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<title>Creative Writing And Writers</title><link>http://www.creativewritingandwriters.com/index.html</link><description>Writing is communicating the best and worst that life is to many of us.</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>Strephon</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright 2008 Creative Writing And Writers</dc:rights><dc:date>2008-01-28T19:36:17+01:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:57:10 +0100</lastBuildDate><image><link>http://www.creativewritingandwriters,com</link><url>http://www.creativewritingandwriters.com/images/metro-01/red-diamond2.png</url><title>Creative Writing And Writers</title></image><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/CreativeWritingAndWriters" type="application/rss+xml" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com" /><item><title>Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier</title><dc:creator>Strephon</dc:creator><category>Writing Craft Reviews</category><dc:date>2008-01-28T19:36:17+01:00</dc:date><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeWritingAndWriters/~3/XJ5h2WF7fOw/3b83d67b460d0b47ec8b0c76ba2cdfd9-2.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.creativewritingandwriters.com/Writing/blog_files/3b83d67b460d0b47ec8b0c76ba2cdfd9-2.html#unique-entry-id-2</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[One technique that Frazier uses is to create a special vocabulary that contrasts with normal speech and writing of modern times.   This has the effect of inducing people, almost hypnotically, to feel like they are in the time period being described.


For Frazier, it&rsquo;s not enough to write an historical novel that has some markers, like the names of characters and places, that indicate the historical period. 

...Frazier creates local, historical atmosphere by describing the country as a naturalist of the times would when there was more pristine country and a less mechanical kind of farming.


What we focus on here is the writing technique of creating a special vocabulary of the times and interlarding it into virtually every paragraph.


Frazier must have had a list of his made up and researched vocabulary.   He says he researched the language of that day, and we are sure he did, since he is a native to the Blue Ridge Mountains, he says.   However, show me the dictionary of colloquialisms written in that day and I will believe Frazier did not make up any of his quaint vocabulary and speech.


...This one technique is so well done that Cold Mountain is considered a major novel in our day and Frazier a major writer, though other of his writing skills are not really above the more beginning writer, and his story development is weak.


...This is a hard-work achievement for Frazier, for he does these descriptors every page, maybe more densely when a scene is meant to be rendered vivid.


Another reinforcing technique Frazier uses successfully is weaving in almost each day of a character&rsquo;s life the local naturalist sightings of wildlife and plant-life.   Thus, regardless of story, you the reader are there with a park naturalist having a relaxing time of it away from the city and your high powered city job.


This appeals to our nostalgia for the past when many animals were not yet endangered species.   Ruby, the character, reports that passenger pigeons were so plentiful and tame that she has a child had knocked them to the ground so she could cook and eat them.


Ah, who would not think a writer great if he can bring us into the past to live vicariously and more simple and natural time.


It&rsquo;s unreal, of course, just as the earlier James Fenmore Cooper is unreal about the Leather Stockings days of contact with Native Americans on the frontier.


Frazier does not give us painful things of the times, unless they are terrible from the Civil War.   We don&rsquo;t hear of child molestation&rsquo;s or that one in through women were raped, maybe more, or that fleas and ticks and rashes and boils were a problem. 

...Yes, every writer does have to select, and here is one of Frazier&rsquo;s maybe weaknesses in style. 

...If there is one principle that makes sense to the reader, it is that every description of every going&rsquo;s on should be directly relevant to a character at that story moment.


...He describes the heron for us in naturalist detail, but it is Frazier, the naturalist, modern writer, doing so.   Ruby&rsquo;s own reaction is to think of the heron as a stabber and killer. 

...Both these young women don&rsquo;t see the bird as Frazier, the writer, sees it. 

...The reader is trying to follow the main characters and be involved with them.   When Frazier, the writer, comes in so obviously we as readers have no interest in him or his heron bird.   Thus Frazier violates in many places a writing principle that it is often important to adopt.


Principle: never put in and describe objects, scenes and persons which are not directly interactive with that part of the story happening now.


We should have experienced the blue heron only through the eyes of Ruby and Ada, along with their clash of opinion around it. 

...Perhaps half the writer&rsquo;s descriptive paragraphs are primarily Frazier and not a story character.   It would have been better story if he had left himself out of it. 

...Being our Cold Mountain park naturalist just is not what we want from the writer at the time we are trying to be emotionally involved with the story and our main characters.


