Terms related to fiction writing.
Literary Terms
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Openers
Common ways to start a sentence.
Published Style Guides
A listing of various published style guides.
Figurative Language and Word Play
This is a mashup of rhetorical devices and non-literal use of words categorized by how the words are patterned: substituting words, repeating words, adding words, and removing words.
Formatting Terms
Terms related to typesetting, fonts, graphics, and visual conventions.
The Space Between Sections
In fiction, authors can break chapters into sections, often called scene breaks. These breaks, at their simplest, include only a single blank line. Flourished section breaks have a small graphic centered in the blank space and...
Sentence Patterns
subject (noun)appositivepredicateBill, the head chef,cooked the meal. [a] appositive (nonrestrictive noun phrase) repeating a noun, directly after a subject [a. verb and direct object] appositive subject (noun)predicateA jolly old man,Santadelivered the presents. [a]...
Pronouns
A list of most pronouns, alphabetized, with information on their type, case, and number.
Sources
A working list of sources, updated as needed.
Roles Nouns Play
Information Roles Agentive Role = the doer of the action (with transitive and intransitive verbs) Affected Role = someone or something affected by the action (with intransitive verbs) Identified Role = someone or something identified through the subject predictive...
Independent Clauses Patterns
1. SV Subject + Verb Subject + Verb (intransitive) (intransitive verbs) Basic Structures Subject + Verb (intransitive) SubjectVerb (intransitive)Sheran. She ran. SubjectVerb PhraseThe bookshave been sold. The books have been sold. SVA Basic Structures with Adverbials...
Evolving Characteristics of the Incunabula
Pick up a book, any book. Look through its pages. Certain elements are evident: individual pages, columns of text, titles, headings, illustrations, indexes. When did these book conventions develop? Would you be surprised to know they were present almost since the very...
Reading Visual Information: Scanning Patterns
When we read material composed mostly of text and headings our eyes track in typical ways. You can put important elements in these locations or change up the design to control the scanning.
Paragraph Formatting Issues
A quick list of formatting areas to check at the paragraph level.
Verb Forms and Tenses
Using the principal parts of a verb listed in a dictionary, you can construct all the forms of the verb which then can be used to decide which tense (or other conjugation) is appropriate.
Language Terms
Terms related to grammar, usage, style, and editorial conventions.
Common Story Structures in Journalism
Nut-Graf Structure Description: Start with an anecdote, follow with the story in a nutshell (nut graf), then add details that tie directly back to nut, end with a tie back to anecdote. Also called: feature style Likely Origin: Wall Street Journal, Barney Kilgore, 1941...
Sentence Types
Sentences have many aspects that can be used to categorize them. Exploring these different aspects can help writers clarify in their own mind what each word is doing and why it is there.
Conjunctions
Conjunctions join parts of a sentence together.
Phrase Types
A phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a unit.
Clause Types
A clause contains a subject and at least one verb phrase.
Helping and Linking Verbs
Helping verbs accompany the main verb to form verb phrases.
Beats
Action beats are short descriptions that come before, between or just after dialogue. Story beats are “the basic units of a plot, which are often called plot points or story beats.
Typography Books
Geoffrey Dowding, Finer Points in the Spacing and Arrangement of Type (London: Wace and Company, 1954). 1954 Revised, 1966 and 1993
Resource Lists – Novel Writing
Writers Helping Writers https://writershelpingwriters.net/resources-for-writers/ Authors of: The Emotional Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi Fiction University http://blog.janicehardy.com/p/online-resources.html Author of: Understanding Show, Don't Tell...
Typography Resources
The League of Moveable Type and the Weekly Typographic Podcast Newsletter: https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/newsletter Podcast: https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/podcast
Whitespace Characters
Whitespace characters don’t result in a visible mark but do occupy an area on a page. The space character, inserted into text when you press the spacebar, is the most common. Other whitespace characters are narrower or wider than the space character and used to optically align text or numbers. Use these to avoid typing two or more space characters in a row or nudge a little space around punctuation.
The Space Between Words
Word Spacing is the space between words that results from pressing the spacebar. This space is flexible; it can be expanded or compressed; it can be fixed and unchanging or elastic and adapt to circumstances.
Backing Up Scrivener Files
In addition to the default backups, use a document export to keep an easily accessible copy of your writing for worst case scenarios.
The Space Between Letters
Each letter is designed with a small amount of blank space on the left and right sides. This spacing is set by the font's designer and is part of the letter itself; it cannot be changed. In technical terms, any character (letter, punctuation mark, number) is called a...