Kirby Larson's Blog, page 47
August 7, 2012
Tuesday's Tip
I love red licorice. I have been known to eat several handfuls in a sitting. Which I then regret. As delicious as that chewy sweet treat is, too much is not a good thing.
To my mind, vocabulary choice and licorice eating have something in common: a moderate approach is easiest to digest. I love delicious words like capricious or persimmon or navigate. But such words are best used sparingly in a manuscript. They're like fashion accessories: too many bracelets can distract from one's overall ensemble.
Please don't think I am advocating to "dumb down" a manuscript. I am a firm believer in the notion that literature can enrich the reader's vocabulary (the writer's, too, for that matter!). What I aim for is a cohesive feeling whole.Which means, as much as I love the word "copacetic," I might choose to use it only once in a novel. Or I might choose to use a synonym instead.
And that's just hunky-dory.
To my mind, vocabulary choice and licorice eating have something in common: a moderate approach is easiest to digest. I love delicious words like capricious or persimmon or navigate. But such words are best used sparingly in a manuscript. They're like fashion accessories: too many bracelets can distract from one's overall ensemble.
Please don't think I am advocating to "dumb down" a manuscript. I am a firm believer in the notion that literature can enrich the reader's vocabulary (the writer's, too, for that matter!). What I aim for is a cohesive feeling whole.Which means, as much as I love the word "copacetic," I might choose to use it only once in a novel. Or I might choose to use a synonym instead.
And that's just hunky-dory.
August 2, 2012
Thursday's Thought
The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself.
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
July 31, 2012
Tuesday's Tip
3 X 5 note cards.
That's today's tip. Get yourself some of these. You can buy the plain white ones or the fancy colored ones. With lines or without. Just buy a pack of 50 or so.
Set a handful on your desk. Pick up the first card. Use a pencil or a pen -- your choice!-- and write down ONE thing your character might do in this story you're working on. Set that card aside. Pick up another one. Write down ONE thing your character might do in this story you're working on. Repeat process until you're bored, tired or it's time to walk the dog. What you should have in front of you is a respectable stack of potential scenes for your book.
Tomorrow when you sit down to work, pick a card. Any card. And write that scene!
You might not use it in the final draft but no writing is ever wasted.
I promise.
That's today's tip. Get yourself some of these. You can buy the plain white ones or the fancy colored ones. With lines or without. Just buy a pack of 50 or so.
Set a handful on your desk. Pick up the first card. Use a pencil or a pen -- your choice!-- and write down ONE thing your character might do in this story you're working on. Set that card aside. Pick up another one. Write down ONE thing your character might do in this story you're working on. Repeat process until you're bored, tired or it's time to walk the dog. What you should have in front of you is a respectable stack of potential scenes for your book.
Tomorrow when you sit down to work, pick a card. Any card. And write that scene!
You might not use it in the final draft but no writing is ever wasted.
I promise.
July 26, 2012
Thursday's Thought for the Day
It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.
Amelia Barr
Amelia Barr
July 24, 2012
Tuesday's Tip
Cause and effect.
That's it. That's today's tip. Oh, you want me to elaborate a teeny-tiny bit? Oh, all right.
Grab a highlighter. A really bright and happy color! Now, read over your WIP and highlight the places where your MC is reacting to a story event. Now grab a different highlighter and highlight the catalyst for your character's reaction.
Oh, can't find the catalyst? Yeah. Been there. Done that.
We often need our characters to do something in order to advance the plot. But we forget to actually include the event/words/emotion that motivates them to engage in the reactive behavior. And we sorta hope our readers won't notice.
Well, our readers are sharp cookies. They will notice.
So make sure that every character action is matched with an identifiable catalyst for that action.
And that's probably the closest I will ever get to sounding like a scientist.
That's it. That's today's tip. Oh, you want me to elaborate a teeny-tiny bit? Oh, all right.
Grab a highlighter. A really bright and happy color! Now, read over your WIP and highlight the places where your MC is reacting to a story event. Now grab a different highlighter and highlight the catalyst for your character's reaction.
Oh, can't find the catalyst? Yeah. Been there. Done that.
We often need our characters to do something in order to advance the plot. But we forget to actually include the event/words/emotion that motivates them to engage in the reactive behavior. And we sorta hope our readers won't notice.
Well, our readers are sharp cookies. They will notice.
