Hello, Smoking Tigers contributors! One fundamental (and occasionally difficult) responsibility about a collaborative project like this is that it's up to the people at the top to provide the metaphorical birds-eye view. As part of an effort to address the growing editing queue, I wanted to both offer some writing advice, and talk a little bit about trends we're discovering in our submissions — because everyone's going to be bringing a different tone to the project that we need to try to hammer into a single smooth surface, and if we're seeing a lot of entries that stick out at the same wrong angle, that's our fault, not yours. It means we're not doing a good job of explaining what the project is here to do.

That said — allow me to illustrate some common problems with a sample submission about an animal known as the Examplargh:

According to Aristrottle, the Examplargh is a timid rodent about six inches in size. They are the only animal besides ponies which naturally grow green fur, but unlike ponies, they are all the same shade of grass green. Gold Dust commented on their unusually large eyes, which it is hypothesized that they evolved for better night vision, as their closest ancestors' eyes were normally sized. The Examplargh lives in Zebrica, where giant flocks of the flying rodent can be watched over the plains — except for the winter, when they seek equine houses and go inside for warmth and to mate. In Humbolt's last expedition, he and his pegasi entered Examplargh territory, where they were never seen again.

I'm now going to tell you how you reacted as you were reading that, because I am such an amazing psychic master that I only dare tell fortunes after getting drunk and handicapping myself with a My Little Pony Tarot deck, lest my predictions topple mighty empires and set widowed orphan puppies to weeping:

Dull dull boring boring dull ugh blah snooze snore WAIT WHAT—

And, y'know, that last sentence does have potential … but oh my stars and alicorns, it's a crime that you had to read through a hundred words of dreck for it. My apologies.

The thing is, the Examplargh is a super interesting creature, as I plan to show you shortly. So what went wrong with the wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie?

1. Thin The Fact Herd

Back When Tigers Used To Smoke is, if nothing else, an unusual format. We're writing an encyclopedia! You only get a few hundred words, and all of those have to be facts! How do you tell stories under such circumstances?

By picking the right facts.

tl;dr: In short fiction like this, every single word you write has a cost. And its price tag is: All the words you could otherwise have written instead.

With every single sentence you write, ask yourself: Does the audience need to know that MORE than the facts we could otherwise learn in that space?

Even if this line tells the reader something, if I were to cut it, could I tell them something COOLER?

What are your MOST interesting facts, and how do you focus the reader like a laser on them?

Do we need to know that the Examplargh is a timid, six-inch rodent? Yeah maybe I guess; that's pretty basic. But do we need to know that MORE than the cooler facts we could otherwise learn in that space? Does this otherwise dull fact set up something cooler later?

(In this case, framing them as unassuming does create the contrast which makes the punchline of "they're deadly predators" work. So, sure, let's keep it. But this is the sort of aggressive questioning we need to do.)

Do we need to know that they have green fur? Frankly, not unless we can justify it. (Do we need to know that ponies are the only other green-furred animals out there? Dear gods no, not in a piece this short.) Green-furred animals at least are unusual, but that's still a mild unusual which is standing in the way of the even cooler thing.

Do we need to know about their night vision? Picture a newspaper headline here. "NEWS FLASH: These mice have good night vision!" … If you saw that on the front page, you'd wonder what the reporter was smoking. That fact can die.

Do we need to know that they fly? Not in a full sentence, when we can just insert a one-word adjective for the same effect. And you know what? Maybe we don't even need that. Let's go with the "green fur" theory and take the mildly unusual thing out to add more focus to the really incredible.

Do we need to know that they nest and mate in houses during the winter? Back to the newspaper. "BREAKING NEWS: Mice dislike the cold!" … Yeah, that's never ever going to be page one material.

Do we need to know that these six-inch mice killed an explorer and his entire expedition? HELL YES WHY ISN'T THAT THE ENTIRE FOCUS OF THE ARTICLE

Do you see how bad facts are crowding out the good ones here? Do you see how even mildly interesting facts are preventing us from getting to the really cool stuff? Make everything you say count.

Here's all of the interesting facts from our original trainwreck, condensed down to a tenth of the size:

Humbolt's last expedition was to the territory of the Examplargh, a timid six-inch rodent.

2a. Pick A Story; Tell That Story

While I was decimating our sample article, I did something sneaky. May I call your attention to how, in stripping out all of the less-interesting facts, I boiled our fact collection down to a one-sentence story?

