The next two S&W suggestions ask the writer to create his work from a suitable design and use nouns and verbs effectively.
Since we have already focused on the writing style found in Postoffice, we have cleared the first hurdle.
Obviously, if you are writing something different, like a biography, the design will be different because that type of writing requires extensive research and assimilation of vast amounts of double-checked facts from numerous sources. And additionally, you must decide on how to present the chronology.
But even when writing narrative you still need to be mindful of structure. The four main structures in narrative are as follows:
(1) Linear; the story starts at one point in time and continues until its conclusion or the story starts at its end and works backward to the beginning.
(2) Circular; the story starts in one place and then makes a vast circuit such that the ending occurs at the same location as the beginning – the start and end can be geographic, psychologic, moralistic, etc.
(3) Frame (flash-back); the story moves back and forth in time as it moves from the beginning to the end.
(4) Combinations of Linear, Circular and Frame.
In the end you must have a goal for your writing. Just as in life, goals are important and without them it's unlikely you will ever get anywhere, much less know in which direction to travel.
The second suggestion S&W mention involves writing with nouns and verbs.
Use accurate nouns and verbs. This require that you think hard about what nouns and verbs to use in describing the scene before add adjectives and adverbs.
First pretend that only the noun and verb exist. This forces the writer to use more concrete and accurate nouns and verbs because there is no recourse to their helpers.
Instead of writing "The ship arrived into port" which is basically a telling sentence. You develop the first noun by making it more concrete; so ship becomes schooner or ironsides or Andrea Gail. Next the verb arrived becomes ploughed or cleaved or limped or lurched and port changes to sanctuary or defeat or obscurity.
After this is complete, then the adjectives and adverbs are added, followed by important subordinate phrases and clauses, metaphors and similes, etc.
Your job now is to go back to the written piece you submitted and rewrite it using more concrete nouns and verbs to see if it improves the descriptive narrative.
Post the revised version in the comment section below.
Since we have already focused on the writing style found in Postoffice, we have cleared the first hurdle.
Obviously, if you are writing something different, like a biography, the design will be different because that type of writing requires extensive research and assimilation of vast amounts of double-checked facts from numerous sources. And additionally, you must decide on how to present the chronology.
But even when writing narrative you still need to be mindful of structure. The four main structures in narrative are as follows:
(1) Linear; the story starts at one point in time and continues until its conclusion or the story starts at its end and works backward to the beginning.
(2) Circular; the story starts in one place and then makes a vast circuit such that the ending occurs at the same location as the beginning – the start and end can be geographic, psychologic, moralistic, etc.
(3) Frame (flash-back); the story moves back and forth in time as it moves from the beginning to the end.
(4) Combinations of Linear, Circular and Frame.
In the end you must have a goal for your writing. Just as in life, goals are important and without them it's unlikely you will ever get anywhere, much less know in which direction to travel.
The second suggestion S&W mention involves writing with nouns and verbs.
Use accurate nouns and verbs. This require that you think hard about what nouns and verbs to use in describing the scene before add adjectives and adverbs.
First pretend that only the noun and verb exist. This forces the writer to use more concrete and accurate nouns and verbs because there is no recourse to their helpers.
Instead of writing "The ship arrived into port" which is basically a telling sentence. You develop the first noun by making it more concrete; so ship becomes schooner or ironsides or Andrea Gail. Next the verb arrived becomes ploughed or cleaved or limped or lurched and port changes to sanctuary or defeat or obscurity.
After this is complete, then the adjectives and adverbs are added, followed by important subordinate phrases and clauses, metaphors and similes, etc.
Your job now is to go back to the written piece you submitted and rewrite it using more concrete nouns and verbs to see if it improves the descriptive narrative.
Post the revised version in the comment section below.
3 comments:
It wasn’t that I didn’t like the physical labour. I was use to that. There just weren’t any tips in that drudgery. And let’s face it, who could ever get by on minimum wage. The beauty of the pool business was that there was always a need for both the grunts and the gigolos. And I preferred playing the role of the whore.
I had just finished grade 12 and was desperate for an income. Abandoning my hometown in order to attend a better educational institute for grade 13 meant that I needed to make money. If I wanted to stay, that is. Otherwise it would be back to my dysfunctional family and the boredom of a tranquil small town. Not to mention that “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop”, and I couldn’t afford to dance with the Devil any more. We’d waltzed too many times.
