Writing Advice and Inspiration: Cheat Sheet Part 12/12

Cheat Sheet for Writing and Revision

CHARACTER

• Do your characters have desires?
• Are your characters distinctive enough not to be types?
• Do your characters have contrasting traits that make them complex?
• Are your characters consistent despite their contrasting traits?
• Do your characters have the ability to change?
• Do you know your characters well enough?
• Are the right characters "round" and the right characters "flat"?
• Are you showing your characters more than telling about them?
• Are you utilizing all four methods of showing--action, speech, appearance, thought?
• Do your characters have the right names?

PLOT

• Do you have a major dramatic question?
• Do you have a protagonist with a strong goal and plenty of obstacles?
• Does your protagonist have both external and internal obstacles?
• Do you have a beginning, middle, and end?
• Is your beginning not clogged with too much exposition and not too long?
• Does your conflict escalate in the middle?
• Are the events of your middle linked by cause and effect?
• Do you have crisis, climax, and consequences at the end?
• Is your ending plausible, satisfying, and not too long?

POINT OF VIEW

• Does your story work best in first, second, or third person?
• Does your story work best with a single-vision or multiple-visions POV?
• Is there any reason your story might work best with the omniscient or objective POV?
• If you're using a second- or third-person narrator, how close emotionally is the narrator to the story and characters?
• Are you keeping your POV consistent?

DESCRIPTION

• Are your descriptions utilizing all five senses?
• Are your descriptions specific enough?
• Are you overusing adjectives and adverbs?
• Are you using figurative language and lyrical techniques where appropriate?
• Are your descriptions overdone, choking your story?
• Are you using telling details?
• Are you watching out for such description traps as clichés and mixed metaphors?
• Do your descriptions reflect the consciousness of your POV character or characters?

DIALOGUE

• Are you using dialogue and scenes for more important points in your story?
• Does your dialogue sound real yet also get to the point quickly?
• Do your tags call too much attention to themselves?
• Are you using state directions to enhance your dialogue?
• Do your characters sound distinctive from one another and appropriate to who they are?
• Is there anywhere your dialogue can be improved by using subtext?
• m one another and appropriate to who they are?
• Is there anywhere your dialogue can be improved by using subtext?
• Does your dialogue contain clunky exposition or off-putting dialect?

SETTING/PACING

• Have your grounded your story in a specific place, or places?
• Have your grounded your story in a specific time, or times?
• Do the place and time of your story affect the action?
• Are there opportunities to let the setting enhance the atmosphere or mood?
• Do your characters act in a way that reflects either their comfort or discomfort with their setting?
• Are you describing your settings so much that they slow down the action?
• Have you chosen the right places either to expand or to compress time?

VOICE

• Have you picked a voice that works in harmony with your POV choice, the personality of your narrator, and the narrator’s emotional distance to the story?
• Do your word, sentence, and paragraph choices support your voice?
• Does your voice remain consistent throughout the story?

THEME

• Have you identified a theme for your story?
• Does your theme surround your story with a light enough touch?
• Do all the elements of your story work to support the theme?

REVISION

• Have you gotten enough distance from your story to begin the revision process?
• Have you considered re envisioning your story?
• Have you looked through a magnifying glass at all the Big Things in your story?
• Have you looked through a microscope at all the Little Things in your story?
• Have you cut and tweaked as much as you possibly can?