Jacqui Murray's Blog, page 145
September 29, 2014
Writer’s Tip #77: It’s OK to Fail Over and Over and Try Again
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
This one hit home. Sometimes, when my blues become black, I wonder why I can’t quit this painful profession called writing. Then, I remember Yuvi Zalkow’s video:
Episode 5: Writing in the Cold (I’m A Failed Writer Series) from Yuvi Zalkow on Vimeo.
Click to have Writer’s Tips delivered to your email box
Questions you want answered? Leave a comment and I’ll answer it within the next thirty days.
More on the humor of writing:
14 Things Writers Do Before 8am
8 Things Writers Can Do No One Else Can
15 Traits Critical to a Successful Writer
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics.
Filed under: humor, writers tips, writing Tagged: failing, writers life, Zalkow
September 26, 2014
Book Review: Letters From the Field Part II
Letters from the Field, 1925-1975
by Margaret Mead
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
If you didn’t read my last week’s post here, you may wonder why I am so excited about Margaret Mead’s decades-old book, Letters From the Field. Even if you read me last week, you may wonder–I think I wandered a bit. Here’s the synopsis: I’m writing a series on the life of earliest man–think 2 million years ago. There is little primary evidence, so I must do a lot of extrapolation based on facts. I’ve read scores of books that nibble around the edges, all resulting in a pretty good feel for what their lives might have been like.
One of those books is Margaret Mead’s Letters From the Field. She spent most of her life living with primitive tribes so she could understand their worlds. This primary research influenced every corner of her life. For example, she is widely quoted as saying:
It takes a village
This is her daughter’s discussion of that oft-quoted and rarely-attributed concept:
âOne of the ideas my mother got from Samoa,â she says, when asked about the concepts that shaped her childhood, âwas that the way people were connected to each other was primarily based on kinship. That meant that children had a place in many households and a lot of adults were involved in the life of every child. So in raising me, my mother very deliberately created an extended family. I spent time in many households and learned different attitudes toward the world, and the rules were different. Her approach is reflected in an African proverb which is often quoted in the United States: âIt takes a village to raise a child.â My mother created a village for me to grow up with, and it was the existence of that village that allowed her to pursue her career and come and go and feel that I was not abandoned.â
Here are ten of my favorite quotes from Letters from the Field: 1925-1975:
 “It [the Samoan language] is like an elaborate jeweled costume standing quite alone waiting for the wearer to appear…”
“…accompanied by some fifteen girls and little children, I walk through the village to the end of Siufaga, where we stand on an iron-bound point and watch the waves splash us in the face…”
In Samoa, I found I could not understand adolescents without studying pre-adolescents.
“They are great dialecticians and will argue for an hour over the difference between a word which means ‘borrow to return the same object’ and one which means ‘borrow to return another of the same kind’.
The most frequent cause of women running away is if one wife is offended with another or doubts her welcome; the husband doesn’t figure largely.”
“They are quite willing to talk to use [Mead and her group] to keep us amused, as talk seems to be what we want”
“…the only way to get a house built was to have two built, and so now we have two houses which they are completing in their own good time, but strictly in step. And the next dilemma is which one to live in.”
“There is to be a great birthday feast here in the West Palace and there won’t be another for a year because there are no more children.”
“Our route home is still uncertain. We have to wait for the water to rise to get into Tchambuli; the lake is nearly dry. And we have to wait for the water to rise for this village to do any ceremonies. At present it simply eats, drinks, sleeps and has seances about crocodiles.”
“They understand how to tell time and set a meeting for ‘one o’clock’. But there are only two clocks and one watch in the village and the meeting is less likely to start on time than when meetings were set by the sun. They have learned about dates, but they have no calendars, so what day it is, is a matter for protracted discussion… They want good materials and good equipment, but they cannot write to order it nor have they any way of sending money.”
More cultural reviews:
Jacqui Murray  is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughterâs journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice  book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Todayâs Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics.Â
Filed under: book reviews Tagged: culture, margaret mead
September 22, 2014
Writer’s Tip #76: Use a Photo to Develop Characters, Setting
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
This tip was brought to mind by one of my readers. My current WIP is so far from its beginnings that I’d forgotten it started with photos to draw character profiles and Google Earth images to create the setting details. But it did. I remember browsing through internet images of paleoanthropologists, staring in their eyes to see if they were Kali or Zeke (my two main characters). Did they have her fragile spirit or his swash-buckling former SEAL-gone-scientist persona? Once I found the right image, I read everything I could find about that sort of person and came up with a character that worked. Then, I pasted the pictures to the walls of my office so every time they were in scene, I’d see them, notice how they moved, remember how their head tilted in thought or their brows furrowed in confusion.
