Friday, November 29, 2013

Friday Five Minute Exercise - Change


1. Set your clocks/timers for Five (5) Minutes.

2. Write about Change. Do you embrace change or avoid it? Does your writing benefit from unpredictability that life presents? Write about the changes in your life that turned out to be beneficial to your spirit?

Get into as much detail as you can for the next five minutes.

3. Ready?

4. Go.

5. Finished? Review and be amazed.

I hope you had fun. Come back next Friday for a new writing prompt.

Was this exercise helpful?


Did you succeed with this writing exercise? Was it helpful? Did you discover if you liked or disliked change? Did you determine if your writing benefits from the change thrown at us from our world? Were you able to write about a change in your life that turned out to be beneficial to your spirit?

Why or Why Not?





Monday, November 25, 2013

Writing Tips - Pairs of Beginning Sentences


Today's Writing Tip comes from Alexandra Marshall, from the book titled What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers.

I'd like to know what you thought of it, so please leave a comment at the end.


Sometimes less is more, and sometimes it is just less. But no matter what, writing with a strict economy of purpose can force useful answers to fundamental questions. Even from one sentence you can learn both who the character is and what the story is about. To provide focus, it is helpful to begin by writing sentences in arbitrary pairs with established parameters.

THE EXERCISE

Write the first sentence of a story about a birth. Now write the first sentence about a death. Try other paris, such as falling in love an filing for divorce. Try pairs that are not in opposition, such as spring and summer. Then invent your own pairs.



THE OBJECTIVE

This is a way to sharpen skill by working for a specific kind of clarity. It is about naming essences.

STUDENT EXAMPLE

A birth and a death
1. I won't be doing any bonding with either one of them for quite awhile; I know I shouldn't have gone into the delivery room.
2. "He doesn't look peaceful or tortured or saintly, and no he doesn't look 'just like himself''; he looks like some dead thing that I never knew, and I don't know why I'm here."

Falling in love and filing for divorce
1. It could have happened to him a dozen times before and with women prettier, smarter, richer, funnier, sexier, even nicer, but it didn't, did it?
2. I don't want to throw her out the window or cheat her out of the money or tell her what a shit she is; I want to thank her for every damn day of it.

Spring and summer
1. All spring means to me is that things change, and if they didn't, I'd never die--but I'd want to.
2. The end of summer stopped having any tangible meaning in his life long ago, but with each year he is still slower to recover from it.


Can you think of other examples? Choose subjects and write beginning sentences. I'd like you to come up with pairs of sentences that help you bring together a specific kind of clarity; the naming of essences. If all you can come up with is opposition, that's great too. Just start writing.

Let me know what you think of this tip and exercise.



Friday, November 22, 2013

Friday Five Minute Exercise - Adventures


1. Set your clocks/timers for Five (5) Minutes.

2. Write about Adventures. When was the last time you had an adventure? Do you work in your office or home and rarely take a break to have an adventure? Today, create a written to-do list and timeline for adventurous experiences that you would like to have this year. Your adventures are sure to lead to new and exciting topics that you an write about.

Get into as much detail as you can for the next five minutes.

3. Ready?

4. Go.

5. Finished? Review and be amazed.

I hope you had fun. Come back next Friday for a new writing prompt.

Was this exercise helpful?


Did you succeed with this writing exercise? Was it helpful? Did you discover the adventurous side of you? Did you create a to-do list of adventures? Are you going to start doing them? Why or Why not? Did you discover a whole new set of new and exciting topics to write about?

Why or Why Not?




Monday, November 18, 2013

Writing Tips - Structuring Your Story

Story Structure. Think of it like building a house. You need the foundation which the story structure is built. And, you need framework, that holds the story together.

With me so far?

Within the framework of a story are three major elements:

1. Characters
2. Action
3. Conflict

Winding it up, the structure indicates that there must be a beginning, a middle, and an end.

We will not be discussing Plot. Plot is different from structure because it deals with a story's design. The architectural design of the structure. We'll deal with plot on another day.

So, does every writer need to structure their story the same way?

Of course not. You, as a writer, must figure out what works best for you from a various set of designs.

Some writers outline first.

Some writers begin with page one and just write.

Some writers start with character sketches and go from there.

Most writers are flexible with their ideas and plots and sketches. To them, so long as it all works out in the end, whatever worked was how it should have been.

