The EDAN Writing Framework: Explanation, Description, Action, Narration

How to distill "writing" down to its simplest components.

May 01, 2026

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Cole

Founder of Different Publishing (you can find my books here!)

Co-Founder of AI Writing Skool

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Dear Writer,

What is “writing?”

It’s a silly question when you think about it. Writing is words. Writing is communication. Writing is thought, articulated. Writing is documentation. All of these are correct answers—but they’re also unhelpful answers. Because each of these words, or sentences, intended to describe “writing” is a bundled term. What are “words?” What is “communication?” And so on.

I am now approaching the milestone of 20 years spent writing online.

I started writing online in 2007, with a gaming blog about World of Warcraft back when I was a junior in high school.
And since then (coming up on 2027), I have written thousands of newsletters, thousands of articles, ghostwritten thousands of opinion pieces and columns for executives, ghostwritten books, written 10+ books of my own, and built multiple 7-figure writing-related companies across a wide variety of different business models.

Needless to say, I’ve been doing this for a long time.

And still, I continue to ask myself: “OK… but what is writing?”

I am always in search of new frameworks to help me unbundle that bundled term, so that I might better understand what it is I’m actually trying to achieve by sitting here, stringing words together, for the benefit of my own understanding, sure, but to ensure there is value being provided to you, too.

So, I’d like to share with you a recent “lightbulb moment” I’ve had, and a new framework for unbundling that pesky word, “writing.”

The EDAN Framework

Oftentimes, when we read a piece of writing, we tend to perceive the thing only in its entirety. “This is a great book” or “this is a great essay” or “this is a great paragraph.” But there are two problems here. The first is that “great” is yet another bundled term. What does great actually mean? And second, a great book is really just the culmination of lots of great chapters or essays, which is really just the culmination of lots of great paragraphs, which is really just the culmination of lots of great sentences, which is really just the culmination of… what?

Exactly.

In order to understand what makes for “great writing,” we must look beyond any piece of writing in its entirety, and begin to unbundle it. We have to get down to the sentence level. And even then, we have to push past settling for bundled reactions—”I like this” or “I don’t like this”—so that we can analyze what’s actually happening. Whether you “like it” or “don’t like it” is irrelevant.

The more helpful question to ask is: “What is the writer doing here? And is it effective?”

And recently, I’ve realized that writing (particularly fiction, although there are elements of this framework that apply to non-fiction) is really just a game of four different choices:

EDAN stands for:

Explanation
Description
Action
Narration

At any given time, you (the writer) are choosing between these different “moves on the chessboard.” You are trying to decide between (E) Explaining some sort of context to the reader, (D) Describing the setting or character or situation and letting the reader extract meaning and context on their own, (A) using Action to move the story forward and/or reveal something about a character’s motives, or (N) using Narration to make the narrator’s POV (or your POV as the writer) explicit and known, overtly stating “the purpose” of the story.

Each piece here—EDAN—accomplishes something different, in a different way. And so it’s not that any piece is “right” or “wrong.” It’s that, depending on what you’re trying to say, and the feeling or takeaway you’re trying to elicit in the reader, you might consider choosing to “say it” using one piece over another.

So first, let’s walk through each one with an example.

And then, let’s take things up a notch and look for ways to combine these pieces together—which is the secret to “great writing.”

Explanation

Explanation is context.

In the writing cliché, “Show, don’t tell,” Explanation is the telling. And there is a lot of value in telling the reader why something is important, or giving them context to how a character’s actions should be perceived.

For example:

Let’s say you are telling a story—doesn’t matter if it’s fiction or non-fiction—about this time in high school when you asked an old friend to be your best friend again.

The asking, “Hey, do you want to be my best friend again?” is an action. You are doing something. You are asking. But if that’s all we get is the action, without explanation or context, then we as readers have no idea how to perceive that action. Are we happy about it? Are we disappointed? Is the act of asking consequential in any way? We don’t know. It’s just action for the sake of it.

What gives that action meaning is context.

And one way of providing context is through Explanation—which often shows up as backstory.

Notice how the meaning of this action changes when we precede it with context:

“We hadn’t talked all summer. Not since his mom died, and my parents’ got divorced. Not since he started smoking cigarettes and hanging out with the skater kids. Not since I had started playing video games more, a lot more, my mom said I was addicted, maybe I was coping with the divorce. Not since last year, sophomore year. We had both changed so much. But this year was a new year. So the very first day of Junior year, before the bell rang for first period, I did it. I just walked right up to him and said, ‘Hey, do you want to be my best friend again?’”

The Explanation (the backstory, the context) preceding the action is what gives it meaning. And we are explicitly telling the reader what that meaning is—which isn’t the “only way” of creating meaning, it’s just a choice.

Description

Description is implied meaning.

