The Art of Promise-Keeping: Paratextual Clues and the Reader Experience

By Jack Kaulfus

We all know that books are more than just words: they’re little worlds between covers. As writers, we’re often mostly concerned with getting our stories to reflect the visions we’ve been working out for months on end. We’re hoping to keep our reader so engaged on the page that by the end of the book, they’ve had a highly curated experience with our specific little world. We want our characters to be perfectly rendered through dialogue and action, our settings to be expansive and meaningful, our themes to emerge with beauty and grace. 

However, if you’re only thinking about words, you might miss opportunities to create a more fully realized experience of story for your reader. Readers have been trained, over the course of their reading lives, to expect certain aspects of books to reveal information about the story inside. This means you have a unique storytelling opportunity to meet, enhance, or completely subvert their expectations. 

Enter The Paratext

According to Allison Parrish, French literary theorist Gérard Genette introduced the term "paratext" to describe elements like prefaces, introductions, dedications, and epigraphs. These can also take hypertextual forms, such as footnotes, tables of contents, indices, and bibliographies.

Think about your own habits when choosing a new book to read. Where do you look first? Despite the adage, a lot of us do judge books by their covers. We’re all aware that cover trends exist, and that the artwork often relays both genre and tone. Where do you look next? I’m in the habit of reading the summary on the back (or inside flap), glancing over the names of writers who have offered blurbs, finding the picture of the author (or noticing when there is none), and taking note of the publisher. All this before I even open it to see what the writing is like. 

Once I open the book, I flip through the pages to see if there’s anything interesting happening formally. I love to see footnotes in a fictional work, or what looks like a random illustration in what otherwise seems like a traditional narrative. These little details build readerly anticipation in me, and pique my curiosity about what the writer has in store.

Table of Contents + Chapter Titles

Your reader may not be consciously aware of it, but the table of contents plays a big part in setting expectations around narrative structure, tone, and pacing. Many novels don’t include a table of contents and don’t necessarily need one, but because the table of contents are at the beginning of the book, and are likely one of the first pages your reader will see. You can use those first couple of pages to your creative advantage if you like.

Consider The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. Her table of contents provides insight into genre-defying, generational themes in the book. Each section is an unnamed song, and each chapter title reveals information about the family structure at the heart of the narrative.

You can also make decisions about pacing by separating your book into parts. Most readers have been primed for traditional narratives with three acts: the setup, the confrontation (challenges, etc), and the resolution. Your book does not need to follow the traditional narrative structure – plenty of fantastic books don’t – but you have an opportunity to either effectively telegraph Checkov’s gun, or pleasantly surprise your readers by upending their expectations about what comes when. 

Prologues, Epilogues, and Epigraphs

Framing devices fall in and out of favor, and they fit some narratives better than others. They tend to show up in sprawling novels with a lot of world-building, and provide a formal sense of structure. Prologues are not useful when they’re used as an expositional catch-all or a gimmicky hook. Most readers want to get started right away, and may skip the prologue altogether if it is overly long or seems to have nothing to do with the story. However, if your book has some experimental elements in it – if it slides into meta-territory or follows a nonlinear timeline – the prologue is a good place to creatively introduce some of those elements. 

Epigraphs are those quotes that show up at the beginning of the book (or sometimes at the beginning of chapters). They’re usually from familiar or historical works, and the aim is to provide allusive weight to whatever’s coming next in the book. Epigraphs can provide context, frame your book as part of an ongoing literary conversation, or prepare the reader to look out for upcoming themes. If you’re thinking about including epigraphs in your book, consider what you’re imparting the reader. Are you communicating something personal you want your reader to know about you as an author? Are you aligning your work with the one in the quote? Are you adding depth to character? Courtney Maum has some interesting viewpoints on why and how some epigraphs work better than others on her substack.

