Is there an interesting way to play with the weather of your setting to make the story mood have more impact?

Next Self-Editing Topic:

Next time we’ll start diving into your prose. How can you line edit your own work?

Self-Editing Series: How to Assess World-building

Self-Editing Your Manuscript: How to Assess World-building in short fiction

When most writers hear the term world-building, the first thing that generally comes to mind are sprawling epics, i.e., A Song of Ice and Fire or The Wheel of Time. However, world-building applies to any type of fiction, even contemporary pieces.

Magic and royalty are just as important as knowing how to ride a subway and how an elevator works in others.

Suspension of disbelief is how well you have suspended, portrayed, and consumed the reader with your story. Do they accept the well-written world and its characters as they are, or have small things snuck into the manuscript that makes them pause within their reading and tilt their heads, questioning “but why?”

This is especially true when writing fantastical fiction with supernatural or paranormal elements where the reader needs to accept the implausible as plausible.

Not everyone believes in ghosts, but in your story they need to be real.

Not everyone believes in magic, but in your story it should be as much the truth as breathing.

For the theme, it is perfectly fine to give the reader a reason to think, a thing to dwell on long after the story has ended. That is valid and intentional. A writer should never want the reader to question if something was necessary to include. Questioning the intention can break the suspension of disbelief or seem outright illogical.

These inconsistencies with world-building can make it look as though the writer didn’t quite have the grasp on their world and their characters.

Real World World-building:

Notice, this was not titled Contemporary World-building, and that’s because our world spans so many things and time periods. It is making sure that you aren’t using a type of car before it was made. It is writing real-world places based on actual maps, or even creating a fictional town and remembering where you put city hall.

For example, your 1920s mafia will not have cell phones. If your character is ever on the phone, you will need to know how early landlines and rotary phones work.

What if you have a character with a snake bite and want to inject them with antivenom? The story should take place from the late 1890s to the present day. There are some exceptions, as present-day may not have access to everything. For example, a dystopian short story may have characters that don’t have access to anti-venom.

If your characters have traveled in your manuscript, to help keep your world-building consistent with your Real World stories, you can use basic tools like Google Maps to physically visit places you may not have access to.

If you are editing a form of a historical piece, it can help to jot down relevant notes on a Google Doc, Word file, or even in a physical notebook so that you can keep to the facts of the time. If you are a plotter, someone who writes things down to varying degrees beforehand, you might do the research before you write. However, a panster, someone who likes the freedom to just write as it comes to them, then jotting down this information can be targeted research after the draft has made it onto paper.

Whatever era you have written in, research is going to be your best friend, and if you aren’t entirely sure how to flesh out this research, reach out to fellow writers. The #writingcommunity on Twitter is fabulously supportive!

Secondary World World-Building:

This is most likely what you think of with world-building. Creating an entire world from scratch, or loosely based on our own, is what many fantasy authors love to do. The religion, the culture, the people… events, days of the week, and maybe a touch of conlanging (creating a new language).

Short fiction, unlike those sprawling epic sagas mentioned above, doesn’t have the time to build up the world to the same degree and dive into all the details. While you can still have a beautifully thought out world, sometimes the little details you can slip into longer pieces don’t have a place in your story.

Any secondary world-building detail needs to be as precise as the other elements, completely owned by the characters and the world without leaving unexplained sections. If the reader has to question the inclusion of any part of the story, particularly with short fiction, then you have not held their suspension of disbelief.

• Was (this element) necessary to this particular story?

Fantasy is a particular beast on its own, given that the worlds can be entirely made up, and with short fiction we may only explore the smallest parts of it at a time.

It may help you keep your world consistent and be extra fun for your future readers if you dabble in map-making. However, you do not have to be a cartographer to put together a basic map (especially if it’s just for you). You can find easy-to-use tools here at inkarnate, which will let you work as small as a city/town. As a bonus, they have both a free and paid version based on your needs.

https://inkarnate.com/

Helpful Tip!
Even if you only have one planned story in a particular secondary world, it never hurts to write down the world-building information either before you’ve penned the story, or after, so that you can revisit it without making mistakes on your own creation.

Magical Systems (if applicable):

In fantasy worlds, be it on our earth or a secondary one, you may have a magical system in place. Whether your character actually casts spells or uses more intuitive skills, there are some rules it would benefit your manuscript for you to know. The best part about those rules is that you create them.

