One way to learn how to write is to get a book in the genre you want to write in and use it like a text book. With different colored highlighters, highlight dialogue in one color, narration in another color, scenic descriptions in a third color. Notice how much dialogue there is compared to narration. Write notes in the margins. Use sticky notes to show where one character’s story intersects with another character leading to the hookup later in the story. Note foreshadowing. Learn how successful authors craft their novels. And some day, someone learning to write might use your book as a textbook on how to write.
Category: Just Write
Three Top Pointers About Writing Personal Essays by Kelly Caldwell
From December 2013 issue of The Writer magazine. “In the Classroom” with Kelly Caldwell. 1. Don’t worry about What is My Larger Subject? in your first draft. Just get out of your own way, write the story and let the universal themes of the essay reveal themselves. 2. When you’ve got that first draft, ask yourself, “So what?” and write down the answer. 3. When you reach a point in the essay where you want to make things up because they would be more interesting or more satisfying or just prettier, don’t. This is creative NONfiction, after all, and yes, that matters. Also, those are usually places where you need to dig deeper, because that’s where the richer, more meaningful material usually lies.
Writing about place
Kevin Nance’s interview of August Kleinzahler in the Nov/Dec 2013 issue of Poets & Writers shows how to describe character and setting. “One bright afternoon in San Francisco, Kleinzahler joins me for a spot of lunch at his favorite Chinese restaurant in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, once a hippie haven and now well into the process of gentrification, full of trendy shops and high-end hipsters. He cuts a fine figure in sunglasses, a banded hat, and a jaunty scarf tied haphazardly around his neck. He is, in some ways, a Californian now, a San Franciscan. ‘It agreed with me instantly,’ he says of the city he first encountered more than three decades ago. ‘The look of it, the feel of it, the bookstores, the bars, the Chinese food—all good for me.’ On the other hand, ‘It’s not home,’ he says, ‘The people don’t talk right here, they don’t walk right, their…
Debbie Macomber had so many rejections . . .
I enjoy books that take me away, where I can escape into other worlds, like Cedar Cove, the fictional town Debbie Macomber created for her cast of characters. A Costco Connection article about Macomber invites readers into her real world. “When I first started out, the rejections came so fast they hit me in the back of the head.” November 2013, The Costco Connection. The article continues, “Macomber describes her desire to write as a ‘dream that pounded inside of me.’” She overcame dyslexia and taught herself the art of writing by dissecting Kathleen Woodiwiss’ The Wolf and the Dove. “Whatever was inside that story that made me want to go back and read them again and again, I wanted in my own story.” From Debbie Macomber’s website: “. . . I wanted to become a writer because I had stories to tell. And I was always interested in people—in…
Elizabeth Berg demystifies how to describe characters
I love it when writers describe characters in a way that I can really see them, beyond eye and hair color. The trick is how to describe a character that gets into the essential details of the person. Elizabeth Berg demystifies how to describe characters, using interesting details, in “Escaping into the Open,” The Art of Writing True, page 91: Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, you can greatly help define a character by sharing not only what he says and does, but also how he looks. Again, details matter. don’t tell the reader that someone is old; show it by describing the dime-size age spots, the sag of the cheeks, the see-through hair, the spiderlike spread of veins at the back of the knees. Are nylons falling down? Are belts too big? Are there greasy thumbprints on the lenses of bifocals? Is the posture stopped or stubbornly erect? Is…
“Pass on the dream and tell its truth” — Natalie Goldberg
In her book, “The True Secret of Writing” Natalie Goldberg writes: Writing is for everyone, like eating and sleeping. Buddha said sleep is the greatest pleasure. We don’t often think of sleep like that. It seems so ordinary. But those who have sleepless nights know the deep satisfaction of sleep. The same is true of writing. We think of it as no big deal, we who are lucky to be literate. Slaves were forbidden to learn to read or write. Slave Owners were afraid to think of these people as human. To read and to write is to be empowered. No shackle can ultimately hold you. To write is to continue the human lineage. For my grandfather, coming from Russia at seventeen, it was enough to learn the language. Today, it’s our responsibility to further the immigrant dream. To write, to pass on the dream and tell its truth. Get…
Get started – how to use writing prompts
Get out some paper and a fast moving pen or set up your computer. Set the timer for ten minutes. Look at something in your room, anything, it doesn’t matter. Now write. Just write whatever enters your head. Or, open your dictionary to a random page, run your finger down a column. Stop on a word and freewrite, using that word as your prompt. Or, use one of the prompts in this blog. Think of this as practice writing, just as a badminton player practices before an actual meet. Follow Natalie Goldberg’s six rules of writing listed in a previous post. Try it right now. Paper and pen or computer ready? Glance at your clock. Note the time. Or set your timer for ten minutes. Write for ten minutes about “trees.” After that, write for ten minutes, using “I remember” as your prompt. Now go with, “What I really want…
Natalie Goldberg’s Six Rules of Writing Practice
Natalie Goldberg’s Six Rules of Writing Practice from her books: Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind Keep your hand moving. Don’t cross out. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar. Lose control. Don’t think. Go for the jugular
Don’t think. Don’t plan. Just Write.
When you write, using the method of writing freely – called a freewrite – you can lose control with no worries about consequences. Writing in this style is for your personal enjoyment or to enhance your writing. This isn’t your final piece to be published. No one else has to read your writing, unless you invite them to. When you freewrite, don’t think and don’t plan what you will write next. Just go with the moment’s energy. If you use a prompt that draws from your childhood, you will have endless material to write about.
How to get in the mood to write.
Get comfortable in your chair, couch, or wherever you are sitting . Both feet flat on the floor. Wiggle, squirm, move around until you are sitting comfortably. Take a deep breath in through your nose and release slowly through your mouth. Feel the floor under your feet. Your chair is firmly supporting you. Rest your hands comfortably in your lap, or on your thighs or on the table. Sit back and relax into your chair, feeling completely supported and totally comfortable. Take a deep breath in, hold and let go. Let go of your worries, Let go of your concerns. Take a nice deep breath in. Feel the breath go down, past your lungs, into your belly. Hold and really whoosh out. As you go through this relaxation, take deep breaths as you need to and really whoosh out as you exhale. Perhaps wiggle your toes and feet, rotate your…