Footnotes and In-Story Artifacts

The first time I came into contact with footnotes in a semi-fictional work, I was enthralled. I found an airport read in the early 90s, and as my plane took off, I dove head-first into David Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Since then, I’ve been partial to works that use this conceit. Fictional indexes provide a similar thrill for me. The reason is simple: though obviously a work of popular literature, I begin to employ some of the same critical reading practices that I use with scholarly works. I’m no longer a passive reader – I’m entering into a kind of collaboration with the writer, and it feels like we have a tacit agreement that I’m going to find more inside this book than I expected. Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In the Dream House brought footnotes to a whole new level – one that rewards readers who revisit the book.

I feel similarly about other artifacts that pop up in unexpected places: random-seeming illustrations, a harried-looking grocery list, or text thread between side characters. Though N.K. Jemisin doesn’t love maps in fantasy novels (they’re basically spoilers), she did end up posting one for The Fifth Season series online, and now the maps are included in all her books. 

Doug Dorst’s and JJ Abrams’s novel “S” uses paratextual elements to create a story within a story – an alternative narrative between characters who are only communicating through margin notes. As their relationship deepens, so does the reader’s understanding of both stories. And because we’re living in a time when our access to media allows for stories to  develop both in-universe and on virtual platforms, paratexts may now easily jump from page to screen to headphones. Plenty of books, especially in the romance genre, now include song playlists so readers can create story-specific ambience each time they crack open the book. 

So it's not just about what's on the page, it's about everything around it too. As writers, embracing the power of paratext offers a fantastic opportunity to deepen our connection with our audience and craft an immersive literary experience. While our primary focus will always be on crafting compelling narratives with well-wrought prose, paratextual elements offer us subtle and meaningful ways to actively shape the reader’s journey through each little world.

Writing Dialogue: The 5 Mistakes Beginning Writers Make

Hi writers! We kicked off 2019 with a new 4-part blog series called “Craft Q&A.” In this series, we tackle real questions submitted to us by Yellow Bird clients. Each question pertains to the craft of writing fiction. Without further ado, we present today’s question about writing strong dialogue:

QUESTION: “I honestly feel like my dialogue could be a lot better. It either feels too stiff or too rambling. Do you have any advice about how to get better at writing dialogue?”

Dialogue is a natural part of life, serving as a bridge between individuals and characterizing the speaker. Just as conversing is important in any relationship or interaction, dialogue between characters is critical to a story. It provides readers with a direct link into the scene and gives us a glimpse into the immediate thoughts of characters. However, crafting authentic dialogue is a challenge that many of us struggle with. It’s easy to overthink the dialogue, resulting in these common dialogue mistakes.  

Mistake #1: Using formal dialogue that doesn’t sound natural

 Avoid excessively polished dialogue that comes across as stilted and unnatural. You wouldn’t have this conversation with a friend:

“Hello, Morgan. You are looking better today.”

“Thank you for noticing, Alex. I am feeling a lot better. I do not feel as sick as I did yesterday.”

“That is good news, I hope your health continues to recovery.”

People use contractions in everyday use, so they should occur in your dialogue as well. Additionally, while we call out names in order to get people’s attention, we don’t normally address someone by name when we’re talking exclusively to them. The above conversation would probably look more like this:

“Hey dude, you look so much better today!”

“Oh, thanks! Yeah, I definitely don’t feel as bad as I did.”

“I can tell. I’m glad! Get more rest.”

Overthinking the dialogue can result in rigid conversations that don’t actually take place in real life. Making the dialogue realistic to your setting is important to keep in mind, as well as remembering your character’s personality and how their diction might differ from one another. Going back through and reading your dialogue out loud is a good way to ensure it sounds realistic and natural.

Mistake #2: Using dialogue that sounds TOO natural

On the other hand, many people say “um” and “like” in real life, sometimes multiple times in a sentence. That’s just the natural way we speak when we have to pause and think about what to say. However, readers don’t want all these placeholders when they’re reading text. While those superfluous bits are normal for everyday conversations, dialogue between characters is not meant to contain such filler. Reading someone say “um” between every other word can make it hard to decipher the meaning of the dialogue.

