 Drama: February 03, 2016 Issue [#7439] |
  Drama
This week: Painting with Winning Words Edited by: Joy  
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"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning."
Mark Twain
"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."
Truman Capote
"Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning."
Maya Angelou
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about painting with words.
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement. |
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
The most important job of a writer is to create an illusion of real time, which means the readers will feel they are inside the story experiencing it as it happens. For that reason, all scenes need a time and place and well-placed word pictures to hold everything together as if connective tissue.
Since stories and novels lack the visual execution of film and stage, their writers have the challenge of using the right words in the right way so the story can come to life in the readers’ imaginations. How each writer accomplishes this feat may be different because of the details each one chooses to focus on to describe a certain setup.
Let’s look at a few examples of how the most competent authors use word pictures:
This from Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres. See how this author describes Apollo’s power of light.
“It is a light that seems unmediated either by the air or by the stratosphere. It is completely virgin, it produces overwhelming clarity of focus, it has heroic strength and brilliance, it exposes colors in their prelapsarian state, as though straight from the imagination of God in His youngest days, when He still believed that all was good."
A novice writer would probably say: “Apollo’s light was very strong, colorful, brilliant, and godly.”
From The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman:
“By the age of twelve he was six feet tall, so handsome that grown women stopped on the street to call to him. Jestine made certain he did not go to investigate when the women made clucking noises at him, as if they were hens and he was a fox. I knew then, she wanted him for herself.”
A novice writer would probably say: "He was six feet tall and handsome, and Jestine wanted him."
From All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr:
“At dusk they pour from the sky. They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses. Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles. Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say. Depart immediately to open country.
The tide climbs. The moon hangs small and yellow and gibbous. On the rooftops of beachfront hotels to the east, and in the gardens behind them, a half-dozen American artillery units drop incendiary rounds into the mouths of mortars.”
A novice writer would probably say: "Before the Americans bombed the French countryside, they threw leaflets from the sky so the residents could escape from the place."
Yes, as you have noticed, the trick is in the details, especially the sensory ones. The way to tackle this problem is by focusing on the scene we writers have formed in our imaginations, as if we are looking at an actual photograph, but do we put to words every single thing in that scene? Surely, not. By only picking specific details that pertain to the storyline or to the characters or the theme we can write a story that gives the illusion of reality.
Details show the readers what the characters look like, how they move, walk, hold their heads, and speak. They appeal to the readers’ five senses. They point to the setting, its colors, quirks, shapes, motions, and weather.
All details are important, but the concrete ones will paint more vivid pictures, and for that reason, we need to choose wisely. Whether we are painting the images of fantasmagorical cities, far away galaxies, ancient backgrounds, or a regular living room in our time, we need to find the right words to substitute for the images in our minds.
Choosing the right words is as essential to a writer as choosing the right colors and brushes to a painter. To begin with, the senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell should be in front of our minds while we are choosing the words for the story. For this, noting down in a special file or notebook our very own descriptive vocabularies can help us to give the readers our visual messages.
The best kinds of words to choose while painting word pictures are action-bearing verbs and concrete nouns. Adjectives and adverbs’ uses should be very sparingly if at all.
We can also borrow poetic tools from the poets. Using figures of speech, that is likening something to something else, is one way, and onomatopoeias ▼onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like its meaning , such as buzzing, sizzling, popping, is another.
Writing a description is like using paints diluted in water on watercolor paper. It is a delicate and dream-inducing art form. For that reason, too much of a description is too much. The best descriptions give the illusion that they described the whole thing in detail while they didn’t in reality. Those descriptions are squeezed inside the story’s arc here and there, and readers don’t even realize they are reading a description.
We writers, therefore, need to paint an image in small morsels, and never stop a story for descriptions because blocks of descriptions bore the readers, causing them to skip many such long paragraphs.
Until next time!  |
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 This Issue's Tip: The problem with intensifying an image only by adjective descriptors is that adjectives encourage cliché. Alsom only describing a character's physical attributes can sound like a police bulletin for the most wanted. Breathe real life into your images and characters.
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Feedback for "Sweeten Your Fiction with Paranoia"
 After "Sweeten Your Fiction with Paranoia" was published, I received a review request for "Invalid Item" in which Donkey Hoetay used the unreliable narrator tool brilliantly. I recommend those interested take a look at his story.
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StephBee 
Joy, I just read a novel with an unreliable narrator - Planetfall. I've never written an unreliable narrator before so I think it would be a great challenge.
I haven't either, Steph. Yes, it would be good challenge, something to try on my own. 
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Shannon 
Hi, Joy! I'm a little behind reading all the newsletters (the holidays set me back a few weeks) and just saw that you featured my story "The Devin Chronicles" [18+] in your January 6th newsletter. Thank you so much, and great newsletter! 
Thanks for the feedback, Shannon, and I think your stories are wonderful.
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Quick-Quill 
Funny you should have this subject. I have a real life paranoia cousin I deal with weekly. Its bizzare the things she comes up with. Ive come to the conclusion she can't admit any mistake is her fault. She called me once after our check signing routine (I'm sorry I offered to help) to tell me she made a mistake on her check register and put in the wrong date. Funny, but it was ok since it didn't matter. Had that been on a check she would have come over and rewritten the check, recopied it and the invoice. She's doing this because she made a mistake on her State Revenue check and is sure her check was scrubbed by someone in the bank and why didn't they catch it. She has been a subject of many ideas for paranoid characters for me. I have first hand info. I even plant ideas to see what she'll do. I told her to buy a copy machine so she could be independent and do all this on her own. Can you guess what her answer was? Bizarre
That cousin of yours may rub others the wrong way, but for you, she must be boon. I can just imagine how you could use her as a narrator/speaker. Best wishes with that story. It should be quite interesting.
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