Writing Technique -- What Is It?

[SirArtemis]

So this is a question open to everyone but specifically to the judges. Could you please give a brief list of some writing techniques and a snippet of what they entail? This would help me try to ... improve my technique score if I knew what I was aiming to do.

TY!

[Knave]

Well lets start with the most obvious answer to any intelligent question. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_technique :D

With that out of the way, I'd probably have to say characterization is a favorite. Everyone has needs, actions, thoughts, feelings, things they want, things they don't know they are doing, things they don't know about themselves, and so on. I always think its the minor things about a character that adds to their major qualities. Simply, not what they do, but how.

All of that is after content, and semi-basic grammar.

[SirArtemis]

ive used the wiki page. i dont seem to get points for those. they aren't anything "advanced"

[Knave]

I've always felt that it wasn't a matter of you're writing getting better, because you used "advanced" techniques, but that you knew what you were doing, and you did it well. The rubric is pretty well put together, especially when I see evidence of two different versions that came before it. The "techniques" on the wiki are basic, and if they are below you, try these: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_a.html

That out of the way, you probably shouldn't be looking instant answers. There really isn't any equation to how any of this gets done. Personally, I'd just say hit the wall until the wall decides to go home, or read a few books by people who clearly know what they are doing. But thats not what you are looking for.

I've been meaning to tell you, but I keep forgetting. One of the things that helps you to understand a character, or at least look like it, is to try writing from the numero uno perspective rather than the omnipotent, but more distant, third. At the very least, you can add some actual content to your characters thoughts. First person narratives, from what I've seen have a firm hold on the short market, and I'd assume its because its much easier to characterize and empathize with those characters.

[Sweet Polly Oliver]

Oooookay, several things have been said that I disagree with in this thread so far.

First of all.

ive used the wiki page. i dont seem to get points for those. they aren't anything "advanced"

Excuse-moi? Did you read that list? Most of them aren't difficult to understand in theory, but in practice it's a different story. Almost all of those are difficult to use effectively, and certainly difficult to master. Books could be written on the art of simile and metaphor alone--comparing two unlike things in a way that opens the readers eye to a previously unseen thing is difficult and wonderful. Not to mention one of the keys to great writing, I'd argue. Flat description is (to put it bluntly) very, very boring.

Sort of one step up from that are things like alliteration, juxtaposition, and detail. A side-note here: alliteration is undervalued in prose, it's not a good thing to use too obviously, but when used effectively it can spice up an otherwise substandard sentence. Similarly, increasing sensory detail adds necessary flavor to text. Amateur authors, I've noticed, tend to only use sight in their descriptive passages. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm suspicious it has to do with a generation raised on television and film, where stories are conveyed with only sight and sound. Not necessary in the realm of fiction. Scents, textures, tastes--all of these are vital to effectively immersing a reader in setting.

Metaphor and simile and the like are sort of building block technique though. Certainly difficult skills to develop completely, but they can nonetheless can be considered fundamentals. More complex technique looks at the story as a whole. Here I'd categorize things like foreshadowing, dramatic irony, tone. Tone is the most important of those, I'd argue, and also the most difficult to define. Word choice plays into it a lot, but it can best be described as the overall feeling of the work and the emotion it's meant to convey. The same story told in a different tone could go from a tragedy to a comedy. In fact, many comedies are fairly tragic, it's just is a matter of how you approach the story and the tone you write it in.

Knave of Spades, first off, your description of what consists literary technique is rather limited (despite, oddly enough, providing Artemis with the fairly useful wikipedia link). Characterization certainly counts as technique, and it is indeed important, but that's only a part of it. The second site that you linked to is scarcely even relevant to this discussion.

Writing in the first person is not more effective than writing in third. Nor is third necessarily more effective than writing in first, they're just different. First person is, however, much more difficult to utilize effectively, and far easier to mess up. Third person is the "norm" for writing and definitely has the share of the marker, probably for just that reason. In order to write effectively in the first person, you need to be an absolute master of persona and have a compelling main character--otherwise it falls flat. On top of that, first person has the drawback of disallowing switching point of view easily; a technique which I regularly use.

