Lesson 7 - Rewording

Choosing Powerful Words
Using what you learned in Lesson 7, rewrite these sentences to make them powerful, vivid, and unique. You can do that by trying the following:

• Improve the verbs and make the nouns more specific.
• Show a character in action rather than naming feelings or telling us what we should think.
• Be specific with your details.
• Work on developing a clear mental picture of the scene and then copy what you see in your mind onto the page.

Rewrite these sentences:

1. There were so many winding curves as I drove in the blazingly bright orange sunlit glare of the everlasting road that I was utterly exhausted by the endless ordeal and thought I might faint if given half the chance. (What's wrong: Overdone adjectives and adverbs. Cliches. Sentence goes on too long.)
2. The leaves were red. (What's wrong: Too general. Hard to picture this. Very blah.)
3. That horrible tornado was like a raging bull charging a red cape so it could blast everything we owned to smithereens once and for all. (What's wrong: Silly and mixed metaphor. Vague adjective. Cliches.)
4. John thought again how Martha was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and he knew he would love her forever. (What's wrong: Powerful thought but weak delivery. Telling instead of showing. Dull verbs. No picture evoked.)

MY VERSIONS OF THE ABOVE SENTENCES

1. The winding road curved again into the bright glare of the sun as exhaustion swept over my body leaving me limp in my seat.
2. The broad branches of the maple tree fanned out with ruby, garnet and amber bejeweled leaves.
3. The tornado raged like a child throwing a tantrum, wind pounded over the house, rattled the windows in their frames and threw sticks, patio furniture and lawn ornaments at the walls. 
4. John found the sting of tears burning behind his eyes when he saw Martha and was transported back to the day he first saw her on that park bench and his heart had instantly melted all over again.

Being a Wordsmith

Wordsmith - Dictionary.com

–noun

1.

an expert in the use of words.

2.

a person, as a journalist or novelist, whose vocation is writing.

In the creative writing class, Lesson 7 on choosing the right words was a great reminder about how to craft words and sentences for impact. What the instructor says in this lesson is so true.

When I was still teaching college level writing, I had a lot of freshman who wrote these highfalutin' sentences that were hard to understand. After some discussions with them, I figured out they were writing how they THOUGHT they should be writing at the college level. I finally got it across to them to write to be understood, not to impress. And the nice thing about business writing was that this rule applies even more.

So here are some of my thoughts on Being a Wordsmith:

1. Sometimes simple is better, especially if it is a complex idea.
2. For complex ideas, use more than one sentence. Cramming too many ideas into one sentence loses what you are trying to say.
3. Vary sentence lengths not just to make your writing more interesting but to add impact. In an intense, action-packed or emotionally charged scene, use short sentences to reflect tension.
4. Avoid cliches, trite, overused phrases. If you can't find an original way to say it, does it need to be there?
5. Avoid the AND complex. If two words are connected by AND, are they expressing different ideas or similar ones? For example: It was cold and freezing outside. The ideas of cold and freezing are too similar to be joined with an AND. Pick one and move on.
6. Use nouns well. Choose nouns that mean something. I would get on my students about using 'stuff' and 'things.' Look at the context of the word and define what that 'stuff' is or what those 'things' are.
7. Use action verbs. Choose action verbs if you can to help show characterization or situation. If John gave Mary a box, did he toss it at her? hand it to her? drop it in her palm?
8. Don't make your readers pull out a dictionary. Once you use that big $10 word you have been storing up, you may lose your audience. If they have to pause long enough to try to figure out the meaning of the word, you have just pulled them out of your setting.

I know I have more ideas in my teacher brain. As I think of more tips I will add on. You are free to disagree with me or add your own ideas to the list.

Lesson 6 - Revising

Thank you again to Amita for her feedback. I am still tweaking the paragraph before I submit if for the homework.

This paragraph is based on one of my ideas for a novel about a vampire who has no memory of who or what she is. She was entombed, gets broken free during Hurricane Katrina and floated into the bayou. The setting is New Orleans as she finds out what she is and joins up with a group of humans hunting vamps.

If you are keeping score, that is book idea #3. LOL. I have the first 10 pages or so written out, but I am still fuzzy on the entire plot.

Time to get serious about your own creative short piece--the one I mentioned in Lesson 2, Chapter 5. Yes, I'm determined to have you end this class with something to show for it! Bring up your piece now and spend some time drafting, then rereading, rethinking, and rewriting.

For Assignment 6, you are invited to post the first paragraph of your short creative piece.

Please resist the temptation to jam several paragraphs into one long one as a way to get more feedback. I tend to focus on the need for more paragraph breaks, so this wastes your good opportunity for more helpful commentary.



ORIGINAL VERSION
All this I sensed through the veil of pain I existed in. I tossed and rolled in the wash of fluids like a baby in the womb and still the pain wouldn't cease. Not even when I floated into a soft bed of something that, when I clawed at it, gave easily under my fingers. I clawed and crawled and struggled to be born from that fluidic world and emerged to cough and sputter where the world was drier. I don't know how long I stayed slumped and weak... minutes, hours... not days surely. But, I had no sense of time.


