Writing With All Five Senses

 

Right now I'm reading a great book by New Zealand novelist, Rachel King:  The Sound of Butterflies.  The story is set in 1904 England and the Brazilian rain forest, and inside the front cover there are eleven review excerpts.  Starting from the top, some of the key words repeated throughout the reviews are:  sensuous, lush, luscious, and exotic.  Other reviews use the terms: rich, evocative, opulent, sultry, seductive, and rippling.  (I do like rippling.)

Lush, luscious, and yes--rippling--writing is a worthy goal for all of us, I think.  Even if you're writing "just about your own backyard" miles away from the Amazon or London's Richmond Park, there's no reason to make it dull.  Pull us in; help us to see, hear, taste those motor mowers and dandelion puffs.  In other words:  all five senses, people!

To really get those senses moving, we need to go beyond mere description--we need to associate the senses with the power of emotion and memory.  For instance:

1.  Sight.  Sight is the sense we most commonly turn to when adding description to our manuscripts, and it's the one most certain to trip us up and bore readers.  You know the sort of thing: there was a gray rock on the cement steps only inches away from a brown stick covered in mud. The mud looked dirty.  But let's ramp this up a few notches:  the rock, a chunk of brain-shaped coral, could be covered in blood because it has just been used as a murder weapon, instilling terror in your main character when she stumbles over it on her way to deliver a cake for the victim's birthday.  The rock could also be very unusual--a vivid shade of purple, and similar to one she's seen inside her new boyfriend's aquarium.  Seeing the rock now means something; it starts a chain of action, reaction, emotion, and future plot twists.  It's also a very unforgettable rock because of the color, the blood, and the association with a brain, and it sets a tone unique to the story.
  
2.  Sound.  We live in a world of noise that can sometimes be overwhelming, forcing us to tune it all out--much to our disadvantage.  An excellent exercise is to sit with your journal and listen, really listen, for 5 to 30 minutes and then record what you hear.  Do this for your characters too.  Imagine them in their individual settings, and then listen along with them to whatever is intruding on their environments.  Whether it's a string of Gregorian chants or the sound of a jackhammer three streets over, make it important to your character's well-being or distress.  Make it real.

3.  Touch.  The way particular items feel to your characters can add volumes of emotional reaction and involvement to your writing.  A scratchy collar, a much-washed baby blanket, the sting of a wasp, the weight of a good book in your hand.  We've all been there.  Let your characters experience their story world in as tactile a way as possible, showing, rather than telling, why they prefer the feel of one item over another.

4.  Taste.  I enjoy descriptions of food, not just for the ingredients or how to put the recipes together, but because of the combination of mood and memory food writers seem to excel at.  I've mentioned before how helpful I find food magazines to be for found poetry and collage work precisely for the sensuous language contained in the articles.  But taste covers more than food.  How about the taste of rain or snow, a barely detected poison, or the taste of a lead pencil--the one your main character is chewing on throughout his four-hour math test?

5.  Smell.  I hope this isn't too much disclosure, but my favorite smell in the entire world is kittens' feet.  I think kitten paws are the sweetest, prettiest little things ever.  Katherine Mansfield described them in her journal as "unripe raspberries" and I've always considered that description right-on perfect.  One reason I love them so is they always make me a think of a little white and orange kitten I wanted as a small child and couldn't have.  Wah!  That kitty smelled delish and I've never forgotten.

Tip of the Day:  Make two lists:  one with your favorite sights, sounds, touches, tastes, and smells, followed by your most disliked items in these same five categories.  Once you have your lists, freewrite on why you love/hate these things, what they remind you of, how empty your life would be without them.  Now do the same for some fictional characters, either from your current WIP or a brand new story.

Breaking News:  Next Tuesday, May 24, 2011 Young Adult author Holly Schindler will be guest blogging right here at Dava Books.  Holly has written a special post, plus she'll also be sharing a writing exercise.  To celebrate, we're having a super giveaway--a copy of her new novel Playing Hurt, accompanied by a copy of my how-to-write book, The Essential Guide for New Writers, From Idea to Finished Manuscript.  Details of how to win will be revealed next Tuesday--don't forget.  In the meantime, keep those words rippling!

12 Tips to Finding Your Voice

"How do I find my voice?  How do I know I'm using the right one?"  Just like the word "style," "voice" can be a confusing term when you're just starting out and writing to please an editor.  But all you really need to know is:

1.  Write like you talk. One of my favorite comments from a former workshop participant who had just finished reading The Essential Guide for New Writers was, “The book sounds just like you.  Every time I read it, I'm right back in your class.”  Bingo!

