The Journey

So you wanna' be a writer, huh? There is just something deep inside your soul that presses you to put words upon a page and spill your heart.

Jesus bids you shine with a pure, clean light. Like a little candle burning in the night? You have a gift, a story and a passion.

You heed the call and press the keys. Words appear. A story emerges. If the Lord impresses upon your heart to use your creative gifts via the written word, then it shall be so. And you shall be blessed. Yet along with obedience comes responsibility.

A writer reads. A writer observes. A writer writes.

READ everything you can get your hands on. The classics; the current; history; the present; the new; the old. Read it all.

OBSERVE the details. What is it about the way she walks, talks, dresses, her voice; her passion; her faith; her action; her reaction. Observe and absorb it all.

WRITE every day. Try all forms. Journal; jottings; poetry; shorts; long. Find your niche.

There are two aspects to writing - the craft and the art. Learn the craft (the grammar; active verses passive; the dialogue)  Revel in the art - the God-given blessing. No one can take away the passion to express life via the written word. Journey on scribes...journey on... 

Ye old 'Show - Don't Tell' Fiasco [and what to do about it]

"Just the Facts, Please"

Show – Don’t tell! Every time we go to a writer's conference, we hear it. Each time someone edits our work, we see it highlighted in red. We know it's the right thing to do, but what does it really mean to show and not tell?

Telling is the act of passing along information. Just the facts ma'am.

 Almost anyone can write: Robin was mad so she hit her brother with her doll.

If we want the facts this sentence works just fine. 

It's not particularly riveting, but it works well when we just want the facts. However, when we want to capture and audience, we need to do more to spark the imagination  of the reader.

Showing speaks to the imagination.

Showing allows the reader experience a moment

Consider the following:

 Robin clenched her fists tight around her Raggedy Ann doll.

"Don't come in my room again!" she shouted. Bryan turned to leave and “whap!” Robin threw her doll and hit him square in the head. “Hey!” Bryan yelled back.

See how the reader's imagination engages. Suddenly they're involved. They can see her flying doll, they can feel it hit the back of his head and they can hear the conversation and they can read between the lines. Robin is pretty ticked off about Bryan coming into her room.

If we are unsure whether or not we are telling instead of showing, we can check for these elements:

a) Little or no dialogue. If we haven't used quotation marks in a while, it may be time to re-evaluate our technique. When is the last time our characters actually spoke?

b) Little or no movement. If our characters remain in the same space, sitting, mulling, contemplating, wondering, analyzing, remembering, etc.,

c) The journalistic questions, who said what, when, where and how, are answered - but that's it.

Examples of passive words:  is, isn't, am, are, aren't, was, wasn't, were, will, would, won't, has, had, have, be, been, do, don't, did, didn't, does, doesn't, seem, seems, exist, exists, appears, make, makes, show, shows, occur, occurs, get, got, went, put, some, many, most, that, very, extremely, totally, completely, wholly, utterly, quite, rather, slightly, fairly, somewhat, and suddenly.

These words are not wrong and many times they are needed. Make sure, however, that your writing avoids a plethora of these words. Passivity slows down the piece and often results in a snoozer of a story.

The active voice has the subject doing the action.

The dog bit Jimmy, and that would be active, but if you say Jimmy was bitten by the dog, that is passive.

- Try these:

- The road was crossed by the chicken

- Shirley was loved by John.

- The tree was chopped down by Mark

- The Police were called by the woman who was in the accident.

- Telling can be useful, in some kinds of writing. Scientific writing often employs a more passive style. 

Showing is vital to an effective story, essay, or blog post. Showing allows the reader to follow the author into the moment, to see and feel and experience what the author has experienced.

It takes a bit of practice but having the proper balance of showing and telling will make a story or article more interesting and effective.

Tips to Make Us Think

1. Use dialogue

Dialogue allows the reader to experience a scene as if they were there.

Instead of telling the reader your mom was angry, they can hear it for themselves:

“William James,” mom bellowed, “Get in here this instant!”

Dialogue can show a reader a plenty about a character, the emotion and the mood.

2. Use sensory language

     The five senses, seeing, hearing, touoching, smelling, tasting, should all be incorporated somehow. A good way to see if your story or article has the right balance of senses is to take five different colours and mark off what sense is elicited within each sentences. At the end of the exercise, if there is too much of one and not enough of another, maybe you should consider incorporating a different sense a little more often.