Maybe a character is talking to their high school crush and gets flustered while stumbling over their words. In that case, the ums and likes would add important characterization to the scene, conveying the overwhelming nerves that take over in the moment. These techniques can have an effective impact when used carefully, but they should be used sparingly — in most instances, try to instead let descriptions of body language and natural pauses in dialogue convey the characters’ emotions.

 Mistake #3: Not inserting enough dialogue tags.

Dialogue tags are such a natural part of stories that they are almost invisible. Yet, while readers don’t often notice them at all, there’s an art to these little markers. The main purpose of dialogue tags is to prevent confusion about who is speaking. They serve a functional purpose before anything else. Using not enough dialogue tags can lead to confusion about which characters are saying what, particularly if there are three or more people involved in the conversation. If a reader has to go back to count the lines in order to figure out who is speaking, you need to add more tags.

 Mistake #4: Going crazy with dialogue tags

While some people tend to forget dialogue tags, others make them more complicated than they should be. An overzealous author might write the following scene:

 “Where were you last night?” she demanded angrily.

“None of your business,” he muttered quietly.

“What did you say?” she shouted loudly.

“I said it’s none of your business,” he screamed back.

This exchange features redundant markers, particularly the adverbs describing the dialogue tags. The dialogue itself, along with actions, should convey the tone and mood of the speakers, so words such as “angrily” or “quietly” should not be necessary. While you may think you’re adding more description to the scene, you’re just being repetitious. Supplementing the dialogue with details about the scene can be more effective than adjectives and adverbs. You also don’t need to insert tags with every piece of dialogue, especially if it’s just between two people.

Some writers try to avoid “said,” opting instead for strong verbs (such as “demanded,” “muttered,” “shouted,” and “screamed” from the example above) to keep the text interesting. However, these can interrupt the flow of the story. Sometimes it is best to keep things simple. The majority of dialogue tags in your story should be “said” or “asked” so that you can focus on creating powerful imagery by showing the emotions and actions rather than telling them.

The above scene could be rewritten with fewer dialogue tags and more descriptions of the scene, such as this:

She heard the door creak open and looked up. “Where were you last night?” She asked, slamming her book shut.

“None of your business,” he said, avoiding eye contact while hanging up his coat.

“What did you say?”

He turned abruptly, looking into his wife’s eyes with a piercing, bloodshot look. “I said it’s none of your business.”

 Mistake #5: Filler dialogue

 Just as every word in your story should have a purpose, dialogue is no exception. You should never use dialogue as filler or small talk; instead, be intentional in creating meaningful interactions between characters. Dialogue can characterize characters in important ways or move the plot forward by having a character accidentally let a secret slip out. While dialogue can be a useful tool to add information to the story, avoid using dialogue to summarize events, and don’t use conversations as a way to dump information all at once. Pacing is critical to stories and specifically to dialogue as well.

 As with any writing technique, it takes time and many drafts to hone the art of dialogue. Also, remember that dialogue entails more than just the spoken word, so don’t rely solely on words to convey thoughts, emotions, and information. Dialogue is just one tool in the writer’s toolbox, so use it masterfully in order to create complex characters and an engaging story.

No More Paper Dolls: Pointers for Writing 3-Dimensional Fictional Characters

Hi writers! We kicked off 2019 with a new 4-part blog series called “Craft Q&A.” In this series, we tackle real questions submitted to us by Yellow Bird clients. Each question pertains to the craft of writing fiction. Without further ado, we present today’s question about building 3-dimensional fictional characters.

QUESTION: How do I make my characters 3-dimensional human beings instead of 2-dimensional paper dolls?

 Characters are the basis of your stories, the driving force that grasps the attention, the reason why certain plot lines unfold the way they do. Readers want complex characters they can engage with, relate to, and try to unravel through the pages. As Hemingway said, readers want to read about living people, not a “character.” If a character is particularly unattractive (emotionally and mentally, not physically), readers don’t invest their time and energy into them, and the story is already over in essence.

