Nouns Need to be Concrete and Appear More than Once

 

Part two in this series of notes from the Highlights Foundation Workshop, Books that Rise Above, features points made by Patricia Lee Gauch and Linda Sue Park on the use of nouns.


Patricia Lee Gauch: Concrete Nouns

Patti says we want to write in profound simplicity to keep our writing unclogged, such as the opening paragraph in chapter 11 of Linda Sue Park's, A Single Shard:

         The path to the Rock of the Falling Flowers was steep, and Tree-ear leaned forward,
         sometimes on all fours, as he climbed. Just before he reached the top, he stopped by the
         side of the path and took the jiggeh off his back. He drank from the gourd and poured a
         little water on his hands to splash on his sweaty face.
         Thus refreshed, he felt ready to give his full attention to the sight of the rock.

To write with simplicity we must use concrete words; concrete nouns. In Patti's own Easy Reader Tanya series, she showcases lovely French dance terms, such as pas de chat, arabesque, and sur pointes. She points out the embellished concrete nouns and beautiful verbs in Karen Cushman's The Midwife's Apprentice: . . . the cat lay still in the dung heap, The merchant's booth . . . filled with other wares for wondering at . . . shiny brass needles, ribbons of red and lavender, copper spoons and brass knives . . ., she insulted and encouraged, pushed and poked, brewed and stewed and remedied.

Linda Sue Park: Nouns Need to Appear More than Once

Linda stresses the importance of analyzing each and every word. Every word has to work hard. Toward this end, she contends that in order to create wholeness of the world you have created, in order to buttress that world, all nouns have to appear more than once. Nouns that appear only once don't serve the story. A noun that appears in the first part of the book is not a force unless it is repeated at the end. Especially look at the nouns in the last chapter. Especially.

Repeated words refer to the subject, the container, in this excerpt from Chapter 1 of Linda's book, A Long Walk to Water, which is based on a true story, on the long, lone trek Nya must make every day in 2008 to a pond in southern Sudan to fetch water:

     Going was easy.
     Going, the big plastic container held only air. Tall for her eleven years, Nya could switch
     the handle from one hand to the other, swing the container by her side, or cradle it in both
     arms. She could even drag it behind her, bumping it against the ground . . .
     There was little weight, going . . .  

Repeated references to Nya's quest for water a year later in 2009 appear in the last chapter:

      Then [Nya's uncle] began moving the mouth of the pump.
      Nya held her bottle underneath the pump mouth. The bottle filled up quickly.
      She stepped aside to the let the next person fill a bottle. Then she drank.
      The water was delicious. It wasn't warm or muddy, like the water from the pond. It was
      cool and clear.
      Nya stopped drinking and held up the bottle . . .
      She drank a few more sips . . .
      Everyone had a bottle or a cup. They were drinking that lovely water . . .

Parting thoughts: Patti: Be specific. Use words wisely. Understand what particular means. Objects have great value, such as a woman wearing the same hat.  Linda: Be intimate. Write for personal therapy. Try writing in first person then switch it. Me: Before this workshop I edited the sentence. Now I edit every word.

 

Linda Wilson, a former elementary teacher and ICL graduate, has published over 40 articles for children and adults, six stories for children, and is in the final editing stages of her first book, a mystery story for 7-10 year olds. Follow Linda on Facebook.

For past posts in this series, please visit:

Part One: Two Ways to Hook and Keep Your Reader

Next month: Tent Pole Construction

In future posts: Watch for workshop presenters' biosketches. A link to the complete list of "Books that Rise Above" will appear at the end.

Labels: Parts of speech, children's writing workshop, Highlights Foundation, writing, writing tips

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keeping a Journal

If you're just launching a freelance writing career, keeping a journal is key to productivity and success.

Let's look at some reasons why:

A journal keeps you organized.

Beginning writers are learning all sorts of new things - developing a platform, creating an online         presence, networking - not to mention fine tuning the craft of writing. It can be overwhelming. Listing what you've learned helps keep the path you are on clear so it doesn't interfere with your actual writing.

A journal keeps you on track.

Most of us are not full-time writers. We're mothers, wives, employees, care-takers, or business owners. There are lots of responsibilities vying for our attention! Keeping a journal of daily accomplishments, no matter how small, helps you see you're making progress.

A journal keeps you encouraged.

We all get discouraged for one reason or another. Breaking into freelance writing requires hard work and patience. Being able to read over the last week or month of your hard work encourages you to keep going and not give up. Emotions cannot dictate or determine your future. The real deal is written down.

Your journal doesn't have to be fancy. I have a composition notebook. Every time I apply for a freelance job, take a writing course, submit a magazine article, or work on a long term project, I jot it down in my journal. Just the act of documenting these things makes me feel great because I'm so busy, I forget.

There are several ways to organize your journal. I keep it simple. I just list the date line by line, and write what I did that day. Having a record of accomplishments is valuable for every writer.

Do you have a journal? How does it help you?

~~~

Photo credit: Smallest Forest / Foter / CC BY-NC

Kathleen Moulton is a freelance writer.  You can find her passion to bring encouragement and hope to people of all ages at When It Hurts - http://kathleenmoulton.com/

The History of Fingerprinting

            As I dug into the history of fingerprinting, I was amazed at how old the art was. Now as writers we are generally more interested in how fingerprinting is used in crime situations, but how it all came about should give you an appreciation of it.

            It surprised me to learn that the art of fingerprinting came into being back in 1000-2000 B.C. and was used an clay tablets for business transactions. My guess is this was their form of a signature. It was in 14^th Century A.D. that a physician notices that no two fingerprints were alike.

            In the 1600’s the microscope was invented, and in 1686 at the University of Bologna in Italy a professor takes note of the spirals, loops, and ridges in fingerprints. It was not until 1823 that Johannes Evengelista Purkinje, a professor of anatomy with the University of Breslau in Prussia, wrote a thesis detailing a full nine different fingerprint patterns. Fingerprinting was a standard use for identification, especially on documents and contracts. In 1882 Gilbert Thompson, employed by the U.S. Geological Survey in New Mexico, uses his fingerprints on a document to guard against forgery. In the 1800’s Sir Francis Galton started studying fingerprints and in 1892 published a book, Fingerprints. It was the first of this type book which detailed the first classification system called Galton’s Details for fingerprints. This system is still to an extent used today. This same year Juan Vucetich, an Argentine police official, started the first fingerprint files based on Galton’s Details. He made history that year by making the first criminal fingerprint identification.

            In 1896 Sir Edward Richard Henry, a British official instituted a fingerprinting program for all prisoners. In 1902 the Director of the Bureau of Identification of the Paris Police made use of the first criminal identification of a fingerprint without a known suspect. In the meantime the testing of the first systematic use of fingerprints in the U.S. is performed by Dr. Henry P. DeForrest. After that the use of fingerprinting spreads, and by 1911 the first central storage location for North America was established in Ottawa by Edward Foster of the Dominion Police Force. Today it is maintained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. By 1924 the Identification Division of the F.B.I. was created.

            The 1990’s he Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems had widespread use around the country. Fingerprinting of children became the vogue by 1996 for investigative purposes.

            I was totally amazed that the history of fingerprinting went back as far as Babylon. Once it was discovered that no two people have the same fingerprints, the significance quickly accelerated over the years until law enforcement had one of the most important investigative tools known to man.

            There is one thing I would like to mention. As fingerprinting advanced to greater technology, criminals also became innovative in erasing their fingerprints from their fingertips with acid. Painful but effective.

Faye M. Tollison

Author of: To Tell the Truth

Upcoming books: The Bible Murders

                              Sarah’s Secret

Member of: Sisters In Crime

                    Writers on the Move

www.fayemtollison.com

www.fayetollison.blogspot.com

www.fmtoll.wordpress.com

www.booksinsync.com

Twelve-year-old Me and the Writing Dream

 

When I had just turned twelve, I ran across an old book in some of my dad's stuff called THE MASK OF FU MANCHU by Sax Rohmer. Apparently, my dad loved the book enough to, uh, liberate it from the public library, for the card was still in the back. At that time, I would read anything which fell into my hands—a habit which has continued to the present day, I’m happy to say.

I can still remember how awesome the book was—adventure, excitement, danger, the mystery of Egypt, stalwart, brave and handsome Englishmen, brilliant criminals, a plot to steal ancient treasures—who wouldn’t have loved it? The scenes where our heroes were staying at the Mena House Hotel, which sat on the Giza plateau in full view of the pyramids—THE the pyramids—made a special impression on me. I wanted to see it all. And more importantly, I wanted to write books full of adventure and danger and excitement—and handsome Englishmen.

Flash forward over thirty years. My lifelong love of all things historical is fulfilled, at least partially, by a trip to Egypt. Ah, Luxor and the Temple of Karnak! Ah, the Valley of the Kings—where was Boris Karloff’s Imhotep when you needed him? Ah, Abu Simbel, and a cruise down the Nile. And then, and then, the absolute culmination of a lifetime of dreams. I’m staying at…wait for it…the Mena House Hotel. Me. A country girl from South Carolina.

But something was wrong, and for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what. I wanted to tell someone I was here, in the spot I’d dreamed of being for so long. But who? I’d told everyone I knew, believe me. Who, oh who else could possibly be missing the important information?

Then it hit me. The one person I really, really, REALLY wanted to know where I was…was me. Twelve-year-old me. The little girl who had fallen in love with adventure and Egypt and the Mena House Hotel. Okay, yes, and handsome Englishmen. I wanted her to know, “We made it, kid. We got here. We grabbed for that dream and we caught it at last.”