3. Be descriptive

Teachers, when we were in elementary school, pounded the parts of speech into us and we were instructed to use plenty of adjectives and adverbs in our work. As a writer, now it is our challenge to say the same thing but without the ly at the end of a word. Carefully choose the correct active words to replace adjectives and adverbs. Here is an example:

Telling: She sits quietly on the couch holding her guitar. She is upset.

There’s nothing wrong with that sentence. It gives the reader some basic information, but it doesn’t create an image. Compare that sentence with this:

Showing: Tears streaming down her face, she sits on the creamy, leather couch, cradling the guitar like a baby. The only sound is her the steady rhythm of her heartbeat.

The second example takes that basic information and paints a picture with it. It also uses figurative language to help create an image.

 

When using description, we should not overdo it. We don't want to present our characters as a list.

Here is an annoying list of facts. Not wrong...but annoying:

He was tall, with brown hair and blue eyes. He wore a red shirt and jeans, and a brown leather jacket.

Try incorporating these facts in your story somehow. Have someone look up to him therefore implying tall

Maybe somewhere along the line someone could be admiring his hair – could it be the colour of dark chocolate?

Clothing descriptions could be said something like this as you introduce him: His red plaid shirt tucked tightly into his stonewashed Levi’s gave every indication that he was a cowboy. The camel leather jacket tossed over his shoulder confirmed that his dream included prosperity.

Now it's your turn. Look through some of your stories and articles and check for passive words and sentences.  It's time to breathe a little life into your writing. Showing, and not telling is a great way to start the process!

Ready? Set? Go!

Who? Me? Write? Do you read? To be a writer, you need to be a reader, first. 

Before you beat yourself up and try to convince yourself that maybe you are not really a writer, only a reader, try the C.A.R.E. test:

C - Craft - This is the part of writing that is learned. Am I willing to educate myself in whatever way I can in order to perfect my craft?  Maybe it's time to take a course on writing. Maybe it's time I attended that writer's conference. Maybe I should purchase a couple of resource books and start honing my skills.

A - Art - God has given everyone a gift [or two.] Is writing a passion that gurgles from deep within? Do I have a story to tell and the ability to express myself creatively? This does not mean I will create perfect prose each time I put pen to paper. I still have to acquire skills and experience in writing. But how badly do I want to write?

R - Realistic - I really shouldn't quit my day job. Writing doesn't always cover the bills. Especially when I am new on the scene. I need to remember that there is much to learn and rejections to receive. A few hit the big time out of the starting gate, but writing for a living is difficult. Writers are not well paid. Sometimes I might even write for free in order to get my name out there. I need to be realistic. But I also need to know that my dreams can be reality, too. Due diligence is the key!

E - Energy - Do I have the motivation and the energy to keep writing each day? Writing is a solitary profession. Can I take long hours of solitude? If something isn't working on the screen, will I delete it and give up or will I press on? Writing takes energy. If I am down a quart will I still function? Will I know how to regroup and revitalize?

Do you CARE enough to be a writer?

How can you become a better writer? Check out this video:

Best Advice

Over the years I have received much advice from editors and fellow scribes. If I had to decide on three of the best pieces of wisdom, they would have to be the following:

1. Cut it down by half and leave nothing out - an editor proferred this advice when I turned in a manuscript that used a little bit too much fluff and stuff.

2. He who asks a question feels a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. (Old Chinese Proverb) - I read this somewhere and it became my impetus for raising my hand when I attend writing workshops or seminars.

3. Tell me, I’ll forget. Show me, I’ll remember. Involve me, I’ll understand. (Old Chinese Proverb) This sage piece of advice reminds me how and why to show, not tell in my writing.

Finding the Magic Bullet

Bad news...there is no magic bullet. There are no shortcuts or quick tips to making it in the writing world. First, I believe a writer needs passion. If God intended you to write, He will guide you little by little in your craft.

Find what triggers that yearning to knit together words on a page and then take steps to pursue and perfect your chosen career. Persistence and patience are essential character traits in the kit of a writer who is worthy. Take courses. Find writer friends. Join a writer's group. Read books on writing. Read the kind of books you would like to write. Read them again and do so for logical reasons. Then read them again, paying attention to what appeals and what doesn't. Research. Write and rewrite. Pray. Then pray some more. Make sure your motivation is in line with God's plan. Are you trying to write for the big bucks? Or are you writing what you know (or would like to know?)

