p e n c h a n t

Action verbs are like action figures: they provide immediate drama, coming to the rescue of an otherwise wimpy line. They are the muscle of a sentence; the bouncers, if you will. Examples of action verbs are hit, run, perspire, sneeze, sue (as in class-action lawsuit). Examples of non-action verbs are snooze, yawn, think, slump, die. Go through any written work, replacing non-action verbs with active ones, and watch it come alive. Even the most famous of works will sizzle. Take Hamlet’s soliloquy: “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Now, try this: “To pitch a fit, or not to pitch a fit….” Or, “To make haste, or not make haste….” This would be most effective on the stage, with the actor forcing or emphasizing the st sound on the end of haste, thereby increasing the likelihood of flying spittle—active indeed. (This, in turn, would favor the whole idea of being, for dead men have no expectoration.) The writers of early readers knew the importance of action verbs. “See Jane run. Run, Jane, run!” is far more attention-getting than “See Jane yawn. Yawn, Jane, yawn”. How could a kid learn with that kind of drowsy writing? Not very easily. So, writers all: punch those verbs up! Stop them from shuffling, dozing, dreaming. Get them marching! Get them running, racing, darting, spitting, scattering, exploding!

Action verb to the rescue!

This is the fourth in a haphazard series of helpful, time-saving tips that, if you are already familiar with, we trust you still will enjoy. If these are not familiar, then—Here’s to better writing! Once we conjure up enough tips, we’ll dump them all together for easy reference.

(Let’s try that again. A-hem!) THROWING YOUR

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———————————————————————————  ———–voice.

That’s better.

Talk to any editor and he or she will tell you that voice is what he or she looks for in a manuscript. Voice is essential. If you don’t have voice, chances are—on a scale of 1 to 10—probably a minus zero. You simply won’t be heard without a voice.

Now, when we talk of throwing your voice, we don’t mean, like, out the window. What good would that do? (Especially if the window’s shut.) No, we mean tossing it, what the industry calls, “The Pitch”. If you’re like me (you’re like I … me … I … me … me-me-me-me), you have a rather nondescript, run-of-the-mouth voice, and you should definitely pitch it. How is this done? Very carefully. If you throw it too hard or too far, you may never get it back. Or worse, your voice may crack, and you’ll forever sound like a youth stuck in adolescence. So, just sort of pitch your voice against something soft, like a couch potato or pillow.

Then—and this is where it gets interesting—you take on a new voice, like that of a mimic or ventriloquist, a voice well suited to keep readers reading. Even if they read quietly to themselves, your new voice will ring loud and clear in the reader’s “inner ear”. When a voice is appropriate to the work, the reader may stay engrossed for hours, even days. Naturally, it depends on other factors as well, such as how short or lengthy the book is, and whether the reader is speed reading or going below the read limit. (Such things are out of the writer’s control—even that of writers with truly astounding voices—so don’t judge your voice by these variables.)

If you’re unsure of your voice, it may behoove you to take voice lessons, or at least gargle before you start writing. This writer has found that vinegar and salt changes the voice quite rapidly. Or pickle relish. (Consult an ENT specialist should you encounter complications.)

That about covers it. Throw your voice, get another one—one that is interesting and suited for what you want to say—say it, and shut up.

Need we say more?

[Note: Originally this was going to post under Even More Beginnings, but since we've already had two of those, we wanted to show progress. HOWEVER—and that is a capitalized HOWEVER—it remains that voice must be established right from the start. You wouldn't begin a conversation without a voice, would you? Unless, of course, you know sign language. Or Braille.]

This is the third (not counting the Writing Tips Bonus, which regards nonfiction, whereas this regards fiction) installment in a haphazard series of helpful, time-saving tips that, if you are already familiar with, we trust you still will enjoy. If these are not familiar, then—Here’s to better writing! Once we conjure up enough tips, we’ll dump them all together for easy reference. We’re almost there. “There” being: enough to dump.

Or maybe it’s the science of nonfiction …

Whatever, these writing tips are real. Accidentally sit on one and find out. Nonfiction doesn’t get better than this!

Nonfiction as non-art? Non-art as fiction? Science as art? “The Insignificance of Mechanical Means Whereby the Muse Reveals Herself, Number Nine”? Tragicomedy?

These pen nibs are from my collection; some I have used, some I’ve abused.

This is the second in a haphazard series of helpful, time-saving tips that, if you are already familiar with, we trust you still will enjoy. If these are not familiar, then—Here’s to better writing! Once we conjure up enough tips, we’ll dump them all together for easy reference. We thought we’d continue the series with, you guessed it: More openings.

We don’t mean more openings, but more about openings.

Besides grabbing your reader’s attention, as we have already seen (see Writing Tips #1: Openings), an opening should also set the tone. Tone, as in, music, sound. There’s monotone, poly-tone, sepia tone, and dial tone.

We’ll start with monotone. Monotone is not as easy as it sounds (pun intended), and contrary to what you might think, it can be quite dramatic. Just as short words or lines in poetry propel the reader forward, or actually, downward (down the page, which is really what we want to accomplish), monotone can have the same effect. Use short, choppy words, monosyllabic words. Here’s an example: The mind is piqued. The words are read. Go on, you can do it. Too. If you but try. Write the whole thing. With words with short sounds. See? We cleverly avoided using multi-syllabic words, like interested, curious, and syllable, to heighten the drama.

Then there are the lonnnnnnnng sounds, the sesquipedalians, what the Dickens folks call Dickensonians, those run-along sentences that do exactly that: run along, all the way down the page (which, again, is what we want to accomplish), sentences that, even as they are being composed by your confident writer’s hand, create a mesmerizing effect, like a long journey to gosh-n-golly knows where, off to some vague horizon, that only you, the writer, know (or maybe don’t, but we’ll get to that when we cover plodding plotting), and the reader can only anticipate, as he or she continues to the end of your sentence, which should leave him or her breathless and desperate to …

… turn the page. Which, as we have seen twice already, is what we want to accomplish! Before we depart page one, however, let us return to the subject at hand. Tone. Since we nearly overspent ourselves on that last one, which we did not identify but demonstrated (by showing, not telling … OK, we’ll tell. It’s poly-tone), we will be brief. Sepia tone. Anything historical. Western history, for example. You know, cowboys.

Now comes the dial tone, which, no less intriguing than the other tonalities, can be a writer’s plaything. To establish dial tone, have one of your characters, preferably the protagonist, since he, she, or it usually appears on the first page first, call up another one of your characters, who appears later on in the narrative. This is a subtle way to introduce someone else, and to create dialogue that the reader is privy to (whereas in real life, see, you only get one side of a phone conversation, unless the sound is on DEAFENING or SPEAKER). You may be wondering how an “it” (see “he, she, or it” in above sentence) can use a phone, but that’s what creative writing consists of: making the impossible plausible, but that’s for another Writing Tips time, which, unfortunately, we have run out of. Or, to carry the theme: You’ve been disconnected.

Next up: place settings, conflicting views, viewing conflicts, and throwing your voice.

This is the first in a haphazard series of helpful, time-saving tips that, if you already are familiar with, we trust you still will enjoy. If these are not familiar, then—Here’s to better writing! Once we conjure up enough tips, we’ll dump them all together for easy reference. We thought we’d open the series with, you guessed it: Openings.

Be sure and grab your reader’s attention right away. Be so engaging that he or she will come crawling back for more. He or she will want to turn the TV off, or leave the hot fudge sundae melting on the counter, or the cat meowing at the door, or the smoke alarm ringing. (We don’t mean that he or she will, but that he or she will want to.) Start with a great one-liner. Dialogue is always good. For example: “Hey you, reader! What’re you staring at?” That’s actually a two-liner, but it’s catchy, isn’t it?

Drama and a hint at danger always works. Suspense. Plant a gun on the mantle in the opening scene, or a body, and be sure it goes off later on.

Begin in medias res, which means, in the middle of something, such as a horse. For example: Gertrude could not help herself: she was definitely sliding out of the saddle. Makes you want to ride read on, doesn’t it?

Connect the emotions of your protagonist to those of the reader. This is crucial. Of course, you don’t really know what emotions your reader has, but they’re usually feelings we all share, like: pity, sadness, happiness, chagrin, panic, dubiousness, mawkishness, and perplexity. Any one of these, or all, should work. Example: When Hamilton broke his incisor on the ship’s railing, he instantly knew he should not have been resting his chin there, and knew that playing bocci with Belinda later that evening would not be as he had hoped. He stared blankly at the water, wondering, “Are the fish biting?” Don’t you feel pity? Panic? Perplexity?

“Bang!” You didn’t forget the gun, did you? See how effective that is?

By now, any average reader would surely want to turn the page. Following these basic opening tips will send you, the perspiring aspiring writer, well on your way to beginning your work of fiction. Next time, we’ll look at more tricks of the trade, like, setting, tone, throwing your voice, and facing opposition. Have a nice opening page.