What I Go Back to When My Writing Feels Off

Introduction

If you’ve ever wondered why a story isn’t coming together the way you expect, it can help to step back and look at the most basic foundations beneath it. For me, writing always circles back to three ideas: show, don’t tell, internal consistency, and narrative function. They’re simple concepts, easy to overlook, and often assumed rather than examined. But no matter how experienced a writer becomes, these three quietly support everything else. When something feels off in a story, it’s usually because one of them has slipped. This blog is an exploration of those foundations—not as strict rules, but as points worth returning to when writing starts to feel unclear.

Key Points:

• Writing circles back to three foundational ideas: show don’t tell, internal consistency, and narrative function
• These are simple concepts that quietly support everything else
• When something feels off in a story, it’s usually because one of them has slipped
• This blog explores these foundations as points worth returning to when writing feels unclear

Narrative Function

You can still write whatever you want—it’s your story. But if you want someone to stay with it, what you write has to matter. Narrative function helps me check that. When I’m writing, I try to be aware of what each part is doing. Is this establishing something new? Is it building tension? Is it letting the story breathe? Is it resolving a problem, or setting up the next one? I don’t always answer these questions perfectly, but asking them keeps me grounded.

In the past, writers could afford to linger more. Long descriptions, elaborate language, scenes that existed mostly for atmosphere—readers had the time and patience for that. Today, attention is more fragile. That doesn’t mean writing has to be rushed or shallow, but it does mean that randomness is harder to get away with. If something doesn’t clearly contribute to the movement of the story, readers feel it immediately.

Narrative function isn’t about stripping creativity away. It’s about direction. When I know where I am in the narrative arc, I know what kind of work the writing should be doing at that moment. Without that awareness, it’s easy to write scenes that feel good but don’t carry the story forward. And when that happens too often, readers drift—not because the writing is bad, but because it stops giving them a reason to focus.

Key Points:

• Narrative function is about attention in a practical way
• Today’s readers have busy schedules, shorter breaks, and fragmented focus
• Every part should matter: establishing something, building tension, letting story breathe, resolving or setting up problems
• Past writers could linger more; today attention is more fragile
• Randomness is harder to get away with—readers feel it immediately
• Narrative function provides direction, not restriction
• Without it, scenes feel good but don’t carry the story forward

Internal Consistency

Everyone knows a story isn’t real. Readers aren’t stupid. But when they read, they want to believe it anyway. They choose to silence that voice that says, this is fake, just for a while. That silence is fragile. The moment something stops making sense, it snaps back. And once that happens, no amount of good writing can pull them back in.

I think of storytelling as a kind of lying—not in a bad way, but in how it works. A lie only survives if it’s logical. You can’t be careless. You have to remember what you said earlier, what rules you implied, what expectations you set. One contradiction is enough to make everything collapse. Stories work the same way. The rules you establish become evidence. They’re the only thing holding the illusion together.

You can break your own rules. Stories do it all the time. Readers even accept bad explanations, as long as there is one. What they don’t accept is pretending nothing happened. Ignoring your own rules feels like cheating, and readers feel that immediately, even if they can’t explain why.

This hits especially hard if you write on instinct, like I do. When you follow feeling, it’s easy to forget what you committed to ten pages ago. But every line locks something in. Every detail creates an obligation. Writing becomes less about inventing things and more about remembering them.

Keeping track of rules doesn’t restrict me. It actually makes the story safer. It keeps the lie intact. As long as I respect the logic I’ve created—or deliberately break it with intent—the reader stays with me. And that’s the whole point. A story doesn’t need to be true. It just needs to be consistent enough to believe.

Key Points:

• Internal consistency is about whether the story holds together in its own head
• Readers choose to suspend disbelief, but that silence is fragile
• Storytelling is like lying—it only survives if it’s logical
• The rules you establish become evidence holding the illusion together
• You can break your own rules, but you need to acknowledge it with explanation
• Ignoring your own rules feels like cheating to readers
• Every line locks something in; every detail creates an obligation
• Keeping track of rules makes the story safer and keeps the lie intact

Show, Don’t Tell

Stories work because readers are willing to lose disbelief for a while. They know it’s fiction, but they choose to go along with it. That choice depends on trust. And trust doesn’t come from statements—it comes from proof. Showing gives the reader actions, outcomes, and moments they can mentally verify. Later, when the story makes a claim, the reader can look back and connect it to what they’ve already seen. That’s why showing feels honest, even when the story itself is a lie.

I think of this the same way I think about lying in real life. A bad liar just makes claims. A convincing liar supports those claims with logic, consistency, and small verifiable truths. Stories work the same way. Showing is how you make a lie believable enough to enjoy.

That said, I don’t think telling is wrong. You can’t show everything. Some things are abstract, conceptual, or too large to dramatize. We know atoms exist even though we can’t see them. In stories, explanation is sometimes necessary—for history, rules, inner thoughts, or things that can’t be expressed through action alone. The problem isn’t telling. The problem is telling something important without ever earning it.

So when I write, I keep coming back to a few questions. Did I ever establish this? Has the story shown enough for this to feel true? Or am I asking the reader to believe something I haven’t proven yet? Showing builds belief. Telling uses that belief. If I get that balance wrong, the story starts to feel fake—not because it’s fictional, but because it hasn’t earned its own truth.

Key Points:

• Show don’t tell proves things through evidence, not just statements
• Readers choose to suspend disbelief based on trust
• Trust comes from proof: actions, outcomes, and moments they can mentally verify
• Like convincing lying, stories need logic, consistency, and verifiable truths
• Telling isn’t wrong—some things are too abstract or conceptual to show
• The problem is telling something important without earning it
• Key questions: Did I establish this? Has the story shown enough? Have I proven it?
• Showing builds belief; telling uses that belief

Conclusion

In the end, everything I’ve talked about here comes back to three simple foundations I keep returning to when I write: show, not tell, internal consistency, and narrative function. They aren’t strict rules or advanced techniques. They’re just quiet checks I use to stay grounded when a story starts to drift. When something feels wrong, I don’t usually need more ideas—I need to look back and ask whether I’ve shown enough, stayed honest with my own logic, and given each part of the story a reason to exist.

If thinking about writing this way helps you even a little, then that’s more than enough. And if you’re curious, you’re always welcome to read my work and decide for yourself whether it works for you.

Funny enough, these same ideas are also what make someone sound believable in real life—clear evidence, consistent logic, and words that mean something. We tend to like people who are good at that. We trust them. In stories, that trust turns into immersion. Outside of stories… well, hopefully it’s used for something kind.

Preferably fiction.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/124653/the-fantasy-of-cards-needs-a-villain