Magic aspects come in many forms and are sometimes spiritual or energy-based. To see the vast differences in magical systems, compare the differences and similarities in Naruto and their chakra energy and Dragon Ball Z’s chi. You can also compare the differences and similarities in Elise Kova’s Air Awakens series and the TV show Avatar the Last Airbender.

The rules that you created for your character’s magic system should answer some very basic questions:

• What can they do with their abilities?
• What supplies/feeds their ability?
• What can’t they do with their abilities?
• Does this differ from person to person, or is it universal?

When you go through your manuscript to self-edit, make sure that you worked these answers in when applicable. For example, did you have your character using multiple high-energy types of magic and forget to add in the corresponding consequence? Shortness of breath, feeling dizzy or potentially needing to rework a battle so that they had the ability for their climactic hit to the antagonist. Understanding your magic system can help you figure out if you’ve created realistic magic, or if you’ve got Mary Sue/Gary Stu magic running around in a *god-mod mode.

*god-mod mode for anyone unfamiliar with the terminology is when you have essentially removed all consequences and obstacles from your character and they have no true opposition. This is the opposite of what readers want. Readers want someone to cheer for, someone whose journey they are excited to see, because they actually have something to overcome, unlike a god-mod mode character.

Bonus Tip on World-building:
Remember, if it hurts your writer’s heart to cut aspects of world-building that you put so much thought into, you are allowed to write another story in that world where that aspect of the world-building is more relevant to the story! You have that freedom. Go forth and create!

Next Week’s Topic:

We’ll dive into the setting and discuss how your self-edits can create a more immersive experience for future readers!

Self-Editing Series: How to Assess Pacing

Pacing is an important part of a functioning manuscript.

Good prose, great characters, even a working plot can all be in place, but if the story is rushed or too slow… readers will lose attention.

There are two ways to check the pacing of your story. To simplify the process, we are going to use the terms Macro Pacing for the large scale pacing on the manuscript as a whole unit and Micro Pacing for the smaller scale page level edits.

---

NOTE: Part of today’s self-editing topic requires familiarity with plotting techniques that are heavily used in the process for outliners. However, checking the pacing of your novel does not require you to have one. It merely requires the manuscript.

For your convenience, we have provided worksheets that will make this process easier. You will find them below the next section.

---

Macro Pacing: 

Do you know where the First Pillar of your story should fall? The Midpoint? And what in the world are pinch points?

It is true that some writers don’t like feeling like their story must fit into a ‘write by numbers’ formula, but this is a guide. It’s meant to help you. It does not exist to stifle your creativity.

For example: If you have Critique Partners or Beta Readers telling you that your story is dragging, or moving so fast they simply couldn’t keep up…etc. the structure is the special key to fix that!

These points mainly apply to writers who are using general narrative formats. While there are many, let’s focus on the most popular style guide for short stories (and western fiction in general): Three-Act Structure. (As a graphic you can save for your referencing ease.)

You can use the above points to check your manuscript’s pacing by applying a few percentages. These percentages are not made up but found from delving into screen-writing and literature to mark the perfect places for the above-mentioned points/moments to fall for impactful stories. There is math involved, but I promise you it’s just plugging stuff into a formula, getting the answer, and then scrolling (if you are on a digital device) through your manuscript.

Act One is the first 25%.

Act Two is 26%-75%.

Act Three is 75%-100%

To check your pacing, simply plug your overall page count (or word count) into the following formula.

If my short story is fifteen pages long, and I need to check that my Act One ends in the proper place, all I have to do is the following:

OverallCount x 0.25 = End of Act One

15 x 0.25 = 3.75

That means my Act One should conclude, meaning that I have everything set up and ready to roll into the next act, on/around page 4 of the manuscript.

If by page 4 everything is set up and my two main points are in place, then I know that Act One’s pacing is good. However, if there is an issue, then I will know what needs my attention.

If the section is too long, I can search back over the elements to see if I have included any superfluous information.

If the section is too short, then I will know that I need to make sure that I have included all necessary information.

---

Here are the worksheets we have created to make this process easier for you:

pacing-assessment-calculator-sheetDownload

---

Micro Pacing:

In what we are going to call “micro pacing,” we are going to cover a few “small” aspects of a manuscript that can hinder the pacing. Hooks, sentence length, and point-of-view.