 With some careful thought and extra time, your story can bring to life our next favorite complex character who is unique and fascinating in their own right. In order to do this, you need to steer clear of the overdone tropes and avoid generalizations that make your characters blend in with the vast sea of literary characters that already exist. To help you achieve this, consider these four pointers that will help bring your characters to life.   

• Know the basics...of plot lines, genre tropes, and character stereotypes. If you know what’s overdone, you can actively shape your writing to avoid clichés, add an original twist to them, or combine them to create a new challenge. Creating a fresh plot line will help you create a three-dimensional character who can meet and overcome (or get defeated by) that challenge. Some examples of cliché character tropes include the Chosen One, the damsel in distress, the brooding rebel, the high school hunk, and the Plain Jane. Unless you have a particularly unique approach to subverting these tropes, you’re better off avoiding them altogether. And even if you feel that your approach to a cliché character will be fresh, you should think hard on whether it’s what best serves your story.

• Give your character a goal…or better yet, an obsession. What do your characters want in the big picture? What drives their behavior or actions? What do they wish to achieve in a certain moment, and how does that get them closer or farther from their goal? Everything we do is driven by a motive, even if it isn’t explicitly clear. If someone desperately wants money, is it because they want to live comfortably or because they want to show off? This minor distinction is important in creating a well-rounded character and can affect how they would react when their goal is obstructed by different obstacles. Just as we need something to strive for, your characters should always have a goal in the back of their minds. The more intense the goal, the more gripping the story will be, which is why giving your character a single-minded obsession can be a great trick to kick the manuscript into high gear.

• Complexity is key. Establish everyone’s skills and flaws, and then build on them throughout the story. Nobody’s perfect, not even fictional characters — they’re clumsy or impatient or self-conscious, among other things. On the other hand, everyone has something they’re good at, including the most incompetent character. But you don’t want to rely on just one trait to define your character, since that will lead to predictability in the plot. Give your characters distinct personalities that are challenged to grow, and don’t be afraid to give them a surprising evolution.

• Create contradictions. Now that your characters have a solid personality and their goals in mind, have them contradict themselves. This interesting feature of the human condition is what makes people so frustrating and hard to understand, yet it’s also what makes them relatable. Contradictions are an unavoidable essence of being human, no matter how assured your character may seem. Perhaps your die-hard feminist character has always secretly dreamed of her father walking her down the aisle at her wedding. Or perhaps your philanthropist character can’t bring himself to actually give money to homeless people on the street. Draw from their flaws when adding this extra flavor into their personality. Their behaviors might go against their most valued beliefs or even their goals. This complexity in behavior may not change the plot immensely (though it can), but it draws us in to their psychology while creating some potential tension, either internally or interpersonally.

Though it may seem difficult, and even at times impossible, you can create a character unparalleled in complexity, precisely because that character exists somewhere in your imagination and only you have the power to bring that unique character, with all their quirks and attitudes and problems, into the real world. Just as your characters can transcend the tropes laid out for them, you also have the ability to defy the classic writer stereotype by writing and pouring life into your characters with the words and imagination only you possess.

Take Your Writing to a New World: Tips for World-Building in Fiction

Hi writers! We kicked off 2019 with a new 4-part blog series called “Craft Q&A.” In this series, we tackle real questions submitted to us by Yellow Bird clients. Each question pertains to the craft of writing fiction. Without further ado, we present today’s question about world-building for Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Dystopian, and even Historical Fiction novels.

QUESTION: What are some pointers for writers who are working on a story that takes place in another time, place, or fantasy setting?

As exciting as Earth is in the 21st century, sometimes the best setting for a story is another world altogether. Many great stories take place in different timelines and dimensions, places where there are different rules and creatures, where the impossible becomes possible. Why limit your stories to the laws of physics and the history that’s already been written when you can make up your own laws and history?

High fantasy fiction takes place in secondary or parallel worlds, which can take an endless variety of forms. One of the best examples of a richly detailed world is J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, a diverse world filled with many creatures, lands, and languages that makes it the perfect setting for adventures. It’s a world containing different villages, kingdoms, and landscapes, from the peaceful Shire to the declining kingdom of Gondor to the desolate volcanoes of Mordor. There are elves and dwarves and hobbits and goblins and many more peoples and races that have their own history and personality. This world takes on a life of its own, and it’s an exemplary model of how you want to build your fictional world.

