Writing Category Archive
Benchpressing Your Prose
Today, I have a guest-post for you all by Charlie Holmberg. I’m blessed to have this lady as a CP–she constantly inspires me with her beautiful prose, which is exactly what she’s guest-posting on. I hope someday that all of you get to read her writing! But since you can’t do that now, I suggest reading below for some ideas from her on how to benchpress your prose. Enjoy!
Regardless of whether it was or not, I always saw my prose as one of my weakest writing skills. Which is funny, since in a way, writing IS prose. I knew I could only strengthen my prose by reading a lot more and by performing a lot more writing exercises. I especially wanted to “break” the YA-sound that naturally came to my words, so I didn’t read a single young adult book for a year. I avoided them like the plague (which is ironic, since three of the last four books I’ve written are all YA. Funny how that happens).
While I’m hardly done learning, I’ve noticed in the last six months that I’ve gotten better feedback on my prose, which is still shocking to me (but makes me incredibly happy). And since Juliana, for some reason, thinks I know what I’m doing and she’s officially “legit,” I’m hoping some of what I have to say will be helpful.
I’d like to share four exercises that really helped strengthen both my prose and my attention to detail:
Exercise 1: The Copycat
Find a book with prose and descriptions that you really admire and select an especially strong paragraph from its pages. Copy it down. You pay a lot more attention to how an author writes when you freehand it. (My personal book of choice for this exercise isBlackdog by K. V. Johansen.)
Once that is done, write your own paragraph, but do it in the same pattern as the paragraph you copied. So if you copied down The looming house, complete with mustard-colored shutters and black cat in the front window, you would write something like, “The heavy sky, filled with cake-like clouds and a faded sun on the east horizon.”
It’ll make you think.
Exercise 2: Stare Until Your Eyes Bleed
Grab a pen, a notebook, and a timer and get yourself lost somewhere. A park, a bookstore, the auto-aisle at Walmart, whatever suits your fancy. (Though I do recommend starting somewhere nature-y.)
Sit down. Find something to stare at.
Now set your timer for 15 minutes and describe that thing.
After the first minute or two, once you run out of adjectives like “green,” “big,” and “dark,” your brain will start straining for new ways to detail its stare-spot. No pausing. Write down anything that could describe that tree, that bench, that woman with the pink overalls, even if it’s ridiculous. By minute six, you should be starting to break the confines of the box.
Exercise 3: Default to Worldbuilding
All writers worldbuild in one way or another, even if they don’t write fantasy or science fiction. Build upon the setting, build upon characters’ pasts. Even if it’s not relevant to the story. Because when you build a world outside the confines of the story, it feels more real. Not just to you, but to the reader. Readers can tell how much thought you’ve put into a story, believe me. And who knows . . . one of those extraneous details might come in handy later in the story; it might add a sense of realness to a scene, or might even solve a plot hole.
As an exercise, create a place–a city, a planet, a park–and describe it until its real. What kinds of trees it has, when the last lightning storm came, what it looked like 3,000 years ago. Weather, square mileage, population, flora and fauna. That weird lake smell that always hits between 10 and 11:30 at night. The homeless man named Bruce who sits on the corner of Main and Luther Street, except on Sundays when he relocates to the Evangelical church because he gets more handouts.
And when you’re writing your own book, go above and beyond, even if half your worldbuilding knowledge never makes it into the story. Tolkien spent 20 years on his world, we certainly can spend a couple weeks on ours.
Exercise 4: Buy The Writer’s Portable Mentor by Priscilla Long
There are a lot of great writing books out there (some of my favorites are How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card and Save the Cat by Blake Snyder). One of the problems with the bulk of writing books, however, is that they don’t focus on prose. They focus on story: plot, setting, character. And those elements are crucial. But what if you want to strengthen your actual words?
The Writer’s Portable Mentor by Priscilla Long is an AMAZING book that focuses almost entirely on prose. I truly believed it made me a better writer. It’s full of exercises that will strengthen your ability to describe. I’ve read through it twice, and when I read it a third time I’m positive I’ll find golden nuggets of knowledge I missed. Check it out from the library, at the very least.
I would love to hear about what authors you admire for their prose, and other exercises you recommend to strengthen prose!
Bouldering (Rock Climbing!)
If you follow me on Twitter you’ll perhaps already know that the bf and I picked up a new hobby after Christmas. Bouldering, not to be confused with rock climbing, is ridiculously challenging and fun. Every time, I leave feeling like I’ve accomplished something. It’s also a very fun way to get a full body workout.
This is an example of a bouldering wall! All hand/foot holds are marked with a piece of colored tape. Each of the colors represent a level of difficulty When climbing, you follow a path using only one of the colors and are only allowed to use those hand/foot holds. This is called a problem. Unlike rock climbing, bouldering does not use ropes or clips.
This is a close up picture of the same wall, but here I’ve circled in yellow all of the problems that are tagged with a dark green piece of tape (this is an easy beginners problem! hehe ) In the video I’ve posted below, you’ll see the girl (that’s me!) climbing only using the holds highlighted in the picture above- I also use the crack in the wall too.
