“If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.”
Very few of us can be considered natural-born writers, yet each of us has a story to tell. This chapter will reveal simple ways of making each of your stories more alive and vibrant. We will cover showing vs. telling, varying the length of sentences, finding strong words to replace the exclamation point, and correctly employing basic grammatical rules. We will also discuss simple story structure using conflict and resolution.
There are many ways to build a powerful story. Narrative is about flow. One word leads to a sentence and then to a paragraph, merging next into a chapter and finally into the completed manuscript. Think of a bubbling spring filtering into a brook that meanders through a forest glade into a river and then winds its way down a valley to the ocean. Like the wellspring, a word gains power as it adds to itself. The brook is the sentence; the river, the paragraph; and the ocean is your life story.
The five Ws from Journalism 101 teach the stripped-down basics of telling a complete story. What happened? Who was there? Where did it happen? When did it happen? Why did it happen? The answers to these basic questions can fill a paragraph or a book, depending on the level of detail you use. Keep the what, who, where, when, and why in mind as you write.
Voice is attitude. It is your personality. If you are known as a serious person, that should be reflected in your writing. If you are known for your wit, what better way to honor yourself than by demonstrating it on paper? Are you a “nothing but the basics” storyteller? This stripped-down approach can be an editor’s delight.
“Watch your tone!” How many times have we heard that admonishment as a child? It meant that someone, usually a parent, did not like the way we spoke. It wasn’t just the words we used; it was how we expressed them. So how can we, as life story writers, use tone? How can we express in words what we feel in our hearts? How do we take on the responsibility of setting the tone? First, identify your audience and decide how you would like to interact with them. For most of us the audience will be family members, relatives, and friends. Which tone will work for you—and for them? You can choose to be formal, serious, intimate, cynical, or funny. In fact you can use all of these tones. Describing a funeral may be serious but can involve pockets of humor. Revealing a funny moment in life can be shaded with foreshadowing, giving the reader the impression that something bad is about to happen. However, there will always be an overriding story tone, one you will establish in the first few pages. Again, who is your reading audience? If they are your family and friends, write for them. They are your peers. How do they see you? Do they think you are serious, funny, distant, or sad? Keep that in mind while you write. Write to them as you would speak to them.
Whose story are you telling? You are writing about your life the way you remember it, and thus you will likely use the first-person point of view (I and me): “I moved to Palo Alto when I was twenty-seven.” The third-person POV (he, she) is more removed and distant: “He lived in Palo Alto for nine years.” The first person is more intimate. It lets the reader into your world.
This is telling:
I was very nervous as I waited at the counter.
This is showing:
When I lifted my trembling hand off the counter, I could see its outline in sweat.
Showing takes you deep into the moment. You are the one lifting your hand off the counter. Telling makes for a bland statement. In the first example, you simply tell the reader you are nervous. It may be fact, but it has no color. To add showing to your writing, remember to use the five senses (see chapter four). Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell are reference points that can make your writing more immersive and entertaining.
Here are some examples of showing versus telling, using the five senses.
TELLING: I saw the bear coming towards me.
SHOWING: The bear rumbled towards me with glistening eyes focused on its dinner.
TELLING: The explosion was loud.
SHOWING: The sonic boom jolted us awake at 4 A.M.
TELLING: He held me tightly.
SHOWING: Holding me in his arms made my world a safe one.
TELLING: The strawberries were fresh and tasted great.
SHOWING: The strawberries tasted like spring and were as fresh as the fleeting breeze that wafted over the fields.
TELLING: The scent was noxious.
SHOWING: The pungent odor oozed into our nostrils.
Editors take glee in crossing out phrases such as “never a dull moment,” “a dime a dozen,” “the wrong side of the bed,” and “my cross to bear.” They consider these to be examples of lazy writing. To make your writing uniquely you, examine your clichés and reword them. For example, “never a dull moment” can become “a constant frenzy of events,” while “a dime a dozen” sounds better as “common and cheap.” Try changing “the wrong side of the bed” to “not ready to face the day.” How about switching “my cross to bear” with “the troubles with which I must live”? Sometimes clichés work, but they need to be used sparingly.
Become a gazelle with your writing, swift and sure-footed. Metaphors and similes liven up your writing and add spice to your stories. So, what are they, and how do you use them in your writing?
Similes use the words like and as to compare two things. Here is an example:
My life is like a well-worn pair of denim jeans, torn and frayed.
From this sentence, you understand what the writer is telling you: Her life has been well lived.
A metaphor is the more concise cousin of the simile. It can evoke an even more raw comparison with no need for like or as.
He was the gopher in our family, always popping up to sniff the terrain.
Notice this sentence has no extraneous words such as like or as. Consider this metaphor about the same person:
He was a comet, a flash in the pan, coming on strong and then disappearing into nothingness.
