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Look Universe….I’m Paying Attention!

Life is messy. This has never been so evident for me as it is right now. We have had a hectic year with grown children coming and going, grandkids introduced to the household then ripped away, gas prices, food prices, and prices in general, raising so much that, there are times when I have to make decisions between my medicine and food for the family. It’s enough to make you scream, and not write.

There is a silver lining too. This year has taught me a lot about myself and my writing. I believe that, for all the strife, I am also a better person and creative. There were lessons and I am finally at an age where I am actually taking note of those lessons. (When you are younger and in the, you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do mode, let’s be honest, the lessons often fall on deaf ears) I wanted to share some of those lessons, or realizations if you will, as they relate to my writing. Here are 10 things this year has taught me so far and how they have made me a better writer.

1. Perfection cannot be obtained -Trying to be the perfect writer takes something away from the process. It makes us feel inferior and desperate to “do better” instead of always doing our best. There is no perfect novel in the terms set forth by the industry, there is only unique and unique is good; it’s what we should all strive for.

2. Writing is an individual thing- There is also no perfect process to writing either because it is a very personal thing. While I might enjoy writing at 5 a.m. after a breakfast of Mountain Dew and Twinkies, you might not and that’s okay. (Although my cardiologist might disagree) Writing is an individual thing and sometimes you have to fit it into an already busy life…that’s okay. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

3. Other people will judge - Doing our best is what it is all about but, as a writer, we also have to accept that people will form opinions and some of them we won’t agree with. Judgment of others appears to be a condition of human nature and often times those judgments can be hurtful. We writers just have to accept the idea that people are people and they will judge; sometimes harshly. The key is not to allow their judgments to take away from who you are as a writer. Don’t take bad reviews or opinions personally; often times it’s the other person’s problem but, because we put ourselves out there by writing, we are easy targets.

4. No one else knows what’s right for you – I hate the word “should”. There is always someone else out there who thinks they know what we “should” do.  “Should” is often another way of saying, do it my way.  If you have a person telling you what you “should” do, use your noggin folks; think before you traipse into “should-land”. Once you get there, you may just find that you need to be in the land of I-knew-better-than-that” instead.

5. Tomorrow isn’t promised – My grandmother used to say this all the time and, I have to be honest, as a kid, it was annoying. She would see one of us putting off something that we were supposed to do and then she would smile knowingly and say, “you’d better do it now, tomorrow isn’t promised” and we would feel instant guilt and go do whatever chore it was that we wanted to put off. When I was a kid this was a tactic to get me to do chores, after my grandmother passed away it became a reality that couldn’t be ignored. I now apply this to my writing too. I write every day, even if it is for just a few minutes because tomorrow isn’t promised and once it is gone, it’s gone…no redo’s.

6. Learning isn’t a process; it’s a lifestyle- You’ve heard people say it throughout your life. Everyone from Oprah to Nelson Mandela has proclaimed it, learning is important and something you should never stop doing. I agree. As a writer learning is not only necessary but imperative. The day you stop learning, you may as well stop writing because writing is a process that becomes a part of who you are. Stop learning and you’ll find yourself with nothing to write about…guaranteed.

7. We are worthy- Value in one’s self is one of the most important parts of writing. Sound strange? It’s shouldn’t, because it is true. If you have no self-worth how are you expected to write anything that you believe someone else will want to read? Belief in ones’ self is step one to being strong enough to tell your story. A confident writer is a good writer. You are worthy of the respect you should get for doing what you do.

8. We are going to age and redefine ourselves- 365 days; that’s what we have to work with, every year. As the years pass we age, hopefully we mature, and along with learning to accept the fact that some guys never learn to put the toilet seat down, our writing should mature too. That doesn’t mean that a 50 something writer can’t write young adult novels, it just means that, as we mature, so should our understanding of what we do. We will also redefine ourselves throughout those years over and over again…and that’s okay. Today, I am not my 20 year old self, nor would I want to be and when I look back on my 20 year old writing, well…I’m glad that has grown up too. Embrace the changes that come with age; they are awesome!

