Hi friends,
I have several things to share today --
1. Yesterday, I posted a poem about one of my 'heros,' but I forgot to remind you to send me your descriptions of the hero in your life. Use the 'comments' box and simply give me a bit of info - I'll use that to craft a poem or essay about your loved one. Each Thursday I plan to Celebrate someone new! Thanks!
2.) I'm introducing a New SHORT STORY CONTEST!! It's for stories in any genre - the only stipulation is that you keep it clean. Maximum word count is 2000 words. Entry fee is $5. (Use the 'Support my Blog' button.) For that you will get a detailed critique of your story and the helpful feedback that every writer craves. (A great value!) Please send only one submission and only unpublished works. Simultaneous submissions are fine, and you keep all rights. The winner will receive a trophy and a certificate and will be published here.
Always wondered if you have talent? This is your chance to find out!
You may begin submitting at any time. Send your story to robyn at robo1224(at)aol.com. Put 'Short Story Submission" in the Subject Line. Don't forget to add your name and your contact info, like email or phone number. Contest ends May 31st and the winner will be announced by the end of the month. If you have any questions, direct them to: robo1224(at)aol.com
I would like to ask everyone to PLEASE PASS THIS ON! People who dabble in writing are always looking for ways to improve and there are rarely ever contests that offer honest feedback.
Thanks - and Good luck!!
3.) Here's my humble offering for today. It's one of my own short stories. Word count: 750.
Long Road Home
I turned down the last long road toward home. When I think of 'growing up' I think of this place, though I've been twenty-five years removed. My grandparents passed away more than ten years ago, so I have no idea if there'll be someone living in the little house by the creek, but I feel the need to see the place again, to fill me up, and to replenish me. I'm sure the folks there will understand.
Looking back, I remember long, barefoot summers. Tall trees called my name and I answered greedily with feet that were calloused and made tough by rocks and running. I remember stomping and wading in creeks that were alive with flying and crawling things, and throwing myself bodily down a vertical hill to roll end-over-end through sweet green clover without a care in the world, except being able to hear the dinner bell when it rang.
I remember trying to sleep in on cold mornings, when hearty handmade quilts were piled eight inches deep and the thin linoleum floor that waited was like ice. There was breakfast waiting, too. Homemade 'cathead' biscuits and red eye gravy made with coffee and meat drippings; bacon and sausage piled to the ceiling and eggs fried the way you liked them. Coffee was boiled on the back stove-eye, so my grandfather would always pour a little into his saucer and slurp from there until it cooled enough to drink from the cup. My grandmother was busy. She wore a floured apron, not a flowered one. With eleven kids, it took a lot of food; she wore a track between the stove and kitchen table, filling plates and getting orders. But she did it with a smile. I miss her to this day.
The road took a curve. Branches hung low over my car like arms waiting to hug me as I returned.
My grandfather, a preacher, taught us the precepts of the Bible by his example. He never chastised us with long sermons when we were caught doing wrong. He allowed us to make our own mistakes, knowing those lessons were the ones that lasted longest. But I remember him sitting in his recliner reading his Bible by lamplight and watching as his eyes grew worse and the Bible moved further and further from his eyes over the years until it sat on his knees. I remember playing games with cards and knowing if he came in and caught us the cards would go straight into the fire with no questions asked.
My car rumbled onto a gravel road. I slowed and rolled the windows down. The air didn't smell this fresh in the city; there you couldn't catch a breath that dipped deep into your belly, and that expanded against your belt buckle and fought for room. In the shadow of storied buildings your breathing was choked with delusions, desires and petty pants and exhales.
The little white house came into view and my heart lifted. I could see the chicken coop and barn sitting out behind, as always. There was no car in the drive, but that didn't mean there wasn't anyone at home. My car picked up speed, throwing rocks and bits of gravel. It had been too long.
I pulled into the well-used drive and cut off the ignition. I got out of the car and stood, turning, with one hand on the hood. Already, I could feel my empty places filling up. This was it. This was where I belonged. Not in a city, packed arm-to-arm with faceless people.
