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Posts from the ‘Craft’ Category

Mar 1

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The awkward art of writing sex scenes

“It is not sex that gives the pleasure, but the lover.” Marge Piercy

In The New Republic’s recent article, “The Smitten Word: The Awkward Art of Writing About Sex,“ author Sam Lipsyte writes about one of the most difficult subjects for writers to tackle–sex scenes.

He says the conventional wisdom that less is more is usually best, but it can also be a cop-out. He writes:

“Sometimes, though, you have to face the multi-spined beast head on. Be brave, and trust in your love of language and your love of sex. (Or lack of it.) Trust in the modern gods who guide your hand: Sad and Funny. Like it or not, these are the twin poles for most of our tiny thoughts and doings. Sad and Funny are both the world and how we withstand it.”

Read the rest of Lipsyte’s article for more do’s and don’ts of writing sex scenes.

You can also read my previous post “How to Write a Good Sex Scene.“

Feb 27

How to write surprise endings

In his book Plot & Structure,James Scott Bell has a great chapter on story endings. He writes about the different types of endings, including the twist or surprise ending.

In a way, all of our endings should incorporate surprise or the unexpected. We don’t want our stories to be so transparent that the reader can guess what comes next, eventually becoming bored with our story.

So how do authors come up with great twist endings? Bell admits he doesn’t know exactly as it’s not something that can be boiled down to a formula. But he does offer tips for helping us brainstorm possibilities. Read more

Feb 26

Can’t find the wild word you need? Make one up

You would think that with all the words in the world, you’d have no trouble finding the ones you need in your writerly pursuits. Not so.

Sometimes, the words we want may be the ones we have to make up.

I’ve been reading children’s and YA books recently and love the way the authors have created words. One of my favorites is, Frindle, by Andrew Clements and Brian Selznick. It’s a story about a boy who decides to convince his classmates to start calling a pen by the name Frindle. Soon his town has joined in and then the country.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, is a heartbreaking and funny story about a terminally ill girl who meets and falls in love with a boy she meets at a kids’ cancer support group. Here are several of the made-up words Green uses:

  • askingly
  • prostitutional
  • cancertastic
  • cancervania

Using odd and original words and word combinations help set a tone and voice for a story, as well as create unique nuances in characters. In some stories, authors invent whole languages. Read more

Feb 25

Three posts to help you mine your life for writing ideas

One of my goals this week is to brainstorm ideas for a series of new poems. I thought I’d go through some of our previous posts for writing inspiration.

I hope you find the following three posts helpful in your own quest for writing ideas:

“Exercises in memoir: finding your story” offers several exercises to help you mine your memory for anything from memoir to poetry to fiction.

“Embrace your day job for writing inspiration” offers a Ted Kooser poem and insights from Carly about finding writing ideas at work.

“Four way to cultivate writerly inspiration” lists more ways to find inspiring ideas.

Feb 22

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Two ways to create characters your audience will care about

Quick. Think of several of your favorite characters in books or movies. What makes them stand out to you? Character traits are one thing but focus on those and you just have superficial characters, says screenwriting teacher John Truby.

What grabs viewers and readers most about your character?

1. The fundamental weakness of the character

2. The character’s goal in the story.

If you can create a goal for your hero which forces him or her to deal with their deep weakness, you have the makings of a great story, says Truby.

Learn more in this 3-minute clip.

Feb 21

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Use your “firsts” to propel your writing

Firsts are powerful: your first kiss, first love, first car, first death of a pet or loved one, first child. If you think back on your firsts, they will mostly contain a tremendous amount of emotion.

Talking with Carly yesterday about curse words, she mentioned that she remembered her father rarely, if ever, swearing. I told her that every other word my father spoke was the “f” word. Because I heard it so often growing up, the word had little meaning to me. To my ears, it was the equivalent of someone saying, “damn.” Read more

Feb 20

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Lessons learned from one blogger’s 365-day novel writing challenge

Blogger Amanda Martin, who committed this year to blog a daily installment of her novel in progress, made it to day 50 yesterday and has logged more than 42,000 words. I’ve been following her posts and have noted interesting lessons and inspiration about the writing life and craft.

In her post yesterday, Martin wrote: “My main question is why people like the posts they do: is it because of the Claire installment or my daily diary/diatribe?”

Here’s my take…

For one thing, words add up. Even if you don’t have much time, you can write something, and that something will add up to a full manuscript eventually. Martin, her two children, and husband have all battled colds and flus during this time, but she continued to write. Read more

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