Join these two sentences together—two metaphors—and we have a very strong picture of this individual. “He was the gopher in our family, always popping up to sniff the terrain, then burrowing furtively back into his tunnel.” Readers envision a nervous man, forever restless and always on the go. Here is another example.
My life is a patchwork quilt that often needs airing out.
What a powerful means of giving information to the reader! One can almost see the person being hung out to dry.
We all have a word we rely on too heavily and repeat too often. It could be a word or phrase that we fall back on over and over again: “Great.” “No problem.” “Not to worry.” You may not even be aware of it, but your readers will pick up on your crutch words and become annoyed. Look over your writing and see if you can identify them. Find the words or phrases you repeat frequently and cut them.
Limit your sentences to one idea at a time to make your writing less confusing for the reader. Cut out the obvious or redundant words. One rule is to keep many sentences to twenty or fewer words. Sometimes, however, a longer sentence can be more powerful. Ernest Hemingway once wrote: “If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.” Rules are meant to be broken. Do so selectively.
Let’s look at an example of an overly wordy sentence:
All of us lived in Franklin for only a few months before my father was transferred to the far northern outpost of Bristol, a rustic little village that can be found only on detailed regional maps.
Note that there are two points mentioned here. The first is living in Franklin, while the second is the move to Bristol.
Now let’s cut these points into two sentences, each reflecting one point: (1) All of us lived in Franklin for only a few months. (2) Then my father was transferred to the far northern outpost of Bristol, a rustic little village that can be found only on detailed regional maps.
All of us lived in Franklin for only a few months. Then my father was transferred to the far northern outpost of Bristol, a rustic little village that can be found only on detailed regional maps.
Now let’s see if there are any redundant words in these two sentences? Can some be deleted or replaced without changing the meaning?
All of us We lived in Franklin for only a few six months. Then my father was transferred to the far northern outpost of Bristol, a rustic little village that can be found only on detailed regional maps.
The redundant words or phrases are all of us, a few, far, little, and that can be. Here is the revised version.
We lived in Franklin for only six months. Then my father was transferred to the northern outpost of Bristol, a rustic village found only on detailed regional maps.
Your goal will always be to tell your story in the most efficient, economical way possible. Your initial writing may be full of redundant words and too many points being made in one sentence. That’s not something to worry about now. Get the story written. You can edit later.
When writing in the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action:
Jack hit the ball.
In the passive voice, the target of the action becomes the subject:
The ball was hit by Jack.
The passive voice usually sounds awkward and wordy. It is wise to use the active voice in most cases.
Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Limit your use of adverbs since they are often redundant and do not add clarity to your writing. A list of frequently misused adverbs includes: definitely, truly, very, and really. Here’s an example of a sentence that does not need the word definitely:
I am definitely going to do it today.
Take out the adverb definitely, and the sentence is simple and effective. Notice how it retains its definitive tone:
I am going to do it today.
Don’t use exclamation marks to express shock or surprise. “I was so shocked that I jumped back onto the curb!” Instead, try placing the strongest word at the end. “I jumped back onto the curb in shock.” No exclamation mark is needed.
A cliché is a phrase that has become ubiquitous through overuse. Using too many or relying on them too often leads to lazy writing. Once you finish, it’s time to do some light cliché editing. Whenever you see one of the following phrases, remove it and substitute your own descriptive words. Take a few minutes to write down ten clichés. Rewrite them in your own words. Try to incorporate similes and metaphors into your rewrites whenever possible.
CLICHÉ: There’s never a dull moment in our home.
REWRITE: There’s always chaos in our house.
CLICHÉ: He is my knight in shining armor.
REWRITE: He is my gallant hero.
CLICHÉ: He got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
REWRITE: He woke up in a foul mood that hovered like a storm cloud all day.
CLICHÉ: The lake was as smooth as silk.
REWRITE: The lake was a gleaming mirror.
CLICHÉ: We nipped that one in the bud.
REWRITE: We stopped that one just in time.
Fit as a fiddle
Scared out of my wits
Nose to the grindstone
Take it with a grain of salt
Get out of my hair
Barking up the wrong tree
My hands are tied
Asleep at the wheel
Pay through the nose
Time to get out of Dodge
Quick as a wink
There’s no place like home
Like a duck to water
First and foremost
Give it a rest
Haste makes waste
Sharp as a tack
No laughing matter
All’s well that ends well
Leap of faith
Like a bat out of hell
Beat around the bush
Under the weather
Preaching to the choir
Turn over a new leaf
Time will tell
Cat got your tongue?
Time heals all wounds
It was meant to be
No rest for the weary
Thrown to the wolves
All bent out of shape
At the end of my rope
An axe to grind
It’s a dog-eat-dog world
On a wing and a prayer
Right on the money
On the cutting edge
Feather in his cap
You can bank on it
Cash cow
Taste of your own medicine
Tried and true
Beaten to a pulp
Piece of cake