Life is a Compass

I wrote this poem at a poetry workshop I went to. The person’s life in this poem is not my own except for one or two points. I won’t say which points they are just to keep you guessing…Goldie

My life is a compass pointing in different directions

North the upward things
My children, happy childhood, carefree


South is downwards
Divorce, depression, disaster
Why does this have to happen?
Do these things build my character?
Make me stronger?
I hope so!
Then the pain is worthwhile


East is sunshine on a beautiful day
A walk in the park hand in hand with my lover
A child skipping on a footpath
Then tottering in Grandmas’s high heeled shoes
Being met at the airport by my Grandfather – a WW1 veteran
The nicest man that ever lived, one of nature’s gentlemen


Finally west is the sunset of my life
The autumn has passed and winter is here

Let Walk-on Characters Enrich Your Scenes

Let Walk-on Characters Enrich Your Scenes

If in Doubt, Leave it Out by Rob Parnell

You probably won't be surprised to learn I read a lot of unpublished manuscripts. I also read a lot of published work. Are there some glaring differences between the two? You betcha.

The fact is most beginning writers write too much. That's okay for the first draft but when it comes to editing, you need to give that delete key a thorough work out!

Good writing is about pacing, about taking the reader on a journey and keeping in step with them along the way.

If you get the pacing wrong, the reader will stumble and begin to lose interest because it will seem you are more interested in writing the words than telling the story or relaying the information.

Here's some tips on how to cut down on unnecessary verbiage!

The Art of Description

With the advent of global communication and visual media, we all know what most things and even most places look like. It's no longer necessary to spend more than a couple of sentences establishing what things are, where scenes are set and what the weather is like, if that's important for mood.

Many readers nowadays will actually skip descriptive passages because they find them dull and interrupt the flow of the text. So don't beat yourself up over getting all the details across - that's what the reader's imagination is for!

Qualify That

Sometimes we write scenes etc. we're not sure the reader will understand - so we add extra words to explain ourselves, resulting in more confusion than clarity. For instance, look at this:

"With the divorce weighing on his mind, and his fears about losing his job, John was having difficulty deciding what to do with himself. Could he face going out, knowing that Pete would probably spend the evening ribbing him over his his inability to get along with his boss and his problems with his estranged wife?"

Clearly this is clumsy and confusing to read. Much better to remove the qualifiers and simplify:

"The divorce was weighing on his mind - and his job. Did he want to go out? John wasn't sure. Pete would probably just want to rib him."

In the above version, even though the propositions are only loosely defined - the reader still gets it. You don't always need to explain every little nuance to get a point or two across. Quite the opposite in fact.

Room to Breathe?

When you write you make a contract with your reader - whom you must regard as your equal. Not someone who is slow to understand and needs to be carefully led, shown everything and generally talked down to.

It's perfectly okay to leave out obvious - and therefore redundant - details. You don't always have to explain exactly who said what, what happened where, why and how long.

Too many new writers clog up their stories with unnecessary backstory, linking scenes, plot justifications and long complicated explanations of things the reader already regards as clear.

If you write with honesty and intelligence, your reader knows what and who you mean - when you over explain, you insult the reader. Don't do it.

Direction

Quite often writing suffers because the reader doesn't know where you're going. They wonder why you're focussing on certain characters and details - especially when you haven't first hinted at the 'point' of your story.

When you open a piece, you need a big 'sign' that tells the reader you're going THIS WAY - so that the reader knows what to expect along the way. You need to define your objectives - your purpose - in some way on the first page.

For instance, if you're writing a murder mystery, don't spend the first chapter following the protagonist around doing her laundry. Get on with the story and as soon as you can, show us the body!

Play By The Rules

Especially in genre fiction, you have to adhere to certain rules, because that's what the reader wants. Horror stories need to be at least a little horrific - right from the start. Romance requires that you have lovers at odds with each other by page two. Science fiction and Fantasy require the elements of their genres too.

Publishers often say that, though many writers are good, they often write themselves outside of any given genre in their desire to be different or original - thereby, alas, disqualifying themselves from publication!

