FROM STORYTELLER TO PUBLISHED NOVELIST. PAINT YOUR SCENES WITH WORD-PICTURES. A SIX-PART QUICK COURSE ON WRITING. PART ONE: I hope this work will benefit all writers, but it should be especially helpful to the beginner. Many things will be considered before we actually get to the construction of a novel--call them TOOLS OF THE TRADE. In any endeavor, the worker, whatever his trade, must have the proper tools in order to do a good job. This is certainly true of the writer. A good story is only the beginning of a good novel. The secret is in the presentation of the work--the way it is put together, the voice, the style, and an original adaptation of an unoriginal subject. There are no more truly original plots today, except as technology opens up new fields; therefore a writer must take a much-used premise and make it seem original in the way it is presented to the reader. Neither a title, nor an idea, can be copyrighted. The same idea for a novel can be presented to a dozen writers and the result will be a dozen completely different manuscripts. Words and ideas are interdependent. You cannot increase one without increasing the other. Bear in mind, also, that the world judges you as a writer by the words you use and not by the words you know. Even though you recognize a word, if you do not use it, you will lose it. As Francis Thomas expressed it so eloquently: "Deep in my heart subsided the infrequent word, And there died slowly throbbing like a wounded bird." You cannot be an effective writer unless your descriptions are vivid and impressive enough that your reader visualizes the picture you have in your own mind. What makes for vivid description? Perhaps the most important feature of realistic portrayal is the use of picture words. Most of us like to tell stories. Most of us like to read stories. Many of us, after reading a published novel--which we might have enjoyed--find ourselves thinking, "I could write a better book than that." Are you one of those? Perhaps you envision the life of a published novelist, and the desire to be one grabs you and won't let go. Perhaps you've written an essay that received a good grade, or a short story your local paper published--and don't forget that poem your friends liked so well. Perhaps like many writers, you've been writing stories most of your life, but nothing ever came from your efforts, except the pleasure of creating characters and placing them in situations which you also created. You know you can write and you decide you want to become a published author. If you enjoy writing, and if your writing has evolved into an actual manuscript, that's the first step--the beginning. Many writers write articles and essays and non-fiction, and some of their efforts are published. Many begin by writing technical papers. Many who have done so, want to try their hand at fiction writing. Isn't that where the big money is? Well, if you can write thrillers like King, or epics like Follett, or get really lucky like the author of Bridges of Madison County, that is definitely where the big money is. However, most fiction authors must write excellent novels and be lucky, as well, to make any kind of money to speak of. Therefore, if you write only to make money and to make a name for yourself in the literary world, you will probably be disappointed. But if you have within your imagination good stories, and write them because you love to write and cannot imagine NOT writing, then you stand a good chance of being published and maybe, also, of making a name for yourself-- AND a few bucks. There is as much difference in writing non-fiction and fiction, as there is in being left handed and right handed. I believe, in this business, the difference is spoken of as 'left brain' versus 'right brain' writing. All beginning authors (sometimes even those who have taken writing classes) tend to narrate their stories, with passive sentence after passive sentence --telling everything--boring a reader into insensibility. Another thing which quickly reveals a beginning writer, is the effort the writer makes to put on paper every single movement known to man as their characters walk through the pages. A lesson all writers must learn, if they wan others to read their work, is this: Writing is fifty percent author and fifty percent reader. If an author leaves nothing to the reader's imagination, the reader will quickly toss the book. The reverse side of that coin, of course, is the writer who leaves too much to the reader's imagination and doesn't give enough of the essentials to make a story clear. This is the writer who forgets that a reader does not know all the things the author knows, and the author must make each event, each character, et cetera, clear to the reader. As any professional must do, before beginning a job for which he expects to be paid, he must gather together TOOLS with which to do the job--and must have the training to use those tools to advantage. Writing is no different than any other profession. Therefore a writer hoping to become a published author must have certain training and certain tools. First and foremost, a writer must have a fairly good knowledge of English grammar--spelling, sentence structure, proper use of words, their shades of meaning, et cetera. The writer should also have a working knowledge of plot, characterization, format, point-of-view, active versus passive sentences, strong versus weak verbs, specific versus general descriptive words--and so on. An author must use words that will not only be readily understandable to a reader, but will convey exactly what the author wishes a reader to 'see', 'hear', 'feel'. A good author can catch a reader's attention so thoroughly that the reader actually experiences the things he reads. That is the sort of skill which separates the pro from the novice. Punctuation is also important--and was the most difficult thing I had to learn as a writer. I once threw so many commas into my work, I was known as 'commatose'. I'll never forget a sentence which caused me to see the importance of comma placement. In this sentence a comma, moved from before a word to after the word, completely changed the sense of the sentence: 'Woman, without her man, is a beast.' 