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Posts tagged ‘creative writing’

Jul 26

Obstacles can illuminate your characters’ strengths

Obstacles. Life is full of them. And so is a good story. Obstacles in storytelling not only keep your readers reading but, according to author Robert Dugoni at the recent Pacific Northwest Writer’s Conference, obstacles show us our characters’ strengths.

Think of Harry Potter and all the obstacles he encountered. Through these obstacles we see that Harry is smart, loyal, honest, brave, and a good friend.

Just as important, we believe the end of Harry’s journey because we’ve seen him shine in action.

Ask yourself: What obstacles confront your characters? What do these obstacles show about your characters?

Jun 26

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Practice your storytelling technique through the eyes of a child

When meeting a new person, sometimes I mention that I used to be shy but now I can’t shut up. Though I say this jokingly, it’s true. When I quit my job and went to work for myself years ago, I had to break out of my shyness in order to survive and eventually thrive out there in the big, bad world.

I modeled people who seemed to be naturally outgoing. It took years of practice to overcome my shyness and even now, after being in my own little writing world for too long, it’s an easy mode to slip back into.

On a recent trip, I was forced to be around people and so practiced being my outgoing, extrovert self again. One way I did this was through storytelling. Read more

Jun 11

Tap into the power of small wins to write your manuscript

You’ve probably heard how important it is to break down a humongous task into parts to get the job done. You may have heard the question: How do you eat an elephant? Answer: One bite at a time.

Turns out that this can be an effective way to write a book.

The thought of all the time and pieces and parts and elements of writing craft that go into writing a book can be overwhelming. In fact, writing a book can seem so unattainable that some people give up before they even start. To combat these feelings, consider how you can break down your book project into small tasks to gain valuable momentum to write a complete manuscript. Read more

May 25

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Improve your writing by resting

To use a cliche, I tend to burn the candles at both ends. I work hard and I play hard. This leads to an exciting, fast-paced life but, lately, I’ve been craving down time. So I’m taking some–in bits and pieces. Because it’s hard for me to take time off, I’ve decided to schedule some into my calendar in the hopes it will become a habit.

When I get enough rest I’m more productive and creative, ideas flow, and I look forward to writing each day. In a previous post, “Nap Your Way to Health & Creativity,” I discuss the benefits of a short daily nap to re-charge our batteries.

Here are two other blog posts that discuss the benefits of taking time off:

From Jeff Goins’ blog, an excellent article by Carol Tice, “How to Improve Your Writing in One Counter-Intuitive Way.”

From Jane Fritz’s blog a very informative article explaining how resting is really part of training, “Good News: How Resting is Really Training.” As artists, we can take this concept into our writing.

May 11

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A poem from my son in honor of Mother’s Day

 

One of the benefits of our recent remodel has been finding treasures as I put the house back together. Below is a poem I found that my son wrote when he was seven years old. He liked to create little booklets of poems and give them to me for special occasions–Mother’s Day or my birthday.

Books have been a part of my life since I was a young girl sitting on my mother’s lap, lulled by the stories she read to me. I, in turn, cherished reading books to my son when he was young. I guess you can say we have “book love” in our family. See for yourself:

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Apr 30

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Practice the 5-minute “what if?” exercise to enhance your creativity

We’re all born creative thinkers, but sometimes it’s easy to think we aren’t when we’re stuck on a plot or trying to figure out a piece of dialogue for one of our characters.

Part of losing our sense of creativity comes with growing up. When we were kids, we didn’t worry so much about everything having to be logical or correct.

As Michael Michalko says in his book, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques, our minds are marvelous pattern recognition machines. We’re taught to see what we think we “should” see. This helps us be more efficient in many ways. But it’s also why we can read through a page of copy multiple times and miss typos. Our brain compensates and “helps” us see the patterns of what we expect to see. Read more

Jan 27

The secret weapon to writing better stories: Make mistakes

I’ve concluded that to be a better writer, I need to make more mistakes. The more uptight and worried I am about, “getting it right,” the stiffer and less creative my writing is.

I’ve been working on revisions and I’ve found I wrote better pages when I was half awake and less tense about the sentences. Or when I worked fast and furiously as I wrote 750 words for the day. Or when I wrote with the abandon of a 5-year-old.

It’s just not effective or efficient to edit and create at the same time. If you edit while you’re creating, your brain can get a little too judgmental and suck the creative mojo right out of your story.

So here are a few ideas if you want to make more mistakes in your writing and open the door for more creativity. Read more

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