Writing Archives - Page 14 of 21 - Trevor's Writing

Some thoughts about weeds and words

No Comments »10th February, 2010; Category: Blogs, Writing Hints

I needed to do some weeding in the garden recently. Our rose bed was in danger of disappearing into a jungle of tangled weeds.

Weeding in the garden is so satisfying; in a very short space of time you can see the results of your labours. The garden bed looks much better very quickly. The plants you leave behind – presumably those you want to keep – give a huge sigh of relief. ‘There is a sun after all,’ they say. Weeding improves the garden.

Too often we allow words to grow like weeds in our writing. Many words creep in unannounced and unwanted. There is the danger that they can choke out the good words. At their worst they can rob the desirable words of all the necessary moisture and nutrients for growth. Your story can wilt and die.

Be ruthless. Pull out all unnecessary words. Edit relentlessly.

And your writing will be allowed to bloom into its full potential.

Good weeding – and good writing.

Writing success

2 Comments »29th January, 2010; Category: Events, Master of Arts course, Poetry, Short Stories

Last night we had the first meeting for 2010 of our writers’ groups at Tabor Adelaide, the university where I am doing my Master of Arts in Creative Writing.

This was a combined meeting of the various writers’ groups. With about 30 in attendance interest is high which is very encouraging. The shared pizza was nice too.

As part of the proceedings one of the lecturers had a long list of recent writing successes from various students, past and present. This must be encouraging to the staff as people are having success with their writing.

The main purpose for this meeting was to launch the annual anthology of writing from students and staff. Tales from the Upper Room has now seen its fifth edition and is going from strength to strength. The standard of writing is very high and competition to be included is intensifying as each new raft of students progresses through the various courses available.

Personal publishing success

I was pleased to see that four of my poems and two of my stories were chosen for the anthology this year. I also contributed parts of a baton poem, an exercise where we all took it in turns to contribute to a major poem.

Writing courses:

Lectures in the creative writing courses start in a few weeks time, but I’m sure you can still enroll. Most courses are available externally. Click here to go to the website – just follow the links to the Humanities department. I can thoroughly recommend the courses as being very useful. Staff support is also great.

Good writing.

Sending of manuscripts to publishers

No Comments »23rd September, 2009; Category: Fiction, Master of Arts course, Poetry, Short Stories, The Writer's Life

Yesterday I finished the first draft of my novel for children. I have been working hard on this over the last two months and finished it over a week ahead of the schedule I had set for myself. I love setting goals – and then achieving them. Now my creative brain needs a little break for a few days. Time to attend to a few other matters before launching into the rewriting phase.

Today I had a totally different writing task which took most of my attention. The whole point of writing, in my opinion, is to be published. Sure, there are people who write just for themselves and are totally happy with an audience of one. I guess my private journal writing comes into that category. Such writing is not aimed at a broader audience. Unless, of course, I become obscenely rich or infamously notorious as a result of my writing. Some people might want to read my private grumblings. But I doubt it.

Today I prepared some submissions for a publisher. I’m nearing the end of my Master of Arts course, and every year the humanities department calls for submissions from staff and students involved in the programme. The deadline is Friday, so I knew I had to get organised. Successful poems and stories are published in the annual anthology which is published in November. Last year I had a story and ten poems chosen which was very satisfying. This time around I have submitted eight poems and four short stories. It will be interesting to see which of them the editors choose.

One of the good things about this submission is that I could submit electronically. Makes the whole process relatively painless compared with sending off letters. Bit cheaper too.

Challenge to readers

Are you constantly writing but never sending off those stories and poems and articles you’ve slaved over so lovingly? The secret to getting published is no secret, really. You need to write, write, write and then submit, submit submit. And while waiting to hear back from the publishers, you need to write some more, and then write some more and then submit… I think you get the picture.

Send off a story or poem today.

Good writing – and may you see your writing in print soon. I know I will.

Fun at my writers’ group

2 Comments »12th September, 2009; Category: Events, Fiction, Poetry, Short Fiction, Short Stories, The Writer's Life

On Thursday of this week I attended my monthly writers’ group in Adelaide. It’s one of two I regularly attend; the other is devoted to poetry only.

We usually gather for pizza at 6pm and then start into reading and critiquing each other’s work. The readings are based on a challenge set the month before. We limit the activity to 1000 words so that everyone gets a go at reading and having their work critiqued. A good attendance is about 6-8 people, but this week we had 12 eager participants, 7 of whom had risen to the challenge of writing a short story.

This was the fun part. The challenge we had appeared to be very hard, but we all found it very interesting. We were asked to take a poem written by a fellow student which was published in last year’s anthology. This poem had some interesting Nordic references and names, which made the task even more challenging.

The Challenge

The writing task was as follows:

Take the first word of the poem and use that as the first word of the first sentence of the story.
Take the second word of the poem and use that as the first word of the second sentence.
Take the third word of the poem and use this as the first word of the third sentence.
Follow this pattern until you get to the end of the story – or the poem – whichever comes first.

The variations were wonderful. Using the same words we came up with seven quite different stories. These included:

A recount of a classroom teacher grappling with unusual student names in the class.
A stream of consciousness account of someone justifying why she should murder her mother.
An account of the arrival home of a Viking raiding party.
An snippet from a Shakespearean like scene written almost completely in iambic rhythm (this was my effort).

Reader challenge

Try it for yourself as a writing challenge. Take a poem – any poem – and try it. Last year we used a Robert Frost poem. Use one of your own poems. Whatever. You could be pleasantly surprised at the result.

Have fun with your writing.

Good writing.

Problems with point of view

2 Comments »8th September, 2009; Category: Fiction, Master of Arts course, Novels, Writing a novel, Writing for Children

Writing a novel – a writer’s journal part 17

Problems with point of view

I honestly thought I had this point of view (POV) thing licked.

Not so.

Over recent days I have struggled with my choice of using the third person limited point of view. Initially-way back in chapter 1-I experimented with the first person POV. I wrote the chapter in the third person, then at the suggestion of one of my supervisors rewrote it in the first person. While it was an interesting exercise, it didn’t jell in my thoughts.

Since then I’ve stuck with the third person, and tried valiantly to maintain only the protagonist’s POV. Using the limited POV has inherent problems. Chief among these is the fact that the main character must be ‘on stage’ all the time. At one point in chapter 5 I have him running off away from the other children he was playing with. That’s a no-no. It’s his story-so we have to go off with him.

In other chapters I fall into another trap with limited third person POV. In subtle ways I slip into-without meaning to, of course-the thoughts of other characters. That’s another no-no. Limited POV means just that: limited. I can only let the reader ‘hear’ the thoughts of my protagonist-not everyone else in the neighbourhood. In order to dip into their thoughts, I actually have to make them say what they are thinking. There is no other way of knowing what they are thinking, or feeling. Well, actually, their actions can also convey this in a limited way.

Why didn’t I choose an omniscient POV? Then I could have dipped-God-like-into everyone’s thoughts! This can be very confusing to young readers, of course, so that option is not really one I can take.

Perhaps I could have used a shifting POV. The chapters could alternate the POV from one character to another. Again, this presents problems for both writer and the young reader. Possible, but it has to be done well. I made a decision against this before even writing a word. I had another idea for my novel, where there were two equal protagonists, each having their POV in alternating chapters. I chose not to follow this path as I felt my technical skills were not up the challenge. The plot also needed far more research than I had time for anyway, so I shelved that idea for another day.

All I can say now is that when I come to rewriting and editing, I’m going to have a few nerve wracking weeks trying to eliminate every shift in point of view.

Good writing.

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