So make sure that every character action is matched with an identifiable catalyst for that action.
And that's probably the closest I will ever get to sounding like a scientist.
July 19, 2012
Thursday's Thought for the Day
To have ideas is to gather flowers; to think is to weave them into garlands.
Ann-Sophie Swetchine
Ann-Sophie Swetchine
July 17, 2012
Tuesday's Tip
Don't love your main character too much.
That happened to me with the first 13 (!) drafts of Hattie Big Sky. I loved Hattie so much that I didn't want anything bad to happen to her. So I created a character named Ned who was her buffer against bad guys and tough times.
My gentle editor asked me what I saw Ned doing for the story. Ned! Why, he was wonderful. Charming. Amazing.
But, as soon as she asked me that question, I knew Ned had to go.
When I taught writing, I would tell my students to be kind and loving and caring people. Except on the page. Then, they must be anything but kind; they must make their characters suffer! I'd forgotten that bit of advice when I was writing the early drafts of HBS.
So Ned was removed, leaving Hattie to face the cold, cruel world on her own.
Which just may be why so many readers love her.
That happened to me with the first 13 (!) drafts of Hattie Big Sky. I loved Hattie so much that I didn't want anything bad to happen to her. So I created a character named Ned who was her buffer against bad guys and tough times.
My gentle editor asked me what I saw Ned doing for the story. Ned! Why, he was wonderful. Charming. Amazing.
But, as soon as she asked me that question, I knew Ned had to go.
When I taught writing, I would tell my students to be kind and loving and caring people. Except on the page. Then, they must be anything but kind; they must make their characters suffer! I'd forgotten that bit of advice when I was writing the early drafts of HBS.
So Ned was removed, leaving Hattie to face the cold, cruel world on her own.
Which just may be why so many readers love her.
July 12, 2012
Thursday's Thought for the Day
With true friends. . .even water drunk together is sweet enough.
Chinese proverb
Chinese proverb
July 10, 2012
Tuesday's Tip
When you use analogies, examples, similes and/or metaphors, couch them in terms your main character would understand. This works even if your story's written in third person! So, if your MC is a seaglass collector (like moi), make a list of related words from which to draw for creating figurative language. Seaglass can appear tumbled, "cooked", or etched; in can come in shapes ranging from teardrops to triangles. Colors like pink and red are rare so a good day for your MC might be a pink glass day.
When I was trying to evoke a sense of Japanese culture in The Friendship Doll, I wrote this line about the man who created Miss Kanagawa, the Friendship Doll character referred to in the book's title: "Though he [the doll-maker] wasn't like Kurita -- a man whose endless boasts clanged like the chappa cymbal-- he was proud of his efforts." I compared Kurita's bragging to a Japanese cymbal, both to show how loud and clanging it could be, and to give the flavor of the place.
Because Hattie (in Hattie Big Sky) was a baseball player, when her crops are destroyed by a late summer hailstorm, this is how she experienced it: "Like a pitcher on fire, throwing fastball after fastball, heaven struck me out and good."
And in The Fences Between Us, which is set in WWII after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the main character, 13-year-old Piper, talks about holding a little baby so his mom can whip cream for the pie after Thanksgiving dinner: "We played peekaboo and his laugh was better than a bubble bath, washing away all that dreary war talk."
Let me know how this tip works for you!
When I was trying to evoke a sense of Japanese culture in The Friendship Doll, I wrote this line about the man who created Miss Kanagawa, the Friendship Doll character referred to in the book's title: "Though he [the doll-maker] wasn't like Kurita -- a man whose endless boasts clanged like the chappa cymbal-- he was proud of his efforts." I compared Kurita's bragging to a Japanese cymbal, both to show how loud and clanging it could be, and to give the flavor of the place.
Because Hattie (in Hattie Big Sky) was a baseball player, when her crops are destroyed by a late summer hailstorm, this is how she experienced it: "Like a pitcher on fire, throwing fastball after fastball, heaven struck me out and good."
And in The Fences Between Us, which is set in WWII after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the main character, 13-year-old Piper, talks about holding a little baby so his mom can whip cream for the pie after Thanksgiving dinner: "We played peekaboo and his laugh was better than a bubble bath, washing away all that dreary war talk."
Let me know how this tip works for you!
July 5, 2012
Thursday's Thought for the Day
Laughter is the fireworks of the soul.
Josh Billings
Josh Billings
