Writing Tip Tuesday

How to Kill a Story in 16 Easy Steps

Step 1: Start the story too early.


Step 2: Take too long to set up the story and introduce the central question.


Step 3: Add too much back story.


Step 4: Have an unclear central question (i.e., the reader isn’t sure what the story is about).


Step 5: Tell the story with narrative instead of showing it with action and dialogue.


Step 6: Have no turning points (i.e., the story moves from one scene to another in a straight line).


Step 7: Continue on too long after the climax.


Step 8: Have an undeveloped character with unclear (or no) motivation.


Step 9: Tell character traits, tell character feelings, tell setting (instead of showing).


Step 10: Make sure the character is not active in moving the story forward, is not instrumental in solving the problem, and does not grow or change by the end.


Step 11: Switch points of view.


Step 12: Add too much interior monologue.


Step 13: Add unnecessary words, sentences, paragraphs, scenes, characters.


Step 14: Repeat yourself.


Step 15: Explain yourself.


Step 16: Use too many dialogue tags, tags that explain (e.g., he apologized), tags that don’t denote speech (e.g., she sighed; he smiled), or tags with –ly adverbs (e.g., she said reluctantly).

Recycled from 11/6/2007