When writing fiction it’s often better to ‘show’ the reader what is happening, than ‘tell’ the reader everything. For example, you can tell the reader, ‘Ziggy was sweaty’, but I’d rather show the reader with ‘Sweat trickled down Ziggy’s neck.’ Adding sensory detail helps to show what is happening – it helps the reader to picture what a character is experiencing. One way to make sure you’re not ‘telling’ too much is to use verbs (eg. trickled) rather than adjectives (eg. sweaty). For example I might write, ‘Florian was angry’ (adjective) but ‘Florian smashed (verb) his fist into the wall’ is stronger. And Sting is a better title than ‘Sharp thing’. If you have to use adjectives then one adjective per noun is enough; and you don’t need many adverbs either (eg. not needed in: Florian angrily smashed his fist’)
This is my last post. Thank you Zac and the Christchurch libraries, it’s been fun.
There are four forces involved in writing fiction: imagining, writing, editing, and hoping.
1. Imagination is the basis of all writing. This force is centred in your brain which is incredibly powerful at wielding it. The force of imagination has infinite range and you’ll find there’s no shortage of story ideas in the world. Science is a wonderfully bizarre source (I even used it to frame this blog). Photo: story characters are everywhere.
2. Writing is work. It seems to be such a weak force: putting one word after another; sentence by sentence. But if you keep going, the force evolves the words into something remarkable– story.
3. Editing is the refining force in fiction. It’s a strong force that can be applied by cutting needless words and shaking the story up.
4. Hope is vital for a writer. When you feel your story is worthless and you think you can’t write, hope keeps you going. Like gravity, it keeps writers grounded, and like imagination, it has infinite range.
Oh dear. My month as Star Author is rapidly drawing to a close. I have really enjoyed spending time, if only virtually, in Christchurch.
As this is one of my last posts, I thought I might stop talking about myself and offer something to you. If you are reading this, chances are you love reading and/or writing. So I thought you might enjoy some quick writing activities that you can do to get yourself writing. Grab a pen and paper, and sit yourself down, then choose one of these exercise and just write.
Write a sentence where every word starts with the next letter of the alphabet – a, b, c and so on. (for example A brown cat dropped everything…). Don’t worry if it is silly or even ungrammatical. Just see what comes out.
Write for as long as you can without using the letter ‘e’. Again, don’t worry if it’s a little ungrammatical or silly.
Same as 2, but this time see how long you can write without using the word ‘and’.
Find five random words by opening a book or dictionary and picking the first word you see on five different pages. Or get someone else to give you five random words. Then write a sentence, paragraph or even a story which includes all five words.
Open the book you’re currently reading (you are reading one, aren’t you) at any page, and copy out the first sentence of the second paragraph. Now, close the book and start writing, using that sentence as the first sentence of a completely new piece of writing.
Chances are, none of these exercises will produce an absolute masterpiece. But they will challenge you, might make you laugh, and will help get your creative juices flowing.
Have fun. If you’re brave enough, post one of your efforts here as a comment for the world to see.
So did anyone notice last night was the longest night of the year? I didn’t. I went to bed very early and slept right through until 7.30 this morning. I love sleeping. It’s my third favourite thing after eating and writing. What’s YOUR favourite thing?
Speaking of writing, Alara asked yesterday if I could give some tips on writing a professional narrative. So here are my top tips.
Start off with a BANG!! The library is full of books. (If you haven’t noticed!) So, as a writer, you have to hook your reader from the first few lines. Your story might be the most exciting story in the world, but if the first page isn’t exciting, only your mother or teacher will keep reading. So before you start writing, you have to figure out the most exciting starting point for your story. Writing the first few lines is usually the hardest part.
And then … While writing your story, keep asking yourself “and then what happens?” Once you think you know what’s going to happen, stop for a second and ask yourself – “Is that really the most exciting thing that can happen?” or “Is that the best thing that can happen to make my story the best story it can be?” When I’m writing, I have hundreds of ideas whizzing around in my head. The hard part is choosing which one of my ideas is the best idea for my story. Like when I was writing DO NOT PUSH, I didn’t know what was going to happen when Cam pushed the button. All I knew was he WAS going to push the button. Anything could have happened, really. And I could probably write a thousand different stories about it. (Especially if I stole some of YOUR ideas! hehehehehehe) But in the end I had to choose just ONE idea – the idea I thought would make the best story.
