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Short Form Storytelling, Part 2: Compression, Compression, Compression

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storysci.com screenshot image of screenplay about storytelling compression in part 2 of 3-article series

Welcome to Part 2 of our 3-part article series on Short Form Storytelling. You can read Part 1: One Story, One Idea here.

Just because we saved the subject of compression for last does not mean it is less important than the points discussed in Part 1. As a matter of fact, it is so important in short form storytelling that we dedicated several articles to it, because compression is vital to understanding short form.

Compression.

It’s a mysterious word packed full of meaning. So what is it?

Many writers don’t know what “compression” means in terms of storytelling. Does this make them bad storytellers? No more than not knowing how many color rods are in the human eye will make someone a terrible interior designer. But knowing about compression and how to use it will make you a better storyteller.

Compression makes your story denser by compacting more information into less space. Whereas cutting material out altogether may achieve a similar purpose, by compressing you are not only trimming fat to make your story more lean and efficient but making it denser as well. Compression creates text density through subtext by implying information that is not otherwise made explicit. The audience must read between the lines to determine what is being meant by that which is not said. Therefore:

  • Text density is essentially how much information is packed into a segment of text or screen time.
  • Low density text conveys only what is written with little need for deeper thought or examination of subtext: “He moved the chair away from the table.” Genre fiction novels (mystery, western, romance, etc.) tend to have moderate to low text density.
  • High text density implies a lot of information without having to say much at all and may be used to demonstrate deeper, unspoken subtext: “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn” (attributed to Hemingway). Literary fiction probes the human condition through moderate to high text density.
  • Short form is most effective when using moderate to high text density.

To see exactly how compression works, let’s use it in reverse on the six word short story quoted above (the one attributed to Hemingway) to decompress the dense subtext packed into that one tragic sentence. Imagine that sentence as a 10-page short story with moderate compression. Now as a 200+ page novel with low compression. Over the course of story we may get a brisk summary of their wedding day, honeymoon, emotional ups and downs of pregnancy, etc., while spending the last half of the story tracking their emotional desolation over having lost a child.

Now let’s compare:

Compression: (Ultra)
High		 Moderate Low
Word
Count:		 6 4,000-5,000 75,000-100,000+
Pages: <1 10 200+
Minutes
(film):		 3 10 120

After all of that, which version would you say was the most effective? The six-word form uses the least text but packs more emotional impact than a single sentence in any of the other forms. That is the power of compression. Saying more with less makes the audience actively fill in the blank, creating greater audience involvement, more emotional investment and thus a more powerful impact.

So now that we’ve talked about compression, let’s list the five most common ways in which you can use it to tighten your story (in order of importance):

  • Combine several elements with a single use into a single element with multiple uses (this is the very essence of compression).
  • Remove redundant beats and information.
  • When writing scenes: start the scene as late into the action as possible, end the scene as soon as possible.
  • Reduce your cast of characters to only those who advance the story or reveal character, preferably both.
  • Imply deeper characterizations and relationships through illustration, such as using meaningful names and places.

(A more in-depth examination of these points will follow in our next article: Part 3: The Three Types of Compression.)

Three things you should know about compression:

  • Younger storytellers tend to use less compression than mature storytellers.
  • Many writers (especially young ones) dive into writing short form without understanding how it differs from long form, resulting in a bloated short story with low compression like a novel. This approach can work but it seldom results in a piece that is as effective as one with higher compression.

COMPRESSION PRACTICE

It’s easy to put information onto the page or the screen, but it’s another thing entirely to compact that information into less space and have it say twice as much (or more). An excellent way to learn compression is by studying the discipline of screenwriting, where compression reigns supreme. And of course there are also writing exercises, such as the one below, designed to help you flex your compression skills.

  1. Write a one paragraph short story, description or character bio.
  2. Now write a new version of it but condensed down to a single sentence. Try to preserve as much information from the original as possible, implicit or explicit.
  3. And finally, the hard part: Condense your sentence down to seven words or less, preserving as much information as possible from the previous two versions, most of which will now be implied through subtext rather than explicitly stated through text.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of our article series on short form storytelling where we will be examining the different methods of implementing compression in much greater detail.

