A Writer's Moment: Using just the 'right' word: priceless

A Writer's Moment: Using just the 'right' word: priceless:   “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when ...

Using just the 'right' word: priceless

 

“When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.” – Mark Twain

 

Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, MO in 1835, Twain said that the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.  For Twain, obviously, the reason was to write and he had a lot to say about how to use words, not the least being that you should write using plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences.

 

While he was not averse to having nice things said about his writing, he abhorred flowery adjectives in those descriptions just as he disdained using them in his own writing.  “Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in,” he advised.

 

He was pleased when he coined a word or phrase that others liked to use (mentioning that it came from him, of course) and noted that the use of “a pregnant pause” also could be a great writing style.  

 

“The right word may be effective,” he wrote, “but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”

A Writer's Moment: The 'What If?' Approach

A Writer's Moment: The 'What If?' Approach:   “If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.”  – Kate Atkinson   Born in York, England on Dec. 20, 1951...

The 'What If?' Approach

 

“If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.” – Kate Atkinson

 

Born in York, England on Dec. 20, 1951 Atkinson is three-time winner of one of Britain’s most prestigious awards – the Whitbread Book of the Year prize.  The author of 13 novels, two plays and a short story collection, she said her favorite approach to writing is to start with the “What If” factor and advance from there..

 

“Alternate history fascinates me,” she said, “(just) as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the big thing.”   Honored by Queen Elizabeth for “Services to Literature,” she is noted for works filled with “wit, wisdom and subtle characterization,” and for works with “surprising twists and plot turns.”  

 

While all of her books have earned acclaim, she is best known for her stand-alone novels Behind The Scenes at the Museum and Life After Life and her series featuring private investigator Jackson Brodie, adapted into a BBC series called Case Histories.   Her latest in that series is this year’s Death at the Sign of the Rook.  

 

“I usually start writing a novel that I then abandon,” she said.  “When I say abandon, I don't think any writer ever abandons anything that they regard as even a half-good sentence.  So you recycle.  I mean, I can hang on to a sentence for several years and then put it into a book that's completely different from the one it started in.”

A Writer's Moment: That wide-open eye called imagination

A Writer's Moment: That wide-open eye called imagination: “Imagination is the wide-open eye which leads us always to see truth more vividly.”  – Christopher Fry   Born in England on this date in...

That wide-open eye called imagination

“Imagination is the wide-open eye which leads us always to see truth more vividly.” – Christopher Fry

 

Born in England on this date in 1907, Fry was a multiple award winning poet and playwright.  He is best known for his verse dramas, notably The Lady's Not for Burning, voted by critics as one of the 100 best plays of the 20^th Century.  It has been revived a number of times and also made into a major movie.   His One Thing More, a play about the 7th century Northumbrian monk Cædmon, who was suddenly given the gift of composing song, also won wide recognition.

 

He not only focused on his own works but also translated some of the better known plays from other nations.  Among them were Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, and French playwright Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and The Fantastiks, all widely popularized through Fry’s stage productions.

 Fry wrote or translated three dozen major works and was voted the most popular playwright in England on many occasions.  He said that perhaps his popularity also was due to his ability to write for and about ordinary people and their lives.

 

“In my plays I want to look at life - at the commonplace of existence - as if we had just turned a corner and run into it for the first time.”

 

A Writer's Moment: 'As familiar as the air we breathe'

A Writer's Moment: 'As familiar as the air we breathe':     “Writing surrounds us: it's not something we do just in school or on the job but something that is as familiar and everyday as a pai...