•Wondering how to

write good fiction?

These four foundational
writing skills will
significantly improve
your writing craft and
fiction book.
 • I'm sure you’ve heard this word a
1. Strong lot, and this isn’t the post to go into
detail about structure. But to put it
Structure simply, structure is how the story
progresses and how its events are
organized. Great fiction has great
story structure. Look at any award-
winning bestseller or just an all-
around good story, and you will see
strong structure.
• Structure is where you decide what starts the story, what plot
points lead the protagonist to make the decisions they do, what
occurs that drives the characters, and what ultimately leads up to
the climax where everything comes to a head.
• To get used to working with structure, it's important to get into
the habit of thinking of a book idea in terms of structure, even
before starting a first draft.
• When a story idea occurs to you, instead of letting it sit as
a vague concept (e.g. MC goes on an adventure), try to
divide it into the key components that would make up a
story—why does MC go on this adventure? What prevents
this adventure from going well? What is the goal of the
adventure? How does MC change for the better or worse
after this adventure? That will help you sketch out the
character arc.
 • Your story, at the end of the day, is about someone.
• 2. Develop • There aren’t a lot of stories out there that aren’t about
a character or a cast of characters. But characters are
Characters tricky. You need a cast just big enough that every
necessary role in the story is filled, but not so many
and Emotions that you fling characters around like a box of spilled
beans, so many that readers can't keep character
names straight.
• In addition to that, your characters need to be
distinguishable from each other, having unique
reactions and emotions. If your readers can’t tell your
characters apart, then it’s not going to make for a very
fun read.
• A character often comes to mind as an image and a name. But the fact is, a
character, main character or otherwise, is so much more than that.
• When you imagine a character, try to think beyond the who and focus more on
the why of this person—this delves into character motivation.
• Why do they do what they do? What in their life has brought them to this
point? They're more than just a “happy person” or a “miserable miser.” What
makes this character happy or miserable?
• When someone wants to know how your day was, you might say “good” or
“bad,” and proceed to follow up what's good or bad about it.
 • Description provides the visual for your story. Anyone can
• 3. tell you what something looks like, but using description
correctly is actually quite difficult.
Description • It’s important to be aware of what needs to be described and
and Setting what doesn’t. An object important to the plot may deserve a
page of description, but a passerby on the street who isn’t
important to the story does not.
• The other part of this is that when you go about describing a
setting, every component you mention should have some
significance to the story. It's not merely about how much
description you need to give something important, but also
how much you focus on individual parts of it as well.
• 4. Dialogue • There is nothing more active in a story than talking. Dialogue and
interaction between characters brings the reader into the situation
and gets them involved. But boring, unnecessary dialogue pulls
them out just as quickly.
• No one wants to read two characters talking about nothing.
Dialogue showcases your characters’ personality as well, and bad
dialogue means bad characters, no matter how pretty their “golden
hair” and “emerald eyes” are.
• A useful habit to get into when writing scenes with dialogue is to
set a goal for the scene. Where do your characters start talking and
where do you want them to end up? How can you pair action with
dialogue?
4 Ways to Strengthen Your
Foundational Fiction Writing
Skills
1. Read books on writing

• There are a lot of books about writing. But I

am specifically referring, in this case, to
books that focus on these four skill areas.
• Look for books written by established fiction
authors. These are the people who speak from
experience and give practical, usable advice.
• Some people don't believe writing can be
taught. To those people, I ask:
• Would you fix a car without first consulting a
manual or taking a class?
• Or put together a shelf without instructions?
 We all love to read. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be writers. However,
reading to learn and reading for pleasure are two entirely different
focuses.

2. Read Most of the time, we read fiction to get lost in the story, to become
completely immersed and forget that what we’re doing is looking
fiction at words on paper. Many of us like to relax with Harry Potter or
chew our nails while reading Stephen King.
analytically
But to read analytically, we must fight that impulse. It's hard work,
but well worth it.

Rather than getting lost, we need to be aware throughout the story

and look at it from an objective point of view.
5 Ways to Read 1. Make note of things you like about the book and try to determine why
you like them and how you can replicate the same effect in your own

Analytically book.
2. Make note of things you didn’t like, determine why you didn’t like
(and Learn to them, and decide how you can avoid these things in your book.
3. Observe the order of events and how they lead up to the whole.
Write Better) 4. Take note of descriptions that are vivid and effective. It may even be
useful to copy these into a list somewhere for future reference.
5. Dissect the book and see how it fulfills each part of the storytelling
structure.
 • Short stories are incredibly important. A lot of writers who
3. Write short are used to writing long pieces have a hard time with short
stories stories.
• But short stories have enormous benefits. Here are three
reasons they're fantastic practice for writers:
1. They contain all the elements of structure and allow you to
see them all at once in the space of only a few pages.
2. They are a smaller commitment and less daunting to finish..
3. Every word counts in short stories, which is incredibly
helpful when you want to practice keeping your writing
tight.
 • Books. Plural.