 

Need help with compression? Storysci is here! Contact us to put your creative work back onto the road to success.

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Short Form Storytelling, Part 1: One Story, One Idea

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Let’s start with the obvious: What is short form storytelling?

Short form is a story condensed into a brief, compressed format.

Storytellers tend to receive the majority of their training in long form techniques so this article is devoted to preparing you for short form storytelling, specifically the short story and short film.

What is considered short form?

Short form includes such familiar formats as television (30 minute sitcoms, one-hour dramas, etc.), short stories, short films and poetry, whereas long form includes the feature-length film, novel, and epic poem. Of course there are also forms which fit somewhere in the middle, like the long story, novelette, and 70-minute film.

Although the numbers vary depending on who you ask, here are some quick and dirty guidelines to give you an idea of lengths for short and long forms:

SHORT FORM LONG FORM
Film: under 70 minutes 70+ minutes
Prose: 7,500 pages or less 7,500 pages or more
Poem: up to 2 pages 2 pages or more

Typically a short film is under 30 minutes long but they can run up to 70 minutes. For more information on word counts in prose, refer to Prose Length and Word Count.

Shorter is simpler, but harder

Short form is deceptively difficult. It’s tempting to believe that shorter means easier, and while it does make the story simpler, it actually makes the piece more difficult to perfect. Most writers are accustomed to long form storytelling because that is the easiest way to fully express their ideas. In short form you do not have the luxury to explore every nook and cranny of your idea, so you can only include that which is absolutely relevant and necessary for your story.

In fact, short form is so challenging that many famous literary authors of the 20th century believed that the short story was not only the hardest type of story to write, but also the finest mark of a writer’s ability. Many an author has spent his/her career attempting to perfect the short story. (Short film and poetry have similar stories.)

Short Form is About One Idea

The key to short form is to concentrate on one clearly defined idea and bring it to fruition. The nature of short form does not allow you to cram more than one main idea into a short story without diluting its impact and creating an ambiguous mess. You also do not have the luxury of spending long periods developing characters or fleshing out your B- and C-plots. The longer your story becomes the greater its complexity will be, making it more difficult a story to tell. So keep your story compressed and strong by staying simple and always focused on your main idea.

Only that which is necessary and relevant

Short form is a compressed storytelling format where every ingredient has to carry its own weight. Prose, visuals, events and characters must count absolutely and definitively with no room for extraneous details or events. We call this necessary action. Necessary action means that only material directly relevant to the story should be included. Each element should be lean and efficient. Where possible, make each element count for multiple uses in regards to character, plot and theme.

Why Short Form is Worth the Effort

Although the market for short form storytelling is very select, it can be one of the best ways to improve your craft and learn invaluable skills such as compression (the subject of Part 2 of this article).

A few things you will learn while using short form:

  • How to tell stories efficiently.
  • How to say more with less (by means of compression).
  • How the story creation process works from beginning to end because it takes less time to complete short formats than long ones.

In the end, you may discover a new found joy in working with short form. Not only is short form liberating in its brevity, it requires a smaller commitment than long form and will ultimately lead to a greater understanding of your craft.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Compression, Compression, Compression.

 

Want to perfect your short film, script, play or story? Contact StorySci to get professional help right away.

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Powerful Rewriting Tools #1: The Laundry List

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Rewriting is difficult. It’s daunting. It can be overwhelming.  And every writer has been there.

Rewriting (also called “editing”) is a different skill from writing with its own set of techniques. While the initial writing process utilizes many of your instinctual and emotional creative energies, the rewriting process taps into a separate part of your brain, making use of your logical and analytical acumen. No matter which way you approach rewriting, it is still mentally taxing and a lot of hard work.

rewriting tools the laundry list to rewrite creative fiction story scienceTo help you through this brain intensive process we are going to bring you a series of powerful rewriting tools, the first of which is called the Laundry List. The Laundry List is a “to-do” list of items that need work in your current draft, allowing you to organize and address each issue with surgical precision and without becoming lost or sidetracked.

