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Author Archives: knlistman
The edge of psychotic
Writing synopsis of creativity research has led me to realize how much my spelling has deteriorated. Mostly I rely on the word processor’s spell check, but sometimes it doesn’t recognize the scientific terms; other times it doesn’t recognize my vague … Continue reading
Why create art?
Recently I took a hiatus from an almost daily habit of spending an hour or so writing poetry or fiction. It wasn’t really intentional. Mistakenly, I saw the two weeks work shut down at the end of the year as … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity
Tagged art, Creative destruction, Creative writing, Creativity, Joseph Schumpeter
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Pointed view
Almost everyone knows about first person and third person narratives in writing. Basically as humans we all see from the familiar, limited first person point of view that allows us only to know what goes on in our presence. Much … Continue reading
Simply unreliable
Characters who have psychological profiles, also have their own viewpoint – opinions, judgments and prejudices – concerning the world around them. The first person narrator that is a viewpoint character – such as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby – … Continue reading
Out of character
“It fits the perpetrator’s M.O.” … you’ve heard M.O. mentioned in so many police shows, detective novels, any kind of work related to law enforcement. What is it? A profile of a killer who has struck again collection constructed from … Continue reading
The character who saw too much
Writing from the first person point of view routinely goes through periods of popularity only to be followed by a flood of amateurish first person novels. Then, writing “gurus” will advice the beginning writer never to write in first person. … Continue reading
Posted in Story structure, Teaching writing skills, Writer's resource
Tagged hero, point of view, villain
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Physiological writing
What exactly are physiological reactions? Imagine you are a young teenage girl. You are waiting in the math hall, and that handsome senior with an air of indifferent confidence strolls past you on the way to calculus. Normally you are … Continue reading
Unknown, unnerving
While watching a military movie, that was unexpectedly full of death in gory detail (i.e. multiple flying body parts) my mind decided I had seen enough gruesomeness I started laughing. Unable to squelch the giggles, I told my husband that I … Continue reading
Creating pungent memories
The sense of smell is such a powerful memory enhancer that at one time people in the training business tried to capture its potential. However, the difficulty with using smell to help people retain what they had learned is that … Continue reading
Posted in Teaching writing skills, Writer's resource
Tagged Manure, Olfaction, smell and emotion, smell and memory, Vanilla
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The forgotten sense
For an recent practice in sensory description, emerging writers chose a photo from their childhood–playing on a snow drenched hill, seeking warmth in the flicker of a fireplace, or splashing in a plastic pool to escape the summer heat. For … Continue reading
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