Yes, there is a point to my rambling. Writing is hard. Writing is work. Writing is a job. Promotion is hard and rejection is agony. And some days, we would rather be doing almost anything else. That’s when it’s important to remember that kid in you who first read books and got excited about the glorious, the amazing, the astonishing idea of writing them.

She is still inside you, waiting for acknowledgement. Tell her. Tell her, “Yes, we did it. We’re writers. And it’s all thanks to you and your dreams.”

And to handsome Englishmen, of course.

—

K.G. McAbee loves and writes all sorts of genre fiction, including steampunk, fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery and comic books. She’s a member of Horror Writers Association and International Thriller Writers. Her latest release is THE HEIRESS ON THE ISLAND book two in THE CLOCKWORK PIRATE middle-grade steampunk series, published by MuseItUp Publishing.

Sale alert! For a short time, book one in the series, THE JOURNAL IN THE JUG, is included for free with purchase of book two.  

She’d love to have you visit her Amazon Author page https://www.amazon.com/author/kgmcabee

 Keep writing!

 

 

 

 

Breakthrough your Writer's Block with a Story Vision Board

Sometimes as writers we just have to give the written word a rest. Maybe inspiration just isn't there; you stare at a blank page and really don’t have anything to say.  If your writing muse is hiding from you, then it’s time to try a different creative process.

A story vision board is a great way to hone in on your plot or figure out what makes your character tick.  Grab a poster board, markers, scissors, glue and materials to decorate your board. Magazines, stickers, yarn and felt are all great materials to use for this project. Start by adding images, stickers, a few words and anything that relates to your story. Make sure to limit your words, this is a visual experience.  Don’t over think the process. I like to use the yarn to show connections. Just start cutting and pasting and see where it leads you.  It might be a general vision board about your story or you can end up with a board that is all about your characters. 

If you allow the process to be fun and release you from the angst of feeling stuck, you may discover that the words and ideas start flowing again.  This process is useful, even if you are not stuck. Post the vision board in your writing space.  A story vision board, kept in sight when you write, can help nudge your story forward and provide you with inspiration.

If this sounds a little too crafty for you, consider creating a virtual vision board. Check out pinterest.com, it’s like using a virtual cork board. 

If you are willing to create a story vision board, I’d love to hear about your experience.

Mary Jo Guglielmo is writer and intuitive life strategist. She offers personal consultations and coaching programs.   For more information check out  www.donorth.biz   or folllow her at:

http://theadvantagepoint.wordpress.com

http://twitter.com/do_north

http://facebook.com/DoNorth.biz  

The Million Dollar Writing Question

Spurred on by the gratification of almost instant virtual
publishing, more and more people are queuing up to
achieve fame as authors or would-be authors. So
much so that many of these "writers" are not even
taking the time to pen a book for themselves but
instead outsource the writing to others.

While this is great for those of us who make our living
freelancing and are happy to ghostwrite, the
proliferation of competition makes it harder for real
writers who take pains to perfect their art to make a
living.

A "writer" who can produce hundreds of books a year
through employing others will obviously seem more
successful in the charts through sheer numbers.

So how do real authors compete?

The answer should be by writing a good book.

What makes a good book?

And that for me is the million dollar question that
stumps so many of us.

Authors  strive day after day to master their craft and
many produce well-written non-fiction books, chock
full of interesting and helpful information. Many more
produce works of fiction in every known genre and
sub-genre. They marshal troops of lifelike characters
with authentic dialogue and face them with plots that
keep their readers turning the pages.

We all know in our hearts what makes a good book,
don't we? And that's what makes the best seller charts
so bewildering. How often have we bought a best
seller and been bitterly disappointed?

How often have we found authors previously unknown
to us and thought they were terrific?  Why don't they
achieve a consistent place in the bestseller charts?

What makes a good book?

Perhaps it is easier to define it by what it is not. For
me, it is not a matter of genre, nor writing style. Not
3D characters nor plot though these are important.

It involves instead a strength of theme and answers
questions I never realized I wanted to ask.

Maybe not all human life is there, but the characters
are an intriguing mix of good and bad, the questions
posed are, like poetry, relevant to all who read it.

What for you makes a good book?

 Anne Duguid is a senior content editor with MuseItUp Publishing and   her New Year's Resolution is to pass on helpful writing,editing and publishing tips at Slow and Steady Writers far more regularly than she managed in 2012.

Book Clubs for Writers and Other Readers

Two members from my local writers group and I are forming a book club. We decided to get together to read books on the craft of writing because we all own books on writing that we haven’t gotten around to reading yet. (I mentioned something about that last month.J) We also have lists of books we would like to buy or borrow. In addition, the book club will offer more opportunities for socializing and improve leadership and organizational skills.

