Many of us want to learn how to be better writers. The answer is very simple: WRITE. Write some more. Keep writing. It’s true! The more you write, the better writer you will become. Here are some things you can do to improve your writing. READ. Read whatever you like to read. Read the genre you are writing in. Read other genres. BE SPECIFIC. ’57 Bel Air Chevy, not car. Sycamore, not tree. Foxtrot, not dance. USE STRONG VERBS. Keep a list of strong verbs in your writer’s toolbox for easy reference. Resources for strong verbs Thesaurus in any format: Paper, on your computer, internet. Books: Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing by Constance Hale. Strong Verbs Strong Voice by Ann Everett Websites: Tip Sheet Using Strong Verbs and Writing Tips: Use Active, Precise Verbs WRITING MAGAZINES often have article to improve writing: Writer’s Digest, The Writer,…
Tag: Vex Hex Smash Smooch
Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch by Constance Hale
Guest Book Reviewer Kathy Myers nails a review of Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing. If a mousy English teacher yanked the hairpins out of her tight bun, slammed down a couple of boiler makers, and shimmied around the dance floor at a biker bar, she could blame it on the copy of “Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch” tucked in her Borders Book bag. Constance Hale stimulates writers to accentuate and resuscitate their sentences with better verbs—the “little despots” that dictate what happens in the sentence. But it’s not just about verbs; it’s about better writing. It’s about smashing bad habits, and flirting with new ones. It’s about the rich history of our mutt of a mother tongue, and appreciation of its ongoing evolution. And because “the antidote to anxiety is mastery” each chapter includes prompts to “try, do, write, and play”, and thus makes this a worthy…
Crafting scenes a reader can see—and sense by Constance Hale
Crafting scenes a reader can see—and sense by Constance Hale Place looms large in all the work I do—whether in travel writing (when I’m trying to capture the essence of another country or culture), or in narrative journalism (when I often begin with a scene to draw my reader into the story), or even in Facebook status updates (when I try to sketch a place with a few poetic images). When crafting scenes, many writers make the mistake of loading up adjectives. But, as always, nouns and verbs do the best detail work. Take for example this description by the Indian writer Arundhati Roy, in The God of Small Things: “May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity…