Spellbinding Sentences Quotes

“Show your reader what you mean by those abstractions by giving specific examples, details, or statistics. Practice: Use Abstract Language Pick out an abstraction or two from the list you made earlier and write a sentence using it. Start with a short, simple sentence; then rewrite this sentence as many times as you need to, adding more sentences, if you like, and making clear to your readers how you want them to understand the abstraction in this particular situation. What did you notice in doing this? Here’s something else to try: Bring an abstraction to mind, then try to write some sentences that will convey that abstraction to the mind of your reader without including the abstraction itself in your sentences. To do these practices, you had to dig into your word hoard”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Read for Specifics One of the best ways to get a feel for the power of specific language is to read the work of writers who use this language with skill. You can find such writers exercising their skill virtually any subject and in many genres. (You won’t find them—or only rarely—in academia or politics or government, where empty generalizations rule.) So take some time to read writers who can use language to show you something, and pay careful attention to the effect their words have upon you. If you like, mark passages you find especially effective, then go back later and see if you can discover which words or phrases created that effect. Write those words and phrases in your notebook, look up the meanings of any words you don’t know, and practice using them.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“When we read more slowly, when we really listen to a writer’s words and sentences, perhaps even taking the time to read them out loud, an amazing thing happens: Those words, those phrases, those sentence rhythms enter our ears and lodge themselves in our writer’s brain. There they become part of a storehouse of language techniques we can then draw on when we write.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Third, deliberate practice involves challenging yourself to move past the things you can do easily and into the realm of what you can’t do, or can’t do well.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“After years of writing under performance conditions, it can be difficult for us, especially those of us who are adults, to allow ourselves the freedom to play with words.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Wake Up Your Imagination Put yourself, in your imagination, in a place you like. Using all your senses, notice what is around you. What do you see, hear, taste, smell, and touch? Try to notice as much detail as you can. Then, without worrying about your words, jot down all the details in your notebook. Practice: Wake Up Your Imagination If you find this exercise easy, then try inventing a place and putting yourself there. Once again, use your senses to notice all the details; write them down. Practice: Wake Up Your Imagination Read a passage from one of your favorite writers, paying particular attention to the pictures being made in your imagination. Now read the passage again. Can you identify the words or sentences that put those pictures into your mind?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Use Concrete Language Collect some concrete words (via internal collecting or from your reading), and make sure you know what they mean. Then play with using some of these words to make sentences. What do you notice in doing this?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Abstract and Concrete Nouns It’s easiest to distinguish abstract from concrete by looking at nouns. (A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, idea, emotion, etc.) Start by collecting nouns. Then look back through your list, and mark all the concrete ones (naming people or places or things we can know through our senses) and all the abstract ones (naming things or ideas we can know only through the intellect). If you find you have collected more of one kind of noun than the other, add words to make your list more balanced. Now read your list of words aloud slowly, paying attention to what happens inside your mind as you read each word. What did you notice as you did this practice? What’s the difference in effect between nouns that are concrete and nouns that are abstract? What happened in your mind and body when you heard each word?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Freewrite with Specifics Do ten minutes of freewriting on whatever subject you like (or move from one subject to another). As you write, be aware of the words you’re putting on the page. Don’t judge them; simply notice whether they are general or specific. If you notice general words, see if you can make the following words or groups of words—which perhaps amplify the meaning of the general words—more specific. Keep your attention on being more specific, without trying too hard. Keep the pen moving. See what happens! What did you notice?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Use Specifics Taking the passages above as examples, try out each of the following techniques for using specifics: Write a few sentences on a subject of your choice, using specifics. Follow a general statement with examples or specifics. Give specifics, then follow with a general statement. What did you notice in doing these practices?