The 5 Ps of Writing: Prose

We’ve now released five special episodes of The Novelry on Writing to celebrate our brand new prize, The Next Big Story. These bonus episodes will help you write a standout entry, delving into the five elements that make the story great. They are:

1. Person
2. Problem
3. Place
4. Plot
5. Prose

We hope you can enjoy these episodes on your lunch break, at work, while you are cooking in the evening, or wherever you can find the time—because story ideas can come to you anytime and any place.

For The Next Big Story, we are offering a grand prize of $100,000 for just three pages of writing. Yes, just three pages of the beginning of a novel. That’s all!

So, what should those pages include? Let’s find out more in this transcript from the fifth and final special podcast episode from The Novelry on Writing, where writing coaches Tara Conklin and Urban Waite explore the secrets of Prose...

TARA CONKLIN: Hi, my name is Tara Conklin. I am a writing coach here at The Novelry in literary fiction, historical fiction, and women’s fiction. I am a novelist and a teacher. I live in Seattle, and my books are The House Girl, The Last Romantics, and my most recent, Community Board.

URBAN WAITE: Hey, I am Urban Waite, one of the coaches at The Novelry. I write crime and thrillers with a little bit of a literary bent, and I’m also one of the book reviewers for the San Francisco Chronicle.

How do you define prose?

TC: Urban, we’re here to talk about prose! I wanted to ask first, what does that word mean to you? What is prose? How do you define it?

UW: I think of sentences and paragraphs and the way that they come together on the page, the way that they bring the reader along through your story. That’s the prose.

TC: For sure. When we read good prose, it has a rhythm and a voice that’s all its own. I mean, Hemingway, for example, is probably someone that everyone has heard about or read in some classroom, or read some of his novels or short stories. He has such a distinctive voice and his prose is so beautiful and simple. I often think of him as a prose master.

UW: Yeah. Short, short sentences, declarative sentences, beautiful descriptions of setting. A very little interior look into your character and sort of letting the reader imagine.

The balance between clarity and lyricism

TC: This gets to one of the elements that I think is really important in writing good prose—the balance between clarity and lyricism. How would you explain that to a new writer?

UW: Well, even for us old writers... We get in trouble for this! So, it is finding the balance between not writing purple prose, not going overboard. Reining yourself in at times. I mean, I could write setting for days, I just love setting, but I know that I have to rein it in because I need the plot to keep moving, the reader to keep going through the work. Keep imagining, keep moving the story.

TC: Yeah. I have a very similar challenge when I sit down to write because I love words, and I love random, obscure, bizarre words, but they have to be used very sparingly in prose, because it can confuse the reader and it can sound like purple prose. Overwriting.

The pitfalls of overwriting

TC: I think overwriting is something that I see a lot in beginner writers. They think that in order to be serious or write in a literary voice, you need to use, you know, foot-long words and convoluted sentences. That often weighs against clarity. And you certainly don’t want your language to confuse your reader.

I often think of it as like painting, you know? You’re painting this portrait or this picture, whether it’s a setting or a person, for your reader. And you can be kind of Impressionistic, but you still want them to know what you’re painting the picture of.

UW: Don’t overdo it. Write as you speak, write as you think. We don’t think in 20-letter words, you know?

You’re painting this portrait... whether it’s a setting or a person, for your reader. And you can be kind of Impressionistic, but you still want them to know what you’re painting the picture of.
—Tara Conklin

Clichés

TC: So that’s one pitfall—purple prose and overwriting. You also have the pitfall of clichés. How do you define cliché?

UW: A saying or term that is way too overused. It’s like a crutch. You can throw one in every once in a while, but you want to be original. You want to create something that delights the reader, that they might have thought of before, they might have seen before, but the moment that you put the words on the page and create the scene for them, they’re like: Oh... Yes, I see that.

Don’t overuse something that you’ve heard a million times. That is a cliché.

TC: Exactly. I think especially with the pages for The Novelry’s prize—it’s such a short sample, and you want to show your own unique voice without using turns of phrase that people have heard before. So, maybe we should give some examples of clichés, like ‘hard as a rock’ or ‘dumb as a post.’ What’s your favorite cliché? Or, I should say, your least favorite cliché?

UW: Spice is the variety of life. Is that a cliché? Am I messing that up?

TC: Variety is the spice of life.

UW: Yes! There it is. I don’t use clichés! I don’t even know what they are, you know? I can’t even get them right!

TC: You banished them from your mind.

UW: Yes.

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Dialogue is part of prose

TC: The one place where I do sometimes use a cliché is in dialogue, because it can say a lot about a character if they speak in overused clichés. It can show that they’re not a very creative person. They tend to think in a certain established way. So I do sometimes use them in dialogue.

Let’s talk about dialogue. Because dialogue, of course, is part of prose.

UW: I can purple-prose up my dialogue. I can overwrite my dialogue. And so that’s just something that I personally am aware of. Some people, they’re so good at it, you know? Screenwriters, people who know, like: Look, I’ve got a word limit. I’ve got to get this out there.

And so I tend to try to write like a screenwriter, you know? You have a certain limit of what you can put down and you need to get the message across. For dialogue, it needs to serve a purpose, it needs to transport your reader, it needs to get them from one place to the other. But it also reveals certain things.

