Using Writing Devices

I often hear the rule, “Don’t use too many metaphors”. I was never convinced about this advice. For starters it’s a little simplistic. What’s too many? One could be too many if it’s not the right one. Instead, I think it would be more accurate to say, “Be careful when you use metaphors – or any other writing device.”

When used incorrectly writing devices, such as metaphors, similes, alliteration, and so on, can hang in prose like Christmas decorations in April. They are more than pretty baubles. They are tools to help the reader gain a deeper understanding of the things we want to say, the worlds we want to share, the emotions we want to explore. Their purpose is to bring our stories alive, to inject richness, flavour, and depth. These devices help us weave images in the readers’ mind. They play with rhythm and sound. They tease the senses.

Writing devices need to add to the prose, not detract from it. Clichés will detract because they’ve been so over used that they’ve lost their effectiveness. To avoid clichés the writer needs to make the extra effort and get inside their subject. The writer needs to ask themselves, “Does this clarify my meaning, or is it just extra words that I could toss?”

By keeping this in mind, these devices become a powerful tool.

Do you use many writing devices in your prose? Do you have any favourites? Can you think of other ways of keeping these devices in check?
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Over the weekend N R Williams held a blogging Halloween Party. It was lots of fun. I'm still visiting all the party-goers. (I'm a little slow in my Hobbit costume). Double choc chip chocolate cupcakes for all those in costume!

How to Make Compelling Characters

This post is part of Jen, Alex and Elana’s Great Blogging Experiment.

What makes a character compelling? What is that secret ingredient that makes us care about what happens to them? Below I’ve listed a few elements that add to a character’s charm.

Believability: characters should come across as real. Not cardboard cut outs. Compelling characters should be like onions. They should have more than one layer. They need to have depth, history, motivations, goals.

Relatability: characters should have traits we can all relate to. We like the people we connect with the most.

Flawed: characters who have flaws are more interesting and believable and in turn become more relatable. No one likes a perfect person. No one likes a perfectly bad person either.

Conflict: even the most interesting character becomes boring if they are placed in a story with no conflict. Our characters need challenges to overcome.

Envy: This might sound strange, but even a boring person becomes interesting when they have something we want. I’ll travel through a book with a bland character and hardly notice their blandness if they are living the life I want to live, overcoming the odds I want to overcome.

Uniqueness: the same ole clichéd characters we’ve all seen before won’t pique our interested. We should try to give them something new, something unexpected.

Consistency: characters need to react in a consistent way. We put our guard up when they do something totally unexpected without motivation.

Likeability: No one likes a whinger. Even a whinging villain can become a groan.

Can you think of other elements that make up a compelling character?

Longevity in Writing

Is longevity in your writing important to you? Do you want to write a novel that will blaze and then disappear after three months? Or do you want to write something that could be regarded as a classic in years to come? From the timeless words of Valeria from the 1982 film, Conan the Barbarian: “Do you want to live forever?”

The majority of books written today will disappear. I think the main reason for the lack of longevity is because they were written to a trend. Fashion is fickle. What is hip now is snigger-worthy tomorrow.

I recently pulled off old wallpaper in my tiny office only to find even worse wallpaper underneath. It was dark brown with bright orange flowers and green patches of grass. It was so painful, it was laughable. But at one time (probably the 70s) it was the height of fashion.

So, how do we achieve longevity?

--Ignore the current trends and write our own stories within the market of our choice.

--Steer away from the language of today because it won’t be the language of tomorrow. For example, any catch phrases, colloquialisms and clichéd expressions.

--Work with timeless themes. Romance and conflict will never date. Overcoming insurmountable odds will never date.

--Strive for quality. Strive to learn your craft, practice your craft and do your very best.

Does longevity matter to you? Can you think of other tricks to make your writing last?

5 Ways to Crisp up your Writing.

Have you ever read a story that fell limp? Have you ever watched a movie where the characters were dull? I have no doubt your answer will be a resounding, "yes!" So, how, as writers, do we escape the boring characters? How do we avoid the fizzle? In other words, how can we freshen up our writing and make it more engaging for the reader?

1. Throw everything you have into your writing. I wrote tedious essays in school. I would spew out 2000+ words of dry facts and boring details and figured that would do. Technically they were correct. They had an introduction, a middle and a conclusion. But they were horrible. I got fair grades but there was nothing extraordinary about my work. Because I lacked passion. If you are passionate about your subject or your story, then that passion will translate into your work.

2. Never accept a ‘close enough is good enough’ attitude. Sloppy work will only cause regret later on. The practice of sloppiness will also mean critics will see you as an amateur – no matter how many books you sell. Always strive to be the best you can be.