Here’s the short version:

  1. Read the piece all the way through.
  2. Reread the piece again, this time making notes in the form of a to-do list.
  3. Rewrite your piece based on only one item at a time.
  4. Address all items on list.

Now let’s break it down:

Step back, let it sit.
You’ve just finished the colossal task of completing a draft and you are feeling on top of the world. Your head is still awhirl with the details as you enjoy a self-congratulatory pat on the back. Don’t jump into rewriting yet. Leave it alone for a few weeks, possibly a few months (3-6 months at most).

Reread it from beginning to end.
Now you can return to your draft with a fresh set of eyes. Dust off the old manuscript and reread the entire piece from beginning to end without stopping to rewrite. Allow yourself to make a few notes along the way but don’t start the actual rewriting process until you have finished your read-through. This will re-familiarize you with the material as work your way through the next step.

Make a to-do list.
Read the piece again, this time making a to-do list of every item, big or small, that needs addressed. Be sure to designate which issues are major and which of those are minor. How you organize your list is up to you, but here are a few suggestions:

  • OUTLINE: Traditional outline with smaller issues nested beneath larger parent items.
  • COLUMNS: Place issues under major headings such as character, structure, protagonist desire, etc.
  • CHRONOLOGICAL: List items in the order that they occur in your story, using some kind of notation to indicate if major or minor.

Rewrite with purpose.
Each item of your laundry list gives you a clear, reasonable goal to work toward and will keep you from becoming overwhelmed. As you tackle each issue only work on one item at a time, no matter how tempting it is to do more. It’s very easy get sidetracked and lost if you don’t stick to your goal.

Start with the big things, end with the small things.
Address major issues first. The bigger, the better. You can go smaller from there. By fixing the major issues you will probably eliminate some of the smaller points on your laundry list and save the unnecessary stress and hair loss of having to cut minor rewrites that have become irrelevant during subsequent revisions of major points. Things like dialogue polishes and punctuation, vocabulary, etc. should be saved for last.

And voila! You have just completed a thorough rewriting of your piece. It takes some work, but by diligently chipping away at your lump of raw material bit by bit until you have your very own Statue of David left in its place. So the next time you are thinking about jumping into the editorial pool start by making yourself a Laundry List and soon you will be on the road to rewriting your next masterpiece.

Until next time, bon courage and keep writing!

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Pink Slip: How to Handle Rejection

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“The difference between the amateur writer and the professional writer is that the professional didn’t quit.”–Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, rejected 26 times before becoming one of the most inspirational books of all time

Every creative type must handle their worst, most intimate fear when they share their work with others: rejection. It doesn’t matter if you are a writer, filmmaker, musician, actor, painter, or live performance artist, someday you will face rejection by someone, somewhere, and that person may be a friend, colleague, critic, agent or even the viewing public. Some of the rejections will be polite, if not gracious, while others will be cruel and soul-shattering.

THE HARD FACTS ABOUT REJECTION

Story Science stock image of a frustrated creative man smashing his laptop on the ground due to rejectionEveryone gets rejected. And more often than not, everyone gets rejected multiple times. It doesn’t matter what form the rejection is in, everyone will get rejected and how you handle that rejection is the true test of your character. Oprah Winfrey was fired from her job as a TV anchor and deemed “unfit for television” before going on to become one of the most prolific personalities in television history.

Rejection is a matter of taste. One rejection doesn’t mean anything. 50 rejections doesn’t mean anything, for that matter. One of the reason rejection rates are so high is because you have to catch the right organization with the right piece that is the right fit for the right person’s taste at the right time on the right day. Just because one person rejects your work doesn’t mean that another one will. Sometimes the very same person who rejected your work initially will accept it later on down the road. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to revise or polish your work between pink slips, but it does mean that you shouldn’t feel disheartened over a handful of rejection letters

Rejection will make you a better at your craft. Just because someone rejects your work doesn’t he mean (s)he was right, but it doesn’t necessarily mean (s)he was wrong, either. Listen to what critics say about your work. You don’t have to take every piece of advice thrown your way but use their feedback to polish and improve your work instead of letting nasty comments degrade your self-confidence.

