Chris Stralyn's Blog, page 7

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #56- Trust The Power Of Your Own Voice

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #56- Trust The Power Of Your Own Voice. “Of your many concerns about the craft, the least is voice. You hear a young writer say, ‘I’m trying to find my narrative voice.’ How silly. What he just said was in his narrative voice. Write like you talk.”

 Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #55- Write Like You Talk.

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #55- Write Like You Talk.  “A good preliminary test for quality writing is to give it a voice. Literally. Read your work aloud. Whether your text is descriptive, narrative, or expository, do the words have a conversational tone?”


Taken from  The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #54- Tell Your Story As Fast As You Can

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #54- Tell Your Story As Fast As You Can. “Make sure you include every detail. But hurry up. Whatever the length of your manuscript, keep the writing spare and quick.”


 

Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #53- The First Duty of the Writer is to Entertain

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #53- The First Duty of the Writer is to Entertain. “Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle an dance the shimmy, and you’ve got an audience.”


 

Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry,  (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #52- Write Toward Climax.

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #52- Write Toward Climax. “Every climax explodes. But it cannot exist unless you set the spark with a less flashy but brilliant intro, followed by a swing that provides power, and then the final delivery on the promise of an archetypal graph. All art is mathematics and chemistry.”

 Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #51- Sentences Are Written Like Jokes: The Punch Line Is At The End

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #51- Sentences Are Written Like Jokes: The Punch Line Is At The End. “Every sentence will contain power words, and those words should appear in the power position -- the end. Check your writing for sentences that fizzle out. Chances are the stronger words are in the middle. Rearrange the sentence elements so your power words appear where they belong. “

 Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)


  

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #50- The Discipline of Poetry Will Sharpen Your Sentences.

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #50- The Discipline of Poetry Will Sharpen Your Sentences.
“Poetry’s value is that it teaches in short bursts. It forces you always to consider the upward swing toward climax, not only in sentences, but also in phrases and lines. As a poem grows, where you break your lines will give you a sense of what elements keep the readers eye moving down the page. “

 Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #49- Be Interesting with Every Sentence.

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #49- Be Interesting with Every Sentence. “You write to provoke  curiosity, to introduce something new. Think of the first sentence as a Russian doll. You open it, there’s another doll inside, hand-painted like the first, but different -- different face, more colorful costume. Each sentence opens to another. And so it continues, doll after doll, after doll, deeper into the story. Make the reader wonder where it will end, what the final doll will look  like.

 Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Book-Wisdom-Mastering/dp/1582974942)

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #48- Vary Sentence Structure and Type

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #48- Vary Sentence Structure and Type. “Words are the ingredients. How you measure and combine them are as important as the words themselves. Usually, the natural rhythms of speech will take care of variety. But when you undertake line edits and read aloud, you may spot a repeated structure, long strings of prepositional phrases, or sentences that run the same length. These will blunt your rhetoric.”

 Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Book-Wisdom-Mastering/dp/1582974942)

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #47- Accelerate the Pace with “Invisible Writing”

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #47- Accelerate the Pace with “Invisible Writing”. “Invisible
writing delivers just the bare essentials. Pacing is word count. Minimum word
count. To quicken your pace, you trim the physical detail, avoid analysis, and stick to action.

 Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)