4. Write books • The reason I say this is because many writers have this
dream of writing a book. There is a tendency to view this
book in your head as the end all, be all.
• But the reality, unfortunately, is that your first book is not
likely to be good, and that’s not your fault.
• How many people do you know who do a task perfectly
their first time?
• The more books you write, the better you’ll get at writing
them. Not only that, you will find that the second book is
easier to write, because you will have learned a lot from
that first book on your shelf.
 • You wake up with no memory of who you are,
except for a single name.
• Every day, a strange drawing appears in your
mailbox, and they get more and more disturbing.
Mystery • You receive a letter inviting you to a free
weekend getaway, and you have no idea who the
Prompts host is.
• Your father is keeping something strange in the
attic.
• A man throws an elaborate party in an attempt to
conceal a crime.
• You realize you’ve been sleepwalking every
night, and you have no idea what your sleeping
self has been up to.
 • 1. A sentence starts with a capital letter and
ends with a period/full stop, a question mark
or an exclamation mark.
20 Grammar • The fat cat sat on the mat.
Rules • Where do you live?
• 2.The order of a basic positive sentence is
Subject-Verb-Object. (Negative and question
sentences may have a different order.)
• John loves Mary.
• They were driving their car to Bangkok
• 3. Every sentence must have a subject and a
verb. An object is optional. Note that an
imperative sentence may have a verb only,
but the subject is understood.
• John teaches.
• John teaches English.
• Stop! (i.e. You stop!)
• 4. The
subject and verb must agree in number, that
is a singular subject needs a singular verb and
a plural subject needs a plural verb.
• John works in London.
• That monk eats once a day.
5. When two singular subjects are connected by or, use a
singular verb. The same is true for either/or and neither/nor.

John or Mary is coming tonight.

Either coffee or tea is fine.

Neither John nor Mary was late.

6. Adjectives usually come before a noun (except when a verb

separates the adjective from the noun).

I have a big dog.

She married a handsome Italian man.

7. When using two or more adjectives together, the usual
order is opinion-adjective + fact-adjective + noun.
(There are some additional rules for the order of fact
adjectives.)

I saw a nice French table.

8. Treat collective nouns (e.g. committee, company,

board of directors) as singular OR plural. In BrE a
collective noun is usually treated as plural, needing a
plural verb and pronoun. In AmE a collective noun is
often treated as singular, needing a singular verb and
pronoun.
The committee are having sandwiches for lunch.
Then they will go to London. (typically BrE)
9. The words its and it's are two different words with different meanings.

The dog has hurt its leg.

He says it's two o'clock.

10. The words your and you're are two different words with different
meanings.
Here is your coffee.

You're looking good.

11. The words there, their and they're are three different words with
different meanings.
There was nobody at the party.

I saw their new car.

•12. The contraction he's can mean he is OR he
has. Similarly, she's can mean she is OR she has,
and it's can mean it is OR it has, and John's can
mean John is OR John has.
•He is working
•He has finished.
•She is here.
•.
•13. The contraction he'd can mean he
had OR he would. Similarly, they'd can
mean they had OR they would.
•He had eaten when I arrived.
•He would eat more if possible.
•14. Spell a proper noun with an initial capital
letter. A proper noun is a "name" of something, for
example Josef, Mary, Russia, China, British
Broadcasting Corporation, English.
•We have written to Mary.
•Is China in Asia?
•Do you speak English?
•15. Spell proper adjectives with an initial capital
letter. Proper adjectives are made from proper
nouns, for example Germany → German, Orwell
→ Orwellian, Machiavelli → Machiavellian.
•London is an English town.
•16. Use the indefinite article a/an for countable nouns in
general. Use the definite article the for specific countable
nouns and all uncountable nouns.
•I saw a bird and a balloon in the sky. The bird was blue
and the balloon was yellow.
•He always saves some of the money that he earns.
•17. Use the indefinite article a with words beginning with
a consonant sound. Use the indefinite article an with
words beginning with a vowel sound. see When to Say a or
an
•a cat, a game of golf, a human endeavour, a Frenchman, a
university (you-ni-ver-si-ty)
•an apple, an easy job, an interesting story, an old man, an
umbrella, an honorable man (on-o-ra-ble)
•18. Use many or few with countable nouns. Use much/a lot
or little for uncountable nouns. see Quantifiers

•How many dollars do you have?

•How much money do you have?
•There are a few cars outside.
•There is little traffic on the roads.
•19. To show possession (who is the owner of something) use
an apostrophe + s for singular owners, and s + apostrophe for
plural owners.

•The boy's dog. (one boy)

•The boys' dog. (two or more boys)
•20. In general, use the active voice (Cats
eat fish) in preference to the passive voice
(Fish are eaten by cats).
•We use active in preference to passive.
•Active is used in preference to passive.
• (https://thewritepractice.com/author/remethgmail-com/, n.d.)

• https://thewritepractice.com/author/remethgmail-com/. (n.d.). How to Write Good Fiction: 4 Foundational Skills and How to Build Them.

Retrieved from https://thewritepractice.com/: https://thewritepractice.com/how-to-write-good-fiction /

• (20 Grammar Rules, n.d.)

• 20 Grammar Rules. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?

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