Of course it's important to be original - but if you can do that within the confines your reader expects, your chances of publication skyrocket.

Focus

What you're looking for is sharp writing that relays the facts. When you go back and edit for sense, go for simplicity rather than exposition. If you waffle on about the intricacies of conflicting thought processes or meander through long descriptions of the countryside, you lose all sense of tension.

Pick up any popular novel. The best ones have no words that are about writing. They're all about story. However concise.

Speech tags

Okay. Speech tags - you know all the 'he said, she cried, they exclaimed blah de blah' - I'll keep this advice simple and precise. Unless you're writing children's fiction, lose them. As many as you can. It's the way of the modern writer.

The way to do it is to use other, more subtle ways of suggesting who is saying what. It's easily done, it just requires a little thought.

You can refer to character's actions just before or after dialogue, or use different styles to suggest different people.

Just as an experiment, try editing out all of the speech tags from your next MS. I think you'll be surprised and...master this technique and publishers will love you for it!

Adverbs

Yep - we all know we're not supposed to use them, especially after a speech tag. They really are mostly redundant and add nothing to the story. Repeat to yourself three times before bedtime: I will try to edit out every word that ends in 'ly'! (I just noticed there are two in this paragraph - oops!)

Well I could go on like this for hours - 'do this, do that, don't do that' etc. - I take writing very seriously, as I'm sure you've guessed. But I hope these few tips will help you the next time you edit your final draft.

The general rule, by the way, is that at least 20% of your MS is probably surplus to requirements! And that goes for all of us!

Best regards and keep writing!

Sourced from Rob Parnell's Easy Way to Write

The Cinderella Story - As re-written by Goldie

Hi! there Readers - I re-wrote the story of Cinderella sometime ago as part of a 'Point of View' exercise at my writing group. We were asked to re-write the story from two points of view. I first re-wrote the story in 'first person' and then 'third person omniscient' which I have posted here. Hope you like it...Goldie

Imogene looked at Arabella and they both snickered.


Arabella whispered in Imogene’s ear, ‘Cinderella wants to go to the ball. What a joke! Who does she think she is?’

‘It’s okay, Mum will make sure she doesn’t get there,’ Imogene whispered back. Both of Cinderella’s stepsisters had hated Cinderella ever since their mother married Cinderella’s father. Now Cinderella’s father was dead, her stepsisters were even more horrible to her than before. They didn’t want her to go to the ball at the Prince’s castle for there he would choose a bride. Cinderella was beautiful and the ugly sisters knew they wouldn’t have a chance of the Prince choosing either of them if she was there.

The night of the ball Imogene and Arabella went to the castle dressed in all their finery. They’d had their hair done and were wearing their most expensive jewelry.

‘Bye, Cinderella, we’ll miss you,’ they called, laughing as they spoke, and left Cinderella to do the long list of chores that their mother had given her.

The next day there was a knock at the door. It was the Prince. The beautiful stranger that he danced with all night had left her slipper behind in her haste to get away. No one knew who she was so he was going from door to door asking all the young girls in his kingdom to try the slipper on. He would ask the one whose foot was a perfect fit to marry him.

‘Let me try the slipper on. I didn’t realise I had lost it at the castle,’ Imogene lied, but her foot was too long.

‘Now I will put it on and then go to my room for the matching slipper,’ said Arabella, but her foot was too fat.

‘Are there any other young girls in this house?’ asked the Prince.

‘Only Cinderella but she didn’t go to the ball,’ said the stepsister’s mother.

‘I’d like her to try on the slipper anyway,’ the Prince said.

Arabella stomped off to the kitchen to find Cinderella.

‘You’re wanted outside and make it snappy,’ she said in a grumpy voice.

Cinderella followed her outside and there was the Prince talking with her stepmother and Imogene, who both looked angry.

The Prince’s face lit up when he saw Cinderella.

‘Would you be so good as to try on this slipper?’ he asked.

Cinderella put the slipper on and it was a perfect fit.

‘At last I’ve found you,’ said the Prince and got down on his knee. ‘Will you marry me? he asked.

