Facts are true for everyone. Grass is green. The sun is hot. Waltzes are in three quarter time. Lemons are sour. Skunks are smelly. Opinions are true for those who hold them. Grass is beautiful. Sunny days are cheerful. Waltzes are boring. Lemons make the best pie. Skunks are my favorite animal. Facts are irrefutable tidbits of information readily confirmed by multiple sources. Opinions are personal perceptions. Why does this Matter? With hundreds of media outlets, each catering to a specific audience, the line blurs between fact and opinion. So what does this mean? Back in the 1970s there were three broadcast networks. Everyone received the same factual reporting regardless…
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Treat Yourself
A writing retreat pays big dividends, and it doesn’t have to take a bite out of your wallet. Do you have access to a cabin, a condo, or a room over the garage? You could sign up for a Costa Rican retreat with daily writing, critique, and personal coaching sessions at a couple of thousand dollars per person. Or. . . create your own retreat for next to nothing! That’s what my critique group did. Share the Load One member generously offered her time-share condo for the weekend, another made sure we had enough snacks to keep us going, and two members provided meals. Everyone was responsible for their own…
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Filler Words
People use, you know, filler words when they talk all the time. It’s something we um, accept as part of like, natural speech. Did you notice the you know, um, and like? These words don’t have any redeeming value whatsoever. Writing has filler words too. Just, really, and very are a few examples. Generally speaking if you cut these words out, they will not affect the meaning of your sentence. As always, there are some exceptions. Amplifiers I can almost hear you disagreeing with me about very. Let’s look at an example. You might write: the very small dog barked as loud as a foghorn. Obviously you want to convey…
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NaNo Prep
NaNoWriMo is just around the corner. What’s that you ask? It’s shorthand for National Novel Writing Month. Each November since 1999, participants have attempted to write a 50,000 word novel. That’s a lot of words! Resources: Word Tracker NaNoWriMo’s website at NaNoWriMo.org is chock full of helpful resources. There’s a word tracker to show progress toward your word count goal. It’s set up as a graph. With days on the X axis and word count on the Y axis a target slope gives you a daily word count goal. Your actual progress shows where you stand in relation to the target slope. If you write every single day with no…
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Rewrite? You’re Kidding!
You’ve spent hours on your writing project. Spellcheck hasn’t underlined any errors, and you’ve said what you set out to say. Before your teacher even looks at it s/he says to rewrite. What? Why did you put all that time in you wonder? But hear me out. Your teacher has a point. First drafts are rarely ready for prime time. Revising involves more than punctuation, spelling, and grammar errors. You also want to look at sensory details, sentence flow and variability. Sensory Detail You may think you’ve already included all the necessary sensory details. My rule of thumb is to incorporate at least three senses in every scene. In our…
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Procrastination
Procrastination plagues my family. It’s a character trait handed from one generation to the next. So naturally, there’s nothing I can do about it, right? Well . . . if that’s your approach I’m here to change your mind. Causes So why procrastinate? It’s easy to say it’s hereditary. But is it? Really? I don’t know if it’s the rush I feel when working under a deadline, overfilling my plate, or simply poor time management, but procrastination must fill a role for me otherwise I wouldn’t do it. Always a conscientious student, I did my math homework and history reading as assigned. It was those longer projects that hung over…
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Critique Partners
Last month I talked briefly about the importance of networking. Today I want to dig a little deeper. Your critique group or partner is probably the basic building block of your writing network. Goldilocks Principle Critique partners are ‘first eyes’ on your work. They become trusted partners in your writing process. So how do you find them? If you’re a student, it can be as easy as tapping a fellow classmate. But be careful. Your goal is to find someone who is unafraid to make suggestions that will improve your work. Like Goldilocks you want to find a partner that is just right. You don’t want your critique partner to…
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Resist the Urge to Explain
Resist the urge to explain. You know your joke hasn’t gone over well when you have to explain the punch line. Writing is like that too. The best narratives speak for themselves. Give Your Reader Credit Explaining each detail is akin to talking down to your reader. Surely, they can infer your meaning without explanation. Readers as a whole are intelligent beings capable of coming to their own conclusions based on the information you give them. Look at the example below. Aunt Cecelia believes that if you can’t produce a thing yourself, you have no business using it. You’d never know she is related to my image conscious, consumer driven,…
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Time for School
If you’re a student, welcome back to school! Sharp pencils, packages of shrink-wrapped lined paper, and fresh haircuts are sure signs of a new school year. No more late nights stargazing or watching Netflix. It’s time to settle in with textbooks and homework. Survival Tips Whether you’re in fifth grade or college you need a good night’s sleep. Light from a TV or computer screen can affect melatonin production. That’s the hormone that regulates your sleep cycle, also known as circadian rhythms. Turn off all screens two hours before you plan to sleep. That includes your cell phone! Stay active. If you find yourself sitting for more than an hour,…
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Meaningful Writing is Personal
Whether you’re writing a report, an essay, or fiction, the best writing is personal. Writing is a conversation between you and your reader. If they want to look up facts and figures without your personal analysis, there’s always the internet. Readers crave a personal connection with the writing and that’s what you bring to the conversation. Nonfiction Think about the last report you wrote. Was it an assigned topic? If not, how did you choose what to write about? Was your report dull and lifeless or did you pack it with the passion you have for the topic? The best writing always has a personal component. That personal connection allows…
