Craft Advice Translator: Plain English for Fancy Writing Advice
A quick decoder for craft-book phrases that sound impressive while hiding the actual job in a cupboard.
Craft advice can be genuinely helpful and also dressed for a ceremony nobody invited you to. This translator turns the grand phrases into small, usable writing actions. No candlelit suffering required. Keep your snack. We proceed.
If they say: Show, don’t tell
They mean: Give the reader evidence they can see, hear, or notice.
Try this:
- Instead of: Mara was nervous.
- Write: Mara folded the napkin into smaller and smaller squares.
Use it when a feeling sounds flat. You do not have to describe every eyebrow migration. Pick one strong action, detail, or line of dialogue that proves the emotion.
If they say: Raise the stakes
They mean: Make the outcome matter more.
Stakes are what the character could lose, gain, break, reveal, or regret. Tiny stakes count. A dinner going badly can matter if it risks a friendship, a secret, a job, or someone’s last clean shirt of patience.
Ask:
1. What happens if the character fails?
2. Who else is affected?
3. Can the result become harder to undo?
Add one clear consequence. The story does not need an exploding castle unless you already ordered one.
If they say: Give your character agency
They mean: Let the character make choices that change what happens.
Agency means the character is not just being dragged through the plot while the furniture has a richer inner life.
Try this:
- Give them a decision with two imperfect options.
- Let their choice create the next problem.
- Make their fear, want, or mistake push the scene forward.
A character can be confused, trapped, shy, tired, or wildly underprepared. They still need moments where they choose, refuse, lie, ask, run, stay, or make everything slightly worse with conviction.
If they say: Tighten the prose
They mean: Cut words that repeat, delay, or explain what the reader already understands.
Prose means the actual sentences on the page. Tightening does not mean making every line grim and tiny. It means removing the packing peanuts.
Check for:
- Repeated information: She whispered quietly.
- Extra stage directions: He reached out his hand to pick up the cup.
- Soft starters: She began to wonder if maybe he was lying.
Cleaner versions:
- She whispered.
- He picked up the cup.
- Maybe he was lying.
If they say: Find your voice
They mean: Notice the way you naturally choose words, rhythm, jokes, details, and focus.
Voice is the personality of the writing. It grows through choices, not mystical mist drifting over your notebook.
Try this quick test:
1. Describe the same room as a romantic, a pessimist, and someone late for work.
2. Notice what changes: sentence length, details, attitude, word choice.
3. Keep the version that feels most alive in your mouth.
Your voice is usually hiding inside the sentences you had too much fun writing. Rude of it, but useful.
When writing advice gets foggy, turn it into one visible change you can make on the page.