Narrative summary is possibly the most flexible of the various ways of presenting a story. Narrative summary doesn’t necessarily tie the author down to chronological order, the way dialog and dramatization do, nor does it require a focus on one particular aspect of the story, as description
Read more →Transitions are a pain. It is very likely that I feel this way because I hate doing transitions, and the ones I write nearly always feel clunky to me. Some of the clunkiness is probably just my dislike of the process of producing one attaching itself to the
Read more →Infodumps – those long passages of narrative summary that provide a huge wodge of background or plot development or characterization – have an undeservedly bad reputation among would-be writers. The allergy to infodumps is a bit of stylistic advice which is largely peddled to beginning writers, but
Read more →When a writer sets out to tell a story, she has a lot of choices to make, and every time she makes one, it influences what options are still available for the other choices. In some cases, one decision can completely eliminate all other options. Take the
Read more →
