 No matter how far afield I travel, I always return to the senses. This past week, my creative writing students explored writing about sensory detail by describing their hair. (As soon as I have parent consent forms signed, you will be able to read their amazing work.)
We spent time old school talking about the five senses and listing words a writer might use to evoke these senses. Next, we took a color walk to capture all we could find around campus of a specific color. Finally, we closed our eyes and listened to the sounds in the building and room. We even plugged our ears and closed our eyes to see what me might smell. By the end of the week, students were ready to hone in on one idea and explore their senses. I read them "Hairs" from Sandra Cisneros' THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET to inspire them. If you want to help your writing come alive, tap into the senses. Five easy ways to add detail to your writing. 1. Sight: select one visual piece of your story (a building, bench, street, tree; something minor). List ten qualities that describe it. Choose three and exaggerate them. Come up with a metaphor to add dimension. (EX: In winter, her neighbor's tree bent like an old woman, dragging its limbs along the tired sidewalk.) 2. Sound: as above, but this time you are finding something your character will hear. (EX: The wheels thumped along the pavement, a steady heartbeat in the night.) 3. Taste: as above, but maybe applying taste to something one wouldn't normally put in their mouth. (EX: I could taste the assignment. Its bitterness coated the tip of my tongue, and I wanted to spit it out onto the just waxed classroom floor.) 4. Smell: as the taste exercise. (EX: His angry words burned in my nostrils; their ashiness wafted inside me.) 5. Texture: this sense offers a variety of options. (EX: Her jagged words cut through me. The night air caressed my cheeks.) If you are in the middle of a project, find a scene that's lacking life. Infuse it with sensory detail. If this is your first draft, go crazy. Go overboard. Write drunk, edit sober. (Thanks, Mr. Hemingway.) Have fun. Share your thoughts on the senses below. What works for you? Write on!
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 Every so often, I write this post. Why? I am constantly discovering great new books and sites that support, motivate, and improve my writing.
I want to share them with you. Here are four of my current favorites: 1. The best punctuation book, period by June Casagrande. Every writer needs a great little book at their side where they can double check where to place a comma, capitalize a noun, understand how to use hyphens and en dashes. My copy editor recommended this book to me, and I am in love with it. It's easy to use, is written simply, and is less than 250 pages. 2. Writers Helping Writers with Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. These ladies are fabulous, and their website is filled with amazing resources for your writing. Soon, they will merge into a new site with incredible support for using Scrivener along with their books on Negative and Positive Traits. I've written previously about how I use these books. 3. The Enneagram Test. If you are building characters, this is a great place to help understand and craft their personalities. You might first take the online test to explore your own personality. Then try it as your protagonist and antagonist. The test takes less than three minutes. The results point you toward any of nine specific personality types (similar to Jung). It's a quick, fun, and scientific way to hone in on your characters' true selves. (Couple the results with Writers Helping Writers, and you have a fully developed character.) 4. Goodreads. A great writer is constantly reading other great writing. We learn from each other. If you want to write authentic and appealing middle grade fantasy, you need to read some. Read those getting good reviews and those getting panned. It's important to see what works and what doesn't. Goodreads publishes numerous lists where you can sift through books of all genres and authors. This is my go-to for locating the best (and worst) books because reviews are written by real readers. What are your current favorite writing resources? Share them in the comments below. Write on!  My copy editor noticed something about my stories: I like lists.
There's the list a character keeps in her phone on the Do's and Don't's of Shoplifting. There's the list a grandmother keeps on her fridge for what not to feed the dog. When my editor pointed out my habit, at first I thought: Oops, better stop that. Then I reconsidered. This could be a "thing" in my stories. Every writer needs some kind of trademark, why not lists? Lists are practical, easy to read, and they can offer clues to the character or plot. I also post numerous blogs here that are lists. I like lists. In honor of their awesomeness, let me offer three ideas for using lists in your story. 1. Grocery lists. If I don't write down what I need, I will leave the store with things I'm hungry for now. When I get home, I will have to eat chocolate and mini peppers for dinner. This is not good. Lists help us remember the important stuff. What if your character had to go to the grocery store and forgot something on his list? He'd have to go back. Who might he run into? 2. Birthday lists. Thanks to Google, all my friends' birthdays show up on my calendar. A calendar is a great place for lists because it's all organized by a need to know. How might your character use a calendar in your story? 3. To Do lists. I don't know about you, but my "to do" lists are a mish-mash of so many things. "Make dentist appt; research Vitamin D; send my son a fan... I love "to do" lists because they have no category. It is merely a collection of all the random things that come to mind that must be done. What if your character found someone else's "To Do" list? What might be on it? These are a few ideas for using lists in your writing. How do you employ a list in your stories? Please share your ideas with us. Write on!  What happens when you have nothing to say but you've committed yourself to saying something?
That's when you write crap. That's when you need to write like you're at the edge of a cliff, like you're scared, like you're about to die, like you don't know what's going to happen next. This isn't about writer's block. This isn't even about finding your muse. This is about unleashing your passion, firing up your writing, releasing that sludge of unimaginable creative juice clogging your critical writer's mind. However you do it, whatever you call it, every artist--writer, poet, painter, sculptor, etc.--needs to find a way to stick his hand down his throat and withdraw that hairy, slimy, gritty clog of filth that's blocking the juice of his work. Try it. Close your eyes. Shut out the world. Hide inside a closet. Drive to a remote patch of dirt far from lights, sounds, people, animals. Crawl inside a cave. Whatever you can manage. Get there. Go there. Now. Are you there? Good. Did you bring a journal? No. No. No. Where we're going, we don't need any journals. Sit inside your proverbial cave, melt within the darkness, shut out the world. What do you most fear? See it. Smell it. Go further. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Go deeper. Get pissed. Fight for your life. Fight for your family. Fight for what you love. Curse, yell, scream, punch, spit. Breathe. Keep your eyes closed. Unmelt. Find a light inside. Who is it? What is it? Feel its warmth. Offer your gratitude. Sense a peace. Let this love, warmth, and calm wrap around you. Feel yourself as whole. Breathe. Open your eyes. Find your way back to your writing place. Tell your story to you. It may be a few sentences, a few paragraphs, a page or more. It may be a poem, scraps of sentences and words, or an essay. Structure and form are unimportant. This is for your eyes only. Now go back to your project. Who wants this energy? Who needs it? Let your experience breathe new life into your writing. Don't judge. Don't expect. Let it have its own path. Make this part of your writing ritual. Share your journey. Write on! |
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