p e n c h a n t

EXCEPT FOR THE GOBLINS, IT’S BEEN A GOOD YEAR.

Paper cutout illustration by Troy Howell / click on image for detail

I N T R O D U C T I O N

IT WAS THE DEVIL WHO DID IT—old Scratch. Long ago, when he had more idleness because fewer people lived in the world, he made an amazing mirror, a mirror so clever that anything good it reflected looked sleazy and crude, and whatever was bad looked good. In this mirror, bright skies turned black, lush landscapes shriveled, and kind hearts turned to stone. Women looking into it saw withered wrecks, wise men became fools, and children worked like push-button toys. Criminals and clods turned respectable.

Scratch and his gang showed the mirror far and wide—from the humblest home to the highest citadel—stirring up mischief, causing pain. But were they satisfied? Goodness no. “Heaven must see it too!” they said.

So into the clouds they flew, hoisting the evil thing. But the closer they came to heaven, the more the glass trembled. Higher and higher, the more it shook. Until, at last, springing from their hands, it burst in a shower of shards.

The fragments fell—here, there, across the earth, through the ages. A few were the size of windows, but most were slivers and motes, floating unseen. They could lodge in one’s eye or heart. Woe came to those who were struck by them—a thousand woes.

Watch now—beware! Some of the shards are drifting still….

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The story continues on a separate page. Click here to read on.

Beware: this new telling (from Hans Christian Andersen’s old one) is copyrighted.
Steal it, and your heart turns to stone.

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It is not so much a matter of what we see as it is understanding what we see.
Vision must be of the mind. This is true for the arts as well as for life itself.

“Without vision the people perish.” —a proverb of Solomon

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collage by Troy Howell

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

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——————————————————————————————-
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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.

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One reason I like this time of year is that nature drops us little reminders that drab is not the only color. Where I live in the Eastern United States, the chlorophyll is gone, the light is low, snow comes. It’s against the snow you notice them most, those festive bright-colored spots: a cardinal, holly berries, rose hips. The red-breasted grosbeak is a sight, displaying a shocking splash of blood on its pure white chest.

As the leaves dropped off our maple tree, we wondered what the delicate tendrils were that lingered, circling the trunk, yellow-leaved with small orange pods. The leaves soon fell, the pods opened, red berries remained. “The bittersweet!” my wife exclaimed. She had planted one in an outdoor urn four years ago, and uprooted it when it did not take. Perhaps the urn was too confining. She tossed it down the hillside, to return it to the earth.

It’s thriving now.

William Morris—writer, designer, craftsman, printer, painter, visionary in Victorian times—once told a client he would paint her room the blue of a starling’s egg. How often do we consider the source of a color, a natural representation of it, rather than a commercial version or swatch? You must study nature to do so.

Here then, is bittersweet-berry red, and its companion color, bittersweet-berry-leaf orange.