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TECH: Put Punch on the Page (moldy oldie!)
Jan. 2nd, 2022 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarker Original Posting Feb. 1, 2017
Writers Digest, March 2001, had an article on pages 32, 33, and 51, by Steven James with the title, "Put Punch on the Page." Basically it's about converting oral stories to written stories. I'm sure most of us have a personal story, a joke, an anecdote, some kind of a story that we tell people. However, when we go to write it down, somehow it just fizzles. So Steven lays out a way to go from the story we tell to the story we write.
1. Record your ideas. Brain dumping! Just get it out there on paper. Write it the way you tell it. Don't mess with it. And then take a look at what's missing.
2. Restructure your story. Find the hook, or as Steven prefers to call it, the gaff. Grab their attention. Start with action, energy, emotion, suspense, something to make the reader want to keep going. Hold off on the background and other stuff.
3. Reshape your story. Oral language tends to be immediate and informal. But now you're going for more complete sentences. Dialogue, keep it short and snappy, interruptions and all. Descriptive and narrative parts? Here you want sentences with detail, complexity, link. Be precise, make it good readable text.
4. Reveal your emotions. You've got emotion or an idea that you want to express. Show the reader through action and reaction what is happening. Remember, readers can't see your expression, so you have to give them the written hints. When you tell it, how do you convey the emotions, what do you do or say? Now, how do you translate that into text. You want the feeling and the mood, not just the same words, but through the story.
5. Reduce the confusion. Telling a story, we separate characters through inflection and expressions. Writing dialogue, you've got to add speaker tags. You may need to add new dialogue, additional transitions, details and descriptions. Don't get carried away, but do create images.
6. Remember the audience. Make sure your story is clear for the audience. Get someone else to read it, and give you a honest opinion about how it flows. Are there gaps, unanswered questions, unclear transitions? Now, reread it, and revise it until it's as exciting as the oral version was.
Incidentally, page 33 includes a "creativity starter." It's almost an exercise! So, put your writing hats on, and try this:
1. Select a personal anecdote you enjoy telling friends. Write it down.
2. Add structure. Is there extra background you should eliminate? Try making a brief outline of the story.
3. Review that outline. Do you need to revise some of the sentences so they work better together? Rewrite!
4. Add texture. Is there information about the characters or the setting that you can add to make this a richer story?
5. Check the transitions. What about those adjectives and adverbs? Can you drop some, make some more specific, or otherwise tweak them to help the story read smoothly?
6. Think about the audience. Who do you want to read this? What are they likely to have trouble understanding? How can you clarify? Go ahead, clean up your story and make it read like the wonder it is!
There you go! An anecdote, a personal story, turned into words!
Writers Digest, March 2001, had an article on pages 32, 33, and 51, by Steven James with the title, "Put Punch on the Page." Basically it's about converting oral stories to written stories. I'm sure most of us have a personal story, a joke, an anecdote, some kind of a story that we tell people. However, when we go to write it down, somehow it just fizzles. So Steven lays out a way to go from the story we tell to the story we write.
1. Record your ideas. Brain dumping! Just get it out there on paper. Write it the way you tell it. Don't mess with it. And then take a look at what's missing.
2. Restructure your story. Find the hook, or as Steven prefers to call it, the gaff. Grab their attention. Start with action, energy, emotion, suspense, something to make the reader want to keep going. Hold off on the background and other stuff.
3. Reshape your story. Oral language tends to be immediate and informal. But now you're going for more complete sentences. Dialogue, keep it short and snappy, interruptions and all. Descriptive and narrative parts? Here you want sentences with detail, complexity, link. Be precise, make it good readable text.
4. Reveal your emotions. You've got emotion or an idea that you want to express. Show the reader through action and reaction what is happening. Remember, readers can't see your expression, so you have to give them the written hints. When you tell it, how do you convey the emotions, what do you do or say? Now, how do you translate that into text. You want the feeling and the mood, not just the same words, but through the story.
5. Reduce the confusion. Telling a story, we separate characters through inflection and expressions. Writing dialogue, you've got to add speaker tags. You may need to add new dialogue, additional transitions, details and descriptions. Don't get carried away, but do create images.
6. Remember the audience. Make sure your story is clear for the audience. Get someone else to read it, and give you a honest opinion about how it flows. Are there gaps, unanswered questions, unclear transitions? Now, reread it, and revise it until it's as exciting as the oral version was.
Incidentally, page 33 includes a "creativity starter." It's almost an exercise! So, put your writing hats on, and try this:
1. Select a personal anecdote you enjoy telling friends. Write it down.
2. Add structure. Is there extra background you should eliminate? Try making a brief outline of the story.
3. Review that outline. Do you need to revise some of the sentences so they work better together? Rewrite!
4. Add texture. Is there information about the characters or the setting that you can add to make this a richer story?
5. Check the transitions. What about those adjectives and adverbs? Can you drop some, make some more specific, or otherwise tweak them to help the story read smoothly?
6. Think about the audience. Who do you want to read this? What are they likely to have trouble understanding? How can you clarify? Go ahead, clean up your story and make it read like the wonder it is!
There you go! An anecdote, a personal story, turned into words!