Without realizing why at the time, I mostly skipped over these Frazier, descriptive passages, because I was excited and involved only with the story characters.


If you put yourself in so directly as a writer into your story, then consciously make yourself a character.   Have us the readers visit you in modern times to listen to you talk about your ancestors.


For story consistency you cannot be both the modern writer and one of your story characters back then over one hundred years ago.   You weaken reader involvement and make the reader work to skip Frazier to get to the next bit of action, reaction and reflection that belongs to what the character expresses.


...In terms of The Writer&rsquo;s Interface, pay careful attention to the narrator&rsquo;s role and make it clear to the reader. ...  Then don&rsquo;t digress, don&rsquo;t have your narrator doing the descriptive work. 

...She thought of the myth of Narcissus, she had read out-loud to Monroe, her father, when he was alive in his declining year.


...It was his perfect tool that allowed him to eat and survive in an uncertain world, she thought.&rdquo;


Writer&rsquo;s Interface principle: Don&rsquo;t double your adjectives all that much. 

...Trouble is: there are far too many for the simple reader to &ldquo;get it.&rdquo; 

...He uses descriptors when none are needed, and so overloading his descriptions, making them so dense the reader again has to slow down. 

...    - where trees from either bank met nearly in the middle and kept the watercourse shaded all day (where trees from the banks met and kept the watercourse shaded all day, is better, less lush, more open to being filled by reader imagination.


In terms of The Writer&rsquo;s Interface if the writer intrudes all the time, interfacing between reader and story, then the reader feels unconsciously pushed off because the writer is obviously insisting on steering the boat and the reader has to be only a passenger, fingers dangling in the water, but obviously distracted.


-Sure, use qualifiers, but only some of the time, and not all of the time. 

...Thus Frazier, maybe by choice, has created a lush style, wonderfully elaborate, to be admired closely for its poetry.   Yet he does too much and too often go too far with paired descriptors, thus stealing the show from the reader. ...  As a reader I don&rsquo;t like this. 

...Our functional approach is to point to the nature of the writer&rsquo;s interface, the words and story structures involved.
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/CreativeWritingAndWriters/~4/XJ5h2WF7fOw" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded><feedburner:origLink>http://www.creativewritingandwriters.com/Writing/blog_files/3b83d67b460d0b47ec8b0c76ba2cdfd9-2.html#unique-entry-id-2</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Writing Craft Reviews</title><dc:creator>Strephon</dc:creator><category>Writing Craft Reviews</category><dc:date>2008-01-27T19:29:26+01:00</dc:date><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeWritingAndWriters/~3/0yfumlAAfs4/1a6f9e6a6fb1edf5872268ae1e479a5d-1.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.creativewritingandwriters.com/Writing/blog_files/1a6f9e6a6fb1edf5872268ae1e479a5d-1.html#unique-entry-id-1</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[	You feel that what is important is the story you have to tell.


	You feel that all you have to do is tell your story and the story itself will carry you forward into something really exciting to read for others because you have excitement in the story you tell.


	You feel that if you are an intelligent and talented writer that all you have to do is write your story and the writing craft will be there, sort of directly from your unconscious.


All the above points can stand in your way.   They feel &lsquo;right&rsquo; to you.   They are not right because they are not in reality.


As a teenager you see people driving cars all over the place, and you probably think that you can just get in a car and drive it.   Nothing is further from the truth.   You have to learn how to drive a car under the supervision of an experienced driver, don&rsquo;t you?


Same with writing.


So you have to learn your writing craft and we are here to help you because we love writing as well as reading.   We want to make some money giving you the information you need to write well and get published.


We are being realistic.   So should you.
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/CreativeWritingAndWriters/~4/0yfumlAAfs4" height="1" width="1"/>]]></content:encoded><feedburner:origLink>http://www.creativewritingandwriters.com/Writing/blog_files/1a6f9e6a6fb1edf5872268ae1e479a5d-1.html#unique-entry-id-1</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Writing Rescue</title><dc:creator>Strephon</dc:creator><category>Free Reports</category><dc:date>2008-01-19T20:29:51+01:00</dc:date><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeWritingAndWriters/~3/HCIIInVcgbQ/93795f71833cf956e42559553c422b38-0.html</link><guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.creativewritingandwriters.com/Writing/blog_files/93795f71833cf956e42559553c422b38-0.html#unique-entry-id-0</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It will be hard to take for those of you who read this and are identified with being a writer.