It isn’t personal. Rejection can be difficult to handle because in rejecting your blood-sweat-and-tears creative endeavor, you probably feel that YOU are being rejected as a person. After all, your creative work is a part of you. Even if you know on an intellectual level that the rejection isn’t personal, in many ways it’s as personal as it gets, but the person rejecting you probably doesn’t see it that way. To them it’s just business.

You will get used to it. Rejection hurts the most at the beginning. The more rejection letters you get the less they will affect you. After fifty or a hundred rejections or so a pink slip won’t mean much at all. You are building up a tolerance and becoming a professional.

Rejection is a professional matter. Rejection is part of what makes an individual a professional in his or her field. Rejection weeds out those who are unable to compete at the professional level or maintain persistence in their field when setbacks (like pink slips) arise. When you are starting out in your career consider submitting your work to smaller, newer places with smaller pools of work (and talent) to draw from. If you start by submitting to the top places, it will take much longer to receive an acceptance, if ever. The longer you work in your field the better you will become at identifying places that have the right fit for your kind of pieces, eliminating your number of rejections. In the film industry, less than 1% of screenplays are ever sold or produced, meaning movie scripts are ultimately rejected over 99% of the time.

HOW TO USE REJECTION TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

Adopt, adapt, improve. Refine your proposal/query letter between rejections. A poorly crafted or unenthusiastic pitch will scuttle your piece no matter how good it is. Consider hiring a specialist or an editor to help you write a killer intro to your work.

Be patient. Set aside your story for awhile and work on something else so you can return to it with fresh eyes further down the road. Imagine if Herman Melville got fed up with publishers and threw his manuscript into the waste bin—no one would have ever heard of Moby Dick.

Don’t get discouraged. Use rejection as fuel to motivate you to try again and try harder. Joseph Heller named his book Catch-22 because it took 22 attempts to get his book published.

Be persistent. Persist long enough and you will succeed. What do George Orwell, Louisa May Alcott and Richard Adams have in common? They believed in themselves and never gave up on their craft. As a result, millions of people can enjoy classics like Animal Farm, Little Women, and Watership Down, respectively.

REJECTION STATISTICS FROM THE PUBLISHING WORLD

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling: rejected 12 times, sold 400+ million copies, led to four consecutive records for fastest-selling books in history, and made Rowling one of the most famous authors in the world and one of the richest people on the planet.

Carrie by Stephen King: rejected 38 times and was even tossed in the garbage by the author at one point, sold 100+ million copies in its first year alone and made Stephen King a household name.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett: despite 60 rejections, once published Stockett’s book spent over 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Agatha Christie: started out with 500 rejections in 4 years, now only outsold by William Shakespeare with $2+ billion in book sales and one of the most famous mystery writers of all time.

Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen: 140 rejections, sold over 80 million copies and now nothing short of ubiquitous, spawning numerous spin-offs.

Dune by Frank Herbert: rejected 23 times, now the best-selling sci-fi novel of all time, spawning dozens of sequels, four movies, and several video games.

The Thomas Berryman Number by James Patterson: after 31 consecutive rejections, the book went on to win the Edgar award for Best Novel while the author followed up by scoring 19 consecutive #1 hits on the New York Times bestseller list with sales in excess of $220 million.

For more statistics on rejected manuscripts see:

Daily Writing Tips: “Famous Books Rejected Multiple Times”

Green Leaf Books: “How Many Rejection Letters is Too Many?”

James Hughes: “Literary Rejections”

Smink Works Books: “Surviving Rejection”

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Violence and Story: How Much Violence Should I Put in My Story?

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A question came up in a LinkedIn group not too long ago regarding ‘violence’ in one writer’s story. This writer presented a work based on his own life to a writing teacher, who responded by telling him it was “too violent.” Since the writer still felt strongly about his largely autobiographical story, he posed the question to our discussion group: “How Much Violence Should I Put Into My Story?” Today we propose to answer that question.

