A critique I've repeatedly gotten on my fiction writing is that I write things basically as just a chronology of events. It reads like, "A happened, then B happened, then C happened." How do I write not like that? I'm autistic and I'm very literal and straightforward. I don't know how to write in any other way.

Hi! Fellow Autistic writer here!

I most of the time have the opposite problem; I get very deep into detail (and will create new characters while writing causing me more work in planning when i do plan haha) and a way I have found to help me not lose track of the plot/character arcs is to plan points in the story (beginning, middle, end) even if it is just the bare bones... now you are probably wondering 'okay, how does this relate to the question?' and it does, kinda.

Since you have the issue of being very point to point; take one of those points or a character, and outside of the piece you are working on so like in a separate notepad or Gdocs, look at that specific thing and maybe write (no matter how 'good' or 'bad' it looks, it is practice and it is not meant to be polished) focused on using one of the five senses. It can be as simple as what a chair looks like, nothing fancy just colour or shape or texture, or you can do sound; what kind of sounds can be heard? is it outside or inside, the city or the natural world? if it is the natural world can you hear any animals or bugs?

A good way to find describing words is pintrest/online, I do it myself, have entire pintrest boards for words used in different ways (says, said, asked, asks ect.) and meanings of words. If you have trouble envisioning sounds or images (happens to me with characters more often than not) search up a picture or sounds you would like to describe; use that and describe that.

It takes practice and some using words you think are used for one thing but aren't, but practice helps. It is something that can be learned :).

A website i recommend for words is WordHippo, it's very useful. For planning/describing characters is Campfire writing; It is free, it is very user friendly, and they have an app. I hope i was able to be helpful, if you have anything you want to ask me please do, i hope you the best!

@ Josie an important part of writing is not just stating the events that happen, but conveying to the audience some sense of why you're telling them this. often times in stories you will find that events occur "off screen" because we didn't need to know about them at the time, it would not have been interesting to show us those particular things, and/or it would not contribute to the functional or emotional core of the story (plot/narrative cohesion, themes, character arcs, etc).

in order to answer the question of why something is in your story and how you need to frame it to contribute to what you're building... well, you as a writer should know (more or less) what you're building in the first place—that is, why you're telling the story, and what you're trying to do with it. what is the goal of this story? how and why is it meaningful to you? what emotions is it meant to evoke—is it supposed to be funny? scary? epic? do you have a unique perspective on this subject that you want to explore and share with others?

the answers to any of these questions don't need to be particularly deep or profound. it can be anything from "i want to write a story about two characters kissing because i think it's hot" to "i want to write a story about a group of people collectively going through a bizarre experience because i'm interested in exploring the different ways they might react to the same thing and how it might impact their interactions with one another" to "i want to write a story about the sociopolitical logistics of an intergalactic empire through the lens of economics and accounting" to "i want to write about a character contending with complicated feelings on a subject that reflect my own perspective because i never see it represented in stories, and i want to feel seen and heard, and hopefully that resonates with someone else."

who is the perspective character, and why is this important enough that their experience of a particular moment or event is being related to us? how do they feel about it? how does it fit in with the events before and after it? how does it contribute to the themes & narrative as a whole?

i'll use my pet Moonshiner's story as an example. it's fairly short and simple, and i certainly don't think it's perfect, but it's a good starting point to explain what i mean by certain things.

why am i telling this story? obviously, this is a pet profile story, so its main purpose is to convey important aspects of the personality and life of this character. so even though everything about her doesn't get center stage in the story, we learn some important things:

• she is hot-headed and struggles with anger
• this is in part contributed to by negative past experiences with someone who made her feel bad about herself
• she plays roller derby, which leads to regular injury
• she has a girlfriend, who regularly patches up said injuries

in addition to the "literal" purpose of the story, i chose to write what i did the way i did because of my own personal preferences and experiences. i enjoy characters who struggle with (self-)destructive reactions when reminded of past traumas; i enjoy mushy lesbian romance and intimacy; i enjoy big tough women being rendered vulnerable by the care of a loved one.

how should i tell the story? now that i know all of that, i can make more informed decisions about how to tell the story. honestly, a lot of this becomes intuitive after a while, so it's not always necessarily a conscious decision; but i also tend to go back through my first pass of writing and change things when i feel like they could be stronger in this regard.

so in this example, i already had a pretty strong sense of the sequence of events i wanted to play out. character is upset by an argument with her girlfriend, goes out and gets into a fight to (poorly) cope with her feelings, comes back injured, gets patched up by girlfriend, they apologize and attempt to comfort one another.

but you'll notice i didn't actually show the argument—i start with the immediate aftermath, and merely reference what the argument was about. that's because i just didn't feel like it was important, nor would it be interesting, to literally show the exact events and dialogue that occurred. all the audience needs to know is that it happened, and how it made moon feel, and why it made her feel that way. i also don't show the fight she gets into, or even explain how or where it occurred, because the specifics of this just don't matter for my purposes.

maybe if i were writing this as part of a longer story, i would actually get into these things, because there is plenty to be offered by showing them. the specific things that get said during the argument might tie in with interactions these characters have had earlier in the story, or reflect themes that arise later. the location of the fight or even the person with whom moon fights might also have been introduced earlier, or come back later. the bigger / longer a story is, the more room there is for callbacks, foreshadowing, and thematic throughlines—so there are lots of factors to consider when deciding what to show and what to omit. but like i said, this is just a short, standalone, character-focused story, so for my purposes in this situation, i chose to leave those things out.

that's more or less how i decide what events to include, but i also need to decide how they will be conveyed. because the focus is on the main character's internal emotional experience, i'm always thinking of things from the her perspective. how does she feel in this moment? what does she notice or not notice because of that?

when we're very emotional, we may not have a full awareness of what's going on around us, so i don't need to include every little detail of every little moment. just the ones that contribute to our understanding of the character and her feelings. things like the suggestive violence of stomping a cigarette butt into the ground, or the physical sensations of icy wind against a tear-stained face. this can also inform how i decide to construct certain sentences: clipped, abrupt fragments can help express frantic emotions, while longer, more meandering sentences might feel more thoughtful or reflective.

basically, every part of a story is like a bunch of different puzzle pieces, and your job as a writer is to both create the puzzle pieces AND figure out how to shape them and fit them together to create the final product. everything should be in service of something, whether that's moving the plot forward, reinforcing the thematic / emotional core of your story, contributing to character development, or even just helping things make sense to the audience. once you have a sense of intent with a story, it's just a matter of making decisions that build towards that. figuring out what the "right" decisions are is, of course, one of the biggest challenges of writing, but the great thing is that you can just try a bunch of different ideas until you find one that you think works best.

ummm that's a lot so hopefully it was helpful! lmk if anything is unclear or you have any other questions.