The key to writing in the third person is to never distance your character from your audience. The language you use, the metaphors and similes--all of these should contribute to developing your character. Your prose should blend seamlessly with your character's thoughts and personality. You should not point out things or thoughts that your character wouldn't know. For instance, I wouldn't talk about the thoughts of secondary characters if my main character is Polly, or talk about something she wouldn't have knowledge of unless absolutely necessary. I would argue that limited third person perspective is more effective than third person omniscient. It's something that's difficult to do, but absolutely vital, and in the end your characters will seem more real than those written in a first person perspective...which in my experience frequently comes off as sort of campy or cheesy, unless done right.

Anyway, I can't say I always practice what I preach, but that's an overview of some of my opinion on what "technique" means. Any one of these elements (even the simplest) could and should certainly be explored in more depth, though. I've found it's useful to examine what works in other people's writing as well as your own, making sure to use a critical eye. It's okay to pick up elements of other people's style, so long as you don't plagiarize wholesale. Eventually you develop your own sense of style, probably an amalgamation of your favorite authors and your own realizations, and that is how you develop technique.

tl;dr: It's complicated and I get overly excited when it comes to talking about writing, sorry.

[Knave]

Not long enough; read it three times!

While I am certainly glad to be admonished by someone with a good deal of understanding, and someone willing to go at length with what she knows, but I've never said one was better than the other, what I said was that he could try a change of perspective to help him raise the level of the rubric that has been bothering him. As far as campy, I hope not.

And I like how you put my name into proper form, made it really seem like done something dirty. :eek:

Now, personally speaking, I think I'm tone deaf. Pun ignored. Most of the things I've done always feel flat. Would you have any information on how to handle that?

[Sweet Polly Oliver]

And I like how you put my name into proper form, made it really seem like done something dirty.
XD well when I'm in SRS BSNS mode I gotta use all my capitals and stuff correctly!
While I am certainly glad to be admonished by someone with a good deal of understanding, and someone willing to go at length with what she knows, but I've never said one was better than the other, what I said was that he could try a change of perspective to help him raise the level of the rubric that has been bothering him. As far as campy, I hope not.
Okay, I agree with you there. It's definitely possible that writing in first person could pull him out of his funk and it certainly would encourage him to bring more emotion to his writing. However, I think it would probably be difficult for him to do and it might not turn out well. Still, I agree that it could be a useful experiment! I just misunderstood and thought that you were arguing that first person was entirely better than third, sorry.
Now, personally speaking, I think I'm tone deaf. Pun ignored. Most of the things I've done always feel flat. Would you have any information on how to handle that?
Haha, I can't tell if you're asking for advice about the piano or about writing? But really, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that question. Flat how? Like not enough personality?

[Knave]

Oh believe me, its all writing, I'd love to learn, but I'm not dragging one of those massive things into my house. Its a commitment, they spawn dust, and you have to keep cleaning up after them.

Well, to be honest, it used to be a complaint, and while I worked on it, I never actually heard that the problem was fixed. More of a creeping suspicion. o_o I've been given some extra points for personality--which sounds so wrong now--but its more descriptive wise that makes up the issue. I can't quite give the right kind of sensation to my writing so far.

When I have something in mind, it feels corny... or at least not what I wanted it to be, even after the editing is done. I'm talking about atmospheric tone. Do you have any pointers?

[Visla Eraclaire]

Technique is one of the more bullshitty categories. It frequently rewards techniques which are obvious enough to be picked up by judges who are reading quickly. Sublter themes and the sort of intricate craftsmanship that is the mark of truly good writing tends to pass beneath notice.

I'll get points for a blatant simile but nothing for an ongoing motif or the sort of literary gamesmanship of bringing symbolism into the writing itself by using a different vocabulary to describe certain characters, blending aspects of personality into description and other meta-nonsense.