REVISED VERSION
All this I sensed the world through the veil of pain. I tossed and rolled amid the wash of fluids like a kitten in a gunny sack tossed in a turbulent river. Through it all the pain wouldn't cease, not even when I floated into a soft bed of something that, when I clawed at it, gave easily under my crooked fingers. My eyes didn’t work. In fact, I didn’t perceive that I even had eyes, so new was I to the world. I was hands and fingers and raw nerve endings. I clawed and crawled and struggled to be born from that fluidic world. I discovered I had lungs and a nose, emerging to cough and sputter water and muck where the world was drier. I don't know how long I stayed slumped and weak in the viscous mud. I had no sense of time. Minutes, hours... not days surely.

ANOTHER REVISED VERSION AFTER MORE FEEDBACK WHICH GOES TO PROVE THAT REVISING IS ONGOING :)

All this I sensed through the veil of pain. I tossed and rolled amid the wash of fluids like a body thrown to the mercy of the turbulent river. Sometimes objects would bump or glide along my skin sending shock waves of torment along my nerves. Some items where hard and dug at me; others were soft and gave under contact with me, but the pain never ceased. Even when I floated into a soft bed of something that, when I clawed at it, gave easily under my crooked fingers, pain was my relentless companion. My eyes didn’t work. In fact, I didn’t perceive that I even had eyes, so new was I to the world. I was hands, fingers and raw nerve endings. I clawed and crawled and struggled to be born from that fluidic world, dragging my ravaged body onto viscous mud. I discovered I had lungs and a nose so that I emerged coughing and sputtering water and muck on a shore in a land unknown to me. I don't know how long I stayed slumped and weak but free of the waters. I had no sense of time.

Lesson 5 - Bricolage

Here is a short list of the most boring, mundane items I could think of:

* Paper clip
* Piece of gravel
* Spoon
* Plastic bag
* Candy wrapper


Pick the one that says the least to you and write about it for five minutes. Go ahead. Try and say nothing. Better still, galumph! Practice bricolage!

A plastic bag...

It lays there empty, transparent, inert. But what kids of treasures can it hold? Seashells collected from Cancun, Goldfish crackers (useful in picking up guys and in keeping children from complaining of hunger), life or sanity saving pills. I speak of the plastic bag of being one of those zippered kind but really that is an assumption on my part. It could be one of those white plastic grocery bags that were such the rage when they first came out and then everyone was up in arms around the sea turtles, porpoises and other animals that were getting caught up in them. And then they were made from plastic, oil based, and they didn’t biodegrade... yadda yadda yadda. Turns out that oh-so-great invention wasn’t so great after all. Now people use reusable bags which are made from natural fibers, are cheap... but they are dyed, so how toxic and bad for the environment are the more environmentally friendly bags? Hmmm I wonder if anyone has done research on it. Is my time up yet? I don’t know what else I can say about a plastic bag.

Lesson 5 Galumphing

OK, so I did this exercise and a whole scene emerged. It was probably meant to be more rough than this, but this is what came out without editing except for typos.

Lesson 5

Try Galumphing

Pick a number between 100 and 999. Write it down on a scrap of paper. Now pick the word out of the following three columns that corresponds to each of the digits in the number you wrote down. For example, my number was 632, so my words are: radio, foot doctor, and grocery store. (see lesson for columns)

Your task is to write one paragraph using the item from column 1, the character from column 2, and the place mentioned in column 3. You are galumphing, so feel free to have fun. Be profligate, excessive, exaggerated, and uneconomical, as Nachmanovitch advises. Take the scenic route. Improvise. Trust yourself. See what comes out.

My number was 576 = garbage can, scorpion and bank

Ok, I am trying this for 10 minutes right now. What about a garbage can, a scorpion and a bank? The scorpion can be outside the garbage can outside a bank in Phoenix, Arizona. I don’t know why I think of Arizona and scorpions because we have them in California too.

The air is dry and tastes of dust, but between the buildings on either side of the alley, the shade provides a welcome reprieve from the heat. Next to an old battered tin trash can, a small black shiny scorpion suns itself in the small triangle of sun from the reflection of a window, its curved stinger poised over itself. It is so still that a person might think it’s dead. But it’s stillness gives it away, an ambush predator, lulling the unwary into a fall sense of security by not moving, by blending into the landscape around it.

Jake scoffed. Sort of like him, really. He poked at the arachnid no bigger than his index finger and guffawed when it scurried under the trash can.

Jake stood up from his crouch and checked the alley way again for any sign of prey. He couldn’t stand to be in direct sunlight, so he would have to wait for a quick meal on some unsuspecting homeless person looking to bed down for the night. It was surprising that this alley wasn’t already inhabited by the homeless but they were strangely absent.

