This final module will continue discussing plot in stories by going over a variety of smaller themes that play into it.

Prose

Prose is another crucial device in writing and refining it to the best that it can be will definitely serve as a strong asset to your storytelling. Prose refers to written language outside of poetry. Prose can be described simply as the author's individual style of writing. While prose varies drastically from person to person, there are a few guidelines to refining prose to be more suited towards writing for an audience.

There are essentially two major camps of prose writing: Concise and Vivid. Concise focuses primarily on using simple and direct language to convey things clearly and efficiently. Vivid writing typically implores much more figurative and complex language in order to invoke precise imagery and subtextual meaning in a very sophisticated way. Most writing is somewhere along the spectrum between the two and it is up to the writer which direction they want to lean in. Personally, imagery isn't my strong suit so my style typically leans more heavily towards the concise side of prose, occasionally sprinkling in moments of high vividity to keep things interesting. For concise writing you want to implore direct, literal, and economic sentences that are straight to the point about what you want to convey. For more vivid writing you will want to use more complex diction, detailed imagery, metaphorical language and long flowing sentences with cadence.

Below is a list of advantages and drawbacks to each style.

Conscision

Pros

Lower barrier of entry due to ease of reading.

Economic writing leads to efficient word usage.

Clear simple sentences lead to better understanding and less ambiguity.

Easier to write in general.

Cons

Style lacks substance due to less subtext being conveyed.

Style is less interesting overall.

Imagery is less immersive.

Style has less intrigue due to information being conveyed clearly.

Vividity

Pros

Strong imagery leads to higher immersion.

Sophisticated language engages higher level readers.

Conveys more subtext, enhancing the story.

Style can be intriguing due to vague language.

Language is more interesting to read in general.

Cons

Style can be difficult to read due to complex diction.

Language can be ambiguous and unclear.

Over embellishments lead to inefficient writing in certain areas.

Higher barriers of entry due to complex diction.

Harder to write due to more techniques being implored.

Prose can often be a struggle for many new writers and it can be particularly daunting to do since there isn't a clear right or wrong way to do it. That being said, your prose does not have to be overly sophisticated in order for your story to be considered well-written, it just has to be good enough. My prose isn't exactly the strongest part of my writing, but it's simple and conveys what I need it to in a clear way and so it works for what I'm trying to write. Additionally, as it was stated in the prior manual, if you have an interesting story accompanied by good characterization, then your audience is likely not going to care as much about your prose as long as it's good enough.

As for writing, there are two major components that go into writing prose adequately: Is it logical and does it flow.

Sentence Structure

The first component of creating flow is in sentence structure. We'll start more broadly with how you structure your paragraphs.

The purpose of paragraphs are often to express a particular idea. Because of this, paragraphs are usually written with an end goal in mind. Paragraphs generally form the beats of a story and give it a sense of progression by facilitating its pace. When writing a paragraph you want to have a clear idea of what the purpose of that paragraph is. What is achieved by it? Generally, you want all of the sentences in the paragraph to be in line with the topic of the paragraph. If each of your sentences talk about things that are outside of the central idea of the paragraph, it will feel clunky, disjointed, and difficult to follow.

The topic of your sentences should also not switch abruptly in the middle of the paragraph. If your paragraph is talking about two different things then you should consider separating them into two different paragraphs or try to combine them by showing how they contribute to the same topic. Furthermore, if you have a lot of separate sentences that talk about various different things, try to show how they all connect to the central idea of the paragraph in order to consolidate them. When you do this your paragraphs will flow much better because all of the details will have a sense of direction.