2.  Write like you're writing a journal entry.  A great way to let your natural voice emerge is to pretend you're only writing for yourself.  I find it always helps to write my first drafts in my journal, and by hand. 

3.  Freewrite, especially when you're "stuck."  Try setting a timer anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes and just start writing.  Don't think, just write.  You'll be so busy you won't have time to worry about the "sound" of your writing, and that means the sound will be natural and 100% you.

4.  Avoid censoring your "first thoughts."  So what if your freewriting grammar is non-existent, you've misspelled every other word, and your "first thoughts" are far from pretty?  Who's to care?  The point is to get words on paper--words that are yours alone.

5.  Examine why you feel the need to censor.  Sometimes when we let loose with those first thoughts, they can be pretty shocking.  We think of all the people our words could hurt or embarrass, or who might reject us for being ourselves--especially for being our "shadow selves."  One way to conquer these worries is to set aside some time to list the people you think would be upset by your writing and why.   Once you have your list, work on solutions.  For instance, you might need to write under a pseudonym, or you might want to keep your writing private until after it's published.

6.  Walk in your characters' shoes.  Another good trick to find your authentic voice is to let your characters do the talking.  Ask them interview-type questions:  "What is the worst thing that ever happened to you as a child?"  "What do you love/hate about your current job?"  "Where would you go on your dream vacation?"  Then sit back with your pen and paper and take dictation-style notes.

7.  Write in the first person.  The easiest way to get into a main character's head and voice is to write from the first person point of view.  If you don't particularly care for that POV in the finished work, you can always rewrite in third person later.  The idea is to be as open and true to your character(s) as possible in your first draft so that you have something to work with down the road.

 8.  Give your "worst" thoughts/voice for your characters.  Assign your shadow side to your characters--especially your villains.  Give them every negative thought you've ever had and let them run with it.  Not only is this extremely cathartic, it's also an excellent way to personalize a believable voice. 

9.  Write poetry.  Really! Poetry practice can lead you to your individual sense of rhythm and language.  Poetry forces you to take breaths between words and lines, thereby helping you discover if your true voice is direct and to-the-point, or more comfortable weaving back and forth in a tapestry of emotion and nuanced subtlety.  Poetry can also force you to reach for unusual word combinations and uses, sparking your creativity.

10.  Keep a shelf of authors whose voices you admire.  Go to your bookshelves and pick out not just your favorite books, but the books that in your opinion have the strongest voices.  Read and re-read to discover what it is that speaks to you, then do your best to use some of those same techniques in your own attempt to find voice.

11.  Don't try too hard.  Nothing is worse than reading an author who tries so hard to comply with "how everyone else writes" that the voice is not only false, it's irritating.  Chick-lit, wise-cracking snappy twenty-somethings who enthuse with irony over every broken fingernail; pages and pages of dialogue dripping with "Y'alls" and "Dah-lins" when the author has been no further south than Maine; cerebral attempts to fake street smarts and slang...  It's way easier to just be yourself.

12.  Don't worry about it.  Write what you love and you'll be writing in your own voice.  Try to keep in mind that writing is an act of creativity--follow your intuition, follow your gut, follow your heart.  Do those three things and you'll be using your real voice without a second thought.

Tip of the Day:  Read aloud from a wide selection of titles.  Listen to the way the words and sentences sound.  What do you admire when you hear the phrases?  What do you dislike?  How can you change your own writing so that it sounds more pleasing or realistic to your ear?



Are We Having Fun Yet?

Recently I’ve been re-reading my blog posts, and the one thing that stands out for me is how often I use the phrase “Have fun.” “Just have fun.” Which made me wonder, what exactly do I mean by “fun”?

 

Obviously fun doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. For some people it’s taking as many rollercoaster rides as possible in one lifetime while raising tarantulas in the living room. For others it’s spending years and years painting, and repainting, one perfect and extraordinarily life-like bouquet of tiger lilies—an activity that would have me tearing out my hair and run screaming for the hills. Just like trash and treasure, fun is all in the eye of the beholder, or in the actions of the doer. Whatever it is for each of us, though, I think it’s a very important part of the creative process. Because if you’re not having fun, you might also be:

• Avoiding the work.
• Agonizing about avoiding the work.
• Resisting any opportunities to show or submit the work.
• Apologizing for the work when you do show it.
• Unfavorably comparing your work to others—others you are convinced are immeasurably more brilliant, talented, and capable of having much more fun than you. Which is just plain silly.