It's unavoidable though. Technique is best when it is just beneath the surface, not demanding attention but adding a little bit of flavor that you can't quite put your finger on.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

I'll get points for a blatant simile but nothing for an ongoing motif or the sort of literary gamesmanship of bringing symbolism into the writing itself by using a different vocabulary to describe certain characters, blending aspects of personality into description and other meta-nonsense.

Yep, we all have been there. My example, I have written a piece where Jensen's friend's talk about Desert Scorpions of Far Kalad. Later in the story Jensen fight's an actual Desert Scorpion. Then, towards the end when he's visiting the same spot his friend died at, he speaks as if she was there, and says to her, "The desert scorpions weren't that big." I had a person read that like they were a judge, and they said didn't allude to the desert scorpions.

Subtle technique there, but it went unnoticed. Also times I use a lot of careful suggestion within the words of a post to point out things towards the end, to give the reader clues as to what is being foreshadowed. The Judge told me he liked the alliteration in my first paragraph....

It's really dependent on the judge who grades you. Some judges will pick up on all the subtle workings you did, piecing together the clues, noting the clever uses of technique and how you applied it like Visla explained.

Others? They just like that fancy metaphor you used for a duck in your third post, but otherwise your technique sucked.

[Cydnar]

Technique, very simply, is the writer's way of expressing the soul and body of his tale - his world, his environment.

How a man write's is often a clue as to how he thinks. It's not something you can teach, because teaching tripling, fore shadowing and literary markers is merely an instruction on how to use a set of tools.

It is only, after all, a brilliant artist with a brilliant mind that achieves fame by using those tools in a different and new way.

Go with what feels right, damn the man, and let it flow.

[MetalDrago]

I can't speak for the other Judges, but sure, I miss things... sometimes a lot of things, while I'm judging threads. It really depends on the mood I'm in while I'm reading. Sometimes things get fuzzy and you really don't pay attention the way you should.

When I look for technique, I do look for foreshadowing, similes, metaphors, and some of the more obvious things, but sometimes when you read threads and you can just tell there was something there, even if you don't know what it is, that just clicks as good literary technique. I'll be the first to say I don't know shit about some literary techniques (alliteration I'm fuzzy on, it's been so long since I've read the definition of it).

All in all, as a Judge, I try to be fair, but everyone misses things and makes mistakes sometimes.

[Zook Murnig]

MetalDrago, alliteration carries an almost imperceptible allure. It's the use of the same sound repeatedly at the beginning of words. As I recall, the example I gave is also assonance, which is more specific to vowels and vowel sounds.

Other things that can fall into technique are word choice and personification of objects. The fog crept silently over the hill. Fog doesn't creep along. It's just water molecules in a hovering mass close to the ground. But you give it more personality, and a more sinister feel, when you personify it that way.

On word choice, that's not limited to what words you do use, but also specific avoidance of certain words, which I've been toying with in one of my threads. Use euphemisms and synonyms whenever possible, but be wary of confusing the reader by making them actually believe that there's a wooden club in your pants. Instead, make it clear what you're talking about in other ways, such as context. And the particular synonyms or euphemisms you use should lend themselves to the overall tone you wish to convey. A staff is a club is a rod is a shillaleagh. But each one has a different feel to it.

[Visla Eraclaire]

If you're point mongering it seems like metaphors and alliteration (even though it's usually hackneyed and silly) are still the sweet spot.


Zook was a deplorable, degenerate douche.

Note of course the alliteration, but more importantly the critical and deep metaphor. Zook is obviously not a vaginal sanitary product; he isn't sanitary at all. And yet somehow he evokes the maligned quality of the item.

[Cydnar]

That's Visla displaying the passive aggressive form of wit, a good example of 'technique' if I ever saw one :p

[Visla Eraclaire]

There's nothing passive about my aggression.

That's actually a form of technique I think needs to get more credit. Taking a turn of phrase (passive-aggressive) and breaking it down, examining it, and reassembling it to suit a particular situation.


