Believability is the Key to Good Fiction

If it’s not believable, it doesn’t belong in a short story or a novel. This concept doesn’t apply in creative non-fiction, because no matter how bizarre, facts are facts. About the only exceptions occur in science fiction and fantasy, whose readers will swallow just about anything for the story. After all, fantasy doesn’t exist except in the reader’s imagination and science fiction doesn’t yet exist.

But in regular fiction, a story’s world can be shattered when an action, even if it’s impossible, becomes unbelievable. It stops readers dead in their tracks. And it can destroy the trust they put in the writer of the story.

There’s an acceptance on the part of fantasy and science fiction readers that just doesn’t exist in other types of fiction. Readers begin reading a short story or novel expecting life in the story to be similar to real life. And while quirky things can happen in the real world, those same incidences become magnified in fiction because the rest of the world isn’t there to balance them.

All writers, fiction or non-fiction, focus on certain actions to tell a story. They ignore all other things going on at the same time because they’re just not relevant. That focus is what leads the reader through the story.

Readers approach stories wanting to believe them. They have both the intention and desire to enter a story in which everything that happens, within the narrative world that governs that story, is believable. As a writer, your goal isn’t to convince readers to suspend their disbeliefs, but rather to give them what they want by continually sustaining their belief in the story.

In the fantasy novel, Weave World, by Clive Barker, an Oriental carpet comes alive as its threads unravel to produce a world of living beings living within it. Unbelievable, yes, but plausible in this fantasy about a world of witches and warlocks and mysterious happenings.

The distinction isn’t just a matter of semantics when it comes to believability. It’s a matter of understanding the mindset and expectations of your readers. Readers want to immerse themselves in deep belief. As a writer, you need to respect them enough to keep that belief alive throughout the story.

Consistency must coexist along with believability. Once you establish an implausible concept or action, you must follow through to the end of the story. Then it, too, becomes believable. That’s exactly what Clive Barker did in Weave World.

All else being equal, as soon as readers stop believing your story, they’ll stop caring about it. It’s important to know what any character would naturally do in an implausible situation. The main character in Weave World accidentally falls onto the rug and for a fleeting moment sees life. That’s how the story begins. In the end, he jumps into the woven world of the rug and experiences chaos as it begins to unravel.

Remember, as soon as your characters act in ways that aren’t believable, either in reference to their characterizations or to the story’s progression, the reader loses faith in your ability to tell the story.

So when something that’s unbelievable or odd happens, don’t be afraid to let your character notice and respond.

If a character acts in an unbelievable way, you’ll need to give your reader a reason why. Always give your readers something believable—or something better. If you don’t, you must satisfy them with a twist or a moment of story escalation that satisfies them more than they ever expected.

The Power of Cause and Effect

Cause and effect is the most powerful tool you can use as both a writer of creative non-fiction or fiction. While in the former fact dictates what happens next because it actually happened, in the latter it’s up to you, the writer, to figure out what happens next.

One of the best places to see the bad side of cause and effect is on T.V. Here, writers face a number of challenges—time restrictions, actor availability, and budget. One of the classic snafues of cause and effect was in the primetime drama “Dallas.” Patrick Duffy gets killed off when a problem arises with his contract and then miraculously comes back to life after it’s settled by saying he dreamed it all. T.V. writers are notorious for killing off characters who have contract disputes.

You can see one of the worst uses of cause and effect in the sci-fi drama “Stargate Universe.” Unlike it’s parent series, “Stargate SG-1,” which told its story in a smooth flowing way, this series jumps around so much that it becomes hard to follow as the episodes unfold. Add to that the lack of plausibility of some of the events, and you end up with a mishmash of comings and goings that even a diehard novel reader would find hard to endure.

Everything in a story must be caused by the action or event that precedes it. That’s a fact. If you start playing with flashbacks and flash forwards, you better make damn sure that what you write is clear to the reader. And while that seems like an obvious statement, you’d be surprised how paying closer attention to cause and effect can improve your writing.

