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Personal Motivation
 By Michelle Van Loon, on March 5th, 2010
A lot of us are in the habit of writing and saying what we know other people want to hear from us. This is very necessary and good when it comes to some things like schoolwork and chores – but the habit doesn’t grow a writer who can speak from the heart.
Grab your Bible and look through the Psalms. You’ll see song after song filled with concern, complaint, conflict as well as expressions of confidence in God. The one unifying theme of all 150 psalms is that the entire range of human emotion is contained in the collection.
To grow as a writer, it is helpful to have a place where you can be completely honest before God and with yourself. A journal can do this. If you’re not sure where or how to begin journaling, you might want to check out my resource for home schooled students: http://www.jsgrammar.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=17&Itemid=31
If you’ve never tried your hand at spilling your emotions onto paper, this brainstorming exercise is a simple place to begin.
Exercise
Begin by setting a timer for ten minutes and writing a list of all the things that frustrate you in your life. You don’t need to show anyone else your list. The goal should be to get your thoughts onto paper without worry about censoring them in order to please someone else.
If you run out of things to complain about in your own life, you can take on the world around you. What’s not fair in that world? What makes you sad? Mad?
Now, pick up that Bible you skimmed a few minutes ago. Take a look at Psalm 64. Read it out loud to yourself two or three times. David knew how to complain about his enemies, didn’t he? But if he’d stopped at complaint, his song to God would have been a one-note monotone. Instead, he detailed his complaint, then turned his heart to God in hope.
Now look at your list of complaints. Choose one and write a psalm patterned like Psalm 64. Express your complaint honestly, and then form a request for God’s help in the matter to close your psalm.
Finally, read (or sing) your completed Psalm to Him.
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For more writing help from Michelle Van Loon, visit www.homepagewriting.com
Language usage, Showing vs. Telling
By Naomi Musch, on February 26th, 2010 Using Comparisons Brings Life to Dead Adjectives
Whether you are writing a short story, a novel, or a non-fiction essay, you will need to give description, and often times to do so you will use comparison. It’s been said that “nothing means anything except as compared to something else”. In other words, if you say, “The house was big,” you make the reader ask, how big? Compared to what? If you tell them that the trip was long, they’ll want to know how long. Compared to what? If you say the job was hard, they’ll inquire, how hard? Compared to what? If you envision a beautiful dress and say that it was very blue, your reader will say, what kind of blue? Compared to what?
Comparisons are called similes and metaphors. You use them to help the reader visualize something they couldn’t see before, or to explain something that is unknown by showing them something that is known. For example, rather than saying the house was big, you might say that the house was as big as a castle compared to the tiny shack she lived in with her grandfather. I didn’t change the fact that the house was simply big, but saying it was “as big as a castle” to the character helped us see it the way she did. I might continue the description with something further: She wondered, did really only one family live inside? There were so many windows and walkways leading to doors on either end that it seemed surely two or three families must have apartments inside.
Or how about that dress? What kind of blue was it? Blue like the sky on a cloudless day, or deep blue, like dusk on a summer’s night? Maybe it was as blue as the sapphire necklace the hero gave her.
He went on a long trip . . . Well; it might be helpful to know what kind of story we’re telling. Say we’re talking about a Tom Sawyer type individual, who grew up never getting far from his home on the river. Maybe a long trip would simply be to the next town, twenty miles away. Maybe we’d say, “It was the longest trip of his life, being as how he’d never been past Cooley’s Ridge before” – kind of like when the hobbits had never gone outside the shire . . .
When we use like or as, we’ve used a simile. We are saying that something is similar to something. When we compare something even more boldly, we use a metaphor. We say something is indeed something else, even though it physically cannot be true. For instance, instead of using a simile to say, “It looked like a storm was brewing between his brows”, (though that’s pretty good) we might say, “A storm brewed between his brows.” It tells us the same thing — that someone is getting angry — but it does the job a little more forcefully.