Hooks:

Tasty points of intrigue that are intended to have the reader salivating. They are unable to put the story down because they have to know what comes next. These are not things that are contrived or made up; they should already be in the story.

Think of these visually. Have you noticed in TV shows that something intentionally vague or surprising happens before the commercial rolls in? Scriptwriters do this on purpose! You should too. Control your readers’ experiences by planting hooks before your scene breaks. If your scene has ended on a note that feels like a present with a prettily tied bow, the manuscript should be ending.

Dwight Swain, an Oklahoma Writing Hall of Fame inductee, screenwriting documentary pioneer, and author explained the format of a scene as follows: Goal, conflict, disaster.

Goal: The character wants something.

Conflict: Something is pushing back against the character from achieving their goal.

Disaster: Something happens to stop the character from achieving their goal.

Disaster does not mean an apocalypse, or death, per se, but it does mean that if the story hasn’t been resolved the character should still have a need.

Ex: Maybe the protagonists succeeded in getting the silver to stop the werewolves, but all that was available was a silver dagger…and now they’ve got to decide who is going to be the lamb that allows the others a chance at escape.

Without a hook, the pacing, tension, and the story overall can drag because the character wasn’t in a state of ‘need’. If your character is always supplied with everything easily and has no hard choices to make, go back to the lesson on Character to better assess the internal and external conflict.

Bonus Tip:
Giving your story a hook does NOT mean that you should be giving the story over-maxed conflict. There are definitely times that a character should be allowed to breathe, or else, your story may come across as angsty and melodramatic.

Sentence Length:

Beware of purple prose, or excessive detail, where you can wax on a bit too long of the seemingly more poetic aspects of your story. Even if more dramatic language might be serviceable in a particular scene, try to contain it. Use it wisely. The writer can easily, and subconsciously, drag on with consecutive long sentences, and these run-ons can slow the pacing down because they simply take forever to read.

In other words, use varying lengths of sentences, not just long, drug out one. Short sentences are okay; short paragraphs are also a nice way to break up consecutive long ones. By varying your sentence length, you create unique pacing and keep reader interest.

The details may seem pretty, but tightening a story can be one of the hardest parts next to actually writing it. Do you need that adjective, adverb, prepositional phrase? Your pacing of the events themselves may be spot on if you cut unnecessary words, which in turn can create varying lengths of sentences – sometimes, quickening the pace where, otherwise, it was too slow.

Point of view:

How can Point of View hinder your pacing? Easily. It’s actually a concept known as ‘navel gazing’. With this pace-hindering element, the manuscript spends too much time in the narrator’s head and thoughts and feelings.

It is easiest to do this in certain deep POVs such as Third Limited, or First.

If you are using a deep POV, make sure each thought and feeling is necessary and fits with the cause and effect, or the action and reaction of the story. If the internal narration does not advance the plot, cut it.

It is also possible to do the exact opposite of this and forget to include enough detail on the character’s thoughts/feelings to rationalize why they are making certain decisions. This lack of detail can lead to a story that reads as plot-plot-plot with no emotional pull to keep your readers grounded in the story.

---

Here is a worksheet we have created to help you work through the macro and micro pacing elements in your manuscript.

pacing-assessment-for-short-storiesDownload

---

What’s the Next Topic?

World-building is not just for long epics. It’s for any story you write – in any genre. Place, which is setting and thus world, should have an impact on your characters. However, putting too much (or too little!) can be detrimental to the success of your story. We’ll be covering how to make sure that you haven’t put too many details in your descriptions while ensuring you’ve included enough. See you next week!

Psychological Realism and the Art of Knowing

I have saved talking about one of THE DARK SIRE’s favorite genres, Psychological Realism, for last, partly because I consider it one of the most difficult genres in which to write.  The genre focuses on the mental processes of the characters, which includes their inner thoughts, feelings, motives and behavior.  In other words, to write in this genre, you have to know people, really know people – and delve deep into characterization. 

Unlike the genres of Fantasy, Horror, or the Gothic, this genre literally deals with how people react to everyday life.  Now, their reactions are predicated on the psychological make up of who they are, which is why a good Psychological Realism writer has to be a student of human nature.  The writer needs to show not only what the characters do but also explain why they are taking those actions.  When you examine Crime and Punishment by the god-father of the genre, Fydor Dostoevsky, you meet characters who are engaged in distasteful and illegal acts motivated by their desperate financial situations.  Dostoevsky uses their motivations to examine the conditions of poverty. 