So, how do you as the writer keep all of the bits and pieces of your story straight in your head and not float away?

One author I know uses Storyboarding. What they use is have a very large white dry-erase board hanging on a wall in their office. By figuring out the beginnings of the characters she maps out in a couple of sentences what the physical action is going to be. If there is a romantic relationship, she maps that out as well.

By using the storyboard, you can check your time line to be sure things are progressing in the right order. You can track your character development, even your settings, to make sure everything is in conjunction with everything else and all of these elements are compatible with the story line.

Don't be set on the ideas that you start with when you create your story line. Ideas will come to you as you write. It's up to you to decide if you are going to use them or not. Some ideas are just what your story was looking for, other ideas can be captured for use later either in this story or another story.

All in all, have fun with your story and don't be too rigid in your planning.




Writing Resource: How I Write - Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich with Ina Yalof
Image credit: AnnieAnnie / 123RF Stock Photo

Friday, November 15, 2013

Friday Five Minute Exercise - The Need for Silence


1. Set your clocks/timers for Five (5) Minutes.

2. Write about the Need for Silence. Do you need silence to calm your spirit? How does silence relate to your level of creativity? Does the stillness in your life elicit your creative tendencies?

Get into as much detail as you can for the next five minutes.

3. Ready?

4. Go.

5. Finished? Review and be amazed.

I hope you had fun. Come back next Friday for a new writing prompt.

Was this exercise helpful?


Did you succeed with this writing exercise? Was it helpful? Do you need silence to be creative? Does silence calm your spirit? Were you able to relate silence to your level of creativity? When silent, are you more creative?

Why or Why Not?




Monday, November 11, 2013

Writing Tips - Instilling Immediacy into your Writing

When writing your story, you want to grab the reader and suck him/her into your book. You want your reader to experience your book as it's happening. Word by word. Emotion by emotion. Action by action. To do so, pay attention to the following three areas:



1. The Story's Structure

2. Description

3. Writing Style


The Story's Structure 
Right from the very first Chapter, your story must grab your reader. If you're not grabbing your reader look at the following:

Point of View: If the point of view is clear and consistent from the story's beginning, readers won't be forced to guess whose perception they are seeing through.

Conflict: Action proceeds from characters in conflict - and pulls readers into your story. If you have the conflict clearly in mind, and pose it clearly for the reader, you will reach for the more active phrases and situations that create immediacy.

Exposition and background: Long descriptions of character or setting background intrude on the reader's illusion. Many writers feel it is important to the reader to being their stories with such passages. Readers do not need the entire background of your fictional world to appreciate the story's movement. The opposite is true. A single sentence, if well-imagined and worded, can do that far more immediately.

Create Compelling Description
Animating objects is just one way for resting immediacy through description. Consider these others:
Create charged images: A charged image evokes all the other elements of your story - theme, character, conflict, setting, style, and so on. As the reader moves through the story, the charged image discharges its potency gradually, keeping the reader involved and intrigued.

Make descriptive sentences rhythmic, as opposed to mechanical.

Filter all description through point of view.

Be brief.

Writing Style
How you arrange your words, phrases, and sentences also contributes to the sense of immediacy that keeps readers engrossed in your story. There are certain styles and techniques you can use to create a forward flow:

State things in chronological sequence

Use active phrasing

Keep transitions crisp

Impinge phrases

Juxtapose elements

Use reveals and surprise to sustain the reader's immediate attention

Use repetition to emphasize certain elements

Avoid distractions and deadeners


Making fiction immediate is a tremendously awesome task. The biggest problem the author has is that he/she tens to own the emotions, imagination and intellect of the reader. We delude ourselves that what we put on paper will be as intensely immediate for the reader as it was for us.

You can overcome much of this occupational hazard by imagining as your write, an audience of strangers. Try to feel their living, breathing presence and respond to their craving for an immediately intense experience.

Writing Resource: The Writer's Digest Handbook of Novel Writing

Friday, November 8, 2013

Friday Five Minute Exercise - Writing Spaces


1. Set your clocks/timers for Five (5) Minutes.

2. Write about Writing Spaces. What characteristics make your space more inviting? What features of your writing environment encourage your creativity? Does burning a candle or having windows in the room help you feel more at ease to create?

Get into as much detail as you can for the next five minutes.

