skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Is your character--let's call him Bob--short, thin, stingy, tardy, and lazy? If so, your character has just had five adjectives to describe him.
Adjectives--words that describe a noun--are important in our writing. But we can overdo them.
The right adjective helps our readers "see" the world we're creating in our story.
How would you describe this tree?
green
mossy
dark
old
mysterious
wide
shadowy
tall
fragrant
spectacular
The list could go on and on. Some adjectives describe what the tree looks like: green, mossy, dark.
Other adjectives describe how we feel about the tree: mysterious, spectacular.
For our character Bob, or for a tree in your story, one adjective, the right adjective, may be enough.
Bob was a trusty friend.
The mossy tree dominated the yard.
Play with adjectives. Have fun with them. They're one more tool in your writer's box of wonders. Try to find the adjective that conveys exactly what you want to say.
For more about adjectives, see my earlier post in Yellow Pencils.
Yellow: an adjective!
I took this photo of a mailbox in Poland. I loved that it was bright red, and easy to find when I sent my postcards back home.
Not many of us write letters anymore. It's easier to text, right? But a letter shows that the person you're sending it to is important. You're taking the time to find paper, pen, envelope and stamp, writing your note, and going to a mailbox or post office.
Our characters can write letters, too.
Think about a character in your story. Could he write a letter to his best friend? Archenemy? Favorite athlete? Or grandparents? (Think about a thank-you letter your character REALLY doesn't want to write.)
Pretend you are your character. Find all the things you need to write a letter. Then actually write it on paper, revealing something that you didn't know your character wanted to say.
Put on a pretend stamp. Better yet, design one. "Mail" your letter in a pretend mailbox. Better yet, design that, too! Will your mailbox be red, blue, or orange-and-yellow striped?
How will the recipient respond? With anger, surprise, or joy?
Congratulations! You (I mean your character) wrote a letter.
The new year is a good time to think about beginnings, or openings to our stories.
I wrote about openings in a post last year. Among many possibilities for starting a story, I wrote about beginning with the main character's name.
"My name is Elizabeth but no one's ever called me that." That's the first line of How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff.
"Hello. I am Ivan. I am a gorilla." The Newbery Award winning novel, The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, begins with Ivan introducing himself.
Then there's the famous opening to Moby Dick by Herman Melville: "Call me Ishmael."
Can you think of other novels or stories that open with the main character telling us his or her name?
Meg Rosoff's opening is intriguing because we learn the main character's name--Elizabeth--but there's also a mystery. How does Elizabeth prefer to be called, and why? (I'll let you read the novel to find out!)
Take one of your ideas for a story, or a story you're working on, and try out this kind of "introduction" opening.
Your main character, whether a girl, boy, gorilla, or sailor on a whaling ship, may reveal something you didn't know.
Welcome to 2015!
Are you ready to get back into the routine of writing?
Maybe you've been writing all through the holidays--congratulations!
Or maybe, with all the busyness of celebrating, you had to put your story or novel aside for a while.
Maybe you're tempted to quit. Don't! Now is the time to recommit.
Wally Amos, of Famous Amos cookie fame, said something I love:
"Not quitting means you live constantly where the action is, in the now."
Don't we all want to be "in the now," instead of living in the past or future?
We can do that by sticking with our writing. Our "now" is our current story or novel.
So wish yourself a happy new year, start writing, and live where the action is. I'll be right there with you.