So how do you bring more fun to the table when you sit down to work on your latest creative project? I’m sure there’s a fascinating range of answers, from putting on theme music, to drawing cats in pajamas in your manuscript margins, but to me “having fun” means the following:

• Not taking myself so seriously. Note I didn’t say “not taking the work seriously.” But whenever I think there is some absurd “writerly standard” I must live up to, one that for instance involves never smiling when I talk about my writing because I am a “serious writer,” or one where I have to consider myself as a “person of literature” if I’m allowed to even call myself a writer, I know I’m in trouble.
• Risk taking. Asking the “what if” questions and then following through. “What if I paint black gesso all over this board? What if I rewrite a fairy tale? What if my character goes to prison and my entire plot changes—for the better?” Yes, why not? Fun to me is all about surprise—making each step of the journey the equivalent of opening an unexpected birthday present and finding the perfect gift—or joke—inside.
• Art supplies in all the wrong places. I write with plum fountain pen ink, paste stickers on absolutely everything, and doodle in glamorous journals. So what if manuscript submissions have to be on pristine white bond paper, double-spaced and printed in a sharp black font? That doesn’t mean I can’t write them in mud and lemon juice if that makes me happy during the first draft stage. I can even add cats in pajamas if I want—so there.
• Writing or creating what you love. It seems that in every creative person’s life there comes the golden opportunity to work on something you hate—either for money, a much-needed byline, or a chance to get your foot in the door. And it’s awful! Even with the-very-good-reason to take on the job, it’s something I recommend you only do once, or twice at most. That’s why it’s so important to write what you love to read, or to create the kind of art you’d want to see in your own home or favorite gallery. Anything else isn’t fun—it’s torture.
• Putting the thing to sleep. Not every idea is a great idea. Sometimes they’re not even passably good and the day you’re willing to say, “Hey, let it go,” can actually be one of the happiest (and most fun) days of your life. Abandoning a project that doesn’t pan out or doesn't make you happy isn’t the end of the world. The time you spent on it is no different from time spent taking a writing or art class, or completing the exercises at the end of a how-to book. The important thing about all of these activities is you’ve practiced your craft, you learned from the experience, and you discovered what you do think is fun. So move on already. Life is too short to spend it polishing and rewriting and suffering through what you know isn’t your only idea. I bet you’ve got an entire filing cabinet of much better ones—ones that are downright serious fun.

Tip of the Day: What current work-in-progress is keeping you from having fun? Why? What can you do to make it more enjoyable? Do you need to put it away for awhile and start something new that’s a lot more interesting—and fun?

Vacation Time--Texas Style

Wouldn't you know, just as soon as I tell you all I plan to blog twice a week, I not only miss that goal entirely, but I then don't even blog for days on end.  My excuse is that I took a rather sudden and somewhat unexpected trip to Texas, visiting both Austin and San Antonio.  When I travel I like to turn off the Internet and just go back to the "old days":  no phone, no blogging, Twitter, or Facebook... 

So thank goodness for the wonderful Javid Suleymanli who was kind enough to keep the ball rolling by posting an interview with me yesterday on his own blog.  I felt incredibly honored that Javid would take the time to ask me his very thoughtful and interesting questions, and I encourage you to get on over to his blog not just to read about me, but to read his other great posts as well. 

On the subject of my vacation, I had a great time, especially in San Antonio. 

I loved visiting the Alamo in particular as it's one of the few things I remember learning in grade school (I was a terrible student--"daydreams too much" on every report card...).  But "Remember the Alamo!" has stuck with me ever since, so it was quite a moving experience to walk through the grounds of such an important part of American history.

We had planned to only be in San Antonio for the day, but we enjoyed the city so much we decided to stay overnight.  We lucked out because it was also fiesta time.  Our hotel was right on the River Walk giving us a fantastic view of the Texas Cavaliers' annual barge parade.  

As twilight descended over the city, we could see from our windows the little boats, all decorated and ferrying rock bands back and forth and up and down the river.  Absolutely incredible!

Later that evening we went downstairs and were able to witness the excitement close up. As you can see from all these photos, I don't think I'll be making my living any time soon as a photographer, but this last blurry shot does give you some idea of what it was like.

