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Posts tagged ‘writing tips’

Mar 3

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Lessons from Ernest Hemingway’s shortest novel ever

Rumor has it that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write the shortest novel ever. In response, he wrote: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.”

Whether or not Hemingway actually wrote those six incredible words, they show the power in simplicity. One of the “rules of writing” that I’ve heard over and over is that sometimes less is more—especially when evoking strong emotions. Novelist and TV Writer/Producer Lowell Cauffiel stated in an interview on Storylogue.com that Hemingway’s “shortest novel ever” reminds him that when he’s editing to especially look for what he can delete or pare down—long paragraphs of description or setting that don’t move the story forward, unnecessary dialogue, or large chunks of information.

There are as many ways to write and as many styles of writing as there are fingerprints but remember the beauty in simplicity and lean writing. To read some of Hemingway’s (short) writing tips, check out this post by Brian Clark: “Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing Well.” To learn more about six-word memoirs, read Carly’s post.

Feb 25

Use onomatopoeia to enhance your writing senses

In an earlier post, “Use all six senses to make your story come alive,” I write about the importance of using all our senses when creating a scene. Too often, writers rely on sight or visual cues in the scene and forget to include the other senses.

Touch, sound, taste, and smell are just as important as sight, yet are often overlooked.

What senses do you use the most in your writing?

Find out by taking a chapter and highlighting the five senses with five different colored markers or pencils. I did this recently and discovered that after sight, my most used sense was smell, then sound, then touch. I didn’t use taste at all in that particular chapter.

You don’t need to use every sense in every chapter but you do want your writing to come alive and varying the senses will help you reach this goal.

One way to play with sound is through onomatopoeia—words that imitate the sounds the words describe. We’ve all seen this device used in comic books or in cartoons: POW, WHAM, BAM, etc. But you can also invent word sounds to match anything you want. Read more

Feb 19

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How to create a metaphor practice, part 2

In my last post, I wrote about the benefits of starting a metaphor practice and gave one exercise for doing so (by using a template from a writer you admire). Below is another exercise to add to your metaphor or simile practice:

Make a List: Find a spot where you think a metaphor might work in a scene and write down the subject. Example: As I write my scenes, I can usually tell when a metaphor or simile will add spark to my page. In my last scene, I wanted a simile to describe how a house looked from the outside at night. So I wrote down the subject “house lit up.”  Read more

Feb 17

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How to create a metaphor practice, part 1

Before I sit down and “go in” to my writing for the day, I like to do a few warm ups—kind of like a singer going through her repertoire before going on stage.

I might reread a few pages from the day before or maybe do a free-write on an aspect of my story I’m still trying to figure out. Sometimes, I’ll play around with creating metaphors or similes that I might use in my story. All of these are a great way to get my creative juices flowing.

Reminder: a simile compares two different things and usually uses the words “like” or “as” in the comparison; a metaphor describes two different things by stating that one thing is the other or has some of its qualities.

Simile: his eyes were as blue as the ocean

Metaphor: his eyes were the ocean

What are the benefits of creating a metaphor practice? Read more

Feb 13

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Writing body language that empowers your character’s emotions

Let’s face it, writing body language is hard. In my first drafts, I either try to stay away from writing body language, or I just face the fact that it will be all cliched and awful and I’ll have to rewrite it from the ground up.

Thanks to writing teacher Margie Lawson, I’ve been learning tips for writing better body language and using tools like back-loaded sentences, cadence, and rhetorical devices.

For tips on writing body language with examples and break downs of those examples, read Margie’s latest post here.

Also, check out my earlier post, “Character emotions: two ways to write about the body,” that shows how author Dorothy Allison writes body language.

If you’d like to share some of your experiences or tips about writing about body language, please do so in the comments below.

Feb 11

Make your setting active to keep your reader engaged

When reading other authors’ novels, do you ever find yourself skipping over the setting descriptions? I do. If that description goes on for more than a few paragraphs or, God forbid, a page, I’m annoyed.

I know some bestselling genre novels do this and get away with it, I think, because of the big names of the authors—they come from an earlier time (you know, when raptors roamed the earth). But, after a few weeks, they seem to fall off the list. Those books that tend to stay on the list for weeks and weeks (I’m thinking books like The Help and Water for Elephants), don’t annoy us with pages of dead description but have learned how to tell us what we need to know when we need to know it.

One way to keep your reader engaged in your story is to make sure your setting is active. Instead of dropping big chunks of setting description in your scene—which may have been all the rage when Jane Austin was alive but is a sure way to bore your reader to death now—is to drip in bits of description and to “make it active.” What do I mean by that?

The easiest way to explain is to show you a “before and after” example from my work-in-progress:  Read more

Feb 6

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Style is more than the arrangement of words on a page, part 2

In my previous post on the subject of style, I mentioned how style is not achieved by merely the order of words on the page but through all aspects of writing as they coalesce into a whole.

Another way of looking at style is through the words of author Lowell Cauffiel who says, “Style is not how a writer puts words together but what he perceives and how he thinks.” He says beginning writers often think of style as how words are put together—i.e. they think, “Should I write sparsely like Hemingway or use more words like Faulkner?”

Cauffiel says style is not about word techniques but how you perceive the world around you and how you relay that information. Read more

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