No, I preferred the slow pace of being poolside over the dust, concrete and long hours of pool construction. That was an occupation for the stupid. The uncultured. The toothless. Instead, I decided to morph into the model pool-boy with tight shorts, bronzed skin, and muscles that flexed with every skim of the pool. I was there to take care of my customers’ every cleansing need. And as the weeks went by, the hard, skimmer pole wouldn’t be the only thing I was dipping on a regular basis.
I cleaned pools for Rintoul Pools and Spas that summer. I cleaned pools and satisfied the needs of many insatiable housewives who salivated over the eye candy I provided. Please don’t rain down any moral judgement on what I did. There was nothing moral about it. It was a dirty, nasty business that involved my individual degradation on a daily basis. And I loved it!
I loved the way the women would parade around their private oasis and lounge in their racy swimsuits. Swimsuits designed to accentuate assets, or should I say “ass” and “tits”. And it didn’t matter the age or appeal. I always found myself hard minutes into a job. And they loved it! They loved to stare at my bulging junk, through darkened shades, while they sipped on their strong cocktails imagining my stiff cock in their tails.
It didn’t take long for word about my services to get around. While the men of the upper-crust smoked cigars and sipped scotch in the den, debating numbers and politics, hushed whispers about my talents passed over lips between wives.
“Honey, Carol has the name of a reliable pool-boy. Should I get his number?” wives would call to their men in the other room.
“Sure Sweetie. Book him for next week. I’ll be out of town and won’t be able to get the pool ready for the party on Saturday.”
That summer, the men never cleaned their pools again. And my schedule was always booked rock solid.
Here is my revised version after changing t more descriptive nouns and verbs. I did find that I ended up having to change some of the structure and syntax while doing it and couldn't help but adjust the adjectives and adverbs. I have included my explanations for the changes at the end of the piece.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked my second grade teacher, Mrs. Rydaman, on the first day back to school.
This was my second flight through second grade having gone down in flames the first time ‘round, so I had this question down cold. I had been held back because I couldn’t perform one of the three R’s: read.
Apparently, to be a success in our Monopoly world, reading was important, so I was not allowed to pass go and collect my two hundred dinero. I was dealt the “Go to Jail” card or was it the “Go to Hell” card.
There I was, a washed up seven year old flunkie in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy six.
I recall there was only one other failure that year. Failure comes in twos. After being told we would not be moving on to the next grade, just like it was choreographed, we began bawling like babies in synchrony. The wailing in this maudlin act continued during line up for the bus and continued as we walked onto the bus and continued as we sat beside each other in the front seat and continued all the way back to town. Twenty minutes of non-stop sobbing. They should have hung placards on us with the word Failure emblazon across it. They should have paraded us down Main Street for all to see.
“Come, see the town freaks” the police officer’s voice would blast from the roof-mounted PA megaphone. That would be doing it up right. But this time they were soft on us. They left us to melt away into the summer, out of sight and out of mind.
I later discovered the whole unable-to-read thing started way back with my first first grade teacher and at that singular stage where you hammer down and level flat that limestone foundation on which to build the white and august towers of knowledge.
The Gordian Knot in this beautiful mess was wound around three facts about that teacher; she was young, she was fresh out of teachers college and she was fantastic looking. All I could remember was her face and her curves but mostly her curves. It was my first infatuation when I didn’t know what infatuation was. I had faint tremors, vague yearnings and electric night-sweats over her. Unsure of what it all meant, I was sure I liked how she looked. She was powerfully built, tall or at least tall to a four-foot-one kid. Her skin was silk-white and smooth without a blemish. Long jet-black hair parted in the middle bracketed her face and her deep cat-green eyes. Of course she had those pouty lips you wished were pressed against yours – red and warm and smooth. She smelt of citrus because she always seemed to be sensuously devouring an orange or tangerine. Everyday she wore high heels with velvet black nylon stockings that enmeshed her long colt-like legs, leg which seemed to go on forever before they disappeared up under her short skirt.
Yet the elephant in the room was that she couldn’t teach a lick, but that didn’t bother anyone at my school especially the administrators. Those guys didn’t care. All they wanted was to keep her there. She was their Aphrodite and no doubt they all tried to make her if only in their minds under the steamy heat of a running shower. I didn’t blame them. I wanted to make her too although at that age I didn’t know what that meant.
But that was all in the past and now here I was facing second grade, again, but this time I was in control and wearing my new outfit, fresh off the photo-shoot upon my parents crumbling front step. I sat at the front of the class. It was going to be different. Now I had all the answers. I was ready. Life was making me tough, life was showing me those hidden angles and I wouldn’t look back.
There was only problem on my educations’s pale horizon. It was my new teacher.
She was hot.
“Here we go again” I said.
Post a Comment