writercises | Entries tagged with variations

Original Posting 2021/3/12

Writer's Digest, December 1991, pages 30-33, had an article by David L. Carroll talking about style. He starts off by suggesting that of course, any professional's lifelong aim is to learn to write as well as you possibly can. At the same time, there are some shortcuts and tricks of the trade that can be useful. Then he provides descriptions of 14 of these "tricks." Here they are!

1. After making a strategic or dramatic point, move away from your subject for a moment, then return with sudden force. In other words, introduce the topic, then relax a moment with some other idea, and then come back to the original subject in a way that ties the two together.

2. Three ways to keep your reader emotionally involved: 1. Present a mystery, then unravel it in stages. 2. Create a situation of jeopardy than resolve it. 3. Identify a problem that readers are personally experiencing, then help them overcome it.

3. Use action to make a significant point. Show, don't tell. Dynamic imagery and motion!

4. Use a series of short sentences to build tension. Usually at a moment of tense action, short sentences with strong verbs adds intensity and builds drama.

5. Be careful using the dash. It's powerful, but don't overdo it.

6. Vary the lengths of your sentences and paragraphs. Mix it up.

7. When you're stuck for the right way to say it, try… Sometimes you need to use a grammatical device such as asking a question, giving a command, a quotation, a different subject, different punctuation, a joke, get personal with the reader, examples, emotions, an anecdote, a list, facts,…

8. Shift emotional directions in the middle of a sentence. "Sudden emotional changes can be stimulating to readers if done properly."

9. Introduce a string of short, descriptive words and phrases to make an emphatic point. Short sentences with strong adjectives and images might do the trick.

10. Avoid unnecessary connectives. Watch out for those transition words.

11. Don't weaken your prose with too many unnecessary adverbial qualifiers.

12. Use intentional redundancy on occasion. Sometimes, repeat yourself.

13. Make your sentences rise to a climax; let them reveal their most significant information at the end.

14. Use grace notes. Little asides and action that add humor or emotional color can make your story better.

There you go. Some little tricks you might consider while writing, or while revising.

mbarker.livejournal.com

Original posting Nov. 5, 2010

Hah! Over here, Mercedes Lackey (who has a few books under her belt -- 80 something?) gives a pep talk for the nanowrimowers suggesting that fanfiction is a good way to go! Link right here http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3853430 What's fanfiction? Well, take that novel, short story, movie, TV show, or whatever that you really loved, and wish someone would just write a little bit more -- and DIY (DO IT YO'SELF!).

That's right, take those characters, setting, and what not, and write your own episode, scene, etc. Now, if you happen to walk into the story and turn yourself into a shining example of everything that is good, true, and marvelous, that would be a Mary Sue, but you don't have to do that. Pick up that unfinished thread that bothered you, write up the background story that was hinted at, tell us the tale behind the shoe that never fell... whatever you want to do. Not for sale, not for anything else but the fun of it. After all, you enjoyed the original story enough to wish for a little bit more, right? So why not whip it up yourself?

And along the way, during nanowrimo time, you can get a little word count, put it in your account, watch the total words grow! 'saright? Do the fan fiction version of daydreaming, and see how you can tell the tale.

Aha! That actually ties in with this little well-aged bit of advice for nanowrimowers. http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/141507.html I suggested exploring alternatives. After all, even the simplest decision, action, whatever, usually comes at the cost of several other possibilities. In ordinary life, if you decide to have hamburger for dinner, you aren't likely to also have shrimp, steak, tofu, or something really exotic, right? But through the magic of writing, we can do multiple possibilities, right here, write now.

Write the scene with the hero chewing on a hamburger. Then do it again, but have them swallowing shrimp. Sizzling steaks, torturing tofu, or whatever you like. Try writing a scene more than once, with the different possible outcomes, or playing with who is there, the setting, the weather, and whatnot. See how your florid, baroque, overdone wordiness provides an opulent setting for the corruption of the mafia lord, or how the mean streets and simple killing suits the dark Sith? Try things out. Take that list of possible outcomes of the confrontation -- Joe wins, Joe wins but gets a broken arm, Joe loses, Joe isn't quite sure what happened, and the cops break it up? -- take that list, and write them ALL!

How does that go with fan fiction? Well, one of the possible things you can do is to take a story or scene that you like, but wring some variations on it. You didn't like the way it went? Write it your way! And then see what happens next.

Take a decision point, write out the alternative possibilities, and then write up scenes with each of them. Your very own small-scale alternate history, played out on the monitor (or paper, or wherever you write) just for you!

Write! And write again, and again, and again.

Current Mood: flounder

mbarker.livejournal.com

Original Posting 29 March 2008

You're in luck. I stumbled across a cache of notes from some years back that seem to have odd hints and suggestions about some ideas for writing. So I thought perhaps I would use them as the basis for some new exercises. I know you've been waiting with trembling fingers. So let's get right to it.

Number one seems to have been me playing with variations on a phrase. Why don't you give it a try yourself? I was starting with "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Since one of my pet peeves is the tendency to use punishment when reward will work better, I was mangling it somewhat like this:

1. An ounce of reward is worth a pound of punishment.
2. A pat of reward is worth more than a pound of punishment.
3. A small pat of reward outweighs a pound of punishment any time.
4. A light pat in reward does more than a hard pound of punishment.
5. A light rewarding pat keeps people going long after a hard pounding has stopped all effort.

Not quite ready for prime time, but certainly a lot of fun to play with. Take your own phrase and warp those words! Try to come up with an aphorism that will live through the ages, or at least until tomorrow.

Number two. How about picking a number between one and six? Okay? Here are some phrases I had scribbled down.

1. My deathday is coming
2. innocent until traumatized (or innocent until victimized? Pick the one you like better)
3. bums are subject to grime and banishment
4. extraordinary minus ordinary equals ???
5. He's a time bopper
6. It wasn't just a story, was it? (With thanks to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen?)

Now take that phrase and do something with it. Maybe start out by doing a little brainstorming about just what the heck it means, and what it might suggest about a story or poem. Perhaps about a character, or a scene? Go ahead, what happens next?

Number three seems to be a whole collection of odd titles. So for those of you who'd like a title to start your wheels churning, here you go. Pick one that resonates for you and scribble. Or pick a number from one to 11 and see which one you've stumbled across.

1. The Songs They Sing in Hell
2. Some Days You Can't Get Out Of the Blender
3. The Rainy Season of Martha
4. High Precipitation with a Chance of Statues
5. Equations That Bite
6. Bury Me at A Crossroads
7. A Murchison by Any Other Name
8. A Little Castration's Good for the Soul
9. Boots without Laces
10. The Bizarre Tale of Love and Kippers
11. The People's Libation Fount

There are more notes on this stack but I think I'll stop here and save some for later. So go ahead and write.

When we write, we let others imagine.

Current Mood: mumble

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The Place For My Writers Notes

Entries tagged with variations

TECH: Voila Style! (moldy oldie)

TECH: And you thought fanfiction was only for Mary Sue's?

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