‘Of course I will,’ answered Cinderella.

Imogene, Arabella and their mother were aghast.

‘How could you have gone to the ball?’ the three of them cried.

‘My Fairy Godmother helped me,’ Cinderella replied.

All of a sudden there was a sound like the rustling of leaves. And Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother appeared from nowhere. She turned to Cinderella’s two stepsisters and scowled.

‘Because you have been so mean and nasty to Cinderella I am going to turn you both into toads that are even uglier than you are already.’

Imogene and Arabella both gasped in horror. She then turned to Cinderella’s stepmother who looked worried. ‘And I am going to turn you into a snake because you are as evil as a snake.’

‘No, wait!’ Cinderella said. And because she was such a nice, kind, caring person she said, ‘please don’t do these things, Fairy Godmother. They can come and live with my Prince and me. I forgive them.’

So that’s what they did and they all lived happily ever after.



THE END

Journalism into Fiction – How Did Hemingway Do It?

Journalism into Fiction - How Did Hemingway Do It?

Active versus Passive Voice Exercise

(1) Write a short piece (250-500 words) in Passive Voice on any subject you like.

(2) Re-write the same piece of writing (250-500 words) in Active Voice.

(3) Compare the difference in the two styles of writing.



See attachments ‘Writing with Style – Active vs. Passive Voice page 1 and  page 2

For readers who are not familiar with Google docs, please click on the 'Open tab' at the top of the attachment to enlarge text.

The information that comes with this exercise was sourced from Utah Valley State College Writing Centre

Happy writing everyone...Goldie

An Ode of English Plural

I like this one...Goldie

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,

But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.

One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,

Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,

Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,

Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?

If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,

And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,

Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,

Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,

And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,

But though we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,

But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;

neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England.

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,

we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,

and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,

grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and

get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English

should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship...

We have noses that run and feet that smell.

We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.

And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,

while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language

in which your house can burn up as it burns down,

in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and

in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

Character Name and Gender, Please

Character Name and Gender, Please

Quote for August

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

POINT OF VIEW EXERCISES

Point of View (POV) determines the person through whom the story is to be told, ie the narrator. The most common POVs in fiction are First Person, Third Person and Omniscient.

First Person means the story is told as "I". This creates an immediacy and intimacy between the narrator and the reader as the reader is right there inside the narrator's head, with access all the narrator's thoughts. There are, however, some disadvantages to using First Person:

you cannot include any scene at which your POV character is not present.

you cannot include any information your POV character would not naturally possess.

you must include all the information your POV character does have.

Third Person means the story is told as "he", "she" or "it". The advantages of Third Person are that you can still get into the POV character's head, but still see him/her from the outside. Third Person told from only one character's head is called Limited Third Party. Third Person using more than one POV is called Multiple Third Person.

Omniscient is a univeral POV which can get into the head of any character at any time. The author also injects himself into the story, commenting on the action and sometimes addressing the reader directly.

Exercise 1

Pick a story you know well - whether one of your own, or someone else's. List the five or six major characters and then re-write the story from the POV of a character the author did not pick as the POV character. Does the story seem to change? Are some scenes emphasised more, or less? Does the meaning of the story seem to change? taken from Character, Emotion & Viewpoint (Writer's Digest Books, 2005) by Nancy Kress

Exercise 2

Take a story you have previously written in First Person and rewrite it in Third Person. What freedoms do you now have using this narrator? Conversely, are there limitations in using Third Person? How has the mood of the piece changed?

Quote for July

Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.~Katherine Mansfield

Writing the Big Dramatic Moment? Show Me

Writing the Big Dramatic Moment? Show Me

Addicted and Loving It!

Dear Readers - this story was on my old blog 'Goldie's Short Stories, Poems and Things'. It's one of my favourites so thought I would include it here...Goldie

The other morning over breakfast, my ever loving other half told me that I am addicted to my computer. ‘I’ve had enough of it and it has to stop,’ he gurgled as he slurped on his cup of tea.