There was a faded, weathered, white sign by the door. I approached. "Condemned," the paper stated in cold, unfeeling letters. I could see why. The house hadn't served tenants in years. The roof had partially caved in, and strangers had knocked out most of the windows. A tattered, dishcloth curtain fluttered from one of the shattered kitchen windows.
The scene was devastating, but appropriate, a perfect analogy for how I felt: broken in, battered, abused, discarded, empty, forgotten. But I was coming home. And it was easier this way, not having to deal with strangers in the house. I went back to the car, removed some things and retraced my steps. Using hammer and nails, I pounded in a sign of my own, with more force than was probably necessary: "SOLD."
The house would have to be rebuilt, but then, so would I. We both had good foundations; I was looking forward to it.
***
Hope your Friday is all it can be. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow! robyn
I have a list of common writing mistakes. I wonder if you do, too. I thought I would share to see if this might help anyone.
Beware - for newer writers, you'll find we are taking a simple children's story from creation to completion in the editing process. All along I ask you to do the work beside me, if you choose.
Let's get started!!
1.) WRITE YOUR STORY. Here's the really bad, unedited example for our purposes:
***
It was a hot summer day. It was noon. The school rrom has let out for recess and the children have gone out to play for recess. They love recess the best of all. It's they're favorite time of the whole day. They're next favorite time of the day is naptime!!!!! After that, thay like to ride the bus and to sing the ABC song.
When they are on the play ground, the little, cute kids happily ride the merry-go-round, and playfully swing in the swings. They run and play and play follow-the leader. The leader today is Tommy. He is a sweet little boy who joyfully goes through the tunnel. He is having lots of fun being the leader! Then kids went through the tunnel. Put your heads down! Then he laughingly goes very low under the monkey bars. Then the adorable kids go very low under the monkey bvars .Hey! Watch out for silly, overhead climbing monkeys! I hope no one is being incautious! Then more kids joined in. Then Tommy walks through the swings. Then the kids walk through the swings. The principal joined in! Yea! Tommy heroically climbed up the the slide. He is really high! There is a long line of kids. Then they all slide down! Here comes the Princiapl. Plop! Yea!
What a good Leader Tommy is! (224 words)
***
2.) EDIT.
Here's where things get tricky. What's 'editing'? What does it include beyond spelling and grammar? Following are the steps I take in my own works to edit, and the primary things I struggle with (in no particular order).
3.) SPELLING AND GRAMMAR.
It's the number one thing that can get your manuscript rejected. An editor can love your concept, yet reject it because he doesn't have the time or resources to edit it FOR you. (I have edited the above story for spags, but I'll not repeat it again so soon.)
4.) TMI - TOO MUCH INFO.
Write your story -- and then chuck 1/4 - 1/3 of it. I know it hurts, but that's the difference in 'writing' and 'being a writer'. [Check out some of the quotations on my page. I don't know how far back they go, but many of them are about learning to make friends with the wastebasket.]
So - what do you chuck? You wrote it, you must like it, right? Here begins the dirty stuff....
5.) JETTISON ALL 'GENERAL' ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS.
I'm serious. It may seem to go against everything you were taught in school, but there are other places to put descriptions; we'll talk about those in a
moment. (Trust.)
Example: In the above story:
'It was a hot summer day.'-> 'hot' must go...it's too general
'the little cute kids' -> 'little, cute' must go....too general
Find any other general adjectives or adverbs and remove them.
6.) REDUNDANCY!
Example: In the above story:
'It was a summer day. It was noon. The school room has let out for recess and the children have gone out to play for recess. They love recess the best of all. It's their favorite time of the whole day. Their next favorite time of the day is naptime!!!!! After that, they like to ride the bus and to sing the ABC song.'
Repeated items are 'recess', 'favorite', 'day', 'they', and the exclamation marks.
By eliminating the overused items, we can have something like this:
'It was a summer day. It was noon. The children have gone out to play for recess. It is their favorite time of day.'[Since naptime, riding the bus and the ABC song have nothing to do with our story, we are leaving them out.]