Here are three simple rules for using violence in your story (in order of importance):

  1. Violence Must Be Appropriate to STORY
  2. Violence Must Be Appropriate to GENRE
  3. Violence Must Be Appropriate to your INTENDED AUDIENCE

All three of these rules are interdependent and what affects one will affect others as well.

(NOTE: When we mention “amounts” of violence we are referring to both volume AND intensity.)

1. VIOLENCE AND STORY
vector illustration indicating various types of cartoon violence in storytellingAlthough violence is often considered an aesthetic value (that is, a matter of taste), it actually plays a distinctive role in your story. If the story is about gang violence among teens on the street and how terrible it is, you will have to include enough violence to communicate the ideas, meaning and thematic elements required in your story. But if you are making a fun action-adventure that is neither realistic nor gritty, then keep the violence down to a tolerable level because the only thing you gain by adding more is a higher MPAA rating.

2. VIOLENCE AND GENRE
Crime dramas, horror flicks and gritty action thrillers inherently require more violence to live up to the audience’s expectations than do other genres, like comedy or romance.

3. VIOLENCE AND YOUR INTENDED AUDIENCE
Obviously, splattering the walls with gore in an educational animated film about a group of hugging teddy bears is not appropriate to an intended audience of young children. Family-oriented films have the least violence because they are intended to be seen by a broad-spectrum audience which includes parents and children of all ages. On the other hand, if it’s a gory horror film, part of the viewer’s expectation is to see the screen painted with a certain volume of blood and guts, lest they be disappointed.

LEVELS OF VIOLENCE
The remarkable thing about violence in art is how we perceive it as consumers. The more explicit the storyteller makes the details of a violent act, the more violent it will be perceived by the audience. To decrease perceived violence, a storyteller may employ a strategy called “cutting away” in which the storyteller avoids providing explicit details by cutting (in film, or the equivalent in prose) to the reaction of an onlooker, avoiding vivid portrayal of the worst details but leaving most of it to the imagination of the audience.

Here is a basic guide to the main categories of violence employed by storytellers in books and film:

1. No Violence: No violence at all. Usually confined to children-oriented materials and programming targeted at females, such as chicklit (print) or dramas which focus on character and relationships. An excellent example of this violence level is Lost in Translation, a film by Sofia Coppola.

2. Comic Violence: The most common violence in animated and family-oriented stories. Usually bloodless and without lasting effects, violence is presented in a funny way to counteract its seriousness. Think Shrek.

3. Bloodless Violence: It’s surprising how much an absence of blood and gore can reduce the gravity of pain and death. Bloodless violence is prolific among big blockbuster films that want to appeal to a broad audience. Return of the Jedi (and all of the Star Wars films) uses virtually no blood at all.

4. Moderate Violence: The most common type of violence used in media, it has some blood but only light gore or detail, such as Lord of the Rings (movies) and The Hunger Games (book). Hunger Games keeps the perceived violence level fairly low for its intended audience (YA, “young adult”) by employing the written equivalent of “cutting away.” The 2012 film adaptation takes this a step further.

5. Realistic Violence: This can be gritty, gory, and even downright gruesome. Just about any specimen of the war genre falls into this category, such as Saving Private Ryan and We Were Soldiers.

6. Gory Violence: The most extreme violence level includes films like I Spit on Your Grave as well as a large bulk of the horror genre in both film and print. At its most extreme end there is a horror subgenre called torture porn.

IN CONCLUSION…
Use common sense in determining the appropriate level of violence for your creative work, and only that violence which serves the story, genre or intended audience. You need enough to get your point across but don’t overdo it.

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Turn that Scene on its Head (How to Fulfill Expectations by Defying Them)

stack of books story sci stock photo for exerciseDo you have a scene that’s dull, listless, unexciting, or otherwise lacking? Maybe everything is in place but for some reason the scene just isn’t that interesting. Have you ever considered that your scene might be too…predictable?

Believe it or not, this is a problem which afflicts the majority of not-yet-published creative works—the inability to capture the audience’s interest by fulfilling their expectations but doing so in a way they do not expect. Major and minor storytelling elements alike hinge on this very idea, such as plot points, gags, or character reactions, and work by bringing the audience into the story and creating conflict which, as we know, means story.