The basic format of a paragraph is to have one opening sentence, three supporting sentences, and one concluding sentence, but you do not always have to follow this criteria. Your opening sentence should introduce the central idea that is being expanded on by the other sentences in the paragraph. Your supporting sentences will comprise the main content of the paragraph by giving it depth and detail. The concluding sentence should connect by showing the outcome of the previous sentences. Also keep in mind that your opening and concluding sentences are on the outside of your paragraphs, meaning that they will also act as the segues to the surrounding paragraphs. Your opening sentence should transition smoothly from the previous paragraph and your concluding sentence should transition into the next paragraph. Usually it helps to speak in reference to what happened in the previous paragraph during your opening sentence and your concluding sentence should allude to what will happen in the next paragraph. Connecting your paragraphs like this will definitely help with improving their flow but know that it is not always required, and if your paragraphs have vastly differing topics then you can also ease the transition between them by having a strong opening sentence to break the audience into the next topic.

It is also important to not let your paragraphs be too long or short. Using an extra long or extra short paragraph occasionally is okay, especially to add length variety to your story, but using either of them incorrectly can be detrimental. Short paragraphs when used one after another often feel disjointed and don't go anywhere whereas long paragraphs can feel lengthy and exhaustive without proper pacing. So when you feel that your paragraphs are too long, consider splitting them up to pace them out and if your paragraphs feel too short, consider combining them in order to improve the flow. Typically, when deciding how to allocate sentences in my paragraphs I consider whether the current sentence will create enough dramatic impact if it were the concluding sentence to that paragraph or if it would create an even bigger impact if it was used to support the concluding sentence of another paragraph.

Moving on from paragraph structure, let's talk about sentence structure. Just like with paragraph structure, sentences flow much better when you combine ideas. Typically single details can be conveyed using dependent clauses and those dependent clauses can then be consolidated into longer phrases using compound or complex sentences. Simple and short sentences are okay to use sparingly, but when used too frequently they come across as choppy and give off a feeling of starting and stopping. Simple and detached ideas can be consolidated using a semicolon if they wouldn't fit well together in a compound sentence. Fragments can also be used occasionally for dramatic effect when used in the right places, despite being grammatically incorrect. When combining ideas it is important to note that just like with paragraphs, sentences shouldn't run on for too long. You'll have to go off of your own feeling to determine when a sentence is too lengthy. A good solution to this is to use different types of sentences in a paragraph to break up any unnecessary repetition.

Tenses

Another element that will help you dodge any mistakes with prose is making sure that your verb tense is consistent throughout the story. The only two tenses that you'll have to worry about for the majority of your writing are present and past. So at the beginning of your story you will have to select one of them as your primary tense for the story and stick with that decision for the duration of the writing. You can use other tenses occasionally throughout your story but for 95 percent of the writing you'll have to stick with one of them. The majority of stories use past tense but if you want to use present to make the text more dynamic you can.

Cadence

One of the biggest contributors of prose is cadence. Cadence is a blanket term for the natural rhythm of the writing. Cadence is something that's difficult to explain as it is moreso something that you feel. You can analyze if your text has good cadence or not by reading it over and seeing if the tempo of the words feels consistent. The term cadence originates from when percussive beats were used as a guide for soldiers to march their feet to. So to get a feel for how cadence is used in writing, ask yourself if you can feel a natural rhythm to the words that you might move to.

On a more mechanical level, you can insert better cadence into your story by using pauses, syllables, repetition and rhyme. Assonance, alliteration, and consonance are also tools you can use to help establish a cadence to your sentences that roll nicely off of the tongue. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds, assonance for vowels, and alliteration for the repetition of the letter at the beginning of words.

Pacing

Pacing is the speed of events that occur during the narrative. Pacing is largely controlled by sentence and paragraph structure but it is also determined by how much is accomplished by each of the scenes and chapters on a larger scale. Slow pacing is typically used to emphasize the significance and weight of a single moment. Slow pacing can also be used to linger on the tension of events in order to build suspense. Typically slow pacing makes the payoffs of certain important moments in the narrative feel more powerful because of all of the time it took to reach those moments as well as all of the tension generated from it before resolution was reached. Fast pacing is often used to make a scene more engaging by increasing the amount of events occurring within a particular timeframe. It's also good for moments that don't require a lot of introspection and can be observed without thinking too hard on them.

There is also pacing in regards to the speed of events in relation to the overall narrative. There are two narrative styles that heavily contribute to this type of pacing: Narration and real time. Real time is just as it sounds. It's a type of writing that describes events in detail as they happen. Real time is good for going into depth on the details of significant scenes.