They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but in this case it seemed to have fallen onto a slope, rolled into the sea and washed up on a distant shore among people who didn't even know what apples were.

[Sweet Polly Oliver]

Since when is comparing someone to unclean vaginal hygiene products passive aggressive?

If this thread turns into a fight between Visla and Zook I'll eat my hat, because I think some good points were actually getting made.


Technique, very simply, is the writer's way of expressing the soul and body of his tale - his world, his environment.

How a man write's is often a clue as to how he thinks. It's not something you can teach, because teaching tripling, fore shadowing and literary markers is merely an instruction on how to use a set of tools.

It is only, after all, a brilliant artist with a brilliant mind that achieves fame by using those tools in a different and new way.

Go with what feels right, damn the man, and let it flow.

I don't think that this is helpful at all (quite the opposite maybe) and I'll describe why below.

Well, to be honest, it used to be a complaint, and while I worked on it, I never actually heard that the problem was fixed. More of a creeping suspicion. o_o I've been given some extra points for personality--which sounds so wrong now--but its more descriptive wise that makes up the issue. I can't quite give the right kind of sensation to my writing so far.

When I have something in mind, it feels corny... or at least not what I wanted it to be, even after the editing is done. I'm talking about atmospheric tone. Do you have any pointers?

It's always hard for us to judge our own writing, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Sometimes I write things that I think are terrible and turn out to be wonderful, and sometimes I think I've produced Eleanor's Great Gift To Mankind and it turns out to be complete shit. So, if you're not feeling self confident about your writing, I wouldn't say that's meaningful to its quality.

My advice to you would be to proofread. Don't just proofread for mechanical errors and typos and obvious stuff, really proofread. Read it out loud to yourself. How could this be better? How could this be more concise? How could this be more interesting? Cut out excess description, if you're the sort of writer who tends towards the verbose. I'd say about 75% of great writing lies in the proofreading.

Of course, I'm sort of an example of not practicing what I preach in this case. I've had so little energy and motivation lately that I've barely proofread for anything beyond mechanics, I'm sorry to say. The thing is, you can tell. My writing now is significantly weaker now than it was when I spent long periods of time re-reading. So yeah, lesson learned.

Now to address that lovely little bit of text at the top of this page:

While it's definitely important to have a certain amount of 'soul' to your writing, to put your emotions into it and treat it as art, there are definite, definable things that you can do to improve your technique. Treating it as some sort of mystical arcane inborn quality is foolish. You achieve skill through hard work, and nothing short of that. Read what other people write. Proofread your own work. Think, hard, about what makes good writing and what doesn't. People treat writing like some sort of witchcraft that requires you to be attuned to the right lay-lines and commune with the hidden Muses on a dark gibbous moon...but really it's a lot more like, as Stephen King has said, carpentry. You fill a toolbox with the right tools (be they metaphors, alliteration or what have you), you plan out a house, and you build the damn thing with sweat and hard work and nothing less.

All the techniques that people are giving examples of here are good ones. I particularly like the one Visla gave last, and I fully intend on using that in the future.

Finally, I wouldn't put it down to stupidity or laziness that makes this a hard category for judges to examine--it's just a difficult concept to grasp and really understand. When I was a judge I approached judging the same way I would writing a critical analysis of a work of fiction for a literature class, and I tried as hard as I could to pick up on every little thing the author intended, but it's not an easy thing to do. Keep in mind that judges are human too, and that reading threads at all is a time-consuming and (it seems at the surface) unrewarding process.

I don't think the blame can be laid entirely at the reader's fault. If you, as an author, were trying to get a certain point of symbolism across, and you didn't get it across, you failed. Maybe the reader wasn't reading closely enough, but more likely you didn't do a good enough job, because the point of writing for an audience is for the reader to understand that sort of thing.

But anyway. Sorry, I have a tendency to write walls of text apparently...

