Sarcasm is lost on cats . . .

Frodo, the wonder kitty

Our cat Frodo likes to jump up into the bathroom sink whenever we turn on the spigot to stick her paws in the water. It's a bad habit we indulge by, in fact, turning on the water for her. Then, to communicate the pain and suffering she's causing us by hogging up the sink, my husband and I say things like:

"We hope we're not getting in your way, Frodo, trying to brush our teeth."

Something clever like that. Clever, perhaps. Effective, no. Sarcasm isn't an effective way to communicate when your audience is a housecat.

Sometimes as writers we forget the audience we're writing for. Much as we don't like to be constrained by formulas--I don't write formulaic romance, I always say--if we want to be published, conformity might be a smarter course of action than writing something that isn't easily categorized, then wondering why it's not readily publishable.

As part of their course work for the MFA in Creative Writing at Wilkes University, some of former classmates closely analyzed books in different genres to observe the use of technique or other literary element such as character. Such an intense examination can be very useful in helping to discover how the book you're writing either conforms, betters, of verges too far afield from the body of work in that genre or sub-genre.

I find revision the equivalent of a mental triathlon. Yet, in order to make a couple books ready to shop, I'll need to consider what category into which they can and should be slotted, rewriting them and their queries accordingly.

Because sarcasm is lost on cats.

Ten quick craft tips learned in online writing groups

Today I'm sharing ten tips I've picked up from other writers in online writing groups or from their critiques of my work. I don't do online groups anymore (that's a whole other post topic).

 

But I've never forgotten some of things I learned from other writers I encountered online.

1. To make your prose more graceful, in a series of items, put the longest item last.  Example: wide eyes, a pert nose, and lips as tempting as a ripe peach.
2. In describing someone follow the natural path of the eye (unless of course your viewpoint character has a strange optical tic) from top to bottom, bottom to top, near to far or vice versa.  Example: She wore pink lip gloss, her curly dark hair fell to her shoulders, and a low-cut cashmere shell showed just enough cleavage to distract any man she happened to want something from.
3. Lighten up on the -ing verbs and the participial phrases.  Example: Crashing into the Christmas tree, she began spinning around the room. It would be better to say: She crashed into the Christmas tree and spun around the room.
4. Drop "began" and "began to" phrases wherever possible (see previous example). People don't "begin to." They just do.
5. Most adverbs can and should be written out of your prose. Look for -ly words: hauntingly, hurriedly, calmly, briskly, etc. Only keep an adverb if you'd pay $100 for it.
6. More than one or two adjectives (modifiers) weakens rather than strengthens the writing. It dilutes the power of all the others. Example: The sad, tired, old woman rested on the park bench. Now none of the modifiers--sad, tired, or old--makes an impact.
7. Description can be too lush. If you describe every detail in a scene, there's nothing left for the reader's imagination to fill in.  Painstaking description can be painful. Example: The quarter inch gold plated locket on the 20 inch 14-karat gold chain with feather weight links was perfect for a cameo about the size of a small child's middle fingernail. Aren't you in pain already?
8. Adjectives, if used, are always stronger without qualifiers. Forget the really happy's, very well-off's, too beautiful's.
9. Most writers have habits or idiosyncracies such as overusing one or two words. I slip the word "just" into many sentences. Now I use the find function in word processing software to take them out.
10. Words are diamonds. Showcase their beauty by sloughing off the carbon around them. Or as one of my writing teachers put it, "Words are stones. Feel the weight of them." Diamonds. Stones.You get the idea.

If you have a quick craft tip to share, feel free to leave it as a comment. And thanks to a whole host of online writers who shared your wisdom with me earlier in my career.