Where Normal Need Not Apply
A recent Twitter thread brought up problematic reader expectations with story endings. Can we find a balance between “fulfilling our story’s promise and our genre’s expectations” and avoiding a cliché ending?
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When faced with the many decisions of writing our story, the best choice is whatever tells the story we want to tell, but what does that mean? Let’s take a look at what storytelling really is and how we can improve our skills.
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Given reviews about too-abrupt endings, readers might want a sense of closure beyond what authors deliver. Should we use epilogues—or epilogue-like endings—to breach the gap?
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We often talk about the pros and cons of prologues, but epilogues can be good or bad as well. Let’s look at how epilogues differ from normal endings, what they can do, and what they shouldn’t do.
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Just as we have go-to favorite authors that we know we can depend on for delivering a certain type of story, readers are evaluating us for what we can deliver: What’s our promise to readers when they pick up one of our stories?
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We often have more ideas for stories than we actually write, and somehow, we choose and prioritize. Why might we not write a story idea that we’re passionate about—and is there anything we can do to overcome those reasons?
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In the writing world, we’ve probably heard the advice to create layers in our stories and characters. But the word layers can refer to many different aspects of writing, so let’s take a deeper look at one aspect of layering: character layers.
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We reveal our story through countless decisions in every scene, and we sometimes know which options seem right for our story. But other times, we might not be sure. In those cases, how do we decide which way to play out a scene?
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In the writing world, we often hear the advice to “show, don’t tell.” I’ve mentioned before that telling isn’t bad or something to be avoided at all costs, and a fantastic post by Cecilia Tan points out how the advice can actually be harmful.
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Many authors dream of working with books beyond just writing them and become editors, agents, librarians, or booksellers. In fact, Angela Quarles, my writing bestie, is opening a bookstore! And she’s looking for suggestions to make her genre- and writer-friendly shop among the best.
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