Narration is used to vaguely describe the series of events without going too deep into the minutia of it. Essentially it’s like providing a general overview of events. Narration is a good tool to use when certain events in a story wouldn’t contribute as much to the overall story if they were to be described in real time. It's very useful for filling in time gaps between scenes, for instance if your characters were traveling a long distance it may be more useful to describe what's happening in narration rather than real time. This is because if nothing significant happens along the journey from point A to point B, then it will hurt the pacing overall by not contributing anything to the plot.

Exposition

Exposition, as defined in the previous module, is information that is essential to understanding the context of a story, usually in relation to prior events or worldbuilding. Exposition is important when discussing prose because it can severely ruin the pacing and flow of the narrative if delivered clunkily. This happens because characters in a story often don't need to verbally explain the mechanics or history of the world they live in because it should be general knowledge. Doing this would essentially be the equivalent of a person in real life explaining how gravity works. It's already an aspect of life that most of us are familiar with. It also breaks immersion because the audience can typically tell when the writer is having a character say certain things for the sake of giving exposition. Another issue of clunky exposition is that it usually halts the flow of the narrative by characters needing to give context on certain things. Below is a list of methods that can be used to properly convey exposition.

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1.Convey the information through characters indirectly by using subtext so that it doesn't feel like the narrative is being interrupted as abruptly to give context.

2. Use 3rd person to have the narrator tell the information directly. Typically when the one expositing information isn't a character in the story it is usually acceptable.

3. Use it directly in the appropriate scenes. For instance if a mentor is training a character on how to use magic, this is an acceptable place to use exposition because the character in the world is as unaware about that aspect as the readers.

Diction

Diction is the author's word choice throughout the text. Your diction is entirely dependent on your vocabulary and another way to improve your prose is simply by expanding it. On average most people have a pretty big vocabulary however, they only use a small portion of it regularly causing them to be unfamiliar with using the rest of it. A bigger vocabulary means you'll have more words in your toolbox to utilize. Remember that writing is still an artistic medium. Just like how a painter must learn to produce certain shapes and use them in conjunction with each other to create full images, you must learn to utilize specific words in tandem with each other in order to create vivid events. As your vocabulary expands while you write you'll get a better feel for what words to use or not use in parts of your story.

It goes without saying that you'll need to choose the appropriate words to use in each sentence. This is what plays into the "is it logical" aspect of prose writing. You need to be as economic with your words as possible, regardless of whether you're using concision or vividity. You will need to use as few words as possible to convey the things you want to get across in the text. Basically you want to do the exact opposite of what most of us did on our essays in grade school, which was to add as many filler words as possible in order to reach the word count. Instead you want to cut the fat from the writing by using stronger language that gets across the same point using less words. You also want to be careful not to overuse the same word repeatedly within the same timeframe unless the word requires certain emphasis. Syntax plays a heavy role in this as well. It may not seem important, but the order of your words in a phrase will change the cadence, subtext and overall tone of the sentence, even if only in a minor way. Take the following example:

A: I need to go to the gym in order to train.

B: In order to train, I need to go to the gym.

The difference is very subtle and practically negligible but it still has an impact on the prose. The first statement puts an emphasis on going to the gym by putting it first in the sentence whereas the second sentence places the priority on the need to train. Not to mention the comma also changes the cadence of the sentence by adding in a pause. When deciding between syntax alternatives like this, look at the surrounding text of the paragraph and decide which configuration suits your needs the best.

Tone

Tone is the overall mood and attitude that is conveyed from the narrator through the writing. When constructing a narrative it is very important to use a tone that is compatible with the events of the story. Since the tone of the story can look like anything, we'll discuss a few broad types of it and which types of narratives they should be used in.