Repeat this process throughout the story. See what other areas you think might have issues with redundancy. We'll check back in a minute.
7.) STREAMLINE EVERY SENTENCE. Don't use fifteen words to say what you can say in seven.
Example: In the above story:
'When they are on the playground, the kids happily ride the merry-go-round, and swing in the swings.'
Which can be made stronger by the editing process: (Trust.)
'They swing and happily ride on the merry-go-round.'
Repeat this step throughout your story.
8.) QUALIFIERS:
Lose every: 'every', 'much', 'very, 'really, 'so', etc. These are called Qualifiers.
"Here are the most common qualifiers in English (though some of these words have other functions as well): very, quite, rather, somewhat, more, most, less, least, too, so, just, enough, indeed, still, almost, fairly, really, pretty, even, a bit, a little, a (whole) lot, a good deal, a great deal, kind of, sort of." [from: About.com, Grammar and Composition]
Get rid of ALL of them.
***
Just to check in - HERE'S OUR STORY at this point:
It was a summer day. It was noon. The children have gone out to play for recess. It is their favorite time of day.
They slide and happily ride on the merry-go-round. They play follow-the leader. The leader today is Tommy. He joyfully goes through the tunnel. He is having lots of fun being the leader! The kids went through the tunnel. Put your heads down! He laughingly goes low under the monkey bars. The kids go low under the monkey bars. Hey! Watch out for overhead climbing monkeys! I hope no one is being incautious! More kids joined in. Tommy walks through the swings. The kids walk through the swings. The principal joined in! Yea! Tommy heroically climbed up the slide. He is high! There is a long line of kids. They all slide down! Here comes the Principal. Plop! Yea!
What a good Leader Tommy is!
***
LET'S CONTINUE:
What can we get rid of next?
9.) $100 WORDS.
You may think they sound smart, but you could be wrong. Used incorrectly, those big words weaken your writing and disturb your reader. Lose them.
Example: In the story above:
'Watch out for overhead climbing monkeys! I hope no one is being incautious!'
Since this is a story for children, we'll drop the 'incautious' line altogether.
10.) '-ly' WORDS.
These are descriptive words, but weak ones. Eject. (And trust.)
Example: In the story above:
'They slide and happily ride on the merry-go-round.' -> lose 'happily'
'Tommy heroically climbed up the slide.' -> lose 'heroically'
There are better ways to say these things. See if you can find more '-ly' words in the story that need to go.
11.) CHECK YOUR VERB TENSES.
Make sure they agree. If you are writing in the past tense, make sure all your verbs are in agreement. If you are unsure about this, check any writer's manual or online writer's web site. (Holler if you'd like suggestions.)
In the story our verbs are NOT in harmony. Take a look and see if you can put them in the PRESENT tense. We'll check on it in a minute.
12.) USE OF THE WORD: 'IT'.
Sometimes something bugs you. It gets under your skin and starts to grow. It lays eggs. It hatches thousands of little beings and before you know it there are billions of the little critters running around driving you batty. It's baffling how it happens. Do you get it? Perhaps it's just me...but IT drives me crazy.
Let's change topics. When you are writing about your sister, Betty, you may call her 'sis', 'Betty', 'Babs', 'her', or any number of things, but occasionally - and rather frequently - you should also refer to her by her given name so people will know to whom you are referring. Does that make sense?
Now. (deep breath.)The FIRST 'it' topic: There's a person, place or thing I want to speak about. Somehow in the course of writing, I forget that the same rules apply here as in referring to my sister Betty. I must not allow my 'its' to take over. I must either refer to the object by name, remember to occasionally remind my readers of the item or...I should not speak of it in the first place. I must always ask myself if the item is truly important to my story or not, and then treat it accordingly. Readers should ALWAYS be able to look and see immediately what my 'it' refers to.
The SECOND 'it' issue is that I am sometimes tempted to throw 'ungrounded' its around. I must always GROUND my its !! (*smile*) Now let's see if I can explain that...
