Elizabeth Sims has a terrific blog on craft. I like almost everything she writes, but there are some true-blue keepers. One of my favorites from earlier this year is, "Generous Writing: What is it?" March 27th, 2014.
Here, with two contrasting sentences, she illustrates generosity in writing:
"He was a pale guy, not just ordinary pale, but really extremely pale."
versus
"There Jerome hung, skinny, sunken-chested, as white as a saltine, his face scrunched up and one hand clutching his nuts." (Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex)
How can each of us, on every page, give our readers MORE? How can we express the ordinary in new ways? Or, surprise with unlikely couplings of images and sensory details? How do we dig deeper, then further, then onward still?
Can we empty our pockets, turn them out, fish out every pill of lint, tarnished bauble, folded paper, knotted string and sleeping frog?
Recently, I finished reading, "All the Light We Cannot See," by Anthony Doerr. His writing slayed me. I can't remember when I've been so moved by both story and prose. Doerr is a writer who is ridiculously generous with the reader. He gifts us with ways of looking and seeing that suggest we all could do better in seeing and knowing, and then, in turn, gift our readers with the same.
Here is one of his sentences about two people walking.
"They clomp together through the narrow streets, Marie-Laure's hand on the back of Madame's apron, following the odors of stews and cakes; in such moments Madame seems like a great moving wall of rosebushes, thorny and fragrant and crackling with bees." p. 242
Crackling with bees.
Oh.
My.
God.
Words really are our coin and currency. Let's be generous.
Here is a link to Elizabeth Sim's blog:
http://esimsauthor.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-04-10T13:01:00-04:00&max-results=7&start=21&by-date=false
And rounding out today's threesome - a photo of a generous sky:
Here, with two contrasting sentences, she illustrates generosity in writing:
"He was a pale guy, not just ordinary pale, but really extremely pale."
versus
"There Jerome hung, skinny, sunken-chested, as white as a saltine, his face scrunched up and one hand clutching his nuts." (Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex)
How can each of us, on every page, give our readers MORE? How can we express the ordinary in new ways? Or, surprise with unlikely couplings of images and sensory details? How do we dig deeper, then further, then onward still?
Can we empty our pockets, turn them out, fish out every pill of lint, tarnished bauble, folded paper, knotted string and sleeping frog?
Recently, I finished reading, "All the Light We Cannot See," by Anthony Doerr. His writing slayed me. I can't remember when I've been so moved by both story and prose. Doerr is a writer who is ridiculously generous with the reader. He gifts us with ways of looking and seeing that suggest we all could do better in seeing and knowing, and then, in turn, gift our readers with the same.
Here is one of his sentences about two people walking.
"They clomp together through the narrow streets, Marie-Laure's hand on the back of Madame's apron, following the odors of stews and cakes; in such moments Madame seems like a great moving wall of rosebushes, thorny and fragrant and crackling with bees." p. 242
Crackling with bees.
Oh.
My.
God.
Words really are our coin and currency. Let's be generous.
Here is a link to Elizabeth Sim's blog:
http://esimsauthor.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-04-10T13:01:00-04:00&max-results=7&start=21&by-date=false
And rounding out today's threesome - a photo of a generous sky:
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