I suppose he’s right – that I’m addicted that is. I do spend aeons of time sitting in front of that alluring screen oblivious to the world around me, but ‘heh!’ everyone has to have a vice don’t they?

It all started when my typewriter gave in to old age after years of faithful service. I like to write you see and I had pounded on those keys for more years than I care to remember.

‘What will I do?’ I asked myself. ‘Buy another typewriter or take a leap into the twenty-first century and acquire a computer’

My eldest son convinced me I should opt for the latter.

‘I’ll set it up for you Mum,’ he said and so together we made the purchase with lots of misgivings on my part. How in the hell would I ever learn to use the thing?

I began hesitantly at first, scared I would somehow damage it, blow it up, or worse still, have it crash and lose every single program, every bit of information I had saved into it’s hard drive.

‘What’s with this hard drive?’ I wondered as I battled along. ‘And then next they’re talking about software – it sounds a bit suspicious to me. Then confidence grew and along with it the computer’s power grew – completely over me! It wasn’t long before I was emailing, surfing the net – I must say here before I go on, ‘the biggest time waster in the universe’ and of course blogging. Also I mustn’t forget to mention building my own website. What an achievement that was for the likes of a more mature person.

I’m now bi-lingual too, English being my first language and computer patois my second. I’m rather proud of myself. I’ve always wanted to learn a second language and it has happened quite by accident.

Poor Hubby! He’s suffering or so he thinks, from lack of attention just because he has to do his washing, iron his shirts and make his own cups of tea.

‘Never mind, dear,’ I tell him. ‘Think of it as a learning curve.’

He threatens divorce, but do I care? No, of course not! He’ll never do it. He’d have no one to cook his dinner!

So, while hubby complains I compute, gripped by the tentacles of technology, addicted and loving it.

A Dancing Bear

Oh! My beautiful dancing bear
What have they done to you?
I remember when you danced free
Pirouetting through the forest
Like a ballet dancer
Graceful and agile
Thick, luxuriant coat, gleaming eyes
A confident demeanour

Then they came – they took you
You’re freedom gone forever
Trapped in a concrete enclosure
You sway and pace with lack-lustre eyes
My heart breaks

Children watch with fascination
They don’t know what it was you came from –
A paradise where you were free
Now a butterfly trapped in a spider’s web – my beautiful
Dancing bear
In the hands of humans I cry for you
And wish your death to come quickly
You would be better off
Yes, better off!

Character Exercises

People are interested in reading about other people, whether real or fictional. Without characters a murder mystery becomes just a police report, an historical romance just a history text. Hopefully, these exercises will help you create dynamic, interesting and believable characters your readers will really care about.


Exercise 1
Create a character from one aspect of your personality. Make this trait the main force of the character's feelings and thoughts. If you are shy, for example, make your character much more shy than you. In every other way - age, occupation, appearance, this character should be very different to you. Now describe that character's behaviour, in summary, in several social situations interacting (or avoiding interaction) with several relatives, strangers and workmates.

Exercise 2
Character tags can show personality, create tension, make your character more human. Try giving one of your characters a word tag - something only they say, that makes them instantly recognisable. Think of Steve Irwin's ubiquitous 'Crikey!' Or perhaps one of your characters calls everyone 'Babe', or uses slang or has an accent. Try using action tags for some of your characters. Does your protagonist jiggle their car keys in their pocket when they are nervous? Perhaps she constantly chews gum? Repeatedly clicks pens when bored in meetings? Using the character you created in Exercise 1, write a short piece in which they display a distinctive tag.

Exercise 3
Write a page using setting to reveal your character. Choose a setting relevant to that character, such as bedroom, office, garden etc and through its description paint a picture of your character.

Don't be Afraid of What You Don't Know by Rob Parnell

I attended a writer's workshop last Saturday night. (Clearly no rocking out in clubland for me anymore!)

The guest speaker was a successful editor for a well known publishing house. It was fascinating to have so many submission issues confirmed from, as it were, the horse's mouth.

I'll summarize here some of the most pertinent points she made.

First off, she said around 85% of all the manuscripts she received from budding authors were a waste of her time. They were clearly written by people who had never bothered to read guidelines, format correctly or even study basic punctuation, spelling and grammar.

