Category: quotes

Fiction Books with Great Descriptions

84 Ribbons / details in writing / musings / quotes

Fiction Books with Great Descriptions

I’m a sucker for a great description. I love the visuals they create for me as well as the way they bring our other senses into play: sound, touch, smell and taste. Check out these novel excerpts. They inspire me when I write my stories. Let me know if you agree. The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd It was the time of year when migrating crows wheeled across the sky, thunderous flocks that moved like a single veil. (kindle location:  1910 of 5663) The Secret River by Kate Grenville Morning and evening the Government chain gangs clanked and...

Inspired Words

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Inspired Words

It’s fun to record words that impact me from books I read. Here are a few for you  to ponder. Enjoy! It was getting late. Knife-sharp shadows fell across the lane, dividing everything into light and darkness. Tiger Tail Soup by Nicki Chen She changed the gravity in the room.  Paris Wife by Paula McLain Jake always said we were like undercurrents the way we lived our lives under the surface of society. Whiskey Cove by Denise Frisini The line between her old life and her new one had been marked in six feet of soil.   Lighthouse Bay by Kimberley...

Can you Feel the Tension?

details in writing / quotes / writer reminders

Can you Feel the Tension?

Authors strive to put tension on every page. Can you feel it? Don’t always expect gut-wrenching tension. Certainly we put in some of that even in ballet stories. Instead look for the little moments where a character paces, stresses or pouts. You’ll also see it when unexpected mail arrives, someone doubts a character’s motive or when the car won’t start on the first try. The question is why do author’s place little moments like that in stories? The answer: would you keep reading if nothing exciting occurred? Probably not. And, if you think about it, your life is filled with...

Quotes Worth a Second Look

musings / quotes

Quotes Worth a Second Look

As a reader I often find phrases, sentences or paragraphs that stop me. They are the ones that create images I want to remember, usually sensory statements I wished I’d written. Tell me what you think of these. …memories as jagged and sharp as bits of glass (Angel Falls by Kristin Hannah, p. 342) But Anna was a loose marble. (Five Fortunes by Beth Gutcheon,  p. 20 (speaking of ingredients) …deep and mysterious like perfume lingering in the folds of a cashmere scarf. (The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister, p. 15) An enormous double-glazed skylight floods the room...

Doorways

details in writing / quotes

Doorways

Rebecca McClanahan in Word Painting says that description promises rewards to readers. Descriptive passages create the illusion of reality, inviting the reader to move in, unpack his bags and settle in for a spell. The best of published writers sometimes miss the mark, leaving readers disappointed or angry that they didn’t find that comfortable place to enter the work. Our challenge becomes learning how to open the door to our stories or to create our visual landscapes with words. McClanahan suggests we use double brushstrokes: intensify our observation skills and merge them with our imaginative eye. Consider these observations as...

Setting Seasons

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Setting Seasons

Seasons need not be spelled out obviously. Get creative, visual and active!  Try writing them with seasonal nouns and random verbs. For example:           The rain clouds blew in, washing the daffodil petals,  pulling them free and dropping them to the soil. The Christmas tree leaned toward the window as if to say, back away! She shook the sand from her sandals, kicked them off and stepped onto the cooling tile floor in the entry.            It was a still morning with frost dripping from the abandoned clothesline. Published authors also use...

All That Shakin’ Going On

details in writing / musings / quotes

All That Shakin’ Going On

“Like the plates beneath the earth’s crust at the time of a quake, the underpinnings of her life were shifting. All she could do was to take shelter under the most stable structure she knew and wait it out.” Barbara Delinsky, Together Alone p.146 Have you ever thought what your stable writing structure might be when you feel the shaking? It might be sitting and staring at the computer or re-reading what you’ve written or walking away from writing for a few days or weeks. Every shift brings new understandings and new direction when you allow yourself to work through...

Quotes to Ponder

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Quotes to Ponder

Kristin Hannah’s book, Angel Falls, provides us with a lot to think about: p.111 He’d never thought much about silence, but now he knew its every shape and contour. It was a cheap glass jar that trapped old voices and kept them fresh. p.149 The measure of a man comes down to moments spread out like dots of paint on the canvas of life. p.331 The falling apart of a man’s life should make noise. p.375 Love wasn’t a great burning brush fire that swept across your soul and charred you…it was everyday moments laid out like bricks, one atop...

Evoking Emotion

details in writing / quotes

Evoking Emotion

Writer’s Digest online has tons of advice worth repeating. David Morrell, addressed evoking emotion. “Talking about emotions won’t compel a reader to feel them…the reader must be made to feel the situations in the story, to experience what the character experiences; as a result, just as sequence creates emotion in characters, it will so the same in the reader.” “Writers can achieve this effect if they take the sense of sight for granted and emphasize the other senses, thus crafting multi-dimensional descriptions and scenes…In this way, the reader becomes immersed in the story, feeling it rather than being told about...

Quotes 2

quotes

Quotes 2

Famous and everyday people have had a lot to say about writing: “What is written without effort is read without pleasure.” Samuel Johnson “Whenever we listen to someone’s story or read their words, a filament of connection is forged.” Lynn Lauber “(To be a writer) you have to have a split personality and be slightly nuts.” Bob Mayer “She drew his words, like polished stones, out of the secret satin drawstring bag of her memory, and with them the image of his face.” LaVyrle Spencer “Real life was as layered with illusion as any piece of fiction.” Dean Koontz “The...