Narrative Writing and Descriptive Writing

This section on Narrative Writing and Descriptive Writing - and the next one on Writing Dialogue - are all about using words to a professional standard.

All of the work up to now has been about planning and structuring your novel. From here on in, it is all about taking your "master plan" and translating it into beautiful language.

Partly, this language will take the form of dialogue. The next section is devoted to making the conversations in your novel as perfect as possible.

Mostly, though, the language will take the form of prose. Prose can be divided into two elements...

• Narration. Most of the writing you do will be of this variety, and you basically use it to tell your story: who does what to whom.
• Description. This is where you pause the narrative for a moment to describe a character's ripped leather jacket or the beautiful sunset.

Narrative & Descriptive Writing - The Articles

(You will find a brief overview of how to write well in my
Quick Guide to Writing With Style.)

The Elements of Fiction

This one is really a checklist of all the ingredients that a well-written chapter in a novel should contain. Read it before you start writing to make sure you don't leave out anything important.

Finding Your Writing Voice

Every writer of fiction has a unique voice - and yes, that includes you. (Although it has to be said that it will probably take you time to develop it.) The fatal mistake a lot of beginners make is to do the literary equivalent of putting on a "telephone voice." Don't fall into this trap.

Avoiding Purple Prose - The Importance of Writing Simply

And following on from that, here is an article about how not to put on a telephone voice. I have talked in many places about the "classic" mistakes of beginners, but overwritten, flowery prose (or purple prose) is probably the number one howler.

Prose Writing 101

This one deals with the "nuts and bolts" of how to write well. Get these eight things wrong and your narration and description will simply sound amateurish.

Writing Prose with Variety

Have you ever worked hard on a piece of writing and it still ended up sounding deathly dull? Monotony - or a lack of spice - might well be one of the reasons.

Using Details in Writing

This is probably one of the most important articles on the entire site. Without the ability to bring your writing to life with powerful details, your fiction will always remain - well, kind of on the dull side.

This article offers plenty of advice on the kind of details to look out for and how to use them. And in Writing Details: A Worked Example, I will pull all of the strands together and demonstrate how to use great details in your fiction with an example.

Descriptive Writing and the 5 Senses

There are two important things to remember here. First, your descriptive writing must be sensual - because you will fail to engage the reader if it isn't. Second, you need to evoke all of the senses in your writing - because if all of your descriptions are merely visual, your writing will lack dimension.

How to Write Prose Like a Poet

Writing like a poet basically means using figures of speech, the two most important of which are similes and metaphors.

Simile and Metaphor Examples

But it isn't enough merely to use the odd simile and metaphor in your descriptions - you need to use them well. This article shows you how.

Using Other Figures of Speech

And this article covers plenty of other figures of speech you might want to use, such as alliteration, cadence, and onomatopoeia.

Related Questions

Here are the questions readers have sent me in the Fiction Writing Q & A section related to descriptive and narrative writing...

• Avoiding Plagiarism
• A Question About Voice In Writing