Flex Your Writing Muscles

 

Life is full of choices. I think often of Robert Frost's poem that tells us of two roads diverging in a yellow wood, and the poet said he took the one less traveled by. But don't we always wonder if this choice would be better than that choice or another one? 

For a writing exercise today, look at the four photos. Each of them is somewhere you can walk. Two have water while the others are filled with green trees. What is your choice? Where would you prefer to walk? A, B, C or D? 

Choose one and write a paragraph or several paragraphs about the photo you liked best. Study the photo and ask yourself a few questions. What sounds are there? What is the weather like; air temp? Are you going to meet someone? Does a person appear coming toward you? Does the weather make a distinct change? Can you smell anything? Are you happy on this walk? Or are you despondent? Do you have a destination in mind? Or are you walking aimlessly? Are you hungry? Thirsty? Barefoot or wearing shoes? 

Think about all those questions before you begin to write. Hopefully, you'll end up with the beginning of a story, or even a piece of flash fiction. Or a bit of memoir. There is no limit to where you can go with this exercise. 

If you enjoyed one, try another with the same questions and see what happens. Remember that writing exercises allow you to flex your writing muscles in any way you like. Let your creativity flow.

Using The Sense of Touch in Your Writing

That feels good!

I've been posting about the senses that we use in our writing off and on the past few months. Today, let's look at the sense of touch and how we can use it in our stories and essays, even poems. 

Think of the many different feelings we get when we touch various things. Some are pleasant while others are abhorrent. The little cat in our photo looks pretty contented at the touch of his human, doesn't he? I imagine the human is also enjoying connecting with the cat's soft coat. 

Here's a list of things we might like to touch: 

• a satin coverlet
• a fleece shirt
• velvet
• a dog
• a cat
• a rabbit
• any animal with a fur coat, as long as it is tame
• smooth wood

Another list of things we might not enjoy touching: 

• a porcupine
• sandpaper
• a gooey spill
• mud
• prickly pear cactus
• hot stove
• a bed of nails
• an iceberg

For an exercise, write something descriptive about each of the above showing how you feel as you touch each one. You may think of others to use, as well.

For velvet, you might write something like Rose slipped the midnight blue dress over her head and zipped it up the back. She ran her hands over the fabric and smiled as she touched the soft cloth. 

Adding the last part shows you that she liked the dress, liked the feel of the velvet. It adds something more instead of just saying that she put the dress on and zipped it. 

Adding sensory details to your writing makes the story, or whatever it is, far more interesting to the reader. It allows them to connect better. After all, they've experienced those sensory items and can identify immediately. 

The Taste of a Lemon and Other Things, Too

Last week, I offered a post on the sense of hearing with an exercise to help writers develop that sense in their writing. If you missed it, read it here. Today, let's look at the sense of taste. After all, Americans are going to be tasting a lot of foods in a couple of days as we celebrate Thanksgiving.

When we write about food, we don't want to be generic and say The pie tasted good. or This lemon is sour. Go for more than that. The pie tasted sweet and creamy, sliding smoothly down my throat. or My lips puckered and my eyes watered as I stuffed the half-lemon into my mouth with a grimace.

Write a line or two about each of the tastes below. It's not only food that we taste. 

• toothpaste
• gravy
• chocolate chip cookies
• cough syrup
• Coconut cream pie
• chocolate
• hot peppers
• chewing gum
• cigarette
• mashed potatoes
• cranberry sauce
• cinnamon
• licorice
• beer
• ice cream

Have you noticed that your taste changes as you move from childhood to adulthood and even on to senior citizen status? Things I hated as a child are some of my favorites now. Do our taste buds actually mature? 

For a second exercise, write a paragraph about the taste you like most and the one you dislike so much it makes you shudder. 

Can You Smell That?

A Happy Smell

A Nasty Smell

I read an article about memoir writing the other day. One small section has stayed with me, keeps popping into my mind off and on. It's a very small part of writing memoir that could be applied in fiction writing, personal essays and poetry, as well.

Smell! That's what has been on my mind. Writers know that the sensory details they include bring life to their writing and allows the reader to relate easily. Narrow it down to smell for today. 

When you reach  back into your memory bank, what smells from you childhood do you think of? Which ones, good and bad, stand out? Is it the perfume Great Aunt Nettie always wore? Or the smell of the barn that Grandpa carried with him through his work day? What about the aromas in your mom's kitchen on Thanksgiving Day? Did your grandmother use a certain floor cleaner that you can smell to this very day? 