If Explanation is explicit (you’re literally Explaining to the reader why something is, or is not, important), then Description is implicit.

This is the predominant quality of Classic Russian literature. If you’ve ever read Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekov, etc., then you know… the Russians (especially in classical literature) don’t “tell” you very much. They describe the character, the situation, and let you (the reader) infer the meaning on your own.

It’s worth noting that Description is the hardest “choice” to execute well, as a writer. And it is also the choice that asks the most of the reader. It’s significantly easier (as a writer, and for the reader) to just say, “So that’s why I was sad—because my parents got divorced,” rather than describing a scene in which that sadness, and what caused it, has to be inferred.

Sticking with our high-school-best-friend example, notice what happens when we swap all of the Explanation with Description:

“The summer was hot and long. His parents house had a For Sale sign in front. When I’d drive by, I’d stare at the rickety porch we used to sit on and just talk, talk for hours, Mountain Dews in our hands. One of those days, when a moving truck was outside, and parked behind it was a van with a logo on the side that said Naperville Foster Care, I walked up to that porch. A pile of half-smoked cigarettes sat in the corner, where we used to sit as kids. Inside the door, I could see the movers packing boxes, and he was just standing there, holding onto his backpack, the only thing he had left. We nodded at each other and that was about it. Then he followed the movers out, they locked the door, and the lady in a uniform with the same logo on it, Naperville Foster Care, had him sign something on a clipboard before opening the sliding door to the van, letting him in, before driving off. I just stood there, watching. We had both changed so much. But this year was a new year. So the very first day of Junior year, before the bell rang for first period, I did it. I just walked right up to him and said, ‘Hey, do you want to be my best friend again?’”

Notice how the story ends up landing in the same place, at the same action, but the road we took to get there is completely different.

Again, it’s not that Explanation is better than Description, or Description is better than Explanation. They’re just two different colors, two different moves on the chess board, pick your analogy.

We can think of “style” then as the deliberate choice a writer makes, in any given moment, any given sentence or paragraph, and the degree to which they want to give the reader explicit context or implicit context (or some combination).

Action

Action is movement.

The reason I like thinking of Action as movement is because if we unbundle the word “action” then what we find are two distinct groups of actions:

Weak Actions: A weak action is something that “happens” but doesn’t actually move the story forward in any meaningful way. For example, “I took a step forward. I picked up the handheld mirror. I looked at myself. I stared, long and hard. Then I put the mirror back down.” Technically, these are actions. And technically, we could potentially increase the meaning of these simple, weak actions by adding Explanation or Description. But all in all, these are weak actions. Not much happens, in the sense that the story isn’t taking leaps forward.
Strong Actions: A strong action is something that “happens” and is consequential. It reveals something about the character and/or moves the plot of the story forward. For example, “I picked up the handheld mirror, looked at myself, and then threw it across the room. I didn’t see her walk in, and the mirror grazed her left cheek. Then the mirror exploded against the back wall, glass shattering into a million pieces, some of which ricocheting into her hair and eyes.” Notice how each action is consequential. And it’s “the consequences” that give it meaning.

In college, my creative writing teachers used to call this the Rate of Revelation: the speed at which you reveal new information to the reader. This idea can be applied to any of the 4 pieces in this writing framework, EDAN, but it is most easily recognized in Action.

You do not want “action for the sake of action.”

You want actions that lead to consequences.

It’s also worth pointing out that Action, by itself, holds very little value.

Action is probably the weakest choice of the 4—EDAN—because its value relies on its relationship to the other pieces on the chess board. For example, the action of “crashing a car,” despite it being a strong and consequential action, has opaque meaning. What are the consequences of crashing this car? Are we worried for the main character? Or are we actually cheering them on—was crashing this car a moment of redemption?

The action itself is not enough.

We need to know how to perceive the action (with context, implicit or explicit), which is why Action is almost always best when paired with some form of Explanation or Description.

Narration

Narration is point of view.

In 1st-person fiction, the narrator is the main character. In 3rd-person fiction, the narrator is usually oscillates between omniscient and the close-3rd narration of a character’s inner experience.

Either way, Narration can be best thought of as the author’s and/or character’s point of view of the world and their coinciding beliefs. This is typically when we see the author’s head peek out from behind the curtain.

Sticking with our high-school-best-friend example, notice what happens when we add in some Narration:

“We hadn’t talked all summer. Not since his mom died, and my parents’ got divorced—and that’s the thing about divorce is it’s selfish because it hurts the people around you more than it hurts the people getting divorced. Not since he started smoking cigarettes and hanging out with the skater kids. Not since I had started playing video games more, a lot more, my mom said I was addicted, maybe I was coping. Not since last year, sophomore year. We had both changed so much. But this year was a new year. So the very first day of Junior year, before the bell rang for first period, I did it. I just walked right up to him and said, ‘Hey, do you want to be my best friend again?’”

