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Posts by Carly Sandifer

Aug 24

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Inspiring advice from a commencement address by author Neil Gaiman

Are your actions taking you closer to your goal or further from it?

In a commencement speech at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia earlier this year, author Neil Gaiman said he used the image of a distant mountain to represent his goal to become a writer.

When he was confronted with a decision in life and wasn’t sure what to do, he said, “I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I’d be alright.”

Hear other inspiring bits of advice in this 18-minute video.

I’ve always thought that as writers, it’s our job to experience life, including the bad parts, and figure out how to make art out of it. See artist Gavin Aung Than’s take on Gaiman’s speech in this comic.

Aug 22

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Try these techniques to amplify emotion in your writing, part 2

I’m intrigued by the ways writers can show emotion through words and pacing.

Recently, I wrote a post about how author Sigrid Nunez used several literary techniques in A Feather on the Breath of God to show how the narrator of her novel felt distanced from her father, a Chinese-Panamanian immigrant.

Here is another example of how Nunez employed a rhetorical device called anaphora –repeating a word or two in successive clauses or sentences to create emphasis. Nunez also used cliches to represent distance and the lack of understanding and communication the narrator felt with her father.

“Chinese inscrutability. Chinese sufferance. Chinese reserve. I recognize my father in the clichés.” Read more

Aug 20

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Practice will get you published

Practice, practice practice. That’s what it takes to be a published writer, says author Anjali Banerjee.

“It’s good to go to the end,” she says. “If you don’t write a manuscript from beginning to end, you might get stuck on the first chapter, rewriting the beginning ad nauseum. Or you might ditch the manuscript altogether and start another one for whatever reason — fear of failure, fear of success, or a difficult problem with the storyline.”

Banerjee has made it to the end of nine published books (and two unpublished ones). Enchanting Lily, her most recent novel, is about a young widow who’s content to hide out in her vintage clothing shop on a Pacific Northwest island until a cat runs in and turns her life upside down. For a deleted scene told from the cat’s point of view, read Banerjee’s guest post at Melissa’s Mochas, Mysteries, and More.

Banerjee offers insight and tips for writers: Read more

Aug 16

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Try these techniques to amplify emotion in your writing

I like to say that good writing is about getting the right words in the right order.

In the novel, A Feather on the Breath of God, author Sigrid Nunez infuses her sentences with a tone of sadness and distance by using several techniques, including lists and a rhetorical device called anaphora.

Anaphora is a technique that involves repetition of a word or words at the beginning of two or more successive verses, clauses, or sentences. It lends emphasis and can enhance the emotional impact. Read more

Aug 14

Great storytelling is more than a sensational event

To craft a truly great story requires craftsmanship and skill. Unfortunately, many storytellers rely on sensational events or scenes to grab a reader or listener’s interest.

Kevin Hartnett, a staff writer for The Millions, wrote about storytelling in a post, “A Night at The Moth: The Worst Thing that Ever Happened to Me,” that made me think about the anatomy of stories and about first person or dramatic events, in particular.

It can be a temptation to rely on “The worst thing that ever happened to me” stories and think your audience will find them gripping, Hartnett said. But intensely personal or sensational stories have a way of “crowding out the audience,” sucking the life out of them. Read more

Aug 9

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Writing: Get it wrong so you can get it right

Instead of fearing imperfection in your work, embrace it. Sometimes we have to get it wrong so we can get it right. I prefer to call it experimentation.

The discipline of any creative pursuit — writing, painting, photography — requires constant trial and error. In fact “errors” are precursors to original ideas. They reveal new directions, the unexpected, a twist.

Even athletes know this. Marathon runner Ryan Hall could have been speaking about writing when he was quoted in a New York Times article about his quest for an Olympic gold medal: Read more

Aug 8

2 Comments

What childhood books do you remember?

From the time I learned how to read, books have made a huge impact on me. I’ll never forget my third-grade teacher reading, “Where the Red Fern Grows,” and bringing me and my classmates to tears.

Other books I remember:

Charlotte’s Webby E.B. White. Wilbur the pig befriends a spider named Charlotte.

Celia Garth by Gwen Bristow. Celia Garth transforms from a fashionable dressmaker to a patriot spy during the Revolutionary War. Read more

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