I completely encourage everyone to try out bouldering, and when you go, find someone there to help you get a feel for the problems. Climbers are incredibly friendly and love to offer assistance (at least most of them are). It’s a wonderful stress reliever, and when you finish a problem you’ve been struggling with, you feel like superwoman.
Have you ever tried bouldering or rock climbing?
A Training Plan For Writing
I have run a marathon.
Have you ever seen a professional marathoner run? Smooth, efficient, powerful…and cruising along at sub 5 minute miles. Watching them, it seems as if their bodies are designed to move that fast (and perhaps they are), that they’re barely working at all. That’s not at all how I look when I run. Not even close.
Saying I’ve run a marathon (and shorter distances) does not mean I have ever performed well. I merely completed them. Completing and doing well are two very different things.
This time around (I’m running another half-marathon just a few weeks from now), I decided to do things a bit differently. I turned to my boyfriend for support and for a training plan. He put together a plan designed just for me, for what I can handle without getting burnt out, and what would prepare me for the race the very best. Today, 3 months into my training plan, I can honestly say I’ve never felt more prepared and I’ve never been in better shape.
Over the past months I have often thought about how my running training plan has helped me become a more confidant runner. Is it possible that this idea of ‘training’ can be applied to my writing also? Could I create a ‘training plan’ for my writing that would, over the course of three months, help me to become better, to produce more, to become more efficient at my passion?
Those professional runners? They work their butts off to become that good…literally. I suppose this is the same for writing. The more I work, the more I stick to my training plan, the better I will become.
Do you ‘train’ yourself for your passion?
Writing for the Web- Guest Post by Letitia Englund!
I have another special treat for you guys today, a guest-post by my web-designer and writer, Letitia Englund. But first! the winner for last week’s query-critique giveaway is Carrie-Anne!! Everyone else, remember that if you contact Lauren and mention my blog, she’ll give you a 10% deduction on her prices
And now, help me welcome Letitia! *cheers!*
Writing for the web is different than writing for any other medium. Simply put, writing for the web means you write for an audience of scanners rather than readers.
And no, this is not a post about writing for digitizing devices or robots. Although that could be kind of an awesome topic to cover.
What I mean is the majority of us (79%, according to older but well-known research) are simply not interested in reading word-for-word online. We may do this in our offline lives, but on the web we generally want to get in, get out and get on to the next thing.
So we scan.
We look for headlines
We look for emphasis.
We look for bold text.
- We
- look
- for
- lists!
We look for content that is quoted or otherwise made to stand out.
When all else fails, we decide tl;dr (too long; didn’t read) and generally move on without remorse. Why we do this is unclear – perhaps the information superhighway is speeding along so fast, we’re afraid to slow down – but online scanning is a habit well-ingrained for many of us.
In fact, you may only read 20-30% of the words in this post!
What does this mean for web writers**? Be a ruthless editor on the web. Instead of including more content, more details, more descriptive words or marketese, aim for less. Focus on what you really mean to say and make every word count.
When in doubt: spread it out. Don’t be afraid to break up long sentences, paragraphs or whole posts and pages to create some breathing room. Use well-placed spacing and any of the formatting tricks noted above to guide your audience to the key points.
The more you respect your readers’ time and attention by working with their instincts, the more likely those readers will find your content enjoyable and want to come back for more.
**Of course, this presumes that you are writing in hopes of attracting an online audience and selling something (your stories, your knowledge, your products/services). Different cases may call for different approaches!
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Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed Letitia’s post as much as I did. I also have to include the fact that she is extraordinarily creative! She recently opened an Etsy shop called Sock Doll Stories. I have one of my own and sent one to a friend for her birthday- go check them out!
Overworked? Write Yourself An ‘Encouragement’ List
I won’t go into the boring details, but a few nights ago I hit a wall–a wall that said, ‘You have overworked yourself!’
So, I gave myself yesterday off and relaxed my brain (it was wonderful, I highly suggest this!) and then I wrote myself a list for encouragement (which I also highly suggest doing!). Having this list has been a great help in finishing my MS and helped me to doubly realize that it’s okay to feel discouraged so long as you take a break and then keep working.
And without further ado, here’s my list!
1. This is a first draft, it’s allowed to be bad.
2. This is a first draft, you have time to fix the holes.
3. You are in no rush.
4. This is your book, your writing. Be happy with it.
5. There is, and always will be, room to grow as a writer. This will always be the case no matter how far you go. This will always also be a source of enjoyment and struggle.
6. The Doubt-Monster will always follow you but this is not a reason to panic.
7. In the end, you are the one who’s in control.
What do you do when you’re overworked? What else would you add to my list?
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I have two exciting posts coming up, including a guest post by my website designer Letitia Englund and My Next Best Thing post that I was tagged in by Lauren Spieller that will highlight my MS. Be sure to stop back!