Example: from the story above.
'It is a summer day. It is noon. The children have come out to play for recess. It is their favorite time of day.'
See if this sounds better:
'On a golden afternoon, children have come to the playground for recess, their favorite time of day.' [No 'ungrounded' its floating around!! Hurray!]
13.) SHOW, DON'T TELL.
First, trust your reader. Trust in their imagination, their brain, and their sense of humor. Describe a few things REALLY well then be willing to 'leave a little to the imagination'. If you do your job correctly, they will fill in the gaps with a clarity you couldn't have dreamed of doing with your writing. And allow them to figure some things out for themselves. It's part of the fun.
Second, show, don't tell. This is the fun part - where you get to ADD a bit.
Example: from story above.
'On a golden afternoon, children have come to the playground for recess, their favorite time of day.'
to:
'On a golden afternoon, a brick red door swings open and thirty-two kindergarteners come onto a school playground for recess, their favorite time of day.'
In a different story, you could say: 'He reached out and grabbed her arm.' But that's TELLING -- a no-no. Instead say, 'Their eyes met. Her sadness felt like an emotional punch. He put his left hand on her sleeve; she wore the coat he had given her that Christmas so long ago, when things were different, bright. It felt coarse under his hands now. He pulled gently, but she wrenched away. He knew she was gone even before she walked away."
See the diff? (Yes, I used a 'was'. UGH! see the next subject!)
14.)ACTIVE VS PASSIVE.
This could be an entire essay unto itself, and I'm pretty sure I should not be the one to write it. I struggle with it myself. Writing in the sense of NOW, and with EXCITEMENT. Getting rid of 'was' in your writing once and for all. Using scampered, clambered and frolicked instead of climbed and jumped.
Example: from the story we're creating:
'Tommy walks through the swings. The kids walk through the swings. '
to:
'Tommy winds his way through the swings. The long train of children wiggles through the swings. '
15.) WHEN YOU THINK YOU'RE FINISHED EDITING, READ IT ALOUD.
How it rolls off your tongue is how it will sound in the reader's head. Bumpy? Disastrous? Then you have more work to do.
16.) FIND SOMEONE YOU TRUST AND ASK FOR A CRITIQUE. Be happy to accept an honest review from someone who is willing to help and understand that SOMETIMES THE TRUTH HURTS.
17.) SEPARATE YOUR FEELINGS FROM YOUR WRITING -
Or you'll have a hard time making it as a writer. [I'm working on another presentation about that. *smile*] Suffice it to say, if you want to improve you have to be willing to WORK, and to LISTEN. Understand there are people out there who are better than you and who know more than you. That's a fact of life.
When you realize that, you can be humble enough to ask for help and get it. What are a few 'fours' on FS, if it means you can let your guard down and let people actually give you true advice and criticism that could help you grow as a writer? Think about it.
18.)DON'T BE AFRAID. If this has scared you at all, shake it off. It's a process like any other -- like riding a bike, it may seem intimidating at first, but it will soon become second nature with practice. You'll learn that many of these steps can be combined.
I hope this helps!
HERE'S OUR STORY:
***
On a golden afternoon, a brick red door swings open and thirty-two kindergarteners scamper onto a school playground for recess, their favorite time of day.
Like ants, they scoot in different directions. Some swing; some ride a merry-go-round. Some play follow-the-leader. Today's leader is Tommy.
He goes into a tunnel. Children behind him go through a tunnel. Put your heads down!
He crawls beneath the monkey bars. The line of children following him ducks under the monkey bars. Watch out for climbing monkeys! More kids join in.
Tommy winds his way among the swings. A long train of children wiggles between the swings.
The principal joins in!
Tommy clambers up a slide. He towers above the playground. Tommy pounds his chest. Look out for the man on the mountain!
A line of children ascend the ladder. Each child bangs his chest and then slides down. Plop! Plop! Plop! Here comes the principal. He does it too!
What a good leader Tommy is! (165 words -- we reduced by 1/4!)
***
How did you do?
robo
