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Category Archives: Teaching writing skills
What is the bad guy really thinking?
Do you recall the campy original Batman series in which the villain de jour always explained his detailed plan for the crime as Batman was slowly moving towards a not so sure death? Is there a problem with adding the villain’s … Continue reading
What makes poetry, poetry?
As a young child I assumed poetry must rhyme. Meter was beyond my comprehension. It was only that constant repetition of ending sounds that mattered. In fifth grade, the teacher encouraged us all to enter a poetry recitation contest. The … Continue reading
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
2 Comments
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
1 Comment
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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