Good fiction, and even good non-fiction, makes ample use of good comparisons while not becoming so heavy handed with them that we can’t see the story for the metaphor. You can overdo a good thing. The simple fact is that using comparison helps to put things in context. It helps to make your point, to clarify a picture, to put the reader in the scene or sense the sight, the smell, and the feel of what you’re showing them. It helps the writer to accomplish the one thing that should always be the writers’ mantra: Show me what it looks, feels, tastes, smells, sounds like; don’t just tell me that it does.
EXERCISE:
Search through your current work-in-progress for places that comparison would bring more visualization to the story. See if you can bring think of metaphors or similes that would liven up boring adjectives that merely tell.
Also, as you read for pleasure, note comparisons that authors are giving you to help you live in the story.
Characterization, Dialogue, Language usage
By Melinda Evaul, on February 19th, 2010 Today we’ll focus on your character’s speech and mannerisms. In past lessons, we’ve discussed external and internal goals, core values and conflicts, physical details, and personality traits. Another layer in a character’s personality is speech. Each layer adds depth and makes your reader feel as if they know this person. Readers sometimes see themselves in your character. If they can identify with the character and develop a relationship with them, they’re more likely to remember the novel or story. That achieves your goal—unforgettable characters.
Think of Luke Skywalker. Are his actions around Princess Leah and Darth Vader the same? Does he talk with Han Solo the same way he talks with Yoda?
To make this personal, is a conversation with your parents the same as a chat with your best friend? Are your actions the same? Of course they aren’t.
Each character has a unique voice and mannerisms. Some may use proper English while others wouldn’t. As your write dialogue, have your characters speak the way they would in real life. Sentence fragments and poor grammar often show up in dialogue.
Shy and nervous Tracy, my artist in a previous lesson, might have a hard time talking with her employer. She might stutter or stumble over her words. However, she could explain the story behind her painting with ease if she’s talking with her best friend. You get the idea.
Take the characters you’ve created in previous lessons. Add another layer by giving each one a unique voice.
Writing lesson:
Create some dialogue. Try at least two of my suggestions from the list below or come up with another relationship. Use the same topic each time. Choose one of the characters you’ve already developed. By now, you should know them pretty well. How would they sound and act?
- Write a dialogue scene between your character and his/her best friend.
- Try one with a parent.
- Choose a scene with their boyfriend/girlfriend.
- Have the same discussion with a grandparent.
- Talk with a teacher or an employer.
- Discuss the issue with a brother or sister.
Plotting
By Teri Dawn Smith, on February 12th, 2010 Story Structure
Structure in your story is like the frame of a house. It both holds it together and gives it shape.
Sometimes we creative types don’t appreciate the word structure. We may view it as something to stifle our imagination. However, structure doesn’t need to bind you, and it can be an essential tool in creating a fast-paced page-turner.
The most common over-all story form is the three-act structure, made simply of beginning, middle, and end. There’s plenty to learn about the elements of those three acts, but I’d like to concentrate today on the chapter-size structure of scene and sequel.
The Scene
The scene also has three elements: goal, conflict, and disaster. Write your scenes as though it were acted out on stage. Not a telling of what happened, but acted out before the reader’s eyes.
Goal: Just as your story needed to start with a goal, your scene also needs to begin with one. Fairly early in the scene, we need to know the goal or purpose the main character has. It needs to be something specific and obtainable. For example, “gaining wealth” is general. “Asking the boss for a raise” is specific.
Conflict: Your character must encounter conflict on his way to reach his goal. If Jim’s goal is to ask the boss for a raise and the boss says “yes”, then the scene is over. Boring. If Jim experiences inner conflict or actual roadblocks, then he must fight his way through, and we’ll cheer him on.
Remember, conflict is not simply bickering or misunderstanding. It’s the struggle against something and opposition where the outcome is in doubt.
Disaster: Again if you character reaches the goal, the scene falls flat. If it ends in disaster, we turn the page and wonder what he’ll do next and how did he react to the disaster.
The Sequel
A reaction scene usually follows the disaster. Many writers refer to this as a sequel. It also has three parts: reaction, dilemma, and decision.
Reaction: At first, the main character is reeling from the disaster of the previous scene. He’ll react emotionally about how he felt and how he messed up.
