Fiction Questions

CRW 3110 Questions to Keep in Mind
To the reader: Remember that we are addressing concerns related to content and style. While we might address such issues as word choices, we are not proofreading. To the writer: Do you have any specific questions or concerns for the reader? You could list those questions/concerns for the reader on a separate sheet at the beginning or end of the paper.

MISCELLANEOUS

M1) Is the introduction effective? Does it grab the reader's interest? If not, give suggestions for improvement.
M2) Has the paper grabbed the reader's interest and introduced some sort of conflict or tension before the second page, preferably in the first paragraph?
M3) What's your favorite paragraph? Why?
M4) What's your least favorite paragraph? Why?
M5) What is the paper's number one strength?
M6) What is the paper's number one weakness?
M7) What would you like to hear more about?
M8) For the next draft the paper needs to . . .
M9) Has the conclusion done more than simply restated all the action or information we have already heard? Does it leave us with something to think about? Conclude does not have to mean resolved. You can choose to leave the reader "hanging." Has the work ended predictably or summed everything up in some sort of platitude or cliched lesson?
M10) Any sentences that work better in other places? Draw arrows and explain what should go where.
M11) Can the writer use more description? Where?
M12) Could the writer use more or less (or both) dialogue? Where?
M13) Does the dialogue sound natural? If not, how could it be improved?
M14) Are the whats/whens/whys/hows of the paper clear?
M15) Where are you confused and/or need more explanation?
M16) If the paper did not hold your interest, where did you lose interest?
M17) Any filler or dead spots in the paper that could be eliminated?
M18) I would describe the voice or tone of the paper as . . .
M19) Any paragraphs that work better in other places? Draw arrows and explain what should go where.
M20) Where could word choice be altered? For example, if the word red appears fifteen times in the work, you might circle these instances and suggest using crimson and ruby as substitutions.
M21) Have you researched what you don’t know about? For example, if the narrator works on the stock exchange have you gathered sufficient information about stock brokers beyond the stereotypical, shallow conceptions handed to us by popular media? If a scene takes place at dinner table in England, is there something else on the table besides tea and crumpets, something distinctively English? If you are writing about a musician, do you know what it means to tune a step down or what a chord is? At the same time be careful that the story doesn’t get so technical that a reader unversed in a particular field will be lost. The story should be believable to experts and accommodating to novices.
M22) Suggest a (different) title.

Here are some more questions set up within specific categories. Some of these you may find irrelevant to your particular story. I don't think that there is automatically one correct answer to each of these questions that will fit all stories (especially in the case of radical revision). However, all of these questions are worth keeping in mind and however your story answers them, be conscious and aware of the choices your story makes and the answers it gives to these questions. For example, not all characters need the ability to change or they may have the ability to change in some respects but not in others. Consider Fitzgerald's Gatsby, Melville's Captain Ahab, and Shelley's Victor Frankenstein. All of these characters are unable to change, compromise, and give up obsessions and these traits create much of the tension, plot, and action of their respective novels. Think about O'Brien's Jimmy Cross and how he changes, or resolves to change, after Ted Lavender's death and how this contrasts well with earlier depictions of Cross.

CHARACTER

C1) Do the characters have desires?
C2) Are the characters distinctive enough not to be types?
C3) Do the characters have contrasting traits that make them complex?
C4) Are the characters consistent despite their contrasting traits?
C5) Do the characters have the ability to change?
C6) Do you know your characters well enough?
C7) Are the right characters "round" and the right characters "flat?"
C8) Is the story showing your characters more than telling about them?
C9) Does the story utilize all four methods of showing—action, speech, appearance, and thought?
C10) Do the characters have the right names?

PLOT
P1) Does the story have a major dramatic question, a source of tension?
P2) Does the story have a protagonist with a strong goal and plenty of obstacles?
P3) Does the story have a beginning, a middle, and an end?
P4) Is the beginning not clogged with too much exposition and not too long?
P5) Does conflict escalate (not begin) in the middle?
P6) Are the events of the middle linked by cause and effect?
P7) Does the story have crisis, climax, and consequences at the end?
P8) Is the ending plausible, satisfying, and not too long (note that "satisfying" does not have to mean that all the questions have been answered)?

POINT OF VIEW

POV1) Does the story work best in first, second, or third person?
POV2) Does the story work best with a single vision or multiple vision POV?
POV3) Is there any reason the story might work best with the omniscient of objective POV?
POV4) If the story uses a second- or third-person narrator, how close emotionally is the narrator to the story and its characters?
POV5) Is the POV consistent?
DESCRIPTION

DES1) Do descriptions utilize all five senses?
DES2) Are descriptions specific enough?
DES3) Does the story overuse/underuse adjectives and adverbs?
DES4) Does the story use figurative language and lyrical techniques where appropriate?
DES5) Are the descriptions overdone, choking the story?
DES6) Does the story use telling details?
DES7) Does the story avoid such description traps as cliches and mixed metaphors?
DES8) Do the descriptions reflect the consciousness of the story's POV character(s)?
DIALOGUE

DIA1) Does the story use dialogue and scenes for its most important parts?
DIA2) Does the dialogue sound real yet also get to the point quickly?
DIA3) Do speech tags (i.e., he said, she exclaimed) call too much attention to themselves; can be the story cut them down, eliminate them, or replace them with another technique?
DIA4) Does the story use stage directions to enhance its dialogue?
DIA5) Do characters sound distinctive from one another and appropriate to who they are; does the dialogue fit the characters?
DIA6) Is there anywhere subtext could enhance dialogue?
DIA7) Does the dialogue contain clunky exposition?

SETTING/PACING

S1) Is the story grounded your story in (a) specific place(s)/time(s)?
S2) Do the place(s) and time(s) of the story affect the action?
S3) Are there opportunities to let the setting enhance the atmosphere or mood?
S4) Do the characters act in a way that reflects either their comfort or discomfort with their setting?
S5) Does the story describe the settings so much that they slow down the action?
S6) Does the story expand and/or compress time at the right places?
S7) Could flashbacks in time, jumpcuts in time, or beginning in medias res (in the middle of things) improve the story?

VOICE

V1) Does the story use a voice that works in harmony with its POV choice, the personality of its narrator, and the narrator's emotional distance (or lack thereof) regarding the story?
V2) Do the word, sentence, and paragraph choices support the voice?
V3) Does the voice remain consistent throughout the story?
THEME

T1) Does the story have (an) identifiable theme(s)?
T2) Does the theme surround the story with a light enough touch?
T3) Do all the elements of the story work to support the theme?
REVISION

R1) Have you gotten enough distance from your story to begin the revision process (obviously in an academic environment there are certain absolute time restraints)?
R2) Have you considered reenvisioning your story? For example, have you thought that maybe the story is really about the girl that always takes the narrator's order even though writing about her means scraping 90% of your story and basically starting over? Maybe that flashback concerning the protagonist's five sentence recollection of throwing frozen porkchops out of a car window at pedestrians is the real story.
R3) Have you looked at a magnifying glass through all the Big Things in your story?
R4) Have you looked through a microscope at all the Little Things in your story?
R5) Have you cut, tweaked, rearranged, and played with this story as much as you can? R6) Are you starting to see your story as unwelcome guest that has stayed too long, taken too much of your time and resources? Do you find yourself thinking of ways to revise your story as you wait at a red light or wa