If you’re writing a story in another time or place, you have the power to develop everything from scratch. Creating these immersive and complex worlds can be a complicated process, but by following these steps when building your world, you can ensure your new fantasy setting becomes a believable and engaging place that your readers will never want to leave.

• Read other works. Learn from the best works of fiction already written. See how other authors show the elements of their world. As mentioned above, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are critical works to study. Examine how Tolkien develops the setting, characters, and the logic of Middle-earth, granting everything in his made-up world a believable explanation and a consistent history. Other classic fictional worlds include the universe of George Lucas’ Star Wars (and the Extended Universe that sprang up in other media over the years) and “The Known World” in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Find your favorite fantasies and note how they make the world work.

• Plan ahead. Writing about this world is difficult as it is. Creating a whole new world requires elaborate histories and backstories that involve thorough planning. You want to have a general idea, as well as specific details, of this world ready to go before you write a single word. Be able to rationalize why things work the way they do in your world. You need to have a complete grasp of the inner workings yourself before you can hope to depict this world for others. The more intimately you know your world, the more intricate your writing can be. Here is a quick list of things you should have fully considered before you start writing.

  • The people: What are their language, practices, and customs? What do they value?

  • The geographical layout of the world: How big or small is your world? Are there different regions, and if so, what are their defining characteristics?

  • The history of the world: How did the present day reach its current state? Are there any historical conflicts that affect the present? What was the most recent event that happened before your story begins? How technically advanced is the world?

• Make the world a character. Just as your characters grow throughout the story, so can the characters’ environment. Think of this new world as a character of its own. It should have its own feel, look, sound, and smell. The setting is your own creation that serves an integral role for your story, and it can grow as stories evolve. However, the world shouldn’t be the central character. Each detail you insert about the setting should serve a purpose, whether it’s building imagery or advancing the plot, so it’s best to avoid including superfluous details that don’t enhance the story in the long run.

• Use dialogue appropriately. It can be tempting to divulge all the details and histories about your new world in a character’s monologue, but dumping this information all at once is boring and unnecessary. When used sparingly and smartly, dialogue and diction can reveal much about a character’s nature, as well as the society and world in which they live. Aim for a healthy balance that equally favors descriptions, dialogue, and action.

• Double check the logic. If you’re writing a story set in an alternate timeline or a brand new world, that naturally means there are more loopholes that your story could fall through, especially as you find yourself taking your story in new directions you didn’t anticipate when you first started writing it. An event may be out place or a fact may contradict something you previously mentioned. Just as you should take the precious time before your writing to map out the details, take some extra time at the end to review what you’ve actually written. It’s important your details line up logically or else the invalidity of your world will undermine your writing.

Just as these tips advise what you should do, here is a quick list of things you shouldn’t do: Don’t write excessive descriptions. Don’t rely on high fantasy clichés. Don’t create stock characters. And don’t stress!

World building is not an easy task, but if planned thoroughly and executed carefully, you’ll enlighten your readers and bring them to a whole new world only you are capable of creating.

The 5 Best NaNoWriMo Apps for Planning & Plotting Your Novel (HINT: Start Planning in October)

This is the year! You are SO IN! You’re going to knock out 50,000 words in November, then spend the next few months revising and adding until you have that glorious thing: a completed novel, polished and shiny, ready to be sent out to an eager world.

You got this. But as every writer knows, before you begin, you need to lay out your tools: cup of coffee, notebook and pen for helpful scribbles, laptop or tablet . . . and the right apps.

PLANNING IN OCTOBER

Planning is the fun part! But that’s the danger: you can get lost in planning and diagrams and research and oops! It’s almost Thanksgiving. Don’t succumb: come November 1, be churning out your one or two thousand words a day.