Whether you pursue creative non-fiction or fiction, your main goal should be to ensure that your reader is always emotionally present in the story—that is, you want them to empathize with your main character throughout. But when you force readers to guess why something happened or didn’t happen, even for just a split second, it causes them to intellectually disengage and distances them from the story. Rather than remaining present alongside the characters, they’ll begin to analyze or question the progression of the plot. In the process, they lose their place in the progression of things. This is exactly what happens in all episodes of Stargate Universe. .

When a reader tells you that he or she couldn’t put a book down, usually it’s because everything in the story followed logically. Stories that move forward naturally, cause to effect, keep the reader engrossed and flipping pages. If you fail to do this, it can confuse readers, kill the pace and show your weaknesses as a writer.

Let’s say you’re writing a short story in which the bad guy is chasing your lead character.

    Fumbling with the latch, he managed to lock the door because he knew the killer  would soon be on the other side.

Writing is that way, you’d break the reader’s emotional engagement with the story.

Instead, you should reverse the sentence so it reads like this:

    He knew the killer would soon be on the other side of the door, so he fumbled with the latch and finally locked it.

If you find that one sentence is serving to explain what happened in the sentence that preceded it, you can usually improve the writing by reversing the order so that you render rather than explain the action.

If you’ve written a scene in which you could connect the events with the word “because,” then you can typically improve the scene by structuring it so that you could instead connect the events with the word “so.” The stimulus leads naturally to the response.

In more complex scenes, realizations and discoveries usually happen after actions, not before them. Always build on what has been said or done, rather than laying the foundation after you’ve built the idea. Continually move the story forward, rather than forcing yourself to flip backward to give the reason something occurred.

One way of making sure things don’t go awry in complex scenes is to list each event in the order that it’s supposed to happen. By creating this visual guide, you’re more likely to stay on track. This is especially useful in flashbacks and flash forwards.

Your writing will be more effective if you show the reader what’s happening as it happens rather than explain to the reader what just happened.

However, there are three exceptions to this rule—three times when you can move from effect to cause without shattering the spell of your story.

The first occurs in scene or chapter breaks. Here, you can begin with a vague reference in dialogue that you can follow up as the scene unfolds. The reader will immediately be curious as to what’s happening and will want to continue reading to find out what happens.

The second exception occurs when one action causes two or more simultaneous reactions. Your character might sigh and look out the window, the order of which could go either way.

The final exception happens when your character deduces something the reader hasn’t yet concluded. Imagine Sherlock Holmes staring at the back of an envelope, cleaning out a drainpipe, and brushing off a nearby stick of wood, after which he announces that he’s solved the case. The reader asks, “How did he do that?” This peaks the reader’s  curiosity, and later when the character explains his deductive reasoning, the reader sees that everything followed logically from the preceding events.

If the writers took the time to make any of the above happen in the episodes of "Stargate Universe," the story wouldn’t have been so confusing. This is especially important when writing science fiction, which, in itself, can be confusing enough, particularly when the writer creates whole new worlds.

Looking to the Ivory Tower

If you’re looking for a way to subsidize your writing and earn extra income, you might consider teaching. Teaching has always been a traditional financial base for writers. It’s often the first route freelancers explore, and for good reasons. The time you devote to it is relatively flexible. Let’s face it, the ivory tower can beckon invitingly after several years of scratching out a living as a freelance writer—the chase after editors, the haggling for peanuts, the worrying over the paying your mortgage or rent can all be debilitating.

What's waiting for you, if you decide to pursue this possibility? Aside from the benefits mentioned above, there are a few problems you may encounter as well, mainly stiff competition in a tight job market. If you want the kind of security that comes with a full-time position, you'll need an advanced degree. Without it, you'll face an uphill struggle. But if you seek a full-time position, will you have time to continue writing? Chances are once you get used to a regular paycheck, you’ll not want to go back to earning a living as a full-time writer.

The answer is to seek part-time employment, but not just any job. The work that will give you the most benefit and will fit nicely into your schedule and creative side is teaching continuing-education courses at local school nights, community colleges, and universities. Pay for these jobs generally runs from a low of perhaps $20 an hour teaching courses at community school nights to $40 an hour teaching at universities.