The next morning we were among the first people on one of the regular tourist barges and got to travel the length of the River Walk ourselves.  Again this was a trip I had always wanted to make, mainly because when I cut up travel magazines for collage and writing prompts, I'm always coming across happy scenes of tourists taking in the exact same sights.  The pictures were accurate to say the least--the River Walk was one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited. 

So thank you San Antonio, and thank you Javid Suleymanli!  It's been a great break and with any luck I'll be refreshed and eager to start that "two times a week" blogging thing ASAP.

Tip of the Day:  Where have you always wanted to go on vacation?  Start a "vision board" collage.  Include not only pictures, but stories, poems, and journal entries imagining yourself (or your characters) there.

The Altered Book; Moving Right Along

Six Colleges and Four Girls, my first attempt at making my own altered book, continues--page by page and insight by exciting insight.  So far the biggest thing I've learned (besides how to completely dye my hands with wet blue tissue paper--not my favorite lesson) is why I like this kind of work so much.  It's the puzzle solving that intrigues me and keeps me wanting to learn more. 

Finding solutions to filling the blank page, hovering here and there, brush in hand searching for "just the right place" to add a photograph or a scrap of color, is just so--well, gratifying.  I think it's the same thing I like about writing, too:  teasing out the various words and phrases of my manuscripts to find exactly what they're trying to say, or how to get my characters out of all the terrible jams they insist upon jumping into head first.

As I've been working on this current collage project, puzzle solving has been uppermost in my mind, especially my concerns over how I was going to approach writing the text.  I couldn't decide if I should just write a story in the usual way, i.e. from beginning to end, and then paste it into the book somewhere, or should I be more cryptic and have little bits of text stuck in envelopes and other unexpected places throughout the pages?

Last night I was thinking about all this, as well as about how April is National Poetry Month, and then it hit me:  I could use found poetry.  Of course!  How could I have missed something so obvious?  I already have some very comprehensive "word pools" from which to draw my material, as well as dozens of magazines I can cut up as soon as I'm ready to tackle this part of the project.  I think it's going to be a good solution to the "puzzle" and one that will fit me just right.

Here's where I am in the book so far and as you can see there is a lot of space for me to add text.  The writing that is included here, as well as in the photo at the top of the post, is part of an old letter I wrote and never sent.  I tore it into strips, painted it with various watercolor washes, and then just glued it onto the pages:

From a "blue and red" theme, I moved onto yellow:

If you look closely, you can just see the title of Six Colleges peeking through the paint.  I'm not sure if I will be leaving this, or covering it up some more.

Yes, I'm having a good time. 

Besides sharing my latest pages, I thought for today's post I would list some of the materials I'm using.  So far this includes:

• Watercolors and acrylic paint.
• Gesso, both black and white.
• Glue sticks, Mod Podge, acrylic gel medium (soft gloss).
• Collage sheets provided in old issues of Somerset Studio magazine.
• Magazine cut-outs from my files of "People, Places, Things."
• Mulberry, tissue, watercolor, calligraphy, amate papers.  (I've also got a great piece of papyrus I'm waiting to use.)
• Scraps of printed, flocked, and embossed papers from India I purchased as a big "grab bag" from Michael's.
• Printed scrapbook papers sold as individual sheets.
• Stickers, die-cut doodads, adhesive borders, "vintage" postcards all purchased from craft stores.
• Junk mail.
• Old watercolors, drawings, and handwritten manuscripts all from various exercises and journal entries that I kept for sentimental reasons.  Now I'm shredding, painting, and recycling them in all kinds of new ways.

So that's where I am right now--gluing, and solving, and taking my time to be as playful as I can with the whole process.  More pages next week, stay tuned.

Tip of the Day:  Having trouble puzzle solving your latest WIP?  Collaging any story or work in progress is a great way to free up the imagination and let your "right brain" (versus the "wrong brain..."  Okay, altered books make me very silly) help you to find the perfect answer.

What's Your Medium?

What's your medium?  Two winters back I took a ten-week watercolor class because I thought it would be fun to explore a technique that left plenty of room for error and "happy accidents"--perfect for my experimental approach to any artwork.

And I did have fun--I loved dripping brushloads of transparent color over my paper and watching mysterious, unexpected shapes emerge as if by magic.  I loved the light-filled delicacy of the final results, and I especially liked the contrast of brilliant color against the white areas I left unfinished.  Watercolor seemed like a good medium for me, and I was glad I took the class.

