Romance/Love
This week: Transport Your Reader Into Your Story! Edited by: Fyn More Newsletters By This Editor
1. About this Newsletter 2. A Word from our Sponsor 3. Letter from the Editor 4. Editor's Picks 5. A Word from Writing.Com 6. Ask & Answer 7. Removal instructions
I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.~~John McGahern
I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.~~Eleanor Roosevelt
I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience - it also marks the time, which is four o clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere.~~Richard Brinsley Sheridan
In rating ease of description as very important, we are essentially asserting a belief in quantitative knowledge - a belief that most of the key questions in our world sooner or later demand answers to 'by how much?' rather than merely to 'in which direction?'~~John Tuley
Interesting phenomena occur when two or more rhythmic patterns are combined, and these phenomena illustrate very aptly the enrichment of information that occurs when one description is combined with another.~~Gregory Bateson
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ASIN: 0997970618 |
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Amazon's Price: $ 14.99
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Consider the following excerpts:
A.T.B: It'sWhatWeDo
Spanish moss hangs from the boughs of live oaks, quiet poets lost in a sweet nostalgia that transcends all but a semblance of thought. A momentary gust stirs their sacred pen to paper, and they whisper soft and archaic musings, swaying with the eternal timelessness of their peaceful being.
Their sparse words are quick to fade, lost within the comings and goings of a World that moves as if to forget, making room only for what is yet to come, always so inexplicably fond of the future.
But a tree lives to remember. A tree understands that someday, despite all the overtures of a hurried world, the future will be no more substantial than another poetic whisper fading with a calming wind - measured in a length of Spanish moss, or in the distance between each intermittent circle of growth tucked safe within its trunk.
and this by DRSmith
I awoke to a bright and cheerful Saturday morn, perfect for a casual stroll for a taste of Haymarket Square where Italian vendors hustled meats and produce from open crates and little stalls. After sampling fresh fruits and char-grilled sausages, I moved on, crossed the Common, and turned north onto Charles Street. I was content with window-wishing for exquisite things in a dozen high-end curio and antique shops when I came upon a fusty used book store- things I could afford.
The place was a potpourri of print, shelves crammed with books filled every nook and cranny. I leisurely browsed looking for nothing in particular when suddenly, I was infused with an odd sensation- as if some unseen, but gentle force guided me to a certain bookcase. I didn't resist, and without hesitation or distraction, I went straight toward it and stopped. There, just above my head about mid-shelf, I spotted a two-volume set: Isis Unveiled.
and this by yours truly:
The distinguished, silver-haired gentleman in the fourth row was edgy and kept changing his position in his wooden folding chair. He'd never had the occasion for attending an auction at Harriford before and simply couldn't understand the reasoning behind the spine torturing, unpadded chairs they used. Certainly, they could afford better seating. The auction houses of Sotheby and Christie both had fine, upholstered chairs, carpeted floors and, in general, a far more genteel atmosphere. This was more like he'd expect to find in an old barn on some back country road back home rather than in London.
Energy bristled about him as he kept crossing one leg and then the other trying to find a comfortable position. Now, with perhaps a half hour until the auction officially started, the waiting was testing his patience to the extreme and, normally, he was a very patient fellow. But not today. And yet, he felt as if he'd been waiting for over forty years for something, some clue. So another few more minutes shouldn't really matter. Yet they did. Every moment now seemed an eternity. He was so close.
Each of these pluck the reader away from their desk, out of their easy chair and from beneath cozy bed blankets and plops them down someplace else. Regardless if it be in the midst of a southern forest, a busy marketplace in Boston or a London auction house, we experience the uncomfortable wooden chairs to an impatient man, breathe in the aromas of an ancient forest and are besieged by the sensory input of a market or antique bookstore. In short, the reader is able to mentally experience that which the character is experiencing. It is made real, visceral and palpable.
While dialogue can move a story forward, it is the settings that bring it to life. If a writer can grab the reader and seamlessly transport the reader into the world of the story, it makes that read so much more satisfying. For those who have never walked on pine needles in the forest to suddenly know what they smell like,or for one who has never been to Boston and wandered its shops to feel the excitement of an odd little bookstore, the words used brought the experiences to life.
It is said that 90% of reading is in the imagination. When the writer gives the tools to the reader that firmly put them in the scene, as if they are following the character around, it becomes that much more of a submersive experience. If we read to escape, then how much better is it to let our readers truly escape into that which we are writing?
Let the reader taste that burnt, metallic taste of congealing blood when they discover the murdered victim lying in the library. Let us be able to inhale the scent of crushed lilacs as the heroine twists and wrings the bouquet her vanished lover leaves behind. Let us feel the mud squishing into our boots, the cold, uncomfortable, toe-chilling feel as we cross a rain-soaked back road. Let us bring forth the remembered caress of his hand grazing across a cheek that first time. Let our hearts thump against our chest and cringe as the lightning flashes showing our heroine cringing against the onslaught of the angry river leaving its banks to plunder the landscape. Make it real. Make it alive. Make it memorable. And your reader will follow along, vicariously experiencing that story you are sharing. Both will be the richer for it!
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This Saturday was the 2010 Quill Awards. I offer a selection from the winners, honorable mentions, finalists and nominated entries. This is truly some of the finest writing on WDC.
The first three are the ones from which I pulled my excerpts above.
| | Invalid Item This item number is not valid. #1698860 by Not Available. |
| | BLAVATSKY'S BUS (E) Inspired by Carl Sagan, a personal journey that had stimulated the core of my psyche #1676003 by DRSmith |
| | The Dust Jacket (13+) Like threads woven into a jacket, that what we touch adds a shimmer before we pass it on. #1676761 by Fyn |
| | --- (E) Some days written through music, a short piece of prose. #1648074 by Jaywalker |
| | Invalid Item This item number is not valid. #1668048 by Not Available. |
| | Lovebird (E) 2ND PLACE in the WDC Limerick contest. Just be thankful it didn't win! #1707318 by Malister |
| | Invalid Item This item number is not valid. #1732111 by Not Available. |
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