...You may be sure that I can analyze intelligently a manuscript or a published book. 

...Writing rescue means how to save the patient but maybe not the clothes that were at least partly ruined in the accident.


...Do you get emotionally upset at having a project of yours, whether writing or not, rejected, criticized or not appreciated?


...Do you respond to criticism in any area of your life by first seeking clarity as to what the other person is saying?


...Do you respond to criticism of any kind by saying at least to yourself, if not to your critic, you are wrong, you don&rsquo;t know what you are talking about, or any such terms that reject the feedback immediately and out of hand?


...Do you write because you want to be published successfully and have lots of readers?


...Do you write because you want to make money writing?


...Have you been writing more than ten years without having anything of yours published and appreciated by thousands of readers? 

...Do you call yourself a writer to friends, family and people in general without having had anything published, or if published, not having anything that has sold well?


...Do you write because you want to express yourself, get your feelings out, express your life experiences?


...Do you write because you want to produce work that lasts longer than a life time?


...Do you write to produce work that makes you famous, talked about, admired as being at the head of your generation in writing?


...Do you write to make a lot of money as a popular best seller?


...Do you write, and have you proven yourself, because you seem to be born with a lot of talent to express yourself in writing?


...Do you study a lot of writing craft books, go to a lot of writers conferences, take a lot of writing courses?


...Are you critical of the work of best selling authors, as if maybe even you could do better?


...Do you believe that making good contacts with agents and editors and famous writers will get you the right publishers and agents who will make your career go as a writer?


...Are you as good a critic of your own work as you are of other people&rsquo;s work?


As you can feel inside yourself, this is a hard questionnaire to answer to with all honesty. 

...If you have answered yes to most of the above questions then you seem to have absolutely the wrong attitude to further your writing. 

...A survey in 2007 if taken would probably reveal that there are a lot of writer&rsquo;s blogs out there, I mean hundreds, by writers who have published a book, but a book that has not sold well.


...The book must make good money for the publisher and the writer.


...Because the publishers and their editors, and author&rsquo;s agents are so poor at picking book manuscripts that will sell to a lot of readers.


One out of ten books published makes money for publisher and author?


...No book should be published because a writer has made good contact with the decision makers. 

...The reason publishers do not fail is because they do not pay their authors at least twenty-five percent of the retail cover price of a book.


...As writers we should see that to write well in the modern world is a liability for modern writers. 

...Consider then if you should be a writer to earn lots of money. 

...In the dance world there are millions of excellent dancers who train for hours in building their abilities into a professional level.   Yet most dancers who train for the job never earn their livings dancing, or even get roles to perform.


...Don&rsquo;t waste your time making contacts in New York City, polishing agents and editors egos, thinking of yourself as a writer, making web pages for yourself as a writer.   These things will all keep you out of reality regarding your being a writer in the modern world.


...Don&rsquo;t write things that you don&rsquo;t sell within a year or two at the most after completion.


...If the product or service created by your labor does not sell more than adequately, don&rsquo;t keep doing it!


...You are not a writer unless you sell, and sell by being a good writer, and not by being a marketer of your own work.


...- You as a writer are sick if you keep writing and do not sell your work or have a substantial number of readers.


- If the product, your book or book manuscript, does not sell well enough for you to earn a living, do not keep doing it.


- How many books should you write that don&rsquo;t get published and if published don&rsquo;t sell before you should give up writing? ...  No more than four published books that do not make money for author and publisher.


- Learn the writing craft better than almost anyone else in editing or writing, and use it well to write books that sell.


- Develop your story-telling imagination better than almost anyone else, and certainly better than anyone else you know.


- We are not talking talent, the superior writing use of words like a great athletes superior coordination. ...  And be willing to make the necessary sacrifices of whatever stands in the way, if it stands in the way, like family, love relationships, regular work.


...It&rsquo;s crucial for you in your life, just as coming to this viewpoint has been crucial for us and made us successful.


...We are the only writing software product that gives you so many useful writing craft tools, perspectives and structures.


...We can&rsquo;t force you to anything but there is reality forcing you to a decision.


If you are serious about you, your life and writing then it is reality that forces you to make decisions. 

...Evaluate what writing structures or tools you are using to improve your writing, no matter how good you now think it is. ...  Date this page and keep it as a reminder for a year from now to see what you have accomplished.
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