9. We always have a choice on how we respond – I tell my kids that although I have raised them to the best of my ability, they always have a choice as to whether they go left or right, and that applies to every decision they will ever make. We writers will also have that choice in our writing life. We dictate how we respond. Just as no one can “make” you feel something; the term you make me mad is inaccurate, you “choose” to be mad. Mad is a reaction to what someone has done, how you react is on you. When someone is critical of your work, how you respond to that can make all the difference. Will you use it to be a better writer or will you allow it to stop you in your tracks? The choice is yours.

10. What we do matters- I watch this show that comes on Sunday nights, it’s called Prophets of Science Fiction. It is one of the coolest shows I have ever seen. Although I am not a sci fi writer, the show speaks to the writer in me. It showcases some of history’s greatest sci fi writers and how their writing could often be considered prophetic. Writers like Jules Verne and Isaac Asimov wrote about technology that wasn’t even in existence during the time of their writing. We could go into the whole art vs. life debate but I relate this to my last point, what we, as writers, do matters. People read what we write, whether it is articles in the local newspaper, a snippet in a newsletter for the Elks or a novel, write it and someone, somewhere, will read it and be affected by it. This is why being a responsible writer is so very important. Just as parents have to be conscious of what they do because there are little eyes on them emulating them, we writers have to be conscious of what we write too, because the eyes of the world are often on us. What you do matters folks…..

These are just some of the lessons 2012 has taught me and I’m sure there will be more to come. (That’s part of the whole “learning” thing) I welcome the chance to soak up the lessons in life and I would encourage you to do the same. While we enjoy our writing, it also has a lot to show us if we will only listen…….

 

© The Writer’s Advice, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

 

 

 
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Posted by on August 28, 2022 in Writing

 

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The 7 Deadly Sins of the Writer

Okay, let’s start by agreeing that, to some degree, sinning is fun. Maybe not altogether right, but fun just the same. Here we aren’t talking about that kind of sinning. Here we are talking about the kind of sinning that can kill a writing career. We all do them from time to time but just like regular sinning, i.e. greed, murder, sloth….all that stuff…(I don’t keep up on what the actual big 7 are, the less I know, the less likely I am to…well…you understand…) if you do them too much…well all hell will break loose.

 

 

 

Here are the 7 deadly sins of writing:

  1. Not Writing – No doubt the biggest sin a writer can commit is, well, not writing. We all do this from time to time. I am notorious for getting involved in other things and allowing my writing to fall by the wayside. (What is the wayside by the way?)  The only way to be a writer is to write. So not writing…huge sin!
  2. Not being Honest – Not being honest, especially with yourself, is so self-defeating for a writer. In the words of country singer Kenny Rogers (whom my mother still pines for) you gotta know when to hold em and know when to throw them away. If we aren’t honest about how our writing is going, we are wasting our time.
  3. Throwing punctuation to the wind – Let’s be honest here…(see number 2) punctuation is important no matter how you choose to write. I know, I know, what about that artsy fartsy way that folks are writing these days, you know, without the proper punctuation? Honestly? (see number 2) It’s crap. Some critic somewhere said, hey this is cool and others followed like lemmings over the cliff. Punctuation is important folks…use it.
  4. Not sticking up for yourself – Okay, I know…many of you are tilting your head sideways at this one and saying, “huh?” Hear me out…we, are writers, work hard and we work long hours trying to do what we do. Most people don’t get this. Ask my family…I have a son who thinks that he can drop his kids off with gramps any time because I work at home. The other day my middle son had the nerve to tell me how tired he was from bagging groceries for 6 hours when all I did was sit and write. My 12 year old daughter is pretty sure that whenever she needs something she can waltz into my office and announce that need and I am supposed to drop everything and make it so. These folks think that I am the Sulu of the household. (Star Trek reference there for the clueless or very young) It’s frustrating and one of the worse things I can do is give in. Once you give in, it’s all over. When everyone else is poo-pooing what you do…tell them to cut it out.
  5. Not believing in your work – Here is the thing, as with anything else; if you don’t believe in your work it will turn out to be crap. You, the writer, have to believe that the stories you tell are the stories people need to hear. You have to believe in what you do, if you don’t know one else will either. Be your own cheering section.
  6. Organize damn it – One of the worse things you can do to yourself is ignore organization. I truly believe that God (disclaimer here…or whatever you believe in) had a pie chart, a white board, an outline and backstories for everything already done before he ever said let there be light. He’d have to right? Not being organized and throwing everything on the table hoping that it will resemble something is just plain ignorant. Organize your writing life and it will love you for it as well as be productive.
  7. Not living like a writer – This is by far, in my mind, the largest of the 7 sins. I am here to tell you folks, if you don’t live like a writer, you’ll never be a writer. What do I mean by “live like a writer”? Simple, guys who are cops live the life of a cop. You won’t find them hanging out in the bad parts of town picking up hookers….they are cops for Pete’s sake. Medical people live the life of medical folks…choking in a restaurant? A medical person will save your behind no matter what happens because they are compelled to. You are a writer…don’t make excuses for it…do it and then make people respect it by respecting it yourself. When people ask me what I do, I say, “I’m a writer”…sure most folks follow that answer up with a look of skepticism but I don’t care…it’s what I do, it’s who I am…and I dare anyone to argue the point with me. You have to be like that too. I love book stores; buying pens and software that makes my writing more productive and that’s okay…I’m a writer. So put up all that writing stuff in your home office and watch The Shipping News as many times as you want….it’s okay.