Although one could write an entire book on this premise, today we will focus on only one specific part of it: defying expectation through character reaction.

If a character reacts to an incident exactly how we expect him/her to there is no surprise and the scene falls flat with predictability, along with stakes, conflict, and the audience’s interest. Now imagine if that same character reacted in the precise opposite way we were expecting. Now that’s interesting! Why? Because now we want to know why the character is reacting differently than our expectations.

Let’s take a white collar worker named Dwight. He is called into the boss’s office. The boss sacks Dwight. Instead of breaking into tears and begging to keep his job, Dwight jumps for joy and celebrates exuberantly, culminating in an awkward bear hug with his stunned ex-boss.

Even in a situation like this the audience’s mind immediately begins to rationalize the seemingly absurd behavior. Often, such a reaction won’t seem absurd at all, but completely reasonable provided the reaction is justified by proper motivation. The scene will then play out the resulting consequences of the character’s surprising reaction and you will be expected to justify it, which may occur within the scene or sometime after.

In short:

incident > reaction > consequences > justification

Next time you are watching a movie or reading a book, pay attention to the characters’ reactions to changing circumstances. You will be surprised at the number of times they react in the opposite way a normal person would in the same situation. Also be aware that sometimes characters need to react exactly as they are expected to in order for a story to develop. Action movies are very good at combining both into a reaction that at first seems expected only to follow it with a reversal which reveals the unexpected.

(Consequently, the “opposite-than-expected reaction” has been a common strategy in TV writing for decades. Any episode of the hit series Lost hinges its entire plot on such reactions. For a more on-the-nose example, take a look at any scene in the original 90210 TV series from 1990s.)

Try It Yourself: Turn Your Scene Upside Down

  • Take any scene in which one of your characters reacts to a change of circumstance.
  • Change the character’s reaction to be the exact opposite of what it was previously, defying normal expectations.
  • Explore the consequences of that reaction.
  • Justify the reaction through character motivation.
  • Ask yourself, “Where can I take my story from here with this new and interesting turn of events?”

And voila! Magic happens.

Try it for yourself and share your results. We’d love to hear about it!

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Improve Your Writing with Verbs

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If global successes like The Hunger Games and Harry Potter have taught us anything, it’s that the clarity of your writing is vital to successful storytelling. Clarity is achieved through solid forward action, vivid imagery free from over-indulgent qualifiers, and in particular the effective management and use of verbs, especially action verbs.

Verbs propel the action of your text forward by communicating how something is observed or achieved. They are simpler, clearer and pack more punch per word than adjectives or adverbs, which are often ambiguous and flimsy by comparison. Understanding how to use verbs can give life to your writing by transforming your dull prose into a crackling thunderbolt.

Here are three ways you can improve your writing with verbs:

(1) Replace “to be” (être) verbs with action verbs.

“To be” verbs are passive and static, serving only to transmit information as statements of fact. On the other hand, action verbs describe things that happen in a way that is both active and dynamic, engaging your audience by pulling them directly into immediacy with the text. Action verbs have the added bonus of making your writing more crisp and efficient by eliciting a very specific impression in the mind of your audience without filling your text with qualifying descriptors.

(2) Replace descriptive padding with effective verbs.

Reduce “descriptive padding” by eliminating purple prose in favor of effective verbs which communicate concrete imagery. Adjectives and adverbs are often ambiguous and overused, especially among young writers. When used as “padding” (to make things seem more interesting) these descriptives and qualifiers actually bog down the pacing of your text while diminishing its clarity, even when you think you are increasing it. Action verbs can accomplish the same task with fewer words and in simpler form. Don’t bloat your pages with hot air; fill them with qualitative prose instead.

(3) Understand how to upgrade your verbs.

Upgrading a verb takes an action and makes it more specific by increasing the amount of emotion and intent behind the action. Every time you upgrade a verb you are upgrading the intensity it communicates. Observe how a simple sentence becomes more vivid as we upgrade the verb “TAKES” to further extremes:

He TAKES the book from her hands.
He PLUCKS the book from her hands.
He SNATCHES the book from her hands.
He WRENCHES the book from her hands.
He RIPS the book from her hands.

Notice how each verb upgrade creates a newer, more intense version of the same action without lengthening the sentence or diminishing its pace.

Understanding how to use verbs—especially action verbs—to improve your writing is important to all specializations of the craft. Nouns, adjectives and adverbs are useful parts of speech but they cannot convey the same level of emotion or action as the appropriate action verb can.

Until next time, this is STORY SCIENCE signing off. We would love to hear about your favorite sentences or phrases made incredible through the use of action verbs. Be sure to post on our facebook page or contact us on twitter and share your favs!

Remember: The power of prose rests with verbs.

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Are You a Creative Writer or an Analytical Writer?

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What is the difference between a Creative Writer and an Analytical Writer? What are they? Is one better than the other? Can I be both?

The short answer is this: There are two primary ways writers approach writing based on the way they think, creatively or analytically, and one is not any better than the other. Many writing instructors lump analytical and creative writing into one block (among fiction writers, this may be delineated as “pre-writing,” “writing” and “re-writing”) when in fact these are two different skills which use two very different parts of the brain.

Here is a basic summary:

The Analytical Writer

  • intellectual/technical approach
  • better at: problem-solving, analysis and structure
  • best at: pre-writing and rewriting

The Creative Writer

  • emotional/intuitive approach
  • better at: exploration of the internal life of characters, feelings and reactions
  • best at: emotional content and putting text on the page

In a perfect world, every writer would be both creative and analytical, but we do not live in an ideal world and we are rarely as analytical or creative as we would like to be. More often than not, we are more one than the other, although seldom to the exclusion of the other.

Which Type of Writer Am I?

The Creative Writer

You May Be a Creative Writer If…

You work by diving right into your material and writing.

  • You write best in the heat of the moment.
  • You start at a given point and expand outward, working from the inside out.
  • You find that the more you write, the more the story writes itself.
  • You explore story and characters by pushing, prodding, and exploring “what-if” scenarios.
  • Organization and structure are not primary concerns for you as you expand your work like a painter spreads acrylics on canvas.

You write more instinctively than systematically.

  • You see the forest for the trees but not necessarily the forest as a whole.
  • Your scenes are well fleshed-out and filled with content, even if your scenes lack pertinent plot-forwarding direction and may tend to run long.
  • You access your creative powers by tapping into the intuitive and emotional parts of your inner being.

You write emotionally.

  • You translate your characters to the page by thrusting yourself into the heart of their inner emotional lives.
  • Your focus is more on how every piece of your story feels than functions.
  • You are highly in tune with your characters, their thoughts, emotions and reactions.

If this sounds like you, then you may be a Creative Writer.

What To Work On:

STRUCTURE

Once you have your initial vomit draft splattered on the page, go back and deliberately structure your story and plot BEFORE revising or revisiting your draft. Then stick to it and mercilessly cut your “darlings” (as Faulkner called them).

THROUGH-LINES

Although you may love your characters and love your scenes, every scene must further the plot or deepen character (preferably both). Scenes that serve neither purpose or do not directly apply to the spine of your story should be cut, no matter how much you love them. You may have a harder time than the Analytical Writer in letting these gorgeous little frivolities go.

VERISIMILITUDE

Ensure that your setups are paid off, that small details included in your story are somehow pertinent to the story, and that your story maintains an even tone, direction and central spine throughout its entirety.

REWRITING

This is a difficult—if not seemingly insurmountable—task for you. Rewriting is an analytical process that requires you to keep your eyes on the forest and your head out of the trees. Approach rewriting as a completely separate process from your initial writing process. In fact, try letting your vomit draft sit for awhile before taking on your first rewrite. When you are ready, approach your rewrite one step at a time to make it manageable. Start by reading through your draft and making a checklist of any and all issues, big or small, that you think need fixed or any changes you wish to make—but don’t actually touch your draft yet. Next, address each point on the list one at a time, in any order. Do not combine items on the list unless they are directly related (you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with taking on the whole forest at once, just one tree a time will suffice). You may even find it useful for you to intercut your writing and rewriting sessions into alternating blocks or by starting every new writing session by rewriting your previous session’s work before moving on. Regardless, you need to find a process that works for you—even if it is a long, complicated and laboriously painful one.