Neutral- This tone can best be described as objective and it is probably the most versatile tone since it can be easily inserted in most stories. However, the drawbacks of this tone is that it lacks any distinct character that could serve to enhance the feel of the narrative. Neutral is best used when you don't want to detract from the inherent feeling of events or when you don't want to influence how a reader interprets the events of the story. It's typically able to give off a raw, unfiltered feeling to what's happening currently in the narrative.

Campy- This word is usually used to describe tones that are cheery, light-hearted, upbeat, or quirky. Usually it's used for comedies or simply for stories that aren't meant to feel serious.

Gritty- Going in the opposite direction from Campy, on the other end of the spectrum is Gritty. Gritty is often synonymous with dark. It's used in more realistic stories that convey bitter events and themes.

Moody- This tone is often used in dramas particularly teen dramas to convey the deep, personal and often melancholic feelings of characters in the story.

Crude- This tone is usually used in somewhat gritty stories or also in raunchy comedies. It often uses sarcastic, blunt, cynical, derogatory, and graphic language to give a raw and standoff-ish feel to the story.

Light- Striking the balance between Neutral and Campy, this tone is usually used for stories that are less serious but not enough to be considered goofy or humorous. It's useful for light dramas and other stories that aren't meant to feel deep. However, like neutral, this tone also suffers from not being very distinct despite its versatility.

Serious- Serious strikes the balance between Neutral and Gritty. Usually it's for stories that are more realistic but not necessarily dark or crude. Like Moody, it's typically used for dramas in order to convey sincerity.

Poetic- Similar to Moody, this tone is often very artistic and uses vivid and expressive language. Use this tone for conveying strong and passionate emotion.

Whimsical- This tone is used to instill a feeling of wonder and potentiality into the audience. It is often used in fantasy settings to convey a sense of exploration and adventure but can also be used in stories with a younger audience to give a feeling of excitement.

Mysterious- Often this tone utilizes vague and ambiguous language along with slower pacing to create curiosity or suspense. It's often used in thrillers or horror films but can be used for other stories that contain dark themes and imagery.

Sophisticated- Sophisticated is a tone that is formal and often elegant. Similar to Poetic, it often uses vivid prose while also taking on either a serious or neutral attitude to convey itself. Typically used for theme-centric stories.

It is also important to know that different tones can also be used at different places in the narrative when they are appropriate for a wider range of styles. Tones can also be blended or juggled to create interesting moods and atmospheres in the story.

Perception

There are five types of perspectives in storytelling and you are likely familiar with most of them. When choosing a point of view for your story it is important to choose which one is more appropriate for the tone of your narrative.

1st Person- Relays information directly from the one experiencing it. It is better for giving a more subjective account of an event from a certain perspective. It is good for providing a more intimate experience of the story and how its events directly impact a certain character. It's also the easiest perspective to convey tone with.

2nd Person- Relays information directly onto another individual. Typically used in more interactive storytelling experiences such as the "Choose your own adventure" stories or in video games. It differs from first person in that first person invites the audience to experience the events of the narrative WITH the character whereas second person aims to project the experience of the character directly INTO the audience. Use this perspective for stories that you want to convey directly to the audience.

3rd person- Relays information indirectly from an observer outside of the story. Often used to tell a story from a more objective point of view. It can come in three different flavors.

Objective- Can only relay information that is outside of a character's thoughts and feelings. Is often used to give a completely impartial perspective on a situation. It is comparable to a camera looking onto the scene. The tone is similar to that of a found footage film. It creates a barrier of separation between the audience and the characters which can give a degree of mystery as the audience tries to imagine what's going on in the character's heads.

Limited- Probably the most commonly used perspective. The observer can relay the internal information from a single character at a time. Typically used to provide an objective tone for the story while maintaining focus on a single perspective. Limited perspectives can change from one character to another between chapters or sub-chapters in a story.

Omniscient- Probably the most versatile, but also the most difficult perspective to use. The omniscient observer can see into the minds of all characters in the story simultaneously. It combines the impartiality of objective with the internal knowledge of limited. Unlike limited, omniscient can change perspectives at any time in the story. Omniscient grants access to various different perspectives on a story however, the drawback of this is that the story can feel muddled and inconsistent when changing suddenly from one perspective to another. It's useful for stories with a large cast of characters that interact frequently. Use omniscient perspective to show how the characters' actions affect one another and the different perspectives that characters have in relation to one another.