Dilemma: Next he will begin to think more rationally about his problem. Give him new worries here, something additional to fret about. Have him consider his options now.
Decision: Finally, he’ll come to a conclusion and make a new decision. This new decision becomes his goal in the next scene.
A Sequence of Scenes and Sequels Sets the Pace
An understanding of the sequence of scene and sequel will help with the pacing of your story. If you need to speed it up, keep the sequel short, maybe tack it briefly on the end of the scene. Or you could open with a brief sequel, and go directly into the goal of the next scene.
If your story becomes breathless with too much action, the reader may need time to slow down. You can do this with a longer sequel.
The understanding of the structure of scene and sequel doesn’t need to bind you as a hard and fast rule, but it may be just the tip you need to turn your story into a page-turner.
Lesson
- Look through the story you are writing to see if you’ve written a scene or sequel. Does it have the three elements from our lesson?
Select a chapter from one of your favorite books. Can you spot either scene or sequel elements?
Language usage
By Naomi Musch, on February 5th, 2010 Purple Prose
It may be a pretty popular color for your bedroom if you’re a teenager, or it may look awesome on an electric guitar, but for a writer, the color purple is to be shunned. I’m talking about a figurative color, something that we call “purple prose”.
Purple prose is language that is over the top. It is description that is extravagant, flowery, or simply too dramatic for the requirements of the scene. Purple prose creeps in stealthily, and for some strange reason, when we’ve written something that is too purple, we find ourselves liking it. Unfortunately, our editors won’t like it, and our readers will be distracted by it. Maybe since writers love language and words so much we just tend to get carried away with them.
Purple prose takes clear, concise writing and dresses it up in gaudy language –sights, smells, tastes, and sounds that are unrealistic or too poetic. For me, it’s a hard line to draw, because I know that imagery is good, and that using the senses helps evoke detail. But too much of a good thing becomes a purple patch.
Here’s an example of purple prose:
Gerard gazed pensively out the window streaming with raindrops, running like rivers of pain in his soul. The crashing thunder reminded him of his shattered hopes, of how he’d dreamed of winning the contest for his true love and proudly donning the Medal of Honor while the crowd thundered his name gloriously across the arena. His forehead crumpled against the cold, cruel glass and he sighed deeply, dramatically. All his hopes were gone, spiraling down, down, down into the chasm of his despair.
That’s some pretty awful stuff. I bet you were more tempted to laugh at the pathetic Gerard than you were to feel his suffering. If we analyze it a bit, we can see what made it so bad.
There are too many adjectives and adverbs – gazed pensively, crashing thunder, shattered hopes, true love, proudly donning, gloriously, and so on.
The alliterations (and still more adjectives and adverbs) of crumpled, cold, cruel is over-the-top awful, not to mention deeply, dramatically, down, despair.
The metaphoric chasm of despair and the simile of the raindrops running like rivers of pain are both just too flowery, if not cliché. The distant thunder reminding him of shattered hopes is cliché as well.
EXERCISE:
I’m working on a fantasy novel for publication that has captured the interest of an editor. However she has been quick to point out my purple prose right in the opening scene. Now I’m scouring my manuscript for more purple patches. Start scanning your own work for purple prose. It may help to go straight to a Big Scene – one where there is a crisis or turning point or lots of action. That’s where purple prose is mostly likely to crop up. Look for words or phrases that are just a little bit too much. It may not be an entire paragraph like the example above, but just a small sentence. For example, in my book’s prologue, I had young Prince Erasté facing a foe who’d just slain his father the king:
Below his knees, the life blood of Elian Ruelle soaked into the rich earth. He pushed one leg up, then the other, forcing himself upright until he stood to face the faerie queen. His body shuddered and a fire kindled deep inside, denying any place for the anguish that wrenched him. The knot in his jaw quivered.
In the revised version, the editor asked me to remove “pushed one leg upward, then the other” as being too purple. The new line simply says, Erasté forced himself upright until he stood to face the faerie queen. Everything else stayed the same. The answer was not to eliminate all the visuals, just to rein them in a bit.
So let’s start weeding the purple patches out of our manuscripts!
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