Settings were the same. To make them authentic, I searched out locations on Google Earth, then traveled the streets, the towns, the neighborhoods to get a sense of what my characters would experience. If Kali or Zeke walked from Columbia University to her apartment a couple of blocks away, I walked it first to see what bodega they passed, how busy were the streets, what type of people visited local businesses. This way, I could add flavor, emotion to my story. A few times, I had to adjust the scene because Google Street View told me it couldn’t have happened the way I’d written. Anyone with a wide audience knows they tell you all your mistakes, so the less that slip through, the better.
So this tip is a big one. Don’t think you can skip visualizing characters and settings. Take the time to find out about your story’s fundamentals and then let your people and locations drive the story.
I’m not the only one who uses Google Earth as a writing tool. Click here to see a unique way one reader incorporated Google Earth (using a GPS logger–amazing). Here’s one Duke professor’s writing course that uses Google Earth.
More on Google Earth and writing:
Tech Tip for Writers #65: Google Street View
How to Virtually Visit a Location You Can’t Drop In On
Writer’s Tip #47: Authenticate Setting
Click to have Writer’s Tips delivered to your email box
Questions you want answered? Leave a comment and I’ll answer it within the next thirty days.
Jacqui Murray
is the author of the popular
Building a Midshipman
, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, webmaster for six blogs, an
Amazon Vine Voice
book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics.
Filed under: characters, setting, writers tips Tagged: Google Earth, photos
September 19, 2014
Book Review: Letters from the Field–Part I
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Margaret Meade was born in 1901, a time when a woman’s place wasn’t doing field research in island jungles. That didn’t matter to her a wit when she went to Samoa at the age of twenty-three to study the life of the residents. Turned out, she had an excellent eye for decoding what she saw. Plus, she could write–not in the stodgy scientific way of most researchers, but with words people understood. She made them care about these far-away lives by relating their lives to emotions every person understands–love, hate, dreams, joy, child caring. Here are words you’ve heard, probably didn’t know they came from Margaret Mead:
It takes a village.
The primitive tribe who inspired these words likely no longer exists, but the power of the emotion rings true even today.
Her time in Samoa resulted in the first of forty immensely popular books on how human beings get along in groups–cultural anthropology. Her subjects were mostly preliterate, non-Western civilizations, and chock full of brilliance, empathy, common sense–traits ascribed usually to modern, civilized peoples, not those who wear loin clothes and live in huts.
I discovered Margaret Mead because I wanted to understand how mankind arrived at our current evolved state of culture (religious, art-lovers, decorating our bodies, problem-solvers able to ignore instinct in favor of cognitive decisions–traits that set us apart from every other living species). I’d emptied my local library of books by the obvious experts–Donald Johanson and the famous Lucy
the Leakeys and their ground-breaking work in Africa’s Cradle of Mankind
GHR Von Koenigswald and his Meeting Prehistoric Man
–dozens more. I learned a lot about my ancestors, but what I could read was limited by the physical evidence. Anything that couldn’t be pinned to artifacts couldn’t be concluded.
I needed more if I was to understand enough to write my book on the life of our first ancestors. I needed the stuff that didn’t fossilize.
Early man was ruled by nature–how does anyone survive predators with fangs and claws and really thick skin? What does a natural habitat look like without even a grass hut or fire for protection? I turned to nature writers like Peter Matthiessen.
I nibbled around the edges of our arrival as the genus, Homo, two million years ago, and studied close species. Dian Fossy‘s gorillas
and Birut Galdikas‘ orangutans
(who devoted their lives to understanding the humanity within our closest primate cousins), Jane Goodall and her chimpanzees (read every book she ever wrote)
Desmond Morris‘ unique look at mankind.
Understanding Great Apes and orangutans and chimpanzees proved valuable, but insufficient, so I turned to primitive tribes–evolved by early man standards, but antiquated by modern world standards. Why do Pygmies not have a leader? I explored current primitive tribes through the eyes of Colin Turbull (The Forest People),
John Beattie’s Bunyoro: An African Kingdom,
and Tepilit Ole Saitoti’s Maasai Warrior.
I read E. Adamson Hoebel who wrote a one-of-a-kind book called The Law of Primitive Man. When did ‘consensus’ and ‘following rules’ become more important than ‘doing what’s right’? For that, I read field research curated into a wonderful book called “Social Life of Early Man”.
Arguably, it’s our big brain that’s responsible for our current position atop the food chain so I devoured experts like Christopher Wills and his eminently readable Runaway Brain.
What parts of our brain do what–and when did they get big enough to do that? Neanderthal brains were larger than ours, but in the wrong places. Symbolism and the ability to count seemed to be keys (lots of primitive tribes don’t count–many have no need to go past five when a well-worded description can distance and group size). Writers like Lev Vygotsky (his amazing research into how we count) enraptured me.
What made us go beyond the horizon to parts unknown, even when we had a nice home that kept us safe and dry? Primates don’t do that. Alligators stay in their swamps. No other species searches out inclement conditions and decides to test their survival skills. Why do we?
Margaret Mead seems to struggle with the same questions, though where my timeframe is 2 million years BCE, hers is the 1900’s. And rather than from the comfort of her Google browser and local library, she goes to the primary sources. Letters from the Field 1925-1975 (Harper Collins 1977) starts in Samoa but includes the Admiralty Islands, American Indians, New Guinea, Bali and Iatmul. She evaluated their lives by living with them, understanding their languages, thriving in their cultural worlds.
Next week, I’ll discuss this book more, share some of my favorite parts.
More on research:
Book Review: A Virtual Tour of Africa
How to Virtually Visit a Location You Canât Drop In On
Photo credit: By Smithsonian Institution from United States (Margaret Mead (1901-1978) Uploaded by Fæ) [see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons
Jacqui Murray  is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughterâs journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice  book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Todayâs Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is  editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education.Â
Filed under: book reviews, research Tagged: margaret mead
Book Review: Letter from the Field–Part I
Margaret Meade was born in 1901, a time when a woman’s place wasn’t doing field research in island jungles. That didn’t matter to her a wit when she went to Samoa at the age of twenty-three to study the life of the residents. Turned out, she had an excellent eye for decoding what she saw. Plus, she could write–not in the stodgy scientific way of most researchers, but with words people understood. She made them care about these far-away lives by relating their lives to emotions every person understands–love, hate, dreams, joy, child caring. Here are words you’ve heard, probably didn’t know they came from Margaret Mead:
It takes a village.
The primitive tribe who inspired these words likely no longer exists, but the power of the emotion rings true even today.
Her time in Samoa resulted in the first of forty immensely popular books on how human beings get along in groups–cultural anthropology. Her subjects were mostly preliterate, non-Western civilizations, and chock full of brilliance, empathy, common sense–traits ascribed usually to modern, civilized peoples, not those who wear loin clothes and live in huts.
I discovered Margaret Mead because I wanted to understand how mankind arrived at our current evolved state of culture (religious, art-lovers, decorating our bodies, problem-solvers able to ignore instinct in favor of cognitive decisions–traits that set us apart from every other living species). I’d emptied my local library of books by the obvious experts–Donald Johanson and the famous Lucy
the Leakeys and their ground-breaking work in Africa’s Cradle of Mankind
GHR Von Koenigswald and his Meeting Prehistoric Man
–dozens more. I learned a lot about my ancestors, but what I could read was limited by the physical evidence. Anything that couldn’t be pinned to artifacts couldn’t be concluded.
I needed more if I was to understand enough to write my book on the life of our first ancestors. I needed the stuff that didn’t fossilize.
Early man was ruled by nature–how does anyone survive predators with fangs and claws and really thick skin? What does a natural habitat look like without even a grass hut or fire for protection? I turned to nature writers like Peter Matthiessen.
I nibbled around the edges of our arrival as the genus, Homo, two million years ago, and studied close species. Dian Fossy‘s gorillas
and Birut Galdikas‘ orangutans
(who devoted their lives to understanding the humanity within our closest primate cousins), Jane Goodall and her chimpanzees (read every book she ever wrote)
Desmond Morris‘ unique look at mankind.
Understanding Great Apes and orangutans and chimpanzees proved valuable, but insufficient, so I turned to primitive tribes–evolved by early man standards, but antiquated by modern world standards. Why do Pygmies not have a leader? I explored current primitive tribes through the eyes of Colin Turbull (The Forest People),
John Beattie’s Bunyoro: An African Kingdom,
and Tepilit Ole Saitoti’s Maasai Warrior.
I read E. Adamson Hoebel who wrote a one-of-a-kind book called The Law of Primitive Man. When did ‘consensus’ and ‘following rules’ become more important than ‘doing what’s right’? For that, I read field research curated into a wonderful book called “Social Life of Early Man”.