Know your publisher's or editor's target market and then ask yourself what do these readers want and need to know? What is missing from the wealth of information out there and then fill in the blanks.

Be professional but be natural. When your fingers move with abandon and words appear almost miraculously on the page, your heart is taking over and you are writing right.

I think one of the best pieces of advice I was given as I started out in my writing career was when an editor told me to write from the heart.

"If you do this," she said," then you will touch other hearts."

How very true. This was my encouragement to write with passion and purpose. When I get a little down and dejected because I have become too task oriented, I remember those great words and I get inspired all over again. Just remember there are no quick fixes in this profession but there are amazing results when you write from the heart.

Which is Which?

When you decide to write for children, there are some other things you need to think about. What kind of book will I write? Will it be a picture book? An early chapter book? A YA? Or maybe something in between. Here is a bit of an outline that will hopefully give you the general idea of where your story might work:

1.The Picture Book category is called such because the illustrations play a significant role in telling the story. Baby books and Toddler books are usually lullabies, nursery rhymes, fingerplays, or wordless books. The length and format varies with the content. For babies and toddlers the books are short, simple stories and usually range from 0-300 words
Picture books - typically picture story books are 32-page books for ages 4-8. Some publishers say ages 3-7 or even 5-9. It depends on the publisher. Word count is usually somewhere up to 1500 words, with 800-1000 words being the average length. Plots are not complicated and they have one main character who assumes the child's emotions, concerns and viewpoint. The illustrations and story share a 50/50 role. Usually the pictures are on every page or every other. Sometimes a picture book will exceed 1500 words; this is usually geared toward the upper end of the age groups and is the longer ones are often non-fiction. Nonfiction in the picture book format can go up to age 10, 48 pages in length, or up to about 2000 words of text. Early picture books are geared toward the lower end of the 4-8 age range and are simple stories under 1000 words.

Easy readers are for children just starting to read on their own (age 6-8). The books usually have color illustrations on every page like a picture book, but the format is more a little more mature and sometimes are broken into short chapters. They can be 32-64 pages long, with 200-1500 words of text, occasionally going up to 2000 words. The stories are told mainly through action and dialogue with one idea per sentence.
Books average 2-5 sentences per page.

Transition books or Early Chapter Books for ages 6-9 bridge the gap between easy readers and chapter books. They have the same style as easy readers but are longer - sometimes about 30 pages long with 2-3 page chapters.

Chapter books for ages 7-10 are 45-60 pages long and broken into 3-4 page chapters. Stories have a more intricate plot than transition books, though they still can contain a lot of action. The sentences can be longer but paragraphs are still short with 2-4 sentences being the average. Chapters often end in the middle of a scene to keep the reader turning the pages.

Middle Grade Books have the greatest readership. This age 8-12 age group is considered to be the golden age of reading. Stories are longer (100-150 pages,)and more complex with sub-plots involving secondary characters. The themes are more sophisticated. Readers at this stage and age enjoy good characters that they can relate to; they get hooked and want to read more. Series books are popular in this age group. Fiction genres range from contemporary to historical to science fiction/fantasy; nonfiction includes biographies, science, history and multicultural topics.

Young Adult for ages 12 and up, are longer stories, about 130 to 200 pages long. Plots can be complex with several major characters, though one character should emerge as the focus of the book. What do teens struggle with today? That's what YA novels need to encompass.

Twenty Snippets for a Children's Writer

1. Stop being an adult telling a story and become a child living it!

2. Don't expect perfection from your first - or even fifth - draft.

3. Give yourself permission to write badly!

4. Focus on being the best writer YOU can be.

5. Don't worry about being better or more prolific than someone else.

6. Forge a path for yourself, for your own creative journey. Don't feel you need to race against others.

8. Read, read, read

9. Study recent issues of publications that interest you if you want to write for a children's periodical.

10. Study the publishers' current and recent catalogs.

11. Attend a writer's conference.

12. Make connections.

13. Observe children; play with children; listen to children and discover what interests them.

14. Don't preach (intentionally)

15. Don't teach (intentionally)

16. Challenge a child with new vocabulary but make sure you are writing at the correct level.

17. Know your audience

18. Join a writer's group for critiquing and encouragement

19. Write

20. Pray. Pray again.