Here's a list of smells, odors, or aromas that I remember from years ago:

• the big jar of paste at school that the teacher used to fill smaller jars
• chlorine at the swimming pool
• baking in my mom's kitchen--cookies, pies, yeast breads, cakes and more
• gasoline at the station when Dad filled the gas tank in our car
• a red floor oil tht my Great Aunt Jane used on her wood floors
• the real Christmas tree we had every year
• meat roasting in the oven
• the fresh smell after a spring rain
• carnations--they had a sweet, spicy scent unlike the ones today that have no aroma
• sheets dried on a clothesline
• Vicks Vapo-rub that Mom rubbed on our chests when we had a cold
• the special aroma found the minute we walked into a Fannie Mae chocolate shop
• old books
• coffee that my parents drank daily
• a mingling of wonderful aromas in the back room of my grandma's bakery
• the after-smell of a cap gun being shot
• bubble gum
• bleach and bluing my mother used in the laundry
• disinfectant used in the restrooms at school
• ink used in a mimeograph machine
• baby brothers' diapers
• leaves burning in the fall

Make your own list. I'm sure you'll duplicate some of mine but also add others. Your list may trigger memories that can be used when you write a new memoir piece, a personal essay or even a fiction short story. Include the way the smell affected you and your reaction.

Exercise for Today:  Take note of smells as you go about your daily routine. How many different ones have you encountered in one day? Keep a list, then write something about each one.

Showing, Telling, Emotions and More in Writing

Here it is once again. Showing or Telling. No matter how many times writers are urged to show rather than tell, too many continue to tell the tale. Some even write a story like it was a report. This happened, then this happened and on and on. 

When the reader finishes the story, he/she might feel like the story was a report in a newspaper. Journalists are taught to relate the facts. They don't worry about the reader feeling the story. But those who write fiction or creative non-fiction, need to learn to show far more than they tell to bring out feeling in their readers.

I need to back up a bit. There are journalists who write human interest stories that bring us far more than the facts. They delve into the personal side of a factual story. Even in those articles, I find more telling than showing but I have also been moved by what was written.

If you write a scene and say that a strong wind blew as Ellen walked.  it's telling. If you write the scene and say something like Ellen bent over and put one heavy foot in front of the other. She moved slowly into the wind, squinting her eyes to keep the dirt away. Her hair whipped wildly around her face as the force of the wind increased. The reader is far more likely to understand what Ellen experienced. 

As a reader, I am almost always going to feel more emotion if you show me what the character is enduring or experiencing. Just tell me about it and my reaction might be, Okay, what's next? But if you show me and let me feel what the character is feeling, I might find the same emotion as that character, whether it be love, joy, fear or anger. 

When you read a book that is hard to put down, the author has probably written so that you are living the story with the characters. He/she didn't just relate a story, step by step. 

If the writer doesn't put some emotion into his/her writing--helped by showing rather than telling--the reader is not going to have any emotion either. When someone in my writing group subs a story, she will often ask those critiquing if the emotion came through. Writers know that is important but they don't always achieve it to their own satisfaction.

The same situation is true when using sensory details. As the quote above says, the fact that it is raining is just that--a fact. And the author told you that. If you can write the scene with enough sensory details so that the reader can feel that rain, then you've achieved something all writers hope to do.

After you've written a chapter or a long scene, put it away for a day or two. Read it later with an objective eye, the way your readers might see it. How much did you tell? How much did you show and bring out emotion and sensory details that help the reader feel what the characters feel? You're still in the midst of writing so it can be fixed if you're willing to take the time and make the effort required. 

The Icing On The Cake

Today's post is an article that I wrote for a Children's Writer's Newsletter a few years ago. Although originally geared to people who write for children, the information works just as well for those who write for adults. I interviewed two people I considered experts in their field for the article. 

The Icing On The Cake
By Nancy Julien Kopp

A cake with no icing is about as appealing as toast with no butter. The
basic food is there, but the special something that makes it taste so good
is missing. The icing makes the cake sweeter, prettier, and more
appealing. A story may have a good plot but without the little extra, it
may end up being rather ordinary.

Sensory details enhance a story like the icing on that cake. We use our
five senses hundreds of times a day without being conscious of doing so.
Think about the many every day things you do that involve your senses.
When you look out your kitchen window and see a bird, your mind registers
more than the fact that you saw a bird. You know that it is a bird, you
know the color, the size, and perhaps the sound it makes, you know how
soft the feathers would feel if you stroked it. We see, hear, smell, taste
and touch with our daily experiences, so why not include them in our stories?

Children relate to things in their personal surroundings. They know that
the bristles of a brush might feel scratchy. They squeal with delight at
the sound of the ice cream vendor, and they wrinkle their noses when
taste-testing a new food not to their liking. Include these experiences in
the stories they read, and you could end up being a sought-after
author-the writer who made the story come alive.

