1. Make Setting Do More Than Describe a Place
If you've ever gotten bored while reading, the parts that you skimmed were probably descriptions of places. It's not enough, as a writer, to use description to show what a place looks like. Try to convey the narrator's or character's attitude toward the thing you are describing. For an example, read this excerpt from Esmé-Michelle Watkins's story "Xochimilco," published in Boston Review:
There was nothing to see. Gone were the Stay Away drapes tall as street lights, whose heavy fabric Mammì flew all the way from our house in Pasadena to Nonna's in Bivona to have custom-made; the Go Sit Down oil fresco of clustered villas hugging crags along a turquoise sea; the Knock You Into Next Tuesday French-legged dining table and high backed chairs, formerly below the Go Ahead and Try It chandelier; the Touch and Lose Your Life crystal bowls, where Mammì kept my favorite Sorrento lemons sweet like oranges, and the Cabinet of Doom wide as two hall closets, which housed the finest of Mammì's That's a No-No clique: tableware from Baccarat, Tiffany, and JL Coquet. (From "Xochimilco" by Esmé-Michelle Watkins)
2. Develop a Character's Interior Life
It may seem obvious, but books are not movies. A reader's relationship with a character is primarily with the character's thoughts and feelings, not physical appearance. Yet, a simple description of who a character is and how she looks can be an entry into her interior life. Kelli Ford illustrates this perfectly in her story "Walking Stick," published at Drunken Boat:
At sixty-seven, Anna Maria did not hurry with much these days. She was still stout and round, but a bone spur on her right ankle forced her foot out at an odd angle. That shoe always wore thin on the inside before the other. She could feel the gravel poking through. (From "Walking Stick" by Kelli Ford)
3. Write a Thrilling Action Sequence
I grew up reading Hardy Boys mysteries and Louis L'Amour cowboy adventures, which means I read a lot of fight scenes. Yet I've found that writing similar scenes--or any action sequence, for that matter--often turns into a boring choreography of movement: hit, punch, kick, grunt, etc. Good fight scenes must do more. The key is to interpret or comment upon the actions. Kevin Grauke shows how in this excerpt from his story "Bullies," published at FiveChapters:
He grabbed Mr. Shelley's tie and gave it a quick yank. He meant this only to be a sign, a signal that this was over for now--a period, not an exclamation point--but he pulled harder than he'd meant to, and Mr. Shelley, caught off-guard, stumbled forward, knocking into him. Off balance, Dennis staggered backwards from the low height of the porch, pulling Mr. Shelley with him in an awkward dance, and as they fell together and rolled, he understood that there was no way to turn back now, or to end this peacefully, no matter how clownish and clumsy it had to look. (From "Bullies" by Kevin Grauke)
4. Build Suspense
In his famous essay "Psychology and Form," Kenneth Burke explains how suspense is built by giving readers something to desire ("creation of an appetite," he calls it) and then delaying the satisfaction of that desire. The easiest way to do this is with a distraction, or, as Burke writes, "a temporary set of frustrations." In other words, promise the readers something and then wave something shiny to make them forget the thing you promised--so that when you finally produce what you originally promise, the readers are surprised. You can find a clear example of this strategy in Manuel Gonzales' story "Farewell, Africa," published at Guernica. If you read the entire story, you'll see how long Gonzales is able to delay showing us what happened to the pool:
No one, apparently, had thought to test the pool before the party to see that it worked. The pool, which was the size of a comfortable Brooklyn or Queens apartment, had been designed by Harold Cornish and had been commissioned as a memorial installation for the Memorial Museum of Continents Lost. It was the centerpiece of the museum as well as the party celebrating the museum's opening. In the center of the long, wide pool was a large, detailed model of the African continent. According to Cornish, the pool, an infinity pool, would be able to recreate the event of Africa sinking into the sea. "Not entirely accurately," he told me early into the party, before anyone knew the installation wouldn't work. "But enough to give a good idea of how it might have looked when it happened." (From "Farewell, Africa" by Manuel Gonzales)
5. Use Dialogue to Create Conflict
Close your eyes and listen to people talk, and you'll quickly realize that they have different speaking styles--their own particular diction and phrasing. Dig a little deeper and I suspect you'll find that those differences are tied to differences of personality. Our diction and phrasing are integral to our conception of our identity. So, to create conflict in a story, trap together two characters who have different speaking styles. The personality differences will soon emerge. A good example of this can be found in Rene Pérez II's story, "Lost Days," published in The Acentos Review:
"I don't mean to disparage the whole of Corpus as being 'ghetto,' because that connotes a certain socioeconomic status," he said, trying to backpedal as delicately as he could out of a comment he'd made at the dinner table that offended Beto, her husband, his father. He had always spoken that way; Stanford didn't do that to him. "It's just that there's a culture here which is such that one can't be challenged or even stimulated intellectually. There's no art, no progress toward it or high culture. It's a city of... of... philistines."
It would have hurt less if he'd just stuck with calling the place 'ghetto.' Rose knew what she did and didn't have, and that she raised her son where and how she and Beto could afford to. So their neighbors were a little shady. They were still good neighbors. So their neighborhood was down-run and their house a little small. It was still their home. (From "Lost Days" by Rene S. Perez II)
6. Avoid the Chronology Trap
Stories and novels don't move through time. Instead, they gather time into chunks, organizing minutes and hours into miniature stories within a story. Think of each paragraph as a stand-alone unit--with its own arc, theme, and organization. This should help avoid those tedious passages that plod minute-by-minute through chronology. To demonstrate how this works, check out this paragraph from Roxane Gay's story "Contrapasso," published at Mixed Fruit. The story is formatted like a restaurant menu. Each paragraph is a description of a dish. Notice how much time is collapsed into one short passage:
Filet Mignon$51.95
They saw specialists. There were accusations. They tried treatments, all of which failed. They tried adoption but she had a past and they had no future. And then it was just the two of them in their big house straining at the seams with all the things she bought and all the things they would never have. One day she came home. All of it was gone. (From "Contrapasso" by Roxane Gay)
7. Write Short, Stylish Sentences
People often claim that a story's language is poetic. But what does that mean? Sometimes it means that the writer uses lush, lyric descriptions. But not always. Great sentences--and great lines of poetry--often work the same way. They strive for leaps in logic, for the unexpected juxtaposition of images. Readers are expected to keep up, to make the connections without the aid of explanation. Therefore, a stylish sentence often dashes forward. The best writers can do this in two words, as Vladimir Nabokov did in his famous parenthetical aside "(picnic, lightning)." Other writers, like Kelly Luce, leap from one short, direct sentence to the next. For example, here is the opening paragraph from her story "Rooey" in The Literary Review. Notice how far and fast the story moves using phrases of less than ten words each:
Since Rooey died, I'm no longer myself. Foods I've hated my entire life, I crave. Different things are funny. I've stopped wearing a bra. I bet they're thinking about firing me here at work, but they must feel bad, my brother so recently dead and all. Plus, I'm cheap labor, fresh out of college. And let's face it, the Sweetwater Weekly doesn't have the most demanding readership or publishing standards. (From "Rooey" by Kelly Luce)