Month: June 2015

Revising Writing is Like Home Renovation: Structure, Finish Work, Cleaning

Home Renovation
Writing Revision is Like Home Renovation

Caveat: Writers Must Revise

Let’s assume you accept my position from last week’s post that writers must revise their work. Exactly how do you make your shitty first draft better?

Many writers wish for a magic wand Screen Shot 2015-06-22 at 1.10.56 AMto wave over the pages or the keyboard. Sorry, but Harry Potter has moved on to bigger and better projects. I can’t even give you a single, quick-’n’-dirty operation that will do the trick. Because revision isn’t something you do when you finish writing. Revision is really another stage of writing, itself, and can’t be rushed or superseded—or as we saw last week, skipped.

Writing is Revision

Writing isn’t simply the act of spewing ideas from your brain and printing them onto paper. It is the art of choosing just the right words and arranging them into the most appropriate syntaxes and rhythms, and then organizing those ideas into just the right structure to accomplish your purpose and connect with and move your reader. Writing is revision.

So I can’t offer you a quick fix. What I can tender is the time-tested revision process loved by writing instructors everywhere: Revise, Edit, Proofread. Continue reading Revising Writing is Like Home Renovation: Structure, Finish Work, Cleaning

If First Drafts Are Shit, Why Do Writers Hate to Revise?

Shitty First Draft

                                                                  Shitty First Draft?

So Much Poopy

“The first draft of anything is shit.” Attributed to Ernest Hemingway, these words have inspired admiring riffs by other writers. Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird, wrote, “The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.” Caleb Ross, author of Stranger Will, advised writers to “write your novel when you feel like shit; edit when you feel great.”

It Wasn’t Always So

So if your first draft is shitty, you must write a second. This idea is largely a construct of the modern era, something I didn’t know until reading “Revising Your Writing Again? Blame the Modernists,” by Craig Fehrman. My university students must have been throwbacks then, as they did everything but pay me to avoid revising. Continue reading If First Drafts Are Shit, Why Do Writers Hate to Revise?

Description Details: Let Your Phrases Multitask

Do your detail phrases multitask?
Do your detail phrases multitask?

Part 3 of 3: Add Detail to Your Descriptions

Here’s Part 3 of 3 on adding detail to your descriptions. Part 1 taught you the importance of using detailed sensory images, motion verbs, and concrete nouns to evoke a reader’s emotions. In Part 2, you learned how to layer details in appositive, noun, and verb phrases.

Phrases Multitask (Do Double Duty)

Today’s post continues the layering, showing you how to add adjective, adverb, and prepositional phrases. You’ll see that phrases often multitask, acting as one type of phrase in one sentence and a different type in another sentence. Continue reading Description Details: Let Your Phrases Multitask

Layer Details Like a Police Sketch Artist

Police Sketch Artist

Boise, Idaho, Police Sketch Artist Tonya Newberry

Part 2 of 3: Add Detail to Your Descriptions

As promised, here is Part 2 of our powwow on adding detail to your descriptions. In Part 1, we discussed the importance of using detailed sensory images, motion verbs, and concrete nouns to evoke a reader’s emotions.

One Detail at a Time

Think of your story as a blank slate to which you are adding details one at a time. It’s similar to the way a police sketch artist sits down with a crime victim and together they try to render the face of the attacker. The artist takes out pad and paper (or computer, nowadays!) and the subject describes the shape of the villain’s face and the size, shape, and color of his eyes. Next, she gives details about the size and shape of the rogue’s nose, mouth, eyebrows, and ears, and whether he had any facial hair or scars or identifying marks on his skin. Finally, the victim describes the criminal’s hair color, length, and style. At each step during the process, the artist adds another layer to his drawing until the likeness appears just as the crime victim remembers her attacker.

This is what you’ll do with your description—add layers one at a time until the description is just as you picture your character or scene. Continue reading Layer Details Like a Police Sketch Artist