I have discovered as I write this blog how much I am learning and it is great to be able to share it. It is almost like I am in college again and striving for that A grade! In college I took every writing course available until they told me I had to actually take courses that were just for my degree. My original degree had been English but my father had talked me into Business management, I was so bored there was no creative involvement it was one way or you failed. It was taught primarily by egotistical males they talked about all their achievements. Ugh! As you can probably tell I changed my major. Back to English I am very glad I did, my other favorite was history so I took a detour into that degree too. It was a process and still is. Just as writing.
I have the top photo and the quote really inspired me, I have based my quartet on the different seasons. I noticed with each book their is a definite difference not just in climate, but also in clothes and temperatures, and change in dynamic due to the characters, it is fun to challenge myself to write in all those different seasons. I love that quote is too it really paints a picture, which is what a
scene does. Description is important. It gives that very real visceral observation in the story, you have to be able to pull your reader into that
scene. It is very challenging to do that without going over board. I have read authors who take the time to describe the beauty of there heroine in every scene possible there is a mirror and we need a description again! So frustrating and it makes you think the heroine is very vain, I lose some empathy for her if I think she is stuck on herself. Ugh! it is very difficult for me to finish a story that is written like that. I want her to be beautiful, but I also want her to be more then that.
Now mind you I am just stating a proven fact that if you describe the
same things too much the reader gets bored. Every teacher of mine in college stated that as well. Now twenty years later I am finally understanding it. One of the key things you learn early on in writing is how to evoke the senses. Sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. An I quote from Wikipedia: "A sense is a physiological capacity of organisms that provides data for perception." I remember my teachers telling me I need more detail, we need to see, feel and smell this environment. I used to struggle with this until I started noticing it in reading. Some writers were amazing and I was completely pulled in. Every sense was involved with the discovery of this person and their story. And after reading another article by a "published author" who said that details were not that important. I went through and deleted most of my detail from my draft and while it was entertaining with dialogue, I was not pulled in. I understand that more now since I have had others read it. I am working feverishly on adding that to my draft. In this process that continues with each page I write, I am also learning how to edit properly. somethings do not need explicit detail. Somethings just need dialogue and more emotion.
As I always do in each blog, I mention a person or a book that has inspired me in some way. Any English major or anyone in general knows who Jane Austen was, and her wonderful books. My topic book this time is Sense and Sensibility, lol cause its a play on words and my topic Senses lol..Mostly because it is a wonderful story and as in all her writing you are in the story her descriptions, and emotions so clear an precise and her dry wit contagious. I have read an reread her stories so many times. The movies they have done are very good too. It is amazing to me a women in the that era can translate and we can all relate to the stories more than a hundred years later!
As quoted from Wikipedia:
"Her realism, biting irony and social commentary as well as her acclaimed plots have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics." The link to the website is below if you want to read about her life.
wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Austen
It is ironic to me that in every one of her stories their is always a happy ending, but in her own life there was not a happy ending. She endured a lot of hardship and illness. Her stories are alive an well with everyone that reads them just as every story should be. This directly applies to the details you give your characters, if you make them believable an relate-able then readers will return to read again and again. I only know this fact from personal experience as a reader. If that author does a good job I will buy their stories sometimes even sight unseen. As a writer I think it is important to remember that readers have no idea where they are in the story until you give the Setting, we have not idea what season it is till you give it the, Scene with the senses involved. In conclusion; The most important element to create, is to make your reader
believe in your character completely,
relate to them even if they are in Victorian England, and want to see them reach their happy ending. No I go back to writing my happy ending. Here are a couple of books that I can recommend for this topic (Scenes&Senses) are:
Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go; by Les Edgerton,
Scene & Structure (Elements of Fiction Writing);by Jack M. Bickham
~Life is a work in progress as writing is...Until next time readers, and hopeful writers. Jess =)
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