These are the 7 deadly sins and trust me; if you continually breech any of them…you will fail as a writer. Take heed fellow writers…if you are a writer and you are not doing it…you will actually go to hell…well the writer’s hell anyways…the one where the world passes you by while you sit drowning in your beer watching someone else get published.

© The Writer’s Advice, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

 
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Posted by on June 25, 2022 in Writing

 

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USE YOUR WORDS!

Okay, so I stole this from my mom who used to bellow it out whenever one of us kids was making more noise than necessary to get a point across. It works for today’s column too. Let’s take a moment to discuss SEO writing.

Search engine optimization (SEO), in a nutshell, is all about internet traffic. It is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines by placing words that help seekers find your stuff.  In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. Sound complicated? It’s not….at least not for us writers.

A lot of the time folks over think the whole SEO concept when it comes down to something quite simple…using your words. I have a bit of a pet peeve when I see an article written that is “SEO saturated” (just the phrase screams, “you are doing it all wrong”) Those pieces tend to be so repetitive in what the writer is trying to say that it is no longer an article but instead a list of SEO desired words. This is so NOT necessary. Write your article just as you normally would…the search engine will pick it up. Writing a phrase or a word into an article 900 times will not make it more searchable…in fact, today’s search engines are being designed to see overly repetitive articles as spam. All that hard work making your article suck for nothing….

I know, I know…I have heard all those people out there in internet-land touting the importance of using SEO saturation in articles that go on the web…it’s all hooey. It’s just another way for so called “professionals” to get your money for showing you how to do what you already know…write. So when you are creating those blog pieces, or writing for that website…don’t sacrifice quality for SEO sats….repetitive words are going to bring people to your work…good writing will.

 

© The Writer’s Advice, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

 
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Posted by on June 12, 2023 in Structure, Writing, Writing Tools

 

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Book Parenting 101- Give Us a Hug

Writing is a very personal thing. Me? I love my writing. Not in that narcissistic way that Kayne West loves himself, but in a warm fuzzy way…a way that says, I worked hard to create you and now, whenever you need a hug…I’m here.

Our work as writers is akin to a God-like creative process. We are setting the scene, creating the characters and putting them in situations just as I imagine the Almighty must do. (If you believe in that sort of thing of course) We also suffer the disappointments when those little created worlds don’t do well. And when we send them out into the world…well…some of us even cry. (Not me of course, but some writers…wimps)

Taking all of this into consideration I want to propose something that may help your writing…if you love it…it will do well out in the world, just like your kids. When creating a story you must care about it in every way. You have to care about the characters even if you enjoy a love-hate relationship with your villains. You have to want to continue the story. You have to want to see the ending…good or bad. You must feel affection for the hero of your story; if you don’t he/she will give up on you too.  Here’s the thing, you can’t create something that other people love if you don’t love it too. It’s called emotional transference and it will happen to your story. If you hate it, it will fall flat. If you don’t enjoy writing it, you will find all the reasons in the world not to write it at all.