Arguably, it’s our big brain that’s responsible for our current position atop the food chain so I devoured experts like Christopher Wills and his eminently readable Runaway Brain.
What parts of our brain do what–and when did they get big enough to do that? Neanderthal brains were larger than ours, but in the wrong places. Symbolism and the ability to count seemed to be keys (lots of primitive tribes don’t count–many have no need to go past five when a well-worded description can distance and group size). Writers like Lev Vygotsky (his amazing research into how we count) enraptured me.
What made us go beyond the horizon to parts unknown, even when we had a nice home that kept us safe and dry? Primates don’t do that. Alligators stay in their swamps. No other species searches out inclement conditions and decides to test their survival skills. Why do we?
Margaret Mead seems to struggle with the same questions, though where my timeframe is 2 million years BCE, her’s is the 1900’s. And rather than from the comfort of her Google browser and local library, she goes to the primary sources. Letters from the Field 1925-1975 (Harper Collins 1977) starts in Samoa but includes the Admiralty Islands, American Indians, New Guinea, Bali and Iatmul. She evaluated their lives by living with them, understanding their languages, thriving in their cultural worlds.
Next week, I’ll discuss this book more, share some of my favorite parts.
More on research:
Book Review: A Virtual Tour of Africa
How to Virtually Visit a Location You Canât Drop In On
Photo credit: By Smithsonian Institution from United States (Margaret Mead (1901-1978) Uploaded by Fæ) [see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughterâs journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Todayâs Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education.
Filed under: book reviews, research Tagged: margaret mead
September 17, 2014
Setting is Not a Place, it’s an Emotion
To new writers, setting is passive, to place the reader geographically. A few prosy sentences and move on. To experienced writers, it’s seminal to the plot, an extension of the characters. Here’s what how-to-write books say:
“Setting is an important element of literature because authors use it to establish the atmosphere or mood of the piece.” (Writing from A to Z )
“Don’t tell us what it’s like. … Let us come to our own conclusions. Is it scary? Imposing? Barren? Evoke the mood by the description, not be telling us…” (Noah Lukeman)
“Setting can help to portray a swirl of emotion… When a reader senses that setting is being used to reveal something important, there is no danger of its being what one student calls ‘the stuff you skip’.” (Janet Burroway)
They all agree setting isn’t intended to objectively describe a location, rather to buttress plot and characters.
Close your eyes and describe the scent of the flower bed that borders a scraggly front lawn, the dreary London day, the sound of the subway. Each of those images mean little outside of the reader’s experience, connections to other parts of the story, and motivations. The flower bed tells us the person living inside the shack hasn’t given up. The dreary London day juxtaposes the character’s mood. The subway sound means new beginnings, hope. Readers don’t care a lot about the setting except as it affects the story. (I stipulate James Michener is an exception, as are nature writers).
Let’s try an experiment. The setting is a park. What do you see (don’t peek)?
Most readers expect this:
…but the description that follows, through the eyes of the main character, says this:
The first is no surprise. The second informs us about the state of mind, the experiences, the temperament of the character. S/he completely misses the beauty inherent in the trees and nature, thanks to a raging thirst that makes everything look deadly.
Another example–think of the Country Western song. The lyrics are often tragic, about loss and failure, but the feeling evoked by music is upbeat–man’s ability to overcome, to get up despite being knocked down again and again, to find happiness against all odds.
That’s how to write a scene. It’s not what the room looks like, it’s what happens there that matters.
For more about settings, check out Jurgen Wolff’s blog here.
More on settings:
Writers Tips #82: 7 Tips on Time and Place from Donald Maass
How to Describe a Character’s Neighborhood
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education.
Filed under: setting, writing Tagged: images, music
September 15, 2014
Writer’s Tip #75: Break the Rules
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
This tip is from Robert Masello, award-winning journalist, television writer, and bestselling author of many novels and nonfiction books like the Medusa Amulet and Vigil. It’s #102 in his Kindle ebook, Robert’s Rules of Writing: 101 Unconventional Lessons Every Writer Should Know (Writers Digest Books 2011). That’s right. He’s showing not telling. We writers understand that approach.
Here’s what he says:
Rule 102. Break the Rules. The cover of the book says 101 Rules—and that’s why I’m writing 102. Just to prove that rules are made for breaking. For example, for every writer who writes in the morning, there’s one who writes only at night. For every writer who plows ahead, never looking back, there’s one who agonizes over every word and cannot go forward without polishing every syllable that has come before. For every writer who works from an elaborate outline, there’s one who flies by the seat of his pants.