Remember your characters are NOT ZOMBIES! I bet you can all write amazingly exciting stories with lots of action. But to make your story even better, try to remember that your characters are always THINKING and FEELING. Every time something happens, ask yourself – “What is my character thinking or feeling?” The readers don’t need to know everything your character thinks and feels, but YOU DO! By adding a thought or feeling sometimes, the reader gets to know your character a bit better. And the more your readers like your characters, or understand them, the more likely they’ll not only finish your story, but like your story!
Learn to be a reader! I don’t read boring books. Or books that are badly written. I bet YOU don’t either. And when I write a story, I always think MY stories are brilliant!! Even when they’re not. So I have to put my story away a while then read it again, this time pretending I DIDN’T write it. I pretend I just found the story lying around and don’t know who wrote it. Is it a story worth reading? As I read my story, I try to be super-critical. I try to find every mistake, every bad sentence and every bit that isn’t totally exciting. Then I go back and re-write my story.
Re-write!! Re-write! Re-write! Keep writing your story until it’s as good as you can make it.
Oh, and there’s one more important tip - MAKE SURE YOU FINISH!! Once you start a story, you have to finish it!
OK, so those are a few of my tips. Every writer has their own tips, and their own way of writing. In the end, you have to figure out how YOU write best. Good luck!
Hello from another dank and dull Waikato Wednesday!
I hope you enjoy alliteration. And I hope your Christchurch weather is brighter than mine. You may or may not have noticed that I have been blogging on the even numbered days of the month. This is partly deliberate and partly to keep me organised. However, I am off to Auckland early tomorrow morning (the 12th) for secret research mission and I won’t be near a computer with bloggability. So I’m giving you tomorrow’s writing tip today. Hopefully I’ll be back to even numbered days on the 14th. We won’t mention Friday the 13th for obvious reasons. Anyway, here’s another tip! This is actually one of my favourites because it is SO GOOD IN SO MANY WAYS!
Writing Secret 2: Read your writing out loud
You can read your writing out loud to yourself or to another person. It doesn’t matter, as long as you read it out loud. I always do this. Here are the reasons:
1. When you read your writing out loud, you hear the rhythm of your words. Rhythmic language is much more satisfying to read. If your writing sounds like it flows, great. If you stumble when you read… not so good. Try rewriting those bits so they flow more easily when you read them aloud.
2. When you read your writing out loud, you find lots of errors that you missed before. I like good spelling, punctuation and grammar but sometimes my eyes miss the errors when I’m reading silently. Reading out loud makes it harder to miss the errors. If you find some, correct them.
3. When you read your writing out loud, you can tell if it’s boring or exciting! Enough said about that.
So there are three good reasons to read your writing out loud. Hope that helps.
In my first blog post I promised that I would reveal a few writing secrets. Here’s the first one: Write about what you Know
This morning my daughter told me about a writing assignment she has to do at school today. She has an idea for a story, but wasn’t sure how to stretch the idea out. I told her one of my writing secrets… write about things that you have really done, felt and experienced. So if you want to write about a farm, think back to a farm you visited. Remember the smells, sounds, sights and thoughts you had that day. You can put several ideas together from different farm visits too. The key is to make your writing seem “real” to the reader. If you haven’t been to a farm – ever – then it’s pretty hard to write about it. Seeing something on television or in a picture helps a bit, but your writing isn’t quite the same as the writing of someone who has really experienced a visit to a farm. It’s the real life experiences you write about that make your reader want to keep reading.
For example, in my book called “No Survivors”, I wrote about the main character being bullied at the bike shed for the diary entry on Tuesday 4 September. If you get a chance to read that bit, you’ll understand what I mean. There is no way I could have written that if it hadn’t really happened to me. Your writing doesn’t have to be totally about things you have really done and seen. However, if you add plenty of “real” stuff from your own experience, it will be much more interesting to the reader. Hope that helps!
“Writing is like learning to walk. You fall down, you get back up and try again. Little by little you learn from your mistakes. You get better and better at it, and one day it just happens and it is a magical moment.”
If you want to find out more about Brian Falkner’s books and writing, you can visit his cool website or read his Star Author posts here on the blog.
“a. Read heaps. The more you read, the more ideas you get.
b. Don’t throw any of your writing away.
c. Start sending work away to places like The School Journal.”