I have had one or two stories that I grew to despise. One of them I even finished…forced of course…and it didn’t do well on the shelves at all. That was my fault…I should have never forced the characters to march on to the end knowing that they were going to be subjected to my own self-hatred for having even taken the journey. I owed them more than that. Here’s the rub…I REALLY liked the characters but now, I can’t truly use them because I shoved them into a sad sack story and shoved them out into the world….and it sucks because I could have used them in a story that actually worked.

Just like being parents requires us to love and nurture our kids, we writers have to do the same with our stories. Those pages need love and care…they need someone who will look out for them and make sure that they are not going to end up in Half Price Books…the foster program for all books that end up unwanted or un-enjoyed. And you know what happens to “fostered” books, don’t you? They end up balancing Aunt Freda’s coffee table…the one that Uncle Joe built with the uneven legs… So if you are working on a novel that is falling flat…stop it…you owe those characters more than a half-assed attempt to breathe life into them. You owe them the whole story and the love that is supposed to come with having written them into existence. Be a good book parent darn it…hug that book and show it some love at the keyboard.

 

 

© The Writer’s Advice, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

 

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Those Baby Seals are Quite the Party Animals with the Wrong Punctuation

I do a lot of my writing in a lot of different word processing programs. I use MS Word, but it makes me feel like I am behind the times when I do. I use Scrivener because it is cool and then there are the hundreds of iPad word processing programs that I am still shifting through. I have one wish for all those programs though…that they would help with punctuation.

MS Word says that it does but that is a lie. It helps with spelling for the most part but when it comes to grammar and punctuation the program is random at best. Scrivener does a little as well but it is also random. It makes me wonder why a program can’t be created that helps with punctuation and grammar all the time…wouldn’t that be great.

I am not horrible when it comes to punctuation but, as I admitted before, I am comma dysfunctional. And every now and again I will put the period in the wrong place when using quotes…I think that is a doing things too fast issue. The thing is; all writers make mistakes. Those who tell you they don’t are self-righteous idiots. Either you are typing too fast, not paying attention or you just plain have some area of punctuation that you lack in, (such as my comma thing) but all writers do it. That doesn’t make you a bad writer…it makes you human…

Until they create that program that takes care of the punctuation for all of us, we, as writers, have to practice good editing and slow down a bit. We have to make sure that we are mindful of the areas where we lack and make up for that with some good reading skills. Practice makes perfect sometimes but, at other times, just pay attention. Hopefully, one day some lowly programmer will hear our cries and come to the rescue of those poor clubbing seals….

 

 

© The Writer’s Advice, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

 
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Posted by on June 2, 2023 in punctuation, Writing

 

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Don’t Mess with Me…I Know Words!

When was the last time you used a new word in your vocabulary? When I was a kid my mom used to make us look up a new word every day and at the end of the day we had to tell her what it meant and use it in a sentence. We always figured that it was some form of torture that all parents enjoy, (like feeding you bologna sandwiches)  but as it turns out, she did us a favor, because now-a-days when I hear someone trying to use words that they don’t understand …well…that’s true torture.

I know some of you have friends like this…they speak in vocabulary speak and use the words all wrong. Or they make up new words and try and convince you that, no, you are the stupid one because you don’t know the word “discombobulation”. (sure I do, it means, “to be without boobs…right?) These people don’t actually have a large vocabulary, they just pretend to. It’s their way of trying to show how smart they are. In the case of the writer, they use the big words in their writing which makes for a real snooze-fest of a book.

I’m not saying never use big words…it’s good to throw one in there now and again just to make your readers think that you really do have that MFA, but most every writer knows the general “big word rule”…write towards an 8th grade level. If you write towards an 8th grade level, your book will appeal to darn near everyone, which is what you want; the more people who can read your book, the better for you in terms of your wallet. (Simple equation…8th grade understanding= more people=more money)

So put that dictionary up and stop looking up words in the Thesaurus (That word always brings to mind dinosaurs for me…it’s a large plant eating animal that has big feet…a thesaurus…) If you use the really big words, you readers will snore and if you don’t use those big words correctly, your readers will call you a fraud. It’s better to stick to the path and use words we all understand. Besides, when I read a book, I don’t want to have to use a dictionary as a concordance. I want to read….don’t make me work.