[MetalDrago]

To add a little something to the proofreading concept brought up by Ella, there is one thing I would suggest to improve technique and basically everything else. When you write a post, don't immediately submit it, and don't sit there proofreading it right after writing it. You'll miss things. Take a break, about half an hour to a full hour should do, then come back to the post and proofread it. The time away from the post will make you feel a little less attached, and you'll catch on to things in your posts that you would otherwise have completely missed.

[Cydnar]

Good rapport, Polly, but I think I misplaced my intentions (ironically).

You can be the world's most versed and technical writer, knowing the correct use of every literary technique under the sun and able to manipulate style, genre and culture into a malleable, readable piece of work...but, without 'spark,' what you write comes out as nothing more than words arranged on a page.

If anything, you need equal parts talent, and equal parts skill. I tried to put the point across that no matter how much technique you know, if you don't use it as the tool it's meant to be, and if you don't defend against the trappings of grammatical autonomy and precision, then you're writing for the audience and you lose the voice - only a very select few ever achieve anything writing like that.

I guess, I'm a fan of Virginia Woolf, Sarah Waters and other relatively quirky and non-conformist writers, and I want to be able to at least emulate some of the quirk yet still communicate my ideas.

Some people are technical, some people are soulful - not as neat, but just as pretty, if you can find a balance between the two? Then you're on the money! Naturally, sometimes people just want to tell a tale and write to vent their emotions and ideas, and Althanas is a convenient format and place to do that - constructive criticism, if taken well, can help improve in the long run, but who here is truly writing for an audience or expecting things to come of their productivity beyond xp and a pat on the back?

I dunno, I'll shut up now - I've lost sight of saying 'Write what you want and occasionally put in a full stop' without sounding like a twat. :p

[Sweet Polly Oliver]

I definitely understand what you're saying, and I do agree with you to a certain extent. I definitely fall more on the "soulful" side of that scale than technical--my writing is very emotional and heavily dependent on my mood and the like. I write the same way that I paint. That's something I'm naturally good at, and it's why I typically get high scores in Persona especially. So no, I'm not saying that it isn't important to have soul or to have talent, it is important, very much so.

However, I don't think that can be taught, and so it's not terribly useful to discuss. It's poor advice to give someone. Certainly, it sounds pretty or wise or whatever, but tell someone to put "spark" in their writing, and you might as well have told them nothing at all. It's true, people should write with emotion, but that's something they have to find for themselves.

While innate talent can't be taught, and soul can't be taught, technique can be taught, and it's important to know. Writing is indeed an art, but as with any art there is a skill set to be learned. In sculpture, don't you need to learn to mold the clay or chip the marble before you can draw life from an inanimate object? When painting, are there not certain color combinations, and certain brushstroke methods and techniques that are aesthetically pleasing? When drawing, isn't it important to learn basic construction and perspective before you can attempt a masterpiece? If you're learning a musical instrument, before pouring your heart's tragedy into the piano or guitar, shouldn't you at least learn to play?

If you aren't a master of technique and mechanics, any "spark" or emotion you put in your writing will fall flat. That's the entire point of using technique--to put across the emotion or deeper meaning that you want in your work. I'm not arguing for any of this as a part of some obsessive compulsive need for more metaphors in the world or something. If you don't have technique, what's the point? No one will be interested in what you write, and whatever message you're trying to impart will be lost by the wayside.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I thought the whole point of the rubric and judgments and workshop and everything was to help people improve.

[Cydnar]

You're preaching to the choir there :p

[Sweet Polly Oliver]

Your last post suggested that you thought learning technique was fruitless. I'm arguing that it's not. But, if I misunderstood your intention, I apologize.

[Cydnar]

No, I meant, you said that people who write with soul and no technique tend to be ignored and people don't get what they're saying all the time (if ever).

I.e - what Duffy turned into.

[Visla Eraclaire]

Duffy was lumped with technique. Duffy lacked structure and restraint.

Writing, like life, cannot be all excitement and sparkle all the time. Straightforward understandable prose has its place in even the most baroque piece of writing, if only to give the audience a firm grounding in preparation for the heights you want to take them to.

