Remember the basics

I am getting a lot of good submissions for the anthology. But I do want to remind everyone to watch the basics. Even from writers with a fair amount of publishing credits, I see stories that have too much telling, or passive voice. Some that are short on imagery or sensory descriptions. As a writer myself, I know sometimes it is hard to see your own mistakes. I often write stuff that seems great to me, then my wife asks, "Is there a reason you made this passive voice?" or "seems like a lot of telling, and did you mean to leave out the sense of smell?" Doh!!!

So I get to work, description, action, senses, I even remember to dialog that has conflict, not just agreeable conversation. So the writing quality is better, it is ready. And she asks, "What was the main character's conflict?" Conflict? Doh!!! Okay, conflict, what is my characters motivation? Ah got it, a few changes to the start to solidify the main character's problems and what he/she/it wants. And then a resolution to fit the conflict. How's that? "Not bad, but while your resolution compliments the character's problems, you started the story with a mystery. So it is an idea story, so your final resolution needs to fit the start of the story by solving the mystery." Damn, I knew that.

Well the point being, good writing and good story telling are not the same thing. But when you can merge them together, it is art. Even good writers, even excellent writers, have to work at it. Writing a story is difficult, If it wasn't everyone would be doing it.