Epilogue Narrative Guide
by Gary Allen

The following is not intended to be an exhaustive guide to writing strong narrative, but it does provide hints and tips to help Epilogue writers avoid some of the common problems with submissions.

Use of Adverbs
Tense
POV
When to Use Dialogue
Making Dialogue Real
Dialogue in Context
Proof reading
Formatting

Use of Adverbs

An over reliance on adverbs can undermine your writing, and distract your readers. This is especially true for "ly" adverbs. It is a sign that the writer is trying to abbreviate the process of conjuring an image in the reader's mind. In fact, the result can be imprecise at best, and at worst, meaningless.

What does, "she walked slowly across the room" really mean? Does the writer intend to communicate that the character walked with trepidation, she ambled, wandered, minced, shuffled, limped - well you get the idea.

Furthermore, rather than telling your reader some abbreviated information, try showing them instead. Rather than telling them that your character was looking nervously down the corridor, show her "chewing her lip, as she peered into the darkness, her hands worrying the edge of the cloak".

As with all writing devices, adverbs have their place. This kind of abbreviated telling can be useful when it's important to keep the pace moving. However, overuse can end up undermining an otherwise strong piece, and runs the risk of distracting a reader.

One exercise before submitting a piece is to perform a "ly" search in your word processor. As a rule of thumb, you should try to limit yourself to no more than 1 such adverb for every few hundred words. Any more than that and you need to do some rewriting.

Next, go through and circle the other adverbs in your piece. Can you excuse them all on the basis of needing to move the pace along? If not, think about doing a bit more showing rather than telling.

Tense

The selection of tense in writing is a question of personal preference and subject matter. Whilst very few authors write in future tense, it is possible. Most write in present or past tense (with the great bulk writing in past tense).

The only rule - be consistent. If there is an intentional change in tense, this needs to be carefully flagged.

POV

Point of View refers to the narrative device through which a story is told. There is no one right or preferred POV. However, it is vital that a writer is aware of the various strengths and weaknesses of the options, and remains consistent throughout a piece.

First person means the narrator is an "I", who tells the story him or herself. If this is the case, remember that the narrator is not you - it's the character. There needs to be characterization in the selection of language and imagery.

The narrator possesses the knowledge and perspective of the character. This will limit what they can show and explain to the reader, and how they will interpret events.

One of the hardest descriptions for a first person perspective narrator is describing themselves. If this is not done carefully, it can sound artificial and self-conscious.

Second person is fairly unusual in modern fiction (though quite familiar to those of us who have role-played). In many ways it involves similar issues as first person - accept the "I" is substituted with a "you".

Third person omniscient. In this case, a disembodied "all knowing" narrator tells the story. They know all events, all thoughts and actions. Some third person omniscient narrators have a definite personality and are characters in their own rights. The reader is aware of the narrator's "voice".

Other third person omniscient narrators are almost invisible, and the reader has no sense that there is a narrator at all.

The unlimited knowledge of the narrator can present problems, especially in the case of speculative fiction. The decision of what to communicate to readers, when and how, can be very difficult. Many submissions to Epilogue are rejected because the piece contains large blocks of information delivered by an omniscient narrator. Whilst such a block of telling can be intellectually interesting, it does nothing for the pacing of a story or for the emotional engagement of a reader.

Third person limited. This POV shares some elements with third person omniscient, but the story is told from within a character. In this case, readers can only perceive and know things which are available to the character who is the narrative agent.

Because of the nature of this POV, a reader can not be told about knowing stares behind the character's back, the trap waiting to be sprung, the dagger at the character's back, or the magical forces gathering around them. This is because we are limited to the perceptions and knowledge of the narrative agent.

Some writers use varying degrees of distance or intimacy with their narrative agent. Once again this is a question of style and choice.

In some stories there may be more than one third person limited narrative agent. This means that the perspective changes through the piece to follow different agents (a film like Pulp Fiction would be a good example of such an approach). It is important that there is not excessive "head hopping" and that readers are given a clear indication that the perspective has changed. In the case of short stories, the number of agents should be kept to a minimum.

When to Use Dialogue

Good dialogue is actually about good description. When done right, it can provide your readers with information about the characters, their state of mind and emotions, and help progress the plot. If overused, it can be difficult to follow and very distracting.

To a certain extent, the decision of when to use dialogue, as opposed to describing what is said through narrative, is a question of personal style, the feel of the piece and the situation. However, unless it is done well, any extended exchange of dialogue breaks up the flow of a piece. It should be used sparingly, and for good reason.

Making Dialogue Real

One of the hardest elements of writing strong dialogue is making it sound real. In great dialogue, the reader should be able to tell the characters apart, know something of their emotional state, and be able to tell things about the characters without being told (a feel for their age, if they're educated, etc).

Whilst some writers have managed to write great works phonetically, it's not an approach which should be embarked upon lightly. Instead, cues can be provided in the selection of slang and phrasing. Some very careful selection of phonetic spelling can be very powerful, if y'all know what I mean.

It is very hard for dialogue to seem truthful when we're writing speech for someone very different from ourselves (e.g. a young writer, trying to write the dialogue of an ancient dragon mage).

Avoid overly poetic or descriptive passages - unless your character is a poet who spends their time commenting to complete strangers on the events around them. Whilst there might be a janitor who waxes lyrical on the storm which everyone can see (except the reader), you wouldn't expect everyone in an entire city to be poetic in stating the obvious. In fact, you would be surprised if there were too many people who were articulate.

The best trick with dialogue is to read it aloud and check whether it sounds real to your own ear.

Dialogue in Context

Most dialogue does not take place in a vacuum. Before our sci-fi writers email us - yes, we know some dialogue can take place in a vacuum <sigh>. However, remember people invariably do something else as they talk (polishing their sword as they speak about the coming battle, pausing in patting their dog's head as they're told of some unexpected attack).

Description with dialogue helps remind a reader of what's going on around the talking, can move the action along, and helps give us clues as to who is speaking.

Proof Reading

The submission of a piece of 5K or less words with more than two typographical errors is inexcusable. Before submitting to Epilogue - or any publication - a writer should second, third and then fourth read their piece. Any less than that demonstrates a lack of professionalism.

Don't risk an editor dismissing your excellent work because you have failed to do a proper check for errors.

The Epilogue Grammar Guide provides an excellent list of items which a writer should check before a piece is submitted to Epilogue.

Formatting

If you have written your submission in Microsoft Word, or you are resubmitting a previously rejected piece, you need to take special precautions.

Microsoft Word uses characters which do not convert well to html (sorry Bill, but it's true). It is best to save your document in plain text format (.txt), open using Notepad and then paste into the submission screen.

If you are resubmitting, you need to recheck your submission, because strange page breaks can occur if you have changed any of the breaks in your piece.

You should also double check and correct any html formatting (such as centering) you may have used in your submission.