  Noticing Newbies
This week: Write What You Know? Edited by: ember_rain
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As a Newbie, I struggled to find my place here. It took a couple of tries. Then I found a group and a friend that put a smile on my face and made me want to be here. I want to be that friend for all of you. So grab a cup of tea and have a nice read as I help you find your ways through the ends and outs of Writing.com.
The best thing about this place... Even Dyslexics like me, that like to tilt at windmills, have a chance for greatness. If you find a grammar or spelling mistake accept my apology now. Spell and Grammar check just doesn't get them all. I will, on occasion, use this space to explain things I have learned to both help solidify them in my mind and to help others that might struggle with it as well. Homeschooling my kids taught me that I learn best when teaching. |
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I was going to continue on our journey of each of the different types of things you can put in your port, but then I became inspired. By the time all of you receive this newsletter, the premier of the new season of "Dr. Who" will have aired. Since Wednesday I have been watching the marathon of reruns on BBC America. Anytime I do that, I am amazed by the quality of the writing and how it is they manage to keep all of those threads going.
One thing is obvious when watching "Dr. Who"; no one has ever traveled through space and time. No one knows what its like to fight a Cyber Man. No one has ever interacted with a humanoid reptile or a warrior that looks like a potato. The introduction of the Weeping Angles was the work of a genius, but who has ever actually seen one?
So what inspires these things? How, if we are suppose to write what we know, could we ever come up with the things the writers of "Dr. Who" come up with?
When I was younger I took that advice seriously. I had all these story ideas that I couldn't write because no one had ever lived them. I most certainly hadn't. Yet here is The Doctor being extraordinary when I knew they weren't writing about what they know.
It wasn't until I had children of my own I began to understand.... I mean really understand. I was watching them play one of their games in the front yard. My son was holding his Nerf gun, pointing it toward the trees, yelling back to his siblings behind him, all armed with some sort of Nerf weapon, "Get ready, here they come!"
Later when they were helping me to hang the cloths on the line I asked, "So what were all of you shooting at?"
"Aliens, Mom. They are huge and look like dragons."
"So you can kill them with Nerf darts?"
"No silly, Nerf doesn't kill anyone. Nerf just slows them down. We don't want to kill them. We want to learn from them." wolf knight  said with a grin.
My kids understood something I couldn't. I might not have lived on a planet with a green sky and two moons. Doesn't mean I can't imagine what it might be like. What if we had a binary star system? How would one go about writing about something you have never experienced? Perhaps the same way my children thought they could subdue alien dragons to have a chat.
Writing what you know doesn't mean suspending your imagination. It means taking what you know and using your imagination to enhance it. What if every police box in London was bigger on the inside than the out? All it took was a child pretending it was a time machine and before you know it we ended up with The Doctor. So what did the writer know? He knew time travel stimulates the imagination of all people and that a Police Box would make an excellent cover for said time machine
Perhaps he had a quirky neighbor he couldn't help but wonder if they weren't an alien. A toy becomes a weapon, a building block a space ship, even dolls inspire fear when you start to think perhaps with those glass eyes they are hiding a soul.
Writing what you know should never cause you to abandon your imagination to write things that bore you. It means you should use your imagination to turn what you know into something extraordinary. Write what you know, just take it out of the box first.
> {center}{size:5}{c:blue}{b}The Newbie Corner With Writing ML
> Tips{/b}{/c}{/size}{/center}
>
> {indent}You know as a newbie to anything whether it be short stories, novels, or even
> blogging, we all like to enhance our work--color it up. Mostly, text is cold. Without
> emoticons and such it is hard for people to tell that your teasing or joking.
>
> {indent}To get started, you need to know almost every Writing ML commands have a starting
> command and an ending command. Lets use Bold. First you type in {b} when your finished
> with the section that you wanted in Bold you put this {/b}. {b}Now to get commands to
> show up in text. If your helping someone do a check mark, you double bracket it{/b}. As an
> example "{XXXXXXXXX}" It would look like this {e:checkg} {e:checkg}.
>
> {indent}Having problems indenting use {indent} now indent does not need the ending code
> it doesn't need one.
>
> {indent}Want to add some color? {c:red} {c:red}then to stop the color red you use{/c}
> {/c}. Say you cannot remember the right color you want. Type in {c: it will bring up a
> list just put in the first letter of your color and the list narrows down to point you in
> the right direction.
>
> {indent}On the emoticons, if you type in "{e:" You will get a list to pop up
> giving you an aid to find the right emoticon. These do not need an ending code.
>
> {indent}One of the major issues I had was when I converted a word doc to a Writing ML doc
> in a static sheet was that It added these {size:2} to every paragraph making it hard to read for
> my poor tired old eyes. To show off your writing better use {size:3.5} and at the end
> of all your text put a {/size} to finish it
>
> Brett
> {image:4000}
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From: katherinerose Thank you for your newsletter "Which do I choose". I am one of those who have been here quite a while, but haven't progressed beyond Newbie stage. I enjoyed your clear explanation of the terms etc.
I challenge each of you to turn something ordinary into something extraordinary then send it to me so I can use it in next month's newsletter. |
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Noticing Newbies: August 27, 2014 Issue [#6510]
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