 

 

© The Writer’s Advice, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

 
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Posted by on May 18, 2023 in Structure, Writing

 

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Shut up Already

Dialogue. How do you know when you’ve used it too much? The answer, like most answers, can be found in everyday life with a bit of common sense. You know when you talk too much…people get that glazed-over look in their eyes or they start looking around the room for a distraction that will hopefully help keep them awake. If you are a normal person, you stop talking, apologize for boring them and move on…if you aren’t normal, you talk faster, as if doing so will regain your audience’s attention. Sadly writers tend to do the same thing.

Dialogue is necessary. If your characters don’t talk, your story is just a bundle of scenes with a bunch of mimes. But some writers go overboard. They have dialogue on every page, as if doing so earns them points. There are no points for talking your reader to death…just the steady rejection of yet another boring novel that isn’t telling a story at all but ends up a creepy voyeuristic look into another world. Your reader will feel less like they are immersed in a story and more like they are a peeper watching stuff happen with no sound. (in a bad way)

But how much dialogue is too much? Well, remember that friend you have? You know the one; he/she talks so much that you can’t get a thought in let alone an actual sentence. I have a good friend, who is like that; we have been friends since kindergarten, and she talks so much that I even hate to get a text from her because her texts rattle on for days. Our conversations are usually one sided and she rattles on so much that I literally stopped listening to her in 1982. (She, of course, does not realize this at all and just soldiers on) I love my friend but try as I might, I just can’t join her on that runaway conversation train. Your readers won’t enjoy that train ride either.

Dialogue should support the story not the other way around. If the conversation would bore you senseless in real life, it will also bore your readers. Use dialogue the right way and your characters will add to the story instead of taking it over. Write too much dialogue and there is no room for anything else to happen. When you start writing dialogue…step back in the editing process and ask yourself, “am I prattling on?” If you are…shut up…or that snoring you will hear in your dreams will be your readers…sleeping….and not buying your next book.

 

© The Writer’s Advice, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

 

 
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Posted by on May 16, 2023 in Structure, Writing

 

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The Rule of Thumb is ….Use Your Fingers

Rules…. I almost don’t have to say anything else. I can hear many of you cringing as you read the word out loud. Do you know why? Because rules, while necessary in things like gravity and physics, can hold a writer down and that sucks.

Seasoned writers, (another phrase that describes know-it-all-I-published-one-book-so-I’m-great writers) will fill your head with all kinds of rules. Some of them make sense but then there are others that you kind of have to cock your head to one side and ask, huh? For instance:

Don’t ever edit your first draft: Here’s the thing…you should not focus on editing your first draft but you still can. I admit that there are times when I go back over a scene and feel the need to clarify before moving on. That’s okay. Don’t get bogged down by editing on the first draft but nothing earth shattering will happen if you do edit.

Stay with one POV: While staying with one POV can make you novel easy, sometimes shifting it can be fun. Don’t get me wrong…you have to have an understanding of what you are doing if you choose to switch POV within your story but the rule that you shouldn’t is crap. Ask yourself, does following this rule strengthen my work? If it doesn’t, trash it.

Rules, when it comes to writing, should be fluid. There are times when following them will make your work better. However, there are also times when breaking them will make it better; either way, it is a personal decision, so don’t let some yahoo who has published a book or two tell you different. The way I see it, it’s simple….if breaking the rules will make my novel better, then by Pete, I’m gonna break em…in fact, I just might break em all.

 

© The Writer’s Advice, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

 
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Posted by on May 15, 2023 in Writing, Writing Tools

 

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Practice Safe Text

We are writers. Because we are writers, we need to make sure that all of the things we write are indicative of what we do. What does that mean exactly? The short version? If you are writing it, make sure you proof read…even if it’s a simple text. I hate to text. I have no nimble coordination…meaning, as my grandmother used to put it, I use my hands like a man, and I have a great lack of patience when it comes to how long it takes me to write them. I often get caught up in the spell correct feature…(piece of shut!) and I tend to hit the send button before realizing that I should have looked at what I had written. (It can go very, very bad when you send a text to the wrong person…) Even though I hate to text, I know that I need to slow down and do it correctly because I am a writer and for a writer to send out a text that has no punctuation let alone misspellings…well…it’s just shameful.