[Duffy]

That profile avatar is sexy.

Just sayin'.

He was, you're right, and I try to keep it simple now but I need to go through the same trials with the other six characters to find their balance...can you and Saxon start kicking my balls again until I get them right, too?

:D

[Visla Eraclaire]

My hourly billable rate is somewhere around $140, I think. No personal checks.

[Duffy]

I have cheques? ;)

[Visla Eraclaire]

I almost spelled it that way but then my good AMERICAN spellchecker corrected me.

[Saxon]

You couldn't afford me.

Anyway, I PMed Artemis and I'm trying to help him by looking over his judgments and giving him advice. I used to be a judge to those who don't know. I extend the same services to anybody who has a question about their writing and wants to improve. However, like I told him, the best person to go to with these questions is the judge who gave you your score. Regardless of what you think of them, the commentary, or the score itself they gave it to you for a reason. So ASKING them WHY they gave you this or that would put you on the right track to solving your problems. That's what they're there for.

However, sometimes the answers they provide aren't always satisfactory and if you don't understand it or it confuses you, which is not that uncommon, then come to me or somebody else about it*. I'll try to help you as best I can, but I, like 98% of the people on this site do not have a degree in english or creative writing, so our advice draws entirely on our own personal experiences and are merely speculative. Take any criticism you get on this site with a grain of salt.

/Soapbox

Gotta run to class.

*Or you can ask another judge! There's more then one of 'em, y'know.

[Izvilvin]

ongoing motif or the sort of literary gamesmanship of bringing symbolism into the writing itself by using a different vocabulary to describe certain characters, blending aspects of personality into description and other meta-nonsense.

I do this a lot. Because Izvilvin doesn't really talk, the way I describe other characters and things are from his perspective and skewed appropriately. It doesn't seem to be picked up on specifically, but I get decent scores because I think Izvilvin's silence forces the judge to notice the same kind of techniques you mention. Or I could be wrong.

It's an interesting example to me because I don't think my writing has differed much between Luc and Izvilvin, but I regularly get good scores with Izzy when I'm into the thread, and with Luc I don't think I've ever scored above a 68. I think because Iz is silent, the way I incorporate his thinking and emotion into non-dialogue or action is easier to notice. Judges base his 'dialogue' score on things besides his actual spoken dialogue.

Done ranting about myself now!

[Visla Eraclaire]

I do this a lot. Because Izvilvin doesn't really talk, the way I describe other characters and things are from his perspective and skewed appropriately. It doesn't seem to be picked up on specifically, but I get decent scores because I think Izvilvin's silence forces the judge to notice the same kind of techniques you mention. Or I could be wrong.

It's an interesting example to me because I don't think my writing has differed much between Luc and Izvilvin, but I regularly get good scores with Izzy when I'm into the thread, and with Luc I don't think I've ever scored above a 68. I think because Iz is silent, the way I incorporate his thinking and emotion into non-dialogue or action is easier to notice. Judges base his 'dialogue' score on things besides his action spoken dialogue.

Done ranting about myself now!

It's an interesting theory.

My technique scores are usually ok but not great, depending on the judge. I'm a dialogue fiend so if there's something to this it could contribute to that. Also the whole subtlety thing I mentioned earlier.

[Knave]

You know, in my last judging, I was told to dumb it down... and thats okay. Now, while using this thread to create a larger, powerful counterpart to the Mod appreciation thread might be a good way to publicly complain, does anyone have anything constructive beyond don't trust the moderator with anything?

Advice, tips, I know most of you people have something.

[The International]

Oh I like this discussion. I've never had to think too much about technique because doing it well is connected to other things.

Visla was right when he commented about the category being rushed in judging. Not that that's a super bad thing. Judges are people like us, and if they were being payed to do this then I'd expect them to delve deeper into the category. They have a life too. Anyways there are only two things that I do to make sure technique is good. 3/4 Show, Don't Tell + 1/4 Purple Prose