American writers took a slightly different tack with this genre.  They began to examine the question of the duality of a man’s nature.  Melville has a superlative chapter in Moby Dick on this topic:  Is Ahab, Ahab?  It was a question that even the Native Americans of the Northwest explored with their masks and totems.  Are we really who we think we are or is our external persona merely the mask for our real inner personality?  Other American authors continued with this theme.  The works of Henry James, Arthur Miller and Edith Warton look at the inner workings of their characters and the duality of their motivations.

Therefore the thing that makes Psychological Realism novels different is that their plot revolves around the emotional aspect of the story. The PR novel is internal. It deals with the perceptions of your characters. Is the character disturbed in some way? How does the character perceive reality? Does their emotions get in the way of their perception or does it dictate their perception?

When writing a PR story, you have to create strong characters who have strong emotional issues. Remember, most of the action is going to take place in your characters’ heads. The emphasis in this kind of story is not so much on action as it is on turmoil. You will have to create your suspense in unpredictable ways. This leads to major plot twists. Is one of your characters an unreliable narrator and if so, why? Why does your villain do what he or she or it does? Why does your protagonist respond in the way he, she, or it does? To write a good PR story, you have to be a student of human nature. You have to understand peoples’ flaws and how those flaws make them react.

Here are some things to consider to create a strong PS story:

Characterization. When writing a PR story, you have to create strong characters who have strong emotional issues. Remember, most of the action is going to take place in your characters’ heads. The emphasis in this kind of story is not so much on action as it is on turmoil. You will have to create your suspense in unpredictable ways. This leads to major plot twists. Is one of your characters an unreliable narrator and if so, why? Why does your villain do what he or she or it does? Why does your protagonist respond in the way he, she, or it does? To write a good PR story, you have to be a student of human nature. You have to understand peoples’ flaws and how those flaws make them react.

To understand your character, think of their family structure, who their parents are, what they and their family do for a living. How old are they? What schooling have they had? What struggles have they braved? What relationships have they experience? Married, divorced, kids? Do they like or hate their daily life? What do they do to relax? Simply put: Get to know what your character’s favorite things are, what they like and dislike, and what their deepest, darkest secrets are. Build a character that could live and breathe in the real world – even if their world is fantasy. Meaning: The character, be they hero or villain, should be 3-dimensional and alive, someone readers can relate to and connect with. To do this, you, as the author, need to know every bit about the characters you create.

Inner dialogue. If the character’s thought are to be revealed, inner dialogue is key. Yes, your character can convey their thoughts aloud, but, more often than not, he or she will express them though inner thought – which is called “inner dialogue.” This type of dialogue is written in italics to differentiate the story (action, description) from dialogue. When a reader reads inner dialogue, they need to understand the character’s thoughts. An example of this is:

Sheila runs and never looks back, tears lining her cheeks. Why am I running? I should be standing my ground! Shoving the backs of her hands into her eyes as if to command the rivers to cease, she plants her feet and halts. Her body lunges forward before it whips back, knees tight, core engaged. Enough! I’m not running anymore. It stops here, right here. If not now, then when? She gulps in a lung-full of crisp air and wipes the remnants of wetness from her cheeks. With a shallow sigh, she pauses for a brief moment, only to turn around and walk back the way she came.

Character focused. As the above states, think of your story as being character focused. The story is the character’s motivations, the character’s emotions, the character’s wants and desires. What drives the character? How is the story going to advance on the character’s goals? What will they encounter based on their drive, emotional pull, and flaws? Instead of being story-driven, with a lot of action, your PR story will be character-driven, which is why PR is classed as literary fiction rather than genre fiction. Keep in mind what your character wants, what they’re going through, what they are struggling with emotionally and psychologically. And make the story wrapped securely around the complexity of their human nature.

Explanation and motivation. Your character has to have motivation and a reason for why they are doing what they are… and your reader needs to understand that reasoning. That means you have to explain the reason, answering the magical question of “why.” Though you can explain the reason through other storytelling devices, the most natural way of doing so is through inner dialogue. For example:

“Why are you being so difficult, Sarah?!”

