  Short Stories
This week: Context Clues and You Edited by: Jay's debut novel is out now!  
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This Issue:
Context Clues and You
How do you use the information given to the reader to build your world? How do you draw the reader into the world? What clues do you use to get them thinking? How much do you trust the reader? |
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So, we went to see Mad Max: Fury Road this week. If you're into action movies, I can't imagine being disappointed by it. Now, laying aside any other questions about how well-done a movie it was (for my tastes), one of the things that nearly all of my friends have said to me as we've talked about it is:
"I like that the director left some of the details up to the audience."
"It was nice that the worldbuilding was just there and not every single element was explained."
"The story was written without needing to be spoonfed to the audience. We were allowed to figure it out."
So, there's a danger in leaving everything up to your audience, as a writer. What if they don't get it, from context? I know so many writers who worry about this, and certainly it's a legitimate concern as a writer. Whether you're writing in a realistic, literary style, or you're writing genre short fiction, I find that one of the double-edged swords of short stories is that you have to be sparing with the amount of explanation that you can include while still being thorough enough that your story action does not occur in a vacuum.
In some cases, this might mean that your super-cool idea that just takes a little too much detailed explanation to work might need to be cut-- or worse*, simplified to fit the structure. It might mean leaving more of your idea to the readers' imagination. As long as you give enough background to lean on, but not so much background that the scenery begins to overtake the action, there's no reason not to trust your reader. Sometimes their imaginations will fill in the gaps far more thoroughly than you could do in words. Readers are full of lived experiences that they will freely splice into a story that has hooked them into reading.
Context clues -- details woven into the story whose meaning is usually inferred or implied rather than overtly explained -- are one of the most common ways to make this kind of information available in your story. Not every new word introduced requires a dictionary explanation of its function. Use background information to play upon what your reader already knows-- or thinks they know.
What constitutes a context clue? A piece of information that, while specific to the scene, may not be explained overtly but should be able to be understood, from the context in which the information is presented. In speculative or genre fiction, this might be a made-up word or a name, might be something known that is re-named in context, or might be a completely unknown quantity. In literary fiction or mysteries, these are details which might provide additional information about setting; a mystery story set in a tea shop in the 1900s is going to have a different context than a tea shop in the present day, for example.
There's one story I've read recently which involved a scene inside a witch's house, and the writer left just enough sensory detail that I could smell the place. And it was a tossed-off sentence or two, framing the action, that gave me the details to where I could fill in the rest. (I can't find it at the moment; if I do, I'll update this with a link.)
Have you ever read a short story where the details were left mostly to the reader to discern? Was the story successful in getting you to imagine the scene unfolding while trusting you to come up with the information through the context clues and so on?
Until Next Time,
Take care and Write on!
~jay
*not actually worse, but you get the idea  . |
This issue's picks! Be sure to check them all out.
--this last is a collection but interesting stuff indeed.
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Feedback from "Cut Your Clutter!" !
Grin 'n Bear It!  writes:
Just wanted to thank you for featuring one of my flash fiction pieces in this month's newsletter. Also enjoying reading your other picks.
You're most welcome; thank *you* for writing a good story to share.
Adrianna writes:
This has to be one of the most helpful newsletters I've come across. I'm in the process of editing my novel and I have so far eliminated all 'suddenly's, reduced my occurances of the word 'then' from 250 to 15 and cut the 'very's from 70 to 10. I'm now working on my 'of the's of which I have over 450!!! Thank you so much for your help!
Wow! Glad this was useful for you. It's by no means a complete nor exhaustive list, but it should make an immediate difference in the strength of your writing.
dwarf2012 writes:
Excellent reminders, thank you!
Aw, thanks much, Tessa!
brom21 writes:
I’ve recently been practicing the rule of the omission of needless words. I began this thanks to a writing professor of mine, but also for the little insightful handbook “The Elements of Style” by Strunk Jr. and White. I wrote a story where the same professor requested that I omit unnecessary words. I ended up omitting over three-hundred words! Like you said, adverbs and auxiliaries create fluff. Thank you for the newsletter!
Strunk and White's Elements of Style is definitely part of the equation with this article. I eleceted to go with a bite-sized reminder, but the entire book is excellent and useful: check it out here if you don't already have it.
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Short Stories: May 27, 2015 Issue [#7017]
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