3. Learn your craft. Sure, anyone can string a few sentences together and call themselves a writer, but you need to think of yourself as a wordsmith: someone who has to learn the power of words to be able to wield that power. The more you learn how to use words, the greater the impact you’ll be able to achieve.

4. Look for the new angle on an old subject. Clichés riddle our society. It’s in our speech, our media, our music and our stories. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey before my time -- I blame television. We watch too much of it and soak ourselves in its cliché spittle. I recently listened to some political speeches for Australia’s coming elections. The party leaders drowned in Aussie clichés. It made me wonder if they thought the public wouldn’t be able to understand anything more intelligent or thought provoking. And so I say – with passion – try to rise above the masses and write something new. (lol, even I’m not immune to the occasional cliché)

5. Seek honesty in your writing. Rather than writing what you think others expect or want to read, write with honesty the truths in your heart. This takes courage and requires practice. It means steering away from plastic representations of characters. It means going that step further to find the realism in your work. It may even mean writing to a different market than the one you originally chose. Readers respond to honesty, no matter what form it takes.

How do you freshen up your writing?

How to Write a Cardboard Character

If I lived in a one dimensional world with my one dimensional mind, I’d want to know how to create a one dimensional character. It would be a terrible thing if my readers should ever care about my characters. To avoid this embarrassing eventuality, I’ve written a guide to help the imaginative writer to improve their unimagination.

1. Don’t give your characters any goals to strive towards or any lessons to learn. Make sure your characters are the same at the end of your novel as they were at the beginning. The single dimension can’t pull off anything as engaging as – shudder – growth.

2. Stick to clichés like glue. We all know that builders, truck drivers and miners are burly men, so if your character is any of these, then he must also be burly. We all know librarians wear glasses, so why give your librarian character good eyesight? Your main character has to be beautiful and she must be good at everything. Don’t rock the boat in the one dimensional world. No one likes surprises there.

3. Avoid motivations. Who cares what may have caused your characters to react a certain way. No explanation needed.

4. Only write as much about the character as is required by the plot. Make sure they are only driven by the story you want to tell. Don’t waste the reader’s time with internal conflicts. Don’t try to add any extra dimensions. One dimension means one and one only.

5. Don’t smudge the borders of good and evil. Make evil characters evil and good characters good. If your character wears the proverbial black hat then he must not show any goodness in him. Let’s not confuse the readers.

What are some of the mistakes you might make while trying to create a cardboard character?

7 Ways to Improve Dialogue

1. Keep to the point. Remove redundancies and everyday chatter. For example:
      “Hi, how are you?”
      “I’m good thanks. How are you?”
Readers don’t care about these pleasantries. They don’t have a lot of time to sift through all the inconsequential babble. It only gives them a reason to put down your book.

2. Make it Show, not tell. Dialogue is a great vehicle to reveal backstory and keeps the plot moving, but used incorrectly, it can come off as a mere devise and make the characters sound stilted. By using it to show the story in a natural way, the readers can become more involved and engaged.

3. Keep it interesting. The careful use of dialect and slang will help to bring the characters alive and will add an element of realism. Just be careful not to over-do it.

4. Avoid speech that is too realistic. Often conversations between people are clipped and repetitive. People also add lots of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’. In the quest for realism it’s not necessary to include these elements into written dialogue. It only makes it slow and confusing to read.

5. Remove clichés. It’s just as important to avoid clichés in dialogue as it is to avoid in description and plot. Don’t get lazy.

6. Don’t forget the spaces between the lines. A lot can be revealed in a character through the words they don’t say. A silence or an action can speak louder than words.

7. Avoid large blocks of pure dialogue. If all you give your reader is a wall of chatter, the reader can quickly lose connection with the story. Break it up with action and description. It doesn’t have to be a lot of action or a wad of description. We are after variety to add flavour and interest. It will also give you greater control on the pace of your story.

Can you think of other ways to improve dialogue? What are your weaknesses when writing dialogue?

The Cliché Plot Monster

Have you ever started to write a story only to realise it’s a copy of another?

I’ve done this on multiple occasions. It’s the curse of the cliché monster. We read a story and we file what we like about it in our minds. Years, or months, or even days later it re-emerges in our own stories. It’s not something we do on a conscious level. But it is something to watch out for.

It’s crucial to make the story your own. Create a twist from the original, veer off in a completely different direction. Don’t settle with what you have, but strive to make something new.

The cliché monster lurks in all of us. It likes to live not only within the phrases we use, but also in the plots we pursue. If we want our writing to be greater than mass produced pulp written to a formula, then we must study our plots as carefully as we study our words. We must seek the crispiness of a freshly tossed salad of events in our stories and surprise our readers with excellence.

Are you also plagued by the cliché plot monster? How do you keep it fresh?