We are all involved in the process of writing for children, but books about other kinds of writing may also be read and discussed.  Mixing it up will make the meetings more interesting.

Book clubs cover many kinds of genres, such as history, romance, science fiction, etc. Some book clubs meet face-to-face, others are online. Some clubs are more intellectual, some are more social.

If you are thinking of starting a book club, the following should be considered.

• Why start or join a book club? Perhaps a bunch of friends or a church group wishes to start a club.
• What kind of book club do you want? What is the purpose of the club? Book clubs are great for getting to know people better, to spend more time with like-minded people, to learn about new authors and ideas, etc.
• What is the name of the club? For example, you might want to choose a name that’s related to the locale where you live or is related to the genre that you will be reading.
• How often will the club meet and when? Book clubs usually meet monthly, but some don’t get together over the summer. For longer books, club members may gather every 6 weeks.  Meetings can be held during the week or on weekends, in the morning, for lunch or dinner, or early evening.  
• How long will the meetings be? A set amount of time should be allotted for socializing, business matters and book discussion.
• Where will the club meet? Restaurants, book stores, libraries, and members’ homes are popular locations.
• How many members will the club have? Each member could ask other people to join. Prospective members can be interviewed.  A small group, from 8 to 16 members, should be sufficient.
• What books will members read? Each member can bring a list of book suggestions or reviews of books to get ideas. It’s ok to choose two or three books at a time to read in the upcoming months.  Some clubs read more than one genre.  Some clubs have a price limit or a limit on the number of pages. If books are to be borrowed, talk to a local library to see if enough copies can be obtained.
• Who chooses what books to read? Each member takes a different month, and then suggests three titles. Members vote on which book to read. Or members take turns choosing a book for everyone to read each month.
• Are guides available for the book the club is reading? Some websites, such as http://www.readinggroupguides.com/content/index.asp, have reading guides. Or write your own guide.  Also check publisher’s websites for reading guides.
• Who will lead the meeting? Will it be the person who suggested the book or someone else? Perhaps each member would like to have the opportunity to take charge of a meeting and lead the discussion.
• How many questions should the group ask? Each member should write two or three questions or list two or three book passages for discussion.
• Who will keep a record of books that the club has read? Summaries, discussion highlights, and opinions are important and they will help new members see what the club has done previously.
• Will members eat special dishes or use props that pertain to the book that is being read? Foods and decor may add to the enjoyment and understanding of the story.
• How should the discussion go? Make sure everyone gets to contribute to the discussion during the meeting. Give each member their time to speak.  Everyone should feel welcome to share their opinions.
• If some members don’t read the book or don’t finish it, will they be invited to attend the meeting? They may have something to contribute, so this is something that should be discussed.
• How will you get new members? How will you advertise the club? You may need to expand your club or replace members who leave. Not everyone will be able to attend every meeting, but you want a large enough group for a healthy and lively discussion.
• How do members keep in touch? Email, a website, and social media are ways to communicate.  All members should have a club list with contact information.

For our book club, it’s just the three of us for now. We may ask others to join later.  There are at least four writer’s groups in town, so it’s possible we will be able to expand our membership. 

Some helpful websites to get you started on forming a book club:

Book Glutten is a new kind of virtual book club. It uses Facebook.

http://writerswin.com/2013/01/27/how-to-start-a-book-club-inside-a-book/comment-page-1/#axzz2KtbQ9YwS

This is an excellent website on how to start a book club.

http://www.ilovelibraries.org/booklovers/bookclub/bookclub

This is a book club in a box.  One could do something similar with other books.

http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/17890/tin-house-bookclub-in-a-box-alexis-smiths-glaciers.html#.UGRp0GDBEFs.twitter

If your club wants to read books on the craft of writing, here is a list of suggestions.

http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/craft-of-writing

If you have an E-reader, you may find this article helpful.

http://www.toledoblade.com/Technology/2011/04/20/E-readers-causing-some-book-club-members-to-butt-heads.html

Reading Group Guides, an online community for reading groups.

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/content/index.asp

Lit Lovers – free classes, recipes and more.

http://www.litlovers.com/getting-started

Book Group Registry - free to join, book club/group tips, etc.

http://bookgroupregistry.com/

Are you a member of a book club?  Feel free to post your opinions here.

Debbie A. Byrne has a B.S. in Mass Communication with a minor in History. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and is working on her first children’s book.