Bottom Line

Can the Creative Writer be successful? Absolutely. Louis Sachar’s Holes is a Creative Writer who managed to create a flawless novel.

The Analytical Writer

You May Be an Analytical Writer If…

You don’t start writing until you have a plan or outline of some kind.

  • You work best before and after the moment, in planning, pre-writing and re-writing.
  • You structure and sketch a rough outline of everything before actually filling out the spaces in between.
  • You pre-write copiously by idea-generating, researching, note-taking, scribbling, structuring and summarizing before getting down to actual text.
  • You seldom write off-plan unless a new discovery is made, at which point you adjust your schematics to fit the new data or you plot out the newly-adjusted story before actually writing it.

You write more systematically than instinctively.

  • You see the trees for the forest, working outside in by establishing a framework before you start writing.
  • You design and execute your story like an architect who sketches first, draws second, then inks and colors his/her work, each layer with more detail than the last.
  • You prefer to let your work sit for long periods before revising so that you can go back to it with a fresh, critical eye.

You write intellectually.

  • You utilize the analytical parts of your brain to work intellectually and logically to justify action and reaction.
  • The actual playing out of your scenes is of little concern in the early stages so long as the goal and direction are maintained at the structural level. The actual content of your scenes will be written out last.
  • Unlike the Creative Writer, your scenes are less emotionally intense but contain more analytical content. While intellectually stimulating, your scenes may lack emotional heat or easily become didactic.
  • Your focus is more on how every piece of your story functions than feels.
  • You are highly in tune with the progression of your story, its constituent elements and the procedures required to reveal information and advance the plot.

If this sounds like you, then you may be an Analytical Writer.

What To Work On:

WRITING

Putting down the first vomit draft of your work can be one of the hardest things for an Analytical Writer to do. The temptation is to keep planning and summarizing instead of actually producing pages. Also it may be hard to keep interested while filling in all the little segments that need fleshing out. Address this issue by pre-writing to your heart’s content—outlines, character bios, backstories, histories of places and things, whatever you want—but do not begin writing your initial draft until your outline is done. When you do start writing, try to do so in as long, contiguous segments as possible to prevent your work from coming across as disconnected or episodic. Just as like the outline, don’t start rewriting until you’ve completed your initial vomit draft. It’s too easy for you to get lost in revisions without ever finishing a single draft.

EMOTIONAL CONTENT

This is a major issue and involves several parts, the most important of which is centered on exposing the emotional content of your story and getting close to the heart of the matter with passion, truth and depth. While this may be natural to the Creative Writer it can be downright baffling to the Analytical Writer. Try free-writing to open your mind, letting the creative juices flow with emotional material. Connecting with the emotional heart of your material can take as long as two or three hours of work if you aren’t writing on a daily basis, considerable less if you are. Look beyond your objective outer core, searching deep within your feelings to tap into the dormant emotional power lying hidden there.

CHARACTER

Stemming from the previous issue, your characters may be colorful and interesting with myriad pasts and every manner of depth, but may still lack the emotional elements which humanize them, allowing us to feel for and with them. It is vital that you find a way to develop the inner monologue, tactics, feelings and emotional responses of your characters. Try writing long, detailed bios which catalogue and develop their inner emotional lives, even if you have to start out by exploring them intellectually. Eventually your characters will start talking to you and you will be able to effectively translate your characters onto the page.

Bottom Line

Can the Analytical Writer succeed? Yes. You’ve probably heard of an author by the name of Michael Crichton. He employs meticulous planning and research before sitting down to write.

In Conclusion…

Your degree of analytical or creative ability is no measure of skill or success. Whether you triumph as a Creative Writer or an Analytical Writer fully depends on you and your ability to overcome obstacles in order to achieve your goals—just like the characters in your story.