At The Write Practice, we publish a new article each day designed to help writers tackle one part of their writing journey, from generating ideas to grammar to writing and publishing your first book. Each article has a short practice exercise at the end to help you immediately put your learning to use.
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Valentine’s Day is one of those love-hate holidays, but no matter how you feel about this week’s special day, the theme of love provides endless inspiration for writing.
There are many types of love stories—ones about first love, second-chance love, forbidden love, unrequited love. But what is it about first love that makes such an impact on us, both in our real-life experiences and in written form?
A simile, as our fourth-grade English teachers intoned, is a comparison of two, usually dissimilar, objects, with the use of “like” or “as.” To enliven our writing, similes can evoke the particular sense we want to transmit. Many of our most now-trite similes were fresh when first used—Burns’ “my love is like a red, red rose,” Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” But repetition and endless assignment in freshman English classes has made them as shopworn as the bargain table after a sale.
In a few months I’m releasing my first book, a memoir titled Packing Light: Thoughts on Living Life with Less Baggage. One of the difficulties I encountered while writing was: how am I supposed to tell my story in an honest way, while still protecting the people and relationships involved?
I don’t think I’m alone in this dilemma.
Today, I’m thrilled to be talking to Seth Godin, bestselling author of Permission Marketing, Tribes, and many others. Forbes calls Seth a “demigod on the web,” and when I’m feeling uninspired and creatively drained, I often read through Seth’s blog and come away feeling refreshed and ready to create.
Seth Godin’s most recent book, The Icarus Project, is a dare to make art and share it with the world. I personally found The Icarus Project a challenge to finish because I got so many new ideas for how to approach my writing that I had trouble sitting still to read.
Enjoy the interview!
Earlier this week, we discussed framing devices, and how they can determine whatever a past-tense, first-person narrator can die or not. Today, we conclude with the other factors: time frames, and the broadcasting theory.
It’s said that when Harriet Beecher Stowe visited the White House to meet President Lincoln, he looked at her and said, “So, you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War.”
All writers want their work to have influence. I wanted my writing to move people, evoke emotions in them, and, most of all, call them to action, but I didn’t believe it was possible. Before I could believe, I needed to find the answers to a couple questions.
Stowe’s writing can start a war to end slavery, but what can my writing start? How do I write to start a change?
Every once in a while, I hear a writer say something like, “I don’t need to read. I’m too busy writing to read.” Stephen King would have something to say to this, but I keep quiet. Writing is hard enough. I don’t want to make it harder.
For me, though, reading inspires, instructs, and helps me connect with other authors more than any other habit.
Some books on writing claim that a past-tense, first-person narrator can’t be killed off during the story. The reasoning is that if your narrator is narrating in the past tense, he has to be alive at the end of the story, or he wouldn’t be telling it.
Is that true or false?
It’s complicated, but it’s not 100% true.
If you want to learn how to be a super hero, you need an alter ego, but alter egos are everywhere, not just among those with super powers. The protagonist in your novel, whether super or not so much, can have an alter ego, too. In fact, alter egos are a great characterization strategy.
In short stories and novels, fantasy in particular, readers want to be present or transported to the scenes of the story. One of the best ways to do such a feat is to ‘Evoke the Emotions and Employ the Senses.’
Poetry should be no different.
