Telling Truth with Fiction Douglas Bond Fiction Writing Checklist

Telling Truth with Fiction Douglas Bond Fiction Writing Checklist

Be a careful observer of people and events around you. Keen, perceptive observation is essential for any good writer.

Write down your observations. Keep a blank book handy for writing careful descriptions of people and places. Keep paper and pencil by your bed at night so that when ideas come you are ready to write them down--then you'll be able to get back to sleep.

Find the best books and read and reread them. Study them carefully and decide what makes them so good. Observe how great writers use the anatomy of fiction (they get this from the Bible, and the order of reality in a broken world, though they may not realize this).

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Anatomy of Fiction

Write about things and places with which you are already familiar.

Avoid adverbs. Show action with active verbs, and you will not need adverbs.

Show; don't tell.

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• Beginning exposition or status quo

• Inciting moment

• Rising action

• Climax

• Falling action

• Moment of final suspense

• Dénouement, resolution or untying of the knot

Avoid clichés--like the plague!

Never aim at style; aim at authenticity.

Be brief. Keep it simple and clear.

Don't cave in to gender inclusive language. It violates the most basic principles of good writing: be brief, and less is more. He/she fulfills neither principle.

Read good poetry. Practice writing poetry in conventional forms, like sonnets in iambic pentameter.

Know the English language, the quintessential multicultural language. Study Elements of Style, by Strunk and White.

Read what you have written out loud. This is the big test.

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"Luther once said, 'The devil hates goose quills,' and, doubtless, he has good reason, for ready writers, by the Holy Spirit's blessing, have done his kingdom much damage."

Remember the three keys to good writing: Rewriting, rewriting, and rewriting. I am not a good writer. I am, however, making progress as a rewriter.

Carefully examine your motives for writing.

Above all, prepare your mind and heart to write by reading the Bible. It is God-breathed. We are image bearers of God. We have been made new creations in Christ Jesus. There is no greater book than the Bible, the Word of God, or "The Law of Christ" as John Wycliffe termed it. Master its content, and you will write from the heart about enduring things. Master its style, and you will write about them in the most imaginative, Christ-honoring, and winsome ways.

~ C. H. Spurgeon (May 29, Morning and Evening)