“Make sure you read a variety of stories: fantasy stories teach you about making up completely new worlds, crime-solving stories teach you about handling a complicated plot, stories with lots of characters teach you how to describe relationships. Also, write as many stories as you can, even if no one else reads them.”
If you want to find out more about Erin Hunter and her books, check out her website. One thing I learnt from her website is that ‘Erin Hunter’ is actually four different authors writing under the same pen name.
“I would recommend to any kid out there to keep a journal. Most of my friends can’t remember much about their childhood at all, and they wish they could. Even if you only keep a journal for a short while, I guarantee that you’ll treasure it for the rest of your life.”
Check out Jeff Kinney’s very funny website if you’d like to find out more about the author and his books. You can also watch video’s, play games, and go behind-the-scenes of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie.
“Grow a very thick skin and ask for criticism. Listening to criticism can help you to write better. Also, write as much as possible – the more you do, the better you get.”
Ideas for stories are all around you, all the time. What story writers do is to look around us and use our imagination.
All you have to do is to say “What if…”
What if my sister could fly…?
What if I found a million dollar note…?
What if my dog started talking to me…?
What if my best friend moved to Alaska…?
What if the sun went out…?
If you want an idea for a story, and you are really stuck, you could try my random story idea generator.
This week’s writing tip comes from Derek Landy, creator of Skulduggery Pleasant, Valkyrie Cain, and many other unpleasant characters. We asked Derek if he could give one piece of advice to budding writers what would it be?
“You have to have fun. When I wrote the first Skulduggery book I didn’t have a clue whether or not it would be published or if anybody would like it, so I concentrated on having fun. I packed it full of things that I adore; fight scenes, jokes, horror, adventure, magic. Fun is contagious and if you have fun writing it, the reader will have fun reading it. “
Visit Derek Landy’s website for more information about the author and his books, and to test your knowledge of the Skulduggery books.
Our writing tip this week is once again from Margaret Mahy, who will be at the Storylines Free Family Day next Sunday, 15 August at the Christchurch Town Hall. Come along and listen to Margaret talk about her writing and read some of her books.
“I think writers ought to read a lot, and it is often good to be working on more one story. If your first story does not work out it is comforting to have another story to fall back on. Most writers have to work hard – to write and re-write their stories.”
This week’s writing tip comes from one of New Zealand’s greatest writers, Margaret Mahy, who will be appearing at the Storylines Free Family Day in Christchurch on Sunday 15 August. Margaret Mahy has written so many books that it’s impossible to name them all. She writes picture books, like Down the Back of the Chair, as well as novels, like Kaitangata Twitch, Maddigan’s Fantasia, Memory, and Portable Ghosts. We’ll be posting some other great writing tips from Margaret Mahy over the next couple of weeks in the lead-up to Storylines. This week, she talks about the story ideas that come to her.
“My ideas mostly come from things that happen to me, but of course they are changed a great deal by the time the story is finished. The ideas begin with real things but I invent all sorts of things to add to them, or I change them in some way before the story is finished.”
This week’s writing tip comes from Joseph Delaney, author of the spine-tingling Spook’s Apprentice and other books in the Wardstone Chronicles including his latest book, The Spook’s Nightmare. Joseph tells us the inspirations for his books and where ideas come from.
The ideas for my books come from nightmares, dreams and day-dreams which I always jot down lest I forget them. Sometimes I’m inspired by the things that people say or do or a piece of town or countryside I see whilst out walking. I do more ‘writing’ in my head than I ever do on paper or type into my computer.
“I love playing games with words. I try to make the names sound like the person they are describing. ‘Snotlout’ is called Snotlout because he has a large nose, and ‘snotty’ can also mean ‘superior and thinking you’re a bit above everybody else’. A ‘lout’ is a brutish, brainless sort of person.
I make up the Dragonese in the same way. Therefore a ‘bird’ in Dragonese is a ‘song-munch’, because they sing and the dragons regard them as food.”
One way to make sure you’re not ‘telling’ too much is to use verbs (eg. trickled) rather than adjectives (eg. sweaty). For example I might write, ‘Florian was angry’ (adjective) but ‘Florian smashed (verb) his fist into the wall’ is stronger. And Sting is a better title than ‘Sharp thing’. If you have to use adjectives then one adjective per noun is enough; and you don’t need many adverbs either (eg. not needed in: Florian angrily smashed his fist’)