Rubbing her fingers together, Sarah gazed out over her glasses with half-open eyes. Like you don’t know. Last time we met, you demanded I give in to your whim, do what you say or else. And now that you’re not in charge, you expect me to be kind, benevolent, caring. Well, today’s the day you learn humility, Madeleine.

“Company policy is all. You understand. Surely you’d follow protocol if you were in my position.”

Just remember: You should not explain everything all at once. Instead, sprinkle in the explanation throughout the story so that your characterization builds from beginning to end. The reader will continue to learn about your characters and their complexities, making the read all the more sweeter.

Complexity. And speaking of complexities, because the PR story is built on characterization, not action, you should be thinking of your story in layers, like an onion. Once you peel back the surface or superficial aspects of the story – what starts the story, the inciting action, you need to slowly peel back the other layers of the story through exploration of the deeper character traits, motivations, and setbacks. Once the reader knows about the desires of a character, they need to slowly get to know the reasons behind those desires; this is where and why complexities are born, a must in PR. Nothing should be “as is seems” or predictable, and your character can’t be one-dimensional in that they have no depth of character. Thus, the story must then weave together to create complex situations, struggles, near misses, and triumphs. In this way, story then takes center stage to put your characterization to work.

Planning. Psychological Realism requires planning. Though some may be successful at writing a PS story in pantser or planter style, many writers will find planning more suitable for this subgenre due to its required complexities. Creating outlines of chapters, linking plots through notecards, and completing character charts are all ways to help design a complex story that interweaves story, character, and plot beautifully. Use the tools that best help you create the necessary planning you need for your story. You can manually create the tools (documents, notecards, outlines) or use storytelling apps and software (Google: storytelling tools for creative writing).

---

Since PR is more difficult than other subgenres, I’ve put together some prompts to help you build your skills – and confidence!

Prompt 1: Pick a character flaw and give it to a character (be sure to name the character!). Then create an every day scene; maybe a first date, a conversation with a boss, or a fight with a neighbor. Think of the location, too, say at the library, at the office, or in the park. Now, write the scene focusing on the flaw in two different ways: predictable and unpredictable. What’s the difference between the two scenes? What made the character act unpredictably? How did the flaw help create depth? How much did you need to know the character in order to create the scene? How much deeper do you need to go in order to bring in more complexity?

Prompt 2: Outline the above scene. What are the main points of plot, subpoints? How does plot inform the story? What connections do you see within the scene, between character? Now, create a whole new scene, outlining it first – before writing it. Find ways to connect the scene, story, and characters to create a compelling scene. Once you have an outline you’re happy with, dripping with complexity, write the scene using the outline as your guide.

Prompt 3: Create a character profile by using either the Gotham or Marcel Proust Character Questionnaire. Type your answers in a document or write your answers in a notebook. Ponder the questions before you decide on the final answer. Then, when finished, write a paragraph describing your character. What is the person like?

Prompt 4: Using the character profile, write the plot of a scene that would use the character’s motivations and emotions to progress the story. What does your character want/need? How will they get it? What will stop them? Then, write notes on how you will explain the reasons behind the character’s choices. Now, write the scene, using your notes and planned storytelling devices.

---

It may be difficult, be I know you can write psychological realism stories! If you’d like some feedback or help in practicing the above, leave a comment for me. I’d be glad to help.

And, if you have a story, poem, or screenplay in this genre, please consider submitting it to THE DARK SIRE.   We would love to read your work, which includes artwork that holds the essence of the psychological and emotional. To submit, visit darksiremag.com/submissions.html.

Writing Short Fiction Horror

So you’ve just put down THE DARK SIRE Issue 7, and you were enthralled by David Gibbs’ story Devil’s Acre or Kolby Diaz’s Rattling or one of the trilogy poems by S. M. Cook, and now you are inspired to write a horror story of your own.  Good for you.  TDS is behind you 100%.  It is our fervent hope that our stories not only entertain you but that they will also inspire you to try your creative hand.

But where do you begin?  Horror is a unique genre.  It is one that inspires intense feelings of fear, shock, or disgust.  But not everyone is afraid of the same thing, or shocked by the same thing, or feels disgust by the same thing.  In other words, it is not a genre that appeals to everyone.  However, that said, there are primal fears that are fundamental to the human animal, as a whole.  As a writer, you have to search yourself to discover what basic fears you and your contemporaries have and use those phobias as the basis for your horror story.

