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Posts from the ‘Craft’ Category

Jul 29

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How to use a timeline to build emotion and meaning into your memoir or novel

While writing my memoir, I found that a timeline of key events in my characters’ lives helped me excavate memories and find context. I recently added another element to my timeline that has helped me advance the emotional beats of the story as I revise. And it works for fiction as well as memoir.

Because writers must go beyond the events of a story or life to include the meaning behind the memories, I realized that a key part of a timeline could include notes about the significance, emotion, and outcomes of character milestones.

As part of my timeline, I list ages and family milestones: births, deaths, major illnesses, turning points, and historical events. The new addition of emotion and meaning behind those events helped me find more opportunities to add conflict and resolution to my scenes. Read more

Jul 25

Revise your poem with this writing checklist

So many facets of writing craft go into making a poem or story flow and resonate with readers. The complexity of fitting all the pieces together into a meaningful whole is exactly what I love about the challenge of writing and revising.

I’m creating a list (a work in progress) to remind me of what I want to think about when I write and revise my poetry. Maybe these points will help you in your writing or if you’re called on to critique a friend’s poetry.

  1. Does the title help advance the poem’s story?
  2. Is the first line compelling?
  3. Does the first line reveal what I want the reader to know? Does it ground them in the meaning of the poem, hint at what’s to come? Read more

Jul 24

How a great “voice” can make an opening line

In Joe Fassler’s recent interview with Stephen King in “The Atlantic” we learn what the bestselling author thinks a first line in a novel should accomplish. Besides establishing time and space, and hooking the reader with compelling action, an opening line should, most importantly, establish voice.

We’ve heard the term “voice” before but what is it exactly? King describes it as follows:

“A novel’s voice is something like a singer’s — think of singers like Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan, who have no musical training but are instantly recognizable. When people pick up a Rolling Stones record, it’s because they want access to that distinctive quality. They know that voice, they love that voice, and something in them connects profoundly with it. Well, it’s the same way with books. Anyone who’s read a lot of John Sanford, for example, knows that wry, sarcastic amusing voice that’s his and his alone. Or Elmore Leonard — my god, his writing is like a fingerprint. You’d recognize him anywhere. An appealing voice achieves an intimate connection — a bond much stronger than the kind forged, intellectually, through crafted writing.” Read more

Jul 22

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Draw your way into a scene

I’ve been experimenting lately with different ways to enter into writing scenes. One fun way is to use a sketchpad. I purchased a 5.5 inch x 8.5 inch Strathmore Sketchpad and colored pencils for doodling and have found it immensely useful for everything from sketching scenes to settings to drawing objects that might appear in a scene.

Not a drawer? Don’t worry, neither am I.  My “people” consist of stick figures and my depth perception is nonexistent. Fortunately, you don’t need to be Picasso to use sketching as a way to ignite your imagination.

The first thing I drew in my sketchpad was a dagger. One of my characters carries a dagger and I needed to “see” it in detail. As I was drawing the dagger and the sigils on the blade, I had a vision of the sigils glowing when activated so I added this into a scene.  As I continued to draw the dagger, I realized two other things about it that I hadn’t known before—these will also go into my story. Read more

Jul 18

How momentous events lead to compelling personal writing

What are the big events in your life? Big, life-changing, world changing events can be turning points and crucial material for writing a memoir, autobiography, or essay.

Some of the most compelling stories I’ve heard from students in my memoir classes have been about events, including 9-11, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the Apollo 11 mission in which Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong made history by being the first men to walk on the moon.

Writing about the big moments in history grounds your stories in time and place and adds historical context. When I began writing my memoir, I created a timeline with dates and ages of key characters, including significant events in my family and in history. Read more

Jul 17

Three posts to make your scenes stand out

Writing a good scene is all about paying attention to the details. Sometimes, I like to think of my scenes as mini-stories and, in order to help me remember everything that needs to go into the scene, I scan through some of our earlier posts on scene writing.

Below are three posts full of tips for making your scenes stand out.

“Four ways to revise scenes” gives a checklist of things to look for when revising.

“The shape of a scene: endings” shows how to use tension at the end of scenes to keep readers reading.

“How to use symbols in your writing” explains how I use symbols.

Jul 16

Warm up for writing with poem sketching

I’ve known artists who begin a painting by making a sketch. I see this as a form of experimentation or a rough draft to get a sense of what could be. As a writer, I practice my own form of sketching by playing with words on a page to see what images and ideas rise to the surface.

I first began this form of poetic sketching after reading the book “Poemcrazy” by Susan Wooldridge. I’d type random words in rows on a page, cut them up, and place them in a jar. Taking a handful of words, I’d see which words resonated and how they could be arranged to create a whole. This form of poem making reminds me of how I view writing poetry as a puzzle to solve, figuring out the best way to fit words together to form a pleasing whole. Read more

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