3. Ready?

4. Go.

5. Finished? Review and be amazed.

I hope you had fun. Come back next Friday for a new writing prompt.

Was this exercise helpful?


Did you succeed with this writing exercise? Was it helpful? Did you identify the characteristics of your writing space that are inviting? Did you determine the specific features of your writing environment that encourage your creativity? Do you burn candles? Do you listen to music? Does your writing space have windows? What did you find that helped you be more at ease to create?

Why or Why Not?




Monday, November 4, 2013

Writing Tips - Theme

The ultimate question to every story is "Why?"

What's the point?

Why are you telling this story?

Why?

You have an idea for your story. You want to write. But, you must first ask yourself why do you want to write this particular story? How do you control all of the ideas you have floating in your head? How do you capture all the right ideas and create something awesome?

What are your motives? Honesty is important here. Your answer will help you decide how to develop the pattern of thought in your work, which is theme.

Does the word theme make you nervous? Does it recall bad memories in English class about having to write a five hundred word theme on how you spent your summer vacation?

Just to clear things up, when we mention theme in this article, it has nothing to do with high school themes.

Okay?

Theme: the central concern around which a story is structured. It is your inertial guidance system. It directs your decisions about which path to take, which choice is right for the story and which choice isn't.

There are several patterns of theme that you can apply to your story.

1. Plot as Theme

Everyone likes a good action film, right? Okay, well most of us do. That's how Plot becomes a theme. It's all about the escape into a good chase. The reader can sink into the story and become one with the protagonist as he/she follows the clues. In these kinds of books, everything, including character, are secondary to all of the fun action and plot. Books similar in style: think anything James Bond-ish.

2. Effect as Theme

The main focus of the pattern changes from events to emotional effect. There are various kinds of emotional effect: terror, suspense, love and romance, or comedy.

If you choose effect as your story's theme, concentrate on it and study the masters. Stephen King, John Carpenter, Robert Ludlum, Robin Cook, Alfred Hitchcock, any Harlequin romance writer, or Woody Allen.

It's important to understand the expectations of your reader before you write your story.

3. Style as Theme

Here we are looking at the author's style. It's the expression of style; an elevated artistic technique. In actuality, this is a very limited market.

4. Character as Theme

To define theme as character, your story must concentrate on a person (or persons) so that they are the center of plot and action. Similar books in this area: David Copperfield, Anna Karenia, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

5. Idea as Theme

No other theme makes us think as much as the "idea" theme. These stories affect us in such a way that we take a bit of it with us when we are finished. Very famous books like Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote are great examples of a theme plot based on ideas.

Ideas can come from a number of different forms. Here are the major categories into which most Ideas as Themes fall:


  • The moral statement: a work that attempts to persuade the reader to accept a certain moral principle
  • Human dignity: a character's fight for dignity and the right to be who he/she was in the face of a system that set to out to destroy him/her.
  • Social comment: writers may sometimes be tempted to preach when it comes to writing about the ills of society. Remember: show, don't tell. If you feel the urge to make a social comment in fiction do so from the character's point of view. Argue from your character's convictions, not your own. 
  • Human nature: the main character or characters of the story represent universal human types. These characters and their crises, reach beyond the page because they represent our view of civilization, of humankind in general.
  • Human relations: the author is concerned with understanding who we are as people and examining the difficulties people have when it comes to getting along with one another, especially complex, intimate relationships such as love, marriage, and family.
  • Innocence to experience: "coming of age" stories or "loss of innocence" stories.



If you decide on a theme for your story, you'll have kind of a roadmap to follow. Let it guide you. Write with your heart and the theme will follow.




Resource: The Writer's Digest Handbook of Novel Writing


Image credit: midnight13 / 123RF Stock Photo

Friday, November 1, 2013

Friday Five Minute Exercise - Your Senses



1. Set your clocks/timers for Five (5) Minutes.

2. Write about Your Senses. Think about sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smelling -- write about the relationship between your senses and the quality of your life experiences.

Get into as much detail as you can for the next five minutes.

3. Ready?

4. Go.

5. Finished? Review and be amazed.

I hope you had fun. Come back next Friday for a new writing prompt.

Was this exercise helpful?


Did you succeed with this writing exercise? Was it helpful? Were you able to associate with all your senses? Did you write about the relationship between your senses and the quality of your life experiences?

Why or Why Not?