In October, though, plan away. Scapple ($14.99 for Mac and Windows; free to try for 30 days), from the people who brought you Scrivener, the writer’s best friend (see below), is a simple mind-mapping app that allows you to plop down characters, events, or ideas and connect them with lines, shift them around, or arrange them however you like. Like scribbling on a whiteboard, but faster.

The Cult of Mac also points us to Lists for Writers, $2.99 for iPhone/iPad or Android. When you’re writing fast—and you’ll be writing fast—this is a great go-to for prompts and ideas. What kind of hair does the bridegroom have? What does my earth-bound angel actually do for a living? What attitude does my super-spy’s husband have toward her work? Flick through a list, grab a likely answer, and go. This app will stay useful well into November.

WRITING IN NOVEMBER

Scrivener ($45 for Mac and Windows; $19.99 for iOS (universal); free to try for 30 days) is often accused of having a cult, and if that’s the case, I’m a happy member. I’ve been using it for nine or ten years, first on large business documents at my then-day job, and then as a novelist. I genuinely do not understand how people write big projects without it. Some of my favorites of its many features:

• Allows you to break your work into chunks – chapters and scenes—that you can color code and swap around easily in the “binder” that organizes them on the left of your screen.
• Gives you a place to keep all your research right within the project. Photos, sound clips, videos, PDFs, entire web pages—they’re right there at hand in your research section.
• Split screen feature allows you to have two windows open at the same time. Describing a magic raven? Pull up your raven photo and set it right next to the scene you’re typing in.
• The project word counter tracks your progress every writing session and alerts you when you’ve hit your goal—useful for NaNoWriMo.
• And of course, Scrivener easily exports your document into Microsoft Word format so that you can send it out into the world.

Some people find Scrivener a bit intimidating initially. With so many ways to help you write, research, and organize, using it for the first time can be like sitting down to the controls of a jet plane. Here are three key things to know if you’re new to Scrivener:

1. If you’re planning to use it for NaNoWriMo, get it ahead of time and play around a bit to see if it’s for you.
2. The Scrivener tutorials are famously excellent, so give one a spin.
3. Forget about all the stuff it can do. Just begin by using its most basic features—the binder that organizes your documents, and the Research folder—and don’t worry about the rest. Those two features alone can be writer’s-life-changing.

For years Scrivener cultists, I mean fans, have been begging the creators for an iOS version, and it’s finally here. Now you can sync a project to Dropbox and work on it anywhere, from the coffee shop to the line at the post office. The transition to iOS was worth the wait: Macworld gave the iOS version a four-and-a-half mouse rating and said “Scrivener for iOS does just about everything you could ever need in order to research, plot, and write a short story, doctoral thesis, novel, or a review like the one you’re reading right now. . . a robust, flexible writing tool that will serve you well.” (Note that because of screen size limitations, a few features are not available on the iPhone version.)

Tried Scrivener, and it’s not for you? Ulysses (Mac ($44.99) and iOS ($24.99, universal) (sorry, Windows and Android users) gets raves from the Scrivener-decliners. One iTunes reviewer said, “Ulysses hits perfectly between the hack of using a standard word processor and folders to create long-form writing, such as a novel, and the too-much-to-be-worth-the-effort kitchen sink approach of Scrivener. I have become many times more productive since I started using it and it quickly, quickly, QUICKLY justified itself in terms of cost.”

The Mac desktop app has been around for a decade or so, and a 2010 Macworld review sings the praises of its clean interface and “superb design.”

The Ulysses iOS version is new this spring, and the five-mouse Macworld review is a rave beyond raves.

Finally, if NaNoWriMo (or any writing, really) demands anything from you, it’s time management skills. That’s where the Pomodoro Timer (iOS and Android, $1.99) comes in. This little app keeps you writing for 25 minutes, then gives you five minutes to stretch, walk around, or play on Facebook. But it dings you back to work when that five minutes is up. Let this bossy, cheerful tomato keep you churning out words.

Good luck! And remember the Rule of First Drafts, coined I am not sure by whom, which should become your mantra for November: The only thing a first draft needs to be is done.

Ready? GO!

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