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May 30

Write about pivotal moments instead of the story of your life

One of my friends came to me recently feeling overwhelmed about writing her life story. She struggled with knowing where to start and what to include. I advised her to approach it as a group of stories about the big, pivotal moments in her life instead of trying to write the “story of her life.”

I figured this technique out when I helped my uncle write his personal story. He focused on key moments that caused a shift in how he looked at life and how he matured as a man, including: time spent on the battlefield in World War II, meeting and marrying his wife, and the birth of his sons. These moments were the catalyst for change, which is something we want our characters to do in stories, whether they’re real-life people or imagined characters living out the plot we create.

If you’re struggling with how to write your personal story or memoir, set your focus on the big, memorable moments.

In the end, you’ll have a group of stories that you can weave together to form a whole. Here are several tips and prompts to help you start:

  1. Excavate memories by using the words, “I remember.” Riff on this question to unearth important memories. Read more

May 29

Three top tips for children and young adult writers

Are you writing for children and young adults? Success may be yours with the right mix of plot and writing finesse. The Greenhouse Literary Agency, which specializes in children and YA writing, lists these tips as part of a top 10 list. These are three of my favorites:

  1. Find out what books today’s kids are buying and enjoying. Absorb contemporary culture and literature, but never try to copy anyone else’s voice or concept because you think they’re successful right now. What’s hot today may be stone cold in a year’s time and it will take at least this long for your book to be published.

  1. Publishers publish into age categories – young fiction, middle grade and young adult.  Be very clear who you are writing for; many novels never find a home because they don’t speak clearly enough to any section of the market. Read more

May 28

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Two reasons to delete adverbs from your writing

Readers are smart and smart people don’t need to be told how to feel when they read your story.

The best way to get your readers to feel is, of course, to evoke those emotions within them. As a writer, you do that by using strong nouns and verbs and creating meaningful images and scenes. You don’t do that by using adverbs.

According to author and poet Jack Remick, relying on adverbs to tell our readers how to feel is a lazy way to get to emotion.

In his insightful interview with Joel Chafetz, Remick gives an example of a poorly used adverb—“Get out of here, she said sternly,”—and says it can easily be replaced with something stronger such as, “Get your butt out of here,” she growled.

Another reason Remick says he hates adverbs is because they hide images. Read more

May 24

Write a scene in 30 minutes

In a recent interview by Joel Chafetz, author Jack Remick, talked about how learning Natalie Goldberg’s timed writing technique totally changed his writing.

Remick who is a poet and author of the novel Blood, among other works, said he learned to use timed writing to craft his scenes. He breaks it down as follows for a 30-minute timed writing session:

  • 5 minutes on setting, place, time, season, temperature
  • 5 minutes on character description and problem
  • 5 minutes on action and dialogue
  • 5 minutes on Intruder
  • 5 minutes on Climax and Resolution
  • 5 minutes on Hook to the next scene down the line Read more

May 23

What’s your writing call to arms?

What is your writing watchword — the guiding principle that drives your writing life?

Writing has always been a central focus of my life. As a writer and reader, I love words and the power they have to move people and create change. So I was intrigued to see what entrepreneur Gianni Vega does to create art out of words and inspire people to commit to their passion and goals.

Vega, who calls himself a “Thot Provoker,” named his business Knots Thots. His artistic products are boards with quotes meant to spur people to, “live a life with no regret, no exceptions.”

Customers pick a board or have one custom-made with a quote that has meaning to them. The boards, which come in three sizes, include operating instructions: He urges customers as an act of faith and commitment to write down their dream or goal on the back of their board, sign their name, and date it. Read more

May 22

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Banish writer’s block with this tip from poet William Stafford

“There is no such thing as writer’s block for writers whose standards are low enough.” –American poet William Stafford

Poet William Stafford wrote every day, rising early in the mornings before the rest of his family. This discipline resulted in about 20,000 completed or attempted poems over his lifetime—of which only 6,000 or so have been published. Occasionally accused of being “too prolific,” Stafford would say, “if you get stuck, lower your standards and keep going.”

I needed this advice this week. Stuck on the same chapter for two weeks now, I realized that something needed to give. It’s not that I don’t know where this chapter is going—I do and I’ve even scratched out an outline of the scene. My problem is that I’ve been too hard on myself. I’ve been tired and stressed lately and beating myself up for not getting further in my story AND I’ve been expecting my prose to be at top-notch level during all this. Rubbish.

Taking Stafford’s advice, I realized that I just need to lighten up and get on with it. Write the crappy chapter. Let my prose suck. I can go back and fix it later when I’m not so stressed and fatigued. After all, this is a first draft. And, as my poetry mentor says, “First drafts are meant to be sucky.” Read more

May 21

Create order out of writing chaos

Writing is a messy business. Maybe you have a certain degree of chaos on your desk, with notebooks, bits and piece of paper, Post its with scrawled notes, and index cards from your hipster PDA. Not to mention the paper cuts.

It’s just part of the process.

When I write nonfiction features I have a system I usually follow that adds order and helps me stay focused. I create an outline but not in the sense of those outlines with the Roman numerals we learned about in grade school.

This is more of a skeleton with the main sections of the story noted: Lede, elements of the story that go in the body with a few notes about what each section will contain, and the conclusion. I visualize the story and tend to write from my notes and the mental image, but these notes serve as a guiding force. Creating the bones of the article gives me momentum and a way to relax into the writing. I can focus on the the words and ideas because I generally know where I’m going. Read more

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