Fiction Literacy: Give Better Feedback (And Write Better Stories) Using African Dramatic Form (ADF)

Give Better Feedback

Whether sitting in a fiction workshop or acting as a beta reader, it can be difficult for writers, at any level, to articulate actionable feedback for their writing peers. Remember these three tips for always giving relevant and objective peer feedback.

1. Remember the narrator as character (narrative awareness). 

When editors talk about a narrative having “consciousness,” they’re talking about stories that have a voice or “character” apparent in the narration. Remembering the “narrator as character,” in any point of view, will give your fiction more self- awareness, which is the first step in giving your reader confidence in your story. Readers will travel anywhere with you if they have confidence in your ability to ‘take them there.’ 

2. Mind the construction lines (narrative movement). 

When I was a kid, used to make pencil drawings that I would outline with dark ink before erasing the construction lines. Often enough, pressure lines and unwanted marks were still visible under my final design. That’s the thinking here —erase where the reader can see you ‘writing’ or working through your narrative construction. Expand, shrink, or remove ideas that do not contribute to the cycle of set-up, action, and suspense in your dramatic line. 

3. If you don’t want it mistaken, make it clear (what is explained vs. what is understood). 

Ambiguity is fine where intended, but if you don’t want it mistaken, must make it clear. Empower the reader with the ‘facts’ of the story that should necessarily include them (the reader), exclude them, and in any event, move them toward the desired meaning. For example, should you describe the old children’s game of Telephone as ‘Telephone’ or a game kids play with cups and string? To know what should be understood and what should be explained, must understand what you’re trying to say and to whom. 

Write Better Stories

Story is the appreciation of movement from one point to another, and as you learn to observe the quality of narrative awareness, narrative movement, and what is explained vs. what is understood, will not only give better feedback, you will begin to apply these values to better understand and improve the appreciation of movement in your own work(s)-in-progress.

In its simplest form, African dramatic form’s three primary controls rest (and grow) upon these three values.

In the following series, we’ll put these three values together to learn how to write a story about anything—even a paper cup!

>> How to Write A Story (About A Paper Cup)