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Posts from the ‘Craft’ Category

Oct 8

Add depth to your novel or memoir with this structural technique, Part 2

In my last blog post, I wrote about how author Elizabeth Rosner used a structural technique to add subtext to her novel. In today’s post, I share an example from a memoir.

In Lisa Dale Norton’s memoir Hawk Flies Above: Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills, she wrote 12 sections called “Notebooks” that created connections between chapters. Norton’s idyllic childhood ended when her parents divorced when Norton was 12. After 13 years of drifting, attending college, and surviving a rape where she was left for dead, Norton returned to Ericson, Nebraska. She began writing stories intertwined with threads of the landscape and its impact on her imagination and identity.

Norton weaves natural images of plants, wildlife and the landscape of her childhood summer home in Nebraska with an account of her search for self as she returns to the Sandhills, her childhood home.

“By lying close to the land, skin to sand, bone to wind, I believed I could merge with the grasses, with the hills. I believed I could become whole again. I did not know this on a conscious level.” Read more

Oct 7

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Rhetorical devices: Your secret writing weapon

When a book instantly grabs me and draws me in, I like to go back later and analyze why. Sometimes, it’s the subject matter. Sometimes, it’s the narrator’s voice. Sometimes, it’s a simile or metaphor that hooks me. Always, it’s the strong writing. Strong writing means that the arrangement of words on the page “works.” Strong writing is an art that we can learn.

Many award-winning, best-selling authors have a secret weapon that helps them produce strong writing. That secret success weapon is the use of rhetorical devices.

Award-winning poet and author Jack Remick discusses his use of rhetorical devices in his interview with Joel Chafetz. He says that the devices all conspire to create a certain cadence in his work. He goes on to say:

…”it’s not enough to put the words down, that’s information. You have to make the words dance and rhetoric can make your words dance. Most people dismiss rhetoric but rhetoric cannot be dismissed. Rhetoric can give you rhythm, rhetoric can give you cadence, rhetoric can give your writing new life. So the writing in Blood is thick with rhetorical devices. And that’s what you’re picking up—the poetry of violence couched in rhetorical devices driving images at full speed so the story spins out ahead of you, drawing you along with each one.”

I’ve used rhetorical devices in my poetry for years–alliteration, assonance, similes, metaphors, etc. These are some of the more common devices with their definitions below: Read more

Sep 30

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Frustrate your characters to keep readers turning pages

As writers, our job is to frustrate our characters. This job can be hard on us because we usually like our protagonist, maybe even feel she is a part of us. But when we write, we are forced to act more like her antagonist than best friend. That’s because, in order to keep our reader turning pages, we need to create conflict for our characters.

Even in fiction that doesn’t feature car crashes, bombs, or airplanes falling from the sky, we need to have some amount of conflict or tension. We need to create frustrated characters. So how do we keep the stakes high even in a cozy romance or literary novel? Read more

Sep 26

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How to honor someone special in your life by writing a tribute

Has your life been significantly changed by a family member, friend, teacher, or mentor? Consider how you can use your talent and passion for writing to create a tribute. The gift of words is a one-of-a-kind present that can’t be purchased at any store and has lasting value that goes beyond any material object.

Tributes can mark a special event or be a gift for a birthday, retirement party, or anniversary. Eulogies praise a person after they’ve passed on, but some of the best gifts of words are ones you can share with the person they honor while they’re still alive. One of my uncles always said he didn’t want a funeral. If anyone had anything to say about him, he preferred they say it before he died. So when his health began to fail, we threw him a party and told him what he meant to us.

Try these techniques to generate ideas:

1. Think of specific examples of when this person was there for you or did something that made your life better. The more you write, the more you’ll remember. Relax and write without thinking too hard. Don’t edit or worry about punctuation or grammar. Just put  your thoughts on the page.

2. Expand your writing to describe the impact, how you changed because of this person, and why it mattered. Read more

Sep 25

J. J. Abram’s mystery box as metaphor for writing

In producer/director/writer J. J. Abrams’s Ted Talk below, he says his fascination with how things work and the mystery surrounding life were given to him by his grandfather.

When he was a boy, his grandfather took him to a magic store where Abrams bought a Tannen’s Mystery Magic Box. This many years later, the box has never been opened because he says it represents his grandfather to him and the infinite possibilities and hopes that his grandfather instilled in him.

Abrams believes that mystery is the catalyst to imagination. He gives the example of when he was working on the TV series “Lost.” He had 11.5 weeks to write the script, cast it, and shoot it.

Because of the short time period, he and his crew had no time to think about what the show couldn’t be. No time to think about what they couldn’t accomplish. Read more

Sep 23

Doodle to tap creativity and focus

As mentioned in my post “Happiness Projects for Your Writing Life,” I was introduced to doodling by my massage therapist who decided to doodle every day for a month as part of his Happiness Project.

More recently, I learned that practicing doodling while learning new information can increase our retention and understanding of that information by up to 40%. I’ve never really been a doodler, but I wanted to test this idea at a recent two-day seminar to see if it really worked.

It took me awhile to get the hang of doodling while taking lecture notes. I’m not a “natural” drawer so I had to consciously thing of things to doodle at first (I started with a lot of hearts). It felt good and I was having fun. I also did seem to be more aware of what the speakers were saying. Read more

Sep 18

A simple prompt that reveals new writing ideas

I believe you have to make your own writing inspiration rather than waiting for it to happen. I’ve found I can generate inspiration by being observant, reading, and by using writing prompts and freewriting. Even when I feel resistance, I find that if I just start, I surprise myself.

One of the most effective prompts I use is one in which I type or write in a notebook, “I remember.” Then I time myself for about 20 minutes and list everything I can think of. If you’re trying to access memories for a memoir or to spark a short story or poetry ideas, you’ll be surprised at what this exercise reveals.

The second step is to do the same thing with the phrase, “I don’t remember.” You might think, “how can I write about what I don’t remember if I don’t remember it?” Have faith. These prompts are a good way of letting go of writing resistance. These exercises, especially done together, have a way of revealing themes and emotional moments that will take your writing to a whole new level.

What are your favorite ways to warm up for writing or excavate new ideas?

For more ideas to nurture writing inspiration, read Carol’s post, Four ways to cultivate writerly inspiration.

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