'Woman, without her, man is a beast.' Not politically correct--who cares? It's a great example. A world of description is available to writers through words. If not a word of dialogue is spoken, could you as a writer describe the smile of one of your characters? A frown? Keep in mind, there is a smile which indicates pleasure, and a smile which indicates scorn, a smile which indicates uncertainty or embarrassment. A frown can denote displeasure, or it can denote that one is deep in thought. The secret is to describe the emotion AS IT AFFECTS THE CHARACTER and not TELL the reader, 'he smiled', or 'she frowned'. EXERCISE ONE: In as few words as possible, 1 - Describe a character's smile of pleasure. 2 - Describe a character's smile of scorn. 3 - Describe a character's smile of embarrassment. 4 - Describe a character's frown of displeasure. 5 - Describe a character's frown of deep thought. ((EXAMPLES)) (SMILE OF PLEASURE) 1 - Her face beamed; her eyes sparkled. She grabbed her skirts and did a little dance, humming under her breath. (SMILE OF SCORN) 2 - His quick grimace of a smile, as audible as the sting of his words had been, reached his eyes in a flash of fire, revealing his contempt and scorn as readily as the stiff curving of his lips. (SMILE OF EMBARRASSMENT) 3 - The child's face flushed a bright red; he cleared his throat a couple of times before dropping his head and hunching his shoulders. He obviously wanted to be somewhere else--anywhere else. (FROWN OF DISPLEASURE) 4 - With furrowed brow and narrowed eyes, he glared at her. (FROWN OF DEEP THOUGHT) 5 - My son sat, his head in his hands, staring out into the darkness of the night. He bit at his lip and sighed. He seemed to have the world on his shoulders, and I wondered if he wrestled with his demons, as I did with mine. Every writer should know the difference between: There, their, they're — to, too, two — it's, its — your, you're — past, passed. Many still misuse these words. If you don't know the difference between 'farther' and 'further' or the difference between 'each other' and 'one another', or the difference between 'compared to' and 'compared with' --look the words up, or catch them in a later part of this series of articles. We can train ourselves to use effective words that are full of vitality and have the quality of bringing our scenes to life. Since few of us have the necessary vocabulary to make the best of our storytelling ability, all writers should have a good dictionary and a good thesaurus and a good dictionary. ARTICLES continued: ~Click above for more of Article 1~
FROM STORYTELLER TO PUBLISHED NOVELIST. PAINT YOUR SCENES WITH WORD-PICTURES. A SIX-PART QUICK COURSE ON WRITING.
I hope this work will benefit all writers, but it should be especially helpful to the beginner. Many things will be considered before we actually get to the construction of a novel--call them TOOLS OF THE TRADE. In any endeavor, the worker, whatever his trade, must have the proper tools in order to do a good job. This is certainly true of the writer.
A good story is only the beginning of a good novel. The secret is in the presentation of the work--the way it is put together, the voice, the style, and an original adaptation of an unoriginal subject. There are no more truly original plots today, except as technology opens up new fields; therefore a writer must take a much-used premise and make it seem original in the way it is presented to the reader.
Neither a title, nor an idea, can be copyrighted. The same idea for a novel can be presented to a dozen writers and the result will be a dozen completely different manuscripts.
Words and ideas are interdependent. You cannot increase one without increasing the other. Bear in mind, also, that the world judges you as a writer by the words you use and not by the words you know. Even though you recognize a word, if you do not use it, you will lose it.
As Francis Thomas expressed it so eloquently:
"Deep in my heart subsided the infrequent word, And there died slowly throbbing like a wounded bird."
You cannot be an effective writer unless your descriptions are vivid and impressive enough that your reader visualizes the picture you have in your own mind.
What makes for vivid description? Perhaps the most important feature of realistic portrayal is the use of picture words.
Most of us like to tell stories. Most of us like to read stories. Many of us, after reading a published novel--which we might have enjoyed--find ourselves thinking, "I could write a better book than that." Are you one of those?
Perhaps you envision the life of a published novelist, and the desire to be one grabs you and won't let go. Perhaps you've written an essay that received a good grade, or a short story your local paper published--and don't forget that poem your friends liked so well. Perhaps like many writers, you've been writing stories most of your life, but nothing ever came from your efforts, except the pleasure of creating characters and placing them in situations which you also created. You know you can write and you decide you want to become a published author. If you enjoy writing, and if your writing has evolved into an actual manuscript, that's the first step--the beginning. Many writers write articles and essays and non-fiction, and some of their efforts are published. Many begin by writing technical papers. Many who have done so, want to try their hand at fiction writing. Isn't that where the big money is?
Well, if you can write thrillers like King, or epics like Follett, or get really lucky like the author of Bridges of Madison County, that is definitely where the big money is. However, most fiction authors must write excellent novels and be lucky, as well, to make any kind of money to speak of. Therefore, if you write only to make money and to make a name for yourself in the literary world, you will probably be disappointed. But if you have within your imagination good stories, and write them because you love to write and cannot imagine NOT writing, then you stand a good chance of being published and maybe, also, of making a name for yourself-- AND a few bucks.
There is as much difference in writing non-fiction and fiction, as there is in being left handed and right handed. I believe, in this business, the difference is spoken of as 'left brain' versus 'right brain' writing. All beginning authors (sometimes even those who have taken writing classes) tend to narrate their stories, with passive sentence after passive sentence --telling everything--boring a reader into insensibility. Another thing which quickly reveals a beginning writer, is the effort the writer makes to put on paper every single movement known to man as their characters walk through the pages. A lesson all writers must learn, if they wan others to read their work, is this: Writing is fifty percent author and fifty percent reader. If an author leaves nothing to the reader's imagination, the reader will quickly toss the book. The reverse side of that coin, of course, is the writer who leaves too much to the reader's imagination and doesn't give enough of the essentials to make a story clear. This is the writer who forgets that a reader does not know all the things the author knows, and the author must make each event, each character, et cetera, clear to the reader.
As any professional must do, before beginning a job for which he expects to be paid, he must gather together TOOLS with which to do the job--and must have the training to use those tools to advantage. Writing is no different than any other profession. Therefore a writer hoping to become a published author must have certain training and certain tools.
First and foremost, a writer must have a fairly good knowledge of English grammar--spelling,
sentence structure, proper use of words, their shades of meaning, et cetera. The writer should
also have a working knowledge of plot, characterization, format, point-of-view, active versus
passive sentences, strong versus weak verbs, specific versus general descriptive words--and so
on.
An author must use words that will not only be readily understandable to a reader, but will convey exactly what the author wishes a reader to 'see', 'hear', 'feel'. A good author can catch a reader's attention so thoroughly that the reader actually experiences the things he reads. That is the sort of skill which separates the pro from the novice.
Punctuation is also important--and was the most difficult thing I had to learn as a writer. I once threw so many commas into my work, I was known as 'commatose'. I'll never forget a sentence which caused me to see the importance of comma placement. In this sentence a comma, moved from before a word to after the word, completely changed the sense of the sentence: 'Woman, without her man, is a beast.' 'Woman, without her, man is a beast.' Not politically correct--who cares? It's a great example.
A world of description is available to writers through words. If not a word of dialogue is spoken, could you as a writer describe the smile of one of your characters? A frown? Keep in mind, there is a smile which indicates pleasure, and a smile which indicates scorn, a smile which indicates uncertainty or embarrassment.
A frown can denote displeasure, or it can denote that one is deep in thought. The secret is to describe the emotion AS IT AFFECTS THE CHARACTER and not TELL the reader, 'he smiled', or 'she frowned'.
EXERCISE ONE: In as few words as possible, 1 - Describe a character's smile of pleasure. 2 - Describe a character's smile of scorn. 3 - Describe a character's smile of embarrassment. 4 - Describe a character's frown of displeasure. 5 - Describe a character's frown of deep thought.
((EXAMPLES)) (SMILE OF PLEASURE) 1 - Her face beamed; her eyes sparkled. She grabbed her skirts and did a little dance, humming under her breath. (SMILE OF SCORN) 2 - His quick grimace of a smile, as audible as the sting of his words had been, reached his eyes in a flash of fire, revealing his contempt and scorn as readily as the stiff curving of his lips. (SMILE OF EMBARRASSMENT) 3 - The child's face flushed a bright red; he cleared his throat a couple of times before dropping his head and hunching his shoulders. He obviously wanted to be somewhere else--anywhere else. (FROWN OF DISPLEASURE) 4 - With furrowed brow and narrowed eyes, he glared at her. (FROWN OF DEEP THOUGHT) 5 - My son sat, his head in his hands, staring out into the darkness of the night. He bit at his lip and sighed. He seemed to have the world on his shoulders, and I wondered if he wrestled with his demons, as I did with mine.
Every writer should know the difference between: There, their, they're — to, too, two — it's, its — your, you're — past, passed. Many still misuse these words. If you don't know the difference between 'farther' and 'further' or the difference between 'each other' and 'one another', or the difference between 'compared to' and 'compared with' --look the words up, or catch them in a later part of this series of articles.
We can train ourselves to use effective words that are full of vitality and have the quality of bringing our scenes to life. Since few of us have the necessary vocabulary to make the best of our storytelling ability, all writers should have a good dictionary and a good thesaurus and a good dictionary.
ARTICLES continued: