From my writing archives

cat on beach and blue sky

Photo (C) Pakhnyushchyy | Deposit Photos

This week, I want to share of collection of links to more information about writing.

First up is a book for all of us who don’t write exactly in whatever manner someone else prescribes: Survival Kit for Writers Who Don’t Write Right. Unlike other people I’ve seen over the years, she tells us to pick what works and ignore the rest. Who does that? Her list of items is also not a system or has any special rules. All of it is very practical. From me: If you discover tools that might be helpful in how you write, pick only one and try it out. Don’t try to do them all at once because it’s easy to get overwhelmed and stop altogether.

Details are Important – This was a very hard topic for me to learn to do. The article’s old because few seem to talk much about it these days. Even then, I can understand why it’s such a challenge; it’s a huge topic that seems deceptively small. In it:

Study details by marking those of characters with one color, setting with another, etc. This is very similar to Margie Lawson’s Edits system.For a simple action step: Be specific if you mention anything. If a character hides behind a tree, specific would take it to a sturdy oak. A street is two lanes or asphalt; a cat becomes a tuxedo cat or a silver tabby. You would do this pretty much all the time. When I was co-writing a book, we hadn’t done that much of this kind of thing. But in a scene in the woods, we mentioned hickories and other plants local for Virginia. Readers all commented now how those scenes felt like Virginia. It makes that much of a difference.

On dialogue tags…this is a controversial writing topic, despite all it does is tell the reader who said what. Writer Lawrence Block notes in his book Telling Lies for Fun and Profit that the following tags should be avoided: state, aver, avow, and declare. Why? Because they sound too much like a newspaper reporter. It’s always important to look at how some seemingly simple things can affect reader’s perceptions. There’s some discussion that said has fallen out of favor, though this depends on who you talk to (so mostly opinion). Audio books require something to associate with the dialogue, but using said more frequently stands out in annoying way when read aloud. Which is all to say there’s no wrong way to do this, but more of a balance of what you do.

This is a tip from Dave Farland, who passed away last year. In every scene, add a sense of light (or time). This is incredibly difficult to do consistently. I have to use a placeholder at the top of each scene to make sure I know what time of day, and even what month of the year it is. We’re about to hit the longest day of the year; after that, sunset starts marching in a few minutes earlier each day. I left off the placeholder initially; once I added it, I realized the timeline was off. If the character was at this location for X amount of time, it would have gone from light outside to dusk…and I had the sun only just setting. Oops!

This is what my placeholder looks like (since I sometimes need examples myself to help me understand better):

[Friday, August 4. About 5:30ish, Hotel Bellamy Lobby]

Completely non-writing subjects!

Fruit Flavor Pairings Chart. This chart shows what fruits go well with other fruits, as well as the spices. I was surprised that banana doesn’t go with that many fruits, especially considering everyone pairs it with everything. I wish I had one of these with vegetables. So far, I am reduced to searching for “What spices go with carrots?”

Foundation Training Video. I found this on another blogger’s site. He said that he had done it and his back pain had disappeared over time. I had some to (from how I pick up objects), so I thought why not? Oh. My. Goodness. For the first month, I had to myself I was doing it correctly. I’ve had hereditary flat feet that doctors assured me would only get worse as I got older; arch supports would be only a stop-gap measure. The right foot had more problems, and evidently the leg muscles weren’t all working the way they should. I didn’t like the answers the doctors were giving me, so this turned into an opportunity and has improved my feet and balance. I’ve been working my way through their streaming.