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: General and Specific Words Invent (or collect from conversation, newspapers, television broadcasts, etc.) some very general statements; write down as many as you can. Try to use as much general language as possible: That was a good dinner. She’s a nice person. Read some of these aloud and pay attention to what happens in your mind as you hear them. What do you notice? Now go back through your list and pick one of your general statements. Rewrite it to make it more specific. Invent details if you have to. Then take each remaining general statement and rewrite it, using specifics. Now read each general statement out loud again, and then read the revised version out loud. What do you notice? What’s the difference in the effect the general statement has on you and the effect the specific statement has?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Formal and Informal Words Imagine a person—someone you know, or a character you invent. Collect words for this character to speak, paying attention to the formality or informality of her language. Then have her talk on the page. If you like, invent more than one character and let them have a conversation. What do you notice in doing this?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Formal and Informal Words Collect some words that you consider formal, then see if you can come up with their informal equivalents. Then try this exercise starting with informal words. Which quality—formal or informal—do you like better?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“One way to “charge” a word with meaning is to exploit its connotations. Training your mind, through practice, to be aware of the connotations of words, will help you write sentences in which your words are full of meaning. So repeat this practice as often as you can: Pick a word and write down all the connotations you can think for it. Now pick one or two of those connotations, and write a few sentences that highlight those particular choices.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Explore Connotations Pick a word from your thesaurus and write down some of its synonyms, looking them up in a dictionary if you need to. Pick one synonym that has positive connotations (such as svelte) and one that has negative connotations (such as stringy) and write a sentence using each one. Do this exercise again with a different word. Read your sentences out loud, noticing the different effects of the words you’ve chosen. Do the particular connotations of your chosen word influence how you write the rest of the sentence? Practice: Explore Connotations Read your favorite writer, keeping an ear open for words chosen for positive or negative connotations. Collect these words in your notebook and experiment with making your own sentences with them. Practice: Explore Connotations Read over a passage from your own work, keeping your ear tuned to the connotations of your words. Are there any places where you might choose a different word, exploiting its connotations to enhance the effect of your sentence? Practice: Explore Connotations Some words have both positive and negative connotations. We can work with the connotations of this kind of word in another way as well—by placing it in a context that highlights one particular connotation. Take the word fire (as a noun) for instance; its most familiar denotations are “things that are burning” and “flames produced by things that are burning.” But the noun fire also has connotations. Take a few minutes now, if you like, to bring the denotations of the noun fire to your mind, and then listen for the words or phrases, the ideas or things, that this word suggests to you; write them all down. You may find yourself collecting synonyms for the word. If this happens, try to let your mind move beyond close synonyms and see what other ideas or things the word brings to your mind. You have now collected some of the word’s connotations. Now look through these connotations. What do you notice? One thing you might notice is”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Use a Thesaurus Write a few sentences about a subject or take a paragraph from one of your existing pieces. Look through what you have written using your word mind: Are there any words in this passage about which you wonder, Could I find a better word than this one? Look up one of these words in your thesaurus and consider your choices. Don’t forget to find the denotations of these words in your dictionary. Rewrite your sentences using the new word or words you have chosen, then read the sentences out loud. How do they sound to you now?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Explore Denotation Take a few minutes to unpack your word hoard, then read the words slowly, out loud. Listen as if you were encountering these words for the first time. Mark any words that you feel curious about, that spark the question What does that word mean? The words you mark don’t have to be words you’ve never used. Sometimes it’s fun to pick a familiar word and look it up. Now select one or more of the words you marked. Look up their meanings in the dictionary. What do you notice? Is this what you thought these words meant? If you own a second dictionary, look up some of your words in that one, too. Are there any differences in the definitions? If you like, write down the definitions in your notebook. Now, with the dictionary meanings of your words in mind, experiment with using some of these words in sentences. What do you notice? Try reading your sentences out loud. You can also make words your own by using them in conversation. Practice: At Play in the Dictionary Take some time to browse the pages of your dictionary. When a word catches your attention, write it down in your notebook, along with its definition(s). Now use the word in a sentence. What do you notice in doing this practice? Practice: Verify the Meanings of Words As you read, take note of words you like whose meanings elude you. Look up those words in a dictionary, then make sentences with them. Practice: At Play in a Thesaurus English, someone once wrote, is the only language that needs a thesaurus. That's because English has so many synonyms. To spend some time browsing in a thesaurus is to be amazed by the wealth of words in English—more words than any writer, no matter how prolific, could ever use in a lifetime. Like a dictionary, a thesaurus is a wonderful playground for writers who want to exercise their word minds and build their word hoards. Give yourself some time, when you can, to simply flip the pages of a thesaurus and browse its entries. Take note of the words you like; collect them into your notebook, if you wish. Try using them in sentences.