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Easy Reading Writing
easy reading about writing easy reading
Table of contents for this page
EASY READING WRITING - [Chapter ONE]
EASY READING WRITING - [Quick Link to easy order Easy Reading Writing]
Updated 07/25/18
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He stood on a ribbon of sand stretched taut between leaden horizons and walled in by a somber sea on one side, faceless dunes on the other. A lone gull scudded by on the gelid salt-air with only its plaintive cry to break the solitude of wind and waves. |
What senses do we touch upon here? Sight, of course. Salt-air recalls the smell of a beach and perhaps the taste of it upon our lips. There's sound in the gull's call and in the wind and waves. The gelid air reminds us of the feel of a cold wind upon our skin. That's all five senses. But we also use words that play on our emotions: lone gull; faceless dunes; the solitude of wind and waves. All these combine to give us the feeling of isolation. Walled in by a somber sea, the dunes, and leaden horizons gives the feeling of being boxed in. Finally, he stood on a stretched taut ribbon, as if something is about to snap. Our job is not to tell our story; our job is to choose words that will start the movie projector rolling in our readers' minds, words that coax out sensory memories--see, taste, touch, smell, hear--to trigger our readers' imagination and life experiences. If we could take a snapshot of the image the above description evokes in the minds of a hundred people, they would all be different, depending on their individual environment, education, background, and DNA. Do we care? Not a whit. What's important is that our readers create their version of our world inside their heads, because when they do that, it plops them right in the middle of the action, and they experience the story taking place around them. That's what our job is. It's not easy. Easy reading is hard writing. There are no books, formulas or computer programs that will insure success. If there were, we'd all be using them. We can point out the direction to the mountain top, but each of us has to make the journey on our own. And none of us will take the same path. I've read books on writing that say to be successful you must build your characters first, that you must work out your plot first, that you must start out with an outline, that you must not start out with an outline. Fagetaboutit. We all have individual memories, imagination, life experiences, word prints, DNA. Each guitarist has a different strum. Each painter a different brush stroke. Even a telegraph operator has a different fist, the way they key dots and dashes. Just so each writer. Only by working at it can we learn to develop our own unique style, our own unique way of stringing words together, the unique characters and unique stories that reside only in our unique heads. Only by writing and rewriting can we develop a smoothness that leads one sentence into another, one paragraph to another, and one chapter into another. These can only come about by connecting our mind to our fingers and doing it over and over again.
Even so, it takes three things, like the legs of a tripod, for a story to stand.
To easy order a copy of Easy Reading Writing, easy reading about writing easy reading, from Amazon, please click on
[purchase Easy Reading Writing].
My email address is: Peter (at) sidewalkbooks (dot) com, putting in symbols for at and dot and taking out spaces. |
Thank you, thank you, thank you! May I use an exclamation point here, Peter? Just wanted to let you know I am half way through your book, Easy Reading Writing, and I love it...please let me indulge myself and put three exclamation points here...!!! And the humor is great. I just wish it had been available years ago. You have presented the novice and professional with a wonderful tool. I have learned so much, and you have reinforced what I already knew but needed to hear again. I wish you great success with it. I will be showing it to our local libraries. The best, Dusty Bunker, One Deadly Rhyme www.dustybunker.com
Hi, Peter:
Thank you so much for the Easy Reading Writing. It's the most helpful
and enjoyable read on the subject that I've had. I have read other books about writing
and they are, for the most part, dry and dull or the author is patroniz ing. I'm signing
for the free e-mail newsletter that comes with it. I always enjoy hearing from you and
want to continue to learn.
Finished Easy Reading Writing last night -- I was impressed and agreed w/99%
of what you had to say. Thought your style was great with all the little Peterisms you
used--note that I did not surround that w/quotes. I think it oughta be a hit in the writing
circles & libraries. Could've used a bit of proofreading, but that just makes me an English
teacher, not a writer.
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