Free 250 Things You Should Know About Writing by Chuck Wendig

make some motherfucking sense. "Man, working night-shift is a real can of ear-wax, isn't it?" What? What does that mean? That doesn't mean anything. Maybe you mean something, maybe you have some keen understanding of night work and... cans... of ear-wax (can you buy ear-wax in cans?), but the reader doesn't grok your lingo. That's why a metaphor bridges a part of the story with the reader experience, not with your experience as an author. Everybody needs to get the metaphor. The Thing That Is Like Another Thing must share an essential truth. That's the connective tissue.
     
20. Everything Cannot Be Metaphor
    Metaphors allow description to transcend a mere accounting, but even still, sometimes I just want to know if the girl has long legs or if the gun is loaded. Not everything needs to be a metaphor.
     
21. Clichés Are A Brick Wall You Make The Reader Crash Into
    Using clichés makes Description Jesus turn water not into wine, but into starving ferrets that crawl up inside your bowels and eat your body from the inside out. "He ran like the wind?" Yeah, well, I kicked your nuts like a soccer ball. You're a writer. It's your job to avoid clichés, not run into them with your head.
     
22. Tell Me What The Donkey Smells Like
    You don't need to rely on visuals. Many writers do. So you shouldn't. You have four other senses and so do your characters, so use them. Actually, there's a sixth sense, too: common sense. Common sense says you shouldn't overdo the "other senses" thing, and further, should only do so when it's appropriate. You might see or smell a donkey, but you don't taste it. Or you might touch it. Mmm. Yeah. Yeah, baby. Touch the donkey. Go on. Do it. What? Ohh. Uhh. Nothing. Please don’t call the police.
     
23. The Hardest Description Is When You Invent Stuff Out Of Thin Air
    Creating a new monster out of nothing? Inventing some wretched clockwork gewgaw whose flywheel mechanism could destroy the world? Unfolding a whole new fantasy realm or planetary scape? This is when it becomes tempting to hunker down and describe the unholy shit out of stuff. Resist this temptation. I know. You're thinking, "But how will the audience know what I'm talking about? This creature, the Dreaded Horvasham Gorblim, has never before existed . The audience won't know that his horns are studded with thorns, or that his nipples look like crispy pepperoni. I have to build this monster for them. On the page. Inside their head ." No, seriously, resist the urge. By not going much further than "thorny horns and crispy pepperoni nipples," you've already created an image in your head of the beast. So too have you pictured the wretched clockwork flywheel gewgaw. Like I said: the audience is willing to work. They will carry your water.
     
24. Novelists, Read Screenplays (And Screenwriters, Read Novels)
    Novelists could learn a thing or two from the brevity of description found in screenplays. Therein you will find short collapsed descriptive nuggets that still manage to paint the picture and get the story moving. Further, screenwriters could learn a thing or two from novelists. Remember, screenwriters: your script needs to be readable before it needs to be filmable . It lives in the reader's head before it ever makes it to screen. Description must feel alive.
     
25. Like With All Things: Everything In Moderation
    That's an old Greek idea, right? "Everything in moderation?" Of course, those guys were all huffing Zeus juice and banging pegasuses. Pegasi? Fuck, I don't know. Point is, description is a powerful tool in your narrative kit because, as it turns out, readers like you to help set the stage inside the theater of their minds. You can underdo it. You can overdo it. You need to walk the line, look at the shape of your page. Sentences or small paragraphs punctuated by stretches of dialogue and/or action is certainly a good shape for which to strive. Find the middle path and you shall appease the reader.
     

25 Things You Should Know