Cold flannels and one-liners
Last month I got wiped-out by a bout of shingles (hence the delay in posting here). Shingles is a strangely cheerful word for a vicious virus. It sounds more like the name of a seaside hotel (“Welcome to Shingles – relax, unwind, enjoy!”), or a little tearoom decorated with seashells and fishing nets on the edge of some Instagrammable cove.
The effects of the virus were not pretty. The skin around my face erupted, my eye swelled shut, the pain was a mix of road rash raw and pointy knife. All of this on one side of my head, which gave me serious Phantom of the Opera vibes.
I tried to distract myself from the discomfort by reading or watching television or listening to podcasts, but didn’t have the concentration. I resorted, instead, to the dopamine hit of social media reels. Probably not a great idea. Those advertising algorithms provided a fever dream of the life I could be leading - riding an electric motorbike on deserted country roads, finding pristine Scandanavian waterways to explore in my new inflatable kayak, creating healthy one-pot meals from a dangerous amount of legumes, telling the time on a watch made from recycled plastic fishing nets…
Who knew?
Ultimately, the only thing that really helped was not hours of scrolling, or painkillers, or skin creams, or fun-filled visits to the eye hospital. No, it was a concise, simple, and very effective tip: putting a cold compress on the site of the pain.
A damp flannel, fresh from the fridge, became my new best friend.
It also, randomly, planted the seed for this post. When we are in pain, we crave relief - some quick, easily accessible remedy to provide respite. Something similar happens when we are stuck on a story or a book. There’s no cheat codes for writing, you still have to endure the ‘pain’, but often there’s something clear-cut and efficient we can do to provide release or momentum. The equivalent of a cooling flannel on the brow.
Nobody writes, develops or edits a draft by consciously and laboriously dredging up all the writing advice they’ve ever received, and trying to hold it in their head all at once. For the most part, writers rely on simple but effective craft ideas that get ingrained (primarily by reading and analysing other writing). Those ingrained ideas form a subconscious mesh, allowing us to pour our draft stories through, filtering out what we don’t need.
So, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to share some of my soothing writing flannels, those simple insights I come back to time and again, when I feel stuck or a bit overwhelmed by the idea of having to work on a draft. These are no more than a line. I hope, in return, you might post in the comments below, sharing own one-liners.
Use contrasts and opposites
What often makes a piece of writing unique and readable is the way that the author uses contrasts or opposites. We as humans are hard-wired to notice contrasts. Sometimes this can be to take the narrative in fresh unexpected directions – what if a character does the opposite to what you think they would do? It can add surprise and depth to characterisation It can add tension to relationships.
Read the marvellous short story In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried, by Amy Hempel. This story is full of contrasts – between the personalities of the narrative character and her dying friend. Between the lightness of their conversation and the reality of the situation. Between the narrative character’s sense of duty and love and her desire to be anywhere but there, at her friend’s bedside.
Be specific
In the opening of the classic film Seven, we see Morgan Freeman’s character Somerset getting ready for work. He wears a neatly ironed shirt and carefully knots his tie, his equipment for the day is neatly laid out in a row on a table - a white handkerchief, a small square of wallpaper, his badge, his knife, and his gun. He picks a piece of lint from his jacket before putting it on. There is a metronome on the bedside table, a chess set in his lounge. Without a word we know he is precise, detail orientated, and smart in all the ways. These specific details are not overdone, they don’t take up much space, but they give us a host of information about the man.
(Also, notice the contrast used here too, after we see this character prepare for the day we immediately switch to a terrible, messy crime scene, right before we meet another contrast – Brad Pitt’s brash, ambitious young cop, desperate to make his mark).
Top and tail your story
So often, stories can be improved by deleting the opening and/or the ending. The first paragraph often needs to be banished because it is used as a step up to the story, or doesn’t contain the seeds of the story within it - that mix of distinctive voice, point-of-view, some idea of characterisation, plus a sense of setting and the seeds of the complications that drive the story.
The final paragraph often needs deleting because the writer just wants to make sure the reader ‘gets’ the story. Which leads me to the next point:
Trust your reader
A familiar one, but also always important to remember. I read so many stories which are pretty good, except the writer explains a little too much about emotions, or the situation, or what the theme of the story is. If you leave room for the reader by trusting they will ‘get’ what you infer, then you are also leaving room for their imagination to fill the gaps and have a better reading experience.
Use escalation to drive your narrative
Seems simple, but so often ignored. Escalation is the simplest version of the question: what if? It’s the further complication, the doubling down of jeopardy It is the way, potentially, to explore more surreal. Escalation doesn’t necessarily mean bigger drama, it just means more complication and harder choices. Check out this video from the author and editor Jacob Ross on the subject:
Work as hard on the ending, as you do on the beginning
This seems obvious, yet often, as an editor I encounter stories which begin well, then lose their zest and close disappointingly. Openings of stories are crucial to engaging the reader and inviting them to spend time in your fictive world. Endings, even those that don’t feel like endings, should deposit the reader back in the real world with a sense that something has changed. If you are struggling with the ending of a story, it’s often because the story itself needs more work to ‘earn’ a good ending.
Dialogue is not just a conversation
Dialogue is often as much about what’s not being said, as it is about the words being exchanged. There’s always a subtext, or some emotional element which lies under the surface…until it doesn’t. Unanswered questions, sudden shifts in topic, pauses and silences, repetition, are all key part of dialogue. The scene in Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams repeats ‘it’s not your fault’ to Matt Damon uses repetition to bring out the underlying emotion creates tension initially and then catharsis.
Cut back on ‘thinky’ verbs
“Deborah realised that…”
“Alex knew he had been….”
“Roisin understood she was…”
Use these thought verbs too much (especially at the beginnings of paragraphs) and you get writing that instructs too much. Sometimes, you need to imply what the character know, wants, realises, understands etc, rather than instruct the reader. It also allows room for doubt and inner debate, which deepens characterisation and introduces tension.
Try editing in strands
Many writers edit from start to finish, trying to improve the story across the board, and then start again on a fresh draft. That’s fine, but if it’s not quite working, then try Editing by strands to break up that process and give you a fresh approach to the story. One strand might be improving dialogue. Another for diction diction and syntax. Another for characterisation. And so on.
Those are some of my one-liner writing ideas. What are yours? Let me know by leaving a comment.
Thanks for the ‘cold flannels’ - many of which I first heard as words of wisdom whilst doing an MA in Creative Writing some years ago. Re cutting out ‘thinky verbs’, we were taught something similar and made to read a short story that utilised rhetorical questions to show characters’ inner thoughts - it’s a far more effective way of minimising psychic distance than telling us a character thought/asked herself/ etc.
I also had a flashback to MA days when you mentioned making the reader work to discover meaning - it’s far more satisfying to be presented with a box of jigsaw puzzle pieces and try to work out how they fit together than to be given a completed picture.
And I will definitely try ‘topping and tailing’ my short stories from now on - which possibly links to the previous point since removing the unnecessary padding at both ends of a story encourages a reader to work harder.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts: I’d forgotten how beneficial it is to discuss the craft with other writers.
That sounds horrible Ken, I hope you’re feeling better and it continues to fade.
As for the writing one-liner: every word should earn its place.
Particularly important in sparse flash of course, but even in a lyrical novel there’s a big difference between waffle and carefully chosen phrases.