Transcript document

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition
from mediocre minds.” - Albert Einstein
Creative Writing - bringing your text to life
Today we will focus on three basic principles that
will help bring sparkle to your text:
1. Using active grammar and a dynamic vocabulary
2. Using all your senses
3. Showing not telling
Active vs. Passive Writing
• What is it that makes writing dynamic? Why do you feel energized by one text and
bored to death by another? We all have the same vocabulary at our disposal (at
last count there were over 600,000 words in the dictionary) but it is how we use
them that differs.
• Consider the following sentence:
• The ball was thrown by John.
• This is a passive sentence. To activate it bring the subject of the sentence (John)
forward. Now we have:
• John threw the ball
• That’s better. The sentence has more energy, but it’s still a bit bland. Let’s consider
choosing some more dynamic words. There is not much we can do with ‘John’ or
‘ball’ (unless we change it to spherical orb which would be overkill) but the verb
‘threw’ offers us more possibilities.
• John tossed the ball - a casual act
• John chucked the ball - an aggressive act
• John propelled the ball - a deliberate act
• John hurled the ball - a desperate act
• Exercise 1:
Take each of the previous sentences and use them
as an opening for the first paragraph of a story.
How do the different verbs change the possibilities
of the story?
Please note that there should be no need for an
adverb (a word that describes the verb) as the verb
itself should carry the meaning.
For example, ‘John chucked the ball angrily’ is
unnecessary as ‘chucked’ already contains an
implication of anger. If you were to write ‘John
threw the ball angrily / casually / clumsily ‘ I would
tell you to find a verb that implied anger /
casualness / clumsiness etc. and ditch the adverb.
• A word’s dynamism relates to the amount of communicated
energy it contains. This can be fast or slow, violent or
peaceful, harsh or gentle. Sometimes we would like to slow
the reader down so that they can ponder the text. This,
however, is no excuse for passive writing. A passage can be
slow and active at the same time. Consider this passage from
C.S. Lewis’ The Magician's Nephew, the first book
in the Narnia Chronicles:
The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing
his new song. It was softer and more lilting than the song by which he
had called up the stars and the sun; a gentle, rippling music. And as
he walked and sang, the valley grew green with grass. It spread out
from the Lion like a pool. It ran up the sides of the little hills like a
wave. In a few minutes it was creeping up the lower slopes of the
distant mountains, making that young world every moment softer.
The light wind could now be heard ruffling the grass.
Slow words: empty, singing, softer, lilting, gentle,
rippling, green with grass, pool, little, wave,
creeping, lower, distant, softer, light, ruffling etc …
Active words: pacing, new, called up, walked, grew,
spread out, ran, making, wind etc …
Do you see that even a gentle passage like this can
be full of energy? This is due to the choice of words
and the use of senses which we will be looking at
later.
• Exercise 2:
Activate this sentence while still keeping the tranquility
of the image:
The day was very sunny, so the dog decided to lie down
to sleep.
• Using all your senses
• Consider your five senses: Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch,
Taste.
• It is through these senses that we connect with our
world. So by evoking one or more of the senses in a
passage, your reader should connect with your world.
That way, reading moves beyond the intellect and into
the body itself – it becomes a physical, ‘lived’
experience.
• Exercise 3:
Look at the following passage from ‘Blood Wolf’ by S.M. Stirling
(The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy).
What senses are evoked?
How has the writer achieved it?
His back hit the rough brickwork of the wall, and he
scrabbled upright, lashing out left and right with his fists.
Another man’s fist thudded into the tough muscle of his belly,
and he felt the night’s drinking and the long-ago meal leave in a
rush of sour bile. That saved him; Arktorax stepped back with an
exclamation of disgust, and Kreuha turned and turned again
along the wall, as if he were rolling down a slope. His hand
found the latch and he fell forward with a splash into a muddy
street under a thin cold rain that shook him back to the edge of
consciousness. He rose, plastered with a thin layer of earth and
horse dung churned to gray slime, and turned to meet the rush
from the tavern, trying to scream out the war-howl of his clan.
• Did you notice that there are almost no visual images in this
passage? True, we can ’see’ the whole thing in our mind’s eye
because of the power of the other senses, but Stirling does
not actually describe what something looks like. Why do you
think this is? Which is the dominant sense and why?
• The key to this kind of writing is the judicious use of
adjectives and dynamic verbs. But don’t over laden your text
– like herbs and spices, a little goes a long way! Choose words
that have layers of meaning. Consider, for example, the
following sentence:
The axe sliced into the hard wood.
vs
The axe slammed into the unyielding wood.
• What layers of meaning are added by changing the verb and
adjective?
• The axe slammed viciously into the hard, unyielding wood,
slicing and splintering the log into jagged shards
would be overkill.
Sensual writing also evokes emotion and associated
memories. This is known as synaesthesia, whereby
one sense is stimulated but manifests through
another. For example, some people see music as
color (for them, a ‘blue’ note is more than just an
expression). By using synaesthetic techniques you
‘encode’ a passage with layers of meaning. For
example, whenever TS Elliot wrote of the smell of
irises, he evoked the emotions associated with
death and loss (there were irises at his mother’s
funeral). The smell of irises, then, became a
shorthand for the whole range of emotions and
memories associated with the loss of a loved one.
• Exercise 4:
Consider a piece of your own writing. Do you
tend to overwrite or underwrite descriptive
passages? Do you favor one sense over others?
Which sense / senses do you neglect?
Rework the passage utilizing as many of the
senses as possible. Remember though, not
every passage has to have all five senses in it.
Show Don’t Tell
• The most basic mistake of novice writers is that they tell
the reader what happened rather than showing them.
Take this paragraph:
• Blanche felt like she was going to lose control at any
moment. She tried her hardest to hide it from the
unwelcome guests who had dropped in for a cup of tea
and a chat. Blanche wished they would just go away.
• This is classic telling not showing. The narrator, in third
person, is telling us how he or she thinks Blanche is
feeling. It would be better to show us:
• Blanche steadied her hand as she flicked the kettle on,
resisting the urge to toss boiling water over her guests.
‘Hope you don’t mind us dropping in like this,’ said the
woman-from-two-doors-down.
‘Not at all,’ said Blanche through sugar-cube teeth.
• Exercise 5:
Rewrite this paragraph so that it shows rather
than tells:
Bobby Brewster was bored. He couldn’t
wait until the school bell rang. He struggled
to hide it so Mr. Jones, his teacher, would not
become very irritated.
• Now find a piece of your own writing that tells
but doesn’t show and rework it.