This captured my attention, as I was passing the door to my balcony. The sun shown directly on some dark rain clouds. The result swept my breath away.
God’s Promise in the Sky
Author: L. M. Montes
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Peace
Condensed Words
You’re walking with a friend in a crowded amusement park. In your pocket are some coins, but what you don’t realize is you have a hole in your pocket. The next time you reach in to get them, you may only have a couple quarters left. The hole sucked the rest of your coins and out it went without you knowing it. Well, think of the words you write with as your hole and the reader as your coins. You want to keep your readers hooked and reading, not lost and motivated to put your story down. So…..how do you keep your readers from falling out of that hole?
Your wording should be tightened up, and condensed. In other words, don’t be wordy. It shouldn’t take you several words to get your point across. Here are some examples:
- Wordy: The rushing wind hit me in the face and tossed my hair around.
- Much Better: The wind slapped my hair.
In this example, both sentences pretty much say the same thing but number 1 uses more words to get to the point. Number 2 is straight forward AND it implies the wind is hitting the person in the face without having said that it is.
- Wordy: In the forest it was calm. The sunbeams reached their rays through the trees, and the light was speckled throughout.
- Better: Sunbeams fingered through the calm forest leaving speckled light throughout.
Here again all the words in number 1 aren’t needed in order to paint a picture of the setting. It’s boring because too many words are used to describe what few words can actually do. Not only that, but an auxiliary verb like ‘was’ only tells you about it. It doesn’t add to the picture. It takes away from it. Number 2 leaves you with a clear, strong picture in your mind.
Remember something though. When you’re writing your story, write your story. Concentrate on that. THEN, once you have your first draft finished, go back to the beginning and focus on the particulars and details like wordiness.
Words to Write By
When it comes to writing tag lines, such as ‘said John,’ sometimes we need other words to say instead of the word ‘said’. Why? Because said gets too monotonous. And in this writer’s opinion, it can ruin the flow. It kind of takes the realism out of the dialogue. So…..what are some alternatives? See the list below.
- responded
- replied
- answered
- stated
- asked
- stormed
- ranted
- joked
- gushed
- noted
- observed
- agreed
- cried
- added
- gasped
- explained
- grumbled
- boasted
There are much more than these, but you get the idea. Notice these words dig deeper into the mood/emotions of the speaker. That’s what you want because, what this does, is touch the readers’ emotions. That’s what you want.
The Time Piece by L. M. Montes
You placed me in my room
through a wall when punched with doom,
and on the floor I lie
with pain and marks of gloom.
I woke to tick tock tick
on a ground of cold dank brick,
A clock it caught my eye
with a face of blood and grit.
In the heat my heart it froze
when horror it did grow,
the gush and ooze of red
from the time piece it did flow.
By L. M. Montes
Villains (Part VII)
When you’re in a competition, you give it your all, everything you’ve got. You may be nervous at first before you start because you want to win. You don’t want to lose. Then your mom, dad, or friend says, “Just do your best. That’s all you can do. That’s all anyone can do.” In your mind, losing is losing, not winning. But…..in your villains mind, losing is winning.
What do I mean by this? Remember in the previous post (Villains Part VI) I said villains take pleasure in the protagonist’s pain. Well, yes. If burning everything down so your main character will lose everything but gives your villain pleasure in that main character’s loss, then the destruction of all is worth it to them. Go for the gusto with your villain’s actions. Have your villain throw ‘fuel on the fire’ (so to speak) as many times as it takes to cause destruction.
Ultimately, what is the reason behind the importance of making a great evil villain? Readers who continue turning the pages of your story all the way through to the end.
Villains (Part VI)
Watching someone open a gift, listening to your favorite music, a day at the beach, or even a walk in the woods; might give you pleasure. Now, normally, activities like the this would. But for villains in your stories, what gives them pleasure is none of the above. Oh No. They get pleasure from the pain of others. To your villain, other peoples’ pain is climactic, exhilarating, and releases the feel good chemicals inside their brain. They thrive on seeing others’ hurt and to the point where they have to continue in their hurtful behavior so they can continue to feel that pleasure.
Types of pain they inflict can be:
- Psychological
- Emotional
- Physical
- Spiritual
- Worse yet (and most preferable) a combination of all of these
When it comes to dreaming up ways your villain could possibly hurt your main character, think outside the box. Be creative about what you want them to do. What makes your villain’s actions different than others you have read about in other books. Mold them. Make their pain causing actions unique.
A Touch of Autumn
Strong Point of View
First Person POV: The story is told from the story teller’s point of view and uses the pronoun ‘I’, ‘us’, ‘our’, or ‘ourselves’. It can also be narrated by the protagonist/main character, witness, or side character.
Third Person POV: The story is told from outside the story and the narrator refers to the characters by name or as ‘he/she/they’ and also ‘him/her/them’. Types of third person include:
- Third Person Omniscient: the narration of the story is told with a voice as if from the author. They take on an all knowing perspective on the story being told.
- Example: As Rob and Janet slunk in their seats to watch the movie at the drive-in theater, he hoped he’d get lucky in the backseat of his car, and Janet secretly wished it was Dave snuggling next to her instead.
- Third Person Limited: only the narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of a single character. Other characters are presented externally.
- Example: He reached over to hold Jill’s hand but stopped halfway. Did she want him to, or would she slap him?
- Third Person Objective: think of this POV as a peeping tom. The narrator is neutral and not privy to the thoughts or feelings of the characters’.
- Example: She twisted her hands, as she paced the floor of her bedroom.
For a stronger point of view that pulls the reader into the story, use verbs that create action directly (note the bold faced words in the examples above). When you do this, emotions are created at the same time, which is felt by the reader and pulls them in even further. Now your reader is hooked. They want to know how the story is going to play out and change for the better/or worse. Have you ever read a book you can’t put down? Strong point of view is all part of that.
Going Back
There have been movies about somehow waking up and one day you are a kid again. We know this can’t really happen. It’s only in the movies. But…..what if it did? What if you lived your adult life up until the age of 50 years old. You’re single but have had on and off again relationships over the years. You live in New York City. Then, one night you went to bed and woke up one morning at some point in your past. Let’s say 31 years old. The bed you woke up in was completely different, and the house you woke up in was the house you lived in in London, England, when you were that age.
What’s more disturbing is you don’t know which reality is real. Did you dream your life to 50 and you are still 31? Or are you 50 and having a dream that you went back in time? Both feel lucid, so you are unable to tell. What would you do? How would you react? How would you find out the truth? Would you even want to live your last 19 years all over again?
I know that if I woke tomorrow morning in my room at my dad’s house and it was 9 years earlier, I think I’d jump for joy. The last 9 years of my life have been great since I remarried my husband 9 years ago. I wouldn’t want to trade that for anything. So, yup, I’d want to relive it. And, yes, there are some things I’d do different. I think we all would.
