Lindsey’s Writing Practice: FOCUS on the IMAGE

FOCUS on the IMAGE

As many of you may have gleaned from last month’s exercise, the IMAGE remains essential to create captivating writing in poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction works.

Then, you made descriptions more “concrete” by focusing on details.In a similar vein,an image must contain details using some or most of the five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste to make that image “hook” the reader.

Thus,for this month’s workshop, pull out a pen and one of your journals (or sheets of paper), and either close your eyes or look out a window (or depending upon the weather, venture outside). Closely study some IMAGE—something that “calls” you

Your image may suggest a location, for example, a Colorado, Oregon, New York, or Missouri scene without naming it: With a jutting cliff, a rosebud blossom, dogwood, or aspen bloom, a red leaf, a crow on a bare branch or a group of them on telephone lines, a hummingbird poking its long beak into a tulip bloom, or an eagle soaring above.

And AVOID abstractions: For this exercise, write “No ideas but in [concrete] things” (William Carlos Williams). Speaking of whom, here’s one of his well-known poems for inspiration:

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

your were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet