The most repeated piece of writing advice, often phrased as show, don't tell, urges writers to convey emotions, traits, and situations through action, sensory detail, and dialogue rather than outright statements. Telling "she was nervous" becomes showing through "she twisted the hem of her sleeve and glanced at the door every few seconds." Yet telling is not always wrong; it is genuinely useful for transitions, for summarizing unimportant stretches of time, and for pacing control, since not every moment needs to be dramatized as a full scene. The skill lies in knowing when to dramatize and when to summarize, balancing both in service of the reader's experience.
Beyond showing and telling, every story carries an attitude and an atmosphere. Tone is the author's attitude toward the subject or audience, conveyed through word choice, sentence structure, and stylistic decisions; it can be sarcastic, earnest, detached, or any number of other registers. Mood is the emotional atmosphere the reader actually feels, ranging from dread to joy, melancholy to suspense. A sarcastic tone might create an uneasy mood, illustrating how the two work together while remaining distinct. Theme, meanwhile, is the central underlying message or insight about life that a story explores, something like "power corrupts" or "love transcends death," while subject is the broader topic, such as war. Theme is most powerful when it emerges organically through character actions, plot events, and imagery rather than being announced directly.
Writers also have a vast toolkit of literary devices at their disposal. A metaphor directly compares two unlike things without like or as, as in "time is a thief," while a simile does the same comparison using like or as, as in "her smile was like sunshine." Personification attributes human qualities to non-human things, hyperbole exaggerates deliberately for effect, and alliteration repeats initial consonant sounds in closely connected words. Symbolism uses objects, persons, or events to represent abstract ideas, such as a white dove for peace, while a motif is a recurring element, image, or idea that reinforces theme throughout a narrative. Foreshadowing plants hints early that pay off later, building suspense and cohesion. Irony involves a contrast between expectation and reality and comes in three forms: verbal (saying the opposite of what is meant), situational (events contradicting expectations, as when a fire station burns down), and dramatic (the audience knows something a character does not). Red herrings are deliberately misleading clues common in mystery and thriller stories, and pathetic fallacy attributes human emotions to nature or weather to mirror a character's inner state. Writers should also avoid purple prose, the overly ornate, flowery writing that draws attention to itself rather than serving the story, and aim instead for verisimilitude: the appearance of being true, which even in fantasy requires internal consistency and believable details.