At the same time, though, I noticed many of my fellow classmates were not so happy.  Rather than allowing the watercolor pigment to "do its thing" by meandering and flowing across the damp paper, they seemed intent upon forcing the paint to do what it wasn't designed to do, at least not in the hands of beginners:  dark, stormy scenes set against solid (black) rock face; blood red landscapes dominated by impenetrable forests; mountainous night scenes illuminated by moonlight--very little moonlight. 

At first I thought all this angst-y artwork was a product of our having to get up too early on a snowy Saturday morning to then go plunge our hands and brushes into ice-cold water every week.  But as the class progressed and I watched people grow more and more frustrated, I realized these depressive scenes were based on a yearning to express emotion--deep emotion.  And watercolor wasn't the way to go here.  Drama at this level required oils, acrylics, charcoal, gritty things that expressed mood in a way Sap Green and Gamboge Yellow could not.

This got me thinking:  How often do we use the wrong "medium" in our writing?  And why?  This morning I tried a little brainstorming on the subject.  Here's what I came up with:

• The best medium is the one you love; not the one you're "told to use" or the one you think "will make money."  E.g., "Poetry doesn't sell; think I better write a zombie novel, and fast."
• One size does not fit all.  Sometimes you need color in your manuscript (poetic description, "show, don't tell"); sometimes you need just black and white (short sentences, factual information, minimal description).
• Any single medium is not a "catch-all."  You just can't get the same effect from oil pastel that you might from graphite.  A screenplay is not a sonnet; a short story is not an epic.
• Experimenting with "mixed media" can certainly liven up your work, but you do need to know the properties of each medium before you can use it with confidence and genuine effect.  It's the same with writing:  mixing genres can be the beginner's worst mistake.  But make the effort to learn those genres thoroughly, and surprise, surprise:  they can fit together into a harmonious--and original--whole.  It's just a matter of study and practice.
• Finding the "right medium" for your story can be as simple as asking yourself:  "What is my core story?  Is it sad, happy, funny, uplifting?  What do I really want to say?"  If your eventual theme is basically a tragedy, you won't want to add a lot of jokes to the story line.  And if you're aiming to be inspirational, painting all your characters as "flawed and evil" might not work so well, either.

Tip of the Day:  When it comes to finding your true creative medium, there's no such thing as "waste."  The process of discovery is all about doing--if one medium isn't working, try another, and another after that.  Even if you have to go through a dozen or more attempts, guess what?  You're one step closer to finding the medium that's just right for you.

Starting My Altered Book--The Blank Slate

I've always been intrigued by the idea of an "altered book," probably due to the sheer fear factor:  "Take a published book and chop it up, paint over the pages, and rewrite the whole thing according to your own taste?  What??"  Sacrilege, indeed!  And all the more reason to throw caution to the wind and start making an altered book of my own.

Deciding to alter a book was, for me, a natural progression from art journaling.  Ever since I began writing I've used magazine cut-outs to illustrate my WIP characters, their houses, their wardrobes, and anything else I needed to make my settings and action scenes more real in my mind's eye.  Moving on to dedicated art journaling--including artwork and other collage elements to my journal entries--seemed the obvious next step after keeping extensive notebooks and files for each of my (many!) drafts.  But after several art journals filled with poetry and personal essay, I felt I wanted to tackle something more in line with my fiction interests.  An altered book seemed the perfect choice.

So...for my first attempt, I chose a used book from 1972 of architectural renderings: Six Colleges, Sketches by Allan Gamble.  Reasons for my choice:  the book was "sketchbook" size; not too many pages; lots of blank pages for my own artwork; and the existing black and white, pen and ink sketches were perfect backgrounds for collage and other mixed media.   Most important of all, the "six colleges" (all belonging to the University of Sydney, Australia) have a certain gothic creepiness that appeals to my imagination.

As you can see in the top photo, the cover is truly a "blank slate" of unbleached linen.  At this point I have no idea what I will do with it, but I promise it will be interesting.  The inside of the book is just as challenging, starting with the end papers:

And the actual sketches:

And here's where I am now:

And because I am at heart a novelist, my altered book will have a plot by the time I'm finished, something about "Six Colleges and Four Girls."  Here are my four (unnamed as of yet) main characters:

Aren't they cute?  Over the next few weeks and months I'll be sharing more pictures and story line as I work my way through this--very fun--project.  Now where did I put that glue stick...?

Tip of the Day:  Working on something "just for fun" is just as important as writing or painting "for publication" or "for sale."  The things we love for their own creative sake are the things that guide us toward our true direction.