TC: And a common misconception about dialogue on the page is that it should represent speech as it’s actually spoken between people, which, of course, we all speak like idiots. And so your dialogue should be a little bit more to the point. It needs to be to the point, as you were saying—it has to have intention.

I try and give at least one of my characters in any exchange a specific agenda. You know, like: this is what they need to do in this part of dialogue. It’s where I edit the most, too. I know that I’m going to write the dialogue, and then I’m going to go back and I’m going to cut out a third of the words, and then I’m going to go out again and I’m going to cut out more of those words. So I just like having it be short and snappy.

UW: Oh yeah. You cut all that stuff. Like, Hello, how are you? I’m fine... You’ve got to get rid of that stuff. We all do that, but you have to make it tight.

TC: Yeah, exactly. Especially if you’ve got to get yourself across in three pages.

I tend to try to write like a screenwriter, you know? You have a certain limit of what you can put down and you need to get the message across. For dialogue, it needs to serve a purpose, it needs to transport your reader, it needs to get them from one place to the other. But it also reveals certain things.
—Urban Waite

Sentence length and structure

TC: So I was thinking of actual concrete tips for writing good prose. Maybe we can just talk through a few, but one that I came up with is varying your sentence length and structure. Sometimes I’ll read a student’s work that’s like: subject, verb, object, object, verb—you know? And all the sentences are pretty much the same kind of construction and the same length, and I’m like: yawn...

You really have to change that up. And sometimes you have to do it really consciously, like read a paragraph and realize that: no, you have to have some shorter sentences. Maybe you’re starting with your preposition instead of putting it at the end.

Do you have any? What would you say would be a concrete tip? Tips and tricks with Urban and Tara!

Vary your grammar

UW: Don’t be afraid to be a copywriter’s worst nightmare. Because I break grammatical rules all the time. And it’s all for the sake of giving something new.

Human speech is not grammatical, you know? You do one-word sentences, you sort of invent, you live, you’re surprised... You want your reader to feel like they’re living and being surprised and entertained. You don’t want to be so repetitive that your reader’s going to sleep. So vary things up. Try to get your impression of the world across, you know?

TC: That reminds me of what I consider the one true rule in writing, which is don’t be boring. We want it simple, we don’t want clichés, but also try not to repeat yourself.

UW: Agreed. Yeah.

I break grammatical rules all the time. And it’s all for the sake of giving something new.
—Urban Waite

Urban’s top tip: write like a screenwriter

UW: I have one prompt. This is something that I always struggle with, but especially when I’m introducing characters, I’ll try to set up a couple characters that know each other, but then introduce one, either it’s in the first person or third person, who is maybe admitting something to themselves that they’ve never admitted to themselves before. And obviously letting the reader in on a little secret, you know? A little something that maybe the other character in the scene doesn’t know.

Then one sentence of setting, set everything up, and then just get into the dialogue and treat it like a screenwriter.

Short, quick.

No ‘he said, she said, they said.’

And if you’re really doing a great job with that dialogue, you will need very little ‘he said, she said, they said,’ because you should know who’s speaking as you go down through the dialogue. Then just finish it out with another little paragraph that moves the work along. You know: this is what this character took from that. This is what the character’s thinking. This is where the character wants to go.

I guess my prompt is: set up a small scene, see how it works for you. Hopefully, it will reveal something for you.

Tara’s top tip: read your work aloud

TC: That’s a great prompt. Mine is less a prompt and kind of a homework suggestion to really refine your prose and get your language as tight as it can possibly be.

I always recommend that people read their work aloud. Close the door. Don’t be self-conscious. Just pick up your pages and listen to how they sound. And there are also programs that can do this for you now, too. Your pages can be read to you in Gwyneth Paltrow’s voice or, you know, a British accent or something.

Because I do think that in hearing the words spoken, you get a different view... It just hits in a different way. So I would highly recommend every person, before you submit your entry, read it out loud and edit it accordingly.

UW: I love that. Because you know it’s true!

TC: Yeah. It’s totally true.

UW: Yeah. I spend half my day in here, just talking to myself.

TC: Absolutely. Me too!

In hearing the words spoken, you get a different view... It just hits in a different way. So I would highly recommend every person, before you submit your entry, read it out loud and edit it accordingly.
—Tara Conklin

UW: Those are just some tips. Some tips to get you writing, to hopefully get you a winning three-page submission. I think the best thing I can put forward here is just to write what you love. You know, put something down that you want other people to read.

TC: Those are great words of advice, Urban. It was so fun to talk to you today about prose. Good luck to everyone, and happy writing! Until next time.

The best thing I can put forward here is just to write what you love... Put something down that you want other people to read.
—Urban Waite

Closing words

[Louise Dean] Thank you for joining us today. We are so pleased to have you along for the writing journey, and we hope to see you on another episode of The Novelry on Writing. From first draft to finished manuscript, at The Novelry you’ll enjoy one-to-one coaching from bestselling authors, live writing classes with award-winning authors and literary agents, and you’ll work with a publishing editor all the way for submission to literary agents toward a publishing deal.

All writers learn from other writers, even the greats. Write your novel in good company. Join us at The Novelry.

We’ll show you how to start, coax your story into shape, and cheer you on to type The End.

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