Margaret Shauers, author of many children's stories and regular columnist
at Write4Kids, says "The way humans communicate is through shared
experiences and emotions, and we experience life through the five senses."
Ms Shauers has a word of warning. "We rely too much on sight and need to
hone our skills at the other four. Keeping a sense diary helps-a short
sentence or two about each sense every day." She admits that it is easiest
to include sight and sound in children's stories. Touch runs a close
third, but taste and smell are senses she must concentrate on when she writes.

Look at the sentences below. Which example in each set is more interesting?>

1.  Sam saw a big wave.  Or   Sam's heart leaped in his chest when he
spied the huge wall of water headed his way-taller than his basketball
goal at home.

A few added words allows the reader to see the wave headed for Sam.

2.  Sally heard thunder.    Or   Sally covered her ears when thunder
boomed overhead and echoed across the prairie. The wind whistled through
the tall grasses as she raced toward home.

We know that the noise is very loud if Sally has covered her ears, and we
can discern the sound in the grass, too, through the active verb form.

3.  The dead mouse smelled bad.    Or    The rotten stench of the dead
mouse made Susie gag, and clap her hand over her nose and mouth.

Gagging and covering her nose and mouth illustrates the nasty smell so
much better than simply telling the reader the mouse smelled.

4.  Tommy didn't like the vegetable.    Or    The slimy, green spinach sat
on Tommy's tongue and refused to move any farther. He'd never be able to
swallow the bitter stuff.

Here we not only know what the taste is, but we can also see the vile
veggie Tommy is trying to eat.

5.  Jody petted the cat.  Or   Jody giggled when the cat's soft fur
tickled her hand as she stroked him.

The sense of both touch and hearing are evident in this last sentence.

Did you notice that the first sentence in each group was a telling
sentence, while the next one showed what happened. Using sensory details
remedies too much telling.

Picture book author, Barbara Santucci, pays close attention to sensory
details in her three picture books--Anna's Corn, Loon Summer, and Abby's Chairs.
Ms Santucci says "The more sensory details we include, the richer our
writing becomes, and the more able we are to show and not tell the story
plot and the emotions we are trying to convey." Anna's Corn is a story
built around the sound of corn growing in Anna's grandfather's field.
There is, of course, a good deal more to the story, but the music of the
corn Anna remembers figures strongly in this tale of loss.

Ms. Santucci adds "Our writing should create concrete and vivid images in
the minds of readers that help them experience the emotions of the
characters, thereby creating a mind and heart connection between the story
and the reader."

That "mind and heart connection" is what a children's author strives for.

Adding lively sensory details will achieve that connection more easily.
For most of us, it's not a given. We need to practice writing those
sensory details so that they become second nature when writing a new
children's tale. Let sight, sound, smell, taste and touch be the icing on
the cake in your stories.

Exercises:
   

* Keep a Sense Diary. Write a short sentence or two about each sense
      daily.
    * Practice writing phrases that include sensory details
    * Watch for sensory details when you read.
    * Be observant. Take note of the sensory details in your daily life.

Make a Good Story Better

I am part of a website where writers can post their work. It's a site where the level of writing runs from basic beginner to polished professional. Readers can leave comments and a tally is kept of how many hits each posting receives. I read as many of the stories as I have time for, and I  post one now and then, too.

Recently, I read two stories that might be classified as memoir, but they were worlds apart for one simple reason. Story number one told about a move made by the author's family when she was around twelve. It was interesting because she was able to bring out the way of life at that time, the kind of houses and that they'd lived near the railroad tracks. She told about her mother's reaction to the house, the bare light bulb in the middle of the ceiling in every room, and the lack of plumbing.

Story number two was a simple slice of life about ice cream that delved into the author's boyhood and then into the period he had small children and up to today when he shares the treat with grandchildren. Again, it held my interest.

But the two stories were worlds apart in one particular way. The first one lacked sensory details. The writer reported what happened. If she'd used sensory details, she'd have brought us tumbling back through the years to experience the whole episode with her. Living near the railroad tracks allowed for using the sense of sound. Think of those long, low train whistles, or the clack of wheels on the tracks. Then, there's the special smell of the old trains. The house she describes could have been brought to life by illustrating the sense of touch--perhaps the worn smooth doorknob, or the rough, warped front door.

The second writer filled his story with sensory detail. He had me licking my lips as he described eating the ice cream. And I don't even like ice cream! Because of the extra element of using the senses in his writing, his story came alive. It allowed the reader to live it with him.

Pay close attention to sensory detail in your writing. It can make a good story better.