Derivative Stories

When writing a story one has to consider how it can be made to be successful. When considering this it's important to know that a story doesn't have to be unique in order to have commercial success, it just needs to be distinct or appeal very strongly to a particular audience. Many stories that are criticized today are often considered to be "generic", "unoriginal", or "derivative". While this is a fair criticism to make, it is also important to understand that just like a story doesn't need to be unique to be successful it also doesn't need to be unique or original in order to be considered good. If you feel that your story is too derivative or generic, there are two major methods to enhancing its quality.

The first of these qualities is what I call Deviation. Essentially it's the process of establishing a cliche on the front end and then deviating from it on the back end. This technique is widely referred to as subversion, but I use the word Deviation in a more general sense to refer to any time the plot purposefully deviates from the standard path. When crafting a subversion it isn't about doing the unexpected to create shock, it's about doing the less expected. More general Deviations are a bit easier to use because they simply have to veer off the path after an expectation is created and it doesn't necessarily have to be done for the sake of shock value. For instance, a well known trope is when two characters accidentally stumble and end up on top of each other, then look at each other awkwardly as tension builds and then immediately push each other away. A way to create a Deviation from that would be to bring no attention to the fact that both characters are on top of each other and to simply have them separate normally.

Deviation is typically refreshing because it creates relief and shock value in the audience when they think they can anticipate what's going to happen. Writers like Rian Johnson and George R.R. Martin are often famous for using this technique. However there is a major drawback to this style. The main drawback of this style is that it relies heavily on shock value and in the process might not create anything substantive at all. It can also come off as arrogant or pretentious if it's obvious that you're using a subversion or Deviation just for the sake of trying to be different. Shows like Invincible however, are great at doing Deviations right. Every single subversion in that show is not done just for the sake of being tongue and cheek. Every subversion adds substance and meaning to the storytelling.

The second way to enhance the story is to use what I call Translation. This technique can be used in a vast variety of ways but the primary focus of it is to enhance a story by adding depth and significance to it in order to "level it up". Sometimes I describe this and Deviation as Vertical and Horizontal integration respectively. The main concept behind Translation is quality not novelty. Take ice cream for instance. If I was to give you a bowl of extremely high quality vanilla ice cream, you probably wouldn't care that it's an extremely common flavor (unless you were lactose intolerant or just really, really hate the taste of vanilla.) because you would simply enjoy that it was well made. The same goes with writing a story. You can make the most copy-and-paste, generic story that ticks every single trope box but if it's well executed and the story beats are well pronounced, most people won't care, even if the story is technically derivative on paper.

However there is a true reason as to why I call it Translation. When I was practicing the technique at first I figured that if I wanted to make the reader understand the depth behind certain things I would have to engage with them directly. At the time, I didn't know how to describe what it was that I was trying to do, but now I'm more aware of the more official terms of it. If the "text" refers to simply everything that happens on the surface of the story, and "subtext" is referring to the deeper abstract meaning conveyed by the text, then the "metatext" is referring to the components of the story that pertain to the audience outside of the story. This in essence, is where the term "Translation" comes from. The translation of the experience within the story, to the reader. In simple terms, the techniques that go into the craftsmanship of the story are made to reflect the experiences that are occuring in the story.

An example of translation can be found in video games. In the game Dark Souls, your character is inflicted with undeath meaning that everytime they die they resurrect from the previous checkpoint and if they die too many times, they lose their minds through a process known as Hollowing. When the character dies the level is also reset and so the player is forced to repeat the level over and over again. This can lead to massive frustration and often leads to the player quitting the game. This frustration from the insanity of having to repeat the level, mirrors what's happening within the game with the character going insane as they Hollow and thus this "translates" the experience onto the player. Likewise in the game Bioshock Infinite, when a certain character leaves your party it is not only impactful when it happens in the narrative but also for the player as well because this character has the ability to resurrect your character whenever you die and so when that character leaves, it makes the game harder. The experience of the characters within the game is reflected by the experience of the player outside of the game.