Because we are writers every little thing we jot down is an open target for non-writers. “Hey you sent me that e-mail and there were 17 misspellings…and you call yourself a writer”, non-writers love to clown us when we screw up. It makes them feel better about being non-writers. And it is human nature to make fun of people who are “supposed” to be good at something but then mess it up, like the basketball star who misses the basket…there is always some fat guy in the crowd holding a bucket of chicken in one hand and a 40 oz. beer in the other screaming…”hey big shot why’d you miss the basket”. (I think people like that ought to be ejected from the game for stupidity…but then who would go to the live games and entertain us by making idiots out of themselves on national TV?)

We do a lot of writing every day that we don’t even realize we are doing. E-mails, text messages, notes, grocery lists, to do lists…it goes on and on and all of it is writing. Since we are writers, all of it is also open to scrutiny. Case in point, I made a grocery list the other day so that my spouse could go to the store after work. I wrote it quickly so my handwriting, which is small and messy, was already working against me. I misspelled cheese (Cheeze), tomato (tomoto) and Canadian bacon (bacoan). In my defense, I was in a hurry and trying to get to other things I needed to do, but my 11 year old daughter was the one who brought the misspellings to my attention. Now I don’t know if any of you have a pre-teen in the house but there are days around here I’d rather have a house full of raptors (the mean little dinosaurs) because they can be nicer. At least these guys kill you and get it over with…the 11 year old seems to enjoy the torture factor.  Well, she found the spelling errors and when they got back from the store she took a red ink pen and lined through the misspelled words, correcting them off to the side. She handed it back to me and announced that I needed to edit my work better. My spouse stood off to the side and said, “awww, look at that honey, she’s your little editor”, little editor my ass…..

So next time you are about to send a text or an e-mail or anything else that requires the use of words…stop and edit it before pushing that send button. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did…because being handed your pen, and your pride, to you by an 11 year old is no fun at all. Just remember, you are a writer…and because of that…someone is always watching.

 

© The Writer’s Advice, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

 
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Posted by on May 14, 2023 in Writing

 

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A Sandwich Always Requires a Good Amount of Meat

I love a good sandwich. Give me a good sandwich, a handful of chips and an Izze and life is good. But here’s the thing, screw up that sandwich and I will be one unhappy camper; especially if you skimp on the meat. I like my meat, it’s what gives the sandwich it’s A rating. Skimp on the meat and all you have is two lonely pieces of bread, some mayo and perhaps a depressing little dab of mustard….what you don’t have is a sandwich.

Stories are just like a sandwich. (Bear with me) You have two pieces of bread…the beginning and the ending…., you have mayo…the description and “dressing” of your story and you have that dab of mustard, something for a little spice and/or mystery. Then there is the meat…the thing that makes your story a story. The meat of your story is what makes it’s all worthwhile. It’s why we came…it’s why we ordered the sandwich…we wanted the meat.

I have read a lot of writers over the years that have plenty of mayo and even more mustard than you can shake a stick at but they left out the meat. Their story is intertwined with description so clear that you can see the places they describe in your mind when you close your eyes. But as you read the story you quickly realize that there is no actual substance to the story. It’s all condiments…who wants just the condiments? (Besides my 2 year old grandson who thinks that ranch dressing is a side dish) A story has to have the whole package. It has to be the foot long sub, the Swiss, rye and corned beef, the BLT with extra “B”. Let’s face it, anything less wouldn’t be a sandwich…ummm…I mean story; you get the picture.

So while you are pounding away at the keyboard this week working on that novel that’s gonna make us all rich…don’t forget to beef up your story so that it has substance. Make those main characters strong parts of your story, focus you main storyline so that the reader feels compelled to read on. You don’t want to feed your readers condiments…if you do…they will just find another deli. (Gotta go, I’m hungry now…)

 

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Posted by on May 13, 2023 in Plot, Structure, Writing

 

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