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My son’s 17th birthday is today. Hurrah! His school started yesterday. They had 2 1/2 of football practice after school in 103 degree heat–with lots of water breaks. The heat wave is forecast to break by Saturday–then it’ll only be in the high 90′s, she says sarcastically. Things should calm down for me now and [...]
Why History Textbooks Put You to Sleep Ever wonder why history textbooks put you to sleep? You might think that formal v. informal text vary based on the level of vocabulary and complexity of sentence structure. Some of that may come into play, but it more than that. Rhythm patterns in formal texts are the [...]
SCHEMES: Unusual patterns of words. Yesterday, I talked about How to Use Words, or Tropes: any literary use of a word that is other than it’s literal meaning. Today, we’ll look at how to arrange words. Schemes are the arrangement of words into patterns of some sort. Common schemes look at how words are balanced, [...]
In one of my other incarnations, I teach writing at a local university, where we learn more formally. Here’s a formal breakdown of the ways to use words. See also How to Arrange Words. Tropes A trope is any literary way of using words in something other than the literal sense. The most common–in fact, [...]
Violinist Jascha Heifetz said, “If I don’t practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it.” Writing also needs constant practice and dedication to continuous improvement. Writing exercises are similar to musicians playing scales: practice in characterization, varying sentence structure, plotting, idea generation, etc, are all [...]
One way that I play with voice is to mimic the style of another writer. For this exercise, I write a section without worrying about voice. Then, I take a couple of books I admire that I think might have a voice that would work for my story. I try to imitate their style. That is, I [...]
Sometimes, a story revolves around the relationship between characters. Here’s a brief outline of the narrative arc of a character relationship. 1. Attraction: Why they like/respect each other. 2. Barrier and Binding: Why the relationship won’t work, but why they are bound together. 3. Conflicts. Attitudes, situation, motivations, wants, goals, attitudes, values, psychological differences (Ex. [...]
The Harry Potter 7 book has no flap copy! Flap copy is the stuff written on the inside and back flap of the dust jacket and traditionally serves as an advertisement, a teaser, to the reader. HP7 has nothing on the back flap. On the front flap is a simple statement: Here we present the [...]
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