The bolded sentence above is Narration.

It’s not Explanation in the sense that it’s not really backstory. And it’s not Description because it’s not really describing anything. And it’s not Action because there’s no movement, nothing is happening. So what is it? It’s the Narrator’s point of view. It’s an opinion about the way they see the world:

“…and that’s the thing about divorce is it’s selfish because it hurts the people around you more than it hurts the people getting divorced.”

Narration is a powerful mechanism for using stories to give commentary on specific themes. However, it’s also a very easy mechanism to overuse. If you tell the reader, “Here’s exactly what I think about what’s going on,” over and over again, then you remove all room for interpretation. You’re telling the reader how to feel without giving them the opportunity to infer meaning for themselves.

Writing Is Like Chess

This is an analogy I plan on writing more about (separately), but just to touch on it quickly here:

Writing is like chess. If you ask me, “What’s the best way to play chess?” then where do I even begin? There are infinite ways to play the game of chess, infinite moves on the chessboard, and infinite moves-in-reaction-to-your-moves, and so on. There is no one right way to play chess.

Now, are there better moves than others? Yes, of course. Chess is a game of decision trees: when I do this, you should do that. But even still, in almost every scenario, there will be multiple right answers. And more importantly, depending on the way you prefer to play, there will be different right answers for you compared to the right answers for me—depending on whether you prefer to play more defensively, or aggressively, and so on.

Writing is the same sort of game.

There is no one right way to write a book, or an essay, or a short story, or even a paragraph or sentence. There are infinite options, as well as multiple different right answers depending on the style of writing you want to produce.

Which is why I find the EDAN framework so helpful.

Too often, I see writers obsess over the “right” way to write. Which is unproductive. That’s like asking which is correct: moving one pawn or another pawn, using your bishop or using your knight. None of these choices, in and of themselves, is right or wrong. They are all just different options that sit on a spectrum of “more effective” and “less effective” relative to all the other pieces and options on the chessboard. Context matters.

So, what does this have to do with writing?

The first takeaway here should be that in order to learn how to produce great writing, you must first unbundle the term “great writing” and try to identify the individual parts that create the sum you desire (”a great piece of writing”).

I have isolated these parts here for you with the EDAN framework:

Explanation
Description
Action
Narration

The second takeaway should be that each of these different pieces hold different utility—the same way a bishop can only move diagonally, a knight can only move in L-shaped patterns, a rook can only move forwards, backwards, and laterally from side to side, and so on. But each piece’s utility is only maximized when considered in the context of what else is happening on the chessboard (or relative to what else is being said in a piece of writing).

Explanation gives explicit context.
Description gives implicit meaning.
Action gives movement.
Narration gives perspective and point of view.

Which means the advanced version of this framework is understanding each individual piece’s utility, and then finding unique combinations to maximize that utility by pairing pieces together—across a chapter, in a paragraph, or even in each individual sentence.

Let’s walk through a few different combinations:

Descriptive Explanation

Descriptive Explanation is when you add descriptive elements to explanation and backstory. Think of the Explanation as “what you need to know,” and the Description as “the way I tell you.”

For example, here’s our original Explanation example:

And here’s the same Explanation but with each sentence adding in Description:

“We hadn’t talked all summer, it was a brutally hot summer. Not since his wrinkly-faced mom died, and my bickering parents’ got divorced in the most dramatic way possible, my dad taking his wedding ring off and flushing it down the toilet. Not since he started smoking those Menthol cigarettes and hanging out with the skater kids who had long hair and wore hemp-rope necklaces. Not since I had started playing video games more, specifically Final Fantasy, a lot more, my mom said I was addicted, maybe I was coping with the divorce. Not since last year, sophomore year. We had both changed so much, like he’d even gotten one of his ears pierced and I had started wearing baggy pants and oversized T-shirts. But this year was a new year. So the very first day of Junior year, my backpack heavy with all my new textbooks and empty notepads, before the bell rang that loud and annoying sound for first period, I did it. I just swaggered right up to him and said, my voice cracking, ‘Hey, do you want to be my best friend again?’”

Notice how the Explanation is still what’s sitting in the spotlight, it’s the predominant thing we’re trying to achieve with this section.

But it comes to life when description is added throughout the explanation.

You should think of this like a volume knob you can turn up and down, all the way down to the sentence and word level. For a single sentence of Explanation, you could have no description (0), you could have some description (3), you could have lots of description (7), or you could have an overwhelming amount of description (10).

Descriptive Action

You can do the same thing by combining Description and Action.

Broadly speaking, “Explanation Action” isn’t a great pairing because these two pieces accomplish very different things. Imagine you’re watching a fight scene (Action), and then halfway through the fight scene everyone pauses and the narrator Explains to you what’s happening and why it’s important. Kinda ruins the momentum of the moment. (That’s not to say you can’t make it work. You could make the pause dramatic, and have the main character address the reader/audience directly, and make the Explanation intentionally dysfunctional. Etc.)

Descriptive Action is a much more effective pairing.

Sometimes this means taking a passage that is primarily Description, and adding Action.
And sometimes this means taking a passage that is primarily Action, and adding Description.

For example, here’s a passage of Descriptive Action:

“His parents house had a For Sale sign in front. I drove there in my beater Honda, the front right wheel almost flat, thwapping as I pulled into the driveway. I stared at the rickety porch that we used to sit on and just talk, talk for hours, Mountain Dews in our hands. The porch had faded in color, used to be white but now the paint was chipped and worn from the weather and I could see the greyish wood underneath. A pile of half-smoked cigarettes, the thin kind, sat in the corner, where we used to sit as kids. I stomped on the pile of cigarettes and then walked my ashy shoes inside. I saw the movers packing boxes, and then I saw him. He was just standing there, holding onto his backpack, that red backpack he’d had since middle school. And even though we hadn’t talked all summer, without even thinking about it, I walked right up to him and gave him a hug.”

What are the Actions in this passage?

Driving to the house
Staring at the porch
Stomping on the pile of cigarettes
Giving the friend a hug

These are the Actions that create movement in the passage.

But each Action gets amplified when paired with Description. Not only can we “see” each Action more clearly, but we can also infer its meaning.

Narration Explanation

A less conventional pairing would be Narration Explanation, where you are Explaining something to the reader (providing context/backstory), but also inserting the narrator’s point of view.

For example, here’s a passage of Narration Explanation:

*I am going to underline the pieces of Narration.

“We hadn’t talked all summer. Not since his mom died, and my parents’ got divorced—and that’s the thing about divorce is it always hurts the people around you. Not since he started smoking cigarettes and hanging out with the skater kids. Not since I had started playing video games more, a lot more, my mom said I was addicted, maybe I was coping with the divorce. I probably was, because coping is one of those things everyone else knows you’re doing except you. We had both changed so much. But this year was a new year. So the very first day of Junior year, before the bell rang for first period, I did it. I just walked right up to him and said, ‘Hey, do you want to be my best friend again?’”

Notice, these little pieces of Narration gives us some insight into how this narrator sees the world, their opinions, their beliefs, etc. And that Narration can be sprinkled into an Explanation.

Combining EDAN At The Sentence-Level

Now, can we take this one step further?

You bet we can.

In a single sentence, you could theoretically use all 4 pieces:

Explanation: I will bold this.
Description: I will italicize this.
Action: I will leave this as plain text.
Narration: I will underline this.

Here’s an example of a sentence using all 4 pieces of EDAN:

“My parents divorce and the way it was ruining my idea of marriage is probably why I reached onto my overpriced mahogany bedside table, grabbed my brand new baby blue iPhone, picked it up, looked at myself in the black mirror of its screen hungry for my attention, saw my girlfriend text me a heart emoji, I knew she was cheating on me, at least I had my suspicions, and chucked my phone across the room, its innards exploding against the back wall, which is the wrong way to deal with your problems, breaking things, I know, but I didn’t care.

Notice how much is happening!

Now, whether you “like” what I’ve written here is not is besides the point. Maybe you read the above passage and thought, “Wow, that’s really well-written.” Or maybe you thought, “I hate how that’s written.” Or maybe you thought, “It’s nice, but I would have liked more Explanation.” Or maybe, “It’s nice, but I would have liked more Description of the room.” And so on.

This is what I mean when I say writing is an infinite game—with infinite combinations, none of which are right or wrong.

But an effective place to start, when trying to learn how to “write great things,” is to understand the pieces at your disposal, what each piece does by itself, and how each piece gets maximized when combined with other pieces.

If you want a fun writing exercise…

The next time you sit down to read something, see if you can identify which of the 4 EDAN pieces are being used in every single sentence.

(This exercise will make your brain hurt—in the best way. And help you start to see how great writing is assembled down at the sentence-level.)

The way I like annotating this is:

(E) Next to any Explanation
(D) Next to any Description
(A) Next to any Action
(N) Next to any Narration

Some sentences and phrases you may find are multiple of these pieces smashed together. That’s OK. It’s worth sitting there for a few seconds and letting your brain think through the different combinations.

Because again, there are multiple right answers.

Sébastien Simoncelli

May 5

I like this because it makes “good writing” less mystical. Instead of asking if a sentence is good or bad, you ask what job it’s doing. That’s a much more useful way to improve.

1 reply by Nicolas Cole