This is, technically, an article about the Examplargh. It will be filled with facts relevant to the Exemplargh. But facts about the Examplargh are not the same thing as the Examplargh's story. The coolest story about it is the one about the last days of Humbolt, and that's what you have a chance to tell.

Flip through our inspiration, Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings, and take a look at a few random entries. Do you see what he's doing? He's telling stories in the encyclopedia format. Here, for example, is the entirety of "The Rain Bird":

When rain is needed, Chinese farmers have at their disposal - besides the dragon - the bird called the shang yang. It has only one leg. Long ago, children hopped up and down on one foot, wrinkling their brows and repeating: ‘It will thunder, it will rain, ’cause the shang yang’s here again!’ The tradition runs that the bird drew water from the rivers with its beak and blew it out as rain on the thirsting fields.

An ancient wizard had tamed it and used to carry it perched on his sleeve. Historians tell us that it once paraded back and forth before the throne of the Prince of Ch’i, hopping about and flapping its wings. The Prince, greatly taken aback, sent his chief minister to the Court of Lu to consult Confucius. The Sage foretold that the shang yang would cause the whole countryside and near-by regions to be flooded unless dikes and channels were built at once. The Prince was not deaf to the Sage’s warning, and so in his domain countless damage and disaster were avoided.

Notice what Borges doesn't tell us! There's virtually no description — aside from it having one leg (an interesting enough fact to pull its own weight!), being small enough to perch on a human arm (an offhand mention to give context to a story), and being birdlike (necessary and basic). Instead of ANY further zoological detail, he tells us two stories: one about Chinese children, and one about the Prince of Ch'i, both of which tell us something about both the Rain Bird and the culture which told stories about it.

This is our gold standard.

2b. We Are Not A Zoological Text; We Are An Encyclopedia Of Stories

Did I mention that? Because that's really crucial.

Re-read that article above. That lateral approach is not only allowed, it's what we want to encourage!

2a (again): Pick A Story, Tell A Story

What does this mean for our poor Examplargh? I'll tell you: It gives our article focus.

Now we know why we're adding facts to the article: we're telling the story of how Humbolt interacted with it.

And suddenly, that lets us make even mundane facts part of the awesome.

Is it interesting that the Examplargh flies? Yes, because we can picture Humbolt's terrified crew watching swarms of rodents bear down on them across the open plains.

Is it interesting that the Examplargh is green? Yes, because we can picture Humbolt disturbing a nest and getting ambushed by well-camouflaged rodents.

Is it interesting that the Examplargh has great night vision? We could probably work in something cool about Humbolt lulled into a false sense of security by those big eyes, and chased across the veldt both day and night. Honestly, we've suddenly got so much good stuff to work with that we can afford to pick and choose; I'd keep this cut if it weren't for purposes of the example.

Is it interesting that the Examplargh nests in pony houses? I think so, because if you can picture Humbolt's terror, now picture how much worse that gets as a swarm of bloodthirsty predators invades your bedroom.

And so we get:

Humbolt's last expedition was to the territory of the Examplargh, a timid, six-inch winged rodent. His Lost Journal, 802 CE recounts:

"Our troubles began when Hasty Step mistook their green fur for edible tree-foliage. When the swarm lifted from the branches, we lost six ponies and both our carts. We took to the stratosphere, thinking to descend at night for sleep, only to be awoken by enormous eyes and tiny fangs. My expedition's surviving half fled toward the coast, until we had the fortune to find this abandoned house — in which we'll hide until winter storms drive them underground."

Gold Dust's Encyclopædia notes that in the winter, Examplarghs seek equine houses for warmth and mating-nests.

This uses the same core set of facts as the starting article. It is two words shorter. And it is exponentially better.

We took out digressions about pony fur and mouse evolution, and replaced them with the context that glues the remaining facts into a solid, coherent piece.

In Conclusion

Trim down your facts.

Make them tell a story.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this helps sharpen our contributions!

-h

(Note: The Examplargh is completely off the cuff. It's not meant for project canon. Humbolt did not die from being chewed to death by radioactive rodents. Unless you write an article establishing that, I mean.)

6625393 However, there was a mysterious hero who appeared in his town a few weeks later, dubbed "De Flying Green GlowMaus" who fought crime during the summers and supposedly vanished in the cold winter months.

6625379
This is actually really helpful and has given me a few good insights into how to rework mine, Thanks!

6625379 Now that is an excellent, inspiring guide.

6625379
6625522

This is actually really helpful and has given me a few good insights into how to rework mine, Thanks!

Seconded. I'll definitely have to rejigger my own example once I'm awake enough to try.

Excellent points.