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Build Your Word Hoard Practice: Collect from Conversation Go to a place where you can overhear people talk without calling attention to yourself—a café, perhaps, or a park, or a sporting event. Now turn your attention to one person’s voice and listen, not to the content of what she is saying, but to the words being used. Just pay attention to those words and notice them. Which ones grab your attention? Now take this practice one step further and collect some of the words that appeal to you by jotting them down in your notebook. When you’ve collected a number of words, see if you can make some sentences with them. If these are not words you would ordinarily use, perhaps they could be coming from a character you invent. Play with these words and see what you can discover. Build Your Word Hoard Practice: Collect from Reading When you read something you like, take time to read it again, not for content, but for language. Let your word mind engage with this piece; listen to it with your writer’s ear. Write down in your notebook all the words that appeal to you. Read through your collected words, marking the ones that stand out for you right now. Look up the meanings of these marked words in a dictionary, if you need to, and then use some of them to compose sentences.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Build Your Word Hoard Practice: The Vocabulary of a Personal Experience Choose a subject from personal experience (a place, a person, or an adventure, perhaps). Take five to ten minutes (or more, if you like) to collect, without stopping, every word that comes to you about this subject. Then, as before, select some words and make sentences (or lines of poetry or dialogue, if you prefer) with them. While your goal should be to just play with the words and see what happens, you may find yourself moving into freewriting about your subject. If you find yourself stuck when you want to write about a subject, whether it be a personal experience or not, it can help to start by collecting the vocabulary of that subject. Sometimes just playing with those words can lead you to things you want to say. Build Your Word Hoard Practice: The Vocabulary of a Character Choose a character of your own invention, or use one from a book you love, and bring him firmly to mind. Then imagine that this character is speaking, and collect the words you hear him use. Just focus on words first, as you did in the above practices. Then, once you have collected a long list of this character’s words, choose some of them to make sentences (or partial sentences, if you like) that this character would speak. Build Your Word Hoard Practice: A Vocabulary That Fits Your Readers Have you ever noticed that you often speak differently to different people? Hey, man, wazzup? you might say to your buddy, while Good morning, Mr. Jones would probably be the way you’d address your boss. The same thing can happen when we write: We can choose to select words appropriate to our readers. You may want to experiment with this by picking a subject you know something about and imagining an audience. Now, just as in the previous exercises, unpack from your word hoard the words you need to use to write about your subject to this particular audience. After doing this for a while, pick a different audience and collect words again. For instance, you could pick your eight-year-old nephew the first time, and a professor or supervisor the second. What do you notice about the words you unpack? If you like, you might also want to select words from each list and write some sentences, first to one audience, then to the other. This will give you some good practice in what it feels like to write for different audiences.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“You may want to take ten minutes to do what’s called “focused freewriting” about this subject. Keep the pen moving, as with the basic "Be a Writer" practice (Chapter 2), but instead of letting your creative faculty go anywhere it wants to go, keep it focused on your subject. Use some of the words you collected, and let them serve as springboards for reflecting on the subject. Words can often be a “way in” to a piece of writing, so you may be pleasantly surprised by what your creative faculty comes up with in this exercise. You might even want to begin with just one of the words you selected and let it inspire this piece of focused freewriting.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Build Your Word Hoard Practice: The Vocabulary of a Subject Pick a subject you know something about. (If you can’t think of one, start by making a list.) Then, without stopping, spend five to ten minutes collecting every word you can think of that has something to do with this subject. If you get stuck, just repeat a word. Don’t worry about whether the words are “right” or whether they mean what you think they mean. Just play with them and see what happens. Say the words under your breath, so that they will have some voice to them instead of just appearing silently in your mind. After you’re done collecting, go back through your list and mark whichever words stand out for you, then play around with them to form sentences. Make sense, if you feel like it; be silly if you don’t. Give yourself at least ten minutes for this practice. Afterwards, if you like, take a moment or two to write down what happened as you did it. What did you notice?