Overall it's a difficult thing to do but some metatextual techniques are easy to use and in fact are regularly utilized in storytelling. "Breaking the fourth wall" for example is a metatextual technique because the story shifts its focus from the narrative and makes it about the audience. Political commentary in a story is also a more subtle form of storytelling on the metatextual level because the story is acting as a direct message to the audience about the nature of the world. Even a story's tone is technically a metatextual technique because tone is derived from the author's diction and subtext in order to generate an overall mood, but this mood is not as present within the story itself, the characters can't perceive the author's tone because tone is simply a byproduct of the text.

Another simpler way to use Translation is to simply add vast amounts of subtext to the components of the plot instead of using metatext. Essentially the aim of Translation is to "level up" all of the elements in a story. This is where the terms Horizontal and Vertical integration come from in reference to Deviation and Translation. If Deviation is the process of branching out from the norm, then Translation is taking the norm and elevating it to a more advanced level. Both techniques are viable for enhancing a story.

Consistency

The final section of this manual will cover consistency in writing. Consistency refers to how well the story remains true to its worldbuilding, characters, and plot functionality. Consistency is probably the most controversial subject in writing so I figured I'd include it. There are two main forms of inconsistencies in stories: Plot Holes and Contrivances. Plot holes are essentially errors that undermine a story by being detrimental to its functionality. Usually plot holes come in the form of characters making ill-informed decisions or worldbuilding rules being violated. In simple terms, a plot hole is simply anything that happens in the story that doesn't make logical sense. Probably the most famous plot hole in cinema history is in Lord of the Rings (spoilers if you haven't seen it.) where the eagles come in at the last moment to save the heroes from the volcano. The inconsistency of this comes from the fact that the entire journey that spanned across all three movies/books could have been bypassed if Frodo and his company had taken the eagles to Mordor in the first place. While there are several defenses for this argument if we are to accept it as true it is something that actively harms the film. Plot holes on their own don't completely ruin a film unless they are numerous or massive and the impact that a plot hole has on a story is ultimately subjective. However it's very important to include this portion in the manual because in the modern day, plot holes are pointed out much more frequently and if a book has enough of them they can ruin your work.

Despite this, plot holes aren't something to completely panic about. Generally it's extremely difficult not to find at least one plot hole in a piece of art and despite the heightened awareness of plot holes in media nowadays, most viewers will only point them out if they don't enjoy the story in general. But if the story is good and has a lot to offer, most viewers will simply ignore most inconsistencies. That being said, it's still important to write a story as consistently as possible. When scanning you work for any potential plot holes ask yourself: Are what the characters doing make sense from a narrative perspective? Are all of the rules of my world being followed? Are characters acting in the way that they normally would?

The second type of inconsistency is called a contrivance, and in my opinion they're a bigger thing to worry about than plot holes. Contrivances are events that happen in the story solely to trigger other events to happen. Technically speaking, contrivances aren't really inconsistencies but they are still negative aspects of a story that you want to avoid as often as you can. They are largely a problem because they break immersion in a story because the audience is very aware that the reason why an event happened is because the writer specifically wanted it to happen in order to progress the story forward. This in turn affects the audience's ability to suspend disbelief. An example of a contrivance can be when a character has to overcome an obstacle and another character tells them that they have a one-percent chance of success yet they still succeed or if a character has to defuse a bomb and they manage to do it when there's only one second left on the clock. These events aren’t really plot holes since it’s technically possible for them to happen, but they are still nonetheless cheap and convenient ways of artificially raising the tension. The reason I would argue that these are worse than plot holes is because it makes the entire story feel manufactured and its events orchestrated rather than organic. Plot holes on the other hand can often be dismissed as honest errors, however that’s simply my opinion. Neither of them are good to include and so you should try your absolute best to steer clear of them.

This concludes the writing manual. I hope that you found something useful from the modules as you continue to write.