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If the Stone Falls Hard Enough…

Posted on Posted in Writing 1 Comment

thoughtsonwritingI read an interesting blog post by Matt Haig here.

Here are the comments he made that I thought were brilliant:

And if the stone falls hard enough the ripples last a lifetime.

Love that. We all know that some events in our lives have lasting repercussions.

There will be reviews. The bad ones will trouble me more than they should. Just as that one tiny hair you find in your peanut butter makes you want to throw away the whole jar.

I love that comment about reviews, especially the “one tiny hair” part. And, so true. Sometimes, I pay attention to bad reviews and just “expect” good reviews. How weird.

People place so much value on thought, but feeling is as essential. I want to read books that make me laugh and cry and fear and hope and punch the air in triumph. I want a book to hug me or grab me by the scruff of my neck. I don’t even mind if it punches me in the gut. Because we are here to feel.

Ah, isn’t that the truth? I’ve read oodles of books that I’ve immediately removed from my Kindle. They’re good books. They were well written and captured my attention, but the sad thing is that they didn’t make me feel. Because they didn’t make me feel, I knew I would never re-read them. I’m addicted to emotions. I love books that make me think, hate, and cry.

 

When the Words Get in the Way

Posted on Posted in Writing 4 Comments

Pen MacroI’ll be the first to tell you that my writing style has changed over the last twenty years. I used to be intoxicated by my own verbosity. Don’t use a single syllable word when you can use one of ten syllables! Don’t make something clear when you can obfuscate!

That came back to me the other day when I was reading some of my own early stuff. Geeze, I couldn’t just describe a window, I had to do so in such a flowery fashion that you forgot it was just a window.

Other things have changed in my writing style as well. I hate sentence fragments and try not to use them unless for effect. I have also begun to be very sensitive to sentences that start with “And”. Frankly, they drive me nuts. I’ve caught myself doing that often enough that it’s one of the topics on my DO NOT DO THIS list.

The point is, I think, to tell a story without the words getting in the way.

The words have to be almost invisible, to communicate without being noticed. The writer’s voice, my voice, has to expand to include the reader, not shut the reader out.