TECH: The Five-Step Creativity Workout (Moldy Oldie!) (770 words)

[mbarker]

 Original Posting 7/5/2019

Writer's Digest, November 1991, has an article by Peter Leschak on pages 26-29, talking about The Five-Step Creativity Workout. The subtitle suggests, "An unexercised mind can't be counted on for heavy writing. Here's how to build your creative muscles."

Peter starts by recounting two anecdotes, one about a friend who was a world-class goalie and occasionally found himself catching pucks in slow motion, the other about a Nobel prize-winning chemist who dreamed the formula he was searching for. In both cases, it's practice and hard work over a long time that set up these seemingly amazing achievements. So, "we can achieve similar revelations in our writing – encounter moments when every word seems right and the ideas endless… You can't wait for inspiration. You have to lure it to you – and then reach out and grab it." Then he suggests five keys to help you develop.

1. Concentration. The key to writing, to being a creator, is observation, information, perceptions. "The creative mind isn't relaxed and laid-back." Peter suggests remembering your motivation. Making money and paying the bills, your message, "whatever focuses your attention on writing, and keeps it there, is the key to heightening your powers of concentration." Think about the main reason you write.

2. Form. "Limits – that is, form – challenge the mind, forcing creativity." Peter talks about a word game that he uses to challenge himself. Close your eyes, flip open a dictionary, and point to something on the page. Use that word as the first line of your writing. Flip some more pages, point again, and use that word in your second line. Keep going! "It's an effective way to jumpstart the mind, and I'm often amazed at the associations and ideas that pop up." Experiment with form. Play with it. "Write a character sketch of your spouse as seen through the eyes of your dog, or better yet, your goldfish."

Peter ends his discussion of form with a description of a rather strange experiment. Send students into a room with a chair and a bowl of Jell-O. Tell them to bare their souls to the Jell-O. Surprisingly, the students found they learned lots of new things doing this. "You can't think in an ordinary way when you're talking to a bowl of Jell-O."

3. Solitude. Cut off the input and see what you've already got. Set aside a place and time to write. Make sure you have got all the tools, and avoid distractions. "Solitude allows the fresh and unpredictable to surface."

4. Patience. "Creative wisdom, the ability to produce good work, often comes only with experience – with time and maturity, and the accumulation of knowledge." Keep plugging.

5. Confidence. "If you have a goal that's reasonably within your grasp, then faith plays an important role. The raw belief that you can accomplish something will help bring it about." Peter suggests that you need to realize two things. First, you can write. You learned it as a child, and you been practicing ever since! It's a craft, and you need to keep doing it. Second, you can destroy what you have done. "No one has to see what you've written until you are happy with it." You are in control. Now, creating does take guts. When you present your work to an audience, there's judgment, criticism. "That's painful because there will always be some who won't like what you've written." Remember, though, if you don't write it and publish it, there's no way for anyone else to read it! So, set yourself a goal, and keep going.

Exercise? Well, stop and think about it. His five keys, concentration, form, solitude, patience, confidence? How often do you practice those? What can you do to build them? Go ahead, give yourself some time and freedom to work on those, and see what happens to your creativity!

There's a sidebar on page 28, called The Liberty Banana by Marshall Cook. It's a different creativity exercise. Basically, consider someone challenging you, or a room full of executives, to give as many answers as they can in five minutes to the question, "How many ways is a banana different from a bell?" Then, take another five minutes and consider the question, "How is a banana like a bell?" And, just to top everything off, take another five minutes and consider, "How can you make a bell better by making it more like a banana?" So, try comparing your hero to a bicycle, or perhaps just two random subjects, to get yourself started! How is it different, how is it like, and how can you make it better?

TECH: Avoiding 10 Common – Yet Fatal – Mistakes (Moldy Oldie) (500 words)

[mbarker]

 Original Posting 7/20/2019

Writer's Digest, December 1991 on pages 26-29 had an article by Jules Archer about common problems. "New writers tend to repeat each other's mistakes – errors you can easily avoid with care and rewriting. A veteran writing instructor points out 10 of the most common flaws."

Here are the 10 most common errors that Jules saw and his solutions.

1. Expository diarrhea. He gives an example of a paragraph filled with details, and utterly boring. Hanging up the telephone takes one long sentence. Walking into the corridor is another one. And so on. "Such scenes get written because new writers are often unsure how to move a character from one place to the next, so they do it by describing every physical movement. The correct way to reposition a character is quickly and simply, eschewing pointless detail, just as films do by a swift cut from one scene to the next. A simple space break between paragraphs can move a character to a new place, introduce a new scene, or show passage of time.

2. Runaway Dialogue. "New writers believe they must reproduce such small talk to make the conversation realistic. But that's not the economical way characters talk in professional short stories." It may not be exactly the way people talk, but dialogue that advances the storyline and gets to the point quickly feels more natural to readers.

3. Obscure writing. Watch out for pronouns that the reader can't identify. Anytime a reader has to stop and reread a sentence or paragraph, you, the writer, have not been clear.

4. Anti-climactic sentences. Jules' example is "Sam Gordon was guilty of murder, cheating on his taxes, and cutting into supermarket lines." Unless your writing comedy, put the most serious thing, the most powerful thing at the end of the sentence.

5. Unclear antecedents. Here's Jules example. "Weeping in despair for the death of his one love, the hospital was grimly silent around him." Weeping hospitals! Whoops.

6. Deadly lead paragraphs. Your lead paragraph must be interesting and hook your reader. "Which lead would make you want to read on? The story lead that offers an interesting conflict or problem has a better chance of capturing reader interest."

7. Change in focus. Who is the point of view? Set it up, and stick to it. "When you're telling a story through protagonist's viewpoint, you can't have anything happen outside of the protagonist's presence or knowledge."

8. Think pieces. Make sure you do your research. Not just an opinion piece, but something specific with solid facts.

9. Misspellings. "A more basic flaw is submitting a manuscript full of misspellings." Especially if you are self-publishing, you need to catch that yourself.

10. Not rewriting enough. "Perhaps the most destructive of these common mistakes is the failure to rewrite sufficiently." Throw out the garbage language, and write the best you can.

It's basics, but sometimes we all need a reminder. So take something you've been working on, and check for those basics. Expository diarrhea, runaway dialogue, obscure writing, anti-climactic sentences, unclear antecedents, a deadly lead, bouncing focus, lack of specific facts, misspellings, and not enough rewriting?

Right? Write!

EXERCISE: Here's your starting point...

[mbarker]

 Original posting 7/26/2019

Borrowing from a blog posting at https://madgeniusclub.com/2019/07/25/seeing-through-a-glass-darkly/...

Here's the line I want you to use. I'd suggest as the first line, but probably at least somewhere near the start of your story.

Henry put down his fork at the dinner party and announced, "I've just figured out how I want to kill Baron Jenneret."

There you go. Now, feel free to mutate Henry into another character, and it really is up to you as to whether poor old Hank is just a writer who has suddenly figured out a plot point or someone who really does want to knock off Baron Jenneret. Heck, you can even turn the Baron into another character if you want. But... take that line and write, write, write until broad daylight! GO!