Take Edgar Allen Poe, for example.  Written over a century ago, his stories retain their power to haunt us because he played on the fundamental fear of people not being what they seem.  Shirley Jackson, in The Haunting of Hill House, builds on Poe’s fear about people not being what they seem by adding a house that seems to have a malevolent intent for those lured inside it.  In Pet Sematary, Stephen King capitalizes on the simple concept of a place where buried things come back to life… sort of.  In Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury rides the carousel of peoples’ fear of losing the natural order of their lives.

Written in different centuries by authors who were incredibly different from each other, these stories all have several things in common that make them great horror stories:  They all have innocent characters with whom the readers can identify while operating on the premise that bad things happen to good people.  Each story preys on what the author feels to be their readers’ common phobias.  There is something sinister about each fear, and those authors take full advantage of that.

Steps to writing a good horror short story:

1.  When writing horror, first start with setting, taking specific care to create a solid, believable location. Ernest Hemingway once said that if an author can get his readers to believe in the place in which the story occurs, they will then believe everything that happens in that location.  This is completely true with horror.  Location, location, location. Sell the location to your readers and they will shiver at whatever terror you unveil, be it psychological fear, gross-out horror, or bone-chilling dread. Establishing the location at the beginning is key, of course, but does not mean just stating the location (e.g., New York City; Hyde Park, 1969; a dark basement). More importantly, use descriptive language to paint a picture for the mind’s eye of the reader. Just enough information will let the reader create a vivid image of the location on their own. Guide your reader through well-crafted suggestions (i.e., smell of flowers, a chill of wet dirt pressing down… could all indicate being buried alive when crafted correctly). Location can be sprinkled in throughout the story with location markers such as these that enhance the story’s premise. Location, then, becomes an integral part of the story and thus works with the unfolding of the narrative. When your readers feel like they are inside the setting and experience the location for themselves, they will feel the terror first-hand.

2.  Make your protagonist’s stakes high.  Will your story be one of life or death for the hero?  For the hero’s loved one?  For the hero’s town?  The higher the stakes, the more evil the villain needs to be; keep the two forces balanced so you don’t have a weak or over-inflated villain.  A good horror story is all about the characters: the hero trying to achieve a goal and the villain trying to thwart the hero’s plan. And remember, the villain doesn’t need to be a person, but can be weather, insanity, animal, self, disease, or monster. So how does the villain conflict with the hero and why is there conflict to begin with? How will the conflict create tension in the story? And finally, how will the protagonist overcome the antagonist while the stakes remain at their fullest intensity?

3.  Avoid cliché.  As the author, you need to balance reality with whatever is going bump in the night in your story.  The hardest thing you will probably come across is coming up with a new angle for your horror story and avoiding trite rehashing of stories that have already been told.  Old stories can be told with new twists.  It’s your job as an author to create them.  With editors reading hundreds of submissions per month, they see a plethora of stories that use the same cliches repeatedly, to the extent of boredom. How many times must editor’s read a character falling when running away or a character being knocked unconscious only to wake up tied and oblivious to their new location? These are cliches that writers should avoid. Instead, think outside the box and ask yourself what you can do to change things up. How can your character react differently? How can they turn the tables? How else can you switch the scene? What other scenarios, actions, dialogue or settings can be created to turn the normal, boring, overused cliché on its ear? The answer is easier said than done: Do the opposite.  By doing the opposite of what is expected, you break the cliché and thus write “in the new.” If you can do that, you’ll get the right kind of attention from readers – and editors.

4.  Point of view.  Who is telling the story?  Choosing the right point of view for your story allows the reader to get into the mindset of what you are trying to achieve.  If you want your reader to be an observer and shocked by the things that are happening, you might choose the third person omniscient point of view.  As a writer, the third person omniscient point of view allows you to enter the minds of all your characters to reveal what they are thinking, their motivations, their hopes and fears… of both your heroes and your villains. Don’t want your narrator to know all? Simply use third person limited, which means that the narrator only knows what has already been experienced – not all.  Or, you could tell the story through the eyes of just one of your characters, through the first person point of view.  If you use first person, you can only reveal what that particular character is thinking and feeling – a personal account.  For instance, a story told through the eyes of the victim can only express the victim’s hopes and fears triggered by what the villain is doing, though it could be totally opposite to the villain’s real intentions, which would have to be revealed through some kind of communication.  First persona and third person limited point of view are limited in nature because they can only reveal what the narrator has experienced or is experiencing; yet, the third person omniscient is unlimited due to the narrator knowing all. Though the omniscient point of view allows the author to express what ALL the characters are experiencing and whether or not they are aware of how everyone else in the story is reacting, it’s not always the best to choose. So which point of view should you use? Think of the characters you’ve created and the story you want to tell. Then consider what the reader needs to know. A story that is written in first person will be a close account story, personal, and great for a bird’s eye view of the main character’s thoughts, feelings, moods, and action. If a more distanced approach is needed, then try third person. The best advice, however, is to try them all to see which one feels better when read aloud.

5. To Twist or not to twist.  The trick with a plot twist is to avoid the cliché. You know, the person you thought was dead isn’t; the monster isn’t a monster at all; the victim is really the killer.  All of these were great plot twists WHEN THEY WERE FIRST USED.  But now they have been used ad nauseum.  To recreate the old into something new, you must think outside the box – again. What isn’t expected that can happen? What hasn’t been done a million times? A correctly written plot twist, especially at the end, is awe-inspiring and hits your reader in the chest. It’s what keeps the story fresh in the reader’s mind long after they have finished the story. But then again, maybe your story doesn’t need a twist.  Maybe your story flows well to an expected and anticipated feel-good conclusion.  Readers love when they know more than the characters and see the hero’s plans falling into place. A twist isn’t always needed to fulfill a reader’s thirst because we all cheer when the hero overcomes all the insurmountable odds the villain has placed in his or her path and succeeds in fulfilling the quest nonetheless.  Whichever you choose, be sure to end with an impact on the reader. There’s nothing worse then a weak ending that will disappoint the reader’s expectation. Remember: The best stories are the ones that leave a lasting impression.

6. Storytelling technique.  A horror story is still just that… a story.  Never forget that.  The drama, the horror, the darkness are all part of the story, so don’t let them overpower your characters’ wants and needs.  Your readers should feel empathy for your characters to give them a reason to continue the reading journey.  It is your job, then, to balance the drama and the horror with realism, suspense, and belief to guarantee that your readers remain engaged and entertained to the very end. This means that story takes precedence. Don’t get caught up in so much exposition that the story stalls – or worse yet, stops. Instead, keep the story in mind at all times and KEEP IT MOVING.

So now all you have to do is write… right?  Believe me when I say that it’s easier said than done.  But if there is a story in you, let it come out.  Don’t be afraid to sit at the keyboard and type away or pick up that old fashioned pen or pencil and scratch away until your fingers get sore.  No one (especially those of us here as THE DARK SIRE) ever said that writing was easy.  It isn’t.  It’s work.  But it can be very rewarding work.  Every author puts their heart and soul into the things they write.  That might sound like a cliché, but it’s true and more than just metaphor.  Your heart beats at around 72 beats per minute.  It might take you hours, days, or even weeks to write a good story and get it ready to send out to a magazine.  How many times has your heart beaten during that process?  Those aren’t just words on a page.  They are the embodiment of your heart beats.  We know – because we’ve been there ourselves.  So get to work, and write your hearts out!

---

Practicing the six tips above will help you master short fiction horror writing. Here are a couple of application prompts to get you thinking outside the box.

Prompt 1:  A secondary character is running away from the villain.  Brainstorm at least three ways that the character gets away without the stereotypical run and fall and scream method.

Prompt 2:  Write 2-3 paragraphs in a haunted house, where someone is haunted without using a ghost/spirit/or some kind of otherworldly being.

Prompt 3:  Brainstorm 3 ways to invoke terror/horror in someone who is confronted with a common, everyday object. 

Prompt 4:  Using dialog only, convey one person’s horror of something to another person.  Make the second person as terrorized as the first.

Prompt 5:  Write 2-3 paragraphs of a scene with the main character in first person point of view. Then, rewrite the exact same scene in third person limited point of view. Now, rewrite the scene again but in third person omniscient. Read each aloud to see the difference in feeling, mood, and tone.  Which point of view is best for your next story?

Let’s build a supportive writing community.
Share your brainstorming and paragraph work in a comment.

---

When you have a horror short story ready for publication, we want to read it!
Read our submission guidelines and then submit your work via our website.