Click to have Writer’s Tips delivered to your email box
Questions you want answered? Leave a comment and I’ll answer it within the next thirty days.
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education.
Filed under: writers tips, writing Tagged: break the rules, writers tips
September 12, 2014
Book Review: Einstein: His Life and Universe
Einstein: His Life and Universe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Everyone knows Albert Einstein–smart man, came up with E=MC2, helped create the atomic bomb–but I didn’t know much beyond the hype. That’s why I picked up Walter Isaacson’s award-winning book Einstein: His Life and Universe (Simon and Schuster 2007). I like to read about smart people. What’s different in how they think than other people? Can they relate to ordinary individuals? Where do they get the amazing ideas they come up with?
As often as not, brilliant people become criminals as successes. That tells me intelligence isn’t the magic bullet to success in the world we-all live in. Someone who is charismatic, friendly, likeable, with good-enough brains is actually more likely to succeed than an individual whose brain never shuts off.
Turns out, that was true for Albert Einstein. This man–whose name equates to the definition of ‘genius’–had a childhood nothing like what we’d expect. The Child Einstein should have been revered for his thinking skills, but it turns out he had the same problems as you and I, including getting along with people, finding a date and struggling in academic classes because his brain didn’t fit into the teacher’s pedagogic box.
And finding a job. He should have been welcomed into an academic setting, or the labs of a big company coming up with the Next Great Invention, but his ideas often challenged conventional thinking and as such, were rejected by those in control. Finally, he took a job in the patent offices and found he loved it–not because of the work, but because it left him time to think. Here, he let his brain fly through what could be if we understood the Universe. Einstein was a theoretician, which meant he came up with ways to solve problems that were invisible–based on formulas and physics–rather than drawn from what he saw in the world around him.
From the safety of the government job, Einstein researched, ruminated, wrote articles on his findings and tenaciously lobbied anyone who would listen to his conclusions. That tenacity is what won in the end. Tenacity, I’m happy to tell you, is a trait anyone can develop. You don’t need to be a genius. How many parents rail on their kids to never give up, don’t be a quitter, to the last man standing goes the spoils.
Isaacson gently shares the details of Einstein’s later life, when he accomplished little and seemed confused over his direction in life, adamant about his beliefs, but not sure where to take them when he could find little support.
Overall, Einstein’s story is a lesson for all of us. He had a God-given talent to think better than anyone in his generation, but it was the very human traits of tenacity and perseverance that enabled his success and the inability to see the forest for the trees that mitigated it in the end and his inability to see the world through others’ eyes that marked his intellectual demise. A worthy story for all, as much biography as lessons in how to live an extraordinary life. You’ll have to engage your own tenacity as the book is a raucous 675 pages–not for the faint of heart.
More book reviews on smart people:
American Sniper by Chris Kyle
Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammett
Galloping Ghost: the extraordinary life of Gene Fluckey by Carl Lavo
Jacqui Murray is the author of dozens of books (on technology in education) as well as the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer
Filed under: book reviews Tagged: EINSTEIN, smart search
September 11, 2014
9/11… We Remember
America, we love you.
Jacqui Murray is the author of dozens of books (on technology in education) as well as the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.
Filed under: politics Tagged: 9/11, america, patriotism
September 8, 2014
Writers Tip #72: Don’t Worry About What Others Think
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
When I first heard about Stephen King’s how-to book, On Writing, I didn’t even check it out. I figured a horror writer couldn’t teach me what I needed to know about writing.
I was wrong. Turns out, his book is chock full of common sense, easy-to-understand hints about how to write a great novel, be it literary fiction, historic, horror, or any other genre. King just seems to get it–the twists of plots, the fascination of characters, the uniqueness of settings.
Here are seven of his tips. For more depth on them, visit the Positivity Blog:
Get to the point
Write a draft. Then let it rest
Cut down your text
Be relatable and honest
Don´t care too much what others may think
Read a lot
Write a lot
I had a tough round with my writer’s group last Monday so I’m especially happy to read #5.
Here’s what the UNC’s Writing Center has to say about feedback on your writing. Then check out Emma Lee as she describes how to decide what feedback to accept and what to walk away from.
More on feedback:
What I learned from finishing my novel
Click to have Writer’s Tips delivered to your email box
Questions you want answered? Leave a comment and I’ll answer it within the next thirty days.
Jacqui Murray is the author of dozens of books (on technology in education) as well as the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.
Filed under: writers tips Tagged: feedback