Most writers gravitate toward teaching the obvious—writing and journalism. But it's possible to devise a course based on a specialty of yours. If you’re an expert on money management, for example, you could offer a beginners' course on budgeting and finances or even tax preparation. If you also do photography, consider a course in basic digital photography. If you’re a science writer, you might create a course based on a fascinating topic, if you handle it broadly enough, might appeal to a wide assortment of students.

If you write travel articles and books, why not put together some travel lectures based on your articles and travels. These can be done individually or grouped into an armchair traveler series. Whatever your specialty, take advantage of it.

Before you plunge headlong into teaching, do some market research. It’s not unlike what you normally do to sell your writing. Ask someone in college continuing-education departments what types of courses students request most often. Find out what they’re looking for before you approach them with your own suggestions.. Plan ahead and prepare your resume to impress.

Remember, academics will be impressed that you have published. They’ve faced the publish- or-perish syndrome for years. The simple fact that you’ve managed to get your words in print can be a big plus for you. Today’s students want courses taught by people in the field. They seek first-hand advice and expertise. If you do teach a writing course, they’ll seek your insight into the latest techniques.

The fact that you're going to give students as much opportunity as possible to talk with you, a successful writer, about how you do things, what your frustrations are, how joyful it is to be your own boss and see your name in print, will give you a decided advantage.

In continuing education, there are no rules. It’s usually up to you how you want to put your courses together. You’ll need to produce a simple course proposal that includes a description of the course and a weekly outline. Most continuing education courses run from one or two weeks to as long as ten weeks. Each class usually runs from an hour and a half to two hours. You’ll be paid by the hour and only for the time you’re actually teaching, so take that into account for any writing courses. Remember, it takes time outside of class to read students’ work—time for which you’re not paid.

Make a List and Check It Twice

Everyone knows that Santa Claus makes a list and checks it twice before going on his merry way to bring gifts to all good little boys and girls. Most people do the same before going Christmas shopping. But I bet you never thought of making a list of not only all the places you could sell your writing, but also the different forms of writing you can sell, produced from the same research.

Too many non-fiction writers research an article or book idea, write and publish it, then forget about it. As the old saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

First let’s look at the many types of articles you could write based on the subject matter. If you work in education, you might consider writing one for a journal in your field. But that’s pretty much a dead end to a freelance writer and either doesn’t pay anything or very little.

If you like to travel, you have a myriad of article types to choose from. There’s always the straight travel article about the places you visit, but you could write several on the adventure or sports side of those places. And don’t forget food and historical articles about them.

If you prefer a more scientific approach, you could write about new scientific discoveries and about how they affect medicine, commerce, or industry. Writing trade articles can mean steady work.

And then there’s business and finance articles. Pieces about new business ideas, new businesses, and business advice are always in season. How to market certain types of businesses is yet another approach. Interviews with top business professionals helps those on their way up.

You could also approach a subject by its effect on people. Family relationships, genealogy, art of living, and sociological influences are just the tip of the relationship iceberg.

Your second list should be all the ways you can treat the same subject. One of the easiest articles to write is the how-to piece. Combine this with the standard advice article, and you have a winner.

If you like helping others, you may want to work your information into an inspirational article.  Tell it from your own life, and you have a personal experience piece. An article told from your own insight is one of the most powerful out there. And readers love them.

Take a look at the past and put some nostalgia into your work. Nostalgia pieces are becoming increasingly popular with the ever-growing crowd of baby boomers out there. They like to remember how things used to be, even if their memories cloud over some of the bad things and make the past seem rosy.

Reader’s Digest always said that humor is the best medicine. But not everyone can write humorous articles. Just because you think something is funny doesn’t mean your readers will. Try your humor out on your friends first.

Perhaps you want to get serious and write exposés. These take a considerable more research and time, but in the end can be worth while. If the exposé is too much for you, then perhaps you’d like to try writing controversial essays, although the market isn’t too open for them. In today’s publishing world, a blog on a controversial subject will be more likely to succeed.

And for all those books you’ve read researching an idea, perhaps you can find time to write reviews of them.