A sound at the end of the alley drew his attention. He was surprised to see a woman, dressed in tight-fitting black motorcycle gear. Jake’s fangs lengthened. She would be a tasty morsel. She smiles almost as if reading his mind.

“Hungry, big boy?” she said in a sultry voice as she stalked closer to him.

Saliva welling in his mouth made him swallow before answering. “Yes,” he said, hissing around his lengthening fangs. She was only step away from him now. The tight leather showing all her juicy curves that his eyes lewdly followed. From the distance, he should be able to scent her, her heat and blood beneath the surface of her translucent skin.

“What are you?” he asked. His eyes roaming carefully over her now. His gaze came up to her eyes and he realized that they were a glassy black... the entire eye held no whites. In fact, he could see his startled face reflected out of those inky depths.

“Pissed,” she purred and stepped back as something long and dark moved behind her shoulders.

Jake thought he was seeing her dark hair in a ponytail, moving of its own free will over her head and curving towards him. Then he saw the stinger, a curved lethal point that glistened wetly. He’d seen something similar not 5 minutes before.

It was the last thought in his head before the stinger pierced it, popping it like a needle with a balloon. Immediately, the rest of the body burst into dust and rain to the ground in a gray mass.

The woman retracted her stinger behind her back and turned to the trash can.

“Come out my darling. He can’t hurt you now,” she said, crooning.

A small black body tentatively crawled from under the warped metal. And then another... and then dozens, black glittering bodies swarmed her shiny leather boots. Laughter filled the not-so-empty alley behind a bank in the summer in Phoenix, AZ.

Lesson 4 - POV assignment

Okay, let's practice writing some action. You left Martha waiting for the bus in a winter storm. The bus has just pulled up. The first person off the bus is Martha's ex-husband John. You're going to write one paragraph (no more than five sentences) telling what happens next. Before you begin writing, make these three choices:

1. Choose a point of view.
2.
3.
4. Choose a verb tense (past or present).
5.
6.
7. Choose your distance for this paragraph (close, moderate, or far).


Write your choices above your paragraph. When you're done, consider posting it to the Discussion Area so that other students can tell you what they like about it. Remember that it's always nice to comment on the submissions of those who comment on yours. Remember, too, that brief, interesting writing will attract the most readers.

First person point of view. Past tense. Close distance.

The bus had finally pulled up to our stop and I just barely resisted pushing my way to the front of our small line. As it was, I ended up behind the first person, the woman in the old peacoat and worn sneakers. Cursing the rain that slanted to hit me full in the face, I shifted automatically with the woman as she stepped aside to let someone get off the bus first. There goes my interview makeup job... I thought to myself. So when I heard a male voice call my name, it took a moment for it to register. My whole body stiffened when I looked through the rain to see John, my ex-husband, a crooked smile on those lips that could make me burn or want to scream in frustration.

More POV Practice - Lesson 4

Martha waits at a bus stop in a winter storm.

Open a document and write out a description of this scene in a couple of sentences as if you are Martha. Get as close as you can. You are totally inside Martha, feeling all the misery and discomfort she feels. You're writing from a close distance here. Read my example below after you've done your own.

The chill wind whips around the plexiglass barrier etched in gang signs, rattling it in its frame. Martha grips the edges of her thrift store black peacoat tighter around herself, trying to close of all the gaps where the cold can rush in with the wind. Her wavy brown hair is flying around her face corona of sable silk as she prays for the bus to hurry up to her stop. (Too distant according to example which was more stream of consciousness.)

Redo-I stomp my feet to get the circulation back in my hose-clad legs. Stupid job interview. Today of all days when the wind is whipping the cold rain all over the place and making my once styled hair a wind-blown mop of dark sable. Standing under the bus stop overhang is fruitless; the wind changes direction every second so that I get wet no matter where I stand.

Now back up a bit. Describe this scene as if you are Martha, but you're focusing more on what's outside, not inside. Include details that Martha might notice around her. This brings your readers in at a more moderate distance. Write the scene in a couple of sentences; then read the example below.

Martha looked down the street yet again, checking to see if the bus was any closer to arriving than a minute ago when she had checked. She and three other people huddled under the bus stop overhang, trying to keep dry despite the wind bringing in the rain from different angles. A woman to Martha’s left gripped her thrift store peacoat tighter around her and shuffled her soaked, hole-ridden sneakers.

Now place yourself farther away. You're looking down on the scene and considering it in the face of countless others you've witnessed. You're keeping your readers at a far distance from the action. Read my example below after you've done your own.

The four bodies clustered together under dull metal bus stop overhang. Rain sliced down while the wind howled around the thin plexiglass barrier. Everyone seemed determined to avoid the water especially one in a long navy raincoat. Her rich dark hair has started out as an updo and was now a bunch of tangles whipping around her face. Her dark pumps were little defense against the cold and rain as were the hose the she wore under the coat.