Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 54

A Writer's Moment: Using just the 'right' word: priceless

A Writer's Moment: Using just the 'right' word: priceless:   “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when ...

Using just the 'right' word: priceless

 

“When you catch an adjective, killit. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will bevaluable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength whenthey are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit,once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.”– Mark Twain

 

Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida,MO in 1835, Twain said that the two most important days in your life are theday you are born and the day you find out why.  For Twain, obviously,the reason was to write and he had a lot to say about how to use words, not theleast being that you should write using plain, simple language, short words andbrief sentences.

 

While he was not averse to havingnice things said about his writing, he abhorred flowery adjectives in thosedescriptions just as he disdained using them in his ownwriting.  “Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbositycreep in,” he advised.

 

He was pleased when he coined a wordor phrase that others liked to use (mentioning that it came from him, ofcourse) and noted that the use of “a pregnant pause” also could be a greatwriting style.  

 

“The right word may be effective,”he wrote, “but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”

A Writer's Moment: The 'What If?' Approach

A Writer's Moment: The 'What If?' Approach:   “If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.”  – Kate Atkinson   Born in York, England on Dec. 20, 1951...

The 'What If?' Approach

 

“If you don't have a unique voice,then you're not really a writer.” – Kate Atkinson

 

Born in York, England on Dec. 20, 1951Atkinson is three-time winner of one of Britain’s most prestigious awards– the Whitbread Book of the Year prize.  The author of 13 novels,two plays and a short story collection, she said her favorite approach to writing is to start with the “What If” factor andadvance from there..

 

“Alternate history fascinates me,”she said, “(just) as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the bigthing.”   Honored by Queen Elizabeth for “Servicesto Literature,” she is noted for works filled with “wit, wisdom and subtlecharacterization,” and for works with “surprising twists and plotturns.”  

 

While all of her books have earnedacclaim, she is best known for her stand-alone novels Behind The Scenesat the Museum and Life After Life and her seriesfeaturing private investigator Jackson Brodie, adapted into a BBC seriescalled Case Histories.   Her latest in that series is thisyear’s Death at the Sign of the Rook.  

 

“I usually start writing a novelthat I then abandon,” she said.  “When I say abandon, I don't thinkany writer ever abandons anything that they regard as even a half-goodsentence.  So you recycle.  I mean, I can hang on to a sentence forseveral years and then put it into a book that's completely different from theone it started in.”

That wide-open eye called imagination

“Imaginationis the wide-open eye which leads us always to see truth more vividly.” –Christopher Fry

 

Bornin England on this date in 1907, Fry was a multiple award winning poet andplaywright.  He is best known for his verse dramas, notably TheLady's Not for Burning, voted by critics as one of the 100 best plays ofthe 20th Century.  It has been revived a number oftimes and also made into a major movie.   His One ThingMore, a play about the 7th century Northumbrian monk Cædmon, who wassuddenly given the gift of composing song, also won wide recognition.

 

Henot only focused on his own works but also translated some of the better knownplays from other nations.  Among them were Norwegianplaywright Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, and French playwrightEdmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and TheFantastiks, all widely popularized through Fry’s stageproductions.

 Fry wrote or translated three dozen major worksand was voted the most popular playwright in England on manyoccasions.  He said that perhaps his popularity also was due to hisability to write for and about ordinary people and their lives.

 

“Inmy plays I want to look at life - at the commonplace of existence - as if wehad just turned a corner and run into it for the first time.”

 

A Writer's Moment: That wide-open eye called imagination

A Writer's Moment: That wide-open eye called imagination: “Imagination is the wide-open eye which leads us always to see truth more vividly.”  – Christopher Fry   Born in England on this date in...

'As familiar as the air we breathe'

 

 “Writingsurrounds us: it's not something we do just in school or on the job butsomething that is as familiar and everyday as a pair of worn sneakers or theair we breathe.” 

Born in 1942, Lunsfordhas been a teacher, presenter and author at Ohio State and StanfordUniversities and the world-renowned Bread Loaf School of English nearMiddlebury, VT (also a favorite teaching haunt for poet RobertFrost in his day).

 

Author of the great text EverydayWriter, Lunsford haswritten or edited numerous books, chapters andarticles. Among her most recent is Everyone's an Author.

“No doubt stories have touched your life . . . from bedtime stories you may have heard as a child to news stories you see on TV or read in a newspaper.  We might even say that a major goal of living is to create the story of our own lives, a story we hope to take pleasure and pride in telling.”

 

A Writer's Moment: 'As familiar as the air we breathe'

A Writer's Moment: 'As familiar as the air we breathe':     “Writing surrounds us: it's not something we do just in school or on the job but something that is as familiar and everyday as a pai...

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the lead-in to more'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the lead-in to more':   “In the Cut  was not what readers expected of me. Before it was published, I was seen as a women's writer, which meant that I wrote mo...

'It's the lead-in to more'

 

“Inthe Cut was not what readers expected of me. Before it was published, Iwas seen as a women's writer, which meant that I wrote movingly about flowersand children.” – Susanna Moore

 

Bornin Pennsylvania on this date in 1945, Moore grew up in Hawaii and then workedas a model and script reader in Los Angeles and New York City before beginningher writing career. Her first novel, My Old Sweetheart (1982)earned her a PEN Hemingway nomination.

 

Butit was her fourth novel, In the Cut – the story of a teacherand detective caught up in investigating a series of grisly murders – that puther on the worldwide writing map.   The book gained her criticalwriting acclaim and was adapted into a successful (and suspense-filled) movieby the same name. 

 

Since then, she's turned out many best-selling books, including 2020’s Miss Aluminum: AMemoir; and 2023’s historical adventure novel The Lost Wife.     

Also a well-known lecturer, she’s presented at many of the nation’s top colleges and universities as well as some in Germany and Australia, always advocating for the writing life.

“Thepoint always is to be writing something,” she said.  “It leads tomore writing.”