“We woke to the sun squeezing in around the shutters,
and the waves smashing against the shore.”
Use metaphors, but with taste and not too many. If you have heard the comparison before–it was raining cats and dogs–it is a cliché and must be avoided. The metaphor must be appropriate, not too far-fetched. The metaphor and simile have a whole chapter later in this book.
And, always, remember the five senses to make the mental picture as vivid as possible: sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. We learn and we remember through all five senses, and by including references to as many of the senses as possible, your writing is more vivid and memorable. We tend to exclude all but the sight. For example;
“The rain fell on the corrugated roof,”
could be “The rain drummed a sharp staccato on the grey metal of the roofs, the dampness permeating our felt coats making us smell like wet dogs.”
The meaning of the words
You have to know the definition of the words you use to convey the most information. If you aren’t sure what the words mean that you use, the reader certainly will not understand your intentions.
A joke was going around about the person who exclaimed that they didn’t think the pope was invaluable [infallible]. And the former US President’s take on nucular [nuclear] war was scoffed at for years.
And if you use the word “geek” and you think you are talking about a person focused on their computers, someone else may think a “nerd” is that person of superior computer skills and higher academics, while a geek, to them, is a socially inept person. If the meaning will cause confusion find a different way to explain yourself.
Hug your dictionary. Spellcheck doesn’t pick up the words like “invaluable” that you may be misusing.
Using words like impact does not convey any information. Is the impact good or bad? The reader doesn’t know and wastes time searching the sentences for a clue. Why not just say bad effect or good effect?
I have seen writers use allow for two and even three times in a sentence and each time it allowed for a different meaning. Avoid the meaningless construction.
Getting content
Sometimes you don’t know how to get started. You know you have things to say but nothing is coming off the keyboard.
And, too often, you write something, and then after it is posted or responded to, you think of something so clever that you should have included. Going for content first will help get to many more ideas than you find otherwise–with fewer regrets later.
There are techniques to putting a direct line through to the language center of your brain, using lists, clusters, mind-mapping or webbing, to name a few.
You can start by just playing with words on a page.
Free writing is letting the words pour forth; simply writing any word, and then the next word comes undirected, whether it relates to the first word or not. As Louis Lamour wrote,
“Start writing, no matter about what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
Describe noses all over the page, or warts you’ve known and loved or a crooked tooth, whatever. Enjoy the words; make them say things, wonderful things, very bad disgusting things, special things, colorful things, written sideways, up and down, in circles or any way you like. Just loosen up and fling words around as a warm up.
Lists
Another method of getting content is simply writing lists. They can be lists of single words, a phrase or a line spreading into a paragraph if that happens. And I find that my lists almost always turn into phrases and later into paragraphs.
For example, here is a list that students wrote thinking they had nothing to say about the fog on the water.
Fog on the Water
Gloomy, stillness, gray, ominous,
moist, bulrushes, muffling, London,
light house, wet, ethereal, ghost ship,
romantic, whisper, islands, eerie, foghorns,
Scotland, early morning, muffling,
not navigable, bridges, dead sounds,
damp blankets, nothing, rolling in,
canoe paddling, rocking, morning,
back alleys, fishy smells, gondolas,
whisper, swampland, chilled to the bone,
click of a boot heel, morning runs,
ringing brass on boats,
detective/spy story,
lost sense of reality,
sun rays shoot through,
Loch Ness monster,
suspended in time, smell of salt air.
warm fire & books
Try writing any words you can about a color of your choice. You could write as if you are explaining the color to someone who is color blind, or just address the color you particularly love or hate. We react rather strongly to color so the words are not too hard to find. Keep in mind the 5 senses as you should in everything you write: taste, touch, sight, sound and smell. We perceive everything using these five senses, so to make an idea vivid, cover the 5 senses. What does red taste like?
Here is a student paragraph on blue:
“Blue is cool, cold, icy, yet soft and light. Blue tastes cool and spicy peppermint. Blue is both a stream trickling down a mountain and the hollow loneliness of the far reaches of space. To feel blue is sadness, quiet, subtle, subdued, yet can also be cheerful happy people in a snow fight. To see blue is to see the beautiful color of the sea, the brightness of a clear sky, the deepness of a royal sapphire. Blue reaches beyond the sight of man and links his deep inner emotions to the depths of the ocean and timelessness of space. Blue is the cool side of life.”
Another student described yellow as “white with a touch of gold.”
Columns
Some writers have used columns to generate content, with the 1st column having words that describe the subject word. The 2nd column lists what is good about the subject.
The 3rd column, what is bad about the subject.
The 4th column, what significance does the subject have
The 5th column, what can be changed about the subject.
Clustering
This method is also called making a web and is designed to draw on the non-linear creativity of the right side of the brain.
According to Gabriele Lusser Rico in her book Writing the Natural Way,
the left side of the brain controls the logical, reasoning, intellectual thought patterns of constructing the whole from the parts, analyzing and judging.
The right side of the brain controls the intuitive aspects of the brain, the creative, overall concept perception ability which responds to the pictorial, who image rather than the verbal word expression.
Therefore, to gain access to the images that the right brain perceives, you can use a clustering method which turns the verbal words into pictures that the creative side will continue to generate without the left critical side will not reject as ‘stupid’ or ‘inappropriate.’