This is a startling statistic. In essence, over 4 out of every 5 writers, in her words, deserve to be rejected simply because they don't bother to research the craft of writing before they start firing off their manuscripts.

Ironically, she said, this makes her job easier. Because, in order to save time, she never reads on if there are simple errors on page one. Why should she? If a writer can't get the first page error free, what hope is there that the writing will get any better?

Presentation is so very important.

Of the remaining 15%, the contenders for publication, the issues were more to do with story and style.

She confirmed to me that originality, though nice, was not often a consideration. Simply because the chances of a writer coming up with something original AND well written were so slim that it could never be a deciding factor.

What interested her most was 'voice' - the nebulous quality she said only the best writers seemed able to master. She said it was apparent that only after the writer fully understood the mechanics of writing (grammar especially) that the voice was able to come through with any degree of effectiveness.

Pet peeves included: the overuse of 'that' 'and' as well as 'had'. She said good writers should be able to spot their overuse and rearrange sentences to avoid relying on them.

She didn't like what she called 'filters'. This was the use of words that distance a reader from the characters. Words like 'felt', 'thought', 'decided' and 'realized' - as well as vague qualifiers like 'very', 'almost', 'nearly', which were to be avoided (read, deleted.)

Also, the old chestnut, "Don't use adverbs," she said, "ever!"

She loathed the penchant of newbies to write long compound sentences where the subject becomes obscured - and the grammar becomes suspect at best. Keep the sentences short and easy to understand was her advice, unless you know exactly what you're doing (which 98% of us don't, she said.)

Most of her job - after reading manuscripts - was editing them for publication.

Her decisions over who to publish therefore were often based upon her assessment of how easy a writer was going to be to work with.

If the manuscript was full of stylistic errors (she reasoned from experience) then the writer was probably going to be difficult. She'd heard the, "It's not incorrect, it's my style" argument all too often - and yes, it generally only came from newbies.

Contrary to myth, most professionals embrace alterations to their work. And compromise makes for a pleasant working relationship.

Towards the end of the workshop you could almost feel the exasperation of the writers. How were they ever going to be good enough for publication, one writer asked.

We were missing the point, she said.

Studying the craft of writing was something she expected writers to do - on an ongoing basis. She wanted well presented and well written manuscripts first, then she looked for good stories told with a strong voice.

Until she found them, she wanted writers to at least look as though they were writing to the very best of their ability.

"Don't be intimidated by what you don't know," she said, "but do study and research the rules of writing consistently.

"To which she added, "It's the only way to improve - and maximize your chances of publication.

"I agree, don't you?

Keep Writing



Author: Rob Parnell of Easy Way to Write

Reflections

I look in the mirror,
The reflection I see is clear blue skies,
Tiny tufts of feather down clouds,
Sunlight glinting on golden curls
It’s a day at the beach in Sorrento
For a little girl in
Red bathers with a koala appliqué
She proudly wears her mother’s dark glasses
While she soars high on a swing
Then falls onto a bed of wood chips
She’s crying
Her father picks her up
And cradles her in his arms

Now there are two little girls,
Sisters, both golden-haired, licking ice-cream – blue heaven,
From Mr Shapaelis’ ice-cream shop
As they sit in the family car
And watch the seas pound Sorrento’s back beach
Wild, majestic, dangerous

The sisters explore the sheltered rock pools,
Feet sinking into sand
As they venture into the warm water
Searching for shells, starfish, seaweed

Then Mum, Dad, and two little girls climb to the lookout
Up there it feels like the top of the world
The wind howls its mournful cry, seagulls screech
But the little girls are unafraid because
Life is carefree, safe and secure with loving parents

I rub my eyes
Reflecting back at me is no longer a happy family
But an old woman still with golden hair
Her face wrinkled, careworn
A legacy of life’s worries
And in later years, illness
She looks tired and is frowning

Tears surprise me
And glint like dewdrops in the morning on her face
I angrily wipe them away
And turning from the mirror
Am filled with a deep sadness.