Write about what?

The way we string together words and the type of words we use contribute to the “pace” of writing. Longer sentences with a plethora of subordinated clauses provide an intellectual sound to the writing. The reader must take more time to ponder the concepts presented, making the ideas seem as complex as the style,  and also making the reader slog through the work.

Short sentences with direct verbs are the antidote to a dragging pace. However, few readers can stomach an entire work of short choppy bursts.  When dependent clauses are avoided, flow is sacrificed. The trick to dealing with pace-changing techniques is knowing when the writing can be improved by putting on the brakes–to let the reader savor the experience of reading–or speeding up the pace for drama.

A good exercise to show how this works is to take a paragraph out of academic writing and rewrite it. Revise it by…

While diction determines word choice, syntax determines where the words are placed. Language without syntax are words strung together with no method to the madness–in other words, nonsense. Our normal syntax mimics what we have heard before. Unique syntax requires mixing up that order without creating nonsense.

Do you recall Yoda’s distinctive style of speaking in the Star Wars movie series? Simply take the predicate object or predicate adjective at the end of a sentence and move it to the front. Voila–Yoda speak. “But what is a predicate object and predicate adjective?” you ask mystified. Basically it is everything in a normal syntax that follows after the verb.

Learning how to use syntax to create a unique voice requires a fundamental knowledge of grammar. I recall creating lengthy diagrams parsing complex sentences in my junior high days. But, diagramming went out of vogue (probably due to lack of time) just like…

Diction is one of the building blocks of voice that pushed far enough can become a two-edged sword, making the written word dangerously inaccessible to readers. When teaching Shakespeare’s plays to students I frequently pointed out that it was not the formal speeches that were hard to comprehend. Rather it was the lines full of common slang and innuendos of Elizabethan English that the students failed to grasp. After all, the bard did write to entertain the “man on the street.”

Beginning with the Renaissance there was a movement toward more formal diction in writing, and then sometime before the twentieth century writers started backing away from that same kind of diction. You could blame or praise Mark Twain for this, but he was not the only one in concerned in this swing. Today, the media has morphed into users of an informal brand of Standard English that is sprinkled…

Tone of voice… you have probably heard this phrase used frequently, such as in “I don’t like your tone of voice.” As a child I often assumed that phrase was the adults’ way of reprimanding someone whose statement was not malicious or false, but brought up an inconvenient truth. In speaking, tone is typically associated with a certain timbre, pitch or intensity that expresses an attitude, such as amusement or disdain. However those cues disappear if the words are written.

How are we to betray underlying emotions in writing? That is one of the keys to creating a distinctive writer’s voice.  Authors often use imagery to create the tone through their descriptive passages.  It does make a difference if the setting sun is “red as a ruby” or” red as blood.” A skillful writer uses imagery, full of connotative words with emotional undercurrents, to draw their characters and set the…

When people speak they produce many different signals that  the audience can interpret–facial expressions, gestures, and timbre of voice can add to the meaning of the words, or reverse them. For example, a person saying “Good job!” in a lusty voice with the right corner of his lips raised in a sneer of disdain means that he thinks you’ve done anything but a good job. However, when we write, we only offer one stimulus–words on the page.

Your style of grammar, tone, and inflection, which make up your voice when you are speaking out loud, offer so many modes of expression that must be converted to words when writing. When I hear people say creating a “voice” in writing means simply writing like you speak, I cringe. Only putting down the words you say in print is a pale, tasteless version of what needs to be told. However, writing done…

The term ‘imagery’ brings to mind, of course, images–verbal pictures that allow us to peer into the world which an author has dreamed up.  Imagery sometimes implies page after page of descriptive detail–in which case you might risk having the readers fall asleep and start dreaming up their own worlds.  But, a story without enough visual detail leaves the characters moving in an unsubstantial shadow land.

Imagery should includes more than what you see in your mind’s eye. It also needs to bring to life the sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of the world you have created. One of the appealing aspects of writing is that you do not have to stick with the conventional. Music can be  ultramarine blue or a person’s scent can be rough and sand papery. Using these metaphors which cross the senses is  called synesthesia, a term referring to a neurological condition in which senses…

Writers can throw around the terms used to describe interesting language – sensory images, unusual syntax, well-developed descriptions, and vibrant verbs. But incorporating these into writing and preserving the flow is a challenge. Recently I worked with some nascent writers trying to conjure vibrant verbs to replace the old, tired, common ones.

Actually, the common verbs are quite useful (which is why they are common). Did you ever try to carry on a conversation and not use some form of have, get, go, do or say? As the first exercise the participants had to tackle finding vivid variations of the past tense of “said” the past tense of say.

When I write dialogue I am acutely aware of how many times I have employed “said.” However, it interferes with the flow of the dialog if I have to keep stopping to search for alternate words. My own solution was to create a handy list…

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 many  the photo showed them posed in starched clothes in front of a birthday cake. As part of the exercise, they were required to use descriptors for all their senses. Well, not quiet all senses but the five major ones. However, one did include the sense of balance in the dizzying sled ride down the snow drenched hill.

When it came to illustrating the required sense of taste, almost every nascent author choose to describe something that tasted sweet. Granted humans are only suppose to be able to differentiate between five tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and the newly discovered one that we have been attracted to all along, the…

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 very few smells are considered neutral. Most smells carry an association, either with something pleasant, or unpleasant. And people do not always agree on feelings evoked  by particular smells.

For example many people enjoy the pungent smell of vanilla, especially combined with sweet overtones such as in vanilla cookies. However, long ago when I was in college, I was approached by a shuffling, old man in a grocery store as I pondered which fresh fruit would best supplement the rather insipid, college cafeteria food. There was a familiar pungent smell exuding from him as he kept pestering me.  Then, I realized what it was when the stock boy shooed him…