Bad Lingo: Blog-Media Clichés – Gawker
And right on the heels of things you shouldn’t write about on your blog comes phrases that should, at all costs, be avoided in your writing, due to overuse, inane meanings, and just a general sense of tackiness.
Maybe it’s the literary snob in me, but I’ve always felt that if you’re going to write for a public audience that your writing standards should be up to the highest standards possible. Part of that is good spelling, grammar, and punctuation, of course, but perhaps the larger part is avoiding the overuse of clichés, banality, and slang in one’s writing. The use of such is, in my opinion, sloppy and shoddy, a lazy man’s way of presenting information without care for his readers. In choosing to write to a public forum, the author is taking on a responsibility, whether he realizes it or not, to ensure that his writings are both relevant and easy for the general public to read.
But then again, maybe I’m just being too snooty for my own good.
Tags: Writing, writing-technique
I enjoy reading Ray Rhamey’s articles over at Flogging the Quill. He always has such great tips for creating a readable and satisfying story. His article today involves avoiding the use of “conclusion words.” These are essentially descriptive words that leave it up to the reader to the form a mental image – words like ‘magnificent’, ‘arrogant’, or ‘ghastly’. They tell you what the character’s opinion is but not the what or why of that opinion. And since the meanings of such words are subjective to each reader, the use of them in your writing without clarification may convey a very different picture to the reader than you intend. Ray uses the word “beautiful” as an example and really illustrates the value of substituting conclusion words for actual descriptions that allow you get into the mind of the character and understand why he sees someone or something as beautiful. Go give the article a read. Ray is also looking for emailed suggestions of other conclusion words, so if you can think of any others, drop him a line.
Tags: flogging-the-quill, ray-rhamey, Writing, writing-technique
I’m at a point in my writing where I think I need to establish a more specific set of goals. I feel like I’ve stagnated a bit where I am, so it’s time to raise the bar a little. In no particular order:
- Submit one short story a month. The only way to get published is to send those stories out. I’m somewhat limited due to budget contraints, since ideally I should purchase at least one copy from each magazine I’m interested in, but I’ll deal with that obstacle as I can. For now, I simply need to write something and send it out to the one of the magazines that I am familiar with right now.
- POV. While I can paint very vivid scenes, my point-of-view writing continues to suffer. I’ve always had a hard time getting inside the heads of my own characters and bringing them to life. It’s time to write less narrative and focus more on developing the human side of each story. It might mean less robust scenery for a while until I start to get a grip on POV, but the end result should be worth it.
- Tying up the loose ends. This may be more of a problem with flash fiction, where there simply isn’t enough time or room for full development, but I need to work on tying up the loose ends in my stories. If I name an attribute of a character, group, or location, I need to be prepared to provide some sort of explanation for that attribute’s existence and relevance to the story. As much as I may enjoy a few loose ends, I’m finding that a lot of readers don’t.
- Critique. I need to work on my critique, both of my own works and of the works of others. This will likely develop as my own writing skill grows, as I begin to understand all the elements that go into a full, robust story. I still tend to focus too much on the mechanics and not enough on the artistry itself, so it’s time to start paying more attention to the gestalt view of the story.
Those are my primary focus points for now, all of which have come to my attention as a result of this my first flash challenge at Liberty Hall.
Tags: critique, goals, liberty-hall, submissions, Writing, writing-technique
One of the things that a musician must learn to do is how to make their music sing. It’s one thing to be able to play the notes and master the rhythm; it’s an entirely different thing to make it sound musical. There are tempos to be followed, crescendos and decrescendos to give the music its own brand of vibrancy, staccatos to give it that extra pizzaz, and dozens of other musical elements that, when included into the performance of the music, give the song a life of its own.
That was one of the most difficult things for me as a fledgling piano player to master. For a long while all I could see were those notes on the page. My fingers were having a difficult enough time just finding all the right keys, let alone giving them personality. But that is what the master piano player, the teacher, is for, to push the student beyond their capabilities and stretch to accomplish new heights of musical expression. The teacher shows the student how the formulaic rhythm of the piece can be more than the sum of its parts, more than just technique. When the performer pours his heart and soul into the composition, suddenly you find that it has a life of its own. The technique of playing has found the artistry of expression, and a new creature springs to life from the fingers of musician at the keyboard.
As in music so it is in writing. Composing stories and tales involves much more than mere technique. I’ve always been something of a grammar Nazi, a strictly regimented enforcer of the ‘rules’ of the English language. In high school I devoured grammar and spelling books to the point where my classmates hated having me proofread any of their work. Invariably, I would return their manuscripts, covered in red ink where I found spelling, grammar, and syntax errors, and they would groan as they worked to revise them.
At the time I thought that was enough to become a good writer, if I had so chosen. Yet, now I am learning that technique alone is not enough to produce an interesting and captivating story. There is an art to writing, something that should be blatantly obvious to anyone who has read a novel or short story. But it is something that is not readily seen or understood until one takes on the challenge of creating a story of their own. It becomes apparent in short order just how difficult it is to weave that level of artistry into a story – to select that just-right word or phrase, to establish that perfect setting, to weave that stunning character profile – that refuses to let the reader put the book down and simply walk away. It requires practice and effort to create something so sublime, and often it takes a master teacher to help guide the fledgling writer along as they seek to better their craft.
One of the things that I have loved so much about networking with other writers is this ability to share and compare notes, to share some of the scraps of our writing in hopes of gaining honest, constructive criticism. This criticism is sometimes hard to swallow – none of us like to be told that our work is less than perfect – but it is invaluable in the longrun to becoming better writers and authors. It is a risk to share these things that are so dear to our hearts, but it is, I believe, a risk worth taking.
Here’s to helping one another along to becoming masterful artists in the art of wordcraft.
Tags: artistry, english, grammar, music, Piano, Writing, writing-technique
Flogging the Quill: Don’t get me started
It’s always fun to find a good, constructive article pointing out some to-be-avoided subtleties that we all tend to unconsciously write into our stories. Ray Rhamey, over at Flogging the Quill touches nicely on two more things to watch out for in our writing – “started/began to” and “with.” I’m not sure about the first one – I’ll have to check over some of my stories – but I do know that I’m guilty of abusing ‘with.’ I’m definitely going to have to keep a sharper eye out for that. Ray’s article is a very instructive and amusing read. Go check it out!
Tags: flogging-the-quill, ray-rhamey, Writing, writing-technique
