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Posts from the ‘Craft’ Category

Feb 24

How Olympic athletes inspire me to be a better writer

Do you have what it takes to be a Olympic-level writer?

As I watched the Olympics for the past two weeks, I was inspired by the athletes’ performances — even the ones who didn’t win medals. It made me think about how the principles of winning as an Olympic-caliber athlete can be applied to winning as a writer.

To rise as a writer to the level of an Olympic athlete, follow the same practices and mindset.

Practice daily. Olympic gold medal ice dancers Meryl Davis and Charlie White started skating together at age 8 and practiced for 17 years before winning at Sochi. They practiced nearly every day and their story is the norm. To excel, you must put in the time, create a writing practice. Read more

Feb 19

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How to create a metaphor practice, part 2

In my last post, I wrote about the benefits of starting a metaphor practice and gave one exercise for doing so (by using a template from a writer you admire). Below is another exercise to add to your metaphor or simile practice:

Make a List: Find a spot where you think a metaphor might work in a scene and write down the subject. Example: As I write my scenes, I can usually tell when a metaphor or simile will add spark to my page. In my last scene, I wanted a simile to describe how a house looked from the outside at night. So I wrote down the subject “house lit up.”  Read more

Feb 18

Poem making: five ideas for mixing the mystical and the conscious

This past weekend, a friend and I shared poems we’d written to see what we could learn from each other’s work. Reading our poems and talking about the subtext of them made me think about how writing poetry — from idea to finished poem — is about the magic of the subconscious melding with conscious craft decisions. But then I’m beginning to realize that all writing is ultimately that way.

Poems come to me in many forms, including: A purposeful exploration about a subject or person, a chance encounter that hits me in the chest, or an observation of two people interacting. Sometimes it can be hard to explain how one moment elicits a response or a “knowing” that I must record it in a poem.

If you’re looking for poetic inspiration, try these writing ideas:

1. Find a new format. Write a poem in the form of a personal ad.

2. Set limits. Constraints often fuel creativity. Think of an idea for a poem and then limit yourself to a set number of words to express it. Read more

Feb 17

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How to create a metaphor practice, part 1

Before I sit down and “go in” to my writing for the day, I like to do a few warm ups—kind of like a singer going through her repertoire before going on stage.

I might reread a few pages from the day before or maybe do a free-write on an aspect of my story I’m still trying to figure out. Sometimes, I’ll play around with creating metaphors or similes that I might use in my story. All of these are a great way to get my creative juices flowing.

Reminder: a simile compares two different things and usually uses the words “like” or “as” in the comparison; a metaphor describes two different things by stating that one thing is the other or has some of its qualities.

Simile: his eyes were as blue as the ocean

Metaphor: his eyes were the ocean

What are the benefits of creating a metaphor practice? Read more

Feb 13

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Writing body language that empowers your character’s emotions

Let’s face it, writing body language is hard. In my first drafts, I either try to stay away from writing body language, or I just face the fact that it will be all cliched and awful and I’ll have to rewrite it from the ground up.

Thanks to writing teacher Margie Lawson, I’ve been learning tips for writing better body language and using tools like back-loaded sentences, cadence, and rhetorical devices.

For tips on writing body language with examples and break downs of those examples, read Margie’s latest post here.

Also, check out my earlier post, “Character emotions: two ways to write about the body,” that shows how author Dorothy Allison writes body language.

If you’d like to share some of your experiences or tips about writing about body language, please do so in the comments below.

Feb 11

Make your setting active to keep your reader engaged

When reading other authors’ novels, do you ever find yourself skipping over the setting descriptions? I do. If that description goes on for more than a few paragraphs or, God forbid, a page, I’m annoyed.

I know some bestselling genre novels do this and get away with it, I think, because of the big names of the authors—they come from an earlier time (you know, when raptors roamed the earth). But, after a few weeks, they seem to fall off the list. Those books that tend to stay on the list for weeks and weeks (I’m thinking books like The Help and Water for Elephants), don’t annoy us with pages of dead description but have learned how to tell us what we need to know when we need to know it.

One way to keep your reader engaged in your story is to make sure your setting is active. Instead of dropping big chunks of setting description in your scene—which may have been all the rage when Jane Austin was alive but is a sure way to bore your reader to death now—is to drip in bits of description and to “make it active.” What do I mean by that?

The easiest way to explain is to show you a “before and after” example from my work-in-progress:  Read more

Feb 10

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Make lists to find out where to take your story next

I’ve been working on a children’s story off and on and find that I stop when I get stuck about where to take my character next. A post last week by Seth Godin, Exhaustive lists as a reliable tool for unstucking yourself, made me think of how I could use his technique to figure out where my character needs to go next in his quest. Thanks Seth!

Here are my examples of exhaustive lists to make when I’m stuck on a writing project.

  • All the possible names I could name each of my characters.
  • Every type of trouble I could inflict on a particular character.
  • Every source of help my character might seek to get out of trouble.
  • Every publisher that might be a fit for my story.
  • Book titles that would pique readers’ interest.
  • Editors or agents who might want to represent my work.
  • Out of-the-ordinary ways to market my story.
  • Publishing options from traditional to non-traditional.

The idea is to go crazy. List everything. Then team up with another writer friend and share your ideas. Together you’ll likely build even more crazy good ideas to push your writerly self forward.

Godin says that going beyond the obvious is where innovation lies.

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