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Reflect on Your Journey Before we turn to more specific practices, you may wish to reflect on where you are now as a writer and what you would like to learn or how you can best engage in writing practice. What are your particular strengths as a writer? What skills do you feel you most need to learn and develop?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Read with Your Writer’s Ear Read a passage from a favorite writer out loud and listen to the words. What do you notice about how this writer uses language? Practice: Imitate a Model of Excellence Choose a writer whose work is, for you, a model of excellence. This is your choice, one that should not be dictated by current academic/literary taste or the latest bestsellers. Copy out a passage from a work by your chosen writer, and then, as best you can, imitate those sentences. You will get the most out of this exercise if you follow it with the next basic practice.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Use Your Notebook to Collect Words Listen to the radio or television, or someone speaking, without paying attention to the content of the words you hear. Instead, use your writer’s ear to focus on the words themselves. Write down any words that stand out for you.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Basic Practice #1: Waking Up the Word Mind Begin with freewriting, as in the exercise from Chapter 2. Get your pen moving across the page, or your fingers across the keyboard, without stopping. Remember to relax; there’s no rush. Once you feel comfortable, see if you can shift your mental focus: Turn your attention away from what you are saying to the words you are using. At first you may find this difficult; that’s fine. Just keep trying to bring your mind back to words. You may also find that your writing stops making sense; that’s fine, too. (If a great idea occurs to you while you work, however, by all means write it down!) You may find that you stop writing sentences altogether and move instead into listing words. Try as best you can to keep from judging the words that come to you. There are no right or wrong answers in this practice. Instead, as you write, listen to your words; pay attention to what you hear. Afterwards take a moment or two to reflect, on paper if you wish, about what happened when you did the exercise.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Make Words Your Own From the list of words you marked, pick a few. Now use those words, and any others you might need (not necessarily from your list) to make a sentence, a line of a poem, or a line of dialogue. Let yourself just fool around with these words, play with them as if they were bits of clay, and see what you can make. You can make sense, if you like, or you can make nonsense. For instance, I could choose the words blue and ceiling and elephant from my list, and make this sentence: The blue elephant is on the ceiling. Don’t obsess about the sentences you construct; they don’t have to be perfect. (Remember, no one will ever see this material unless you choose to show it.) You might want to see how many different sentences you can make using the same chosen words. Or you might want to pick three or four new words from your list and see what you can make from them (again, adding any words you need to make a complete sentence). When you have had enough of this little game, for now, take a few moments to read your sentences out loud. Try to listen to them without judgment. What do you notice? If you get any ideas for new sentences, or new ways to write the ones you created, by all means jot them down.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“Practice: Unpacking the Word Hoard This practice builds on the basic practices you’ve already learned. It has two parts: First, begin to freewrite (see Chapter 2). After a couple of minutes, let your attention shift from whatever you are saying to the words that are coming to you. And now begin to collect only words, one word at a time, keeping the pen moving as you do so. If your mind goes blank, keep writing the last word you wrote over and over, until you think of another one. Remember to breathe, to slow down. You need not know a word’s meaning to write it down. You are not trying to make sense, or to write complete sentences: You are just collecting words, letting one word lead you to the next. Try to stay in the moment with each word as it comes to you. Listen to it, savor it. (With this practice, as with all the exercises in this book, remember that you are in charge. If your words start taking you someplace you don’t want to go, stop, take a deep breath, relax, and change direction.) Take five or ten minutes for this practice, then take a minute or two to reflect on how the practice went for you. What did you notice? Now, for the second part of the practice, go through the words you collected, reading them out loud slowly, one word at a time, and mark the words you particularly like. Perhaps they have a certain energy, or you like the way they sound, or they remind you of something. The reason doesn’t matter; just mark them. And, as you read, add to your list any new words you like that occur to you. Now take a moment to read your marked words out loud; listen to them. What do you notice?”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

“writers learned their skills from the masters, through intensive reading and imitation.”
― Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers