The Marketplace of Technique: Open to All

Oh yes indeed. If you read my novel "Byron on Wells" there is a three page long glossary of unusual vocabulary that gives the book its regional flavour.

"Garn, it's a chiller out there! This bloke passes me without his wrap, and I asks him if he's jumped off the path..."

I couldn't imagine a novel set in Byron on Wells where they said it like "Man, it's really cold out there! This dude passed me without his coat and I asked him, like, 'Have you wigged out?'"

Using slang terms like "Dokie-O's" or "Breezers" gives you the feel of meeting these folk on their own turf. Bob's your uncle, aye wot?
 
EveningStar said:
Da Badgie, he say dood it and die, mon.
Click to expand...

Hee!

On a side note.. for those who are reading this thread..

One of the way the great art masters, of graphical media, excelled in their training was to copy the previous artwork. Many artists learned by duplicating (and sometimes changing) other people's artwork.

This can ALSO be applied, believe it or not, to writing. You can take a book, read it, then outline it. Turn it back into its basic plot skeleton, and look at all the characters. Pick two characters that the author didn't use as main viewpoint characters, and figure out where they are and what they're doing through the plot.

Redo the outline, this time with those characters as main characters, and then rewrite the novel. You'd be surprised what you can pick up and what you can learn.

Even if you don't rewrite the novel, there are a huge variety of short stories and what not that can branch out of others fiction, and this can teach you how to be a better writer.

I was thinking of doing a thread based on how I write, that is, "the Snowflake method" , explained.. where everyone can see every part of the process I use when I take an idea to plot.
 
Keeping the rhyme batteries charged:

Amber, banner, candor, canner, damper, glamour, grammar, hammer, ladder, left-hander, manner, manor, pander, sander, slammer, slander, stammer, tanner.

Boasting, coasting, closing, dozing, engrossing, hosing, imposing, nosing, posting, roasting.
 
It's about older members offering to younger ones anything which will help the younger ones to improve their creative writing skills.
 
You're welcome. Now you understand (if you've seen them) why I make strings of rhyming words: to assist the poets in managing variety.


Attainable, bale of wool, capable, debatable, greater pull, inflatable, insatiable, paid in full, slate is full, sustainable.
 
For those of you who have Second Life, I'm giving a workshop tonight at 8:00 PM CST on how to perform poetry aloud. I'm user Bramblewood Pevensey.
 
This is especially for Maggie

Our dear Sunflower is tackling an unusual poetry project. I can't directly write any part of her poem FOR her, that would be cheating; but there is nothing unethical about my offering her a supply of rhymes. So, in no particular order:


Vietnamese, freeze (as in nuclear-arms freeze), Swiss cheese (holes in), pretty-please (as in begging for mercy), these, appease, policies, dying wheeze, industries, families, sneeze, breeze, trees, giving up the keys.

Oppress, dress, duress, confess, bless, distress, chess (because it was said that America played poker while Russia was playing chess, i.e. acting by deliberate plans).

Tyranny, the fear in me, dear to me, near to me, clear to see, cheerfully.

Warsaw Pact, attacked, (cards were) stacked, attract, whacked, fact.

Soviet, Tibet, get, yet, met, gazette, vet, debt.

Marx, parks, sparks, larks.

Insane (because some call all attempts to resist conquest insane), pain, Spain, chain, train, complain, brain, plane, stain, contain, John Wayne.

Nukes, kooks, pukes, dukes.

War, door, store, four, more, chore, floor, snore (as in sleeping when one should be awake and alert), adore, shore.

Armaments, defense, tense, fence (the noun, OR the verb as with swords), immense, events, only in pretense, continents, sense, dense.

Burn, learn, adjourn, turn, concern, earn.

Chance (as in "Give Peace A--"), romance, dance, (kick in the) pants, ants (which people become under a dictatorship), circumstance, lance.

Sixty-eight (big year for anti-patriotic demonstrations by hippies), too late, state, great, wait, fate (as in "abandon them to their--"), negotiate, potentate (= an absolute ruler), if we only wait, formulate.

Road, code, flowed, mowed, reload (= the only real purpose for a "cease-fire" in the minds of terrorists).

Lamps, stamps, (guitars with) amps, concentration camps.
 
Here is a poem that I wrote a few months ago in English class, where my teacher gave us a template where she gave us the "I am... I wonder... I hear..." and so on and then we wrote our own lines from there.



I Am
I am a thoughtful and compassionate girl
I wonder why there is so much sin in this world
I hear the stories of missionaries from faraway countries
I see the fear of children with no hope in my mind’s eye
I want to make a difference to the people around me
I am a thoughtful and compassionate girl

I pretend that I can be better than what I already am
I feel the sorrows of others when I see them hurting
I touch the unknown when I help other people
I worry about what they really think of me
I cry when I see an aching heart
I am a thoughtful and compassionate girl

I understand that God loves me the way I am
I say things I often regret the next day
I dream about my future and what it will hold
I try my hardest to succeed at everything I do
I hope that people will see Jesus through me
I am a thoughtful and compassionate girl
 
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My darling niece Katherine wrote a haiku on the occasion of William Shakespeare's birthday:


It's Shakespeare's birthday.

I baked him a giant cake,

Even though he's dead.
 
I'm writing a novella-length story at the moment, certainly not my first.

Some people try to write the way they drive...start off in the general direction and keep steering left, right and about as needed to find the end. My writing is more like an Apollo moon shot in that I aim my craft for where the moon would be by the time I got out that far rather than chasing it through the sky.

Writing a long work has the thorny problem of each chapter needing to be an episode with an interesting beginning, a suspenseful middle, and a satisfying end. But the entire work itself must have this same structure. I can't emphasize enough how important good forethought and planning can be in keeping you from writing "wasted" chapters or struggling to rewrite "unbalanced" parts.

My writing starts out as notes. I use the type colours in my word processor to keep track of whether a part I've written is a set of notes, a rough draft, a polished draft or a finished text.

It starts out thusly:

Sir Godfrey gets into a big arguement with the captain and it comes to blows. While they are fighting, Trundle and Orlando sneak out the back. As soon as the hare knows they are safely out, he changes from attack mode to retreat and beats a hasty withdrawal.

The next step is more like this, with more information:

Sir Godfrey provokes the captain with some sort of violation of his Calormene honour using what Orlando taught him about insults and the need to avenge. Thusly he creates a diversion. He's arranged in advance for Trundle and Orlando to lower themselves off the opposite side of the ship as soon as he hears the pre-arranged signal....

The rough draft begins to read like a real story. Note the detail and case changes:

Sir Godfrey passed the captain, deliberately bumping into him as he went by. "Ho there!" the captain said, "watch it, long ears!" Rather than giving the traditional apology, Godfrey goaded the captain. "Watch yourself! And the name is Sir Godfrey, you clod!"

Finally it advances to the state of a polished draft:

Sir Godfrey glanced at the intimidating bulk of the Calormene Captain out of the corner of his eye. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then concealing his near panic he strode forward and carefully but rather forcefully bumped into the captain's shoulder as he passed. "Oy! Watch it, you long-eared doat!"

The final draft comes from reading through the story like a prospective audience and correcting the rough bits as you find them.

Hope this helps.
 
I just want to know if my poems are too ambiguious.

I write whatever comes to my brain, I enjoy hyper-descriptive poetry but my real pleasure resides in seeming nonsensical, metaphorical poetry. Poetry that conjurs up an image and then contradicts it. I like poetry with mystery, poetry that means nothing...and everything.
This is basically paraphraseing what I said i nan earlier post but if stuff like...

Subsudizing is the mystery,

To all of those who merily,

Would forfit time,

to match the rhyme,

instead of the consistancy.

...Isn't real poetry and just babbling nonsense then don't righly know what poetry is.

Yeah, just came up with that in like, 25 secs. But Im kind of lost here, I'm just not sure if what I write is just randomness or art. I'm still pouring through this thread...hope I find some answers.
 
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Hobo, there's no law that says you can't write spontaneous verses. But it gives the brain more of a workout to write something with an orderly form. That's why the sonnet has been such an enduring style: it requires some discipline, but whoever first invented it created a "virtual workspace" with enough room to express plenty.
 
Ah, discipline... :p the "d" word...

Haha, Just messin' with you. Thanks for all your help...

I read your poetry in here alone...It's AMAZING!

Guess that comes with experience ;)
 
Copperfox said:
My darling niece Katherine wrote a haiku on the occasion of William Shakespeare's birthday:


It's Shakespeare's birthday.

I baked him a giant cake,

Even though he's dead.
Click to expand...

ROFL!! :p I like that :D

I'm currently trying to work on a children's novel, but it's extremely hard for me to get over writer's block...in the meantime I write fanfiction--it helps keep my brain going. I went to a writer's conference back in April and went to a workshop on overcoming WB--the techniques really helped, actually! I think I just need to focus more on completing one thing so I can get that book done! :rolleyes:

Here's some of the techniques suggested by writer Matt Kirkpatrick (this is all from the packet he handed out to the other writers in the workshopt) that can help battle writer's block:

"Random Word Generator

http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/RandomWordPlus.aspx

Use this to generate 2, 4, 6 (whatever you want to try) words. Take ten minutes and don't lift your pen from the page (hands from keyboard, whatever) and keep writing. Do not stop even if what you are writing is nonsensical. Stop at ten minutes.

Google Translator

http://translate.google.com

Drop our favorite text (something you've written, something by somebody else) into google translate. Translate from English into the language of your choice. Translate that back to English. Reapeat at least six times and see what you come up with. Can you use the new sentence as the starting point for another ten-minute writing session?"

^(that one's really fun :D)

"Sentence Imitation

Find a favorite page or three from a novel or short story. Diagram every sentence in order by whatever notational method you choose--you want to create a 'skeleton' of the page as accurately as possiblee. Now, with your skeleton structure fill in the blanks using the diagrammed sentences.

Photography Experiment

Find three photographs that you did not take and with which you are not familiar. Photosharing sites like Flickr are useful for this. The photographs should be by different photographers and should not be easily grouped--for example, finding three photos of Corvettes will not be as useful as picking three unrelated photographs.

http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days

Think of the 'blind field' of the photographs--what is happening outside the boundaries of the photographs? Can you mentally 'connect' the three photographs in any way, or if not, how are they different? Why can't the narrative of the photographs be connected?"

Again, these are all exercises not necessarily to get ideas for new stories, but just to get your brain going so your mind is a lot clearer before you start (or continue) to write a larger work.
 
This may sound too pricey, too unattainable. It doesn't have to be, because I'm not suggesting taking a trip for the PURPOSE of breaking writer's block.

However by a fortunate alignment of the stars I was spending a week in the sagebrush desert of Western Nevada while writing the soon-to-be-released "Swept Away" set in Calormen.

I experienced first hand many of the same things the travellers through the Calormene Central Desert faced...high winds, hot days, cold nights, dry air...hey, I WAS in Calormen!

Then one night at 10:00 I heard a distant coyote howl as I was taking a nightly stroll without flashlight by the silver moon. I howled back wondering if he would answer me. He did...along with about eight or so of his friends and relatives ALL AROUND ME in a two minute serenade. It was absolutely electric.

That incident does not figure in my story, but the thorn bushes, the desert hardpan, the dust devils...my oh my...so many things I might not have thought of otherwise.

If you're going somewhere...even somewhere that is unrelated to your story...even such things as the different news you hear, the travellers' woes of taking off shoes in an airport, or learning to adjust to a different family's diet...you can be inspired.

Accumulate experiences. Use every journey as a treasure chest of new ideas. With a little luck and a lot of creativity, a vacation in the Channel Islands can become a trip to the Lone Islands, and that musty smell of hand-hewn stone as you climb into that old lighthouse may be translated into the echoey mysterious feel of climbing a stone tower at Cair Paravel.
 
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